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Geopolitics Hub

Policy Backgrounders

CED’s Policy Backgrounders provide timely insights on prominent business and economic policy issues facing the nation.

The Weekly News Round-Up: Geopolitical Developments 34

January 13, 2023

Military developments: Fighting centered on the town of Soledar near Bakhmut, where fighting has occurred for several weeks involving Russian forces and mercenaries from the Wagner Group connected with oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin. (A new estimate suggested that Wagner Group may account for up to a quarter of Russian forces at the front.) President Zelensky said of the Soledar fighting that “[t]his is what madness looks like. Everything is completely destroyed. There is almost no life.” Ukraine charged that Russia violated its cease-fire for Orthodox Christmas celebrations 14 times in Luhansk alone, including an attack on a village Ukraine had liberated. The UK Ministry of Defence said fighting occurred at a “routine level” during the cease-fire. Russia attacked Kharkiv shortly after the departure of German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock from the city. More broadly, however, US officials estimate that Russian artillery fire in Ukraine has dropped up to 75 percent, perhaps showing Russian battlefield weaknesses. Russia replaced its commander in Ukraine, appointing General Valery Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff of Russian Armed Forces, in place of General Sergei Surovikin, who will become Gerasimov’s deputy. This is the Russia’s third replacement of its commanding officer in Ukraine. A Russian naval vessel carrying hypersonic missiles carried out military exercises in the Norwegian Sea.

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