December 21, 2022 Russia-Ukraine and Zelensky news

The UN nuclear watchdog IAEA has confirmed that its chief Rafael Grossi will be traveling to Moscow on Thursday to discuss nuclear safety at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.

"We can confirm that Director General Grossi will be in Moscow tomorrow as part of his ongoing high-level consultations aimed at agreeing and implementing a nuclear safety and security zone around the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) as soon as possible," the IAEA said in a statement on Wednesday. 

The plant, in Russian-occupied territory, has come under repeated shelling attacks prompting concerns about a nuclear disaster. Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for the attacks. 

There are no plans for Grossi to meet Russia’s President Vladimir Putin during the visit, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.  

Missile strikes in the Zaporizhzhia region have increased in recent weeks. Earlier in the week, the head of the Zaporizhzhia Region Military Administration, Oleksandr Starukh, told a briefing that the energy situation is currently difficult.

All six units at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant are out of operation. Starukh said that "they are in partially cold and partially hot shutdown mode." 

Iconic sites around the world will turn off their lights on Wednesday in solidarity with Ukraine. 

London’s famous Wembley Stadium arch, the Colosseum in Rome, Sydney Opera House, and Toronto’s CN Tower are going to turn the lights out tonight at 8pm (local time) as part of the #LightUpUkraine campaign, according to organizers. 

Many Ukrainians face a winter of blackouts as the country rebuffs attacks on its civilian infrastructure by invading Russian forces. 

The landmark locations join a host of other sites across Europe in pledging their support. 

The campaign aims to raise $10 million via the UNITED24, Ukraine’s national fundraising platform, for 1000 generators to power hospitals this winter.

According to the organizers, Ukrainian doctors have to save lives and perform complex surgeries by flashlight, posing an additional threat to people’s lives.

UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi will travel to Russia on Thursday to discuss nuclear safety at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, Russian state media RIA Novosti reported. 

Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), intends to discuss the creation of a security zone around Europe’s largest power plant, according to the news agency. 

The plant, in Russian-occupied territory, has come under repeated shelling attacks prompting concerns about a nuclear disaster. Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for the attacks. 

There are no plans for Grossi to meet Russia’s President Vladimir Putin during the visit, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.  

CNN has reached out to the IAEA for comment.  

Missile strikes in the Zaporizhzhia region have increased in recent weeks. Earlier in the week, the head of the Zaporizhzhia Region Military Administration, Oleksandr Starukh, told a briefing that the energy situation is currently difficult.

All six units at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant are out of operation. Starukh said that "they are in partially cold and partially hot shutdown mode." 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed Wednesday that it appeared no European countries were going to properly investigate the series of explosions that ruptured the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September. 

“After the explosions on the Nord Stream -- which, it appears, nobody in the European Union is going to investigate objectively -- Russia stopped gas transportation through the northern routes," Lavrov told the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) virtual summit.

Swedish and Danish authorities have been investigating the damage to the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines linking Russia and Germany via the Baltic Sea.

In November, Swedish prosecutors claimed the blasts at the pipeline were caused by an act of sabotage after evidence of explosives was discovered at the sites, though did not name possible culprits. 

Created to funnel gas from Russia into the European Union, the pipelines have been flashpoints in an escalating energy war between European capitals and Moscow that has pummeled major Western economies, sent gas prices soaring and sparked a hunt for alternative energy supplies since the February invasion of Ukraine.

They were controversial long before Russia waged war on Ukraine for the significant leverage they gave Moscow over Europe. But until this year, European countries have been reluctant to wean themselves off Russian energy given the potential for rising prices.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Moscow doesn't see a chance of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine and that Western countries making new weapon deliveries to Kyiv “leads to an aggravation of the conflict.” 

When asked by reporters about Russian reaction to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visiting Washington, Peskov said: “Arms deliveries continue, the range of supplied weapons is expanding. All this leads to an aggravation of the conflict and does not bode well for Ukraine.” 

Zelensky will visit the Oval Office on Wednesday for extended talks with US President Joe Biden, who will announce he is sending nearly $2 billion in additional security assistance to Ukraine, including a sophisticated new air defense system. 

When asked if Kyiv’s position on the negotiation process will change after Zelensky’s trip to the US, Peskov said: “I don't think so.”

Zelensky's surprise visit to Washington is his first trip outside his homeland since it was invaded 300 days ago.

He and Biden will hold a White House news conference before Zelensky addresses members of Congress on Capitol Hill in prime time.

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.

In a video posted to his Telegram account showing the meeting, Medvedev could be seen talking about the industrial and economic “cooperation” between China and Russia, while Xi spoke about “deepening relations” between the two countries. 

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, which added that Medvedev had come to China at the invitation of the ruling Communist Party. 

Some context: China is among a handful of countries that have repeatedly abstained from votes condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine at the United Nations. Beijing has refused to label the military aggression as an “invasion” or “war,” and has amplified Russian propaganda blaming the conflict on NATO and the United States, while decrying sanctions and stepping up economic assistance to its neighbor.

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s White House visit Wednesday will symbolically bolster America’s role as the arsenal of democracy in the bitter war for Ukraine’s survival and send a stunning public rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

That his first trip outside Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February is to the United States will also highlight President Joe Biden’s historic role in reviving the Western alliance that kept the Soviet Union at bay and is now countering new expansionism by Moscow in an effective proxy war between nuclear superpowers.

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. 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.

His visit is unfolding amid extraordinary security. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t even confirm the early reports that she’d welcome Zelensky to the US Capitol in an unexpected coda to her speakership, saying on Tuesday evening, “We don’t know yet. We just don’t know.”

A White House reception for Zelensky will above all be an unmistakable sign of US and Western support for Ukraine’s battle against Putin, who says the country has no right to exist. The war exemplifies what Biden has framed as a global struggle between democracy and totalitarianism, which he has put at the center of his foreign policy.

Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, who visited Ukraine earlier this month, said on CNN’s “AC360” that Zelensky was coming to Washington on a specific mission.

Read Collinson's full analysis here.

A Ukrainian soldier on Tuesday presented President Volodymyr Zelensky with a flag signed by frontline troops as a gift for President Joe Biden and the US Congress, to say thank you for the weapons they had been sent.

The unnamed soldier was seen on video handing the flag to Zelensky in the city of Bakhmut, saying it was a gift "to our brothers in the US. We ask you to pass on to them. Thank you."

Zelensky's visit to the front lines in eastern Ukraine took place one day before he set off on a surprise visit to Washington, where Biden is expected to announce he is sending nearly $2 billion in additional security assistance to Ukraine, including a sophisticated new air defense system. The two will convene a White House news conference before Zelensky addresses members of Congress on Capitol Hill in prime time.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday he is traveling to the United States, where he will meet with US President Joe Biden and address Congress. 

The trip will be Zelensky's first outside Ukraine since Russia's invasion began in February.