Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Vladimir Putin, Paris, December 9, 2019 (PBS)

Friday’s Coverage: Anti-Corruption Agency Supports Zelensky’s Revised Bill

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1538 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has said troops have pushed back Russian forces in the Sumy region in the northeast, disrupting Moscow’s attempts to expand a “buffer zone” near the border.

Russia opened a new front in Sumy in early June, capturing around a dozen villages.

“Although this region remains one of the priority areas for the enemy, our forces consistently block Russian attempts to advance deeper into Sumy Oblast from the border,” Zelensky wrote following a report from Commander-in-Chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi.

The President also posted about the Pokrovsk area in the Donetsk region, which Russia has been trying to overrun for more than a year:

UPDATE 1157 GMT:

At least nine civilians have been killed and 61 injured in Russian attacks across Ukraine over the past 24 hours.

Air defenses downed 183 of 208 drones and 17 of 27 missiles. Nine locations were strucks, and debris fell on eight additional sites.

Three people were murdered and two injured in 414 Russian strikes on 19 settlements in the Zaporizhzhia region in southern Ukraine. In the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region, two people were killed and five injured, and in Kherson region, three civilians were slain and 11 injured.

One person was killed and four wounded in the Sumy region in northeast Ukraine. In the Kharkiv region, 29 were injured, including a child, and in the Donetsk region, 10 were wounded.

UPDATE 0739 GMT:

Ukrainian drones attacked the Signal radio plant in Russia’s Stavropol region overnight.

Stavropol Governor Vladimir Vladimirov confirmed the attack, saying the drones had caused a small fire. No casualties were reported.

The independent Russian outlet Astra posted video purportedly showing a direct strike on one of the facility’s buildings.

The plant, around 500 km (311 miles) from Ukraine-controlled territory, manufactures electronic warfare equipment for front-line aircraft. It is sanctioned by the European Union, the US, Ukraine, and Japan.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: The Kremlin has rejected Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call for a face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin in the near future.

Zelensky said on Friday that the proposal had been discussed in the third set of Ukraine-Russia talks in Istanbul last Wednesday: “They have begun to discuss it. This is already progress toward some kind of meeting format.”

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said later in the day:

A meeting at the highest level can and must put an end to the settlement and fix the modalities of these agreements, which are to be developed during expert work. It is impossible to do otherwise.

Is it possible to go through such a complex process in 30 days? Well, obviously, it is unlikely.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had said in a televised interview, “In principle, an agreement was reached to hold a summit of the leaders in Turkey.” He claimed both sides were showing a desire to find a compromise, and if the process was maintained, “an intermediate solution may be reached”.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on July 25 that he would like to organize a meeting in Istanbul between Putin and US Donald Trump to discuss ending Russia’s 41-month full-scale invasion.

The Kremlin has not eased its ultimata for Ukraine’s capitulation. They include recognition of Russia’s seizure of about 20% of the country; the rest of Ukraine kept weak, demilitarized, and “neutral” with no effective security guarantees from partners; and the removal of all sanctions on Moscow.