WAR IN UKRAINE: December 20, 2022
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 300
The presidential spokesman Nikiforov confirmed that Zelensky visited the frontline hotspot of Bakhmut. “He visited advanced positions, awarded the fighters with awards and valuable gifts. The president has already left Bakhmut."
The United States accused U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of "apparently yielding to Russian threats" and not sending officials to Ukraine to inspect drones used by Russia that Washington and others say were supplied by Iran. Britain, France, Germany, the United States and Ukraine say the supply of Iranian-made drones to Russia violates a 2015 U.N. Security Council resolution enshrining the Iran nuclear deal. They want Guterres to send officials to Kyiv to investigate. "We regret that the U.N. has not moved to carry out a normal investigation of this reported violation," U.S. Deputy U.N. Ambassador Robert Wood told a Security Council meeting on Monday on the 2015 Iran nuclear deal resolution.
Separately, Guterres said on December 19 that he is "not optimistic" about the possibility of effective Ukraine peace talks in the immediate future and believes the military confrontation will go on.
Although the power situation in some areas of Ukraine is normalising after waves of Russian missile and drone attacks on critical infrastructure, scheduled outages and power surges have been reported. Ukraine TV channel TSN reported at midday today that “part of the Kyiv region” is completely without power. Temperatures nationwide have plummeted to below zero Celsius, placing additional strain on the unified system. The most challenging situations are in the central, eastern, and Dnipro regions. Schedules for emergency power shutdowns have been introduced in Sumy, Kharkiv, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Kirovohrad, Zhytomyr, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Kyiv regions, and the city of Kyiv.
Zelensky: Russia receives 250 more Iranian-made kamikaze drones. Russian forces launched 35 Iranian kamikaze drones at Ukraine on Dec. 19, injuring three people. Thirty drones were reportedly shot down - Kyiv Independent
Russia's Defense Ministry said on Monday that its forces had shot down four US-made anti-radiation missiles over a region in southern Russia bordering Ukraine, one of the first such claims to be made by Moscow since it launched the war nine months ago. “Four American anti-radar ‘HARM’ missiles were shot down in the airspace of the Belgorod region,” said Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for Russia's Defense Ministry, in his daily briefing. Separately, on Sunday, shelling struck the Belgorod region, hitting residential and industrial buildings, according to its governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, who said one person had died and 10 more were injured in the attacks.
Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed during talks in Minsk that their countries will continue holding joint military exercises and will maintain military cooperation in other areas - RFE/RL
Ukraine is tightening up the defence of its border with Belarus over fears that Russia may be preparing a fresh attack, a government official has said. Deputy Interior Minister Yevhen Yenin told the BBC Ukraine would be bolstering the Belarusian border with armed forces and ammunition.
Canada says it will seek a court application for the forfeiture of Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich's Granite Capital Holdings and use the proceeds for the reconstruction of Ukraine.
Required reading…
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky faces a complex path ahead, especially if liberating Crimea from Russia is part of the definition of victory envisioned by most Ukrainians. For the time being, and true to form, the tough guy from Kryvyi Rih shows no sign of backing down.
Read my full CNN OpEd here