The Russian Defense Ministry had retreated from the strategic city Krasny Liman after the invasion of November 17. The eastern group of Ukrainian forces in Stavky

The Russian defense ministry said on Saturday that Russian forces retreated from a strategic city for their operations in the east, just a day after Moscow was declared illegal by the West.

In connection with the creation of a threat of encirclement, allied troops were withdrawn from the settlement of Krasny Liman to other areas, the ministry said on Telegram.

Russian state media reported that the reason for Russia to leave was due to intelligence and weaponry utilized by the North Atlantic alliance countries.

In November, Russia’s military retreated from Kherson city, the only regional capital it had captured since the invasion began, in a major setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Since then, Russian forces have stationed themselves across the river from Kherson and regularly shell the city from there.

Ukrainian forces said earlier Saturday that they had entered Stavky, a village neighboring Lyman, according to Serhii Cherevatyi, the military spokesperson for the eastern grouping of Ukrainian forces.

“[The liberation] of Lyman is important, because it is another step towards the liberation of the Ukrainian Donbas. It is an opportunity to go further to these places. It is psychologically very important, he said.

The head of the Luhansk regional military administration Serhiy Hayday said on Saturday that Russian forces attempted to retreat from the Ukrainian side but didn’t succeed.

“Occupiers asked [their command] for possibility to retreat, and they have been refused. Accordingly, they have two options. They have three options. Try to break through, surrender, or everyone there will die,” Hayday said.

There are a lot of them. Yes, it is about 5,000. There isn’t an exact number yet. Five thousand is still a big group. There has never been such a large group in the encirclement before. All routes for the supplies and the retreat of the group are blocked.

Yurii Mysiagin, Ukrainian member of Parliament and deputy head of the parliament’s committee on national security, referenced the move into Stavky on Saturday by publishing a video on Telegram showing a Ukrainian tank moving up the road with a clear sign indicating the region of Stavky. CNN couldn’t verify the original source or the date.

A video posted on social media, and shared by President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, shows two Ukrainian soldiers standing on a military vehicle attaching the flag with tape to a large sign with the word “Lyman.”

Kadyrov’s frustration at the Kremlin after Lyman withdrawal: Nuclear weapons use at Energoatom and Zaporizhzhia

Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of the Chechen republic, in an angry statement slamming Russian generals in the wake of the withdrawal from Lyman, said it was time for the Kremlin to make use of every weapon at his disposal.

“In my personal opinion we need to take more drastic measures, including declaring martial law in the border territories and using low-yield nuclear weapons,” Kadyrov said on his Telegram channel. “There is no need to make every decision with the Western American community in mind.”

Concerns have arisen that Moscow could resort to nuclear weapons use after Putin declared that Russians would be living in Ukraine forever.

The announcement was dismissed as illegal by the United States and many other countries, but the fear is the Kremlin might argue that attacks on those territories now constitute attacks on Russia.

In his speech in the Kremlin, the Russian leader made only passing reference to nuclear weapons, noting the United States was the only country to have used them on the battlefield.

The president of the state nuclear company told them that the director-general was taken into custody by a Russian patrol.

Director-General Ihor Murashov was in his vehicle on his way from the plant when he was “stopped … taken out of the car, and with his eyes blindfolded he was driven in an unknown direction. For the time being there is no information on his fate,” Energoatom’s Petro Kotin said in a statement.

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. 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.

The director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency was urged by Kotin to take all possible immediate actions to free Murashov.

The Crimes of the Regime in Kyiv: The United Nations, the IAEA and the G7 urged Russia to take a stand

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.

“We call on the international community, in particular the UN, the IAEA and the G7, to also take decisive measures to this end,” the ministry said in a statement.

The bodies of 22 people, including 10 children, were discovered in a convoy of cars near a town in eastern Ukraine, the Regional Prosecutor’s Office said Saturday.

The cars were shot at by the Russian army while civilians tried to leave, it said in a Telegram post.

The change was a sign that Russian President Putin realized that a strong show of force was needed for his audience back home.

The prominent Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda published an article Sunday that said that in the last few days of their occupation, Russian forces in Lyman had been hampered by desertion, poor planning and the delayed arrival of reserves.

Ukrainian officials have warned that Russia may have left a contingent of soldiers behind disguised as civilians to engage the Ukrainians in street battles or stage sabotage operations.

Speaking in a conference call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “certain territories will be reclaimed, and we will keep consulting residents who would be eager to embrace Russia.”

The war in Russia has taken on new life after Mr. Putin ordered the military to be drafted. Many men have been drafted who were supposed to be ineligible based on factors like age or disability.

A Russian missile hit a residential building in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine: a day after Ukraine took control of the Sea of Azov

At least two people were killed when a Russian missile hit a three-story residential building in the central city of Kryvyi Rih, officials said. “There may be people under the rubble,” the deputy head of the presidential administration, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said.

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.

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.

Russia built a land corridor along the Sea of Azov to grab territory in northeastern Ukraine, which is now being wrested back by the Ukrainians. That Russian-held territory along the sea includes the Zaporizhzhia region.

Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, plans to talk with Ukrainian officials about the Russian move. He will also discuss efforts to set up a secure protection zone around the facility, which has been damaged in the fighting and seen staff including its director abducted by Russian troops.

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.

“Kherson is returning under the control of Ukraine, units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine are entering the city,” the Ukrainian military intelligence agency said in a statement.

In a signal that the faltering invasion of Ukraine has eroded Moscow’s influence elsewhere, Russia has recently redeployed critical military hardware and troops from Syria, according to three senior officials based in the Middle East.

As Ukrainian soldiers battled to wrest it from them, there was heavy damage to the building. Mykola, a 71-year-old man who gave only his first name, was among about 100 residents who lined up for aid on Wednesday.

Violence and Safety in Ukraine’s First Year of Invasion: a Human Rights Report on the Crimean Bridge in Kyrgyzstan

“We want the war to come to an end, the pharmacy and shops and hospitals to start working as they used to,” he said. “Now we don’t have anything yet. Everything has been destroyed and pillaged.

Zelenskyy told the Moscow leadership that it has already lost the war it started Feb. 24 in his nightly address.

The barrage continued on a day when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to human rights activists in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, an implicit rebuke to Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin, for his invasion of Ukraine.

Shurokin claims the aim of the Kremlin is to get Ukraine into Russia’s sphere of influence so that it will not join NATO or the EU. Shurokin said: “We just want one thing, for Ukraine to be independent of the West and NATO and be friendly to the Russian state.”

On the mountain-flanked steppes of southwestern Kyrgyzstan, the result in just one remote village has been devastating: homes reduced to rubble, a burned-out school and a gut-wrenching stench emanating from the rotting carcasses of 24,000 dead chickens.

The worst violence to hit the area since the collapse of the Soviet Union happened a month ago, and even though both of the Russia-led military alliances dedicated to preserving peace did nothing to stop it, they fell victim as well.

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.

In a telegram posted Sunday, Rogov wrote that water supply will be restored in the near future.

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.

Multiple explosions rocked Kyiv and several other Ukrainian cities reported blasts and power outages on Monday morning, as Russia lashed out with a massive wave of violent airstrikes that carried echoes of the initial days of its invasion.

A few people have wondered why the image of theCrimeanBridge shows so many damaged sections from one explosion. Is that what it is? https://t.co/MMyxXjbrrB pic.twitter.com/6LOGHNHP1h

Vladimir Putin blames Ukraine for attack on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power facility in Crimea: a Russian prime minister has officially opened the Kerch Bridge

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, said Saturday that the Zaporizhzhia plant has since lost its last remaining external power source as a result of renewed shelling and is now relying on emergency diesel generators.

Putin blames Ukraine for attack on Crimean bridge: Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the Crimea bridge blast, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Ukrainian “special services” of the attack. He said Monday’s strikes were in response to the attack, but Ukrainian intelligence says the strikes had been planned since early last week.

Putin signed a decree late Saturday tightening security for the bridge and for energy infrastructure between Crimea and Russia, and put Russia’s federal security service, the FSB, in charge of the effort.

— 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 stated that the man known as Strenkovich had been given responsibility for an unnamed Russian front-line unit.

Last week Putin appeared on the Kerch Bridge, where he was shown repairs and drove a car across the structure that he himself officially opened in 2018.

The rail traffic was restarting. The passenger trains left the cities of Sevastopol and Simferopol and headed for the bridge. Passenger ferry links between Crimea and the Russian mainland were being relaunched Sunday.

Crimea is a popular vacation resort for Russians. People trying to get to the Russian mainland on Sunday experienced hours-long traffic jams.

Fighting in the Vientosov neighborhood of Podolskiy, Ukraine: Zelenskyy’s death was caused by multiple explosions

“We have established the routes of the truck, it’s already been to several countries including Georgia, North Ossetia, and Krasnodar,” he said.

The fighting has focused on the regions north of the peninsula. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lamented the latest attack in a Telegram post.

Klitschko’s office says several residential buildings were damaged. Rescuers pulled 18 people from the rubble of one building and are searching for two more, he said. The city’s central streets are closed when emergency services need to respond.

Mucola Markovich said there was one explosion then another. In a flash, the fourth-floor apartment he shared with his wife was gone.

About 3 kilometers (2 miles) away in another neighborhood ravaged by a missile, three volunteers dug a shallow grave for a German shepherd killed in the strike, the dog’s leg blown away by the blast.

Kiev’s nuclear crisis: a wake from the Russian prisoner’s dilemma, a political analyst and former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine

The Russian president did not respond forcefully enough to satisfy angry war hawks, according to Abbas Gallyamov, an independent political analyst and former speechwriter for Putin. The attack and response, he said, has “inspired the opposition, while the loyalists are demoralized.”

When authorities say that everything is going according to plan and they are winning, it demoralizes them, he said.

— 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 at least 200 people buried in one location, and another grave contains the bodies of fallen Ukrainian soldiers. 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.

The pro-Russia authorities have accused the Ukrainians of using US-supplied long-range HIMARS rockets to hit targets in the occupied regions.

Ukraine’s Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said that Lviv, Kyiv and Odesa were particularly hard hit, and experiencing emergency power outages – when the electricity is protectively turned off to diminish damage from the grid shorting out.

After the strikes, China hopes that the situation in Ukraine will be de-escalated. India has said it is “deeply concerned” by the escalation of the conflict and said that “escalation of hostilities is in no one’s interest,” urging an “immediate cessation of hostilities” and return to the “path of dialogue. The attack was condemned by other European leaders.

Russian forces have been bombarding the power grid of Ukraine and other energy infrastructure with missiles and drones in recent months. The attacks have spanned the country on the cusp of winter, leaving Ukrainians vulnerable and in the dark just as the coldest time of the year is beginning.

“Russia is preparing for maximum escalation. It is gathering everything possible, doing drills and training. We are not ruling out any scenario in the next few weeks as long as it isn’t offensive from different directions.

Associated explosions on Monday morning in Kiev: A warning to the world about Russian actions in Ukraine and “Russia’s nuclear power crisis”

At least four explosions were heard in Ukranian capital on Monday morning. A children’s playground was among the sites hit by a rocket or missile, according to Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, who tweeted images of a smoldering crater in the ground next to the site.

For several hours on Monday morning Kyiv’s subway system was suspended, with underground stations serving as bunkers. But the air raid alert in the city was lifted at midday, as rescue workers sought to pull people from the rubble caused by the strikes.

In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, Oleh Syniehubv, head of the regional military administration, said “critical infrastructure facilities” were hit in Chuhuiv district on Friday.

The early signs, however, suggest that Putin has once again misread how the world would respond to his brutality. The attacks will force France to increase its military assistance to the country, according to Macron. The footage of Ukrainians watching Russian missiles on live TV could serve as a deterrent to the Western public when it comes to Russia’s energy war. Since it suggests Putin isn’t able to respond in the field to humiliating defeats, the turning of fire on civilians hints at Russian weakness.

On Monday, Putin held a Security Council meeting, one day after he called the attacks on the bridge a “terrorist attack” and said that the organizers were from Ukranian special services.

The head of annexed Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, claimed on Monday that he had good news regarding the Russian military operation in Ukraine.

If the actions to destroy the enemy’s infrastructure were taken daily, the Kyiv regime would have been defeated in May, he said.

The Russian military is trying to turn the tide of its war by bombarding Ukraine’s air defenses with a number of missiles from multiple directions.

The White House condemned Russia’s strikes in a press briefing on Friday. Kirby claimed that the attacks showed that Moscow was trying to put fear in the hearts of the Ukrainian people and that it was going to be difficult as winter came.

Ukraine’s allies understand the need. Ahead of a meeting in Brussels Wednesday of Ukraine’s supporters, General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that they would be looking for air defense options to help the Ukrainians.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that Putin was attacking innocent people in other cities. “[The Netherlands] condemns these heinous acts. Putin does not seem to understand that the will of the Ukrainian people is unbreakable.”

The UN Secretary-General said the attacks were unacceptable and that civilians were paying the highest price.

Zelensky at the Taras Shevchenko National University: the victims of Russian strikes in Kherson and Ukraine’s cultural capital

A video conference meeting for the Group of Seven nations will be held on Tuesday, and Zelensky will address that meeting, it was confirmed to CNN.

The Taras Shevchenko National University is close to the Presidential Office Building and you can see the hits on social media. The deaths of five people were blamed on strikes on the capital.

Hours before Zelensky delivered his Christmas address, a series of deadly Russian strikes slammed into the city of Kherson, where apartments and medical facilities were among the buildings hit, according to Yaroslav Yanushevych, head of the region’s military administration.

In Kyiv, Ukraine Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko says that at least two museums and the National Philharmonic concert halls sustained heavy damage. According to the National Railway of Ukranian, the main passenger terminal in the country has been damaged by a nearby strike.

Ihor Makovtsev, head of the department of transport for Dnipro city council, stood next to the wreck, as he explained that the accident happened at rush hour. The bus driver and four other people were in the hospital with serious injuries.

“All our transportation is only for civilian purposes and it’s hard for me to find any logic to the work they do,” Makovtsev said.

Viktor Shevchenko’s windows in the early days of the Cold War: “We warned Zelenskyy that Russia hadn’t really started yet”

81-year-old Viktor Shevchenko looked out from what once were the windows of his first floor balcony, just next to the bus stop. Shattered glass covered the ground below. 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. “Only five minutes before, and I would have been on the balcony, full of glass.”

“If it were not for air defense, the number of casualties would have been different. He said it was much bigger. “And this is yet another proof for the world that support for Ukraine must be increased.”

Russian missiles have hit more and moreUkrainian forces have continued to push back the Russian units that were seized in the early days of the war.

“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 aftermath of the Ukrainian air raid siren attack on Ukraine’s capital, Odesa, during the week after the AKF air raids

Editor’s Note: Michael Bociurkiw (@WorldAffairsPro) is a global affairs analyst. He is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and was formerly in charge of public affairs for the organization. He is a regular contributor to CNN Opinion. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.

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 crowded with customers, and chatter of upcoming weddings and parties.

Energy infrastructure facilities were damaged as the result of the attack and an explosion occurred in one city district, the mayor said. It wasn’t immediately clear whether that was caused by drones or other munitions. A wounded 19-year-old man was hospitalized, Klitschko added, and emergency power outages were underway in the capital.

Cars with horns in the city center were followed by people on the sidewalks shouting “Glory to Ukraine!” In one, people approached the soldiers through the open windows while the soldiers drove slowly past a crowd.

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.

Many asylum seekers are coming back home and the attacks could cause another blow to business confidence, when you consider that it was just as many parts of Ukraine that were starting to return to life.

The First Ukrainian Bridge Opens: Putin’s Unprejudiced Violations and His Persistent Threat to the Future of Humanity

Hardwiring newly claimed territory with expensive, record-breaking infrastructure projects seems to be a penchant of dictators. Putin drove a truck across the longest bridge in Europe. That same year, one of the first things Chinese President Xi Jinping did after Beijing reclaimed Macau and Hong Kong was to connect the former Portuguese and British territories with the world’s longest sea crossing bridge. There were two years of delays before the road bridge opened.

The reaction among Ukrainians to the explosion was instantaneous: humorous memes lit up social media channels like a Christmas tree. Many shared their sense of jubilation via text messages.

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

Facing increasing criticism at home, and being placed on thin ice by it, is also an act of selfish desperation.

The Chief of the Main Intelligence Director at the Ukrainian Defense Ministry had told a reporter earlier this year that by the end of the year, they would have to enter Crimea.

The significance of the strikes on central Kyiv is not overstated. The 229th day of the war should be seen by Western governments as a red line.

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.

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. The Kremlin will take a weak reaction as proof that it can weaponize energy, migration and food.

The aftermath of Ukraine’s crisis in Kyiv: Russian troops will not be allowed in the United States – a warning from Putin on a lost battlefield

Furthermore, high tech defense systems are needed to protect Kyiv and crucial energy infrastructure around 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.

Critical and civil infrastructure was hit in 12 regions and the capital, where more than 30 fires broke out, the emergency services said, adding the blazes have been put out.

The US and Ukraine have agreed that no American weaponry will be used in Russia. The Biden administration does not want American involvement that could lead to confrontation with Russia. But American officials clarified they will not object to Ukraine striking back with its own weaponry.

The city dwellers, who had to live in air raid shelters and were traumatised by the war in the subways, have managed to return to their lives but the attacks have made them afraid of another strike.

The targets on Monday did not have much military value and, if anything, served to show that Putin needed to find new targets because he couldn’t bring victories to the table 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.

Kirby could not say whether Putin was moving from a lost battlefield war to a campaign of civilians being decimated and the destruction of Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, but he suggested that it had already been in the works.

Zelensky Air Warfare as a Probe of the Kremlin’s War on the Ukraine, as Preportedly Presented by the Ukranian President

President Joe Biden Monday spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and offered advanced air systems that would help defend against Russian air attacks, but the White House did not specify exactly what might be sent.

According to John Kirby, the National Security Council’s coordination of strategic communications, Washington was in touch with the government in Kyiv almost every day and that it was looking favorably on the requests. “We do the best we can in subsequent packages to meet those needs,” he told CNN’s Kate Bolduan.

“It likely was something that they had been planning for quite some time. Kirby said that the explosion on the bridge may have sped up some of their planning.

Western concerns that the Monday rush-hour attacks in Ukraine could be the beginning of another conflict were voiced by the French President.

“He was telegraphing about where he is going to go as we get into the winter. Vindman said that he was going to try to force the Ukrainian population to give up territory by going after the infrastructure.

“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 Kremlin is hesitant to escalate the war beyond Ukranian territory and could use this to affect foreign military assistance to the country. Such efforts could involve attacks on NATO satellites or other assets to render them permanently or temporarily useless. 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 have no reason to be confined to the borders of Ukraine at that point in time.

Above all, Putin still does not appear to have learned that revenge is not an appropriate way to act on or off the battlefield and in the final analysis is most likely to isolate and weaken Russia, perhaps irreversibly.

Crime against Ukraine: The latest “terror” by a Russian citizen: Olena Gnes, the mom of three, and the cost of living in Ukraine

Olena Gnes, a mother of three who is documenting the war on YouTube, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper live from her basement in Ukraine on Monday that she was angry at the return of fear and violence to the lives of Ukrainians from a new round of Russian “terror.”

She said this was just another instance of the man being a bloody tyrant, and that they could arrange fireworks to scare you guys in other countries.

“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.”

Russia’s state media has claimed for months that the country was only attacking military targets, forgetting that millions of people have died.

On Monday, state television not only reported on the suffering, but also flaunted 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.

Moscow knows its percentage of projectiles are bound to get through, as Ukraine prepares to strengthen its missile defenses after the assault.

Over the last three days, the Russians have been using a mix of their missile stocks. The majority were air-launched cruise missiles, some delivered by bombers based near the Caspian Sea. But they also deployed ship-launched Kalibrs from the Black Sea, ground-launched Iskander cruise missiles and dozens of attack drones.

Russian inventories are being ravaged, but it is not currently known how much older, less accurate, and equally powerful missiles will be used.

The Russians have also been adapting the S-300 – normally an air defense missile – as an offensive weapon, with some effect. They’re very fast and it’s hard to intercept them in Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv. But they are not accurate.

Russian President Vladimir Putin made comments about attacks from the Russian military against the Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

The NATO Allies provided the air defense systems which were used to shoot down the incoming missiles.

Ukrainian air defense battalions have become innovative: One video from Monday, referenced by Zelensky, showed a soldier using a shoulder-held missile to bring down a Russian projectile, purportedly a cruise missile.

39 Iranian-made exploding Shahed drones were shot down by the Ukrainian Air Force, as well as two Russian-made Orlan drones and a X-59 missile.

The US announced a new package of aid to the country, which included the transfer of the Patriot Air and Missile Defense System, which is capable of bringing down cruise missiles, short-range missiles, and aircraft at a significantly higher ceiling than previously provided air defense systems.

Speaking after the meeting he said that the system would not be able to control all the airspace over Ukranian but that it was designed to control priority targets. What you’re looking at really is short-range low-altitude systems and then medium-range medium altitude and then long-range and high altitude systems, and it’s a mix of all of these.”

The western systems are slowly making their way into other countries. The defense minister said on Tuesday that the 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.”

But these are hardly off-the-shelf-items. The IRIS-T had to be manufactured for Ukraine. Western governments have limited inventories of such systems. The country ofUkraine is a large one and under attack from missiles.

Zaluzhnyi and the Kherson Region: The Army in Moscow, the Defense Minister and the Commander of the UAV Joint Task Force

Ukraine’s senior military commander, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, tweeted Tuesday his thanks to Poland as “brothers in arms” for training an air defense battalion that had destroyed nine of 11 Shaheeds.

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.

The head of the Kherson regional military administration urged tens of thousands of remaining residents in the city to leave, as Ukrainian forces worked to clear land mines, hunt down Russian soldiers and restore essential services.

Saldo’s deputy, Kirill Stremousov urged residents to evacuate as quickly as possible, saying that the battle for Kherson would soon begin.

Four people are dead after the southern city of Kherson was liberated by the Ukrainian forces in November. Shelling also set a multi-storey apartment building ablaze, and the body of a man was found in one apartment, the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General’s Office said. The city is still struggling to restore basic services.

If people from the Kherson region want to protect themselves from missile strikes, they should move to other regions and take their children with them.

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

Stremousov has been critical of the war’s decision-makers in Moscow. He blamed the military setbacks in Kherson on incompetent commanders who have not been held accountable for their mistakes.

Video of a truck blasting into Crimea on Oct. 8, 2009: Ukraine’s response to the Oct. 8 attack is not going to be surprised

This week, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine told the international community just how much money his country currently needed to rebuild and keep its economy afloat: $57 billion. That figure was given to the boards of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank by him. Mr. Zelensky said that $17 billion would be needed to rebuild schools, hospitals, transport systems and housing, with $2 billion going toward expanding exports to Europe and restoring Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

Surveillance video posted by Russian media shows a single truck driving from mainland Russia toward Crimea before a flash of light swallows he bridge. At least 3 collapsed road spans resting crookedly on piers in the shallow water were posted by independent media outlets.

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.

There are a lot of theories about who was responsible for the Oct. 8 attack. “It’s difficult to be certain about this, despite all of the publicly available pictures and videos,” says Andrew Barr, an impact dynamics researcher.

New photos posted on social media Wednesday show bent support beams on the Russia-bound lanes as well. That side of the bridge reopened to traffic only hours after the blast.

Nick Waters, a digital forensic analyst with Bellingcat, says that the bridge’s underside does not show any blast damage despite a popular Ukrainian theory that a special naval operation destroyed it.

The Ukrainian experts quickly dismissed the idea that a missile had been launched at the bridge, saying the 180 mile distance from Ukrainian-held territory was a technical limitation. Some countries that supply weapons to Ukraine have refused to provide missiles that travel that far.

The video of an “examination” of the truck and its “X-ray” was published by the Russian Federal Security Service. Where on the “x-ray” another axle with wheels and a frame disappeared, the FSB does not specify ???? pic.twitter.com/onKbOndxVO

The Ukrainian journalists pointed out that the two images looked different, after seeing the Russian state media’s evidence for a truck bomb.

He says the Crimean bridge is designed to have a single section of road floating above several piers and detached from other sections. When one span falls into the water, it pulls several other spans with it.

Barr believes that the truck was loaded with special compounds and that they caused the flames from the blast site to shoot out, which weakened it.

Mika Tyry, a retired military demolition specialist, told YLE, Finland’s national broadcaster, that the flames and sparks are consistent with a thermite bomb. Russia’s military has been known to use thermite, though Ukraine could have recovered the substance from unexploded Russian munitions.

The bomb was timed to go off with the train. That is suggestive of a planned military operation rather than a single actor.

For the first time, the war is drifting towards an unpredictable 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 nearing and likely bringing a slowdown in ground combat, experts say the next weeks of the war are now expected to be vital, and another potential spike in intensity looms over Ukraine as each side seeks to strike another blow.

“What seemed a distant prospect for anything that could be convincingly described as a Ukraine victory is now very much more plausible,” Giles said. “The response from Russia is likely to escalate further.”

After a series of setbacks in the war that have put him under pressure domestically, Russian President Putin lashed out at Monday’s attacks.

In the summer there was a suggestion, built up in the West and in Russia, that although Ukraine could defend its territory, it wasn’t able to seize ground.

The residents of Kherson waving Ukrainian flags after the army’s sweep into the city on Friday.

Russians and the Cold War: a Changing Face of the War in the Cold Cold Dark Side of the Inter-Soviet Space-Time

According to the senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Russians are playing for the whistle and trying to avoid a collapse in their frontline.

“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.

There are many reasons why things can get done quickly in Ukraine. The winter energy crisis in Europe and power being destroyed in Ukraine are always going to be a test of resilience for Ukraine and its Western backers.

In a rare speech on Tuesday, the UK’s spy chief commented that Russian commanders on the ground know that their supplies are running out.

ISW claimed that the limited supply of precision weapons by Russia may prevent Putin from disrupting Ukrainian counter-offensives.

It will be crucial to determine how the momentum will change in the coming weeks by knowing exactly how much weaponry and manpower each side has left. The Missiles were shot down by the Ukraine, but it urged its Western allies to build more missiles to fight future attacks.

Russian troops began arriving in Belarus Oct. 15, which Minsk said were the first convoys of almost 9,000 service members expected as part of a “regional grouping” of forces allegedly to protect Belarus from threats at the border from Ukraine and the West.

The reopening of the northern front is a challenge for Ukraine, according to Giles. It would provide Russia a new route into the Kharkiv oblast (region), which has been recaptured by Ukraine, should Putin prioritize an effort to reclaim that territory, he said.

The narrative of the conflict has been flipped over by Ukrainian President Zelensky, who wanted to show how military aid from the West could help win the war.

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.

Russian troops in Donetsk and Dniprotetrovsk are unlikely to be mobilized in the fight against the Ukrainians

That’s not to say mobilized forces will be of no use. 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 fill out some of their units by cordoning off areas, man checkpoints in the rear, and so on. They are, however, unlikely to become a capable fighting force. There are signs of discipline problems among soldiers in Russian garrisons.

Russia launched fresh assaults on Kherson overnight, after a wave of fatal shelling in the region earlier this week. Ukrainian forces retook control of the city last month in one of the most significant breakthroughs of the war to date.

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.

CNN is unable to verify the cause of the blasts in the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Ukrainian government has not commented on them.

Western intelligence officials say that Zelenskyy’s accusation is true: that Russia includes convicts with long sentences for serious crimes in return for pay and amnesty on the front-line.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, a missile was also destroyed, according to Reznichenko. The energy infrastructure in the region is being targeted.

— 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. The French defense minister said in an interview that up to 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers could be embedded in France with military units for several weeks of combat training and specialized training in logistics and other needs.

The Institute for the Study of War suggested that deporting Ukrainians to Russian territory was apretext for their presence in areas where Russians are present.

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. The original remarks by Russia’s deputy prime minister, Marat Khusnullin, were reported by RIA Novosti on Friday.

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.

— The Ukrainian military accused pro-Kremlin fighters of evicting civilians in occupied territories to house officers in their homes, an act it described as a violation of international humanitarian law. It said the evictions were happening in Rubizhne, in the eastern Luhansk region. It didn’t provide evidence for its claim.

Kamikaze Drones – Attacks on Ukraine’s Infrastructure and Air Forces during the Reliability of the Odesa Sector of Kiev

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. He is the most high-profile suspect in a murder trial in the Netherlands and his verdict is expected in November.

In recent weeks, a number of Girkin’s social media posts criticized Moscow’s battlefield failures. A $100,000 reward is on offer for anyone who captures him.

Anton Gerashcenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Internal Ministry, reported attacks on infrastructure near the city’s main rail station, but lines were operating as normal midmorning Monday.

Zelenskyy’s chief-of-staff, Andriy Yermak, again called on the west to provide Ukraine with more air defense systems. He said that they didn’t have time for slow actions.

The picture of the Geran-2 was taken off the internet after commenters criticized him for approving a Russian strike.

A meeting of EU foreign ministers is scheduled for today. The EU’s top diplomat told reporters before the meeting that they would look into concrete evidence of Iran’s involvement in Ukraine.

The president of Ukraine said Saturday night that Russian drone strikes on the southern port city of Odesa had left more than 1.5 million people in that region without power.

Kamikaze drones, also known as suicide drones, are small, portable aerial weapon systems that are hard to detect and can be fired at a distance. They can be easily launched and are designed to hit behind enemy lines and be destroyed in the attack.

State of Ukraine: a look at the attacks on energy infrastructure in Kamianske, Dnipropetrovsk (Ukranian)

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.

The services are working to eliminate the consequences of shelling. Each region has a crisis response plan,” Shmyhal added.

Ukrainians are asked to use a conscious and united approach to economical consumption of electricity in order to stable the energy system. 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 begin on Monday. NATO warned Russia that it would not use nuclear weapons on Ukraine but that the training exercises were still a yearly activity.

Russian agents detained eight people on Oct. 12 suspected of carrying out a large explosion on a bridge to Crimea, including Russian, Ukrainian and Armenian citizens.

The General Assembly denounced Russia’s move to illegally annex four regions of Ukraine. In the Oct. 13 session, four countries voted alongside Russia, but 143 voted in favor of Ukraine’s resolution, while 35 abstained.

Here you can read past recaps. For context and more in-depth stories, you can find more of NPR’s coverage here. NPR broadcasts State of Ukraine, which contains updates throughout the day.

“But it is clear that the war erases all this, because no one can protect the protected areas,” says biologist Oleksiy Vasyliuk, head of the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group. With each exploding missile, mortar, or tank, toxic chemicals and shrapnel corrupt an environment the country has been working hard to safeguard. It will be a huge pollution of the territory and nothing can be done about it. “Dozens of the largest industrial cities have essentially become completely rubbish.”

Vehicles leak oil and diesel. Fires aerosolize pollutants, propelling chemicals and particulate matter into the atmosphere, which then falls as a kind of toxic snow. The 250,000 acres of forest fire in Ukranian have burned so far, Vasyliuk says.

The contamination of groundwater is uniquely insidious. According to the deputy director of the Zo Environment Network, Nickola Denisov, wind does a good job blowing air pollution out of a given area, but it’s a different story if chemicals get into the ground. “It’s a much more stable environment,” says Denisov. It’s polluted once it’s polluted. It may take a long time for the ground to get rid of pollution.

Russia’s War in Ukraine and its Implications for the Future of the Cold War: The Sobyanin-Sureznov-Zakharova-Surovikin Address

Saldo offered residents the option of relocating to cities “in any part of Russia,” and said the Russian government would provide housing vouchers to those who wished to move further from the fighting.

He said that residents whose homes were damaged from shelling could receive compensation from the Russian government.

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.”

While the leadership of the country has stated that they would fulfilled the tasks set within the framework of the special military operation, Zakharova also mentioned the situation on the ground.

Some regional officials — including the mayor of Moscow, Sergey Sobyanin — appeared to be taking pains to offer reassurances. Mr. Sobyanin wrote on his Telegram channel that there are no measures in place to limit the life rhythm of the city.

Even though Mr Putin granted them power, the governors of the four regions promised not to impose entry or exit restrictions.

But many Russians are sure to see a warning message in the martial law imposed in Ukraine, the first time that Moscow has declared martial law since World War II, analysts say.

The people are worried the border will be closed quickly, and the siloviki will do what they want.

Russia, which has an active military presence in Syria and is helping the government maintain power, still has a large presence in the country. Israel may rethinking its stance toward the conflict in Ukraine after the change in balance of power.

Support in the form of arms, materiel and now training for the Ukrainian forces has been the foundation of their remarkable battlefield successes against a weakened and ill prepared Russian military.

Andelman: Brexit and the European War on Powers: Donald Trump, the Emmanuel Macron, the Germans and the Kremlin

Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of “A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen” and blogs at Andelman Unleashed. He was a reporter for CBS News in Europe and Asia. His views are his own. CNN has more opinions on it.

First, he’s seeking to distract his nation from the blindingly obvious, namely that he is losing badly on the battlefield and utterly failing to achieve even the vastly scaled back objectives of his invasion.

The political clock and winter season in Europe will cause Putin to desperation, hoping they will diminish the will and energy of the powers that have eviscerated Russia’s military-industrial machine and destroyed its armed might.

This ability to keep going depends on a host of variables – ranging from the availability of critical and affordable energy supplies for the coming winter, to the popular will across a broad range of nations with often conflicting priorities.

The European Union agreed a plan in the early morning of Friday to regulate energy prices that have been going up despite restrictions on imports from Russia and the cut of natural gas supplies by the Kremlin.

These include an emergency cap on the benchmark European gas trading hub – the Dutch Title Transfer Facility – and permission for EU gas companies to create a cartel to buy gas on the international market.

While French President Emmanuel Macron waxed euphoric leaving the summit, which he described as having “maintained European unity,” he conceded that there was only a “clear mandate” for the European Commission to start working on a gas cap mechanism.

Still, divisions remain, with Europe’s biggest economy, Germany, skeptical of any price caps. Now energy ministers must work out details with a Germany concerned such caps would encourage higher consumption – a further burden on restricted supplies.

These divisions are all part of Putin’s fondest dream. The success of Europe could be achieved from the Russian viewpoint, because the continent doesn’t agree on essentials.

Many of these issues are already at odds with Germany and France. Though in an effort to reach some accommodation, Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have scheduled a conference call for Wednesday.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/25/opinions/putin-prolonge-war-ukraine-winter-andelman/index.html

Italy’s first woman pm and the pro-Putin war with Ukraine, whose socialist nemoni won’t take office

And now a new government has taken power in Italy. Giorgia Meloni was sworn in Saturday as Italy’s first woman prime minister and has attempted to brush aside the post-fascist aura of her party. One of her far-right coalition partners meanwhile, has expressed deep appreciation for Putin.

Silvio Berlusconi, himself a four-time prime minister of Italy, was recorded at a gathering of his party loyalists, describing with glee the 20 bottles of vodka Putin sent to him together with “a very sweet letter” on his 86th birthday.

The new deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, had said during the campaign that he didn’t want the sanctions against Russia to hurt those who impose them more than those who are hit.

Poland, Hungary, and a few other ultra-rightwing soulmates have been opposed to liberal policies of the EU that seemed to reduce their influence. Poland has taken deep offense at the pro-Putin sentiments of Hungary’s populist leader Viktor Orban.

Kevin McCarthy, the likely speaker of the House if Republicans take control, said in an interview that people were going to sit in a recession and wouldn’t write a blank check. They just won’t do it.”

The influential Congressional progressive caucus said on Monday that Biden needs to start talks with Russia to end the conflict while it’s still being waged and its missiles are hitting deep into the interior.

Hours later, caucus chair Mia Jacob, facing a firestorm of criticism, emailed reporters with a statement “clarifying” their remarks in support of Ukraine. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also called his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba to renew America’s support.

Indeed, while the US has proffered more than $60 billion in aid since Biden took office, when Congress authorized $40 billion for Ukraine last May, only Republicans voted against the latest aid package.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/25/opinions/putin-prolonge-war-ukraine-winter-andelman/index.html

Russian Warfare in the Cold War: Report of the Ukrainian Military and Intelligence Effort to Smuggle High-Tech Weaponry

All these actions point to an increasing desperation by Russia to access vitally-needed components for production of high-tech weaponry stalled by western sanctions and embargos that have begun to strangle the Kremlin’s military-industrial complex.

Russian production of hypersonic missiles has all but ceased “due to the lack of necessary semi-conductors,” said the report. Aircraft are being cannibalized for spare parts, plants producing anti-aircraft systems have shut down, and “Russia has reverted to Soviet-era defense stocks” for replenishment. The Soviet era came to an end over 30 years ago.

The US announced the seizure of Yury Orekhov’s property the day before, because he was responsible for procuring US origin technologies for Russian end- users.

The Justice Department also announced charges against individuals and companies seeking to smuggle high-tech equipment into Russia in violation of sanctions.

The scale of Russian losses has not been determined. The institute described the advances as “impaling” ill-prepared units on well dug-in defensive positions of Ukraine’s battle-hardened troops. The Ukrainian military’s estimates of Russian casualties are seen to be inflated, but the relative increase in the reported numbers suggests a rising toll. The Ukrainian military said that more than 800 Russian soldiers had been wounded or killed in the previous 24 hours.

Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the commander of the Ukrainian military, said in a statement posted on the Telegram messaging app on Thursday that Russian forces had tripled the intensity of attacks along some parts of the front. He did not say what the time frame was or where the attacks were coming from.

The first Ukrainian long-range strike on Russian military targets hit a Russian airfield, and an advisor to the president said, “If somebody attacks you, you fight back.”

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.

The Institute for the Study of War said that the Russian advance in Bakhmut has slowed recently, but that it’s too early to tell if the Russian offensive to capture Bakhmut has ended.

According to a statement from the Russian Defense Ministry, more than 600 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in a Russian strike in Kramatorsk.

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.

According to the mayor of Kyiv, the city is prepared for the worst-case scenario of the city losing water or electricity as a result of further Russian attacks.

If the city is without water or power, the mayor advised some residents to stay with their family and friends outside of the city.

On the “Madness” of the Kherson Evacuees, and the “Fast and Fast” of his First Year in Russia

Still, he continues to hold, as he did in a Tuesday address in the Kremlin, that “attempts made by certain countries to rewrite and reshape world history are becoming increasingly aggressive, ultimately and obviously seeking to divide our society, take away our guiding lines and eventually weaken Russia.”

Tkachuk said each district within the city will have about 100 heating centers to operate in case of emergencies in the winter. A crew from the ambulance will be on duty near these heating centers, where they will have warm clothes, blankets, and places to rest.

He pulled a red suitcase from the black car he rode in, and still couldn’t believe he left there. “The madness.”

His home is just outside Kherson. His wife had three daughters there. Viktor says a neighbor told him that the Russians broke into their house after they left.

A volunteer who asked that he be called Artyom helps care for Kherson evacuees as if he were his own family at a shelter. Artyom does not want his name used to protect people in Kherson.

The street markets in Kherson, Ukraine: Artyom, Oleg, and the American-American border girl whose mother is an asylum seeker

His spouse 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.

But Artyom does not think it’s fine. 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 worries about the baby.

When the invasion began a year ago, Kateryna and Oleg moved to a safer area in western Ukraine. But they never wanted to leave the country. They felt the draw of home pulling them back to the city.

Since the war started, the local street markets have become the center of the city’s public interaction. Local farmers and bakers have been selling their wares at the street markets because most of the stores in Kherson are either closed or have empty shelves.

“For most things, from starting with medicine to finishing with meat, you can purchase them,” says Natalyia Schevchenko, 30. It’s terrible to watch. They cut meat on the side of a car that sold medicine on the hood.

He is still in contact with people in the city who are being evacuated from Kherson. She says her grandmother keeps her up to date.

Artyom and his wife talk whenever they can get a decent connection. They try to keep their conversations light, but they worry Russians are listening in.

The Battle of Beryslav: The Euphoric Valley of the Dnipro River Reconciled by Russian Forces

The Russians could shell us here, and everyone we’ve spoken to is aware of that. It’s not clear whether all Russian troops have left Kherson. There is still uncertainty behind this euphoria.

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

Russian forces continued to fire from across the river on towns and villages newly recaptured by Ukrainian forces, according to the Ukrainian military’s southern command. The military said the missiles struck the town of Beryslav, which is north of a critical dam. It was not immediately known if there were any casualties.

Some 250,000 people lived in the city 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.

Russia would lose Kherson for the third time during the war, following retreats from the capital and the northeast in the fall. Kherson was the only provincial capital Russia had captured since invading, and it was a major link in Moscow’s control of the southern coastline along the Black Sea.

BLAHODATNE, Ukraine — Ukraine’s troops entered the key city of Kherson on Friday, its military said, as jubilant residents waved Ukrainian flags after a major Russian retreat.

If the Ukrainian government regained control of Kherson, it would bolster their argument that they should continue to press on with their military campaign and not return to the bargaining table, as some Americans have advocated.

The videos posted by Ukrainian government officials show people waiting for the soldiers to arrive and cheering when Russia said that the Dnipro River withdrawal was complete.

The residents of the region were greeted with joy as the soldiers moved through the towns and villages.

The Last Days of Russian Occupation in Kherson, Romania, as recounted by the CNN Investigative Editor Oleh Voitsehovsky

Oleh Voitsehovsky said that he had not seen any Russian troops or equipment in the area near Kherson city.

“The Russians left all the villages,” he said. We looked at a lot of villages with the drones and didn’t see any cars. We don’t see how they are leaving. They don’t speak much at night.

The last hours of the Russian occupation were chaotic and disorienting, according to people in Kherson who called 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 phone, 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.

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.

After living under Russian occupation, every person we’ve spoken to has had experiences that have terrified them: earlier today, a teenager told CNN he had been taken and beaten by Russian soldiers who believed he was a spy. Residents told us they are emotionally exhausted, and overwhelmed by what this new-found freedom means.

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.

CNN Observations of Kiev: The Battle of the Dnipro River, in the South of Kherson, between the Russians and the Ukrainians

The Russians had left the western bank of the Dnipro River in the south of Kherson to the Ukrainians, and the nearby regions were left without a checkpoint or trench.

The outskirts of the city, which had been occupied by Russian forces since March 3, were deserted, with no military presence except for a Ukrainian checkpoint around 5 miles outside of the city center, where half a dozen soldiers waved CNN’s crew in.

Billboards around the city that once read “Ukraine is Russian forever” have reportedly been spray-painted over with the message: “Ukraine was Russia’s until November 11.”

The city’s residents have no water, no internet connection and little power. As a CNN crew went in the city center on Saturday, there was a happy mood.

Huge cheers erupt from crowds on the street each time a truck full of soldiers drives by, with the Ukrainian troops being offered soup, bread, flowers, hugs and kisses by the ecstatic crowd.

An old man and an old woman hugged a young soldier with their hands on the soldier’s shoulder, as CNN’s crew stopped to regroup.

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.

The battle that took place on Monday was fought across the expanse of the Dnipro River, between Russian and Ukrainian forces, after Russia retreated from Kherson.

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

In the afternoon there was a rise in fire in the southern district of the city that is near the destroyed Antonivsky Bridge over the Dnipro, stoking fears that the Russian Army would retaliate for the loss of the city.

The smoke was coming from mortar shells that struck near the bridge. Near the riverfront, incoming rounds rang out with thunderous, metallic booms. It was not possible to determine what had been hit.

On the dangers of running over mines: The case of Novoraysk, a town south of Kherson City, Ukraine, as revealed by Zelensky

The mines are very dangerous. Four people, including an 11-year-old, were killed when a family driving in the village of Novoraysk, outside the city, ran over a mine, Mr. Yanushevich said. Another mine injured six railway workers who were trying to restore service after lines were damaged. The Ukrainian officials said there were at least four children who were hurt by mines.

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.

“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. “Then they get drunk and even more aggressive. We are so scared here.” She asked for her name to be kept out of the public eye.

Ivan wrote in a text message that Russians wander around, find empty houses, and settle there. He asked that his name not be used in order to ensure his safety in Skadovsk, which is south of Kherson city. We try to connect with those who own the place so we can find a local to stay there. So that it is not abandoned and Russians don’t take it.”

Putin’s illegal war against Ukraine: the impact of a Russian missile on the world and the consequences for the future of tech and human rights in Russia

Now Poland is facing the repercussions from these attacks – and it’s not the only bordering country. Russian rockets have also knocked out power across neighboring Moldova, which is not a NATO member, and therefore attracted considerably less attention than the Polish incident.

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

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. At the same time, Russian armies have also left behind evidence of unspeakable atrocities and torture, also reminiscent of the Khmer Rouge.

That said, a growing number of Russian soldiers have rebelled at what they have been asked to do and refused to fight. The UK Defense Ministry believes that Russians may be prepared to shoot their soldiers if they desert.

The hotline and Telegram channel were created by the Ukrainian military in order to aid Russian soldiers who are interested in defecting.

Putin is becoming more isolated on the world stage. Zelensky dubbed the session of the G20 the “G19” because he was the only head of state to stay away. It seems as though inclusion in the G7 is no longer a possibility because of Putin’s ousting from the G8. Russia banned 100 Canadians, including Canadian- American Jim Carrey from entering the country, only to compare it to North Korea.

Many of the best and brightest in virtually every field have left Russia. This includes writers, artists and journalists as well as some of the most creative technologists, scientists and engineers.

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.

Nuclear Power Cuts in the Mykolaiv Region: Threats to the Future Combat Air System and the First Russian-Double Cold War

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. The President of the European Commission told the G20 on Tuesday that they have learned the lesson that dependency is unsustainable.

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.

In a statement, the energy company Ukrenergo said that the three nuclear power plants — Rivne, South Ukraine and Khmelnytskyi — were disconnected from the grid as a safety measure.

The company stated that the nuclear reactors were turned back on, but weren’t reconnected to the national grid.

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.

The cascading effect of the power cuts on heat and water was stressed by Ukrainian officials. And with temperatures often below freezing, the water in pipes could freeze, adding further complications.

The President of Moldova wrote on Facebook that she couldn’t trust a regime that left her in the dark and cold, and wanted to kill people to keep them poor.

Zelenskyy, Vladimir Putin, and the attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure: Who is providing water to Donetsk?

Ukraine is preparing for the winter. In a Tuesday night video address, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said there are now 4,000 centers to take care of civilians if there are extended power cuts.

They will provide a variety of services, such as heat, water, phone charging and internet access. Many will be in schools and government buildings.

He addressed a group of soldiers who were receiving awards, and handed them a glass of champagne.

He went on to list a series of events he blames on the Ukrainians: “Who hit the Crimean bridge? Who blew up the power lines?

The reference to Kursk appears to reference Russia’s announcement that an airfield in the Kursk region, which neighbors Ukraine, was targeted in a drone attack. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry has not commented on recent explosions, which are deep within Russia. The targets are not part of the country’s declared drones.

He ended his apparently off-the-cuff comments by claiming that people seem to refrain from mentioning that water has been cut off from Donetsk. Nobody has said anything about it. At the very least! Complete silence.

Russian authorities reported a lot of shelling of the city 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.

In his Kremlin appearance Thursday, he said who was not providing water to Donetsk. Not supplying water to a city of million is an act of genocide.”

The damage of the Ukrainian energy grid to civilian livelihoods is equivalent to genocide: comments on the case of Makiivka, a village in Ukraine

The damage was made worse by the freezing andrupture of wires in distribution networks.

A top Ukrainian official said the attacks on the country’s energy grid amount to genocide. Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Andriy Kostin made the comments while speaking to the BBC last month.

Russia claimed that its soldiers saw their location on their phones when a Ukrainian attack killed dozens of them in the city of Makiivka on New Year’s Day.

He shares the school with over 1000 students during the week. The school also serves as a shelter, providing heat, food and water for the community when extended blackouts hit.

Power cuts can last up to 24 hours. In this agricultural region, farming equipment and warehouses were destroyed. He estimates business activity is one-third of what it was.

War Ukraine: Ukraine’s biggest street artist, Taras Shevchenko’s bust, and what inspired him to become a slave

“The people coming are mostly from the houses on the main street. The ones that were destroyed and burned down,” says Olha Kobzar, a Ukrainian volunteer who is in charge of the temporary housing.

During an interview, the lights go out, leaving her standing in a darkened hallway. She is waiting to see if the power comes back. If it becomes cold, she’ll turn on the generator. It’s like this every day, she adds.

In the center of town is a bust of Ukraine’s national poet, Taras Shevchenko. He advocated for the independence of Ukraine in the 19th century. He wrote, “It’s bad to be in chains and die a slave.”

One of the UK’s greatest street artists, known for his spray-paintings on buildings, painted on several badly scarred walls last month and later confirmed it was his work on social media.

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

Uzbekistan Missile Attack on the Melitopol Complex: State of the Air Defense System in Odesa and Russia’s Report to the Prime Minister

One image shows a young boy tossing a man to the floor. Both are dressed for martial arts. There’s a good chance the man is Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

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

A recreation center for military base personnel, people, and civilians was destroyed in the missile attack on Melitopol, according to Russia’s acting governor.

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

The unofficial Crimean media portal “Krymskyi veter” said an explosion at a Russian military barracks in Sovietske had set the barracks on fire and there were dead and wounded.

Sergey Aksenov, the Russian-appointed head of Crimea, said on Telegram: “The air defense system worked over Simferopol. All services are up and running.

He said that 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 power wouldn’t be restored in a few hours but would take days.

“In general, both emergency and stabilization power outages continue in various regions,” Zelensky said. To put it bluntly, the power system is far from normal.

The war against Russia in Ukraine: a tale of bullying, bullying and destroying the power system, the military and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church

“This is the true attitude of Russia towards Odesa, towards Odesa residents – deliberate bullying, deliberate attempt to bring disaster to the city,” Zelensky added.

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 enemy wanted to distract attention from air defense, according to a Ukrainian Air Force spokesman. Ukraine’s top military chief, Valeriy Zaluzhny, later said that 60 of the missiles were downed by the country’s air defense forces.

The vicious assaults on the plants and equipment used for heat and light in Ukrainian have drawn condemnation from world leaders, and put Ukraine into a grim cycle of having its power restored only to have it knocked out again.

The power system is currently far from a normal state, he said, urging people to use less power in order to help the grid.

Even if there are no heavy missile strikes, this does not 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.

If the Ukrainian President follows through on his threat to ban the Russian Orthodox Church, there will be lots of people watching.

The U.S. Basketball Star Brittney Griner, the Ukrainian Ambassador to France, and the eruptive Bakhmut crisis in Donbas

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.

U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner was freed Dec. 8 after nearly 10 months in Russian detention and following months of negotiations. Her release was in exchange for the surrender of a convicted Russian arms dealer. The woman is back in the US with her husband. Bout is in Russia and is said to have joined an ultranationalist party.

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.

Russian forces turned the city of Bakhmut into burned ruins, Zelenskyy said. Fighting has been fierce there as Russia attempts to advance in the city in the eastern Donbas region.

The December 11, 2001, Russian Invasion of Donetsk, Ukraine, by BM-21 Grand Unified Forces and the USAID Energy Security Project

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.

The strike took place just after midnight on Sunday, New Year’s Day, on a vocational school housing Russian conscripts in Makiivka, in the Donetsk region, according to both Ukrainian and pro-Russian accounts.

“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.

“One of (the victims) was a volunteer, a member of the rapid response team of the international organization. During the shelling, they were on the street, they were fatally wounded by fragments of enemy shells,” he added.

The director of the Energy Industry Research Center said on Ukrainian TV that power cuts had been put in place prior to the strikes to prevent the grid from shutting down. He added that, in spite of this, the result of the attacks Friday morning would be “unpleasant.”

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, run by USAID, delivered four excavators and over 130 generators, Klitschko said on Telegram. The equipment was free of charge.

The Kremlin’s response to Zelensky’s proposal for a five-point peace plan for Ukraine: Russian withdrawal from the Ukrainian territory and security assistance

Russia will not negotiate with the Ukrainian government on the basis of a 10-point peace plan, which includes Russian withdrawal from all of Ukrainian territory, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

“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.

The southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia was hit by more than a dozen missile strikes, according to Oleksandr Starukh, chief of the regional military administration, but it was unclear what had been targeted.

The Engels air base, which is home to Russia’s long-range, nuclear-capable bombers, was targeted in a drone attack in early December, according to the Kremlin, slightly damaging two planes. The attack has not been claimed by Kyiv.

An MiG-31K, a supersonic aircraft capable of carrying a Kinzal hypersonic missile, was also seen in the sky over Belarus during the air attacks on Friday in Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s Armed Forces. 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. We know that he’s (Russian President Vladimir Putin’s) having trouble replenishing specifically precision guided munitions.”

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. 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 refused to say anything about the next security assistance package for Ukraine, but he did say that additional air defense capabilities should be expected.

Russian missile attacks in Kyiv city: the bodies of a toddler and some emergency workers were killed in the rubble of an apartment block

The water supply is back to normal. Half of Kyiv residents already have heating and we are working to restore it to all residents of the city,” the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a post on Telegram on Saturday.

In the center city of Dnipropetrovsk, the body of a toddler has been pulled from the rubble of an apartment block destroyed by a Russian missile, said the head of the regional military administration.

A total of 16 people have been killed, according to the official, including three emergency workers killed in the process of demining the Berislav district of the region. According to the man, 64 more people have been wounded.

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 the residents of neighboring homes which also suffered damage are being looked after in a temporary place.

Some services on the Ukrainian railway system were disrupted due to the missile strikes.

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

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.

Ukraine is ready for a long confrontation with Russia, as declared by Zelensky in a recent joint expeditionary force summit on Monday

“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 Ukrainians far from the eastern and southern fronts are looking for some semblance of a normal life in the run-up to Christmas.

An artificial Christmas tree was put up in the center of Kyiv over the weekend, and it will be powered by a generator at certain times.

The Sophia Square tree has about 1,000 blue and yellow balls and white doves on it. 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.

Kyiv and its Western allies are “set for a long confrontation with Russia” following President Volodymyr Zelensky’s momentous visit to Washington, Moscow said as the war in Ukraine approaches 10 months.

Maria Zakharova stated that they will achieve nothing even if the West provides a lot of military support to the Ukrainian government.

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.

Russia still has large amounts of arms and weapons in large quantities close to the troops they will deliver and well within range of enemy weaponry. Standard military practice dictates that large depots be broken up and scattered and that they be located far behind enemy lines — even within Russian territory that western powers have declared off-limits to Ukrainian strikes.

Peskov stated that there were no real calls for peace. Zelensky spoke to the Congress on Wednesday and stressed that they need peace, in keeping with the Ukrainian plan.

Peskov said that the meeting showed the US was trying to cause a proxy war against Russia.

Defiant Christmas Address of Kherson, Ukraine: Is it the Real Life of a People’s Republic?” Vital Minister Vladorov Zelenskyy

Zelenskyy posted photos on his social media accounts of the crash that he just returned from. He noted the destruction came as Ukrainians were beginning Christmas celebrations that for many Orthodox Christians will culminate in the traditional celebration Jan. 7.

Zelenskyy said it was the real life of Kherson. Cars on fire, bodies on the street and windows blown out were shown in the images.

There were at least 16 killed in Russian attacks on the Kherson region on Saturday, including three state emergency workers who were killed during demining operations. He said that another 64 people had injuries of varying severity.

He added that 55 people were wounded, 18 of them in grave condition. Yanushevych said scores of others, including a 6-year-old girl, were wounded by Russian shelling a day earlier.

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,

President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Ukrainians to have “patience and faith” in a defiant Christmas address after a deadly wave of Russian strikes pounded the southern city of Kherson.

The nation was urged to stand firm in the face of a harsh winter, energy shortages, and threats of Russian attacks.

“There may be empty chairs around it. Our houses and streets are not as bright as they should be. Christmas bells are not loud and inspiring. Through air raid sirens or gunshots and explosions.

The man said that in the battle against evil forces, we have a powerful and effective weapon. The hammer and sword of our spirit and consciousness. God has wisdom. Courage and bravery. There are virtues that help us do good and overcome evil.

The country will sing Christmas carols louder than a power generator and the people will hear the greetings of relatives even if communication is down, he told the Ukrainian people.

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

Zelensky stated that they will celebrate their holidays. As always. We will smile and be happy. As always. One is the difference. We will not wait for a miracle. After all, we create it ourselves.”

Last month, the branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox church decided to 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.

Putin’s “Are we ready to end the war in Ukraine” comments on the Kremlin’s Twitter feed, and the attack of a Ukrainian drone on Saratov Oblast

“These are not military facilities,” he wrote on Telegram Saturday. “This is not a war according to the rules defined. Murder is done for the sake of intimidation and pleasure.

President Putin claimed that Russia is ready for talks to end the war in Ukraine even as the country saw more attacks from Moscow.

He said that “it’s not us who refuse talks, it’s them” — something the Kremlin has repeatedly stated in recent months as its 10-month old invasion kept losing momentum.

The think tank cited Russian military bloggers, who it said have recently acknowledged “that Ukrainian forces in the Bakhmut area have managed to slightly slow down the pace of the Russian advance around Bakhmut and its surrounding settlements.”

In the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region, the city of Nikopol was shelled overnight from heavy artillery, Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said. No injuries have been reported.

Three Russian servicemen were killed Monday after a Ukrainian drone was shot down by air defenses as it approached a military airfield in Saratov Oblast, deep inside Russian territory, according to Russian state news agencies, citing the defense ministry.

Law enforcement agencies are now investigating the incident at the airfield, said Saratov Oblast Governor Roman Busargin on Monday. The comments, posted on his official Telegram channel, came after reports circulated of an explosion in the city.

Condolences on Russia’s scorched-earth attacks after the December 5, 2018 Ukrainian border region, and the 2018 Winter Olympics as a warning to the civilian population

He added that there were “no emergencies in the residential areas of the city,” and that no civilian infrastructure had been damaged. He also extended his condolences to the families of the servicemen, saying the government would provide them with assistance.

“This reminds of the events of December 5, so there may be some deja vu, some repetition of this situation, after which [the Russians] launched a massive missile strike,” the spokesperson said. “Therefore, we should be prepared for this, take it into account in our plans and do not forget to proceed to the shelter.”

Earlier this month, CCTV footage appeared to show an explosion lighting up the sky in Engels. Gov Busargin reassured residents that no civilian infrastructure was damaged, and that information about incidents at military facilities was being checked by law enforcement.

Since cruise missiles are fired from the airfields hit in the attacks, it’s not possible to destroy the missiles on the ground.

He said that he did not speak for the government or confirm the strikes, but that they were fighting back. There is no reason not to try to do this.

The Kinzhal, a hypersonic missile that is impossible to shoot down, is in shorter supply than it should be.

Russia’s invasion of its neighbor in February left that eastern border region in disarray and wreaked havoc on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, but the Kremlin had already waged a limited war in the east of the country. Many military and cybersecurity observers around the world warned that Russia’s scorched-earth hacking was demonstrating a playbook that would, sooner or later, be used outside of Ukraine too—a warning that soon proved true, with cyberattacks that struck everything from American hospitals to the 2018 Winter Olympics.

“It’s like the central nervous system of the human body: If you mess with it, you put all sorts of systems out of whack,” says Rajan Menon, a director of the Defense Priorities think tank who recently returned from a trip to the Ukrainian capital, speaking about Russia’s power grid attacks. It’s an enormous economic cost, and it’s not only an inconvenient thing. It’s an effort to create pain for the civilian population, to show that the government can’t protect them adequately.”

According to the lead of disaster response in the Ukrainian presidential office, several buildings in the capital were destroyed.

An explosion near a playground rattled the windows of nearby homes. Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko urged residents to charge their electronic devices and fill water containers in case of shortages.

Ukrainian air defense systems shot down 21 cruise missiles near Odesa, said Maksym Marchenko, the regional administrator for that region along the Black Sea. But successful missile strikes left the city without electricity or water.

The strikes of the scale have become less frequent since Oct. 10. The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence said that Russia is running out of cruise missiles.

In separate comments to the media Wednesday, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs insisted Moscow would continue with its objectives in Ukraine.

Moscow intends to “intimidate, leave us in the dark for the new year, cause as much damage to civilian infrastructure as possible,” Shmyhal said on Telegram.

Ukrainians are covered in missile wave from Russia, and the situation in Crimea is locked in a stalemate: In response to the Russian military attack on January 8, 2009

After the sirens gave the all clear, life in the capital went back to normal, Hryn said: “In the elevator I met my neighbors with their child who were in hurry to get to the cinema for the new Avatar movie on time.” Parents took their children to school and people went to work, while others continued with holiday plans in defiance.

“On New Year’s Eve, cities should be covered by wave of celebration, joy and hope. Ukrainian cities are again covered by missile wave from Russia,” Zelenska tweeted.

“All the assigned targets have been neutralised. The defense ministry said that the attack stopped production and maintenance of military equipment and resulted in the withdrawal of reserves from western regions of Ukraine.

The Ukrainians said that Russian and Ukrainian forces were suffering significant losses in the area. CNN could not confirm Russia’s claims.

But in spite of Russia’s purported victories on the battlefield, the ministry did not claim any territorial advances against Ukrainian forces, adding credibility to reports that the two sides are locked in a stalemate.

Zelensky said “Russian leader is hiding behind the troops, behind missiles, behind the walls of his residences and palaces” and behind his people. “He hides behind you and burns your country and your future. No one will ever forgive you for terror,” Zelensky emphasized.

Ukraine’s High-Energy Nuclear Forces: New Years’ Ve Strikes on the Donetsk Civilian Infrastructure

Three people died and three more were wounded in the Donetsk region, Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Kyrylo Tymoshenko said on Telegram.

“26 of the enemy’s air strikes were on civilian infrastructure. The Shahed-136 drones were shot down, but 10 of them were used. The General Staff said in its latest operational update that civilian settlements were hit by 80 attacks from multiple rocket launchers.

“The municipal ‘life support system’ of the capital is operating normally. Currently, 30% of consumers are without electricity. Due to emergency shutdowns,” he said on Telegram.

Klitschko also reported that the restrictions were applied to check the open section of the red metro line in the city “for the presence of remnants of missile debris.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/31/europe/russia-ukraine-new-years-eve-strikes-intl/index.html

What happened during the Ukrainian occupied Makiivka massacre? A statement on the situation in the country’s military and pro-Russian media

“From 2023 I really want to win, and also to have more bright impressions and new emotions. I miss it very much. I also want to travel and open borders. And I also think about personal and professional growth, because one should not stand still. I have to develop and work for the benefit of the country,” said Alyona Bogulska, a 29-year-old financier.

“This year, it’s a symbol, not that it’s a small victory, but a symbol that we survived the year,” said Tatiana Tkachuk, a 43-year-old pharmacy employee.

An apparent Ukrainian strike in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine appears to have killed a large number of Russian troops, according to the Ukrainian military, pro-Russian military bloggers and former officials.

The defense ministry of Russia acknowledged the incident and claimed that 63 Russian servicemen died, which would make it one of the bloodiest episodes of the war.

Russian state news agency TASS reported Monday that Grigory Karasin said that those responsible for the killing of Russian servicemen should be found.

The Director of the Strategic Communications of the Chief Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces ofUkraine had a message for the rebels and conscriptes who were brought to the occupied Makiivka. A lot of corpses of Russian soldiers were packed in bags by Santa.

Daniil Bezsonov, a former official in the Russia-backed Donetsk administration, said on Telegram that “apparently, the high command is still unaware of the capabilities of this weapon.”

“I hope that those responsible for the decision to use this facility will be reprimanded,” Bezsonov said. There are enough abandoned facilities in the area where personnel can be quarters.

A Russian propagandist who blogs about the war effort on Telegram, Igor Girkin, claimed that the building was almost completely destroyed by the secondary detonation of ammunition stores.

All military equipment, which was close to the building without a sign of camouflage, was destroyed. As many people are still missing, there are still no figures on the number of casualties.

“As you can see, despite several months of war, some conclusions are not made, hence the unnecessary losses, which, if the elementary precautions relating to the dispersal and concealment of personnel were taken, might have not happened.”

The Russian Counteroffensive on Bakhmut, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Embassy, and the Bryansk, Ukraine, Energy Facility

Russian forces killed 760 people in the last 24 hours, and continued to attempt offensive actions on Bakhmut, the general staff said Sunday.

The strike, using a U.S.-supplied precision weapon that has proven critical in enabling Ukrainian forces to hit key targets, delivered a new setback for Russia which in recent months has reeled from a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

The official said the Russian forces opened fire at a market in Beryslav, which was likely from a tank. Three of the wounded are in serious condition and are being evacuated to Kherson, Yanushevich said.

A blistering New Year’s Eve assault killed at least four civilians across the country, Ukrainian authorities reported, and wounded dozens. The fourth victim died in a hospital on Monday morning, according to the speaker of the Ukranian parliament.

The Bryansk region of Russia had an energy facility hit by a Ukrainian drone, reported the governor on Monday morning. There was no power left in the village.

Kateryna works in logistics and helping to import large containers into Ukraine. It is more than just a job. It’s also a way to contribute to the war effort.

But as they begin 2023, they are also preparing for the arrival of twin boys. Kateryna, who is 34, is eight months pregnant. CNN agreed to only use first names for her because they fear for their privacy.

The Silent Noise in Kyiv: a Mother- and Son–Inspired Life in a Free Ukraine? A Voice of Emergency Care for Young Children

Kateryna said there is another noise new to her neighborhood when the sirens aren’t wailing: the chatter of generators as people try to make up for not having electricity for a long period of time.

Despite the risk and the imminent arrival of the twins, Kateryna still travels into central Kyiv twice a week to use one of the co-working spaces that have popped up across the Ukrainian capital.

These spaces have become quite professional, with furniture, heat, lighting and reliable internet, provided through Starlink terminals, bought from the company owned by Elon Musk.

Kateryna and Oleg are luckier than most Ukrainians in that they have a small generator at home, but they use it sparingly. There is always the risk of running out of diesel to power it – it uses a liter of fuel every hour and needs to cool down every four hours. They have to decide whether to run lights or laundry.

There is enough food in the stores “but sometimes I have to shop with a flashlight,” Kateryna says. They keep about two months’ worth of food supplies stacked in the house, just in case the situation goes from bad to worse.

“I have a job here; Oleg has a job here and he cannot work remotely. We have many friends here, our home. Kateryna said it was a nightmare to move somewhere else.

Kateryna doesn’t fear becoming a wartime mother. She and Oleg want their sons to grow up in an environment that would be the polar opposite of what life would be under Russian occupation.

The company where my husband works has a fund that helps the Ukrainian fighters, and they help with things like drones and trucks. We helped collect money for such equipment,” she said.

I would like my children to live in a free Ukraine, and be safe. They have the right to safety and protection just like all other children in the world. She said she didn’t want them to be in a situation where they had to die from a rocket.

She is worried that she may end up in the hospital as a result of another wave of missile attacks. At that point, she will pray very hard, she said.

Are Cell Phones an Advantage to Military Soldiers? In response to the Makivka attack, Defense Secretary Semyon Pegov, a key figure in Russia’s security communications

If the Russian account is accurate, it was the cell phones that the novice troops were using in violation of regulations that allowed Ukrainian forces to target them most accurately. Ukraine has not commented on how the attack was executed. But the implications are broader and deeper, especially for how Russia is conducting its war now.

It is telling that days after the deadliest known attack on Russian servicemen, President Vladimir Putin called for a temporary ceasefire, citing the Orthodox Christmas holiday. The move was not welcomed by the US or Ukraine, which thought it was a ploy to get breathing space for Russian forces who have had a poor start to the year.

The satellite-guided HIMARS — short for High Mobility Artillery Rocket System — currently have a range of 80 kilometers. A longer-range 300-kilometer HIMARS has not yet been authorized, despite repeated Ukrainian pleas. (The Biden administration has worried that the longer-range system could expand the war beyond Ukraine’s frontiers and lead to an escalation of hostilities.)

Chris Dougherty, a senior fellow for the Defense Program, and co-head of the Gaming Lab at the Center for New American Security in Washington has told me that the reason for Russia not moving large arms depots is because they can’t communicate adequately.

Other experts agree with it. James Lewis, director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies told me that bad security communications were standard practice in the Russian Army.

In the wake of the Makiivka strikes, the Ministry of Defense of Britain said that Russia’s high casualty rate was caused by bad practices such as unsafe ammunition storage before the war.

He is not the only Russian War Bloggers questioning their beliefs. The post on the Grey Zone Telegram channel stated that the soldiers themselves were to blame for what happened in Makiivka. “In this case, it is to 99% a lie and an attempt to throw off the blame.”

Indeed, a number of the most recent arrivals to the war are inmates from Russian prisons, freed and transferred immediately to the Ukrainian front. One can only imagine how appealing the use of cell phones would be to prisoners accustomed to years of isolation with little or no contact with the outside world.

Semyon Pegov, who was awarded the order of courage by Putin at the Kremlin two weeks ago, attacked the ministry of defense for its attempt to use cell phones in order to implicate troops.

He wondered how the Ministry of Defense could be so sure of the location of soldiers in a school building that they couldn’t use drones or a local source to confirm it.

The deputy defense minister for logistics was named the “butcher of Mariupol” when he was appointed a month earlier. The location of the arms depot is near the Makiivka recruits.

Still, Putin-favorite Sergei Shoigu remains defense minister — as recently as Saturday, before the Makiivka attack, telling his forces in a celebratory video: “Our victory, like the New Year, is inevitable.”

Just this week, the Biden administration announced the US was considering dispatching Bradley armored fighting vehicles to Ukraine. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was in favor of heavier battle tanks being dispatched by the French even though he said they would send light tanks. Adding the powerful Leopard 2 tanks to the mix is under increasing pressure.

Ukranian troops and civilians in the Kramatorsk armed conflict zone after a strike on a vocational school on New Year’s Day

A CNN team has been to the area but has seen no large amount of casualties. There is no unusual activity in and around Kramatorsk, including in the vicinity of the city morgue, the team reported.

The Russian strike on two college dormitories that it claimed had been housing hundreds of Ukrainian soldiers, had not been reported by the reporter in Kramtorsk.

According to both Ukrainian and pro-Russia accounts, the strike on thevocational school in Makiivka happened just after midnight on New Years Day.

After the missile strike, Moscow appeared to blame its own troops for using cell phones, which resulted in a public blame game between the Russian government and some pro-Kremlin leaders.

A military post angrily dismissed the account and the leader of the self-declared DPR in eastern Ukraine directly contradicted it, pointing to disagreements within the Russian command over a response to the attack.

A top Ukrainian national security official says that Russia is planning for a big increase in the war in Ukranian.

“These will be defining months in the war,” Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told Sky News in an interview broadcast Tuesday.

The ministry said that military representatives from the two countries would practice using troops based on their previous experience in armed conflicts.

A fresh barrage of missiles ripped through the city of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine Thursday, sending flames and thick plumes into the air as screaming civilians scrambled to find shelter.

Paramedics rushed to the scene to treat at least one wounded civilian. Kramatorsk Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko told residents to stay in bomb shelters and confirmed that there had been a strike on the city.

Rescue workers tried to find survivors in the aftermath of the attack, which damaged eight apartment buildings. Authorities also evacuated people to a local school for shelter.

Is there a country bordering absolute evil? How to punish the perpetrators of the Ismail-Satsuma-Bogoliubov regime

A country which is considered to be bordering absolute evil. And a country that has to overcome it in order to reduce to zero the likelihood of such tragedies happening again. We will find the culprits and punish them. They don’t deserve mercy.