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Sanctions and air patrols: late December 2020
Summary
Two developments from the days before 24 December 2020 showed pressure on Minsk from Washington and a joint Chinese-Russian show of force near South Korea.
What did the days leading up to 24 December 2020 show about the pressures on Ukraine's wider neighbourhood? Two developments stood out, one over Belarus and one in East Asia.
On 23 December 2020, the Trump administration imposed additional sanctions on Belarusian officials and four offices. The measures targeted human rights abuses that occurred during protests against President Alexander Lukashenko.
On 22 December 2020, South Korea said it had scrambled fighter jets after four Chinese and fifteen Russian military aircraft entered its air defence identification zone. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said China had notified it in advance of a joint military exercise between China and Russia.
Taken together, the two events involved Washington acting against officials in Minsk and Moscow taking part in a joint exercise with Beijing. For readers following Ukraine and its neighbours, both were part of the international picture as 2020 drew to a close.
