Ukraine strikes deep inside Russia as its allies tighten sanctions
Russia and Ukraine entered a desperate winter campaign as war losses mounted in the 41st week of war, but neither side was ready for talks
Ukrainian pilot Gennady Matuliak recently had a Kyiv street named after him. A Russian fighter hit Matuliak on February 25 as he completed a mission in the Vyshgorod region. He crashed his plane in a forest to avoid falling on a village, killing himself.
Russian and Ukrainian forces fought vicious battles in the country’s east without significant territorial changes in the 41st week of the war, but neither side showed any willingness to negotiate immediately, suggesting that this war will go on for a long time.
In the meantime Ukraine scored its deepest strike in Russian territory yet, and its allies squeezed Russia further on the economic front.
Ukraine strikes deep into Russia with long range drones
Russia fired 70 missiles into Ukraine on December 5, as it has frequently done on a Monday morning, striking energy infrastructure in Kyiv, Vinnytsia and Odesa, which in some cases had only just been fixed after being previously struck. Although Ukraine’s defences said they shot down more than 60 of these missiles, the successful strikes plunged parts of the Ukrainian capital back into cold and darkness, and killed four people.
Russia said the strikes were in retaliation for Ukraine using drones to strike two military bases, the Engels airfield on the Volga river and the Dyagilevo base near Ryazan. The two bases are 700km and 600km from the Russian-Ukrainian border, respectively, and represent Ukraine’s deepest strikes into Russia yet.
Photos posted on social media suggested Ukraine had used Soviet-era Tu-141 reconnaissance drones, which fly at high speed, have a range of 1,000km and could have bypassed Russian defences.
“The Ukrainians have decided to change the calculus of Russian [commander of Ukraine forces Sergei] Surovikin. The strikes against the Russian air bases is Ukraine’s way of saying that the Russians don’t have the asymmetric advantage with their long range missiles that they think they have,” wrote Major-General Mick Ryan.
In an hour-long phone call three days earlier, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had told Vladimir Putin that attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure had to stop, only to be told they were “forced and inevitable”.
Bakhmut and the long, static war
Russia maintained pressure on Bakhmut, a key city in the eastern Donetsk region it has been trying to capture since the summer, with daily bombardments and ground assaults.
Ukrainian military spokesman Serhiy Cherevaty said Russia was sacrificing 50-100 soldiers a day there, and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it and neighbouring Soledar the most difficult fronts of the war.
The leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Denys Pushilin, said that although Russian forces had “liberated” 338 settlements in the Donbas, Ukraine was also bringing up reserves and mounting counterattacks.
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces quashed one such counterattack on December 7 near the settlements of Pershe Travnya, Kurdyumovka, Klescheevka and Mayorsk. It also said it foiled Ukrainian counterattacks on the settlements of Chernopopovska and Zhytlovka in Luhansk region. But if nothing else, these showed that Ukraine has not given up on the two regions where it has lost most territory.
Pushilin also told Russia 24 TV station that Russian troops were advancing on Avdiivka and Pervomaiskoye in, Zaporizhia region, just south of Donetsk.
US national intelligence chief Avril Haines said Ukraine was in for months of slow-paced war.
“We’re seeing a kind of a reduced tempo already of the conflict... and we expect that’s likely to be what we see in the coming months,” Haines told the annual Reagan National Defence Forum in California. “I do think [Putin] is becoming more informwd of the challenges that the military faces in Russia,” she said.
Putin admitted to the slowness of the campaign on December 7, when he said, “As for the duration of the special military operation, well, of course this can be a long process.”
Tightening sanctions
With battlefronts static, Ukraine’s Western allies moved to tighten the economic noose around Russia.
The G7, Australia and the European Union on December 2 agreed on a $60 per barrel price cap on Russian crude oil shipped to third parties.
The cap took effect on December 5, the same day as an EU ban on Russian crude oil imports.
“It is no secret that we wanted the price to be lower, Estonian premier Kaja Kallas wrote on Twitter. The Baltic States and Poland had insisted on a cap equalling roughly the cost of extraction.
“A price between 30-40 dollars is what would substantially hurt Russia,” she said.
Zelenskyy, too, expressed disappointment, calling it “quite comfortable for the budget of a terrorist state” and “a weak position” for Europe.
“It’s only a matter of time [before] stronger tools have to be used anyway. It is a pity this time will be lost,” he said.
His foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, upbraided Indian foreign minister S Jaishankar, for India’s neutrality and continued purchases of Russian oil.
“If you benefit because of our suffering, it would be good to see more of your help addressed to us,” he told India’s NDTV.
Russia already discounts its oil to $60, well below the Brent crude benchmark of $87, and the EU cap did nothing to upset that.
“We will not recognise any ceilings,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, adding that “the adoption of these decisions is a step towards the destabilisation of world energy markets.”
But the compromise included a sweetener. The EU will immediately move to a 9th package of sanctions, said its high commissioner Josep Borrell, targeting “the military and defence sector, companies producing military equipment, or those who are planning the missile strikes.”
Ukraine’s deputy military intelligence chief, Vadym Skibitskyi, revealed that some missiles raining down on Ukraine were manufactured during the summer, by which time Western sanctions were supposed to have choked off Russia’s ability to acquire vital components for them, such as computer chips.
“Unfortunately, the Russian Federation, due to the fact that it circumvents economic sanctions, is still able to produce a certain number of cruise missiles and other weapons," said Skibitskyi. He also said Russia was talking to Iran about replenishing its stocks of ballistic missiles.
Dmitry Peskov said problems caused by sanctions against Russia were “of a non-critical nature”.
“The economy of the Russian Federation has the necessary potential to fully meet all needs and requirements within the framework of a special military operation,” he said.
Released figures suggested that Russia has suffered, and its economy in the third quarter of this year was 7.1% smaller than it had been before sanctions in Q4 last year.
Talks with preconditions
No party to the conflict seemed prepared for talks at this stage.
US president Joe Biden said on December 1 he was prepared to talk if there was an earnest desire for peace, but Biden has always abided by his mantra that Ukraine must decide when to come to the negotiating table.
Ukraine places massive preconditions on talks, including a complete Russian withdrawal and reparations payments, which Moscow rejects, while placing its own conditions.
“If now there will be a serious proposal on how to stop this conflict while fulfilling our absolutely legal demands, of course, we will be ready to talk," Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said on December 7.
Britain’s foreign secretary told The Telegraph newspaper that a ceasefire would be disingenuous. "A ceasefire is actually just used by Putin to train up more troops and to produce more ammunition and to refit his damaged armed forces and to rearm his armed forces," James Cleverly said.
The human toll
Ukraine for the first time revealed estimates of its military fatalities at 10,000 to 13,000.
The UN counted Ukrainian civilian deaths at 17,000, understood to be an underestimation.
Ukraine estimated Russian dead soldiery at over 90,000. NATO has in the past said Ukraine’s figure is a realistic one for dead, wounded and missing Russian soldiers.
The UN said 14mn Ukrainians, about a third of the population, remained displaced as a result of the war, 6.5mn inside Ukraine and over 7.8mn in Europe.