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What did the final days of 2019 bring Kyiv's neighbourhood?
Summary
A look back at three regional developments reported between 21 and 24 December 2019, from a Crimea rail link to a strike in Idlib.
What was happening around Ukraine and its region as 26 December 2019 arrived? The reports from the preceding days pointed in three directions: Crimea, Syria and the Russian gas pipeline to Europe.
Rail link to Crimea
On 23 December 2019, construction of the bridge across the Kerch Strait was completed, and a railway connecting Russia with Crimea, which Russia occupies, was put into operation.
Pipeline pressure
On 21 December 2019, Nord Stream 2 said it would finish construction of the Russian gas pipeline to Europe as soon as possible. The statement followed a contractor's decision to suspend pipe-laying work because of U.S. sanctions.
Strike on a shelter in Idlib
On 24 December 2019, a war monitor reported that eight people, including five children, were killed when a missile struck a school in Jobas, in Idlib District. The school was being used as a shelter for displaced civilians. Opposition activists blamed Russia. The incident took place during the northwestern Syria offensive, which ran from December 2019 to March 2020.
Taken together, the reports from 21 to 24 December 2019 show Russia at the centre of three separate stories: infrastructure in occupied Crimea, a gas pipeline hit by sanctions, and a deadly strike in Syria that activists attributed to it.
