The situation at the front
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine claims that in the Bakhmut direction – the hottest point of the front – the Ukrainian military recaptured Kurdyumivka and Ozaryanovka, which the Russian army occupied in early December. At the same time, the Rybar Z-channel claims that the attacks on Ozaryanovka were repulsed. According to the channel, the Ukrainians will soon go on a counteroffensive in the Bakhmut sector in order to push the Russians 10-15 km from the front line. Yakovlevka in the Soledar sector was allegedly “cleansed” by the “Wagnerites”, the channel claims, a bridgehead has been prepared for an attack on Soledar. The Russian "military commander" Roman Romanov says the same thing. The propaganda project WarGonzo notes that Bakhmut himself is "under heavy artillery fire", the Ukrainian Armed Forces are waiting for reinforcements there.
In the Zaporozhye direction , according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Russian military was attacked in the Tokmak region, about 180 people were injured, and mobile crematoria operate in the city. Tokmok has become a place where the Russians suffer high losses.
Pro-Russian Telegram channels write about the heavy fighting in Marinka in the Donetsk direction: “Instead of knocked out units, the enemy immediately brings up new ones and throws them into battle from the march.” As for the Kherson direction , there is an exchange of artillery strikes, writes WarGonzo: Russia hit Yantarny, Ukrainians hit Zhelezny Port "in the deep rear." “Once this village was a resort area near the picturesque Tendrovskaya Spit,” they complain in the channel.
In the Svatovo direction , writes the British Ministry of Defense, the Russian military has been intensively preparing extensive defensive positions along the front line in recent weeks. OSINT analysts note that the Armed Forces of Ukraine are trying to attack in the direction of Sofiyivka in order to cut off the supply of Svatovo from the north.
New massive missile attack on Ukraine – the second in a week
According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on December 16, the Russian army fired 70 cruise missiles and 4 guided aircraft missiles on the territory of Ukraine, 60 cruise missiles shot down air defense forces. This is the second such strike in a week. As a result, there were again problems with water and electricity in several regions of the country at once, there were attacks on the Kyiv, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Poltava and Zaporozhye regions. Ukrenergo has declared an emergency.
This is what the shelling looked like from a plane flying over Moldova, the video was shot by the Ukrainian journalist of the ICTV Facts publication Irina Shlepnina.
Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko spoke about the shelling of Desnyansky, Dneprovsky and Goloseevsky districts of the city. The metro was suspended and was used as a bomb shelter. It is not possible to restore its work due to a shortage of electricity. There were water shortages in the city, there was a transport collapse . In Krivoy Rog, Dnepropetrovsk region, a Russian rocket hit a residential building, killing at least two people, injuring five, including children, rescuers are still clearing the rubble. The mayor of Kharkiv, in turn, called the infrastructural destruction "colossal."
According to Ukrenergo, half of Ukraine's energy system has been disabled. Emergency blackouts were introduced across the country. Pro-Russian Telegram channels claim that a missile attack was also carried out on the substation of the Dnieper hydroelectric power station in Zaporozhye.
"Unidentified flying objects" in the Volgograd region
The Volgograd edition V1.ru reported that in the morning "unidentified flying objects" fell on the territory of the Yelansky district. Fragments of "unknown vehicles" (probably cruise missiles) were found in the field, others fell on the buildings of local residents, but no one was hurt. In time, this event coincided with the Russian shelling of Ukraine. The magazine released a video.
Kissinger's next peace plan
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger proposed a new plan to resolve the military conflict in Ukraine. In a column for the British weekly The Spectator, the 99-year-old ex-diplomat again called for peace and called the cessation of hostilities and the establishment of borders that were before February 24 as the first condition for dialogue. The return of the annexed Crimea to Ukraine, according to him, can be discussed only after that. If a return to the state before February 24 is not possible (by fighting or negotiations), then, according to Kissinger, referendums can be held in “particularly disputed territories that have repeatedly changed hands over the centuries.”
At the same time, this whole process should “link Ukraine with NATO,” since “Kyiv’s neutrality no longer makes sense,” especially after Finland and Sweden join the alliance, Kissinger writes. Russia, he said, will have to find a place for itself in the new world. At the same time, a powerless and war-torn Russia is also bad because, despite its “propensity to violence”, it “makes a decisive contribution to the global balance and balance of power”, the collapse will lead to even more violence in a country that has nuclear weapons, says the former diplomat.
The Kremlin said that they had not read the article, but would read it “with great interest”.
Kissinger proposed his last peace plan in May and said then that Western countries need to influence Kiev in order to start negotiations with the Kremlin, and this must be done, even if Zelensky has to make concessions.
Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX , proposed another plan in October. He wanted to give Crimea to Putin, and to hold new referendums in the annexed territories under the supervision of the UN. It all ended, as is often the case with Musk, a scandal.
State Duma invites Russians to chip in for war
Another proposal from the State Duma: the leader of the "Right Russians" and an ardent Z-patriot, Sergei Mironov, wants to issue military targeted bonds of the federal loan "The People and the Army are United" in order to find money for Putin's war. He sent a letter about this to the Ministry of Finance. He proposes to set the interest rate at no more than 2%, the cost of one paper – no more than 500 rubles.
Mironov calls it an "additional support tool" – as in the USSR in 1942-1945, when special military loans were issued.
Military expert Pavel Luzin, in a conversation with The Insider, noted that this measure is expected and, "of course, will be voluntary-compulsory."
“But it is aimed not only at supporting the military-industrial complex, but also at plugging trillions of holes in the budget as a whole. And the military-industrial complex itself does not need money, but brains, hands, equipment and components, ”he believes.
Meanwhile, defense plants in the Urals have already switched to a six-day working week, we are talking about the enterprises of Rostec, Almaz-Antey and Roskosmos – missiles are spent faster than they are produced.
Losses among the elite Russian brigade
The Washington Post learned that the elite 200th separate motorized rifle brigade of the Northern Fleet, which participated in the attack on Kharkov (it was called one of the most effective), lost almost half of its composition at the beginning of the war. Initially, it consisted of 1400-1600 people, by May there were already 455 and 439 people in two battalion tactical groups.
The newspaper managed to talk to the Russian military, who got there after mobilization: “The unit is falling apart. They don't even train us, they just tell you, 'Now you're a shooter. That's it, here's the gun."
Lego tanks help Ukraine
The American company Brickmania, which makes custom-made models from Lego bricks and parts, has raised $220,000 to help Ukraine “for doctors and other frontline heroes.” Brickmania made small figurines of Ukrainian soldiers, military equipment and the legendary An-225 Mriya cargo plane, which the Russian military destroyed during shelling in Gostomel at the very beginning of the war.
Read also the military summary of The Insider for December 15: Inevitable attack on Kiev, “smart bombs” for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Russians go to Bakhmut “like zombies”. What's going on at the front.