Heavy preventing continued in Donetsk as Russian forces pressed their relentless assaults on japanese Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy made a daring go to to Bakhmut, one of many two frontline cities that along with Avdiyivka have been the main target of Moscow’s months-long offensive.
Dwell Briefing: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine
RFE/RL’s Dwell Briefing offers you all the newest developments on Russia’s ongoing invasion, Kyiv’s counteroffensive, Western navy support, world response, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL’s protection of the battle, click on right here.
As Moscow’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine entered its three hundredth day, the Common Workers of the Ukrainian navy stated on December 20 that Russian troops continued to satisfy stiff resistance within the two cities, whereas failing to reestablish their positions in Lyman, one other flashpoint metropolis in Donetsk.
In the meantime, lethal Russian bombardment once more hit the lately liberated Ukrainian metropolis of Kherson, a regional official stated.
Virtually 10 months into the battle, Russia’s invasion has been slowed down, with troops having been pressured to make three main retreats.
The Ukrainian navy stated its air pressure carried out 22 strikes on Russian positions, whereas its air-defense techniques downed two enemy helicopters. The claims couldn’t be independently verified.
Within the central Dnipropetrovsk area, Russian shelling in a single day brought on destruction in Nikopol, the top of the regional administration, Valentyn Reznychenko, stated on Telegram.
“Two villages, Myryivska and Pokrovska, have been focused 3 times with heavy artillery fireplace. Not less than 20 shells have been fired at peaceable villages. Folks survived,” Reznichenko stated.
He added {that a} dozen personal homes and business buildings, fuel pipelines, and energy traces have been broken.
Within the southern metropolis of Kherson, two individuals have been killed and three have been wounded on account of Russian shelling, the top of the regional navy administration, Yaroslav Yanushevych, stated on December 20.
“Russian occupiers shelled the territory of Kherson 42 occasions. They have been fired from artillery, antiaircraft weapons, mortars, tanks, and a rocket assault was additionally carried out within the area,” Yanushevych stated.
Kherson got here again below Ukrainian management on November 11, however Russian forces that had fled town have stored pounding it from throughout the Dnieper River.
The newest shelling got here a day after Ukrainian authorities stated Russia focused energy infrastructure and different civilian targets with one more swarm of kamikaze drones in Kyiv and its surrounding districts as a part of an obvious technique to attempt to freeze Ukrainians and demoralize the inhabitants.
Oleskiy Kuleba, the governor of the broader Kyiv area surrounding the capital, stated on December 20 that 80 p.c of the area stays with out electrical energy.
“After the current drone assaults and rocket assaults, the restoration of the ability provide is below means. The complexity and length of restore work will increase with every enemy shelling. Because of large-scale harm to the vitality infrastructure, [state power grid operator] Ukrenerho resorts to emergency shutdowns of electrical energy,” Kuleba stated.
Ukrenerho has stated the state of affairs with the grid nationwide was “tough” and that the Dnipropetrovsk space and japanese and central areas have been the worst affected.
Zelenskiy on December made a shock go to to Bakhmut — as soon as well-known for its vineyards and cavernous salt mines — now the epicenter of the ditch warfare and heavy artillery exchanges within the east, assembly with members of the navy and handing out awards to Ukrainian troops.
“He visited the frontline positions, awarded fighters with medals and precious presents,” Zelenskiy’s spokesman, Serhiy Nykyforov, advised state media.
In the meantime, Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Minsk with Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka on December 19 amid hypothesis that Moscow may attempt to push Belarusian forces into attacking Ukraine from the north.
The 2 nations will proceed holding joint navy workout routines and can preserve navy cooperation in different areas, Putin and Lukashenka stated afterward.
WATCH: Ukrainian artillery crews have been utilizing up their Soviet-era ammunition provides and now want to seek out extra sources for reloading their classic howitzers.
However Ukrainian Overseas Minister Dmytro Kuleba dismissed the assembly as a political “dance.”
“The Putin-Lukashenka assembly is one other dance they’ve carried out. In accordance with the obtainable info, no vital selections have been made at this assembly. No matter occurs, we’re prepared for any situation,” Kuleba stated throughout an internet briefing.
Individually, in a uncommon admission that the battle in Ukraine was not going in line with plan, Putin stated on December 19 that the state of affairs was “extraordinarily tough” in 4 partially occupied areas of Ukraine that Moscow claimed to have annexed final month following unlawful referendums rejected by Ukraine and its Western allies as a sham.
“The state of affairs within the Donetsk and Luhansk individuals’s republics, within the Kherson and Zaporizhzhya areas, is extraordinarily tough,” Putin stated late on December 19.
Putin additionally ordered the Federal Safety Companies (FSB) to extend surveillance of Russian civilians to stifle the “emergence of recent threats.”
