Zelinsky declares Russia’s military failures in Ukraine
2022.12.20 07:36
Zelinsky declares Russia’s military failures in Ukraine
Budrigannews.com – On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the situation in parts of Ukraine held by Russia was “extremely difficult.” His Ukrainian counterpart reinforced this point by visiting a frontline town that Russia has long tried to capture.
In one of his most explicit public admissions to date, Putin addressed Russia’s security services and told employees they needed to significantly improve their work. He said this in one of his speeches. The invasion he started almost ten months ago is not going to go according to plan.
It came after a trip to Belarus, a close ally of Russia, which stoked suspicions that the country might assist Russia in launching a new front of invasion against Ukraine, but the Kremlin dismissed those suspicions.
The eastern city of Bakhmut has been the scene of some of the bloodiest fighting in Ukraine in recent weeks. On Tuesday, Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office said that he had gone to the city to meet with representatives of the military and give awards to soldiers.
After Russian drones struck energy targets in a third air strike on power facilities in six days, he renewed his calls for more weapons.
Putin requested the Government Security Administrations (FSB) to move forward observation of Russian culture and the nation’s lines to battle the “development of new dangers” from abroad and double crossers at home. The rouble fell to a seven-month low against the dollar on Tuesday as the European Union agreed to cap gas prices, a major Russian export, in response to Western nations’ unprecedented sanctions against Russia.
Putin warned about the difficult situation in regions of Ukraine that Moscow moved to annex in September and ordered the FSB to ensure the “safety” of people living there, a rare admission that the invasion of Ukraine was not going well.
In a video address to security personnel, Putin said, “The situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions is extremely difficult.” Reuters translated the speech.
After a series of defeats on the battlefield, Putin declared in September that four partially occupied regions in the east and south of Ukraine had joined Russia. The move was deemed illegal by Kyiv and its Western allies.
In October, Russian forces retreated into Kherson, one of the regions, and began to settle elsewhere. They’ve lost ground, and Putin said earlier this month that the war could be a “long process.”
Putin made his first trip to Belarus since 2019 on Monday. During a late-night news conference, he and his counterpart praised ever-closer ties but barely mentioned Ukraine. Russian media outlets reported on Tuesday that Belarus and Moscow had agreed to a three-year fixed price for Russian gas and reached an agreement on the restructuring of its debt.
After weeks of attacks on energy facilities that have cut off power and water supplies amid freezing temperatures, Kyiv was looking for more weapons from the West.
In his evening address, elenskiy stated, “Weapons, shells, new defense capabilities… everything that will give us the ability to speed up the end of this war.”
The Ukrainian military claimed to have shot down 30 of the 35 Russian “kamikaze” drones fired on Monday, most of which were aimed at the capital, Kyiv. When they hit their target, the unmanned aircraft plummet and explode.
On Tuesday, officials from Ukraine reported that 21 missiles had cut off power to the southern city of Zaporizhzhia and that five people had been killed and eight had been wounded in the eastern Donetsk and southern Kherson regions.
There has been constant Russian and Belarusian military activity in Belarus for months to the northwest of Ukraine. Moscow’s troops used Belarus as a launch pad for their failed February attack on Kyiv.
Lukashenko has repeatedly stated that he does not intend to send troops into Ukraine. However, Lieutenant General Serhiy Nayev, who is in charge of the joint forces of Ukraine, stated that his nation was prepared.
The defense ministry on Telegram quoted him as saying, “The level of the military threat is increasing, but we are taking adequate measures.” The Military’s General Staff accommodates the development of units in case of a critical expansion in the opposite side’s powers.”
On Monday, the suggestion that Putin wanted to force Belarus into a more active role was denied by the Kremlin. Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for the Kremlin, was quoted as saying that such reports were “stupid” and “groundless.”
Additionally, Putin and Lukashenko went out of their way to deny the possibility of Russia annexing or absorbing Belarus.
Putin stated, “Russia has no interest in absorbing anyone.”
When asked about this statement, Ned Price, a spokesperson for the United States State Department, stated that it should be regarded as the “height of irony” due to the fact that it “comes from a leader who is seeking at the present moment, right now, to violently absorb his other peaceful next-door neighbor.”
Ten months into the largest conflict in Europe since World War II, the conflict in Ukraine has killed tens of thousands, driven millions of people from their homes, and left cities in ruins.
According to the General Staff of Ukraine, Russian artillery shelled 25 towns and villages in the area of Bakhmut and Avdiivka in the east, as well as several areas surrounding Kupiansk, a town in the northeast that Ukraine retook in September.
Alexei Kulemzin, the Russian-introduced chairman of the city of Donetsk, said Ukrainian shelling hit an emergency clinic wing, alongside a kindergarten, posting on Message a photograph of what gave off an impression of being a lounge area with crushed furnishings and fittings.
More Democrats Want to Publish Trump’s Tax Information
Russia claims to be conducting a “special military operation” in Ukraine to protect Russian-speaking communities and drive out nationalists. The Kremlin’s actions are characterized as an unprovoked war of aggression by Ukraine and the West.
