Photo: Karen Minasyan/Getty

EA on BBC: Maintaining Support of Ukraine v. Russia’s Invasion

Saturday’s Coverage: Air Defenses Repel Russian Drone Attacks on Kyiv

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1529 GMT:

A 69-year-old woman has been killed in her home by Russian shelling of the Sumy region in northern Ukraine.

An elderly man was slain by a Russian strike on the center of the Kherson region in the south of the country.

UPDATE 1517 GMT:

Ukrainian officials have confirmed that an overnight drone attack on the Morozovsk airbase in Russia’s Rostov region was a joint special operation by the State security service SBU of Ukraine and Kyiv’s armed forces.

Although the Russian Federation has already traditionally managed to claim that all UAVs were shot down, in reality the Service, together with the AFU [armed forces], caused significant damage to the enemy’s equipment.

The airbase hosts the 559th fighter aviation regiment of the Russian Aerospace Force. The officials said up to 20 Su-34 aircraft, three radars, and other equipment stationed at the time of the attack.

Russia’s Defense Ministry 33 Ukrainian drones attacked three Russian regions overnight.

UPDATE 1505 GMT:

As Vladimir Putin goes through the motions of his Presidential campaign, UK intelligence assesses that Russia is likely to rig the ballot in the Ukrainian territories which it occupies.

Russian officials said last week that occupied areas in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east and the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south — as well as Crimea, seized in 2014 — will participate in voting in the March 14 election.

The UK analysts conclude that the process “will be neither free nor fair”:

The Russian authorities almost certainly see achieving the “correct” results in these regions as a priority because they want to give the perception of legitimacy to Russia’s invasion.

The Russian administration will almost certainly utilize methods including substantive electoral fraud and voter intimidation to ensure Russian President Vladimir Putin wins in the regions by a substantial margin.

UPDATE 0716 GMT:

One civilian has been killed in the Odesa region in southern Ukraine by the wreckage of a downed Russian drone.

The drone was one of 20 intercepted by Ukrainian air defenses overnight (see 0638 GMT). It fell on a private residential building and exploded.

UPDATE 0644 GMT:

Repaired Leopard 2 heavy battle tanks are being shipped back from Lithuania to the battlefield in Ukraine.

The tanks were overhauled at the Lithuania Defense Services repair facility, a joint venture established last year in cooperation with the German enterprises Rheinmetall and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann.

In early October, two battle-damaged Leopard 2 tanks were repaired and returned to Ukraine by Poland’s Bumar-Łabędy defense company.

UPDATE 0638 GMT:

The Ukraine Air Force says air defenses downed all 20 Iran-made attack drones launched by Russia overnight.

A Kh-59 missile was intercepted, and an Iskander-K missile did not reach its target.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Vladimir Putin has been formally nominated as an “independent” candidate for the staged March election giving him another six years as President of Russia.

Putin, 71, is effectively the head of the United Russia Party, but Saturday’s performance was to present the image of a man supported by all groups in Russian society. An “initiative group of voters” — composed of more than 500 politicians, actors, athletes, milbloggers, occupation officials, and a battalion commander from the “Donetsk People’s Republic” in occupied eastern Ukraine — unanimously endorsed Putin’s candidacy.

Andrey Turchak, Secretary of the United Russia Party’s General Council, gave the unsurprising confirmation that the party will back Putin’s campaign. Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin declared that the Russian Government is “Putin’s team”.

Putin reinforced the performance on Friday in a meeting with leaders of Russian factions. He proclaims that the election must happen on a competitive basis and called on them to form positions with a “deep understanding of Russian national interests” and their responsibility to the public.

Putin also ran as an independent candidate in 2018 and was officially given 77% of the vote. Leading Russia since 1999, he has overseen the revision of the Russian Constitution to ensure he can hold the Presidency until 2036.

The Russian leader said on December 8 that he would pursue another six years in power. He reportedly surprised his staff with an impromptu announcement in a conversation, at a Kremlin ceremony for “Heroes of Russia”, with a Russian proxy official from eastern Ukraine.

See also Ukraine War, Day 654: Putin Staging “Re-Election” on March 17