Putin announces “problems” and a military reinforcement – ​​L’Express

Vladimir Putin continues to threaten his neighbors. And it’s Finland’s turn to be in its sights. This Sunday, December 17, he warned that Helsinki’s entry into NATO this year would create “problems” and planned a military reinforcement. On the ground in Ukraine, drone attacks continue to be recorded on both sides.

⇒ Finland in NATO: Putin announces “problems” and a military reinforcement

⇒ Ukraine says it shot down a missile and 20 drones overnight

⇒ Eastern Ukraine still under Russian fire, reports the Ukrainian army general staff

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Finland’s entry into NATO this year would create “problems” where there “were none” before and announced, in response, a military buildup in the north -western Russia. “There were no problems there, but now there will be, because we are going to create the Leningrad Military District and concentrate a certain number of units there,” he told a journalist from the public television in an interview broadcast this Sunday, in which he accuses the West of having “dragged Finland into NATO”.

Ukraine claimed to have shot down a missile and 20 Russian attack drones overnight from Saturday to Sunday, with Russia saying for its part it had destroyed 33 Ukrainian drones. “The Russian occupation forces attacked with an Iskander-K cruise missile, a Kh-59 guided missile and 20 Shahed-type attack drones,” the Ukrainian Air Force said in a statement. Ukrainian forces shot down the drones as well as the Kh-59 missile, and the Iskander-K did not hit its target, she added, specifying that the missiles were fired from Crimea and the occupied region from Kherson, to the south. On the Russian side, the Ministry of Defense indicated that its forces had “intercepted and destroyed” 33 Ukrainian drones in three border regions (Lipetsk, Rostov and Volgograd).

The Russian army continues to put pressure on the Ukrainian defense lines. The areas of Koupiansk, Lyman, Bakhmout, Avdiïvka, Mariïnka and Zaporizhia are concerned, according to daily update of the General Staff of the Ukrainian army. Over the past twenty-four hours, the army has reported 89 fights in the territory. Russian soldiers, according to the General Staff, fired four missiles and launched 72 air attacks “on positions of Ukrainian forces and on populated areas”, reports the newspaper of World.

In the Arctic as elsewhere on the planet, Western and Russian researchers have severed almost all links since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, the final nail in the coffin of cooperation which has been deteriorating since the 2010s with the toughening of Vladimir Putin. This frostbite has serious consequences for research in a region which is warming approximately four times faster than the planet and therefore serves as a climate laboratory. A laboratory where Russia, particularly through its geographical footprint, occupies a preponderant place. Since February 2022, the flow of Russian data has completely dried up.