WAR IN UKRAINE: December 21, 2022
The Biden administration is finalizing plans to send a patriot missile defense system to Ukraine as Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky visits Washington
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 301
In a stunning display of surprise and political savviness, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky is on his way to Washington, D.C. to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden and to address Congress. Word of the visit began to leak out Tuesday evening local time here in Ukraine. It follows on the heels of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first visit to Belarus since 2019, as well as Zelensky’s daring visit to the frontline city of Bakhmut here in Ukraine today. It is Zelensky’s first trip outside Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February
In a Tweet, Zelensky said of his U.S. trip: “On my way to the US to strengthen resilience & defense capabilities of Ukraine.” He added: “I’ll have a speech at the Congress & a number of bilateral meetings”
During his visit, Biden will announce an extra $1.8 billion in security assistance to Kyiv, including Patriot missile defense systems, a US official said. The U.S. will train Ukrainian soldiers on use of the Patriot system in a third country. Analysts say the earliest the system would become deployable in Ukraine is Feb. 2023 and that it can cover high value targets and not a wide swath of territory.
In its briefing ahead of Mr Zelensky's visit, the White House also confirmed a new package of nearly $2bn (£1.6bn) of security assistance for Ukraine, BBC reported. Work is also currently underway to push through a bill that would give Ukraine more than $40bn (£33bn) in extra funding heading into 2023. It places the U.S. far ahead of any other country in terms of total spending to Ukraine. However, Zelensky says the monthly burn for the war is about US$5bn.
“Zelensky’s arrival will draw poignant echoes of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s arrival in Washington, 81 years ago on Thursday, days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,” wrote CNN’s Stephen Collinson. “That Christmas visit cemented the alliance that would win World War II and built the post-war democratic world. Zelensky compared his nation’s resistance against Russia with Britain’s lonely defiance of the Nazis in the days before the US entered World War II during a video address to the UK Parliament earlier this year, and his arrival in the US capital will sharpen the parallels to the earlier meeting of Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt.”
Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona told CNN’s “AC360” that Zelensky was coming to Washington on a specific mission. “What he is trying to do is draw a direct correlation between our support and the survival and support and future victory of Ukraine,” Gallego, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday in Beijing, where they “discussed international issues, including of course the conflict in Ukraine,” Russian state-run news agency TASS reported. Xi also reiterated his message that he hoped all parties in the Ukraine crisis could resolve security concerns through political means, according to Chinese state-run news agency Xinhua. Separately, Russia and China signed an agreement on the creation of the international scientific lunar station, Roscosmos head Yuri Borisov says.
Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will visit Moscow on December 22 to discuss the creation of a nuclear and physical nuclear safety zone at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, says. Russian President Vladimir Putin is not planning to meet with Grossi during his visit, the Kremlin says.
Ukrainskyi Pravda has discovered that among Wagner troops attacking the country now are men handed back to Russia after being detained in Belarus in 2020. Ukraine launched a sting operation but Lukashenka later released the mercenaries.
Watchdog: Russia transfers personnel, military equipment closer to Belarusian border-with Ukraine. Russia is moving its troops and military equipment from Belarusian training grounds in the northern and central parts of the country to the south, closer to Belarus’ border with Ukraine, Belarusian monitoring group Belarusian Hajun reported on Dec. 20 - Kyiv Independent
Russia is planning to supply Iran with “advanced military components” in exchange for kamikaze drones, U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said on Dec. 20, as cited by Sky News.
Required reading…
A Culture in the Cross Hairs
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has “dealt a grievous blow to Ukrainian culture: to its museums and monuments, its grand universities and rural libraries, its historic churches and contemporary mosaics,” reports The New York Times. “We have identified and independently verified 339 sites nationwide that sustained substantial damage. Libraries, architectural treasures, statues, churches, houses of culture, museums, cinemas, sports facilities, theaters and archaeological sites have been damaged or destroyed. About 180 sites have sustained structural damage requiring at least partial reconstruction, including churches with collapsed steeples or statues missing pieces. And in at least 77 cases, cultural buildings, collections and objects have been completely destroyed.”
Read the entire NYT article and interactive display here