Description
Added on the 20/12/2019 21:31:51 - Copyright : AFP EN
Worshippers at a Tokyo shrine welcome the new year with an ice-cold bath in an annual tradition that dates back about 70 years Participants warm up through stretches and chants before plunging into a pool filled with huge ice blocks. IMAGES
US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mark Milley expresses strong doubt that Ukraine will succeed in driving Russian troops out of its territory this year. At a US-hosted meeting on Ukraine in Germany, Milley tells reporters: "From a military standpoint I still maintain that for this year it would be very, very difficult to militarily eject the Russian forces from all, every inch of... Russian-occupied Ukraine." SOUNDBITE
Former Russian defence reporter, Ivan Safronov, is sentenced to 22 years on treason charges by a Moscow court. Safronov, 32, appeared handcuffed inside a glass box. Safronov was one of the country's most respected reporters, working for business newspapers Kommersant and Vedomosti. He is accused of divulging state secrets. IMAGES
The EU has so far frozen nearly 30 billion euros in assets from blacklisted Russian and Belarusian individuals and companies under sanctions imposed for Moscow's war in Ukraine, it says. SOUNDBITE
In images released by the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, firefighters are seen putting out a fire at a fuel storage facility in the southern city of Belgorod, after "an air strike carried out by two Ukrainian army helicopters", according to the local governor Vyacheslav Gladkov. Belgorod lies some 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Russia's border with Ukraine and some 80 kilometres from the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, which has been pummelled by Russian forces since Moscow launched its war on February 24. IMAGES
The final part of the trial of Russian historian Oleg Sokolov, accused of murdering and dismembering his former student lover, resumes in St Petersburg. Prosecutors in Saint Petersburg have requested a 15-year jail term for a decorated Russian historian and Napoleon enthusiast. IMAGES