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MOSCOW – President Vladimir Putin has held extensive meetings with the military top brass overseeing Russia’s campaign in Ukraine, where Moscow has stepped up bombardments, the Kremlin said today.
“Yesterday, the president spent the whole day with the army staff involved in the Ukraine special military operation,” a statement said.
He held a meeting with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov and held “separate discussions with commanders” from different defence branches, it said.
“I would like to hear your proposals on our actions in the short and medium term,” Putin was shown as saying in the meeting by Russia’s state television.
Russia launched a barrage of missiles yesterday on multiple cities in Ukraine, plunging them into darkness, cutting water and heat and forcing people to endure sub-zero temperatures.
After a series of embarrassing battlefield defeats, Russia since October has pursued an aerial onslaught against what Moscow says are military-linked facilities.
France and the European Union said the suffering inflicted on freezing civilians constitutes war crimes, with the bloc’s foreign policy chief calling the bombings “barbaric”. – AFP, December 17, 2022