Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged today, Monday, what he called a "difficult situation" in the four Ukrainian regions that Russia recently annexed to its territories, while the Ukrainian president visited one of the hot fronts in the east of the country.

During his meeting in the Kremlin, Putin discussed the rulers of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, the military operation, humanitarian conditions, construction, reconstruction and development projects, as well as the file of integration within the Russian Federation.

The Russian President said that his country is once again facing a challenge, describing the current period as difficult and important.

During an event to award medals, Putin considered that Russian soldiers show exceptional examples of courage during the fighting in Ukraine, as he put it.

Putin was speaking in a video addressed to employees of the Foreign Security and Intelligence Service and the protection of senior officials, who annually celebrate their "professional holiday" in Russia on December 20.

Last September, the Russian President announced the annexation of the four Ukrainian regions that are partially controlled by the Russian army, after conducting local "referendums" that were condemned by Kyiv and the West.

But last November, Ukraine recaptured Kherson, the capital of the region of the same name, marking a major setback for Moscow after a weeks-long counteroffensive.

Putin (left) receiving in the Kremlin the rulers of the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson (Reuters)

Zelensky in Bakhmut

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian presidency said that President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the city of Bakhmut on the front line in the Donetsk region of the Donbass region in eastern Ukraine.

In his statements, Zelensky considered that the battles taking place in Bakhmut are now breaking the Russian army and what he described as mercenaries who were recruited by Russia to replace its forces that were damaged by the war on his country.

He added that Russia lost nearly 99,000 soldiers during the war, threatening Moscow with more losses, and stressed that the battles taking place in the city of Bakhmut, in the east of the country, are the hottest, and the battles are taking place on a 1,300-kilometer line.

🔥ZELENSKY À BAKHMUT!

Lors de sa visite au front, le president Ukrainien s'est vu offrir par ses soldats un drapeau à transmettre au congrès des États-Unis pour les remercier pour les armes recues.

Ensemble, le monde libre va PULVÉRISER l'Armée Russe!

🇺🇦#GuerreEnUkraine pic.twitter.com/UHUgMcxl3V

- SoutienZelensky🇫🇷🇺🇦 (@VolodimirZelen1) December 20, 2022

Russian forces have been seeking for weeks to seize Bakhmut, which was inhabited by 80,000 people before the war. They also seek to control the city of Avdiivka, and Bakhmut oversees a road leading to other important towns.

Renewed Russian bombing

In terms of military operations, the Al-Jazeera correspondent reported renewed Russian bombing of Kherson province, in the south of the country, and the Ukrainian authorities in the province confirmed that Russian forces bombed the region several times during the past hours.

The governor of the Russian province of Bryansk also announced that Ukrainian forces bombed the border town of Suzemki, causing a partial blackout.

Bryansk region is located about 380 km southwest of Moscow, a region bordering Ukraine.

For his part, the governor of the Russian province of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov, accused the Ukrainian army of bombing the city of Chebykino, which borders Russia with Ukraine.

Gladkov said that the shelling caused a person to suffer fractures and cut off electricity for a third of the city's population, adding that other shells fell on warehouses in the industrial area of ​​the city.


Mutual bombardment on both banks of the Dnipro River

On the other hand, the Ukrainian Southern Operations Command said that mutual artillery shelling is taking place at the banks of the Dnipro River in Kherson, and that the Russian forces suffered a defeat it described as a major defeat in the Chaplinka Kherson region, and that those forces continue to withdraw their units from areas along the eastern bank of the river.

The Ukrainian army also confirmed the continuation of the Russian bombardment of the provinces of Mykolaiv, Dnipro and Zaporizhia to the south and Kharkiv and areas controlled by Ukrainian forces in Donetsk and Luhansk to the east.

In a related context, the United States called on the United Nations to investigate allegations that Iran delivered attack drones to Russia.

During a session of the Security Council, Robert Wood, the deputy US representative, said that the lack of action by the United Nations in this regard is evidence that it is exposed to Russian threats.

For his part, Iran's representative to the United Nations said that the drones that his country transferred to Russia before the war broke out do not meet the technical characteristics stipulated in UN Security Council Resolution No. 2231.