War in Ukraine: Vladimir Putin arrives in Belarus and turns on the alarms of a new invasion

The Russian president, Vladimir Putinarrived this monday at belarus to meet his counterpart Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally in the war against Ukraine, hours after a drone strike in Kiev caused power outages.

Russian public television showed Putin stepping off the plane before receiving a warm greeting from Lukashenko and a welcoming committee on the runway at Minsk airport in freezing temperatures.

The summit between the two leaders comes at a time when Ukrainian authorities fear Russia launch a new offensive on a large scale against kyiv in early 2023.

Belarus, once again a front door

Ukraine fears such an operation use as an entry platform Belarusas happened at the start of the invasion on 24 February.

The Russian military stoked fears by saying on Monday it would take part “tactical” actions in Belarusafter Minsk announced in October the formation of a joint force with Russia consisting of thousands of soldiers.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov denied that the Russian president traveled to Belarus to persuade Minsk to directly participate in the conflict in Ukraine, calling the allegations “stupid” and “baseless”.

The Ukrainian capital, Kiev, suffered a series of attacks by Russian drones on Sunday night.

“During the air alert, 23 enemy UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) were registered in the sky over the capital. The air defense destroyed 18 drones,” the Kyiv military administration said on social media.

Local authorities reported that several “infrastructure and homes” were damaged and that at least three people were injured.

After the attacks, Ukrainian energy operator Ukrenergo said it would impose cuts in Kiev and in ten other regions bordering the “difficult” situation in which the network finds itself.

Moscow said it shot down four US-made HARM missiles flying over the airspace of Russia’s Belgorod region.

Russian exercises with China

In addition, Russia has announced that several of its warships will participate in joint exercises with the Chinese navy starting this week, another sign of rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing against Western countries.

“First I heard an anti-area siren going off on the street. For the first time I was afraid,” said Natalia Dobrovolska, 68, who lives in a suburb in western Kiev.

your building he was shaken around 4.30am by a massive explosion, followed by two more detonations and more explosions an hour later. The electricity has since been cut.

Igor, a 35-year-old photographer living in northwestern kyiv, he too woke up with a start.

“We heard a huge explosion and saw a fire through the window,” he said. “Now we have almost no mobile network, we have no electricity or water,” she added.

As Russia has suffered a series of military setbacks in recent months, it has opted for a strategy of massive bombing of the country’s power plants and infrastructure, leaving millions of Ukrainians without electricity or water in the dead of winter.

war crimes