EMERGENCY blackouts are in effect in nine regions of Ukraine, the Kiev regime’s energy operator Ukrenergo reported on Monday.
‘As of the morning of December 19, there was a difficult situation in the Ukrainian power system. The most difficult situation is in the Central, Eastern and Dnieper regions.
‘The emergency shutdown schedules have been introduced in the Sumy, Kharkov, Poltava, Dnepropetrovsk, Kirovograd, Zhitomir, Chernigov, Cherkasy, Kiev regions and in Kiev,’ the company said in a message on its Telegram channel.
There is also a ‘difficult situation’ in the Kiev-controlled areas of the Zaporozhye region.
The company pointed out that critical infrastructure facilities would be prioritised, but ‘the resumption of power supply to household consumers could take a long time.’
On Monday night, an air raid alert was declared in several regions of Ukraine and explosions at critical infrastructure facilities were reported.
Meanwhile, Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu has arrived in Minsk, Head of the Department of International Military Cooperation at the Belarusian Defence Ministry Valery Revenko confirmed on Twitter on Monday.
Earlier, Revenko reported that Shoigu and his Belarusian counterpart, Viktor Khrenin, would be taking part in the talks planned for Monday (19th December) between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko.
The head of the Russian Defence Ministry had also been in Minsk two weeks earlier when he signed a protocol with the head of the Belarusian defence ministry on amendments to the interstate agreement on joint provision of regional security in the military sphere, and also held talks with President Lukashenko.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military suffered over 20 casualties in battles with fighters of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) on Monday, the press office of the DPR people’s militia reported.
‘The enemy’s manpower losses amounted to over 20 personnel,’ the DPR’s people’s militia press office said on its Telegram channel.
In addition, DPR people’s militia forces, jointly with the Russian army, destroyed one Ukrainian tank (T-80BV), two self-propelled howitzers (AHS Krab and 2S3 Akatsiya) and five armoured and motor vehicles.
At the same time, the Ukrainian military suffered about 75 casualties in clashes with fighters of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR), spokesman for the LPR People’s Militia, Ivan Filiponenko, reported on Monday.
‘In the past 24 hours, the enemy sustained heavy losses among manpower and military equipment as a result of active offensive operations by the LPR people’s militia forces.
‘They eliminated as many as 75 personnel,’ he said on the Telegram channel, adding that during the last 24-hour period (on Monday), LPR people’s militia forces destroyed one tank, five armoured personnel carriers, two artillery guns and 17 special motor vehicles of the Ukrainian army.
Also on Monday, the central part of the city of Maryinka in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) was finally cleared of Ukrainian troops.
Acting DPR Head Denis Pushilin confined: ‘Downtown Maryinka has now been cleared of enemy troops.
‘Almost all high-rise buildings that served as serious fortified positions for the enemy are under our control.
‘Only a small part of Maryinka is left where the enemy can hold its ground,’ he told the Rossiya-24 TV channel.
Pushilin announced on December 15 that 80% of the city of Maryinka had been liberated.
According to him, taking control of the city would allow troops to advance in the Krasnogorovka area and eventually put an end to shelling attacks on the Petrovsky District of Donetsk from that direction.
The Avdeyevka, Artyomovsk, Maryinka and Ugledar areas are the hottest spots on the frontline, Pushilin said.
‘Our forces are doing their best (to push the Armed Forces of Ukraine as far back as possible). Unfortunately, it is taking us more time than we would like in terms of ensuring the safety of our cities.
‘There are objective reasons behind it, which include the weather, the amount of weapons and reserves that the enemy continues to deploy to the areas that we view as the hottest ones, which include Avdeyevka, Maryinka, Ugledar and Artyomovsk,’ he told the Rossiya-24 TV channel.
Pushilin specified that taking control of Maryinka, where a mopping-up operation has already been completed in the city centre, would make it possible to advance towards Krasnogorovka, from where the Ukrainian military was shelling Donetsk.
According to the DPR leader, progress in the Avdeyevka area will pave the way for the liberation of Pervomayskoye.
As for the situation near Artyomovsk (called Bakhmut in Ukraine), Russian forces are active ‘in its suburbs, from almost all directions.’
The acting DPR head noted that troops are about to complete their mission in Podgornoye, which is southeast of Artyomovsk, wiping out enemy troops and reaching new frontiers.
‘In the Donetsk area, the Yakovlevka settlement is crucial, and where a mopping-up operation is nearing its end,’ he added.
However, the Ukrainian armed forces are forming striking forces in the city of Chasov Yar in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Acting Head of the DPR Denis Pushilin warned.
‘Chasov Yar is an important city in the Artyomovsk area, where the enemy is forming reserves and some striking forces, judging by the amount of equipment that we see there.
‘This is why we are trying to keep the situation under control there as well, reducing the reserves that the enemy is sending in large numbers in order to keep its hold on Artyomovsk,’ he told Rossiya-24 TV.
Andrey Marochko, an officer with the Lugansk People’s Republic’s (LPR) People’s Militia, said in October that the Ukrainian Emergencies Ministry’s units had left the city of Chasov Yar that remained under Kiev’s control.
Marochko noted in late September, citing LPR intelligence agencies, that the command post of the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine had been withdrawn from Chasov Yar due to ongoing losses, including among its officers.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military is ratcheting up its use of Czech-made multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) in its attacks on Donetsk because the Russia-Donbass allied forces have mostly wiped out enemy Soviet-era Grad rocket launchers.
Pushilin said in his interview on Rossiya-24 TV channel on Monday: ‘At present, the enemy is very frequently employing Czech-made multiple launch rocket systems.
‘This has made its mark, considering that we have mostly destroyed Grad launchers and our troops have ground them down.’
The Ukrainian troops continue to bring in new armaments to Donbass’s most intense frontline areas, and although Russian forces have destroyed some of the firing positions from which the Ukrainian military is shelling Donetsk, the city has not yet been fully secured against these bombardments, the acting DPR head said.
DPR People’s Militia Lieutenant-Colonel Andrey Bayevsky earlier explained that Czech rocket launchers are a longer-range modification of the Soviet-made Grad multiple launch rocket systems.
These weapons carry rockets with a heavier high-explosive fragmentation warhead that enables them to fire from a greater distance of about 24km, he explained.
These Czech-made rocket systems are also employed because the advance by Russian troops in Donbass has made the previous firing positions of the Ukrainian army unsafe, so it has to look for more distant weapon emplacements.