The Russia-Putin-Kadyrov Retreat: The First Battle of the Cold War with Russia’s First High-Redshift Forces

Russian forces retreated from Kherson city — the only regional capital they had seized from Ukraine since launching their invasion in February. On Nov. 11, Ukrainian forces began moving into Kherson and were greeted by cheering residents.

Russia’s declaration just a day earlier that it had annexed four regions of Ukraine, including Lyman, is complicated now that it has withdrawn from the area. Taking the city will allow Ukrainian troops to push further into land that Moscow has illegally claimed as its own.

They say the Russian military is more intent on using long-range weapons to cause civilian casualties and destroy infrastructure in order to punish Ukrainians for it’s losses.

The retreat was a big blow to Putin’s war effort. Russian forces captured Kherson, the only Ukrainian regional capital. Their withdrawal east across the Dnipro cedes large swathes of land that Russia has occupied since the early days of the war, and that Putin had formally declared as Russian territory just five weeks ago.

Ramzan Kadyrov blamed the retreat on one general being “covered up” for by higher-ups in the General Staff. He called for “more drastic measures.”

The governor of the city of Sevastopol in the Crimean Peninsula announced an emergency situation at an airfield. Smoke billowed from the resort and it could be seen by some beachgoers. There are unconfirmed reports that a plane caught fire when it rolled off the runway at the Belbek airfield.

Russia is pouring the new conscripts across the whole of the front line in an attempt to halt recent Ukrainian advances while rebuilding ground forces decimated during eight months of war. After a chaotic mobilization in September, military analysts had predicted the deployment of Russian men to front line areas through the fall, with high numbers of casualties expected. Russian forces are attacking in the east but also on defense in the south.

The Zelensky administration is facing a complicated path to follow, especially if the freeing of Crimean from Russia is a part of its definition of victory. For the time being, and true to form, the tough guy from Kryvyi Rih shows no sign of backing down.

Russian attack on the Zaporizhzhia reactor in Kyiv: State emergency workers, air defense forces and the nuclear watchdog

Of the 16 people who were killed in the Russian attacks across the Kherson region, three of them were state emergency workers. 64 people were injured in different degrees, he said.

The Security Service of Ukraine uploaded pictures of the convoy that was attacked. The burned corpses of people were in what was left of the truck bed. Another vehicle at the front of the convoy also had been ablaze. Bodies lay on the side of the road or still inside vehicles, which appeared pockmarked with bullet holes.

“The enemy wanted to massively disperse the attention of air defense,” a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, Yurii Ihnat, said. Valeriy Zaluzhny said that the missiles were downed by the air defense forces.

The head of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog is expected to visit Kyiv this week to discuss the situation at the Zaporizhzhia facility after Putin signed a decree Wednesday declaring that Russia was taking over the six-reactor plant. It was a criminal act and the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine considered the decree to be null and void. The state nuclear operator, Energoatom, said it would continue to operate the plant.

Russia didn’t say anything about the report. Russia told the international Atomic Energy Agency that the director-general of the nuclear power plant was taken away to answer questions.

“Unfortunately, we already see that they (Russians) are striking at the generating facilities again, trying to cut off our nuclear and thermal power plants, to damage additional key energy hubs, focusing their attacks on these facilities,” Kharchenko said. “I urge Ukrainians to understand that the situation is difficult, I urge them to be as prepared as possible for the fact that there will be no quick improvement in the situation with electricity.”

According to reports, spray-painted on the city billboards that used to read “Ukraine is Russian forever” are the words “Ukrainian was Russia until November 11.”

The Lyman Debacle, Russia, and the Czech Republic: A Cold War at a Nuclear Plant in the Eastern Region of Donbas

In Washington, President Joe Biden signed a bill Friday that provides another infusion — more than $12.3 billion — in military and economic aid linked to the war Ukraine.

The debacle in the city of Lyman, a vital railway hub in the eastern region of Donbas, brought up pressure on the Russian leadership already facing withering criticism at home.

Russian forces in the last days of their occupation were plagued by desertion, poor planning, and a delayed arrival of reserves according to an article published Sunday by the Komsomolskaya Pravda.

Just hours before the strikes, the president of Ukraine announced that the military had regained control of three villages that had been annexed by Russia.

Governor Oleksandr Starukh wrote on his Telegram channel that many people were rescued from the multi-story buildings, including a 3-year-old girl who was taken to a hospital for treatment.

One of the regions that Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed on Wednesday is a nuclear plant that is under Russian occupation. The city of the same name remains under Ukrainian control.

Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, plans to talk with Ukrainian officials about the Russian move. The facility’s director was kidnapped by Russian troops in the fighting and efforts are being made to create a secure protection zone around it.

Meanwhile, leaders from more than 40 countries are meeting in Prague on Thursday to launch a “European Political Community” aimed at boosting security and prosperity across the continent, a day after the Kremlin held the door open for further land grabs in Ukraine.

The Russian Military Reloaded in the Kherson Campaign During the October 29 Rejuvenation of Lyman, Kyiv. On Wednesday, the Kremlin announced that it had liberated five settlements

“This is a Russian region,” Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, told reporters on Friday. It has been defined and fixed. There can be no changes here.”

Putin has vowed to defend Russia’s territory with nuclear weapons if needed, but the borders of the areas Moscow claims remain unclear.

Oleksii Hromov, a senior Ukrainian military official, said last week that Kyiv’s forces have recaptured some 120 settlements since late September as they advance in the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Kherson regions. On Wednesday, Ukraine said it had liberated more five settlements in its slow but steady push in Kherson.

They join an army already degraded in quality and capability. The composition of Russia’s military force in Ukraine — as much of its prewar active duty personnel has been wounded or killed and its best equipment destroyed or captured — has radically altered over the course of the war. The Russian Military leadership is unlikely to know how this undisciplined force will respond when faced with cold, exhausting combat conditions or rumors of Ukrainian assaults. Recent experience shows that these troops might abandon their positions and equipment in panic like the forces did in the Kharkiv region.

— 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. The bodies of fallen Ukrainian soldiers may be in a second grave, and that around 200 civilians are buried in one location. 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.

Lyman sustained heavy damage both during the occupation and as Ukrainian soldiers fought to retake it. Mykola, a 71-year-old man who gave only his first name, was one of about 100 residents who lined up for aid on Wednesday.

Russian rocket attacks on the Kerch bridge during the First Day of the Dnipro-Ridge War: A review by Vladimir V. Zelenskyy

“We want the war to come to an end so that the shops and hospitals can return to being normal,” he said. “Now we don’t have anything yet. Everything is destroyed and pillaged, a complete disaster.”

In his nightly address, a defiant Zelenskyy switched to speaking Russian to tell the Moscow leadership that it has already lost the war that it launched Feb. 24.

On the same day as the prize was awarded to human rights activists in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, there was an implicit rebuke to Russia’s leader, Vladimir V. Putin.

Overnight nearly 40 Russian rockets hit Nikopol, on the Dnipro River, damaging at least 10 homes, several apartment blocks and other infrastructure, according to the head of the regional military administration, Valentyn Reznichenko. He said that further shelling on Friday evening killed one man and wounded another.

Crews restored power and cellular connection in Enerhodar, the city near Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant that is currently under Russian control, a senior official said Sunday.

“Water supply will be restored in the near future,” Rogov, a pro-Russian leader in the regional Zaporizhzhia government, wrote in a telegram post Sunday

Food, water and medicine are in dire need in the city which does not have electricity or heat. A sense of normality is being restored in the city that had 300,000 residents before the war.

In some ways, Monday’s attacks were not a surprise – especially after Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday accused Kyiv of attacking the Kerch bridge, calling it an “act of terrorism.”

After the explosion traffic over the bridge was temporarily stopped, but both automobiles and trains crossed again on Sunday. The car ferry service was started again by Russia.

The explosion of a bridge destroyed by air raid sirens killed a Soviet citizen and a Russian citizen in Krasnodar

“We have already established the route of the truck,” he said, adding that it had been to Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, North Ossetia and Krasnodar — a region in southern Russia — among other places.

The enemy hit a facility. Shell fragments damaged residential buildings and the place where the medical aid and humanitarian aid distribution point is located,” Yanushevych later said in a Telegram video on Thursday.

Tetyana Lazunko, 73, and her husband, Oleksii, took shelter in the hallway of their top-floor apartment after hearing air raid sirens. Their possessions were flying when the explosion shook the building. Lazunko wept as the couple surveyed the damage to their home of nearly five decades.

Three volunteers dug a shallow grave in a neighborhood ravaged by a missile for a dog killed in the strike and whose leg was torn off by the blast.

Independent Russian political analyst and a former speechwriter for Putin Abbas Gallyamov said that Putin did not respond forcefully enough to satisfy the angry war hawks after the bridge explosion. The attack and response, he said, has “inspired the opposition, while the loyalists are demoralized.”

“Because once again, they see that when the authorities say that everything is going according to plan and we’re winning, that they’re lying, and it demoralizes them,” he said.

Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure and civilians: The Kerch Bridge, Bakhmut, and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant

The Kerch Bridge was opened by Putin in May of last year as a sign of Moscow’s claims on the peninsula. The bridge, the longest in Europe, is vital to sustaining Russia’s military operations in southern Ukraine.

Crimea is a popular vacation resort for Russians. People trying to drive to the bridge and onto the Russian mainland on Sunday encountered hours-long traffic jams.

Russian forces turned the city of Bakhmut into burned ruins, Zelenskyy said. Russia is attempting to advance on 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.

The blasts come after Moscow ramped up its missile attacks on Ukraine last week, following Russian claims that Kyiv was behind recent drone hits on military airfields deep inside its territory.

Some areas in the regions of Vytautas and Khmelnytsky were without power as of Tuesday morning, the emergency services said.

The US and NATO countries have grappled in recent months with how to helpUkraine defense against Russian strikes, which have destroyed much of the country’s energy infrastructure.

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.

It is difficult to leave crimes unanswered, said Putin in his brief television appearance. The Russian Federation will respond harshly to any attempts to carry out terrorist attacks on their territory.

There were at least four explosions on Monday in the Ukraine’s capital. An adviser to the minister of internal affairs of Ukraine stated that a playground was among the sites hit by a rocket or missile.

The subway system in the city was shut down for several hours on Monday. The alert for air strikes in the city was lifted at midday as rescue workers worked to pull people out of the rubble.

Russian Defense Forces and the Crimea Bridge: Attacks on Ukrainian Special Services and Defence Forces During the First Day of the Kiev Operation

A total of 11 critical infrastructure facilities in eight regions were damaged as of Monday morning according to the Prime Minister.

On Monday, Putin held an operational meeting of his Security Council, a day after he called the explosions on the bridge a “terrorist attack” and said the organizers were Ukrainian special services.

The Russian-appointed head of annexed Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, said he had “good news” Monday, claiming that Russia’s approaches to what it calls its special military operation in Ukraine “have changed.”

“I have been saying from the first day of the special military operation that if such actions to destroy the enemy’s infrastructure had been taken every day, we would have finished everything in May and the Kyiv regime would have been defeated,” he added.

At least ten people were killed and many others were injured when a rocket strike hit downtown Kherson on Christmas Eve. Zelensky characterized those attacks as being for a purpose.

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.

Dutch Prime minister Mark Rutte said that Putin was scaring innocent civilians in Ukrainian cities. The Netherlands condemns these heinous acts. Putin does not seem to understand that the will of the Ukrainian people is unbreakable.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the attacks “another unacceptable escalation of the war and, as always, civilians are paying the highest price.”

Air attack on Kiev: Ukraine’s artillery work has become a problem in Kiev, the city of Dnipro, Ukraine, as planned by the G7 summit

The G7 group of nations will hold an emergency meeting via video conference on Tuesday, the office of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirmed to CNN, and Zelensky said on Twitter that he would address that meeting.

Ukraine’s top brass released a statement that said that the country’s air defenses took down at least 40 incoming air attacks, but several dozen more got through. Ukrainian officials blamed Iranian-made suicide drones launched from Belarus and the Black sea for many of the attacks. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has allowed Russia to use his country as a staging ground for attacks on Ukraine, and after today’s attacks requested further assistance from the Russian government in anticipation of Ukrainian retaliation.

In Kyiv, Ukraine Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko says that at least two museums and the National Philharmonic concert halls sustained heavy damage. During this morning’s rush hour, trains were delayed because of a strike at the country’s main passenger terminal.

“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 added that the bus driver and four passengers had been taken to the hospital with serious injuries.

“It’s difficult for me to find any logic to their so-called artillery work because all our transportation is only for civilian purposes,” Makovtsev said.

Viktor Shevchenko’s window is full of glass: he tells the enemy that Russia hadn’t really started yet

The windows on Viktor Shevchenko’s first floor balcony used to be near the bus stop. Shattered glass covered the ground below. He had been watering his plants on the balcony, but went to his kitchen to make breakfast.

He said the explosion blew open all of his cabinets and almost knocked him to the ground. “Only five minutes before, and I would have been on the balcony, full of glass.”

Our enemy believes that missile strikes are effective means of intimidation. They are not. They are war crimes. Civilians are dying and getting injured. The missile terrorists need the support of the civilized world to be brought to justice. And will do it. https://t.co/xXYn3okZOw

“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.

Inside the Kerch Straight Bridge: A Day After the Kremlin Induced Attack on Vladimir Putin, an Aging Autocrat

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

The threat of reprisals by the Kremlin was always close by, even after the huge explosion that hit the highly symbolic and strategic Kerch Straight bridge over the weekend.

The significance of the strikes on central Kyiv, and close to the government quarter, cannot be overstated. This 229th day of the war, it is believed that a red line will be crossed.

As of midday local time, the area around my office in Odesa remained eerily quiet in between air raid sirens, with reports that three missiles and five kamikaze drones were 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).

In scenes reminiscent of the early days of the war when Russian forces neared the capital, some Kyiv media outlets temporarily moved their operations to underground bomb shelters. Large numbers of people taking cover on platforms at a metro station with a small group of people singing patriotic Ukrainian songs.

Indeed, millions of people in cities across Ukraine will be spending most of the day in bomb shelters, at the urging of officials, while businesses have been asked to shift work online as much as possible.

With many asylum seekers returning home, the attacks may cause more damage to business confidence.

It is impossible to overstate the significance of the only bridge linking mainland Russia and Crimea for Putin. 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 reaction among Ukrainians to the explosion was instantaneous: humorous memes lit up social media channels like a Christmas tree. The people shared their jubilation with text messages.

Violence in Ukraine During the First Day of the First Ukrainian War: The Fate of the Ukrain and the Status of the Middle East

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.

Russia’s plans on the battlefield do not bode well. Right now, Mr. Putin seems to have two immediate goals: to sustain control of as much of the occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions as he can (with Russia’s desired boundaries not yet defined); and to freeze the front line, establishing a frontier Ukrainian forces cannot broach, possibly sealed by a cease-fire. That would enable a more sustainable defense, as well as allow the military to rotate troops and regenerate its forces. TheUkraine and its supporters have made it clear that neither of these conditions is acceptable. It is not certain if Russia can achieve either aim, as the Ukrainians continued to advance in the south.

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.

High tech defense systems are needed to protect energy infrastructure in the country. With winter just around the corner, the need to protect heating systems is urgent.

The time has also come for the West to further isolate Russia with trade and travel restrictions – but for that to have sufficient impact, Turkey and Gulf states, which receive many Russian tourists, need to be pressured to come on board.

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

The Ukrainian State Emergency Service reported Tuesday that at least 19 people were killed and 105 others were injured in Russian missile attacks across Ukraine on Monday.

The emergency services said that several fires broke out in the capital and that the blazes were put out.

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. During the first few days of the invasion, the country was hit with power cuts and strikes, but they have mostly waned 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 Putin Message on Ukraine’s Confrontation with the West: What he Could Teach Washington About the Ukrainian War and How he Will Protecute It

The world had a chance to see the message. Putin doesn’t want 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.

There were no military value to the targets on Monday and they were a reflection of Putin’s need to find new targets because of his inability to defeat Ukraine on the battlefield.

The bombing of power installations seemed to be an ominous sign that the Russian President could cause much more misery, even as he retreats in the face of Ukrainian troops using Western arms.

The White House did not specify exactly what might be sent after the president spoke with the president of the Ukranian.

John Kirby said that Washington was in regular touch with the Ukrainian government and that they were looking favorably on their 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 likely was something that they had been planning for quite some time. Kirby said that it wasn’t clear if the explosion on the bridge would have accelerated their planning.

Surovikin — who has overseen the mass bombardment of Ukrainian cities since taking over — accused Kyiv of targeting civilians and said Russia’s focus was now on saving lives.

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.

Retired Lt. Col Alexander Vindman, former director for European Affairs on the National Security Council, said that by attacking targets designed to hurt Ukrainian morale and energy infrastructure, Putin was sending a message about how he will prosecute the war in the coming months.

“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 has brought about the unification of the nation he doesn’t believe in.

Olena Gnes is a mother of three who is documenting the war on her website and she told Anderson Cooper she was angry at Russia for returning to fear and violence.

“This is just another terror to provoke maybe panic, to scare you guys in other countries or to show to his own people that he is still a bloody tyrant, he is still powerful and look what fireworks we can arrange,” she said.

We need to get it done as quickly as possible because we have to have peace back here after this war is over and Russia is defeated.

MOSCOW — For months, Russia’s state media has insisted that the country was hitting only military targets in Ukraine, leaving out the suffering that the invasion has brought to millions of civilians.

On Monday, state television not only reported on the suffering, but also flaunted it. It showed a scene of smoke and carnage in central Kyiv and a long range forecast for months of freezing temperatures there.

Kirill Stremousov, Saldo’s Moscow-appointed deputy, urged residents to evacuate “as quickly as possible” — saying the battle for Kherson “would soon begin.”

Saldo claimed cities throughout Kherson, one of four Ukrainian regions Russia claimed to have annexed in violation of international law, were being hammered by dangerous airstrikes.

All residents of the Kherson region are suggested to leave if they want to protect themselves from missile strikes.

Kirill Stremousov said that the civilian transports weren’t an “evacuation.”

On Tuesday, about 70 countries and international organizations pledged more than $1 billion to help repair Ukraine’s infrastructure. Last week, the Pentagon announced that an additional $275 million in security assistance for Ukraine had been approved, including weapons, artillery rounds and equipment to help Ukraine boost its air defense. Repairs to Ukraine’s power system are in need of a $53 million US package.

The images captured hundreds of cargo trucks backed up and waiting to cross from Crimea into Russia by ferry, some five days after the bombing. The images were taken on Wednesday by Maxar Technologies and show a big line of trucks at a airport and a port in Kerch.

Oleg Ignatov, a senior Russia analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the long lines for the ferry crossing had been exacerbated by security checkpoints set up after the bridge explosion.

Russia, the Donbass and the Future: Keeping the War with Ukraine on the Promising Stage of the Fourth and Fifth Wares

The war is heading towards an unpredictable new phase for the first time. “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.

Experts say the next month or so will be crucial, as both sides look to hit another blow, and that there will be a potential spike in intensity due to the cold months.

The stakes of the war are increased as winter approaches. Giles said that Russia would like to keep it up. Ukrainian successes in recent weeks have sent a direct message to the Kremlin. Giles said that they were able to do things that took them by surprise.

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 Christmas with the frontline looking the same as it is, it will be a huge success for the Russians.

Ukrainians will be eager to improve on their gains after a major blow in the war in the Donbass, and Europe will feel the full impact of rising energy prices.

“There are so many reasons why there is an incentive for Ukraine to get things done quickly,” Giles said. The Ukrainian people are always going to have a test of resilience with the winter energy crisis in Europe and the power being destroyed in the country.

Experts believe it remains unlikely that Russia’s aerial bombardment will form a recurrent pattern; while estimating the military reserves of either army is a murky endeavor, Western assessments suggest Moscow may not have the capacity to keep it up.

“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.”

The US presented a new aid package to Ukraine which included the transfer of a system that could shoot down cruise missiles and aircraft at a higher altitude than previously provided air defense systems.

There will be occasional shows of extreme outrage since the Russians don’t have the stocks of precision bombs to maintain a high-tempo assault into the future.

Any further Belarusian involvement in the war could also have a psychological impact, Puri suggested. “Everyone’s mind in Ukraine and in the West has been oriented towards fighting one army,” he said. It would be in Putin’s narrative that the war is about reunification of the lands of ancient Rus states.

Giles said reopening the northern front would be a new challenge for Ukraine. It would help Russia to get access to the region that has been wrested from Ukrainian hands, and it should be a priority for Putin.

Zelensky will be looking to get more supplies in the short term in order to drive home the gains. In a second wave of strikes on Tuesday, more than half of the missiles and drones launched at Ukrainian territory were brought down.

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.

“These air defense systems are making a difference because many of the incoming missiles [this week] were actually shot down by the Ukrainian air defense systems provided by NATO Allies,” he said.

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.

The Russian War on Crimea: The Case of the Belgorod Blasts in Ukraine’s Penetsk Regime and its Effect on Russia’s Military Infrastructure

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. Western countries failed to confront and deter Russia.

It is not to say mobilized forces won’t be used. It is possible that drivers or refuelers will ease the burden on the rest of Russia’s exhausted professional army. Along the line of contact, they could fill out some units, as well as cordon some areas and man checkpoint in the rear. They are, however, unlikely to become a capable fighting force. There are signs of discipline issues among soldiers that are mobilized for the Russian Army.

The Kremlin is hesitant to escalate the war beyond Ukraine and may aim to disrupt foreign military assistance to Kyiv. Such efforts may involve attacks on NATO satellites or other assets to render them temporarily or permanently inoperable. To inflict domestic costs on Kyiv’s supporters, Russia could also conduct cyberattacks against Europe or the United States, targeting critical infrastructure like energy, transportation and communications systems. The war would no longer be limited to the borders of the country.

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.

The blasts, which Russia attributed to Ukrainian shelling, came a day after another sign of disarray in Russia’s once-vaunted military machine: Two men opened fire on fellow Russian soldiers at a training camp in the Belgorod region, killing 11 and wounding 15 before being killed themselves.

In the case of the explosions in the Ukrainian region of Crimea, CNN is not able to confirm the severity of the damage or the cause of the blasts.

Russia’s response to Ukrainian counteroffensive: A French defense minister clarifies the evictions of a Russian commander over the 2014 Ukrainian airline flight downing

Western intelligence officials have asserted that Russia includes convicts with long sentences for serious crimes in return for pay and some kind of forgiveness.

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, seeking to puncture perceptions that it has lagged in supporting Ukraine, confirmed it’s pledging air-defense missiles and stepped-up military training to Ukraine. Up to 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers will be embedded with military units in France, rotating through for several weeks of combat training, specialized training in logistics and other needs, and training on equipment supplied by France, the French defense minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said in an interview published in Le Parisien.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, suggested similar schemes are a “pretext for deporting Ukrainian citizens to Russian territory as they populate occupied areas with Russian citizens.”

Russian authorities had said that “many thousand children” from a southern region of Moscow had been placed in rest homes and children’s camps during the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The original comments by Russia’s deputy prime minister were reported by RIA Novosti on Friday.

Russian authorities have acknowledged that they may have broken an international treaty on genocide prevention by placing children from Ukrainian areas of Russian control for adoption with Russians.

The Ukrainian military said pro-Kremlin fighters were breaking international humanitarian law by evicting civilians in occupied territories to house officers in their homes. The evictions were taking place in the eastern Luhansk region. It didn’t provide evidence for its claim.

— 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 Igor Girkin, also known as Strelkov, has been given responsibility for an unspecified Russian front-line unit.

He has been on an international wanted list over his alleged involvement in the downing of the Malaysia Airlines flight, which killed more than 300 people. He remains the most high-profile suspect in a related murder trial in a Dutch court, with a verdict expected Nov. 17.

Girkin’s social media posts lambasted Moscow’s battlefield failures. The Ukrainian defense intelligence agency will offer a $100,000 reward for his capture.

The main rail lines were operating as usual, despite attacks reported by a spokesman for Ukraine’s Internal Ministry.

Zelenskyy’s chief-of-staff again asked the west to provide more air defense systems for Ukraine. “We have no time for slow actions,” he said online.

The drones were known for crashing into the targets with bombs. Ukraine estimates Russia ordered 2,400 Iranian drones, which overwhelms their air defense systems. As of 10am, Ukraine’s Air Force claims to have shot down 11 drones.

Klitshchko posted a photo of shrapnel labeled “Geran-2,” Russian’s designation for the Iranian drones, but he removed the picture after commenters criticized him for confirming a Russian strike.

EU Foreign Ministers Meet in Luxembourg to Look at “Concrete Evidence” of Russian Implications for Ukraine’s Armed Forces

EU foreign ministers are due to 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.

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 hit enemy lines and be destroyed in an attack.

It is not known how many people have been killed or injured, but one person was found dead under the rubble of a destroyed building. Another remains trapped, Klitschko said.

MOSCOW and KYIV – Russia-backed authorities began an evacuation of civilians from the occupied Ukrainian region of Kherson Wednesday — in a sign that Moscow’s hold over the territory looks increasingly in jeopardy amid a surging Ukrainian counteroffensive.

The Russian government would give housing vouchers to residents who wanted to move further from the fighting and Saldo offered the option of relocating to cities in any part of Russia.

He said that residents whose homes might be damaged by shelling could get 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.

In his first interview since being appointed to lead Russia’s armed forces in Ukraine Oct. 8, General Sergei Surovikin called the situation in Kherson “very difficult” and refused to rule out “the hardest decisions.”

The special military operation set up by the Russian leadership will be fulfilled because of the situation on the ground and the reality, Zakharova said.

Ukrainian officials believe that Russia may have left a contingent of soldiers behind in order to engage the Ukrainians in street battles or sabotage operations.

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 location of the videos on the front line can not be determined due to not being independently verified.

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.

Zelensky expressed his gratitude to the military units involved in the operation — “absolutely everyone, from privates to generals, the Armed Forces, intelligence, the Security Service of Ukraine, the National Guard — all those who brought this day closer for Kherson region.”

An assessment from the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based analytical group, also said that the increase in infantry in the Donbas region in the east had not resulted in Russia’s gaining new ground.

“Russian forces would likely have had more success in such offensive operations if they had waited until enough mobilized personnel had arrived to amass a force large enough to overcome Ukrainian defenses,” the institute said in a statement on Thursday.

The Ukrainian military said on Friday morning that it had fired more than 170 times at Russian positions in the last 24 hours, but that it had also gotten back fire from Russians.

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.

Kherson’s mother was killed in Zaprizhia by a black car, but his wife is still alive despite the “madness”

“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. They raised their three daughters there. The Russians broke into their house within hours of them leaving, Viktor says a neighbor told him.

At a Zaporizhzhia shelter, a volunteer who asks that he be called by his middle name, Artyom, helps care for Kherson evacuees as if they were his own family. Artyom asked that we not use his full name to protect his relatives in Kherson.

His wife stays at 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.

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

Artyom and his wife are worried about Russian invasions of Kherson in the post-Soviet War. But how much does he know?

But Artyom thinks it’s not good. He counts his fingers as he lists off his various fears: He worries that the Russians will stop his wife. He worries that she’ll get sick. She’s four months’ pregnant. He’s worried about the baby.

Some of them are called collaborators by the man who is living in Kyiv. Some people just can’t leave, that’s what he says. Many are older. Others don’t have many resources. Their lives are very 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 farmers and bakers are selling items at the street markets due to the empty shelves at most of the stores in Kherson.

“You can buy most things, from start to finish, from medicine to meat,” says the woman who left Kherson. It’s terrible to watch. On one car, they sell medicine on the hood and on the side they cut meat.”

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 her grandmother, who refused to leave, gives her regular updates.

Artyom and his wife talk whenever they can. They try to keep their conversations light but they worry that Russians are listening in.

They agree that it’s a good thing. Artyom could potentially go home soon if it’s true that the Ukrainians are getting closer.

The exiled Ukrainian head of the Kherson regional military administration blamed Russian troops for the damage done to the power lines.

The southern command of the Ukrainian military said that Russian fire came from across the river and hit towns and villages that were captured by Ukrainian forces. Two Russian missiles struck the town of Beryslav, which is just north of a critical dam, the military said. There was not a lot of information at this time.

Some 250,000 people lived in the city before the war. It’s difficult to know how accurate the estimates by Ukrainian activists are.

When Russian forces stormed across the Antonivsky Bridge over the Dnipro River in March and into Kherson city, a major port and a former shipbuilding center, it marked their biggest success of the early days of the war. Mr. Putin had a plan to use the Kherson region as a bridgehead for an attempt to drive to Odesa.

“The Ukrainian flag is raised in Kherson city. The Ukrainian flag will be visible on all buildings in Kherson. Serhiy Khlan, a member of the Kherson regionalcouncil, said that they have dreamed of this for a long time.

Even as its soldiers fled, the Kremlin said that it still considered Kherson — which President Putin illegally annexed in September — to be a part of Russia.

The Kherson city administration building and police headquarters, as well as jubilant locals in nearby villages, have been the targets of online videos and photos of the Ukrainian flag being raised. Several videos show people from the Ukranian nation tearing down Russian billboards.

The residents who had been through nine months of occupation were greeted with joy and happiness by Ukrainian soldiers as they moved through the towns and villages.

The last hours of the Russian occupation of Kherson city, Ukraine: Voitsehovsky, commander of a drone reconnaissance unit, and retired civilian Sergey Serhiy

Oleh Voitsehovsky, the commander of a Ukrainian drone reconnaissance unit, said he had seen no Russian troops or equipment in his zone along the front less than four miles north of Kherson city.

“The Russians left all the villages,” he said. We looked at dozens of villages with our drones while we weren’t able to see a car. 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 living in Kherson who asked that his last name not be published for security reasons, said in a series of text messages before Ukrainian soldiers swept in that conditions in the city had unraveled overnight.

“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 heating, no phone signal, and no water.

The ZSU! Movement of the Russian troops across the Dnieper river in Kherson, the northernmost Russian-federation city

“They will be plotting provocations, false-flag operations in the city,” he said. “There is a lot of work ahead on demining and clearing the city.” CNN has talked to people in Kherson city who told them that many Russian soldiers were wearing civilian clothing.

Russian forces were setting up defensive positions on the east side of the Dnipro river and shelling Ukrainians across the river.

Videos that Zelenskyy and other officials and citizens shared on social media show people in the street celebrating. ZSU!” is the acronym for the armed forces of the country.

“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.

Earlier that day, the Ukrainian military’s southern operational command said Russian forces had been “urgently loading into boats that seem suitable for crossing and trying to escape” across the river.

The main conduit over the Dnipro in the Kherson region had been destroyed according to images and video on social media Friday.

A video showing the entire bridge being destroyed was posted by a reporter for the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda embedded with Russian forces. Behind me were the collapsed spans of the bridge. “They were likely blown up during the withdrawal of the Russian group of forces from the right bank to the left,” or western bank to eastern bank.

A video circulating on social media on Friday showed people welcoming Ukrainian forces on a highway in Tyahinka. The village is just 14 miles (20 km) west of the hydroelectric dam and bridges that stretch across the Dnieper river at Nova Kakhovka.

There are two videos that show residents tearing down propaganda billboards with a young girl holding a Russian flag, while one shows a Ukrainian flag flying over a World War II memorial.

Russian-appointed officials in Kherson six weeks ago claimed that 83 percent of voters there supported integration into the Russian Federation in a referendum denounced by the international community as a sham. Kherson was annexed by Russia in September.

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 mines in liberated territories and settlements, according to Vitaliy Kim, head of Mykolaiv region military administration. Don’t go there just for fun. There are casualties.”

What is it like to be in Ukraine? – Vladimir Zelensky during the visit to Dnipro with the Kremlin

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

Infrastructure has taken an unwelcome hit: Zelensky said that “before fleeing from Kherson, the occupiers destroyed all critical infrastructure – communication, water supply, heat, electricity.”

The United Nations found evidence that the Russians killed, tortured and raped Ukrainian civilians.

Russia still has a legal hold over the territory, according to Kremlin spokesman Peskatch. There can’t be changes in this location, Peskov said Friday.

Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence agency said it would guarantee the rights of any abandoned Russian soldiers who surrendered, under a program called “I Want to Live.”

Earlier this week, the commander of Russia’s forces in Ukraine, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, proposed plans to withdraw from Kherson during a report to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on national television.

The initial announcement drew skepticism from the government in Ukraine, who previously worried that a troop withdrawal there could be a Kremlin ploy to lure Ukrainian forces into the city.

The Russian pullout is believed to be bad news for Putin’s war effort in Ukraine, because of the continued silence by the Russian leader.

Russia still however retains control of about 60% of the Kherson region, south and east of the Dnipro, including the coastline along the Sea of Azov. So long as Moscow’s troops control and fortify the Dnipro’s east bank, Ukrainian forces will struggle to damage or disrupt the canal that carries fresh water to Crimea.

Surovikin said that the withdrawal would protect the lives of civilians and troops – who have faced a punishing Ukrainian counteroffensive that targeted Russian ammunition depots and command posts, hampering their supply lines.

President Zelensky hailed Friday as a historic day. Zelensky said that they were returning the south of the country.

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 have a large task of reconstructing Kherson, where Russian forces destroyed critical infrastructure and left a lot of mines behind.

On the east bank of the Dnipro, new damage has appeared on a crucial dam that spans the river 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.

In Kherson and others, we have seen that the Ukrainians have better battlefield intelligence and tactical agility compared to the Russians.

The president talked about the appearance of Ukrainian flags in the city even before the military arrived, saying, “I am happy to see how people, despite all the threats, despite the repressions, abuse of the occupiers, kept Ukrainian flags, believed in Ukraine.”

The stabilization measures would be implemented due to the threat of mines. The occupiers left a lot of mines and explosives at vital facilities. He said they would be clearing them.

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

News from Kherson: Prime Minister Ericeson’s visit to Snihurivka on Saturday and the next steps for the Ukrainian military

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.”

The head of the military administration of Mykolaiv went to Snihurivka Friday to discuss the future of the liberated territories of the region.

“Despite the fact that relevant services have started moving mines in the liberated territories, I warn local residents to be careful,” Kim said.

Some locals in Kherson sang the national anthem, while others yelled out “Slava Ukrayini!” as the crew filmed live in the square.

The cinema in the square has been climbing on top of the building to raise the Ukrainian flags. Soldiers driving through are greeted with cheers and asked to sign autographs on flags.

“We were terrified by [the] Russian army, we were terrified by soldiers that can come any moment in our house, in our home – just open the door, like they are living here, and steal, kidnap, torture,” Olga said.

Everyone is having a celebration in the square. People wearing the Ukrainian flag, hugging the soldiers, and coming out to see what it feels like to have freedom were some of the things Robertson had to say.

Katerina described the liberation as the “best day” of her life after eight months under Russian occupation. She told CNN that her street is free.

Speaking Saturday on the next steps for the Ukrainian military, CNN military analyst Cedric Leighton said: “This is going to be a major urban operation. What you are going to see is a methodical operation to clear buildings of potential booby traps and mines.

Our team was forced to travel through fields and ditches as well as bridges that were blown up, because roads were filled with anti-tank mines.

The outskirts of the city, which was occupied by Russian forces since March 3, had been abandoned except for a Ukrainian checkpoint that waved CNN’s crew in.

The city’s residents have no power, no water, and no internet connection. 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 the crowd every time a truck full of soldiers drives past, with the soldiers being offered soups, bread, flowers, hugs and kisses.

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.

After the Russian forces left, the residents of Kherson face shortages of bread and medicines, as they were almost without water, officials warned, while efforts continued Sunday to remove mines.

The city and its surrounding area remain far from normal, and authorities warn residents to be aware of explosives left in the city and Russian forces still nearby.

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

The mines are a significant danger. A family driving in a village outside the city ran over a mine and four of them were killed. A mine injured six railway workers who were working to restore service after lines were damaged. And there were at least four more children reportedly injured by mines across the region, Ukrainian officials said in statements.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned during his nightly address Saturday that almost 2,000exploded items have been removed from the Kherson region. He encouraged Kherson residents to be cautious and not attempt to check on the buildings and objects left by occupiers.

Zelensky said that there are various units of the defense forces working in Kherson.

Zelensky’s Siege of the Second Kiev War: State of the Art in the Dnipro River Revisited

CNN reported that there was no heating in the city, with sub-zero temperatures at night. Ukrainian authorities have said that those who find it too hard to live in Kherson can move to other parts of the country, since they do now have freedom of movement.

CNN obtained images from Maxar Technologies showing water flowing from three gates at the dam, where a hydroelectric project is situated.

An operational update from the AFU General Staff said that Russian troops were focusing on preparing their defensive lines on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River.

The blue and gold Ukrainian flag flew as Zelenskyy, his team, and many of Kherson’s residents stood near attention as the anthem 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.

Most of the city’s buildings are intact because the Russians did not fight until the end of the war.

Since the Russians left Kherson without a fight, president Putin has not spoken about it.

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian and Russian forces traded fire on Monday from across the broad expanse of the Dnipro River that now divides them after Russia’s retreat from the southern city of Kherson, reshaping the battlefield with a victory that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, declared marked “the beginning of the end of the war.”

There is a new front line in southern Ukraine, Dnipro, and officials warned of continued danger from fighting in regions that have already been occupied by the Russians.

In the afternoon, there was a spike in fire in the southern district of the city, stoking fears that the Russians would retaliate for the loss of the city with a bombardment from their new positions on the eastern bank.

Mortar shells struck near the bridge, sending up puffs of smoke. Near the riverfront, incoming rounds rang out with thunderous, metallic booms. It was not immediately possible 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.

The Russians robbed and traded with the locals: a message from an Indonesian resident in Skadovsk, South of Kherson City

One resident told a secure messaging app thatOccupants robbed locals and traded items for homemade vodka in Kherson City. They are drunk and even more aggressive. We are so scared here.” She asked that her surname be withheld for security.

“Russians roam around, identify the empty houses and settle there,” Ivan, 45, wrote in a text message. He lives in Skadovsk, which is south of Kherson city, and asked that his surname not be used out of concern for his safety. “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 G-20 summit continues in Indonesia, where the Russia-Ukraine war and its global economic fallout loom large. President Biden discussed issues with China’s leader during a trip to the country. Biden is going to meet a British Prime Minister.

The U.N. Ambassador talked about world hunger and the plight of the poor during her visit to the Ukranian capital. The assistant secretary of state was on a trip to Ukraine the previous week.

Fans, friends and family are celebrating the basketball player’s return to the U.S. after her release from a Russian prison. The prisoner swap and the other Americans still held by Russia have caused some Republican politicians to complain.

Russia’s nuclear crisis and energy policy: NPR’s State of Ukraine at the COP27 summit of December 14 – 17, 2016

The war in Ukraine was a serious issue 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.

You can find the 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.

He drank from his champagne glass and gave a toast to the soldiers after he said it wouldn’t interfere with the combat missions.

At the awards ceremony, Putin continued to list alleged aggressions: “Who is not supplying water to Donetsk? Not supplying water to a city of million is an act of genocide.”

The reference to the airfield in the Kurdish region that was targeted by a drone is believed to be related to Russia’s announcement. 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 claimed that people wouldn’t mention the water being cut off because they didn’t think it would make a difference. “No one has said a word about it anywhere. At all! Complete silence.

The Russian authorities in Donetsk reported that the city had been bombarded frequently this week.

President Vladimir Putin made rare public comments specifically addressing the Russian military’s attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure Thursday, while clutching a glass of champagne at a Kremlin reception.

He continued to ask who was not giving water to the city of Donetsk in his Kremlin appearance. Not providing water to a million person city is genocide.

The Ukrenergo crisis in Ukraine is nothing like genocide: a top Ukrainian official responds to a comment by Olha Kobzar

In a statement published in November, Ukrenergo acknowledged that the race to restore power was hampered by strong winds, rain and sub-zero temperatures.

The attacks on the energy grid in the country amount to genocide according to a top Ukrainian official. During a recent interview, Ukrainian prosecutors-general gave comments to the BBC.

During the week, he shares the school with nearly 1,000 students. The school also serves as a shelter, providing heat, food and water for the community when extended blackouts hit.

Power cuts have lasted up to 24 hours, he says. In this agricultural region, farming equipment and warehouses were destroyed. Business activity is one-third of what the total was.

People come from the houses on the main street. Olha Kobzar is a Ukrainian volunteer who is in charge of the temporary housing.

Ukraine war townborodian ka banksy power cuts: the street spray painting of a Ukrainian poet who supported independence of Ukraine from Russia

During an interview, the lights go out, leaving her standing in a darkened hallway. She says she’ll wait a while to see if the power comes back. If it starts to get chilly, she’ll turn on the generator. It’s the same every day, she says.

In the center of town is a bust of Ukraine’s national poet, Taras Shevchenko. He was a supporter of the independence of Ukraine from Russia. “It’s terrible to be chained up and die a slave,” he wrote.

A British artist known for his street spray-paintings, Banksy, painted several badly scarred walls last month, later revealing his work on his social media accounts.

A young boy is throwing a man to the floor. Both are in martial arts attire. The man is widely assumed to be Russian leader Vladimir Putin, a judo enthusiast.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/10/1141536117/russia-war-ukraine-town-borodianka-banksy-power-cuts

Ukrainian missile attacks on the city of Sevastopol and a Russian compound in the Odesa region: “The air defense system is working as usual”

“People are happy we’re getting this attention. There are paintings on buildings that were destroyed. “We’re planning to remove the paintings and put them somewhere else.”

The administrators said four missiles hit the city, killing two and injuring 10, while the mayor reported explosions at a church that was occupied by Russians.

Ukranian launched Grad missiles around 5:54 a.m., according to the head of the Russian-backed city administration. There is a time on Sunday in the direction of the Kalininsky districts.

There were also reports of explosions in Sevastopol, the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea fleet; at a Russian military barracks in Sovietske; and in Hvardiiske, Dzhankoi and Nyzhniohirskyi

Sergey Aksenov, the Russian-appointed head of Crimea, said on Telegram: “The air defense system worked over Simferopol. The services are working as usual.

Nonetheless, he said, the strikes, using Iranian drones, had left many in the dark. Mr. Zelensky said the situation was very difficult in the Odesa region. He warned that although repair crews were working “nonstop,” restoring power to civilians would take “days,” not “hours.”

He said “Ukrainian sky defenders” had shot down 10 of the 15 drones, but the damage was still “critical” and he suggested it will take a few days to restore electricity supply in the region.

Zelensky said that there were continued emergency and stabilization power outages in various regions. The power system is far from normal, to say the least.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks out against the Russian attack on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Kiev and in France on Monday

Zelensky said that Russia was trying to bring disaster to the city with its attitude towards Odesa.

Ukraine on Saturday received “a new support package from Norway in the amount of $100 million” that will be used “precisely for the restoration of our energy system after these Russian strikes,” Zelensky added.

The repeated assaults on the plants and equipment that Ukrainians rely on for heat and light have drawn condemnation from world leaders, and thrust Ukraine into a grim cycle in which crews hurry to restore power only to have it knocked out again.

He said the power system was far from a normal state and appealed for people to reduce their power use.

“It must be understood: Even if there are no heavy missile strikes, this does not mean that there are no problems,” he continued. There are missile attacks, drones and shelling in different parts of the country. Almost every day, energy facilities are hit.

The Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine is currently under threat from the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has accused the church of being linked to Moscow.

French President Emmanuel Macron hosts European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store for a working dinner Monday in Paris.

Also in France, on Tuesday, the country is set to co-host a conference with Ukraine in support of Ukrainians through the winter, with a video address by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Russian Oil Revenue Measures and the Emergence of the Cold War: State Power, Nuclear Security, and the Emergency Assistance to the Ukrainian Central Government

New measures targeting Russian oil revenue took effect Dec. 5. They include a price cap and a European Union embargo on most Russian oil imports and a Russian oil price cap.

President Zelenskyy had a phone call with President Biden on Dec. 11, as well as the leaders of France and Turkey, in an apparent stepping up of diplomacy over the 9 1/2-month-long Russian invasion.

“Forty rockets from BM-21 ‘Grad’ MLRS were fired at civilians in our city,” he said Thursday, adding that a key intersection in Donetsk city center had come under fire.

A member of the rapid response team is one of the victims. They were killed when they were on the street by fragments of enemy shells.

The strikes in Kherson left the city “completely disconnected” from power supplies, according to the regional head of the Kherson military administration, Yanushevych.

Meanwhile, further west Kyiv received machinery and generators from the United States to help strengthen the Ukrainian capital’s power infrastructure amid the widespread energy deficits.

The energy security project, run by USAID, has delivered four excavators and more than 130 generators. The equipment was free of charge.

Zelensky proposed a three-step plan Tuesday in response to the Kremlin, which asked the Ukrainian side to take into account the realities of the time.

The realities show that the Russian Federation has new subjects, including the areas that they claim to have annexed.

Ukrenergo and the United States Air Force Forces in the Era of Cold War I: Russian Attacks on Engels Air Base

Ukrainian energy operator Ukrenergo reported on Friday that more than 50% of the country’s energy capacity was lost due to Russian strikes on thermal and hydroelectric power plants and substations, activating “emergency mode.”

The Engels air base, which is home to Russia’s long-range nuclear- capable bombers, was slightly damaged by a drone attack in December. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The Ukrainian military said that an aircraft with a Kinzal hyper missile was seen in the sky over Belarus on Friday during the air attacks. It was not clear if a Kinzal was used during the attacks.

According to the head of the military intelligence of the Ukraine, Russia had enough weaponry to cause harm. He added that Iran has not delivered any ballistic missile to Russia – analysis echoed by John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council (NSC).

The Biden administration is finalizing plans to send the Patriot, the US’ most advanced ground-based air defense system, to Ukraine, according to two US officials and a senior administration official. The Ukrainian government has asked the system to help it defend against Russian attacks. Officials say the system would help secure airspace for members of theNATO alliance in eastern Europe and would be the most effective long-range defensive weapons system sent to the country.

He didn’t say what the next security assistance package would be, but said that there would be more air defense capabilities.

Rescuers pull the body of a 17-month-old boy from the rubble of an apartment block destroyed by a Russian missile

All residents of the capital have access to water. The city of Kyiv has heating for half of its residents, according to the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko.

In the central city of Kryvyi Rih, rescuers have pulled the body of an 18-month-old boy from the rubble of an apartment block which was destroyed by a Russian missile on Friday, Valentyn Reznichenko, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, said Saturday on Telegram.

The boy’s parents and a 64-year-old woman were also killed, according to local officials. Another 13 people, including four children, were injured, Reznichenko said.

More than 100 people lived in the apartment block that was struck, according to Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the Kryvyi Rih city military administration. They and residents of neighboring homes which also suffered damage are being looked after in a temporary accommodation, he said Friday.

Sections of the Ukrainian railway system in Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk region were out of power following the missile strikes, and back-up diesel locomotives were replacing some services.

Ukraine’s energy minister, Herman Halushchenko, said that nine power-generating facitilites were damaged in Friday’s attacks, and warned of more emergency blackouts.

In Paris at the time, I witnessed how Zelensky pulled up to the Élysée Palace in a modest Renault, while Putin motored in with an ostentatious armored limousine. The host hugged Putin but did not shake hands with Zelensky.

Zelensky’s brand is something more than the man himself. It is almost impossible to deny that the leader of the Ukrainians wears green t-shirts with his name on them when meeting everyone from military commanders to world leaders.

Volodomyr Zelensky: A Year After World War II: Addressing Putin’s Problem in Ukraine with the Economist Arkady Ostrovsky

Keeping up with the amount of military kit could cause unease among Western backers. But capitulation to Russia would be a political death sentence.

In a new book looking at the Ukrainian president’s speeches, the Economist’s Eastern European editor, Arkady Ostrovsky, describes Zelensky as “an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances.”

“After the full-scale invasion, once he got into a position of being bullied by someone like Vladimir Putin he knew exactly what he needed to do because it was just his gut feeling,” Yevhen Hlibovytsky, former political journalist and founder of the Kyiv-based think tank and consultancy, pro.mova, told me.

The leader when offered the US’s help in freeing them from Russia quipped that he needed a ride.

It is perhaps easy to forget that Zelensky honed his political muscles earlier in his career standing up to another bully in 2019 – then-US President Donald Trump, who tried to bamboozle the novice politician in the quid pro quo scandal.

It is hard to believe that it has been a full year since Zelensky thanked his supporters in a triumphant speech at a campaign party in a Ukranian nightclub. Standing on stage among the fluttering confetti, he looked in a state of disbelief at having defeated incumbent veteran politician Petro Poroshenko.

The war appears to have turned his ratings around. Just days after the invasion, Zelensky’s ratings approval surged to 90%, and remain high to this day. Zelensky was rated highly by Americans for his handling of international affairs in the beginning of the war.

He is in a bubble with many people who were in the group Kvartal 95. In the midst of the war, a press conference held on the platform of a metro station featured perfect lighting and carefully chosen camera angles to emphasize a wartime setting.

As for his skills as comforter in chief, I remember well the solace his nightly televised addresses brought in the midst of air raid sirens and explosions in Lviv.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/19/opinions/volodomyr-zelensky-profile-ukraine-russia-bociurkiw/index.html

Zelensky, Silicon Valley, Meets Putin: Exploring the Sea of Azov with Drones: A View from a Fashion Historical Perspective

Zelensky’s wearing of T-shirts and hoodies as Silicon Valley’s youthful, egalitarian uniform is projected to a younger, global audience that recognizes it as such, according to a fashion historian.

“He is probably more comfortable than Putin on camera, too, both as an actor and as a digital native,” she added. “I believe both of them want to come across as relatable, not aloof or untouchable, although Zelensky is definitely doing a better job balancing authority with accessibility.”

Journeying to where her husband can’t, Zelenska has shown herself to be an effective communicator in international fora – projecting empathy, style and smarts. She met King Charles when she was in London to visit a refugee assistance center. Time did not include Zelenska on the cover and only gave a reference to her in the text.

Zelensky has a lot of support at his back and there are signs that his international influence could be waning. Zelensky wanted the price of Russian crude to be set at $30 in order to hurt the Kremlin, but the G7 refused to budge from their $60 a barrel price cap.

As Zelensky said in a recent nightly video address: “No matter what the aggressor intends to do, when the world is truly united, it is then the world, not the aggressor, determines how events develop.”

The Iranian-made, self-detonating Shahed-136 and Shahed-131 drones were launched from the “eastern coast of the Sea of Azov,” the Air Force said in a statement on Facebook.

A New War in Ukraine: What is Normal in the Summer? How Ukrainians Rethink their Idea of Normality in the Run-Up to Christmas

“I thank everyone who carries out these repair works in any weather and around the clock,” Zelensky said. “It is not easy, it is difficult, but I am sure: we will pull through together, and Russia’s aggression will fail.”

The repeated attacks come as Ukrainians far from the eastern and southern frontlines of the ground war seek for some semblance of normality in the run-up to Christmas.

An artificial Christmas tree in the center of Kyiv was installed and decorated over the weekend, set to be illuminated with “energy-saving garlands” that will be powered by a generator at specific times, the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram.

Roughly 1,000 blue and yellow balls and white doves will decorate the tree in Sophia Square, with a trident placed at the tree’s summit. Flags of countries that are supporting Ukraine will be placed at the bottom.

Ukrainian children are asking St. Nicholas for air defense and weapons for “victory for all Ukrainians,” Zelensky said in his virtual address to the Joint Expeditionary Force leaders’ summit on Monday.

Russia’s foreign ministry condemned what it called the “monstrous crimes” of the “regime in Kyiv,” after US President Joe Biden promised more military support to Ukraine during Zelensky’s summit at the White House on Wednesday.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that no matter how much military support the West provides to the Ukrainian government, “they will achieve nothing.”

Her comments came after Zelensky delivered a historic speech from the US Capitol, expressing gratitude for American aid in fighting Russian aggression since the war began – and asking for more.

Peskov said that there were no real calls for peace. But during his address to the US Congress on Wednesday, Zelensky did stress that “we need peace,” reiterating the 10-point plan devised by Ukraine.

Peskov told journalists, however, that Wednesday’s meeting showed the US is waging a proxy war of “indirect fighting” against Russia down “to the last Ukrainian.”

Since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, the country has been in a state of flux. Ukrainians had to rethink their idea of what normal is.

During the summer months, at first glance, outward signs of the war were less apparent. “Normal” then meant bustling restaurants and bars — at least until curfew — and the mood throughout the city was jovial, as people celebrated Russian withdrawals and Ukrainian victories.

The summer’s chorus of birds and street musicians gave way in the fall to more ominous sounds, like the steady purr of generators. The winter “normal” in Kyiv today consists of electricity, water and connection disruptions, both scheduled and spontaneously, linked to the Russian air assaults on the city.

As Ukraine nears the one-year anniversary of the invasion, Kyiv’s newest normal may be darker and colder, but life goes on: Volunteers sew camouflage netting and build power banks, soldiers go to church, and people visit Christmas markets, wearing headlamps to navigate darkened streets.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted photos on his social media accounts, just back from a quick trip to Washington. He noted that the Christmas celebrations in Ukrainians were getting ready to begin, and that many Orthodox Christians will be celebrating their traditional celebration on January 7.

“This is the real life of Kherson, not sensitive content,” Zelenskyy said. Cars on fire, people on the street and windows blowing out were shown in the images.

The number of people killed in the shelling of the city has risen, said the governor of the Kherson region.

Stepne, a settlement on the outskirts of Zaporizhzhia, was also hit by shelling but there were no details on casualties, according to the governor, Oleksander Starukh,

Zelensky’s Christmas message for the Ukrainian people in the face of energy failures and attack: Rejoinder to Kherson, the enemy, and the enemy

In a Christmas address, President Zelensky called on Ukrainians to have faith andpatience after the Russian bombardment of Kherson.

He urged the nation to stand firm in the face of the winter’s energy failures, the absence of loved ones, and the threat of Russian attacks.

“There may be empty chairs around it. Our houses and streets are not bright. Christmas bells don’t ring loudly and inspiringly. Through air raid sirens, or even worse – gunshots and explosions.”

He said that Ukraine had been resisting evil forces for three hundred days and eight years, however, “in this battle, we have another powerful and effective weapon. The hammer and sword of our spirit and consciousness. The wisdom of God. They are both courage and bravery. There are virtues we can use to do good and overcome evil.

Addressing the Ukrainian people directly, he said the country would sing Christmas carols louder than the sound of a power generator and hear the voices and greetings of relatives “in our hearts” even if communication services and the internet are down.

“And even in total darkness – we will find each other – to hug each other tightly. And if there is no heat, we will give a big hug to warm each other.”

Zelensky said they will celebrate their holidays. As always. We will smile and be happy. As always. The difference is only one. We won’t be waiting for a miracle. After all, we create it ourselves.”

One branch of Ukraine’s Orthodox church announced last month that it would allow its churches to celebrate Christmas on December 25. And many younger Ukrainians are now choosing to observe the holiday on December 25 in a bid to move away from Russia and towards the Western world.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/25/europe/ukraine-zelensky-christmas-message-intl/index.html

Comments on “The War of Zorinsky’s enemies” [J. J. C. Weingarten / Phys. Rev. D 57 (2002) 409 – 413]

He wrote on Telegram that these are not military facilities. “This is not a war according to the rules defined. It is terror, it is killing for the sake of intimidation and pleasure.”