WAR IN UKRAINE: December 17, 2022

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 297

  • Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv was for hours left without power after the latest wave of Russian strikes targeted energy stations across the country. Local officials said as many as nine power facilities were hit as Russian forces fired 76 missiles and carried out drone attacks on Friday.Kharkiv's mayor said the city suffered "colossal" damage. By the evening, 55% of residents had electricity back - BBC

  • This morning, Russia deployed two Onyx-type missiles from Crimea towards the Odesa region. Both were shot down by air defense units - officials

  • Ukraine’s power grid operator said the nation’s energy system had lost more than half of its capacity because of the latest strikes, adding that priority would be given to "critical infrastructure - hospitals, water supply facilities, heat supply facilities, sewage treatment plants".

  • Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Energy Industry Research Center, a Ukrainian research and consulting company, said on Ukrainian TV that power outages had been rolled out prior to the strikes as a preventative measure to protect the grid from blackouts. He added that, in spite of this, the result of the attacks Friday morning would be “unpleasant.” He added: “Unfortunately, we already see that they (Russians) are striking at the generating facilities again, trying to cut off our nuclear and thermal power plants, to damage additional key energy hubs, focusing their attacks on these facilities,” Kharchenko said. “I urge Ukrainians to understand that the situation is difficult, I urge them to be as prepared as possible for the fact that there will be no quick improvement in the situation with electricity” - CNN

  • Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev suggested on Friday that members of the NATO military alliance providing Ukraine with assistance could be "legitimate military targets." In a lengthy statement on his Telegram channel, Medvedev, who is deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, questioned whether the delivery of weapons to Ukraine by NATO nations could be viewed as an attack on his country. "Today...the main question is whether the hybrid war de facto declared on our country by NATO can be considered to be the alliance's entry into war with Russia? Is it possible to view the delivery of a large volume of weapons to Ukraine as an attack on Russia?" he wrote - Newsweek

  • Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the Ukrainian people on December 16 were awarded a prize that the German city of Aachen gives for contributions to European unity - RFE/RL

  • Croatian lawmakers on December 16 rejected a proposal for Croatia to join an EU mission in support of the Ukrainian military.

  • OSCE diplomatic sources tell reporter Stephanie Liechtenstein that the mandates of all 12 OSCE field operations in South Eastern Europe & Central Asia have been extended - with the exception of the mandate of the OSCE Mission to Moldova, which is blocked by Russia. The Moldova mandate expires on Dec. 31.

Required reading…

Will Russia Kill the OSCE?

Moscow is derailing peacekeeping missions and disrupting the budget process, threatening an organization that is vital to European security.

By Stephanie Liechtenstein, a diplomatic correspondent and freelance journalist based in Vienna, Austria.

Nine months after Russian President Vladimir Putin unleashed his brutal war against Ukraine, Russia has launched another destructive offensive, this time on the diplomatic front.

Western diplomats in Vienna have been warning for the past eight months that Russia is undermining the work of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the world’s largest regional security organization.

The Vienna-based OSCE has its origins in the Cold War when it served as the only platform for dialogue between the East and West. Since then, it has played an important role in a wide variety of conflict prevention and management efforts in Europe, including in Ukraine and Georgia as well as in the breakaway regions of Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria.

But Russia is now blocking decisions on the OSCE’s annual budget and the 2024 OSCE chairmanship that are crucial for the bloc’s normal functioning, leading to an existential crisis for the organization.

Read the full analysis in Foreign Policy here

Michael Bociurkiwukraine peace talks, ukraine counteroffensive, ukraine, michael bociurkiw, osce, atlantic council, odesa, kyiv, klitschko, volodymyr zelensky, russia, ukrainian russia war, russia disinformation, russian war, russia ukraine war, stephanie liechtenstein, organization for security and cooperation in europe, foreign policy, cnn opinionComment