RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
Putin assures Erdogan of Russia’s openness to dialogue on Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a phone conversation on Thursday about the destructive role the West has been playing by pumping Ukraine with arms and assigning targets to it, according to the Kremlin.
The two leaders "discussed the situation around Ukraine. Russia laid an emphasis on the destructive role of Western countries who have been pumping the Kiev regime with weapons and military hardware as well as providing it with operational information and assigning targets to it," the Kremlin said in a statement.
In light of Erdogan’s readiness to mediate a political solution to the conflict, "Putin reiterated that Russia is open to a serious dialogue, given authorities in Kiev meet demands that have been repeatedly put forward, with due account taken of the new territorial realities," the Kremlin added.
According to the Kremlin, Putin and Erdogan also discussed the agreements reached in Istanbul to export Ukrainian grain and unblock Russian food and fertilizer exports.
** Ukraine rejects Christmas truce
Kiev is not interested in the cessation of hostilities that Russian President Vladimir Putin announced earlier on Thursday. The rejection was confirmed by top officials in Ukraine.
There can be a “temporary truce” only when Russia leaves “occupied territories,”
Mikhail Podoliak, an adviser to Zelensky, wrote on Twitter. “Keep hypocrisy to yourself,” he added.
Podoliak also denounced the Russian Orthodox Church as being a “war propagandist” that called for “the genocide of Ukrainians,” describing its statement about a Christmas truce as “a cynical trap & an element of propaganda.”
“A ceasefire? Lies and hypocrisy. We will bite you in the singing silence of the Ukrainian night,” wrote Alexey Danilov, the head of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.
The proposed truce “can not and should not be taken seriously,” tweeted Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba.
Most Orthodox churches, including those in Russia and Ukraine, use some version of the Julian calendar for liturgical services, so Christmas Day falls on January 7 by the Gregorian calendar. His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia had called for a 36-hour ceasefire starting at noon on Friday, so that the Orthodox faithful could attend services.
Citing the patriarch’s request, President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian military to abide by the truce.
“Judging by the fact that a lot of citizens who practice the Orthodox religion live in the embattled area, we call upon the Ukrainian side to proclaim a cessation of hostilities and give them the opportunity to attend services on Christmas Eve and on Christmas Day,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the Russian announcement. “The possibility that the parties show respect and cease hostilities during this holy period is always welcomed by the secretary general,” said his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric.
** British military using illegal spy tech in Ukraine
A private company linked to terrorism in Ukraine is providing the British military with illegally-gathered smartphone data to aid the planning of attacks and targeted killings, The Grayzone reported on Tuesday.
According to files leaked to the outlet, the military is making use of data illegally harvested from cell phones in Russia and Ukraine by spy firm Anomaly 6, to enable “the planning of military offensives and artillery attacks, assassinations, asset recruitment, and other measures.”
Previous reporting by the Grayzone revealed that Anomaly 6 employees know their data scraping operation – which can target any smartphone in the world through code surreptitiously embedded in popular apps – is illegal. Britain’s military and intelligence apparatus would be forbidden from gathering this data themselves, but according to the latest report, the Anomaly 6 data is forwarded to them by a UK private military company, Prevail Partners.
This arrangement allows the government to bypass oversight and “to gain a realtime/near realtime understanding of the disposition” of Russian “troops, equipment, and lethal materials,” which can then be fed to Kiev. While the US has stated that it limits its intelligence sharing with Ukraine, the UK has not acknowledged any restrictions on the data it hands over.
The unreliable nature of some of this smartphone data, coupled with the Ukrainian military’s willingness to execute so-called “collaborators,” could link London to “crimes against humanity” committed by Kiev against civilians, The Grayzone stated.
Prevail Partners has been implicated in helping the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) to build an off-the-books “terror army.” One of its founding members allegedly helped draw up plans for the UK to bomb the Crimean Bridge, shortly before it was damaged in a blast in September that killed four civilians.
Moscow accused the UK of involvement in "[the] training, preparation and execution” of the bridge bombing, and responded to the attack with repeated waves of missile and drone strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure and military targets.
The latest revelations raise “the question of how Britain can plausibly claim not to be a formal belligerent in the war,” author Kit Klarenberg wrote on Twitter.
Ukraine’s assassination of Daria Dugina, its destruction of the Crimean Bridge, and attempted murder of Russian State Space Corporation leaders Dmitry Rogozin and Artyom Melnikov may have all been made possible by Anomaly 6’s software and Prevail Partners’ links to the British government, he claimed in the article.
WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
Ukraine clinches U.S., German armoured vehicles, rejects Russian truce order
Ukraine dismissed as a trick a unilateral order by Russia for a 36-hour ceasefire starting on Friday and the leaders of the United States and Germany said they were sending armoured fighting vehicles in a boost for the Kyiv government.
The U.S. weapons package, to be announced on Friday, is expected to include about 50 Bradley Fighting Vehicles as part of security assistance totalling about $2.8 billion, U.S. officials said.
"Right now the war in Ukraine is at a critical point," U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters. "We have to do everything we can to help the Ukrainians resist Russian aggression."
Germany would provide Marder Infantry Fighting Vehicles, according to a joint statement on Thursday from Biden and Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Both countries agreed to train Ukrainian soldiers on how to use them, it said. Germany would also supply a Patriot air defence battery to Ukraine, which has scored some battlefield successes since Russian forces invaded last February but has asked allies for heavier weapons.
TRUCE PROPOSAL
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy rejected out of hand a Russian order for a truce over Orthodox Christmas starting at noon on Friday and ending at midnight on Saturday. He said it was a trick to halt the progress of Ukraine's forces in the eastern Donbas region and bring in more of Moscow's forces.
"They now want to use Christmas as a cover, albeit briefly, to stop the advances of our boys in Donbas and bring equipment, ammunitions and mobilised troops closer to our positions," Zelenskiy said in his Thursday night video address.
"What will that give them? Only yet another increase in their total losses."
Russia's Orthodox Church observes Christmas on Jan. 7. Ukraine's main Orthodox Church has been recognised as independent by the church hierarchy since 2019 and rejects any notion of allegiance to the Moscow patriarch. Many Ukrainian believers have shifted their calendar to celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25 as in the West.
Zelenskiy, pointedly speaking in Russian and not Ukrainian, said that ending the war meant "ending your country's aggression ... This continues every day that your soldiers are on our soil ... And the war will end either when your soldiers leave or we throw them out."
Dmitry Polyansky, head of Russia's permanent mission to the United Nations, was scathing on Twitter about Ukraine's reaction.
"One more reminder with whom we are fighting in #Ukraine - ruthless nationalist criminals who are ready to sacrifice their country and their people for the sake of Western geopolitical games and who have no respect for sacred things," Polyansky wrote.
NO PEACE
In a phone call with Zelenskiy on Thursday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said his government was ready to take on mediation and moderation duties to secure a lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told Erdogan separately on Thursday that Russia was open to dialogue over Ukraine but that Kyiv would have to accept the loss of territories claimed by Russia, the Kremlin said.
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres, at an event in Lisbon, said of Erdogan's mediation offer: "It is my belief that we are still far from a moment in which a serious peace negotiation is possible."
The war, described by Putin as a "special military operation" to protect his country's security, has displaced millions, killed thousands of civilians and left Ukrainian cities, towns and villages in ruins.
In an update on Thursday, the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office said that at least 452 children have been killed and 877 children injured in the war.
In the capital Kyiv and the eastern city of Kramatorsk, people trying to go about their daily lives during wartime rejected Putin's ceasefire call.
"Look, we had Catholic Christmas, the fighting continued," Valerii, 30, in Kramatorsk said, adding that his town had suffered three or four hits on New Year's Eve alone. "The fighting never stops, not on holidays, not on weekends. So to trust him? No."
In Kyiv, Nataliia Shkolka, 52, said: "We were under such bombing for New Year's Eve. I think it’s just hypocrisy on Putin's part."
The heaviest fighting of the war continues in eastern Ukraine, with the worst of it near the eastern city of Bakhmut.
Ukraine says Russia has lost thousands of troops despite seizing scant ground in months of futile waves of assaults on Bakhmut.
Near the front, Reuters saw explosions from outgoing artillery and smoke filling the sky.
"We are holding up. The guys are trying to hold up the defence,” said Viktor, a 39-year-old Ukrainian soldier driving an armoured vehicle out of Soledar, a salt-mining town on Bakhmut's northeastern outskirts.
Most civilians have been evacuated from Bakhmut. Those who have stayed survive under near constant bombardment, with no heat or electricity, parts of the city a wasteland.
The United States is of the view that Putin's ally Yevgeny Prigozhin, who is the founder of Russia's most powerful mercenary group, is interested in taking control of salt and gypsum from mines near Bakhmut, a White House official said on Thursday.
RT/TASS/Reuters
