WAR IN UKRAINE: December 24, 2022
Ukrainian morgue. A young woman holds the hand of her beloved man, who was killed in action near Bakhmut. Photo Yana Pazdrii
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 304
The Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on December 23 passed a $1.7 trillion spending bill with $45 billion in aid to Ukraine included, reports the Associated Press. The measure, which passed the House just hours before a midnight deadline, now goes to President Joe Biden to be signed into law. The spending bill was approved on a largely party-line vote of 225-201 following Senate passage the previous day. Without action by Congress, federal agencies would have had to begin furloughing workers and shuttering nonessential services beginning at midnight.
The United States on Friday derisively called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to acknowledge reality and pull troops from Ukraine after he finally called the conflict a "war". "Since Feb 24, the United States and rest of the world knew that Putin's 'special military operation' was an unprovoked and unjustified war against Ukraine. Finally, after 300 days, Putin called the war what it is," a State Department spokesperson said. "As a next step in acknowledging reality, we urge him to end this war by withdrawing his forces from Ukraine."
Meanwhile, Putin reportedly told journalists his aim is “to end this war.” Earlier he told military commanders there’s no limit to how much money Russia can spend to defeat Ukraine.
The director of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency told The New York Times on Friday that Russia was trying to convince Ukraine to divert soldiers from the combat zone in the southeast with a flurry of military activity to the north in Belarus, dismissing the activity as routine maneuvers or feints intended to confuse. “These are all elements of disinformation campaigns,” he said. In a wide-ranging interview on the state of the war in Ukraine, the military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, also spoke about Russian efforts to encourage Iran to continue to supply its forces with drones and missiles, as well as Moscow’s apparently senseless obsession with conquering the city of Bakhmut, which has little strategic value. He made his assertions about Russian activity in Belarus and Iran, which could not be independently verified, as Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, made a triumphant return from Washington.
Putin tells Russian defense industry to ramp up production for war in Ukraine. "It's also important to perfect and significantly improve the technical characteristics of weapons and equipment for our fighters based on the combat experience we have gained," Putin said at a meeting of defense industry leaders in the Russian city of Tula on Dec. 23. Meanwhile, Russia moves more personnel, equipment to front line in Ukraine. The Ukrainian military also reported that Russian troops continue to conduct offensives in the Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Lyman sectors in the eastern Donetsk Oblast - Kyiv Independent
Throughout Thursday and Friday I eye-witnessed a constant flow of bulk carrier vessels coming into Odesa Harbour and being actively loaded with agricultural products. It was a comforting scene, considering that much of the grain is headed to nations on the brink of starvation
Required reading…
Exclusive phone logs, videos and military files The New York Times obtained in Bucha identifies the Russian regiment — and commander — behind one of the worst atrocities in Ukraine
When videos and photos emerged in April showing bodies of dozens of civilians strewn along a street in Bucha, Ukrainians and the rest of the world voiced horror and outrage. But in Russia, officials had a completely different reaction: denial.
President Vladimir V. Putin dismissed the gruesome scene as “a provocation,” and claimed that the Russian Army had nothing to do with it.
But an eight-month visual investigation by The New York Times concluded that the perpetrators of the massacre along Yablunska Street were Russian paratroopers from the 234th Air Assault Regiment led by Lt. Col. Artyom Gorodilov.
The evidence shows that the killings were part of a deliberate and systematic effort to ruthlessly secure a route to the capital, Kyiv. Soldiers interrogated and executed unarmed men of fighting age, and killed people who unwittingly crossed their paths — whether it was children fleeing with their families, locals hoping to find groceries or people simply trying to get back home on their bicycles.