Vladimir Putin’s vengeful withdrawal from Lyman and the destruction of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in the region of Sevastopol

Russia said Thursday its forces would help evacuate residents of occupied Kherson to other areas, as Ukraine’s offensive continued to make gains in the region. The announcement came shortly after the head of the Moscow-backed administration in Kherson appealed to the Kremlin for help moving residents out of harm’s way, in the latest indication that Russian forces were struggling in the face of Ukrainian advances.

Russia’s withdrawal from Lyman complicates its internationally vilified declaration just a day earlier that it had annexed four regions of Ukraine — an area that includes Lyman. The move to take the city will allow the Ukrainian troops to push further into land that Moscow currently claims as its own.

Vladimir Putin’s latest display of brutality and vengeance might be a fit of fury over his signature Crimean bridge being blown up. But his indiscriminate targeting of Ukrainian civilians also raises the prospect of a horrific new turn in a vicious war.

Russia has in the last few days launched missiles and drones at the energy infrastructure of Ukraine. The damage has been substantial, but Ukraine says it has taken out around half of the missiles it has fired, and it is expecting the success rate to get better as new air defenses arrive.

Some commentators in Moscow thought the withdrawal was a humiliation and embarrassment. Other people who were critical of the defense ministry have now accepted the move. Cheche leader Ramzan Kadyrov said that it was a difficult choice between sacrifice and loud statements, but that they had saved a thousand soldiers.

Meanwhile, on the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula, the governor of the city of Sevastopol announced an emergency situation at an airfield there. Explosions and huge billows of smoke could be seen from a distance by beachgoers in the Russian-held resort. Authorities said a plane rolled off the runway at the Belbek airfield and ammunition that was reportedly on board caught fire.

Russia rained destruction and death on Ukrainian towns and cities, using missiles and rockets far from any combat, as they lost ground in Ukraine.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, and his army are determined to liberate the regions that Putin claimed to have annexed.

The “Stay Grab” of the Ukrainian Nuclear Power Plant Staved by a Violation of Putin’s Decree

The governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleh Syniehubov, said 24 civilians were killed in an attack this week on a convoy trying to flee the Kupiansk district. He termed it “ruelty that can’t be justified.” He said 13 children and a pregnant woman were among the dead.

STAVKY, Ukraine — Racing down a road with his men in pursuit of retreating Russian soldiers, a battalion commander came across an abandoned Russian armored vehicle, its engine still running. There was a rifle, grenades, helmets, and other items in the room. The men were nowhere to be found.

The chief diplomatic adviser to Zelensky told CNN that he thought that 56 of the 84 missiles and drones fired by Russia were shot down by Ukraine after an explosion on the bridge linking the peninsula to the mainland.

The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog is expected to visit the Ukrainian capital this week to discuss the situation after Putin ordered Russia to take over the Zaporizhzhia facility. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry called it a criminal act and said it considered Putin’s decree “null and void.” The state nuclear operator, Energoatom, said it would continue to operate the plant.

Russia did not publicly comment on the report. The International Atomic Energy Agency said Russia told it that “the director-general of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was temporarily detained to answer questions.”

Ukraine has been facing a wide assault on its critical infrastructure and power sources since early October. This has left millions across the country facing power cuts amid freezing winter temperatures.

After Friday’s land grab, Russia now claims sovereignty over 15% of Ukraine, in what NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called “the largest attempted annexation of European territory by force since the Second World War.”

The Russian attack on Lyman, the strategically annexed Ukrainian railway hub, and a “European Political Community” launched in Prague on Sunday

The bill signed Friday by Biden contains more than $11 billion in military and economic aid for the war in Ukraine.

Pressure on a Russian leadership already facing withering criticism at home for its handling of the conflict in eastern Europe intensified after the debacle in the city of Lyman, a strategic railway hub.

In a candid article published on Sunday, the Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda reported that in the last few days of their occupation they had been plagued by desertion, poor planning and delayed arrival of reserves.

The strikes came just hours after Ukraine’s president announced that the country’s military had retaken three more villages in one of the regions illegally annexed by Russia.

A 3-year-old girl was taken to the hospital for treatment after being rescued from multi-story buildings, according to the Telegram channel of the governor.

Rogov also said that Ukrainians “have concentrated significant number of militants in Zaporizhzhia direction” and that the risk of storming the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant “remains high”.

Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, plans to talk with Ukrainian officials about the Russian move. He will discuss the situation around the facility, which was damaged in the fighting and saw staff including its director kidnapped by Russian troops.

A day after the Kremlin let go of the door for further land grabs, more than 40 countries are gathering in Prague to launch a “European Political Community” to boost security and prosperity across the continent.

The destruction of the Syrian city Lyman, Ukraine, by a Russian army during the 2014 Ukrainian invasion of Crimea is “the beginning of the end of the war”

The Russian region is a Russian region according to the spokesman for the Kremlin. “It has been legally fixed and defined. There can’t be any changes here.

The precise borders of the areas Moscow is claiming remain unclear, but Putin has vowed to defend Russia’s territory — including the annexed regions — with any means at his military’s disposal, including nuclear weapons.

Ukrainian forces have been working to restore utilities and provide basic needs for residents in the southern city of Kherson since Russia’s retreat. On Monday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the city and hailed Russia’s withdrawal as “the beginning of the end of the war.” Both sides prepare their next moves along the shifted front lines.

The deputy head of the Ukrainian regional government, Yurii Sobolevskyi, said military hospitals were full of wounded Russian soldiers and that Russian military medics lacked supplies. Once they are stabilized, Russian soldiers are being sent to Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

— In the devastated Ukrainian city of Lyman, which was recently recaptured after a months-long Russian occupation, Ukrainian national police said authorities have exhumed the first 20 bodies from a mass burial site. There are indications that over 200 civilians are buried in one location and that there are bodies of fallen Ukrainian soldiers in another grave. The civilians, including children, were buried in single graves, while members of the military were buried in a 40-meter long trench, according to police.

As Ukrainian soldiers fought to take it back, it suffered a lot of damage. About 100 residents lined up for help on Wednesday, including Mykola, a 71-year-old man who gave only his first name.

A Russian rebuke to Russia for the invasion of Ukraine: Enerhodar, a city devastated by a nuclear power plant

He said they want the war to end so the pharmacy and shops and hospitals can open again. We have nothing yet. Everything is destroyed and pillaged, a complete disaster.”

Zelenskyy spokeRussian in his nightly address, telling Moscow that it had already lost the war launched on February 24.

The commander uses the code name Swat and said that they dropped everything from personal care to helmets. I think it was a special unit, and they were panicked. The road was not good, and the rain made it very hard to drive.

There has been little time for reflection for the Ukrainians as they press their counterattack, focused on keeping the pressure on the retreating Russian army to prevent it from regrouping. Yet after months in the trenches never seeing the faces of the enemy, Ukrainian soldiers and commanders have now engaged the Russians up close and gotten a chance to size up their opponent.

It was an implicit rebuke to Russia for it’s invasion of Ukraine when the Human Rights activists in Russia were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The rockets at Nikopol, across from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, damaged power lines, gas pipelines, and a raft of civilian businesses and residential buildings, Ukrainian officials said. Russia and Ukraine have been at odds for months, accusing each other of shooting at and around the nuclear plant. It’s run by its pre-occupation Ukrainian staff under Russian oversight.

The city of Enerhodar, located near a nuclear power plant that is currently under Russian control, had a power and cellular connection restored on Sunday.

Rogov, a pro-Russian leader in the Zaporizhzhia government wrote in a telegram post Sunday that water supply will be restored soon.

Orlov said “the Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly tried to deliver humanitarian supplies with food, hygiene products and so on to the city,” adding that Ukraine is “ready to organize prompt delivery and distribution of drinking water in Enerhodar” but that Russian forces have not let humanitarian aid through.

“There’s no doubt it was a terrorist act directed at the destruction of critically important civilian infrastructure of the Russian Federation,” Putin said in a video of a meeting Sunday with the chairman of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin. The authors, perpetrators, and those who ordered it were all part of the special services of Ukraine.

The damage to the bridge is likely to increase tensions between Russia and its allies but doesn’t mean that Russia can’t send its troops to Ukraine, according to the Institute for the Study of War.

The Bridge Explosion that Killed a Moscow Building: A Serendipitous Damnation of the Kremlin Era

He said that the truck route had taken it to many places including Georgia and Krasnodar, a region in southern Russia.

Stunned residents watched from behind police tape as emergency crews tried to reach the upper floors of a building that took a direct hit. The chasm was at least 40 feet wide. In an adjacent apartment building, the missile barrage blew windows and doors out of their frames in a radius of hundreds of feet. At least 20 private homes and 50 apartment buildings were damaged, the city council secretary said.

“There was one explosion, then another one,” 76-year-old Mucola Markovich said. In a flash, the fourth-floor apartment he shared with his wife was gone.

Three people volunteered to dig a grave for a German Shepherd that was killed in the strike and had its leg blown off by the blast.

Abbas Gallyamov, an independent Russian political analyst and a former speechwriter for Putin, said the Russian president, who formed a committee Saturday to investigate the bridge explosion, had not responded forcefully enough to satisfy angry war hawks. The attack and response, he said, has “inspired the opposition, while the loyalists are demoralized.”

When authorities claim everything is going according to plan, and they’re lying, it demoralizes them.

Moscow attacks on Ukraine have killed at least 11 people, and it is a tough day when you’re dealing with terrorists, according to Russian media

Last week, Putin was shown repairs to the bridge that he opened last year and then drove a car across it.

It’s a popular vacation resort for Russians. There were long traffic jams on Sunday when people were trying to drive to the bridge.

Zelenskyy said that the city was turned into burnt ruins by the Russians. Russia is trying to move into the city in the eastern region of the country.

— The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, meanwhile, said that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s biggest, had been reconnected to the grid after losing its last external power source early Saturday following shelling.

Meanwhile, Russian officials said Sunday morning that Ukrainian missiles had hit several apartment buildings in the Donetsk People’s Republic and that some landed near the Opera and Ballet Theater and the Kalinin Hospital.

But Ukraine’s energy operators are getting used to repairing electricity substations, pylons and thermal power plants. Zelensky said Tuesday: “Most of the towns and villages, which terrorists wanted to leave without electricity and communication, already have electricity and communication back.”

In recent months, NATO and the U.S. have been trying to figure out how to help Ukraine defend itself against the Russian military campaign that has destroyed a large portion of the country’s energy infrastructure.

Millions of civilians have been left without vital services in the winter due to Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid. Repeated missile and drone attacks since October, which have damaged or destroyed civilian infrastructure, are part of a strategy by the Kremlin to terrorize Ukrainians and is in violation of the laws of war, according to experts.

“It’s a tough morning when you’re dealing with terrorists,” said Zelenskyy in the video, which recalled the selfie he took the night Russia invaded in February. “They’re choosing targets to harm as many people as possible.”

In Kyiv, blasts were heard as early as 6:45 a.m. local time, including one in the city’s Shevchenkivskyi district. TheUkrainian capital had been hit four times by 9 a.m. One of the strikes was very close to the main train station in the city of Kyiv. Authorities have asked people to stay indoors.

“This happened at rush hour, as lots of public transport was operating in the city,” said Ihor Makovtsev, the head of the department of transport for the Dnipro city council, as he stood by the wreckage. He explained that the bus driver and four passengers were in the hospital with serious injuries.

Viktor Shevchenko’s “small” apartment in Ukraine and the threat of Russian missile swarms in the air defenses

“It’s hard for me to comprehend the logic of their work because they only use transportation for civilian purposes,” he said.

81-year-old Viktor Shevchenko looked out from what once were the windows of his first floor balcony, just next to the bus stop. There were shards of glass on the ground. He said he had been watering the plants on his balcony just minutes before the blast, but went to his kitchen to make breakfast.

“The explosion blew open all of my cabinets, and nearly knocked me to the ground,” he said. I would have been on the balcony with a full glass of drinking water.

Until more arrive, there is the risk – all too familiar to the government and people of Ukraine – that the Russian mix of missiles will wreak much greater havoc among the civilian population, especially if the Russians persist with the tactic of using swarms of missiles, inundating air defenses.

“We warned Zelenskyy that Russia hadn’t really started yet,” wrote Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a loyalist to Putin who repeatedly has attacked Russia’s Defense Ministry for incompetence in carrying out the military campaign.

The Moscow-based mayor of Donetsk, Ukraine, is in a serious danger to Russia: the latest attack on the Alexander Putin Bridge

Editor’s Note: Michael Bociurkiw (@WorldAffairsPro) is a global affairs analyst. He is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former spokesperson for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He is a regular contributor to CNN Opinion. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.

Recent days have meanwhile shown that sites beyond the current theater of ground fighting are far from immune to attacks. Even though the reason for the attack on the bridge is unclear, the fact that it was successfully hit is suggestive of a serious Ukrainian threat against key Russian assets.

“At exactly 7 a.m. the (Ukrainians) subjected the center of Donetsk (city) to the most massive strike since 2014,” the Moscow-appointed mayor, Aleksey Kulemzin, posted on Telegram.

The area surrounding my office in Odesa remained quiet during the air raid sirens with reports of three missiles and five drones being shot down. (Normally at this time of the day, nearby restaurants would be heaving with customers, and chatter of plans for upcoming weddings and parties).

Back when Russian troops rolled in at the beginning of the war, this was a city that tried to resist: people were taken away, tortured, disappeared, residents said.

In order to accommodate the need for people to spend most of the day in bomb shelters, officials have ordered businesses to shift work to online as much as possible.

With many asylum seekers coming home, the attacks may cause another blow to business confidence.

For Putin, the symbolism of the only bridge linking mainland Russia and Crimea cannot be overstated. That the attack took place a day after his 70th birthday (the timing prompted creative social media denizens to create a split-screen video of Marilyn Monroe singing ‘Happy Birthday, Mr President”) can be taken as an added blow to an aging autocrat whose ability to withstand shame and humiliation is probably nil.

The explosion caused an instantaneous reaction from the Ukrainians, with funny videos flooding social media channels. Many people shared their jubilation with text messages.

The Putin-Putnam War: Bringing Back the Cold War to an End with a Light Heavy Cruise-Militor Attack

It was also an act of selfish desperation: facing increasing criticism at home, including on state-controlled television, has placed Putin on unusually thin ice.

Faced with growing setbacks, the Kremlin appointed a new overall commander of Russia’s invasion. But there is little sign that Gen. Sergey Surovikin can lead his forces back onto the front foot before the end of the year, given the pace and cost of the Ukrainian counter-offensives.

What is crucially important now is for Washington and other allies to use urgent telephone diplomacy to urge China and India – which presumably still have some leverage over Putin – to resist the urge to use even more deadly weapons.

Furthermore, high tech defense systems are needed to protect Kyiv and crucial energy infrastructure around the country. The need to protect heating systems is urgent this winter.

The time has come for the West to impose travel restrictions and trade restrictions on Russia in order to have enough of a impact on Russians travelling to the Gulf states.

Anything short of these measures will only allow Putin to continue his senseless violence and further exacerbate a humanitarian crisis that will reverberate throughout Europe. A weak reaction will be taken as a sign in the Kremlin that it can continue to weaponize energy, migration and food.

Russia launched 84 cruise missiles in one day, according to Ukrainian officials, making it the heaviest missile attack on the country since the start of the war. CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh reports from Dnipro, Ukraine.

Is Vladimir Putin humiliated? Inflicting terror on civilians in the aftermath of the February 11 September 11 attacks in Kyiv

The emergency services said that there were at least 30 fires in 12 regions and the capital.

Russian missiles damaged a glass-bottomed footbridge in Kyiv that is a popular tourist site, tore into intersections at rush hour and crashed down near a children’s playground on Monday. Power outages rolled across the country, in places cutting off water supplies and transport, in strikes that recalled the terror inflicted on civilians in the invasion’s early days but that had largely ebbed in recent months.

The attacks snatched away the semblance of normality that city dwellers, who spent months earlier in the war in subways turned into air raid shelters, have managed to restore to their lives and raised fears of new strikes.

The message was obvious for the world to see. Putin does not intend to be humiliated. He will not admit defeat. And he is quite prepared to inflict civilian carnage and indiscriminate terror in response to his string of battlefield reversals.

The targets on Monday did not have a great military value and reflect Putin’s need to find new targets because of his inability to win battles on the battlefield.

The bombing of power installations, in particular, Monday appeared to be an unsubtle hint of the misery the Russian President could inflict as winter sets in, even as his forces retreat in the face of Ukrainian troops using Western arms.

The attacks on civilians, which killed at least 14 people, also drove new attention to what next steps the US and its allies must take to respond, after already sending billions of dollars of arms and kits to Ukraine in an effective proxy war with Moscow.

The lessons from the Ukraine crisis: How Putin has broken up the Ukrainian people and how he is going to fight it, and what he wants to do

The White House didn’t specify what advanced air systems would be sent, but it did say Biden offered to help defend against Russian air attacks.

John Kirby said that Washington was in contact with the government in Kyiv every day and that they were looking favorably onUkraine’s requests. “We do the best we can in subsequent packages to meet those needs,” he told CNN’s Kate Bolduan.

Kirby was also unable to say whether Putin was definitively shifting his strategy from a losing battlefield war to a campaign to pummel civilian morale and inflict devastating damage on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, though he suggested it was a trend developing in recent days and had already been in the works.

It was something that they had been planning for a long time. Now that’s not to say that the explosion on the Crimea bridge might have accelerated some of their planning,” Kirby said.

Stremousov has been critical of the decision-makers on the battlefield. He blamed incompetent commanders, who had not been held accountable for mistakes, for the military setbacks in Kherson.

But French President Emmanuel Macron underscored Western concerns that Monday’s rush-hour attacks in Ukraine could be the prelude to another pivot in the conflict.

Alexander Vindman, a former director of European Affairs for the National Security Council, said that Putin was sending a message about how he will prosecute the war when he attacked targets that were designed to hurt the Ukrainian people.

“So imagine if we had modern equipment, we probably could raise the number of those drones and missiles downed and not kill innocent civilians or wound and injure Ukrainians,” Zhovkva said.

The lesson of the war is that everything Putin has done to break up a nation he doesn’t believe in has strengthened and unified it.

Olena Gnes told Anderson Cooper she was angry that Russians were again attacking Ukrainians in her home country, and she was documenting the conflict on her website.

She said that this was just another terror to causepanic, scare you guys in other countries, or to show to his own people that he is still a powerful and bloody tyrant.

“We do not feel desperate … we are more sure even than before that Ukraine will win and we need it as fast as possible because … only after we win in this war and only after Russia is defeated, we will have our peace back here.”

The state media of Russia insisted that the country was only in Ukraine to hit military targets,leaving out the suffering that has taken place.

State television reported on the suffering on Monday, as well as showing it. It showed plumes of smoke and carnage in central Kyiv, along with empty store shelves and a long-range forecast promising months of freezing temperatures there.

The Russian military appears to have embarked on a new tactic in its efforts to turn the tide of its faltering war: trying to overwhelm Ukraine’s largely Soviet-era air defenses with dozens of missiles and drones from multiple directions.

Moscow’s calculations are simple: A percentage of projectiles are bound to get through, that’s what it’s all about.

Western assessments suggest that Moscow does not have the capacity to keep it up, despite experts believe that Russia’s aerial bombardment will form a recurrent pattern.

It’s hard to figure out what Russian missile inventories are. In May, President Zelensky claimed Russia had launched 2,540 missiles and used up a fifth of the precision-missile arsenal. That now looks like wishful thinking.

The Russians have been using the S-300 as an offensive missile, which has some effect. These have wrought devastation in Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv, among other places, and their speed makes them difficult to intercept. But they are hardly accurate.

He told CNN’s Richard that this was the first time that Russia had targeted energy infrastructure during the war.

A senior Defense Department official added that work was continuing on improving Ukrainian air defenses, including “finding Soviet-era capabilities to make sure that countries were ready (and) could donate them and help move those capabilities.”

Shahed models are known for crashing into targets with bombs. Russia ordered 2,400 of the drones from Iran, which overwhelms the Ukrainian air defense systems. As of 10am, Ukraine’s Air Force claims to have shot down 11 drones.

Ukraine’s wish-list – circulated at Wednesday’s meeting – included missiles for their existing systems and a “transition to Western-origin layered air defense system” as well as “early warning capabilities.”

He said that the system would not control all the airspace overUkraine, but they were designed for priority targets that Ukraine needed to protect. A mix of all of the above is what you are looking at, and it is a short-range low altitude system, a medium altitude system, and a long-range and high altitude system.

Western systems are beginning to trickle in. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Tuesday that a “new era of air defense has begun” with the arrival of the first IRIS-T from Germany, and two units of the US National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAM) expected soon.

This is just the beginning. And we need more,” Reznikov said Wednesday before tweeting as he met with Ukraine’s donors at the Brussels meeting:” Item #1 on today’s agenda is strengthening (Ukraine’s) air defense. Feeling optimistic.”

Ukraine “badly needed” modern systems such as the IRIS-T that arrived this week from Germany and the NASAMS expected from the United States, Bronk said.

Ukrainian air defenses in the aftermath of the November 11 December bombings: evacuating the Ukrainians across the Dnipro river

The air defense battalion that Poland had trained to destroy nine of 11 Shaheeds was the subject of a message from the general on Tuesday.

He said Poland had given Ukraine “systems” to help destroy the drones. Last month there were reports that the Polish government had bought advanced Israeli equipment (Israel has a policy of not selling “advanced defensive technology” to Kyiv) and was then transferring it to Ukraine.

In a video address, Vladimir Saldo, the Kremlin-installed administrator, called on residents from districts surrounding the regional capital of Kherson to evacuate across the Dnipro river — a key defense line — as Ukrainian forces continue to gain ground in Ukraine’s south.

Four people were killed when the southern city of Kherson was bombarded with rockets and shells in November, according to the head of the region’s military administration. A man was found dead in an apartment that had been set on fire, according to the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General’s Office. The city is still struggling to restore basic services.

If there was a wish to protect themselves from missiles, the residents of the Kherson region should leave and take with them their children.

However, Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Kherson region’s military administration, said that the civilian transports were not an “evacuation.”

On Tuesday, about 70 countries and international organizations pledged more than $1 billion to help repair Ukraine’s infrastructure. The Pentagon announced last week that an additional sum of $275 million in security assistance for Ukraine had been approved, including equipment to improve its air defense. The US is spending $53 million on repairs to Ukraine’s power system.

Some five days after the bombing, the images captured hundreds of trucks backed up and waiting to cross into Russia by ferry. The images, captured on Wednesday by Maxar Technologies, show a big backup at the port in Kerch and a line of trucks miles away at an airport that is apparently being used as a staging area.

A senior Russia analyst at the International Crisis Group said the long lines for the ferry crossing had been worsened by security checkpoint set up after the bridge explosion.

The Russia Road to War with Ukraine: a Feedback From the Kremlin, From the Western Front to the Electroweak Scale

Not for the first time, the war is going towards a new phase. “This is now the third, fourth, possibly fifth different war that we’ve been observing,” said Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Programme.

With the cold months approaching and likely bringing a slowdown in ground combat, experts say that the next weeks of the war are important and that a potential spike in intensity looms over Ukraine as each side seeks to hit another blow.

It means that, as winter approaches, the stakes of the war have been raised once more. Giles said that Russia would like to keep it up. The successes of recent weeks have sent a direct message to the Kremlin. “They are able to do things that take us by surprise, so let’s get used to it,” Giles said.

These counter-offensives have shifted the momentum of the war and disproved a suggestion, built up in the West and in Russia during the summer, that while Ukraine could stoutly defend territory, it lacked the ability to seize ground.

“The Russians are playing for the whistle – (hoping to) avoid a collapse in their frontline before the winter sets in,” Samir Puri, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the author of “Russia’s Road to War with Ukraine,” told CNN.

“If they can get to Christmas with the frontline looking roughly as it is, that’s a huge success for the Russians given how botched this has been since February.”

Landing a major blow in Donbas would send another powerful signal, and Ukraine will be eager to improve on its gains before temperatures plummet on the battlefield, and the full impact of rising energy prices is felt around Europe.

Giles said there are many reasons why Ukraine wants to get things done quickly. The winter energy crisis in Europe, and energy infrastructure and power being destroyed in Ukraine is always going to be a test of resilience for the western backers of the country.

NATO leaders have vowed to stand behind Ukraine regardless of how long the war takes, but several European countries – particularly those that relied heavily on Russian energy – are staring down a crippling cost-of-living crisis which, without signs of Ukrainian progress on the battlefield, could endanger public support.

“We know – and Russian commanders on the ground know – that their supplies and munitions are running out,” Jeremy Fleming, a UK’s spy chief, said in a rare speech on Tuesday.

That conclusion was also reached by the ISW, which said in its daily update on the conflict Monday that the strikes “wasted some of Russia’s dwindling precision weapons against civilian targets, as opposed to militarily significant targets.”

Exactly how much weaponry and manpower each side has left in reserve will be crucial to determining how the momentum will shift in the coming weeks. Ukraine said it intercepted 18 cruise missiles on Tuesday and dozens more on Monday, but it is urging its Western allies for more equipment to repel any future attacks.

Some help for Putin may be on the way, however. There were fears that a joint regional group of troops could be formed by Belarus and Russia after the announcement by Alexander Lukashenko. Belarus has been complaining of alleged Ukrainian threats to its security in recent days, which observers say could be a prelude to some level of involvement.

“The reopening of a northern front would be another new challenge for Ukraine,” Giles said. It would make it easier for Russia to get into the region that has been reclaimed by the Ukrainians.

The Ukrainian military has shown resilience after a lightning fast advance in September, and will hopefully continue to do so as the US encourages Zelensky to modify his demands.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday that Ukraine needed “more” systems to better halt missile attacks, ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels.

How Putin feels war on Ukraine – and how the world is reacting to it: a critical evaluation of Kiev’s situation in Donetsk

The coming weeks are therefore crucial both on the battlefield, as well as in Europe and around the globe, experts suggest. “As ever, where Putin goes next depends on how the rest of the world is responding,” Giles said. “Russia’s attitude is shaped by the failure of Western countries to confront and deter it.”

That is not to say that mobilized forces won’t be used. If used in support roles, like drivers or refuelers, they might ease the burden on the remaining parts of Russia’s exhausted professional army. They could also fill out depleted units along the line of contact, cordon some areas and man checkpoints in the rear. They are unlikely to become a fighting force. Already there are signs of discipline problems among mobilized soldiers in Russian garrisons.

In that circumstance, Mr. Putin would be more aggressive against the people of Ukraine. The attacks of the past week — particularly striking critical civilian infrastructure — could be expanded across Ukraine if missile supplies hold out, while Russia could directly target the Ukrainian leadership with strikes or special operations.

Struggling on the battlefield in southern and eastern Ukraine, Russia felt war on its own territory on Sunday as more than a dozen explosions ripped through a Russian border region, and a series of blasts severely damaged the offices of Russia’s puppet government in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk.

Fourteen people were killed and fifteen more were wounded in a shooting at a military firing range in Russia on Saturday, in which two men from a former soviet republic shot and killed themselves. The Russian Defense Ministry said that the incident was a terrorist attack.

KYIV, Ukraine — Pro-Kremlin officials on Sunday blamed Ukraine for a rocket attack that struck the mayor’s office in Donetsk, a city controlled by the separatists, while Ukrainian officials said Russian rocket strikes hit a town across from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, among other targets.

On Russia’s “front-line failures” in the eastern Kherson region: The case of a Russian commander charged with the 2014 Ukrainian airline flight downing

Western intelligence officials have said that Russia allows convicts with long sentences for serious crimes to serve in its frontline troops in return for pay and immunity.

Zelenskyy’s office said Moscow was shelling towns and villages along the front line in the east Sunday, and that “active hostilities” continued in the southern Kherson region.

France is helping out with more military training to Ukraine, in an effort to puncture perception it lags behind in its support. The French defense minister, Sébastien Lecornu, told Le Parisien he believes there will be up to 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers embedded with military units in France.

The Institute for the Study of War suggested deporting Ukrainian citizens to Russian territory is a pretext for Russian citizens to populate areas with Ukrainians.

It referenced statements made this week by Russian authorities that claimed that “several thousand” children from a southern region occupied by Moscow had been placed in rest homes and children’s camps amid the Ukrainian counteroffensive. RIA Novosti reported on the original comments of Russia’s deputy prime minister.

Russian authorities have previously admitted to placing children from Russian-held areas of Ukraine, who they said were orphans, for adoption with Russian families, in a potential breach of an international treaty on genocide prevention.

Last month, the occupation authorities ordered the evacuation of civilians from the west side of the river. They sent thousands of them eastward, to territory that is held more firmly by Russia, while blocking routes into Ukrainian-controlled areas. The government installed by Moscow also departed, while looting the city, according to residents and Ukrainian officials.

— A Russian commander wanted for his role in the downing of a Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine in 2014 has been deployed to the front, according to social media posts by pro-Kremlin commentators. Posts by Maksim Fomin and others said that the person in charge of Russia’s front-line unit is Strelkov, the name of the man.

Girkin has been on an international wanted list over his alleged involvement in the downing of Kuala Lumpur-bound flight MH17, which killed 298 people. The Dutch court expects to hand down a verdict in the case on Nov. 17, but he remains the most high-profile suspect.

Moscow’s battlefield failures have been lashed out at by Girkin’s social media posts. Someone will get a $100,000 reward if they capture him, according to the defense intelligence agency.

The lines were operating normally, despite the reported attacks on infrastructure near the city’s main rail station.

The enemy can attack our cities, but it won’t break us. The occupiers will get only fair punishment and condemnation of future generations, and we will get victory,” wrote Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

In the past, Zelenskyy’s chief-of-staff has urged the west to give them more air defense systems. “We have no time for slow actions,” he said online.

The photo ofGeran-2 was removed from the picture after commenters objected to it because it had Russian designation for the Iranian drones.

Kamikaze Drone Attacks on Energy Infrastructure in Dnipropetrovsk (Ukraine): Security and Defence Efforts

European Union foreign ministers will meet in Luxembourg today. Before the meeting, Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, told reporters that the bloc would look into “concrete evidence” of Iran’s involvement in Ukraine.

At least one person was killed and warning sirens blared across the Ukrainian capital as a wave of drone attacks slammed into the area early Monday.

Kamikaze drones, or suicide drones, are small, portable aerial weapon systems that are hard to detect and can be fired at a distance. They are designed to be used to hit behind enemy lines and be destroyed in an attack.

One person was found dead under the rubble of a destroyed building in the city of Kyiv, but it is not clear how many casualties there have been. Another person is trapped, he said.

The attack on energy infrastructure in the Kamianske district of the Dnipropetrovsk region caused “fire” and “serious destruction,” according to regional military official Valentyn Reznichenko.

“Currently, all services are working on eliminating the consequences of shelling and restoring electricity supply. Shmyhal explained that each region has a crisis response plan.

“We ask Ukrainians, in order to stabilize the energy system, to take a united and conscious approach to economical consumption of electricity. Especially during peak hours.

Ukraine’s state energy supplier Ukrenergo said the power grid in the country remains “under control,” adding that repair crews are working to curb the consequences of the attacks.

Shmyhal’s announcement comes as Ukraine grapples with sweeping attacks on critical energy facilities, following deadly Russian strikes over the past week.

Nuclear deterrence exercises will be held by NATO. NATO has warned Russia not to use nuclear weapons on Ukraine but says the “Steadfast Noon” drills are a routine, annual training activity.

U.S. actions against the Russian annexation of four regions of Ukraine by the United Nations General Assembly: State of Ukraine and status of the situation

Russian agents held people who were suspected of carrying out a big explosion on a bridge.

The United Nations General Assembly roundly condemned Russia’s move to illegally annex four regions of Ukraine. Four countries voted alongside Russia, but 141 of them voted in favor of Ukrainian’s resolution, while 35 abstained.

You can read past recaps here. For context and more in-depth stories, you can find more of NPR’s coverage here. Also, listen and subscribe to NPR’s State of Ukraine podcast for updates throughout the day.

Pro-Russian officials in the annexed Kherson region claim that the evacuation of civilians and the retreat of Russian troops from the west bank to the east bank of Dnipro River is due to the threat of flooding that could occur if the Ukrainian military hits the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant dam.

Saldo gave residents the option of moving to any city in Russia and the Russian government would provide housing vouchers for those moving further away from the fighting.

“We will not surrender the city, and we will fight to the end,” he said, adding that residents whose homes might be damaged from shelling could receive compensation from the Russian government.

Earlier in October, Ukrainian forces in the Kherson region pushed the Russian line back by 20 miles, according to the President’s office and Deep State, an independent monitoring group.

The situation in Kherson is very difficult according to the General who was appointed to lead Russia’s armed forces in Ukrainian.

“We will operate with the goal of maximizing the safety of civilian population and our soldiers. “That is our priority, that is what we are looking at,” he said to the Zvezda channel, which is funded by the Defense Ministry.

The Ukrainian government would win back control of Kherson if it were able to repel the Russian forces who are on the run.

Grisly videos filmed by Ukrainian drones showing Russian infantry being struck by artillery in poorly prepared positions have partly supported those assertions, as has reporting in Russian news media of mobilized soldiers telling relatives about high casualty rates. The videos have not been verified and their exact location on the front line could not be determined.

Russian forces are staging up to 80 assaults per day, General Zaluzhnyi said in the statement, which described a telephone conversation with an American general, Christopher G. Cavoli, the supreme allied commander in Europe.

The Institute for the Study of War said in its assessment that the increase in infantry in the eastern part of Europe had not resulted in the gain of new ground for Russia.

The institute said in a statement on Thursday that Russian forces would have had more success if they had waited til enough people had arrived to establish a force large enough to overcome Ukrainian defenses.

Ukrainian military said it had fired more than 160 times at Russians over the past 24 hours while Russian return fire was also reported in the south.

With Russian and Ukrainian forces apparently preparing for battle in Kherson, and conflicting signals over what may be coming, the remaining residents of the city have been stocking up on food and fuel to survive combat.

And Ukraine will be watching America’s midterm election results this week, especially after some Republicans warned that the party could limit funding for Ukraine if it wins control of the House of Representatives, as forecast.

The madness that was left behind: Ulf Kristersson and the U.N. abandoned a U.S. atomic energy deal

Also Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will host Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. Erdogan insists Sweden must meet certain conditions before it can join NATO.

The International Atomic Energy Agency report is expected to be a topic of discussion at the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday.

Attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure left more than four million people without electricity, and the Ukrainian President accused Russia of energy terrorism.

Russia rejoined a U.N.-brokered deal to safely export grain and other agricultural goods from Ukraine, on Nov. 2. Moscow had suspended its part in the deal a few days prior after saying Ukraine had launched a drone attack on its Black Sea ships.

The Pentagon announced $400 million in additional security aid to Ukraine, on Nov. 4, to include 45 refurbished T-72 tanks, 1,100 Phoenix Ghost drones and other vehicles, technology and training.

“I still can’t believe that I left there,” says Viktor, while pulling a red suitcase from the black car he rode to Zaporizhia, about 25 miles from occupied territory. “The madness.”

His home is just outside Kherson. He and his wife Nadiya raised their three daughters there. A neighbor told Viktor that the Russians broke into the house after they left.

Artyom, the middle name of his family, and his wife: A tale about a man in Russia with a big beef beef feud

At a shelter, Artyom helps care for evacuees as if they were his own family, as he asks that he be called by his middle name, Artyom. Artyom wants us not to use his full name to protect his relatives.

His wife stays home as much as she can. But to earn money, she sells potatoes and vegetables she grows in her own garden at a local street market.

Artyom says that it’s not fine. He counts his fingers as he worries that Russians will stop his wife. He’s concerned that she will get sick. She’s four months’ pregnant. He worried about the baby.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/07/1134465380/kherson-ukraine-russia-battle-looms

Living in Kyiv, a place where Russian troops fought to protect Ukraine during the Second World War II: A touching tribute to Kherson city

Holovnya, who is living in Kyiv, calls some of them collaborators. And he says some are people who just can’t leave. Many of them are older. Others have limited resources. Their lives right now are “intense,” he says.

What little public interaction there is now in the city revolves mostly around the local street markets that popped up since the war began. Local bakers and farmers have been selling their goods at the street markets in Kherson because most of the stores in the town are either closed or empty.

“You can buy most items from start to finish, from medicine to meat,” says Schevansky, who left Kherson this summer. “But it’s terrible to observe. They sell medicine on a hood and cut meat on the side of the car.

Schevchenko, who is volunteering at an Odesa nonprofit called Side-by-Side to evacuate residents from Kherson and other occupied territories, remains in contact with those in the city. She says that her grandmother is the one giving her regular updates.

Artyom and his wife talk every now and then. They try to keep their conversations light but they worry that Russians are listening.

They agree it’s a good thing. Artyom may be able to go home soon due to the way it indicates the Ukrainians are getting closer.

Russian state media said that Ukrainian shelling had damaged power lines, but the exiled head of the Kherson regional military administration blamed Russian troops.

The Russian forces placed mines around water towers in Beryslav just north of a critical dam, which is less than 50 miles away from Kherson city, Mr.Yanushevych said.

The city had a lot of people living before the war. Ukrainian activists estimate that 30,000 to 60,000 people remain, but it is impossible to know how accurate such guesses are.

It was wonderful to be back in Kherson for many who had spent a lot of time trying to liberate their homes. The retreat by the Russians last week was a big blow to Moscow’s war effort. Kherson city was the only regional capital to fall to the Russians, who saw it as a stepping stone in their long-shot strategy to take over Ukraine’s Black Sea coast.

Despite the upbeat mood in the city, Russian troops are only a short distance away, having retreated from Kherson on the west bank of the Dnipro River to the east side. The two armies are in the same range of fire.

The agency also urged Russian soldiers abandoned by their military leadership and still in Kherson to surrender — offering to guarantee their rights would be protected under a program called “I Want to Live.”

“Your commanders ordered you to dress in civilian clothes and try to flee Kherson independently. Obviously, you won’t succeed,” the Ukrainian statement said.

Some in the crowd of locals sang the national anthem while others made a loud patriotic shout, as the crew filmed live in Kherson.

Reports surfaced that the area’s lone bridge across the Dnipro had been destroyed. Videos shared online appeared to show a large section of the bridge sheared off completely. Russian and Ukrainian officials traded accusations over who was responsible for the damage.

Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu was told earlier this week that the commander of Russia’s forces in Ukraine wanted to pull back from Kherson.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told Reuters in an interview on Thursday he believed it would take “as a minimum, one week” for Russian forces to leave the city and that Moscow still has some 40,000 troops in the region.

The move puts Kyiv on the cusp of achieving one of its most significant victories of the war and deals a bitter blow to President Vladimir V. Putin, who just a month ago declared Kherson a part of Russia forever.

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insisted that Russia still maintains a legal hold over the territory following the withdrawal. “Here there is no need for any changes,” Peskov said on Friday.

As Russian troops retreated from the Kherson region, the Ukrainian military warned them that roads were being mined and critical infrastructure was being destroyed.

When he spoke, the residents of the region who had been through nine months of occupation were happy to hear the news.

The Last Hour of the Ukrainian Occupation: Chaotic and Disorienting Continuum Traffic in Tyahinka, Kherson

The commander of the Ukrainian drone platoon said he had never seen any Russian troops or equipment in his area.

“The Russians left all the villages,” he said. We did not see a single car while looking at dozens of villages with our drones. We don’t see how they are leaving. They retreat quietly at night.

The apparent final hours of the Russian occupation overnight Thursday to Friday featured several explosions and were chaotic and disorienting, according to residents of Kherson reached by telephone on Friday morning.

Serhiy, a retiree in Kherson who asked not to be named for security reasons, said in a number of text messages before Ukrainian soldiers swept in that the conditions there had deteriorated.

“At night, a building burned in the very center, but it was not possible even to call the fire department,” he wrote. “There was no phone signal, no electricity, no heating and no water.”

While there was no visible Russian military presence in the city on Friday, four residents described seeing Russian soldiers dressed in civilian clothes — some armed — moving about parts of the city.

It will be easier for Russia to replenish its troops and regain defense in depth if they move to the east bank. Any attempt by Ukrainian forces to cross the Dnipro would be costly to the point of prohibitive, as Russian forces are well dug in along a stretch of the river. The trenches have appeared on satellite imagery as well as civilians being removed from homes close to the river.

“In the Kherson direction, the move of Russian military units to the left bank of the Dnieper River was completed at 0500 [Moscow time] this morning,” the ministry said on its official Telegram channel, using the Russian spelling for the river.

Russian forces loading boats that seem suitable for crossing and trying to escape across the river were said to by the Ukrainian military’s southern operational command.

A video on social media on Friday shows residents greeting Ukrainian forces on the main highway of Tyahinka. The village is located just outside of the Dnieper river at the Nova Kakhovka hydroelectric dam.

Kyiv officials had warned that retreating Russian troops could turn the regional capital of Kherson into a “city of death” on the way out, and an official in southern Ukraine warned residents Friday to be wary of quickly returning to recently liberated territory due to the threat of mines.

“There are a lot of mines in the liberated territories and settlements,” Vitaliy Kim, head of Mykolaiv region military administration, said on Telegram. “Don’t go there for no reason. There are casualties.”

The Case of Kherson: The Russian Federation in the midst of a World War II: The crisis in Kherson is coming to an end

“This is a subject of the Russian Federation,” Dmitry Peskov said during a regular briefing with journalists. “It has been legally fixed and defined. There can’t be changes here.

The relatively few residents who remain in Kherson have endured curfews, shortages of goods, partisan warfare and an intense campaign to force them to become Russian citizens and accept Moscow’s warped version of their culture and history.

Their suffering has not yet come into focus. For months, residents interviewed by journalists have told stories about abductions, children illegally deported, relatives killed, and more. There was evidence of human rights abuses when Russians were in the area.

Videos shared on social media by Zelenskyy and other officials and citizens showed crowds in the street celebrating and chanting “ZSU! The name ZSU! is for the country’s armed forces.

The retreat does not bode well for the war effort by Putin. Kherson was the only Ukrainian regional capital that Russian forces had captured since February’s invasion.

This week, the Kremlin also appeared to rebuff Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s peace solution that involved asking Russia to start withdrawing troops from Ukraine this Christmas – as the war approaches the 10-month mark.

The Russian pullout is believed to be a blow to Putin’s war effort because of the continued silence by the Russian leader.

The withdrawal of the Russian forces would protect the lives of the civilians and troops who have been under attack by the Ukrainians.

Success in Kherson may also allow exhausted Ukrainian units some respite, as well as allow redirected focus on Donbas, where fierce fighting continues in both Luhansk and Donetsk.

Ukranian authorities also have a massive task of reconstruction ahead in Kherson, where Russian forces destroyed critical infrastructure and left a huge number of mines behind.

On Friday, Maxar Technologies satellite images and other photos showed at least seven bridges, four of them crossing the Dnipro, have been destroyed in the last 24 hours.

There is damage to the dam on the east side of the Dnipro in the city of Nova Kakhovka. For weeks, both sides have accused the other of planning to breach the dam, which if destroyed would lead to extensive flooding on the east bank and deprive the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia of water to cool its reactors.

“The return of life” in Ukraine after Russian withdrawal from the west bank of the Kherson region (Russian War News-11-12-22)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Friday was “a historic day” for Ukraine after Russia announced its withdrawal from the west bank of the Kherson region.

Zelensky thanked everyone involved in the operation, from privates to generals, as well as the Security Service of Ukraine, the National Guard and the armed forces.

He said stabilization measures would be carried out due to the threat of mines. “The occupiers left a lot of mines and explosives, in particular at vital facilities. We will be clearing them,” he said.

“Our defenders are followed by police, sappers, rescuers, power engineers … Medicine, communications, social services are returning. … He said that life is returning.

Officials also on Friday warned displaced residents to hold off on returning to their homes in the newly retaken areas of Kherson, saying, “It’s too dangerous here now.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-11-12-22/index.html

When Russian forces invaded her hometown of Snihurivka: A CNN cosmopolitical investigation of the liberated territories

The leader of the military administration of Mykolaiv went to the small city of Snihurivka on Friday to discuss life in the liberated territories of the region.

Even though the relevant services have started moving mines in the liberated territories, I warn local residents to be careful.

Locals have climbed onto the top of the buildings to put up Ukrainian flags. Soldiers driving through are greeted with cheers and asked to sign autographs on flags.

“We were scared by the Russian army because they were able to come to our house at any time and steal and kill us, like they were living here,” she said.

The liberation of Katerina was the best day of her life after eight months under Russian occupation. “Our town is free, my street is free,” she told CNN.

A CNN military analyst stated that the next steps for the Ukrainian military would be a major urban operation. There will be a methodical effort to clear buildings of potential booby traps and mines.

For much of the journey through smaller towns and settlements, our team of CNN journalists was forced to drive through diversions and fields: bridges over canals were blown up, and roads were full of craters and littered with anti-tank mines.

The outside of the city, which had been occupied by Russian forces since March 3, was empty except for a Ukrainian checkpoint around 5 miles away from the city center, where half a dozen soldiers waved CNNs crew in.

The city’s residents have no water, no internet connection and little power. But as a CNN crew entered the city center on Saturday, the mood was euphoric.

The military presence is still limited, but huge cheers erupt from crowds on the street every time a truck full of soldiers drives past, with Ukrainian soldiers being offered soup, bread, flowers, hugs and kisses by elated passersby.

As CNN’s crew stopped to regroup, we observed an old man and an old woman hugging a young soldier, with hands on the soldier’s shoulder, exchanging excited “thank yous.”

With the occupiers gone, everyone wants you to understand what they’ve been through, how euphoric they feel right now, and how much they’re grateful to the countries who have helped them.

In Kherson city, explosives are everywhere: warnings, warnings and precautions for all residents, even for the smallest emergency evacuations

The town doesn’t have a water supply. There is a shortage of medicines, there is a shortage of bread, which is not produced because of the lack of electricity. The adviser to the mayor of Kherson said in a TV broadcast that there are problems with food supplies.

But life remains far from normal, with authorities warning residents to be wary of explosives littering the city, and Russian forces still nearby – just across the strategically important Dnipro River.

“Kherson is now a front line city,” he said. “Last night and in the early hours of this morning you could hear outgoing fire towards the Russian forces.”

On Saturday, a police officer was injured during a demining exercise of one of the city’s administrative buildings.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said during his Saturday address that almost 2,000 explosives have already been removed from the Kherson region. He urged Kherson residents “to be careful and not try to independently check any buildings and objects left by the occupiers.”

There are 10 groups of bomb disposal experts in Kherson, along with police and defense forces, according to Zelensky.

Weather conditions are getting tougher, with sub-zero temperatures at night, CNN’s team in Kherson city reports, and no heating in the city. Since freedom of movement has been granted to those who find it hard to live in Kherson, they can move elsewhere in the country.

A Hero’s Welcome in Kherson, the Battle nickname of a Marine and the History of Ukrainian-Occupied Territories

Satellite images from Maxar Technologies obtained by CNN on Friday showed water flowing out of three sluice gates at the dam, where a major hydroelectric project is situated.

An elderly neighbor greeted him with a bouquet of blue and yellow flowers, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and wept, according to a video Kostenko provided NPR.

“We’ve missed you so much, you and your family,” said a villager who wore a black watch cap while addressing the colonel and soldiers accompanying him.

Kostenko then walked into the courtyard of the one-story house where he had grown up and where Russian troops had lived since March. He passed a sign painted on a wall that said “vulgar” and went inside.

“The windows were broken,” Kostenko recalled in a text message with NPR. “Almost all the furniture and things were stolen,” including his body armor and medals. All that remained was a bed, some old wardrobes and a grenade the Russians had left behind.

“We didn’t distribute their supplies fairly,” says Volovyk, who guides the fire of howitzers. “We blew up the bridges. They got their supply routes under fire control.

Various factors led to Ukraine’s routing of the Russians in this part of Kherson, but soldiers say the HIMARS had a big impact because they provided a range and level of accuracy the Ukrainians had never had before.

A reconnaissance soldier from Kherson who goes by the battle nickname Fox said he helped target a HIMAR that flew 24 miles before killing 20 Russian soldiers hiding in a bunker — a direct hit.

Before the war, Fox was a seaman on a cargo ship in Kherson. He joined the army after he fled on the first day of the war. Last weekend, he returned to his neighborhood to a hero’s welcome. His neighbors were unaware that he’d become a soldier.

“They were completely surprised,” said Fox, who arrived in full battle gear. “I didn’t tell them I had joined the army because it could’ve caused them problems as they were in Russian-occupied territory.”

“I don’t recall a happier time in my life than this one at home,” said Fox, who was back in Kherson city over the weekend.

Fox pointed out that before they left, the Russians sabotaged the city’s water, electrical and mobile communications systems — the latter is in the process of being restored, according to the local military administration.

The Russians could fight on even though they retreated from the Dnieper River, because it was close to easy fire range of the city.

A surprise visit to Kherson to celebrate the liberation of the city of Kherson in the first half-century of the Russian occupation – a signature of Ukraine’s high morale

President Zelenskyy made a surprise visit to Kherson on Monday to celebrate the liberation from Russian occupation of the city.

He appeared in front of the city’s main government building in a military-style jacket and clothing, surrounded by heavily armed security. He spoke and waved to people as the victory of his country in the war was marked.

Zelenskyy, his advisers, and many of Kherson’s inhabitants stood at attention as the national anthem of Ukraine was played.

In his televised address on Sunday night, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian investigators have already documented more than 400 cases of suspected war crimes by the Russian forces during their occupation of Kherson.

Because the Russians took Kherson without a fight at the beginning of the war, most of the city’s buildings remain intact, unlike other urban areas that have been reduced to ruins.

In contrast to Zelenskyy, Russian President Vladimir Putin has not spoken publicly about Kherson since the Russia troops abandoned the city without a fight.

The battle took place in the Dnipro River region, dividing the two countries, after Russia retreated from the southern city of Kherson.

The Dnipro has become the new front line in southern Ukrainian and officials warned of continued danger from fighting in regions that have already suffered months of Russian occupation.

Through the afternoon, artillery fire picked up in a southern district of the city near the destroyed Antonivsky Bridge over the Dnipro, stoking fears that the Russian Army would retaliate for the loss of the city with a bombardment from its new positions on the eastern bank.

Mortar shells struck near the bridge, sending up puffs of smoke. Near the river, a big boom was heard from incoming rounds. It was hard to assess what had been hit.

The deaths underscored the threats still remaining on the ground, even as Mr. Zelensky made a surprise visit to Kherson, a tangible sign of Ukraine’s soaring morale.

“We are, step by step, coming to all of our country,” Mr. Zelensky said in a short appearance in the city’s main square on Monday, as hundreds of jubilant residents celebrated.

U.S. Embassies in the Ukraine: Ukraine and its Grain Deal, Prime Minister Biden, the UK Prime Minister, and the Secretary of State Donfried

“Occupants rob local people and exchange stuff for samogon,” or homemade vodka, said one resident, Tatiana, who communicated via a secure messaging app from Oleshky, a town across the river from Kherson City. After that, they get even more aggressive. We are afraid of this place. Her name should be kept out of her mouth for security.

Ivan wrote that Russians were roaming around and finding empty houses. In order to protect his safety he asked that the name not be used, which is south of Kherson city. “We try to connect with the owners and to arrange for someone local to stay in their place. So that it is not abandoned and Russians don’t take it.”

The Russia-Ukraine war and its effects on the economy loom large as the G-20 summit continues in Indonesia. President Biden discussed issues with the Chinese leader on Monday. The British Prime Minister is due to meet with the Vice President on Wednesday.

The U.S. ambassador to the UN went to the Ukrainian capital to press for renewal of the grain deal. That followed a Ukraine trip the week before by the top U.S. diplomat on European and Eurasian affairs, Assistant Secretary of State Karen Donfried.

The War in Ukraine: The Case for a Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen

After nearly 10 months of being held in Russian custody, the American basketball player was freed on December 8. Her release was a result of the U.S. handing over a convicted Russian arms dealer. She is with her wife back in the US. Bout is reported to have joined an ultranationalist party in Russia.

The war in Ukraine was a topic at the U.N. climate conference. Ukraine used the COP27 summit to talk about how the war has caused “ecocide,” while experts pointed out the war is driving a new push for fossil fuels.

The author of a book titled A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen is a CNN contributor named David A. Andelman. He formerly was a correspondent for The New York Times and CBS News in Europe and Asia. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. There is more opinion at CNN.

The first missile to have landed in Poland – a NATO member – on Tuesday may well have been a Ukrainian anti-aircraft rocket intercepting an incoming Russian missile a short distance from one of Ukraine’s largest cities, Lviv, as suspected by Polish and NATO leaders. President Zelensky has insisted the missile wasn’t Ukrainian.

One thing is clear, regardless of the exact circumstances of the missile. “Russia bears ultimate responsibility for its war against Ukraine,” said NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Wednesday.

Beyond the most recent missile attacks, a laundry list of horrors has been launched that appears to have driven his nation further away from the civilized powers that he once sought to join.

His forces have planted mines in vast stretches of territory in Kherson from which they’ve recently withdrawn – much as the Khmer Rouge did in Cambodia stretching back to the 1970s. Indeed, Cambodian de-mining experts have even been called in to assist with the herculean task facing Ukraine in 2022. Russian armies have also left behind evidence of atrocities and torture which are similar to the Khmer Rouge.

A growing number of Russians have refused to fight and rebelled against what was asked of them. Amid plummeting morale, the UK’s Defense Ministry believes Russian troops may be prepared to shoot retreating or deserting soldiers.

When a Ukrainian military intelligence project called “I want to live” was launched, it resulted in a hotline and Telegram channel that has taken off, booking thousands of calls in the space of two months.

Kim was able to establish black market networks abroad in order to get what he needed to fuel his war machine. The United States has already uncovered and recently sanctioned vast networks of such shadow companies and individuals centered in hubs from Taiwan to Armenia, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, France, and Luxembourg to source high-tech goods for Russia’s collapsing military-industrial complex.

Putin is increasingly isolated on the world stage. He was the only leader to stay away from the session of the G20, dubbed the “G19.” Though Putin once lusted after a return to the G7 (known as the G8 before he was ousted after his seizure of Crimea), inclusion now seems but a distant dream. Russia’s sudden ban on 100 Canadians, including Canadian-American Jim Carrey, from entering the country only made the comparison with North Korea more striking.

The best and brightest in virtually all fields have fled Russia. writers, artists, and journalists as well as some of the most creative technologists, scientists and engineers are included.

One leading Russian journalist, Mikhail Zygar, who has settled in Berlin after fleeing in March, told me last week that while he hoped this is not the case, he is prepared to accept the reality – like many of his countrymen, he may never be able to return to his homeland, to which he remains deeply attached.

U.S. failure to reconnect nuclear power plants at the French-German joint FACS-AAF project: a reminder to the West to look after itself

Rumbling in the background is the West’s attempt to diversify away from Russian oil and natural gas in an effort to deprive the country of material resources to pursue this war. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, said at the G20 on Tuesday that they have learned that dependency was unsustainable and that they wanted more forward looking connections.

Moreover, Putin’s dream that this conflict, along with the enormous burden it has proven to be on Western countries, would only drive further wedges into the Western alliance are proving unfulfilled. On Monday, word began circulating in aerospace circles that the long-stalled joint French-German project for a next-generation jet fighter at the heart of the Future Combat Air System – Europe’s largest weapons program – was beginning to move forward.

He still holds that attempts to rewrite and shape the world history are becoming increasingly aggressive, and are trying to divide our society, take away our guiding lines, and eventually weaken Russia.

The nuclear power plants of Rivne, SouthUkraine and Khmelnytskyi were stopped from using the grid as a safety measure.

After a brief emergency shutdown, the nuclear reactors have been turned back on, but were still not reconnected to the national grid, the company added.

In the southern region of Mykolaiv, the military administrator, Vitaliy Kim, also said the nuclear plant in his area has been cut from the grid, leading to a risky shutdown of the reactors there.

Ukrainian officials stress that the power cuts have the cascading effect of turning off the heat and water in many cases. And with temperatures often below freezing, the water in pipes could freeze, adding further complications.

President Maia Sandu wrote about Russia on Facebook, saying that the regime left her in the dark and cold and wanted to keep other people poor.

The use of cluster bombs as a weapon against non-combatants in the present conflict: Ukrainians do not want them to be killed

Ukrainians are preparing for the winter. The President said in a video address on Tuesday night that 4,000 centers would take care of people if there were power cuts.

He said they would provide heat, water, phone charging and internet access. Many will be in schools and government buildings.

The US and Ukrainians are not bound by the convention on cluster bombs because of their potential to be used against non-combatants. The US decided to eliminate them in 2016 due to the dangers they posed to civilians and the fact that they contained many small unexploded bombs.

CNN has learned that senior Biden administration officials have been fielding the request for a while and have not denied it on the spot.

Cluster munitions are imprecise by design, and scatter “bomblets” across large areas that can fail to explode on impact and can pose a long-term risk to anyone who encounters them, similar to landmines. They also create “nasty, bloody fragmentation” to anyone hit by them because of the dozens of submunitions that detonate at once across a large area, Mark Hiznay, a weapons expert and the associate arms director for Human Rights Watch, previously told CNN.

The Biden administration has not taken the option off the table as a last resort, if stockpiles begin to run dangerously low. But sources say the proposal has not yet received significant consideration in large part due to the statutory restrictions that Congress has put on the US’ ability to transfer cluster munitions.

Those restrictions apply to munitions with a greater than one percent unexploded ordnance rate, which raises the prospect that they will pose a risk to civilians. President Joe Biden could override that restriction, but the administration has indicated to the Ukrainians that that is unlikely in the near term.

The congressional aide told CNN that the ability ofUkrainians to make gains in the current conflict is not dependent on the procuring of said weapons.

The Defense Ministry told CNN it does not comment on reports regarding requests for particular weapons systems or ammunition, choosing to wait until any agreement with a supplier is reached before many any public announcement.

The US replaced the dual-purpose improved conventional munitions, known as DPICMs, with the M30A1 alternate warhead. 180,000 small white steel fragments do not explode on impact and are not left on the ground. The Ukrainian military might benefit more from the US having DPICMs in storage than from the M30A1, say Ukrainian officials.

Water Crisis – Putin’s Brief Address at the Kremlin-Putnam 2000 Conference on “Heroes of Russia”

Speaking after an awards ceremony for “Heroes of Russia” at the Kremlin, he addressed a group of soldiers receiving the awards, clutching a glass of champagne.

At the awards ceremony, Putin continued to list aggressions. Not supplying water to a city of million is an act of genocide.”

Russia stated that an airfield in the region of the Kursk, which is also known as the Ukrainian region, was attacked by drones. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry has offered no comment on recent explosions, including in Kursk, which are deep within Russia. Officially, the targets are well beyond the reach of the country’s declared drones.

He ended his apparent off-the-cuff comments by claiming there is no mention of the water situation. No one has spoken about it. At all! He said that there would be complete silence.

Moscow attack on Donetsk: an act of genocide and the fight for the rest of the world, as viewed by Putin at the Kremlin

Local Russian authorities in Donetsk — which Putin claimed to annex in defiance of international law — have reported frequent shelling of the city this week.

A glass of champagne was held up by President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin reception as he spoke about Russian military attacks on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine.

In his Kremlin appearance Thursday, he continued to say: “Who is not supplying water to Donetsk? Not supplying water to a city of million is an act of genocide.”

The Russian president tersely compared the difference in reactions to attacks on Russia and attacks on Ukraine, saying, “as soon as we make a move, do something in response – noise, clamor, crackle for the whole universe.”

In a statement in November, Ukrenergo acknowledged that the race to restore power to homes is being hampered by “strong winds, rain and sub-zero temperatures.”

The administrators of Melitopol claim that four missiles hit the city, killing two and injuring 10, while the mayor says there were explosions at a church.

The missile attack on Melitopol destroyed a recreation center where people, civilians, and military base personnel were having dinner on Saturday night, was said to be by Russia’s acting governor.

Alexei Kulemzin, head of the Russian-backed city administration, said Ukraine launched 20 Grad missiles around 5:54 a.m. local time Sunday in the direction of the Voroshilovsky and Kalininsky districts.

Odesa, Russia: the fate of the air defense system during a Russian air-defense attack, as seen by the unofficial media portal

There were dead and wounded when a Russian military barracks in Sovietske was set on fire, according to the unofficial media portal.

The air defense system worked over Simferopol, according to Sergey Aksenov. All services are working as usual.

The strikes, using Iranian drones, had left many in the dark. Mr. Zelensky called the situation in the Odesa region “very difficult,” noting that only the most critical infrastructure there remained operational. He warned that although repair crews were working “nonstop,” restoring power to civilians would take “days,” not “hours.”

“In general, both emergency and stabilization power outages continue in various regions,” Zelensky said. The power system is very far from a normal state at the moment.

Zelensky claimed that Russia had deliberately tried to bring disaster to the city of Odesa.

The support package from Norway will be used to repair the energy system after the Russian strikes, Zelensky said.

In his nightly address on Saturday, Mr. Zelensky said Ukraine had shot down 10 of the 15 drones that Russian forces used. It was not immediately possible to verify his tally.

Ukrainians rely on the heat and light from the plants, which have been subjected to a series of attacks that have drawn condemnation from world leaders.

He warned the public to reduce their power use and urged them to use less power because the system was in dire need of it.

Even if there aren’t any missile strikes, this doesn’t mean there aren’t problems. “Almost every day, in different regions, there is shelling, there are missile attacks, drone attacks. Energy facilities are hit almost every day.”

French Prime Minister Petrovich Zelenskyy, a key figure in the city of Donetsk during the latest Ukrainian attack

Ukrainian authorities have stepped up raids on churches that are accused of links to Moscow, and many are waiting to see if the Ukrainian President follows through on his threat to ban the Russian Orthodox Church.

The President of France will host European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the Prime Minister of Norway on Monday in Paris.

On Tuesday, France is going to co- host a conference with Ukraine in support of Ukrainians and President Zelenskyy will give a video address.

New measures targeting Russian oil revenue took effect Dec. 5. There is a price cap on Russian oil imports as well as a European Union embargo.

President Zelenskyy spoke with the leaders of France and Turkey on the phone on December 11, signalling a new step up in diplomacy over the 9-month long Russian invasion.

Ukrainian forces have unleashed the biggest attack on the occupied Donetsk region since 2014, according to a Russia-installed official, in the wake of heavy fighting in the east of the country.

A key in the city center had come under fire, he said Thursday, noting that 40 rockets were fired at civilians in the city.

“One of (the victims) was a volunteer, a member of the rapid response team of the international organization. He said they were killed by fragments of enemy shells during the shelling.

The Attacks on the Kyiv Air Force Base: U.S. Energy Security and Power Supplies, the Kremlin and the Defense Industry in Ukraine

The Kherson city was completely disconnected from power supplies because of the strikes, according to the regional head of the Kherson military administration.

Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said the city “received machinery and generators from the U.S. Government to operate boiler houses and heat supply stations.”

The Energy Security Project ran by the US Agency for International Development delivered four excavators and over 130 generators. All the equipment was free of charge.

“The Ukrainian side needs to take into account the realities that have developed over all this time,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday in response to Zelensky’s three-step proposal.

“And these realities indicate that the Russian Federation has new subjects,” he said, referring to four areas Russia has claimed to have annexed, Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.

“They have set a goal to leave Ukrainians without light, water and heat,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told a government meeting, adding that 60 of the 76 missiles fired at Ukraine were intercepted by its air defense forces.

“The enemy is massively attacking Ukraine. Increased danger. Stay in shelters,” Oleksiy Kuleba, the head of the Kyiv regional military administration, wrote on the Telegram messaging app, asking residents not to ignore the alarm.

Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said explosions had hit the city and that three districts had been struck in the onslaught of rockets, disrupting water supplies across the capital. He urged residents to prepare a supply of drinking water and not to leave shelter as attacks continued.

The Kremlin said that the air base where Russia’s long-range, nuclear- capable bomber was based was attacked in early December with drones and only two planes were damaged. It has not claimed to have been responsible for the attack.

The armed forces of Ukraine said a supersonic plane capable of carrying a Kinzal hypersonic missile was seen in the sky over Minsk during the air attacks on Friday. But it was not clear from their statement whether a Kinzal was used in the attacks.

“We know that their defense industrial base is being taxed,” Kirby said of Russia. “We know they’re having trouble keeping up with that pace. Russian President Vladimir Putin is having trouble revitalizing the precision guided munitions that he has.

The Biden administration is in the final stage of negotiations to send a ground-based air defense system to Ukraine, according to two US officials and a senior administration official. Ukraine’s government has long requested the system to help it defend against repeated Russian missile and drone attacks. It would be the most effective long-range defensive weapons system sent to the country and officials say it will help secure airspace for members of the North Atlantic Treaty and America (NATO) in eastern Europe.

He declined to announce any details on the next security assistance package for Ukraine, but said that there “will be another one” and that additional air defense capabilities should be expected.