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What happened around 30 December 2019 in security
Summary
A look back at the prisoner exchange in Donbas, Russia's Avangard announcement and a deadly strike in Idlib in the days before the covered date.
What did the security picture look like on 30 December 2019? Three reports from the final days of the year, including one from the day before, set out the backdrop.
An exchange in Donbas
On 29 December 2019, the Ukrainian government and separatist rebels exchanged prisoners in the war in Donbas. The swap followed the "all identified for all identified" formula agreed during peace talks in Paris earlier that month.
Russia announces Avangard
On 27 December 2019, Russia's Ministry of Defence announced the first deployment of the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle and called it a "landmark event". President Vladimir Putin said its top speed was over Mach 20 and that it put Russia's military "ahead of all other nations".
Idlib school struck
On 24 December 2019, a war monitor reported that eight people, five of them children, were killed when a missile hit a school in Jobas, in Idlib District. The school was being used as a shelter for displaced civilians. Opposition activists blamed Russia. The strike fell within the northwestern Syria offensive that ran from December 2019 to March 2020.
Taken together, the reports show a week in which a negotiated exchange in eastern Ukraine, a new weapons announcement from Moscow and fighting in Syria were all in the news.
