KIEV, UKRAINE (AP)December, 20 – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday visited the eastern city at the centre of the most intense fighting in Russia’s nearly 10-month-long war, while Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his “courage and welcomed self-denial. His front-line troops in Ukraine.
It is not clear how Zelensky got to Bakhmut, but his unannounced trip to the war zone was meant to boost Ukrainian morale and deter the Russians from besieging the city. It seems The president praised “the courage, resilience and strength displayed by those who repelled the enemy’s attacks.”
Putin paid tribute to his country’s military and security agencies at a Kremlin ceremony as the Kremlin attempted to advance its stalled invasion and Ukrainians burned furniture to keep warm. Among other things, he presented the awards to the Moscow-appointed chiefs of the four regions of Ukraine illegally annexed by Russia in September.
The Russian ground invasion which began on April 2nd 24, has lost momentum in recent months. The annexed provinces – Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, Zaporizhia – are still hotly contested. Bakhmut’s occupation of Donetsk would cut off Ukrainian supply lines and pave the way for Russian forces to advance towards the city, an important Ukrainian stronghold within the province.
According to reports, the shady Russian military company Wagner and his group of mercenaries are leading the attack in Bakhmut. Prior to the full-scale Russian invasion, Russian-backed separatists had controlled Donetsk and parts of neighbouring Luhansk since 2014. Together the two provinces form Donbass.
The Kremlin released Putin’s video speech ahead of Tuesday’s awards ceremony. In it, he praised the security personnel stationed in illegally annexed areas of Ukraine, saying that “Russian citizens living there are counting on you to protect them.”
He promised to strengthen the forces stationed in the annexed areas with more equipment and men. I’m here.
KGB veteran Putin also called on counterintelligence agencies to step up efforts to “fail foreign espionage and quickly track down traitors, spies and saboteurs.”
In Ukraine, the war continued through winter weather, leaving at least five of his civilians dead and eight wounded between Monday and Tuesday, his Zelenskyy office said in a morning update. reported in Russian forces have reportedly attacked nine areas in the southeastern part of the country.
Ukraine’s Donetsk governor Pablo Kirilenko said 19 towns and villages in his region had been shelled by Russian forces in the past day. The governor of the occupied Lugansk province, Serhiy Haidai, said the province was on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe.
Haidai told Ukrainian television on Tuesday that locals “have to live in basements with no heating, food or medicine” and have to burn furniture for heating.
Life in the Ukrainian capital sees a small but welcome move toward normalization on Tuesday with the reopening of Kyiv’s two main metro stations for the first time since the war began almost 10 months ago. I took a step forward. The main hubs of Maidan Nezareznosti and Khreschatyk, like other metro stations in the capital, served as shelters during Russian airstrikes.
Nevertheless, UN Secretary-General António Guterres sees no prospect of negotiations to end the war in Ukraine in the near future and expects the fighting to continue.
But he called late Monday to do everything to end Europe’s most devastating conflict since World War II by the end of 2023.
