- Kyiv and its surroundings under drone attack – governor
- Putin will meet with ally Lukashenko in Minsk
- Russian troops in Belarus to conduct exercises – Interfax
- Kissinger says the time for negotiated peace is near
Kyiv, 19 Dec. (Reuters) – President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine was ready for all possible defense scenarios against Moscow and its ally Belarus, as Russia’s Vladimir Putin headed to Belarus and Russian troops stationed there prepared for exercises .
Officials in Kyiv have warned for months that neighboring Belarus could join Russian forces and again serve as a launching pad for a new attack to form a second front in the months-long war.
“Protecting our border, both with Russia and Belarus, is our constant priority,” Zelenskiy said after a meeting Sunday of Ukraine’s top military command. “We are preparing for every possible defense scenario.”
Putin heads to Belarus on Monday for his first visit in 3-1/2 years in what the Kremlin is describing as a wide-ranging “working visit” with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
Belarus – one of Russia’s closest allies – allowed its territory to be used as a launching pad for Moscow’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine, but has not directly joined the fighting. Lukashenko has repeatedly said he has no intention of sending his country’s troops to Ukraine.
Whatever Lukashenko can be persuaded to do for Russia, “it will not help them, just like all the other sick ideas in this war against Ukraine and Ukrainians,” Zelenskiy said.
Russian troops that moved to Belarus in October will conduct battalion tactical exercises, Russian news agency Interfax reported, citing the Russian Defense Ministry.
It was not immediately clear when and where the exercises would take place in Belarus.
AIR RAIDS
Kyiv and its surroundings came under attack again early Monday, with the Ukrainian capital’s military administration saying nine Iranian-made Shahed drones were shot down in Kyiv’s airspace.
“Air defense systems are working in the region,” Kyiv Region Governor Oleksiy Kuleba told Telegram. “Stay in shelters and safe places until the alarm ends. Take care of yourself and your loved ones.”
Several loud explosions were heard, but it was not immediately clear whether they were air defense systems destroying the drones or drones striking their targets.
Zelenskiy again called on Western nations on Sunday to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses after weeks of Russian airstrikes targeted the country’s power grid as a freezing winter settles in.
Zelenskiy said power had been restored to three million more Ukrainians in the past 24 hours after a massive missile attack on electrical infrastructure on Friday killed three people and damaged nine electrical installations.
“Electricity supply has been restored to another three million Ukrainians,” he said. “Another six million yesterday. That means after Friday’s terrorist attacks, we already have results for nine million of our people.”
The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and driven millions from their homes.
Zelenskiy told Ukrainians that the armed forces were holding firm in the city of Bakhmut, the scene of the fiercest fighting in the country for many weeks as Russia tries to advance into eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
“The battlefield in Bakhmut is critical,” he said. “We control the town even though the occupiers are doing everything so that no intact wall remains standing.”
Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed administrator of the Moscow-controlled part of the Donetsk region, said Ukrainian forces shelled a hospital in the city of Donetsk, killing one person and wounding several others.
Reuters could not independently verify accounts from the battlefield.
KISSINGER ASKED FOR NEGOTIATION
Putin sees what he calls Russia’s “special military operation” as a pivotal moment when Moscow finally stood up to a Western bloc, led by the United States, that sought to capitalize on the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 by destroying Russia.
Kyiv and the West say Putin has no justification for what they have denounced as an imperial-style war of occupation that has resulted in Russia now controlling around a fifth of Ukraine.
Henry Kissinger, architect of the Cold War détente policy toward the Soviet Union as secretary of state in the 1970s, said the time for a negotiated peace was at hand.
“The time is approaching to build on the strategic changes that have already been achieved and to integrate them into a new structure for achieving peace through negotiation,” Kissinger wrote in The Spectator magazine.
Ukraine rejected the proposal, saying it meant appeasing the aggressor by sacrificing parts of Ukraine.
“All supporters of easy solutions should remember the obvious: any deal with the devil – a bad peace at the expense of Ukrainian territories – will be a victory for Putin and a recipe for success for autocrats everywhere world,” said Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak. he told Telegram.
Kremlin officials were not available for comment Sunday afternoon.
Reporting from Reuters Bureaus Written by Lincoln Feast Editing by Shri Navaratnam
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