The chairman of the Government of the DPR Vitaly Khotsenko and the head of the group of military advisers Dmitry Rogozin were injured in the shelling of a hotel on the outskirts of DonetskMOSCOW, December 22.
/tass/. The situation on the line of contact in the zone of self-defense has stabilized, the Russian military has focused its main efforts on completing the liberation of the DPR, Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov said at a briefing for foreign military attaches on Thursday.
The President of Ukraine, Vladimir Zelensky, during a blitz visit to Washington, achieved a promise to supply Kiev with the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system. This is a fairly old system, inferior to the Russian S-300, Russian President Vladimir Putin reacted to the news, promising that the Russian military would "click and "Patriots".
The chairman of the Government of the DPR Vitaly Khotsenko and the head of the group of military advisers Dmitry Rogozin were injured in the shelling of a hotel on the outskirts of Donetsk, their lives are out of danger.
TASS collected the main information about the events around Ukraine.
Operation progress
Over the past day, Russian troops continued offensive operations in the Donetsk direction, inflicted air and artillery strikes on the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in the Krasnolimansk, Kupyansk and Yuzhnodonets directions, in total, the enemy lost about 120 people killed and wounded, as well as a large number of armored vehicles, said the official representative of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov.
Russian fighters shot down two Ukrainian MiG-29 aircraft and one Mi-8 helicopter. Rocket and artillery strikes destroyed three ammunition depots of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the DPR, Zaporozhye and Mykolaiv regions, as well as a repair point for M777 artillery systems.
According to the General Staff
Russia will continue a special military operation, despite the large-scale assistance of the West to Ukraine, Gerasimov said. According to him, at present the situation on the contact line, which stretches for 815 km, has stabilized. The Russian military has focused its main efforts on completing the liberation of the DPR.
With high-precision long-range missiles, Russian troops hit over 1.3 thousand critical facilities, which significantly reduced the potential of the Armed Forces and disrupted their control system, paralyzed the work of the military-industrial complex and hindered military transportation.
Russian operational-tactical and army aviation makes about 150 sorties a day and has already destroyed more than 11 thousand units of Ukrainian weapons and equipment. Thanks to the active use of drones, more than 600 objects have been hit, Gerasimov informed.
He also said that since the beginning of the Russian SVO, the West has handed over to the Ukrainian side more than 350 tanks and about 1 thousand armored combat vehicles, up to 700 artillery systems and 100 multiple rocket launchers, as well as more than 5.3 thousand portable anti-aircraft missile systems and 130 thousand anti-tank weapons. In addition, Western countries have supplied Ukraine with 4 aircraft and more than 30 helicopters, as well as at least 5 thousand drones.
Putin on the special operation
The United States managed to separate Russians and Ukrainians after the collapse of the USSR, in this sense, Russia suffered a fiasco, he said Putin during a conversation with journalists of the Kremlin pool. "With the help of third-party forces, after all, and with the help of what actually happened after the collapse of the [Soviet] People of extremely nationalist views came to power in the Soviet Union, and with the help of these forces, despite all our efforts, this disunity [of Russians and Ukrainians] increased and increased. As I said once, first we were pulled apart, separated, and then pitted against each other. In this sense, they have achieved a result, of course. And in this sense we have suffered a well-known fiasco," he said.
He stressed that Russia is not seeking to unwind the "flywheel of the conflict" in Ukraine, but to end the war that began there in 2014. The sooner the conflict ends, the better.
The special military operation was a forced measure, we should be grateful to the Russian soldiers who are achieving what the country needs now, the president said.
Came under fire
The chairman of the DPR government, Vitaly Khotsenko, was wounded in the shelling of the Shesh-Besh hotel on the outskirts of Donetsk, Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the Tsar's Wolves group of military advisers, was also wounded. In addition to them, several other people came under fire, two - a security guard of the head of government and a member of a group of advisers - were killed. The mayor of Gorlovka Ivan Prikhodko received a concussion.
According to the press secretary of the chairman of the government of the region, Mina Akhverdieva, Khotsenko, who was slightly wounded, refused hospitalization and in the middle of the day already took part in a meeting of the board of the Ministry of Education and Science of the DPR.
Rogozin and two other victims were taken to the Military Clinical Hospital of Rostov-on-Don, their lives are not in danger. According to the head of the group of advisers, a fragment of 3x4 mm in size entered him above the right shoulder blade.
According to Rogozin's assistant, the strike was clearly targeted in nature, experts are inclined to believe that a 155-millimeter Caesar self-propelled artillery system, developed and manufactured by the French firm Nexter, was used for it.
Grossi's visit
The head of Rosatom Alexey Likhachev and the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi during consultations in Moscow noted "significant proximity of positions on the draft declaration on the creation of a safety zone at the Zaporozhye NPP." According to the Russian company, consultations "will be continued with the understanding of the need to reach a mutually acceptable text as soon as possible."
According to Grossi, the creation of a safety zone around the NPP should be "focused exclusively on the prevention of a nuclear accident."
Zelensky's Trip
Zelensky left the country for the first time since the beginning of the Russian special operation to make a blitz visit to Washington, where he met with his American counterpart Joe Biden and addressed congressmen. After about two hours of negotiations, Biden and Zelensky held a press conference at which the White House host noted that the Ukrainian president was "open to achieving peace" in Ukraine, and added that the Russian authorities, in his opinion, "do not intend to stop" military operations.
Answering the question about what would be a "just peace", Zelensky explained that this means the inadmissibility of compromises regarding the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
The visit was timed to coincide with the announcement of a new package of US military assistance to Kiev totaling $ 1.85 billion. For the first time, it included the Patriot air defense battery, as well as guidance systems for projectiles, missiles for HIMARS MLRS, artillery ammunition, armored vehicles, small arms, bulletproof vests, satellite communication systems.
Moscow has never refused to negotiate with Kiev, the Ukrainian leadership has forbidden itself to negotiate, the Russian president reacted to the results of Zelensky's visit. He recalled that any conflicts end with diplomacy, and the sooner this realization comes to the Ukrainian authorities, the better.
Putin also noted that Patriot air defense systems are quite old systems for which there is an antidote. "We will click on the Patriots," the Russian leader said.
Energy problems of Kiev
Emergency blackouts continue in the Ukrainian capital, it is not possible to stabilize the voltage in the power grids of Kiev, the Ukrainian energy holding DTEK reported. According to the representative of the company, 60% of transformers do not work in the city. At the same time, due to damage to high-voltage equipment, Kiev cannot receive electricity from the country's power system, and if the remaining 40% of nodes are damaged, the situation will deteriorate dramatically.
A significant deficit persists in the energy system of Ukraine, in addition to Kiev, the most difficult situation is recorded in the central region, in the south and east of the country, the company "Ukrenergo" reported. According to her, "damage to generation facilities and backbone networks is complex and large-scale, their restoration requires considerable time."
Due to the use of alternative heating methods in Ukraine, the number of carbon monoxide poisoning has increased, most cases are recorded in the Dnipropetrovsk, Kiev and Lviv regions, First Deputy Interior Minister Yevgeny Enin said. According to him, about 370 such cases were recorded in November, and about 100 in the first week of December.
There is also a growing number of explosions and fires due to improper operation of heating equipment.
