RUSSIAN nationalists and some lawmakers have demanded punishment for commanders they accused of ignoring dangers as anger grew over the killing of dozens of Russian soldiers in one of the Ukraine war’s deadliest strikes.
DIPLOMACY
* Some protesters in Germany, online and on the streets, are calling on Berlin to reconsider its support for Ukraine, tapping into deep connections between Germany and Russia, with a legacy of Soviet ties to Communist east Germany and decades of German dependency on Russian gas.
* French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed on Tuesday that Ukraine “needs our support more than ever”, as he hosted Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in Paris.
* Young acrobats from circus schools across Ukraine dazzled audiences in Budapest this week when the city hosted a Ukrainian youth circus festival to showcase the talents of children forced by the war to train underground or without electricity.
FIGHTING
* In a rare disclosure, Russia said 63 Russian soldiers had been killed in a Ukrainian New Year’s Eve attack on their quarters in the town of Makiivka when four rockets fired from U.S.-made HIMARS launchers hit the site. Ukraine said the Russian death toll was in the hundreds, though pro-Russian officials called that an exaggeration.
* Russian military bloggers said the huge destruction was a result of storing ammunition in the same building as a barracks, despite commanders knowing it was within range of Ukrainian rockets.
* A Russian missile attack destroyed an ice arena in the town of Druzhkivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Monday, Ukraine’s ice hockey federation said, following earlier reports of a missile hitting the town and injuring two people.
* A Russian-backed military information centre in the Donetsk region said there had been 69 Ukrainian attacks on the region, including Makiivka, on Monday.
