Ukraine updates: Zelenskyy, Macron discuss troops deployment

The Ukrainian president is in Brussels to meet European leaders. The meeting takes place ahead of Donald Trump's return to the White House, amid questions on the future of US aid for Ukraine. DW has the latest.

• Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders, including NATO's Mark Rutte, are meeting in Brussels ahead of an EU summit
• Russia arrests Uzbek suspect, a day after top general's killing Moscow, for which Ukraine claimed responsibility
• NATO command in Wiesbaden, Germany to train Ukrainian troops now operational, Rutte says
• Zelenskyy said he discussed with French President Emmanuel Macron his idea of sending Western troops to Ukraine

This is a roundup of major stories from or related to Russia's invasion of Ukraine on December 18, 2024.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he discussed with French President Emmanuel Macron the possibility of sending Western troops to Ukraine.

Macron floated the idea of sending ground troops to Ukraine earlier this year, in a sharp departure from other Western leaders, who have repeatedly said they want to avoid an escalation of the war in Ukraine.

"We share a common vision: reliable guarantees are essential for a peace that can truly be achieved," Zelenskyy wrote on X.

"We continued working on President Macron's initiative regarding the presence of forces in Ukraine that could contribute to stabilizing the path to peace."

Chancellor Olaf Scholz, like Rutte, stressed the importance of sequencing before the meeting. For now, Scholz said, the priority was providing Ukraine as much military assistance as possible. 

In terms of the prospect of ceasefire talks or implementation, he said Ukraine first needed to make clear what its goals for a peace deal would be. 

"No decision should be made above Ukraine's head," Scholz said, while also warning that a potential deal must not amount to a "dictated peace."

However, Scholz also voiced confidence in the chances of a continued, united NATO policy on Ukraine after the change in occupancy at the White House. 

He said his recent phone call with Donald Trump had shown him "that it is possible for us to develop our policies together so that Ukraine can have a positive outlook." 

Scholz will likely be leaving his post as chancellor fairly soon after Trump's inauguration, with early elections set for late February in Germany.

Ahead of his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, NATOSecretary General Mark Rutte said the priority for Wednesday's meeting was to "make sure that Ukraine has what it needs" to prevent Russia and its president Vladimir Putin from winning the war. 

Rutte declined to comment on what a potential ceasefire might look like, amid speculation of a change in course after Donald Trump's inauguration, saying it was important to first "focus on the business at hand." 

Rutte, the Netherlands' prime minister until July, has been filling the role as NATO's secretary general since October.

https://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-updates-zelenskyy-macron-discuss-troops-deployment/live-71096540

GREAT IDEA: 

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

THESE WILL ALSO INCLUDE ODESSA, KHERSON AND KHARKIV.....

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

TRANSNISTRIA WILL BE PART OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION.

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

EASY.

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SINS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

BY Gilbert Doctorow

“Results of the year with Vladimir Putin,” an informational event which merits close attention

As I have note on these pages, Vladimir Putin’s speeches to mark one or another calendar event are a daily feature of Russian air time on state television. But there are also very special and noteworthy televised Putin-centered events. Today’s fell into that category. It was preceded by a couple of weeks of active promotion in the media to ensure the widest possible participation of the public.

In what follows I will discuss several of the key issues which Vladimir Putin addressed in response to questions from the moderators and from journalists, that is issues which are necessarily of interest to the international community and not only to the domestic audience in Russia. The event in question is the annual Q&A of the Russian President with callers from around the country and with the national and international press. These two different groups, who were formerly addressed on separate days. The public had its ‘Direct Line’ and the journalists separately were invited to an ‘Annual Press Conference.’ So it was when both events were established back in 2004.  However, four years ago, given the limitations imposed by Covid, they were combined into a single event and so it remains.

 The venue for the ‘Results of the Year’ is in the heart of Moscow, just steps away from Red Square and from the Kremlin in the totally renovated 18th Century building called Gostinny Dvor that once served as commercial retail premises. 

Seating in the central hall was reduced to allow for aides to pass freely into rows and pass the microphone to designated questioners.  Moreover, the center of the hall, in an elevated space about the size of a boxing ring, was reserved for the president and a couple of journalist-moderators seated around a table. Journalists, foreign and domestic, constituted most of those in the hall. They numbered less than a thousand but were only a tiny part of the combined exercise.

 In the run-up to the event more than two million questions were sent in to the dedicated call center.  One million two hundred thousand were phone calls. A little less than 500,000 were sms messages and others were videos and text messages sent via social media. These advance communications were all processed electronically using Artificial Intellect so as to be categorized by the topic interesting the caller, the location of the caller geographically and other parameters useful in prioritizing the President’s time on air.

The ’Direct Line’ events had been characterized not only by the preponderance of questions relating to domestic Russian issues but to a great many highly personal requests for Putin’s intervention to right some wrong in a given locality or some conflict with local officials.  In today’s event measures had been taken in advance to reduce the number of such petty exchanges and to leave more time to issues of consequence and general interest. The particularistic questions or complaints were shunted off to be resolved by the governor’s office where the respective caller lives.

Meanwhile, by clear intent of the organizers to make the event more interesting to a global audience, questions relating to international affairs were moved to the first hour, not left for the very end as was the case in the past.

On this basis, I am able to present below some points that Vladimir Putin evidently was keen to bring to our attention, though I admit that I sat through only the first two hours of ‘Results of the Year.’  This gives me the opportunity to provide a ‘scoop’ to readers of these pages, and then to come back with follow-up if the President dealt with something of general interest to us abroad before the Q&A was terminated.

                                                                       *****

One of the first questions pitched to Putin by one of the moderators was to ask if the world has gone mad. How can Russia navigate the very turbulent waters of international affairs.

His answer was that the world has not gone mad but that when the bullets are flying, as is now the case, people say it is terrible; whereas when there is a time of calm, people say it is a period of stagnation!

The answer to the question, in his view, is to look at the Russian economy, which is stable, resilient and growing very well.  Last year, Russian GDP grew at 3.6%; this year it is currently 3.9% and may reach 4% at 31 December.  So Russia has grown 8% over two years, while the number is 5.6% in the USA, 1% in the EU and 0% in Germany. Russia is now the largest economy in Europe and number 4 in the world. It has a record low unemployment rate of 2.3%. Growth in manufacturing this year has been 4% and it was 8% in processing industries. The negative indicator is the 9.3% inflation rate.

In answer to a later questioner complaining about price inflation in specific products, Putin revisited this issue, saying that the Central Bank is now looking into what other instruments besides the prime interest rate it can use to tame inflation.  And the problem with inflation is too few goods put onto the market to satisfy the growing demand.  By way of example, Russia now has become fully self-sufficient in meat production, and meat consumption is now 80kg per capita whereas a few years ago it was half that amount.  Milk demand, especially for production of butter, has soared while output has not been able to keep pace. All of this is in conditions of 9% rise in real wages over the past year, which adds to demand across the board.

Surely of greater interest to Western audiences is what the Russian president had to say about the Oreshnik hypersonic missile and the other advanced strategic weapons systems that Russia has now put out into the field and has in serial production.

He explained the logic of developing the intermediate range missiles which were formally banned by an arms agreement which the Americans abrogated under Donald Trump.  The range of the Oreshnik and the peculiarity of its very high rise into the atmosphere were decided upon to make the missile invulnerable to all present American means of interception.  Since the missile is most vulnerable in the moments immediately following launch, it was given extended range (to 5,000 km) making it possible to locate it way beyond the attack range of any anti-missile systems in the American armory, and especially available on the American ABM bases in Poland and Romania.  It reaches a height in the atmosphere before its lightening descent at Mach 10 that also exceeds several times over the capabilities of the Patriot or the still more modern American interceptors.

In what surely will be featured in Western media later today, Putin challenged the States to engage in a ‘duel of the 21st century’.  Russia will name its target somewhere in Ukraine and dare the US to bring down the Oreshnik using the best interceptors in their arsenal.

Another set of questions addressed to Putin that can be of general interest in the West was with regard to reconstruction in the 4 annexed regions of the Donbas and Novaya Rossiya: does Russia have the financial and management capability to retore and grow these new territories?  His answer was an emphatic yes and he pointed first to the city of Mariupol which had 450,000 inhabitants before the war and was largely destroyed in the artillery battles that preceded its conquest by Russian forces.  Putin said that much attention was devoted to infrastructure, starting with rebuilding and fully modernizing roads and to reconstruction of housing.  The population has been returning and now is approximately 300,000 strong.  Similar investments are being made all across the new territories.  And Putin assured the public that these new regions are growing their economies very quickly so that even today the tax revenues from Lugansk are almost twice what they were before the war, and they are more than 60% higher in the part of Donetsk under Russian control.

The microphone was then demonstratively handed over to the American news outlet NBC whose reporter Keir Brennnan-Simmons. Putin was making the point that Russia is treating the foreign press from ‘unfriendly countries’ with the kind of respect that no Russian journalist receives in America.

Brennan-Simmons opened with two questions, the first of which was more an accusation and mark of derision than a question proper: ‘Mr President when you meet with Donald Trump, you will be doing so from a position of weakness. You have lost soldiers.  You just lost a senior general…”

Putin said first that he has heard nothing from the Trump camp about a possible meeting with him. And he challenged directly the notion that Russia’s position would be the weaker party when the meeting eventually takes place.  No, said Putin, we are much stronger than we were thanks to the assertion of our sovereignty and our finding our way in self-reliance since the launch of the Special Military Operation. We are standing on our own feet economically. Our military production far exceeds the capabilities of all of NATO together. Our soldiers on the battlefield are using our own military supplies and we do all of this in a most rational and effective way.  Compare that to NATO where the price of 155mm artillery shells is now four times what it was back in 2022. With this type of cost inflation, NATO member states will have to dedicated not 2% but 3% of their GDP just to stand in place.  Our army today has no peer in the world. Russia has become stronger and we, as a sovereign country, are following our national interests.

As regards the journalist who ‘disappeared’ in Syria, Putin offered to put the question to al-Assad when they eventually meet. However, he asked with all due reason how one could expect to get an answer to the mother’s request given that it all happened in the midst of the Syria civil war and long ago.

Then Putin used the question as a springboard to what we all wanted to hear:  what the Kremlin says about the ‘loss’ of Syria and about its bases there.  As I remarked several days ago, he insisted that Russia entered the civil war in 2015 for one purpose only: to ensure that an extreme Islamist enclave could not be established there. He said Russia succeeded in that mission and did so with no boots on the ground other than those defending its naval and air base.  The fighters were from the Syrian Army and from friendly Arab forces [meaning Iranian proxies].   What happened recently was the melting away of the Syrian forces in advance of the conquering troops without a fight.   Iran once again turned to us for assistance with moving its troops – but unlike 2015 it was not to move Iranian forces into Syria, it was now to evacuate Iranian troops from Syria. We did so and evacuated 4,000 Iranians to our air base.

As regards Syria, Russia, he said has maintained relations with all interested parties inside and in the region. Everyone says we should keep our bases there.  But whether we do or not will depend on our negotiations with the government in Damascus.  We have suggested to others that we are ready to open both the naval and the air base for use by all parties wishing to bring humanitarian assistance in to Syria.

In summary, Putin said that Russia’s experience in Syria corresponds to the old remark “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

The NBC’s remark about the assassination of General Kirillov evoked a response from Putin that he was satisfied to see the word ‘assassination’ applied to the case, meaning the understanding that this was an act of terrorism.  Why is it, Putin then asked in turn, that you journalists in the West have never uttered a word of regret over the murder by terrorist attacks of our Russian journalists?

Finally, Putin invited Brennan-Simmons to ask anything else he might want clarified now that he had the microphone.  The journalist asked if Russia is ready to make compromises itself in line with its demand that Kiev make compromises to arrive at a peace.

The answer Putin gave is noteworthy:  that Russia and Ukraine had demonstrated this in March-April 2022 when they initialed a peace treaty involving compromises on all sides. Regrettably the British prime minister with a peculiar hairdo then came down to Kiev and issued instructions not to complete the deal.

©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024

Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)

„Ergebnisse des Jahres mit Wladimir Putin“, eine Informationsveranstaltung, die besondere Aufmerksamkeit verdient

https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2024/12/19/results-of-the-year-with-vladimir-putin-an-informational-event-which-merits-close-attention/

READ FROM TOP.

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SINS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2R8B4yb2cc

READ FROM TOP.

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

HYPOCRISY ISN’T ONE OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS SINS.

HENCE ITS POPULARITY IN THE ABRAHAMIC TRADITIONS…

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME RUSSIA IF WW3 STARTS. BLAME YOURSELF.

SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGOYehMlmhE&t=173s

SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiznXMVyZbs