Russian invasion of Ukraine: Day 665

Summary for Wednesday, 20th December 2023 - DAY 665

• Russia has launched its fifth air attack this month targeting Kyiv, Ukrainian military officials have said. Ukraine’s air force said air defence systems destroyed 18 out of 19 attack drones launched at Kyiv, Odesa, Kherson and other regions of Ukraine. It was not immediately clear how many were destroyed over Kyiv.
  
  
• The Ukrainian air force also said Russia attacked the Kharkiv region in the east with two surface-to-air guided missiles. There were no casualites as a result of the assault, it added.  Ukraine‘s prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday morning that nine people, including four children, were injured in an overnight Russian drone attack on the Ukrainian southern city of Kherson.
  
  
• Volodymyr Zelenskiy sought to boost the domestic mood in Ukraine and maintain western support that has been stuttering in recent weeks in an end-of-year press conference. “I am certain US and European financial support will continue,” the Ukrainian president said. “I’m confident the US won’t betray us.” Asked about reported tensions with his commander-in-chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, he said they had a “working relationship”.
  
  
• Zelesnkiy insisted that on the battlefield “Russia hasn’t gotten any result from this year”. He said he would not drop his aim to restore Ukraine to pre-2014 territory, including the return of Crimea, but added that battlefield tactics could be changed after “careful consideration” of the results of military operations this year.
  
  
• The Ukrainian president said if Donald Trump were elected US president in 2024, it could significantly change how the war in Ukraine played out. “If the policy of the next president, whoever it is, is different towards Ukraine, more cold or more economical, I think these signals will have a very strong impact on the course of the war,” Zelenskiy said.
  
  
• Zelenskiy also said the military had proposed mobilising 450,000-500,000 more Ukrainians into the armed forces in what would mark a dramatic step up of Kyiv’s war. It was a “highly sensitive” issue that the military and government would discuss before deciding whether to send the proposal to parliament, Zelenskiy said.
  
  
• Meanwhile in Moscow, the Russian president Vladimir Putin told defence officials that in Ukraine he would “not give up what is ours”, while claiming the Russian military had momentum. “Our troops are holding the initiative,” Putin said, during the end-of-year meeting with his defence leadership. “We are effectively doing what we think is needed, doing what we want.”
  
  
• Defence minister Sergei Shoigu told the same meeting that Russia had increased tank production by 5.6 times since the start of what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine, and had laid 7,000 sq km of minefields along the 2,000km (1,250-mile) frontline.
  
  
• The US Senate will not vote on a package to provide more aid to Ukraine and bolster US border security before early next year, as Democratic and Republican negotiators continue their work, chamber leaders said. “Our negotiators are going to be working very, very diligently over the December and January break period, and our goal is to get something done as soon as we get back,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters.
  
  
• Ukrainian officials have discussed the possibility of reopening Boryspil international airport, which was closed for war reasons, President Zelenskiy said after a Boeing 777-300 operated by local airline Skyline Express took off from the airport with no passengers or cargo onboard. The so-called “technical flight” was a sign the infrastructure remains in working condition and safety can be granted despite constant Russian air attacks.
  
  
• A Polish court convicted 14 citizens of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine for preparing acts of sabotage on behalf of Moscow as part of a spy ring. The defendants were charged last month with acts of espionage such as preparing to derail trains carrying aid to neighbouring Ukraine, and monitoring military facilities and critical infrastructure in the Nato member.
  
  
• UN human rights chief Volker Turk said there had been an “extensive failure” by Russia to take adequate measures to protect civilians in Ukraine and that there were indications that Russian forces had committed war crimes. Turk said his office’s monitoring indicated “gross violations of international human rights law, serious violations of international humanitarian law, and war crimes, primarily by the forces of the Russian Federation”.
  
  
• The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said it would maintain its level of wartime investment in Ukraine after securing a rare increase in shareholder capital. The EBRD said the additional €4bn ($4.4bn) “will be used to provide significant and sustained investment for Ukraine’s real economy, both in wartime and in reconstruction”.
  
  
• The US has issued fresh sanctions on 10 entities and four individuals based in Iran, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Indonesia that it accuses of supporting the production of Iranian drones, the Treasury Department said. Washington has long accused Tehran of supplying such weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine, which Iran denies.
  

Reuters has this dispatch from Kyiv on now Ukraine plans to celebrate Christmas

EU court upholds sanctions against Roman Abramovich

Russian Deep Space Network Center in Crimea Hit by Storm Shadows

Ukraine has struck a Russian deep space network hub in annexed Crimea—allegedly used by the Russian Aerospace Forces—with British-supplied Storm Shadow air-launched cruise missiles, according to local reports.
Two attacks on the Black Sea peninsula were carried out on Wednesday morning. An employee of the FSB Border Service was injured and equipment and a satellite antenna were damaged, Russian independent news channel ASTRA reported.
Ukraine has been ramping up its attacks on Crimea, which was annexed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2014. Kyiv has vowed to recapture the peninsula.
In October, satellite images showed Russia's Black Sea Fleet is fleeing from the port of Sevastopol in Crimea to Novorossiysk in Krasnodar Krai in southern Russia and the Russian naval port in Feodosia on the annexed peninsula, amid these increased strikes.
According to telegram channel Crimean Wind, the first attack took place at around 4 a.m. in Alushta, a city on Crimea's southern coast.
The Telegram channel said a second explosion was heard at around 5 a.m., and that Ukraine struck Russia's Center for Long-Range Space Communications in the village of Vitino in the Saky region using Storm Shadow missiles.
Storm Shadow missiles have a range of more than 150 miles, and can be launched by Ukraine from its combat aircraft.
"Full name of the center: 40th separate command and measuring complex as part of the Main Test Space Center named after G. S. Titov of the Aerospace Forces of the Russian Federation," ASTRA said.
The center is one of three complexes that make up Russia's Yevpatoria Center for Deep Space Communications, which supports manned and robotic space missions.
Russian authorities haven't commented on the reported strikes, and Kyiv hasn't claimed responsibility. Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry and Ukraine's Foreign Ministry for comment via email.
Ukraine is reported to have used Storm Shadow missiles in an attack in September on a Russian naval shipyard in Sevastopol. The missile strikes damaged Moscow's Rostov-on-Don submarine and the Minsk landing ship at the Ordzhonikidze shipyard, Ukraine's military intelligence agency told Ukrainska Pravda. That attack reportedly killed a number of leading officers.
Experts close to Ukraine's Defense Ministry previously told Newsweek that Kyiv is embarking on a strategy to "demilitarize" the Black Sea Fleet as part of steps toward eventually liberating Crimea.

Tankers carrying 5 million barrels of Russian oil fail to reach India

Russia's Winter of Discontent as Troop Losses at All Time High

Russian forces continue to suffer high losses in Ukraine, according to Kyiv whose figures show a spike in casualties over the last three months that have been the highest in such a period since President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion.
On Wednesday, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that Russia had lost 890 troops over the previous day, taking the total since the start of the war on February 24, 2022 to 349,190.
So far in December, Russia has lost 19,150 troops, with November and October registering 28,550 and 22,920 troops respectively, according to Kyiv. This three-month tally of 70,620 is more than the previous three-month high of 67,270 in the first quarter of 2023 during the first distinctive spike in casualties. Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment by email.
Last week saw the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine report three days of more than 1,000 Russian losses which come as Moscow continues its offensive on Avdiivka in the Donetsk oblast which Western officials say have led to a spike in casualties.
A U.S. intelligence report cited by Reuters said on December 12 that 87 percent of the 360,000 personnel that Russia had started the war with were killed or injured, totaling around 315,000.
Meanwhile, an admission by Putin during his Direct Line television Q&A that there were 617,000 Russian troops deployed in Ukraine at the moment also hinted at high losses.
Russian military analyst Yan Matveev wrote on Telegram that Putin had inadvertently revealed Moscow's losses, if there were 244,000 mobilized and 486,000 volunteers, meaning that losses were 113,000.
"But there was also the invasion group and those who were recruited before mobilization," of around 250,000, meaning that Putin "literally admitted irretrievable losses in the amount of 363,000 people."
An exact number of Russian losses is difficult to assess with Kyiv's estimates of "liquidated" fighters higher than other figures. In mid-November, the U.K.'s armed forces minister, James Heappey, told British lawmakers around 302,000 Russian personnel had been killed or wounded.
Both sides say little about their losses, with Russia not updating its tally since it admitted to just under 6,000 troop deaths in September 2022. In September 2023, the independent investigative outlet IStories and the war monitoring project Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT) reported that one in five mobilized Russian soldiers who died, were killed within two months of enlistment.
Meanwhile, the investigation outlet Mediazona and the BBC News Russian service said on December 15 that 39,424 Russian soldiers had been killed in the war. The outlets based their numbers on verifiable public sources and say that the actual death toll "is likely significantly higher."

Closing Summary

• The Kremlin claimed that Ukraine withdrew from peace negotiations with Russia in 2022 “at Britain’s insistence”. The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, added that the UK “forbade” negotiations with Russia.
  
  
• Ukrainian forces are turning their attention to strengthening their defensive positions along much of the frontline, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence. In its daily intelligence briefing, the MoD said the move follows Zelenskiy’s calls, from late November 2023, “for faster fortification in key sectors”.
  
  
• Russia has launched its fifth air attack this month targeting Kyiv, Ukrainian military officials have said. Ukraine’s air force said air defence systems destroyed 18 out of 19 attack drones launched at Kyiv, Odesa, Kherson and other regions of Ukraine. It was not immediately clear how many were destroyed over Kyiv.
  
  
• China’s president, Xi Jinping, met the Russian prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, in Beijing on Wednesday. Xi praised the growth of bilateral trade between the two countries, which reached a record $200bn in the first 11 months of 2023. According to the official readout, Xi said: “Developing China-Russia relations is a strategic choice made by both sides based on the fundamental interests of the two peoples.”
  
  
• The top EU court on Wednesday upheld sanctions against Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich that had been placed upon him after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “The general court dismisses the action brought by Mr Abramovich, thereby upholding the restrictive measures taken against him,” said the EU’s top court in a ruling.