Russian and Ukrainian forces fought fierce battles in eastern Ukraine without major territorial changes last week, the 41st of the war, with neither side showing any willingness for immediate talks to end the conflict.
In the meantime, Ukraine has staged the largest protests in Russia’s territory and its allies have pressured Russia into the economic front.
Ukrainian drones take a long time
On Monday morning, as has been the case many times in recent weeks, Russia fired 70 missiles at Ukrainian cities such as Kyiv, Vinnytsia and Odesa. The attacks damaged electronic equipment, which in some cases had already been repaired after previous attacks. Although Ukrainian officials said the country’s air defenses had fired more than 60 missiles, the successful strikes killed four people and plunged parts of the capital into cold and darkness.
Russia said the strike was in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of drones to hit two military bases, the Engels Airfield on the Volga River and the Dyagilevo airbase near Ryazan. The two bases are 700km (435 miles) and 600km (373 miles) from the Russian-Ukrainian border, respectively, and represent Ukraine’s biggest assault on Russia yet.
Pictures posted on social media show Ukraine used Soviet-era Tu-141 drones, which fly fast, have a range of 1,000km (621 miles) and could have bypassed Russian defenses.
“Ukrainians have decided to change the Russian language [commander of Ukraine forces Sergei] Surovikin. The strikes on Russian airfields are Ukraine’s way of saying that the Russians don’t have access to the long-range weapons they think they have,” wrote retired Australian military commander Major-General Mick Ryan.
In an hour-long phone call on December 2, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Russian President Vladimir Putin that attacks on Ukrainian civilians should be stopped, only to be told that it was “inevitable” to “threats” in Ukraine.
Bakhmut is a long, steady battle
Elsewhere, Russia continued to press Bakhmut, a key city east of Donetsk that it has been trying to capture since the Ukrainian summer months with daily bombings and ground attacks.
Ukraine’s military spokesman, Serhiy Cherevaty, said Russia was sacrificing 50-100 soldiers a day in the exercise, while President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Bakhmut and neighboring Soledar the most critical parts of the war.
The leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Denys Pushilin, said that although the Russian army “liberated” 338 villages in the Donbas, Ukraine is bringing reserves and attacks.
It was not possible to independently verify the figures cited on both sides.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said its forces eliminated one threat on December 7 near the villages of Pershe Travnya, Kurdyumovka, Klescheevka and Mayorsk in Donetsk. It also said it had thwarted a Ukrainian attack on the villages of Chernopopovska and Zhytlovka in the nearby Luhansk region. But if nothing else, this shows that Ukraine has not given up on the two eastern regions whose main parts are under Russian control.
Pushilin also told Russian television station 24 that Russian troops are advancing on Avdiivka and Pervomaiskoye in Zaporizhia region, south of Donetsk.
Meanwhile, US Attorney General Avril Haines said on Saturday that Ukraine had been in months of slow-moving war.
“We are seeing a kind of reduced tempo already in the conflict … and we hope that may be what we see in the coming months,” Haines told the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in California. “I think [Putin] “He knows a lot about the problems that the military is facing in Russia,” he said.
Putin acknowledged the delay in the campaign on Wednesday, when he said, “As for the duration of the special military campaign, this could be a long time.”
Increasing penalties
In an armed struggle, Ukraine’s Western allies have moved to tighten the Russian economy.
The G7, Australia and the European Union on December 2 agreed on a price of $60 per barrel for Russian oil exported to other countries.
The cap came into effect on December 5, the same day the EU banned Russian crude oil exports.
“It’s no secret that we want prices to be low,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas wrote on Twitter. The Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania – and Poland insisted on a price equal to the price of removal.
“A price between 30-40 dollars is what would hurt Russia,” Kallas said.
Zelenskyy, too, was disappointed, calling it “the best of the budget of the terrorist state” and “a weak point” in Europe.
“It’s a matter of time [before] solid materials must be used. It’s sad that we lost this time,” he said.
While the move applies to EU operators that insure and finance Russian oil tankers around the world, it does not apply to Russian oil exports entering the 27-member bloc via pipelines. Member states such as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia are heavily dependent on Russian pipelines and will be allowed to continue importing oil temporarily until they can produce more.
But the disagreement included sweets. The EU will immediately go to the ninth round of sanctions targeting “the military and security forces, the weapons industry, or those planning to launch missiles”, foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.
Russia has already reduced its oil to $ 60, below the Brent benchmark of $ 87, and the EU cap has done nothing to upset this.
“We do not recognize any ceiling,” the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, adding that “the adoption of these decisions is a step towards destabilizing energy markets around the world”.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, in an interview with India’s NDTV, questioned the neutrality of the Indian government and the continued purchase of Russian oil.
“If you are going to benefit from our suffering, it would be good if your help goes to us,” he said.
Ukraine’s deputy army chief Vadym Skibitskyi said some of the weapons dropped in Ukraine were made during the summer, when Western sanctions were supposed to have prevented Russia from obtaining critical supplies, such as computer chips.
“Unfortunately, the Russian Federation, because it circumvents economic sanctions, is still able to produce a number of sea missiles and other weapons,” said Skibitskyi. He also said that Russia is talking to Iran about restoring its ballistic missiles.
Peskov said the problems caused by the sanctions in Russia are “innocuous”.
“The economy of the Russian Federation has the necessary capabilities to meet all the needs and requirements within the special military task,” he said.
The figures released show that Russia has suffered, with its economy shrinking in the third quarter of this year by 7.1 percent compared to pre-sanctions in the fourth quarter of last year.
Speaking with preconditions
Neither party to the dispute appeared ready for talks at this time.
US President Joe Biden, whose statement says that Ukraine should decide when to come to the negotiating table, said on December 1 that he was ready to talk if there was a desire for peace.
Ukraine puts demands on the negotiations, including the complete withdrawal of Russia and the payment of tariffs, which Moscow rejects, and puts its own.
“If there is a serious decision on how to resolve the conflict and fulfill our legal demands, we will be ready to talk,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on December 7.
James Cleverly, Britain’s foreign secretary, told The Telegraph that the ceasefire would be futile. “Deterrence is only being used by Putin to train more soldiers and build more weapons and to rehabilitate his damaged army and refurbish his weapons,” he said.
Population
Ukraine for the first time revealed estimates of the number of dead soldiers at 10,000 to 13,000.
The United Nations estimated the number of Ukrainian civilians dead at 17,000, a number believed to be low.
Ukraine says the number of Russian soldiers who died stood at more than 90,000. NATO has previously stated that Ukraine’s number is true for Russian soldiers who are dead, wounded and missing.
The UN says that 14 million Ukrainians, nearly a third of the population, have fled their homes as a result of the conflict: 6.5 million inside Ukraine and more than 7.8 million across Europe.
