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What did 13 December 2021 reveal about Kyiv?
Summary
A dismissal at Ukraine's interior ministry and a US position on troops set the context for that mid-December date.
What was happening around Kyiv on 13 December 2021? On that date, Ukraine's deputy interior minister, Oleksandr Hohilashvili, was dismissed from his post after a series of high-profile scandals.
The dismissal was a domestic matter, and no further cause or consequence was reported alongside it. It showed the interior ministry dealing with the fallout from those scandals at the level of its deputy leadership.
The security picture abroad was moving at the same time. On 8 December 2021, US President Joe Biden ruled out deploying American troops unilaterally to Ukraine to deter a potential Russian invasion, saying that the option was not on the table. That statement was part of the backdrop to the war in Donbas as December 2021 went on.
Taken together, the two developments sat on different tracks: one a personnel decision inside the Ukrainian government, the other a declaration about the limits of US military involvement. Both were part of the political picture in Ukraine in the days around 13 December 2021.
