Azerbaijan, Armenia Agree To Several Goodwill Steps, Including Mutual Release Of Prisoners

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has thanked Japan for a pledge of an additional $1 billion in aid, saying the funds will give “significant support” to the country just hours after the U.S. Senate blocked a White House request that would have earmarked around $60 billion for Kyiv.

The vote on whether to allow the bill with the White House request to advance marked a significant defeat for President Joe Biden, who had urged Congress in a speech earlier to quickly approve more military aid to Ukraine, warning that Russian leader Vladimir Putin will be emboldened to grab more territory if he is victorious on the battlefield.

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“If Putin takes Ukraine, he won’t stop there. He’s made that pretty clear,” Biden said in televised speech on December 6, cautioning that Putin could try to send his troops into a NATO country if he took Ukraine.

Republicans, however, blocked the entire $106 billion request — which also included funds for Israel, Taiwan, and to shore up the southern U.S. border, saying the bill lacked immigration reforms.

The Kremlin voiced hope that Congress will continue to block military aid for Ukraine, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying on December 7, “It is to be hoped that there remain enough people with sober minds among American congressmen” and claiming that Biden wanted to “continue burning taxpayers’ money in the furnace of war.”

Zelenskiy earlier this week cancelled a discussion with U.S. lawmakers as the success of the aid request began looking very doubtful.

On December 7, he received the pledge from Japan, which includes the possibility of increasing the total aid package to as much as $4.5 billion.

Ukraine has been bracing for a second long winter of war with Russia — which launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022 — amid intense fighting in the east, especially around the industrial city of Avdiyivka in the Donetsk region.

Russian troops have been attempting for several weeks to encircle the city, which has become the latest symbol of Ukrainian resistance.

Avdiyivka has remained in Ukrainian hands even after Russia in 2014 seized large portions of the Donetsk region, including Donetsk city, just 10 kilometers to the south.

Ukrainian forces repelled 34 Russian attacks in the Avdiyivka area, more than one-third of the 91 assaults that Kyiv’s forces fought off on the entire front line over the past 24 hours, the General Staff of Ukraine’s military said in its morning summary.

The battlefield reports could not be independently confirmed.

The United Nations warned on December 6 that Moscow was intensifying attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as heavy snowfalls and freezing temperatures grip the country.

Assistant Secretary-General Miroslav Jenca told the UN Security Council that Russia’s attacks on critical Ukrainian civilian infrastructure had not only resulted in civilian casualties, but also worsened humanitarian conditions for civilians.

“All attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure must stop immediately,” he said. “They are prohibited under international humanitarian law and are simply unacceptable.”

Ukraine for the first time this cold season asked people to conserve energy after a power plant near the front line was hit by shelling, causing serious damage and disabling two power units.

The Energy Ministry said that, due to the stoppage of the two units and an increase in demand, there is a temporary shortage of electricity. The ministry appealed to consumers to support energy workers by using electricity “wisely and economically, especially during peak hours.”

Ukraine’s power grid has been under pressure from constant Russian strikes that have caused substantial damage.

Russia also continues to attack critical grain-export infrastructure.

It launched drone attacks on the Danube port of Izmayil on December 7 that killed a man and caused damage to port facilities, Oleh Kiper, the governor of the Odesa region, said in a message on his Telegram channel.

Earlier, the Ukrainian military said its air defenses shot down 15 out of the 18 Iranian-made drones that Russia launched at the Odesa and Khmelnytskiy regions on December 7. The military said in a message on Telegram that the attack with Shahed-136/131 drones was launched from Cape Chauda, in the Moscow-occupied Crimea region.

“They specifically attacked the Danube port infrastructure. A warehouse, a grain elevator, and trucks were damaged. The driver of one of the trucks was killed,” Kiper said, adding that a fire broke out but was promptly extinguished by emergency workers.

Since the collapse in July of a United Nations-brokered deal allowing the safe passage of Ukrainian grain shipments from Black Sea ports, Ukraine has used its Danube ports of Reni and Izmayil on the border with Romania to ship food to the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta.

Russia has since been targeting both Odesa, Ukraine’s main Black Sea port, and the two Danube ports with drone strikes that have caused substantial damage and disrupted Ukrainian grain exports. Debris from downed Russian drones has also crashed on the territory of NATO member Romania.