Day 641: Oleksii Makeiev sees Ukraine better prepared for winter attacks. Russia expands its attacks on Avdiivka and Robotyne. All information in the news blog.
The most important things at a glance
Expert sees “strong challenge” facing Ukraine
8:47 p.m.: Security expert Claudia Major sees many challenges facing Ukraine in the coming year in its defensive war against Russia. “The next year is a huge challenge for Ukraine, with all the political uncertainties,” says the political scientist on “Stern-Hunde”, the live talk format of “Stern”. 2024 will be “politically difficult, militarily difficult.”
Major cites the presidential elections in the USA as examples, but also industrial production in western countries. This is necessary “so that Ukraine can defend itself at all,” but it is starting “much too slowly.” In addition, it is unclear how the political tensions within Ukraine would develop.
The head of the security policy research group at the Science and Politics Foundation in Berlin does not see any real interest on the part of Russia in a negotiated solution. “So far, Russia has made it completely clear that it doesn’t want to negotiate or compromise. Instead, it wants to win.” In her opinion, the belief that there is a “genuine interest” in negotiations on the Russian side is “wrong.”
Netherlands returns Crimean gold to Ukraine
7:32 p.m.: According to official information, the gold treasure known as “Crimean gold” has returned to Ukraine from the Netherlands after almost ten years. The Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam said all the pieces had arrived in Kiev. Historians at the Ukrainian National History Museum in Kiev thank the Amsterdam museum for carefully preserving the items and helping them return home.
The cultural assets were caught between the fronts of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The approximately 2,000-year-old gold treasure, also known as “Scythian gold,” came to Amsterdam in 2014 from four museums on the Ukrainian Crimean peninsula for exhibition purposes.
After Russia’s annexation of the Black Sea Peninsula that same year, Moscow laid claim to the treasure. However, the museum did not send the valuable objects back to Crimea after the exhibition ended because it did not know who was the rightful owner. The exhibits remained in the Netherlands until the legal situation was clarified. In the summer of 2023, the High Council in The Hague rejected the Russian claim and ordered the return of the valuable cultural assets to Ukraine.
Russia expands attacks on Avdiivka and Robotyne
7:21 p.m.: According to Ukrainian sources, Russia has intensified its attacks on the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka and the southern Ukrainian village of Robotyne. Moscow’s armed forces carried out “more than 150 attacks” on Ukrainian positions in villages around Avdiivka, the Ukrainian army says. In the south, Russian troops made several unsuccessful attempts to “recapture lost positions near Robotyne in the Zaporizhzhia region.”
The U.S.-based Institute for War Studies said Russian troops made “progress in northwest and southeast Avdiivka” over the weekend. Moscow controls the area to the north, east and south of the city, which is only about ten kilometers from the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk. In southern Ukraine, Kiev’s soldiers recaptured the small village of Robotyne in August and described it as a strategic victory in the counteroffensive. Since then, Russia has repeatedly attacked the village, and Ukraine apparently has difficulty holding Robotyne.
Wives of Russian mobilizers criticize Putin
6:02 p.m.: A group of wives of Russians mobilized for the Ukraine war have launched a call for their husbands to be brought back, peppered with sharp criticism of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin. “We will only leave the field when our men are safe at home (FOREVER, we are not interested in rotation),” says the letter published on the Telegram channel “Putj domoi” (“Way home”). Among other things, it criticizes the fact that problems on the front are being swept under the carpet in order not to endanger Putin’s re-election next year.
