General Staff: there were 45 skirmishes at the front since the beginning of the day

45 combat clashes took place at the front since the beginning of the day on January 1, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported in a summary as of 4:00 p.m.

In particular, according to the report, there were nine Russian attacks in the Pokrovsky and Kostyantynivskyi directions, eight each in the Lymanskyi and Gulyaipilskyi directions, and seven in the Oleksandrivskyi direction.

According to the American Institute for the Study of War, Russian forces increased their average rate of advance in 2025 thanks to the new operational pattern, but did not achieve their priority objectives in the specified time frames.

On December 17, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said that the enemy had increased the group to the number of about 710,000 soldiers in order to conduct a strategic offensive operation.

According to him, the Russian troops have been trying to capture Pokrovsk in Donetsk region for more than 17 months, but Ukrainian units are holding the defense and intercepting the initiative.