On 4 January, the President of Turkey Recep Erdogan will have telephone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, the spokesman for the Turkish President Ibrahim Kalin announced for the Turkish NTV. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also stated that Vladimir Putin is planning a telephone conversation with Recep Erdogan, the Russian Interfax news agency reports.

“Prigozhin is likely setting information conditions to blame Wagner Group's failure to take Bakhmut on the Russian Ministry of Defense or the Russian industrial base,” the US-based Institute for the Study of War writes. The leader of the private Russian army Wagner, known as “Putin’s chef” Yevgeny Prigozhin stated, over his own video channel, that they were not receiving enough munition to continue the offensive. According to military analysts in the West, the Russian mercenaries at Bakhmut are “culminating”, which means they must consider reverting to a defensive posture or attempt an operational pause. According to British military intelligence, Ukraine has sent reinforcements to the region of the battle of Bakhmut in good time. The battlefront at Bakhmut is 100 kms. long, stretching from Svatove and Kreminne in the region of Luhansk, to Kupyansk and Lyman.

In his regular nightly address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced he had talked to the prime ministers of the Netherlands, the UK, Norway and Canada. “We have no doubt that the current masters of Russia will throw everything they have left and everyone they can muster to try to turn the tide of the war and at least postpone their defeat. We have to disrupt this Russian scenario. We are preparing for this. The terrorists must lose. Any attempt at their new offensive must fail. This will be the final defeat of the terrorist state.” Volodymyr Zelensky said, and thanked “all partners who understand this.” “Russia mobilizes those whom it wants to throw to death, we mobilize the civilized world,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.