Ukraine demanded this Monday, December 26, the exclusion of Russia from the UN Security Council, the day after new statements by Vladimir Putin against the West, accused of “divide and conquer”. Russian air defense on Monday shot down a Ukrainian drone as it approached an airbase in southern Russia, with debris from the aircraft killing three people on the ground, news agencies reported on Monday. Russians.
- FSB says it eliminated Ukrainian ‘group of saboteurs’
The Russian security services (FSB) said on Monday that they had killed four Ukrainian “saboteurs” the day before as they tried, according to this source, to enter the Russian region of Bryansk, bordering Ukraine. “Following armed clashes on December 25, four saboteurs were eliminated during an attempt to penetrate the territory of the Bryansk region from Ukraine,” the FSB said, quoted by news agencies. Russians.
According to the FSB, this group, accused of wanting to “commit terrorist acts and sabotage”, was equipped with German-made SIG Sauer submachine guns, communication devices, as well as “four improvised explosive devices”.
A video, broadcast by the Ria-Novosti news agency and attributed to the FSB, shows four bloodied corpses, surrounded by weapons and dressed in winter camouflage uniforms. AFP was unable to confirm these statements from an independent source.
- Expel Russia from the United Nations Security Council
Ukraine called on Monday for the exclusion of Russia from the United Nations, more than ten months after the start of the invasion of Russian troops, a request with little chance of success, Moscow having a right veto in the UN Security Council.
“Ukraine calls on UN member states (…) to deprive the Russian Federation of its status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and to exclude it from the UN as a whole” , the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
- Three dead in Ukrainian drone attack
On Monday morning, Russian air defense shot down a Ukrainian drone as it approached an air base in southern Russia, with debris from the aircraft killing three people on the ground, Russian news agencies reported.
- Putin accuses the West of ‘divide and conquer’
The day before, the Russian president sought to justify the Kremlin’s military offensive against Ukraine, which has lasted for more than 10 months, but which has still not enabled Russia to achieve its objectives. “Everything is based on the policy of our geopolitical adversaries, who aim to divide Russia, historic Russia,” Vladimir Putin denounced in an interview, a short extract of which was made public on Sunday by public television.
The Russian president regularly uses the concept of “historical Russia” to justify the military intervention in Ukraine by the need to bring together Ukrainians and Russians, who would form one and the same people. “Divide and conquer: they have always tried to do it, they are trying to do it now, but our goal is quite different: to unite the Russian people,” he said. According to Vladimir Putin, the Russian army is “moving in the right direction” in Ukraine.
And he promised that Russian troops would take out the Patriot air defense system, which kyiv got this week from the Americans. “Of course, we are going to destroy it, 100%!”, Launched Vladimir Putin, three days after affirming that his army would find “an antidote” to counter “this fairly old system”.
- Zelensky’s military goals
If the Russian general staff has confirmed that it aims to conquer the entire industrial region of Donetsk, Volodymyr Zelensky has sworn to him that he wants to take back the four Ukrainian regions annexed at the end of September by Russia – Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporijjia, Kherson -, as well as the Crimean peninsula, annexed in 2014.
He castigated the Russian “terrorists” who carried out bombings on Saturday against the city center of Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine retaken on November 11 after eight months of occupation by troops from Moscow. The central market and adjacent streets were bombarded, killing at least 10 and injuring 55, an act of “terror” according to Volodymyr Zelensky.
- Orthodox celebrated Christmas
Sunday in kyiv, Orthodox celebrated Christmas, alongside Catholics, a strong sign of defiance towards the Russian religious authorities, who will celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ in two weeks. “The war has brought us so much grief,” faithful Olga Stanko told AFP in a downtown church. “We cannot remain under Russian influence,” she added, as the military conflict has shifted to religious terrain in recent weeks.
Ukraine, a country whose population is predominantly Orthodox, is indeed divided between a Church dependent on the Patriarchate of Moscow – which announced that it was severing its ties with Russia at the end of May due to the Russian offensive – and an independent Church of Russian supervision. Created at the end of 2018, the latter has pledged allegiance to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, which has its headquarters in Istanbul.
During his traditional Christmas message in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, Pope Francis called on him to “silence the guns” on Ukrainian soil.