Ukrainian president visits frontline town, lauds fighters
RUSSIAN PRESIDENT COMMANDS OPERATIVES TO STEP UP, IMPROVE THEIR WORK
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the situation in Russian-held parts of Ukraine was “extremely difficult” yesterday while his Ukrainian counterpart drove home the message by visiting a frontline town that Russia has long tried and failed to capture.
Addressing Russia’s security services, Putin told operatives they needed to significantly improve their work.
It followed a visit to close ally Belarus that fuelled fears, dismissed by the Kremlin, that the country could help Russia open a new attack front against Ukraine.
Some of the fiercest fighting in recent weeks in Ukraine has taken place around the eastern city of Bakhmut. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office said yesterday he had visited the city to meet military representatives and hand out awards to soldiers.
Arsenal count
Earlier, he renewed calls for more weapons after Russian drones hit energy targets in a third air strike on power facilities in six days.
Putin ordered the Federal Security Services (FSB) to step up surveillance of Russian society and the country’s borders to combat the “emergence of new threats” from abroad and traitors at home.
Western countries have imposed unprecedented sanctions on Russia and the rouble slumped to an over seven-month low against the dollar yesterday after the European Union agreed to cap prices of gas, a major Russian export.
Putin cautioned about the difficult situation in regions of Ukraine that Moscow moved to annex in September and ordered the FSB to ensure the “safety” of people living there.
“The situation in the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions is extremely difficult,” Putin said in a video address to security workers translated by Reuters.
In September, Putin sought to regain the initiative after a series of battlefield defeats by declaring that four partially occupied regions in Ukraine’s east and south had joined Russia. Kyiv and its Western allies said the move was illegal.
In October, Russian forces drew back in one of the regions — Kherson — and dug in elsewhere. They have failed to gain ground and earlier this month, Putin said the war could be a “long process”.
Gas deals
On Monday, Putin made his first visit to Belarus since 2019, where he and his counterpart extolled ever-closer ties at a news conference late in the evening but hardly mentioned Ukraine. On Tuesday, Russian news agencies reported that Belarus had reached an understanding with Moscow on the
restructuring of its debt and had agreed on a fixed price for Russian gas for three years.
Kyiv, meanwhile, was seeking more weapons from the West after weeks of attacks on energy facilities which have knocked out both power and water supplies amid freezing temperatures.
“[We want] everything that will give us the ability to speed up the end to this war,” Zelensky said in his evening address.
The conflict in Ukraine, the largest in Europe since the Second World War, has killed tens of thousands of people, driven millions from their homes and reduced cities to ruins.