Day 312: January 01During New Year’s night, the Russians launched around half a hundred Iranian kamikaze drones. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, 45 drones were shot down: 13 of them before midnight and 32 after midnight. The photos of the remnants of these drones show that the Russians have written New Year wishes on them.The Ukrainians have prepared to protect their cities during New Year’s night because they created the so-called civil defense squads, which are basically mobile anti-drone groups that operated just outside the cities. The fact that they are using off-road cars helps them to coordinate and quickly concentrate on a particular direction. One car uses a powerful flashlight to trace the drone, while others can reliably aim off to shoot the drones that are hundreds of meters away.As I told you yesterday, the Russians have concentrated their efforts on protecting the air over Moscow and created around three circles of air defense systems, with a total of two thousand people monitoring the sky during the new year. I also told you that the Russians have likely compromised their air defense in other regions around Ukraine, which means that the Ukrainians might exploit this opportunity. And this is exactly what the Ukrainians did. Today at night, the Ukrainians struck a huge Russian military base in the Donetsk region. The base was located in Makiivka, and according to some sources, there were around 600 troops, including three high-ranked commanders. The building was reported struck by HIMARS. All rockets hit the building simultaneously and completely demolished it. It was reported that the building had a lot of ammunition in the basement, which detonated and amplified the destruction. Locals reported that the Russians had to use a lot of trucks just to collect the dead bodies, and the trucks were so overloaded with dead bodies that some of them fell on the road from the trucks, which was captured on camera by the cars that were using the road after the trucks departed. Overall, it is estimated that 500 soldiers were killed, and the rest is heavily wounded, and even if they survive, they will not return to the front. The Ukrainians have also taken the chance to target military objects in the neighboring Russian regions, in particular, Kursk, Belgorod, Voronezh, and Rostov. The videos filmed by the residents of the big Russian cities only capture the sound of the air defense system. No destruction of civilian infrastructure has been recorded, so the targets must be military objects. Some sources indicate that the explosions were heard near the airfields, which the Russians indeed use quite often in these regions. Despite the fact the Russians tried to protect Moscow and St. Petersburg, some sources indicate that it was still (quote) “loud” out there. I found no reports of explosions, but it was said that the air threat sirens indeed went off. Overall, while the Russians have been targeting the Ukrainian capital with their drones with symbolic New Year wishes, the Ukrainians have struck Russian military objects. The destruction of the military base in Makiivka is one of the most successful missile strikes during this war. But this might not be the end of it because, just like with the missile strike in Zaporizhzhia, some soldiers may start deserting here as well in fear of being the next target. And given that the Donetsk front is one of the hottest, this can lead to catastrophic consequences for the Russians.