Intense Russian bombardment as Putin meets army chiefs

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS - In Brief 17 Dec 2022 by Alex Teddy
On December 17 Russian missiles rained down on Kyiv, Kharkiv, Poltava and other cities. Ukraine says 40 missiles were fired at Kyiv and 37 were shot down. Ukraine is happy about its increasingly sophisticated air defense. Nonetheless it cannot stop all missiles and drones. Russia was attacking energy infrastructure yet again. The aim is to break civilian morale by depriving people of heating, light, pumped water and the use of medical equipment. Russia also wants to stretch the EU's ability to accommodate refugees. Temperatures are often below zero. Lack of heating can easily kill infants and elderly people. Some families have still not evacuated their children. Many people sought shelter in metro stations. Some civilians were killed in the strikes but the direct casualties are surprisingly few. 50% of the Ukrainian power gird was temporarily inoperable. Ukraine said there might be some emergency outages. Is Russia going to run out of missiles? Or is Ukraine going to run out of resilience? Perhaps the West is going to run out of will to arm and fund Ukraine.  Ukraine appealed for more arms, saying this will also safeguard Europe.  In Russian-occupied Luhansk the Moscow-appointed administrator said that Ukrainian shelling had killed 8 civilians.  On December 17 Putin met army staff at a war HQ. The aim was to discuss Russia's next offensive. He was shown meeting the Defense Minister and General Gerasimov. Some have campaigned for Gerasimov to be dismissed. Russia bragged it could take Kyiv in 48 and after almost 10 months it has not done so.  Putin also said that the will visit Belarus and meet the president. They shall discuss integration.

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