December 20, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Nine months into Russia's war in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has admitted that the situation in four occupied territories in Ukraine's east and south is "extremely complicated," a rare window into the challenges that Moscow faces in areas it has attempted to illegally annex.

In a recorded statement to mark a holiday for Russia's security workers, released by the Kremlin on Tuesday, Putin noted the “difficult tasks” that security services face in Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Russia claimed control over the regions after sham referendums in September, widely slammed by Kyiv and Western governments as violating international law.

Russia has struggled with setbacks in these areas from the start -- Moscow's forces were not in full control of the territories when they were rubber-stamped as part of the Russian Federation. Just weeks after illegally annexing Kherson, Ukraine reclaimed its regional capital with the same name, liberating about 10,000 square kilometers of land and moving its Western-supplied artillery within range of Crimea.

Underlining the importance of protecting people in Russian-occupied territories, Putin called on security services “to do everything in your power to ensure their safety and respect for their rights and freedoms.” He also promised that the force would be supplied with “modern equipment and weapons, as well as experienced personnel."

In the video address, Putin called on Russian security services to show “utmost readiness” and “concentration” to step up surveillance on “traitors, spies and diversionists," reflecting the anxiety of this moment for the Kremlin not only in Ukraine, but also at home.

China and Russia will begin a weeklong joint live-fire naval exercise in the East China Sea on Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement, as the two partners step up cooperation in an increasingly tense western Pacific.

The exercises, dubbed Maritime Cooperation 2022, will feature Russia’s Pacific Fleet flagship — the missile cruiser Varyag — a frigate and two corvettes, the statement said, adding that China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy will send two destroyers, two patrol ships, a multipurpose supply ship, and a diesel submarine.

Chinese aircraft would also take part, it said.

“The main purpose of the exercise is to strengthen naval cooperation between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China and to maintain peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region,” the statement said.

The Chinese military has yet to comment on the statement from Moscow.

China has so far refused to outright condemn Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine while stepping up economic assistance to its neighbor, boosting bilateral trade to record levels in a boon to Russian business amid Western sanctions.

Read more here.

Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare trip to Belarus on Monday to meet with the country's president, close regional ally Aleksandr Lukashenko, who backed Moscow's invasion of Ukraine and is under increasing pressure to provide more support to the war effort.

In a statement after their talks in Minsk, the pair said they had agreed to continue joint military exercises and cooperate closely in the military sphere, exchanging and developing equipment and weapons, to protect "the safety of our countries," without putting a fine point on what that would look like.

Putin added that "such measures are necessary" because of the tense situation "on the outer borders of the Union state [of Russia and Belarus]." But neither leader mentioned Ukraine in their public statements.

Both emphasized the challenges of Western economic sanctions pressure, underlining the need to support each other. Putin said he expected trade between the two countries to reach a record this year, at the equivalent of $40 billion.

Lukashenko said that, despite "some rough edges," Belarus and Russia would find answers to all threats; and expressed the hope that the West will "listen to the voice of reason" so a dialogue on security could resume.

Some background: Lukashenko allowed Putin to use Belarus, which shares a 674-mile border with Ukraine, as a staging ground for his invasion. In early February, Russia sent some 30,000 troops ostensibly for joint military exercises with Belarus — the biggest deployment to the former Soviet state since the end of the Cold War. Weeks later, when Putin declared his “special military operation” on February 24, he sent missiles, paratroopers and a huge armored column of soldiers rolling south from Belarusian soil.

Unraveling the role that Belarus has played in the Ukraine war has taken on new urgency since Lukashenko announced in October that Russian soldiers would deploy to the country to form a new, “regional grouping” and carry out new joint exercises with Belarusian troops, raising fears that he might draw the country more directly into the conflict.

Putin has been laying the groundwork to transform Belarus into a vassal state for some time. After a rigged presidential election in 2020 cemented Lukashenko’s long reign, triggering widespread pro-democracy protests, he clung to power with the help of Putin. Russia backed the ruthless crackdown on demonstrations, and gave Belarus a $1.5 billion lifeline to evade the brunt of sanctions, but it came with strings attached.

Beholden to the Kremlin, Lukashenko has supported Russia’s military actions from the sidelines, so far avoiding sending his own troops into the fray. But he may be forced to shift his position, as Putin racks up losses.

Across Ukraine, power engineers are engaged in their daily battle to restore electricity to homes and public buildings after Russian missile and drone attacks — but they are also tackling much longer outages.

In the far north of Ukraine, the villagers of Tsirkuny in Kharkiv region have electricity for the first time since the day Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February. The regional power company said 100 consumers in the village are back online.

"As a result of hostilities, the damage to power grids and equipment here is enormous," the company said. "Transformer substations, poles, wires are damaged. The work is also complicated by the large amount of work on demining the territory. We have already replaced two power transformers, which allowed us to supply the first consumers. Another 10 transformers need to be replaced."

Elsewhere, more recent damage is being tackled.

Oleksandr Starukh, head of the Zaporizhzhia military administration, told a briefing that the situation in the region is currently difficult. 

"Our power engineers have managed to restore the basic vital systems. People have warm radiators, water supply, the sewage system works. Electricity is supplied according to schedules," Starukh said.

The energy crunch is exacerbated by the lack of nuclear generation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, where all six units are out of operation. "They are in partially cold and partially hot shutdown mode," Starukh said.

The plant has been occupied by the Russians since early March. Russian-appointed officials have repeatedly declared plans to connect the plant to the Russian grid through Crimea.

Earlier Monday, state electricity company Ukrenergo said that "during the whole night, enemy UAVs have been trying at breaking through to power facilities across the country."

Several facilities had been hit, it said, with the most difficult situations in the central, eastern and Dnipro regions. 

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.

The "HARM," an air-to-surface, high-speed anti-radiation missile, is designed to "seek and destroy" radar-equipped air defense systems, according to the US Air Force.

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.

“Yesterday was an extremely difficult day. There was shelling from the Ukrainian Armed Forces," said Gladkov in a post on the messaging app Telegram on Monday.  

Ukraine would be better able to defend itself from drone and missile attacks by Russian forces if it were provided with fighter aircraft and Patriot missile defense systems, according to a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force.

Speaking on Ukrainian television on Monday following a wave of drone attacks on the country, Yurii Ihnat said that “F-15 and F-16 aircrafts could effectively fight the threats that we have today — missile attacks and attacks by Shaheds (Iranian-made drones used by Russian forces)."

Some background: Last week, CNN exclusively revealed that the US was finalizing plans to send the Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine.

Ukraine has been calling for the US to send the Patriot, the US' most advanced ground-based air defense system, which is highly effective at intercepting ballistic and cruise missiles, as it comes under a barrage of Russian attacks that have destroyed key infrastructure across the country.

It would be the most effective long-range defensive weapons system sent to Ukraine, and officials say it will help secure airspace for NATO nations in eastern Europe.

At least two people were hurt and key infrastructure has been damaged in a Russian drone assault on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, the latest attempt by Moscow to ravage Ukraine’s power supplies.

Explosions and air raid sirens were heard around the city early Monday, with alerts sounding from 2 a.m. until after 5 a.m. local time.

The Ukrainian Air Force claimed to have shot down 30 out of 35 drones launched from Sunday night into Monday, but those that got around air defenses damaged power systems and civilian targets.

The Iranian-made, self-detonating Shahed-136 and Shahed-131 drones were launched from the “eastern coast of the Sea of Azov,” the Air Force said in a statement on Facebook.

Many of the drones targeted Kyiv, according to the city’s military administration, which said 18 out of 23 spotted in the sky over the capital were intercepted. There were no deaths recorded, but authorities said that one critical infrastructure facility was hit. Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv city military administration, said that emergency services were working to limit the consequences of the attack.

Read more here.