The Ukraine ‘Army’ is made up of more than Ukrainians….
The Russian ‘ceasefire’ that wasn’t is over……
The Ukraine shells Ukraine power stations in Donetsk held by the Russian’s…
It appears the Russian’s are expecting a Ukraine major push in either the Luhansk or Zaporizhzhia regions .
A successful push across these two regions would cut Russian Ukraine held teritory in half and be devastating for the Russian’s….(Donetsk sits in the middle)
The President of Communist Russia goes to church service on the Russian observed Orthodox Christmas ….
The situation in Eastern Ukraine is “essentially trench warfare,” Sen. Angus King said Sunday on CBS, as he underscored what he sees as a need to continue funding the country’s fight against Russia.
“It’s almost World War I. It’s horrible,” King (I-Maine) told “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan, less than a day after returning from a trip to Kyiv….
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Russian media and Moscow’s proxy officials accused Ukraine of shelling two power plants in Russian-controlled areas of the eastern Donetsk region. Ukraine has not acknowledged reports of the attack.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of failing to adhere to its promise to temporarily suspend hostilities. “The world was once again able to see today how false any words of any level that sound from Moscow are,” he said in a video address Saturday.
- The Starobeshevskaya and Zuevskaya thermal power plants sustained damage after rocket attacks by Ukraine, Russia’s Interfax news agency and Kremlin proxies in Donetsk reported. It is not clear whether there were casualties.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin marked Orthodox Christmas by attending a service at the Kremlin on Saturday, praising the Russian Orthodox Church for supporting the nation’s troops. In Ukraine — which has large Orthodox Christian and Roman Catholic communities — worshipers marked the day in churches and with muted festivities.
- Russia is boosting defenses in the central Zaporizhzhia region in southern Ukraine, suggesting that commanders are “highly likely” to be preparing for “major Ukrainian offensive action,” the British Defense Ministry said Sunday, noting that a breakthrough in either the Luhansk or Zaporizhzhia regions — both of which Russia illegally claimed to annex last year — would prove hugely challenging for Moscow.
- The pace of Russian military gains around Bakhmut, a fiercely contested city in eastern Ukraine, is the subject of continued debate. Russian military bloggers have said it could be encircled soon but have not provided evidence for those claims, while the Institute for the Study of War think tank says the pace of any gains is slow and the city’s fall is not imminent.
- The founder of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group said he wanted to capture Bakhmut because of its unique defense fortifications. Yevgeniy Prigozhin on Saturday described the area’s vast salt and gypsum mines as “underground cities” large enough to house troops, tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, according to Reuters.
- Russia is seeking to mobilize 500,000 additional troops, a senior Ukrainian military intelligence official, Vadym Skibitsky, told the Guardian. Russian officials previously denied that they were planning further drafts. The Washington Post could not independently verify the claims. A decision by Putin in September to call up as many as 300,000 reservists to active duty sparked protests across Russia….
The Ukraine Military…..
“Our aim is the liberation of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria,” a Chechen fighter said, using the name of the erstwhile self-declared republic, “and to help all the nations who want it, to gain freedom.” In accordance with military protocol, he gave only his code name, Maga.
The Chechens are only one example of numerous ethnic-based battalions and regiments that have been forming in Ukraine since Russia’s invasion last February.
Fighters from Belarus have formed a regiment thousands strong. Other volunteers come from the Caucasus and Central Asia, as well as from ethnic minorities that have large populations in Russia: Chechens, Tatars and Turkic-speaking groups.
Most of them are motivated by historical grievances of dispossession and suppression by Moscow. Chechens and Tatars were among many groups that were decimated by forcible deportations under Stalin in the 1940s.
There is also a smattering of Russian exiles, among them Russian nationalists and neo-Nazis who are opposed to Mr. Putin. A thousands-strong regiment of Belarusians includes many opponents of the country’s president, Aleksandr G. Lukashenko.
Their participation in the war may be useful for Ukraine, but it is also a potentially explosive issue for the Kyiv government because most of them harbor long-term political ambitions to return home and overthrow the Russian and Belarusian governments…..