Putin digs himself deeper into a quagmire.

Putin and the U.S.: Why Russia is so strongly concerned about civilian casualties in the Crimean peninsula, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and the chief of the Ukrainian Investigative Committee

Putin said in a video of his meeting with the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee that there was a terrorist act directed at the destruction of the Russian Federation’s vital civilian infrastructure. The author, perpetrators, and those in charge of it are from the special services of Ukraine.

The closely held assessment of Ukrainian complicity, which has not been previously reported, was shared within the U.S. government last week. Senior officials repeated the denials of the Ukrainian government when asked about the American intelligence assessment.

The early signs suggest that the world would respond to his brutality in a different way than they have in the past. The attacks would prompt the French to provide more military assistance to Ukranian. The live streaming of Russian missiles roaring over the heads of Ukrainian civilians may cause Western publics to be more cautious this winter because of Putin’s energy war. And if anything, the turning of fire on civilians hints at Russian – rather than Ukrainian – weakness, since it suggests Putin is unable to respond in the field to humiliating defeats for his forces.

The display of brutality and vengeance by Russian President Vladimir Putin may be a reaction to the fact that the bridge in the Crimean peninsula was destroyed. But his indiscriminate targeting of Ukrainian civilians also raises the prospect of a horrific new turn in a vicious war.

In a recent interview with Russian arch-propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, the head of the defense committee in Russia’s State Duma demanded that officials cease lying and level with the Russian public.

Kartapolov complained that the Ministry of Defense was evading the truth about incidents such as Ukrainian cross-border strikes in Russian regions neighboring Ukraine.

Near the border with Ukraine, there is the town of Valuyki. When it comes to hitting Russian targets across the border, KYiv generally adopts a neither-confirm-nor-deny stance.

Some criticism has also come from Russian-appointed quislings who have been installed by Moscow to run occupied regions of Ukraine. Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-appointed deputy leader of the Kherson region, lashed out at Russian commanders on Telegram for allowing gaps on the battlefield that allowed the Ukrainian military to make advances.

“There is no need to somehow cast a shadow over the entire Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation because of some, I do not say traitors, but incompetent commanders, who did not bother, and were not accountable, for the processes and gaps that exist today,” Stremousov said. “Indeed, many say that the Minister of Defense [Sergei Shoigu], who allowed this situation to happen, could, as an officer, shoot himself. But, you know, the word officer is an unfamiliar word for many.”

But after Russia’s retreat from the strategic Ukrainian city of Lyman, Kadyrov has been a lot less shy about naming names when it comes to blaming Russian commanders.

Writing on Telegram, Kadyrov personally blamed Colonel-General Aleksandr Lapin, the commander of Russia’s Central Military District, for the debacle, accusing him of moving his headquarters away from his subordinates and failing to adequately provide for his troops.

The information space in Russia has deviated from the narratives preferred by the Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defence that things are under control.

The Great Patriotic War, also known as World War II in Russia, is one of the central features of Putinism. And those in Russia’s party of war often speak admiringly of the brutal tactics employed by the Red Army to fight Hitler’s Wehrmacht, including the use of punishment battalions – sending soldiers accused of desertion, cowardice or wavering against German positions as cannon fodder – and the use of summary execution to halt unauthorized retreats.

Kadyrov – who recently announced that he had been promoted by Putin to the rank of colonel general – has been one of the most prominent voices arguing for the draconian methods of the past. He recently said in another Telegram post that, if he had his way, he would give the government extraordinary wartime powers in Russia.

Kadyrov said in a post that he would declare martial law throughout the nation if it were his will, and also that he would use any weapon due to NATO being at war.

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

On the same day that there was a rebuke of Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, by the fact that human rights activists in Russia and other countries were accepted for the UN’s peace prize, the barrage continued.

Nikopol, Dnipro, and Zaporizhzhia, the southern most populated city hit by heavy shelling

In the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region, the city of Nikopol was shelled overnight from heavy artillery, Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said. There were no casualties reported.

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. According to Ukrainian intelligence, the strikes had been planned for almost a week prior to the attack.

Vehicles and trains were able to cross the bridge again on Sunday, even though traffic was temporarily suspended after the blast. Russia also restarted a car ferry service.

He said the route had been to several places, including Krasnodar, a region in southern Russia.

Monday’s attacks also came just a few hours after Zaporizhzhia, a southeastern city close to the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, was hit by multiple strikes on apartment buildings, mostly while people slept. At least 17 people were killed and several dozens injured.

The Ukrainian military said that at least 43 of the cruise missiles were shot down by missile defense systems. Russian attack drones were used in the fight, with 13 of them destroyed.

On the front line, “the key hotspots in Donbas are (neighboring towns) Soledar and Bakhmut, where extremely heavy fighting continues,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address Sunday.

Explosions rocked civilian areas of Dnipro, a major southern city. One site hit was a bus stop, nestled between high rise apartment buildings. A missile slammed just a few feet in front of a bus on its morning route to pick up commuters, destroying the bus and blowing out the windows in the nearby apartments.

After hearing air raid sirens, Oleksii and his wife were able to take shelter in the hallway of their apartment. The explosion shook the building and flew items off of it. The couple looked at the damage to their home.

In a neighborhood hit by a missile, three volunteers dug a shallow grave for a German shepherd that was killed, but lost its leg in the blast.

The frustration of the ruling class in the 1990s: Putin’s failure to respond forcefully enough to angry war hawks has inspired the opposition and inspired the loyalists

According to an analyst who worked for Putin, the president did not respond forcefully enough to satisfy angry war hawks. The attack and response, he said, has “inspired the opposition, while the loyalists are demoralized.”

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

Hardwiring newly claimed territory with expensive, record-breaking infrastructure projects seems to be a penchant of dictators. In 2018, Putin personally opened the Kerch bridge – Europe’s longest – by driving a truck across it. 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. The $20 billion, 34-mile road bridge opened after about two years of delays.

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

Russian attacks on Lyman, Ukraine: The situation in a devastated city is not going to change hands in the coming era of Russian terrorism

— 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. Initial indications are that around 200 civilians are buried in one location, and that 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.

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

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, meanwhile, said that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant had been restored to the grid after it lost its last external power source.

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

After the strikes, China expressed hopes that the situation will be de-escalated soon. 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. ” Other European leaders have also condemned the attack.

“It is simply impossible to leave such crimes unanswered,” Putin said in a brief television appearance on Monday. “If attempts to carry out terrorist attacks on our territory continue, responses from Russia will be tough and will correspond in scale to the level of threats to the Russian Federation.”

The mayor’s building was damaged in a rocket attack. Plumes of smoke swirled around the building, which had rows of blown-out windows and a partially collapsed ceiling. Cars nearby were burned out. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Kyiv didn’t claim responsibility or comment on the attack.

underground stations were used to shelter for several hours after the subway system was suspended on Monday. The air raid alert in the city was lifted at midday, as rescue workers attempt to pull people from the rubble caused by the strikes.

Ukrainian attack on the Crimea bridge: Attacks on civilians in Ukraine and the cost-of-living crisis in the EU, the Netherlands, and the United Nations

Demys Shmygal, Ukraine’s Prime Minister, said Monday that as of 11 a.m. local time, a total of 11 “crucial infrastructure facilities” in eight regions had been damaged.

Recent days have meanwhile shown that sites beyond the current theater of ground fighting are far from immune to attacks. It remains unclear how the bridge bombing was carried out but the fact that a target so deep in Russian-held territory could be successfully hit indicated a serious Ukrainian threat to key Russian assets.

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

Sergey Aksyonov claimed that his Russian-appointed head had good news Monday, saying that his country’s approach to its military operation in Ukraine has changed.

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

According to Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Russian forces are planning the attack as a way of escalating the conflict in Ukraine.

“All over Ukraine, the air raid sirens will not abate. Rockets continue to strike. There are dead and wounded. I ask you: do not leave your shelters. You must stay safe and care for your family. Let’s hang in there and be strong,” Zelensky added.

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

The Dutch Prime Minister said that Putin was putting civilians at risk in other cities. The Netherlands condemns these heinous acts. Putin does not seem to know that the will of the Ukrainian people is not negotiable.

The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that civilians are paying the highest price of the war because of the attacks.

Ukrainian Civil Liberation Front in Kyiv after the Petrovski-Zamolodchikov-Lifshitz-Gabadadze-Kuzmin Strikes

Zelensky said that he would address the emergency meeting on the G7 group of nations via video conference, which was confirmed by the office of the German Chancellor.

A fake video on social media shows hits near the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, which is a short walk from the Presidential Office Building. Five people were killed as a result of strikes on the capital, according to Ukrainian officials.

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said there was no need for more “massive” strikes for now. However, a series of Russian attacks over the weekend killed 11 civilians – eight in the eastern region of Donetsk, two in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and one in the northeastern region of Kharkiv.

In Kyiv, Ukraine Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko says that at least two museums and the National Philharmonic concert halls sustained heavy damage. A strike near the main passenger terminal in the country has caused delays on trains this morning.

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

“It is difficult for me to understand the logic behind their work because we are only using our transportation for civilian purposes,” Makovtsev said.

Viktor Shevchenko: An Outburst on the First Floor of a High-Energy Building to Make Sense of Russia

81-year-old Viktor Shevchenko looked out from what once were the windows of his first floor balcony, just next to the bus stop. There was shattered glass on the ground. He said he had just watered the plants on his balcony when the blast occurred and 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.”

“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.

Michael Bociurkiw is a global affairs analyst. He is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former spokesperson for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He contributes to CNN Opinion. The opinions are of his own. View more opinion at CNN.

The explosion of Putin’s bridge to Russia and back: a turning point in his life for the country’s defences and for business in Ukraine

There were reports of missiles and drones being shot down, but as of midday local time, the area around my office in Odesa remained quiet. Normally at this time of the day, nearby restaurants would be packed with customers and talking about upcoming weddings and parties.

The residents in the underground stations gathered around as the sirens wailed. Huddled on escalators, their faces were lit by their phones as they scrolled through updates.

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.

Just as many regions of Ukraine were starting to roar back to life, and with countless asylum seekers returning home, the attacks risk causing another blow to business confidence.

The symbolism of the bridge linking mainland Russia and outlying areas is something that can not be overstated. He had his 70th birthday the same day the attack took place, so an aging autocrat’s ability to survive humiliation and shame might be adversely affected.

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

For Putin, consumed by pride and self-interest, sitting still was never an option. He responded in the only way he knows how, by unleashing more death and destruction, with the force that probably comes natural to a former KGB operative.

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

Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin: The Importance of a Global View on the Russian-Putnam War and Russia’s Cold War

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

Zelensky said of the war, “freedom comes at a high price and you have to push through to the end.”

It’s important that Washington and other allies use swift telephone diplomacy to try to persuade China and India to resist the urge to use even more deadly weapons.

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

Air and missile defense are Kyiv’s greatest needs at this stage in the conflict. And reported US plans to supply Ukraine with the advanced Patriot missile defense system are an essential element for keeping Kyiv in the fight.

The time has come for Russia to be isolated further, but Turkey and other Gulf states which receive lots of Russian tourists need to be pressured to do so.

Ukrainian Casualties and Infrastructure Infliction in the Kherson-Kormenet Region on Monday as a Probe of Russia’s Cold War

Yanushevych said Sunday that a total of 16 people had been killed in 71 Russian attacks across the wider Kherson region on Saturday, including three state emergency workers who were killed during demining operations. The 64 people who received injuries were varied in severity.

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 war in the subways caused a lot of damage but people have been able to live normally since the air raid shelters were restored.

But the targets on Monday also had little military value and, if anything, served to reflect Putin’s need to find new targets because of his inability to inflict defeats on Ukraine on the battlefield.

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

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

President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to visit the White House, where he is expected to be given an additional $1.8 billion in security assistance from the US. The US is expecting a significant boost in aid that will be led by the missile defense systems, according to a US official.

John Kirby, the coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council, suggested Washington was looking favorably on Ukraine’s requests and was in touch with the government in Kyiv almost every day. He told CNN that they do their best to meet the needs in subsequent packages.

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

“It likely was something that they had been planning for quite some time. Kirby believes that the explosion on the bridge on the Black Sea may not have been the most accelerated of their planning.

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

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

Exploding drones are a rapidly emerging class of weapons that are proliferating around the world and likely to become a staple of modern armed conflicts, military analysts say. That is a point that Ukrainian officials have been making in seeking air defense assistance from their allies. If the Ukrainians can learn how to shoot down drones, allied countries could benefit, Mr. Sak said.

It’s hard to imagine any other country being permitted by the world to wage the kind of campaign Russia has in Ukraine (and in Syria before it); still less with an overt agenda of exterminating the Ukrainian people.

The lesson of this terrible war is that Putin has only strengthened the nation he doesn’t believe has a right to exist by scuttling it.

Olena Gnes told Anderson Cooper in an interview that she was angry over the return of fear in the lives of Ukrainians from the new round of Russian terror.

She said that this is a scare to cause panic, or to scare you guys in other countries, or that he is still a bloody tyrant, and look what fireworks we can arrange.

We don’t feel very desperate because we know that if we win this war and Russia is defeated, we’ll have peace back here.

As Ukraine races to shore up its missile defenses in the wake of the assault, the math for Moscow is simple: A percentage of projectiles are bound to get through.

The Russian government doesn’t have the ability to sustain a high-tempo missile assault because they don’t have enough precision weapons.

The Pentagon believed Russia to have more than 50% of its pre-war inventory of cruise missiles, but that it was running the lowest on air-launched cruise missiles.

The Russians have also been adapting the S-300 – normally an air defense missile – as an offensive weapon, with some effect. They are so fast that they are difficult to intercept in Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv, where they have wreaked havoc. But they are hardly accurate.

He told CNN’s Richard Quest that this was the “first time from the beginning of the war” that Russia has “dramatically targeted” energy infrastructure.

All of these weapons can be used to absorb Ukrainian air defense, the same way Russia has used untrained soldiers on the front line. In a race of attrition, the Patriot system is just the most capable (and most disproportionately expensive) countermeasure that Russia could potentially exhaust with a much lower-tech and cheaper campaign.

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.

In August, US officials said Russia had bought these drones and was training its forces how to use them. Russia has ordered a number of Shahed-136 drones from Iran.

missiles for their existing systems, a “transition to Western-origin layer air defense system”, and “early warning capabilities” were some of the items included in the wish-list circulating at Wednesday’s meeting.

Patriot air defense systems could intercept a large number of Russia’s missiles and attack drones – although Ukraine already claims a high success rate; on Monday, for example, it said 30 out of 35 missiles had been stopped. The Patriot is also a sign NATO’s best technology is on the table to help Ukraine win the war, or at least hold Russia back.

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

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

But these are hardly off-the-shelf-items. The IRIS-T was made in Ukranian. Western governments have limited inventories of such systems. And Ukraine is a very large country under missile attack from three directions.

The blast damage in the Oct. 8 attack by Ukraine’s navy commander: “It’s too late, isn’t it?” An impact dynamics researcher at the University of Sheffield

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 that Poland had supplied the Ukrainians with systems to destroy drones. The Polish government is said to have bought advanced Israeli equipment and then transferring it to the Ukranian government.

The incident of the bridge over the Black Sea gives the Russians a good alibi for their defeats in southernUkraine, said Podolyak.

Credible theories abound in Ukraine and abroad about who is responsible for the Oct. 8 attack and how they did it. But, says Andrew Barr, an impact dynamics researcher at the University of Sheffield, “Despite all of the publicly available photos and videos, it’s quite difficult to be certain about this.”

“The damage is definitely consistent with an explosion in the center of a bridge span, as anything else would have caused damage to the pier,” says Barr, who specializes in analyzing blast damage in war zones.

A Bellingcat analyst, Nick Waters, points out that the bridge doesn’t have any blast damage, which refutes a popular Ukrainian theory that a special naval operation destroyed it.

Ukraine has not taken credit for the blasts, though many in the country celebrated it as a Ukrainian victory due to the bridge’s strategic and symbolic value to Russia.

The “X-ray” of the truck is said to show explosives, and a video of it was published by the FSB. The FSB does not specify the location where the “x-ray” another axle with wheels and a frame disappeared. pic.twitter.com/onKbOndxVO

After Russian state media posted the government’s evidence for a truck bomb — the alleged truck involved and a X-ray scan of its cargo — Ukrainian journalists pointed out that the two images showed different trucks.

He says that the bridge has a single section of road floating over several piers and being detached from other sections. When one span falls into the water, it pulls several other spans with it.

Barr thinks the truck was loaded with specialized compounds that burned hot enough to ignite a fuel train that was traveling on a bridge, which would have weakened it.

The retired military demolition specialist said the flames and sparks were consistent with a thermite bomb. Russia’s military has been known to use thermite, though it could have been recovered from unexploded Russian weapons.

“It’s a successful attack on a guarded structure, with advanced explosives, and timed with the train,” Barr says. “That’s telling of a carefully planned military operation rather than a lone actor or other group.”

Not for the first time, the war is teetering towards an unpredictable new phase. Keir Giles is a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House and works on the 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.

The stakes of the war have been raised as winter approaches. “There’s no doubt Russia would like to keep it up,” Giles said. But the Ukrainian successes of recent weeks have sent a direct message to the Kremlin, too. Giles said that they were able to do things that took them by surprise.

A military official said last week that a number of settlements have been regained by Ukrainian forces as they advance in the western part of the country. The country said on Wednesday that it had liberated more settlements in Kherson.

There is a possibility of a battle in Kherson, a Russian-occupied city. The Russians are preparing for a possible counteroffensive by the Ukrainians.

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

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

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

Ukrainian troops are focused primarily on pushing Russian forces eastwards, having crossed the Oskil River in late September, with Moscow likely preparing to defend the cities of Starobilsk and Svatove in the Luhansk region, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

A major blow to the rebels in Donbas would send a strong signal, and as temperatures plummet on the battlefield,Ukraine will be eager to improve on its gains.

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

Jeremy Fleming, the UK spy chief, said in a rare speech on Tuesday that Russian commanders on the ground know their supplies are running out.

Russian use of limited supplies of precision weapons might prevent Putin from disrupting Ukrainian counter-offensives.

Exactly how much weaponry and manpower each side has left in reserve will be crucial to determining how the momentum will shift in the coming weeks. In the last two days,Ukraine said it was able to destroy 18 cruise missiles and it wants its Western allies to equip them with more equipment to prevent future attacks.

There were first convoys of Russian service members arriving in the country on Oct. 15 as part of a regional grouping that was to protect the border from threats from Ukraine and the West.

“The reopening of a northern front would be another new challenge for Ukraine,” Giles said. 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.

By flipping the narrative of the conflict over the past two months, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has achieved one of his own key objectives: showing Ukraine’s Western allies that their military aid can help Kyiv 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.

Drones have played a significant role in the conflict since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February, but their use has increased since Moscow acquired the new drones from Iran over the summer.

Kamikaze drones are more efficient than other military drones that return to base and are designed to crash into a target and destroy it in the process.

Russian Defense Ministry and the Kremlin: Action for Ukraine’s War on Crime and Security in Europe if Russia is willing to Embassize

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that 11 people were killed and 15 injured when two men opened fire on Russian troops preparing to deploy to Ukraine.

Zelenskyy accused Russia of including convicts “with long sentences for serious crimes” in its front-line troops in return for pay and amnesty — something Western intelligence officials have also asserted.

Ukrainians have been accused by the Kremlin of using U.S.-supplied rockets to attack infrastructure and targets in the occupied regions.

The region of Zaporizhzhia also was illegally annexed by Russia last month, despite the fact that some 20% of it remains under Ukrainian military control.

France is going to provide air-defense missiles and training to help support Ukranian troops. The French defense minister, Sébastien Lecornu, told Le Parisien that as many as 2000 Ukrainian soldiers will be embedded in France for several weeks of combat training, specialized training, and training on equipment supplied by France.

The Institute for the Study of War accused Moscow of conducting “mass” deportations of Ukrainians, which it claimed amounted to ethnic cleansing.

Russian authorities claimed this week that thousands of children from a southern region occupied by Moscow had been placed in rest homes and children’s camps. RIA Novosti reported that the original remarks were made by Marat, the Russian deputy prime minister.

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

— A Russian commander wanted for his role in the downing of a Malaysian airliner over eastern Ukraine in 2014 has been deployed to the front, according to social media posts by pro-Kremlin commentators. Posts by Maksim Fomin and others said that a Russian front-line unit had been given responsibility for by the person known as Strelkov.

He was on an internationalwanted list over the downing of the flight, which killed more than 300 people. He remains the most wanted murder suspect in the Netherlands and a verdict is expected later this month.

Recently, Girkin’s social media posts have lashed out at Moscow’s battlefield failures. Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency said Sunday it would offer a $100,000 reward to 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 there was no time for slow actions.

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

The crash of a Su-34 bomber in the port town of Yeysk, Ukraine, announced by the ministry of emergency situation

European Union foreign ministers are scheduled to meet today in Luxembourg. Before the meeting, Josep Borrell told reporters that concrete evidence would be examined regarding Iran’s involvement in Ukraine.

A wave of kamikaze drone attacks pummeled Kyiv early Monday, killing at least one person and setting off warning sirens across the Ukrainian capital as commuters headed to work.

The Russian Defense Ministry has reported that a Su-34 bomber came down in the port city of Yeysk after one of its engines caught fire. It said both crew members bailed out safely, but the plane crashed into a residential area, causing a fire as tons of fuel exploded on impact.

The report of the ejected pilots stated that one of the engines malfunctioned during take off and caused the plane crash. At the site of the crash of the Su-34 in the courtyard of one of the residential quarters, the plane’s fuel ignited,” the ministry said in a statement to RIA.

According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, 13 bodies were extricated from the debris as of Tuesday morning. The state media reported that at least 25 people were injured.

Yeysk is a port town on the shore of the Sea of Azov and is separated from occupied Russian territory in southern Ukraine by a narrow stretch of the sea.

The Kremlin’s response to the crash of a Russian plane into flames in Saratov-Krasir-Krauglik

Images and videos of the crash’s aftermath showed smoke billowing and fire blazing in the residential area. A building, believed to house hundreds of people, was later engulfed in flames, say officials.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told the authorities to give all necessary assistance to victims of the crash, according to a statement from the Kremlin.

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

“The remains of the aircraft have been extinguished. The residents of the nearby houses have not been evacuated. Veniamin Kondratyev, the Krasnodar Krai region’s head, said that the fire had been contained on his Telegram channel.

According to the head of the affected district in Yeysk, Roman Bublik, the residents of a nine-story building that caught fire will be provided with all the necessary support.

A helicopter hovered over the city after a plane crashed, according to an eye witness who told Russian state media that paramedics and firefighters were in the area.

The Russian Emergency Ministry wrote on the messaging app Telegram early Tuesday that rescue efforts were complete. The ministry reported 19 people were injured.

Nuclear Defensive Forces on Ukraine: A U.N. Monitoring Report from the National Propagation Research Agency (NPR) State of Ukraine

Russia and Iran are both viewed as pariahs for attacking each other, but there is no real affection between Russia and Iran. Both authoritarian governments see the United States as a threat to their control of power and view it as a great enemy.

“This is a partnership of convenience between two embattled dictatorships,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

NATO will hold nuclear deterrence exercises starting Monday. NATO has warned Russia not to use nuclear weapons on Ukraine but says the “Steadfast Noon” drills are a routine, annual training 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 United Nations General Assembly roundly condemned Russia’s move to illegally annex four regions of Ukraine. Only four countries voted with Russia, but 142 voted in favor of Ukrainian’s resolution, and 35 abstained.

Past recaps can be found here. Here you can find more context and in-depth stories from NPR. You can listen to the NPR State of Ukraine show for updates throughout the day.

The explosion of a Russian supersonic twin-engine bomber on its base outside Moscow: Three servicemen killed in the early hours of Monday

13 residents, including three children were found dead after hours of combing through the charred debris of the building. The 19 were hospitalized.

The victims tried to escape from the burning building by jumping from the top floors, but died, according to the vice governor of the region.

Emergency rooms were put at local hospitals by the authorities. Over 500 residents were evacuated and provided with temporary accommodations.

Surveillance cam videos posted on Russian messaging app channels showed a plane exploding in a giant fireball. Other videos showed an apartment building engulfed by flames and loud bangs from the apparent detonation of the warplane’s weapons.

The Su-34 is a supersonic twin-engine bomber equipped with sophisticated sensors and weapons that has been a key strike component of the Russian air force. The aircraft has seen wide use during the war in Syria and the fighting in Ukraine.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that three servicemen were killed when debris from Tu-95 and Tu-110 strategic bombers came down on their base outside of Moscow in the early hours of Monday.

The Russia-Ukraine War: “It’s not so easy, but it’s coming,” a senior adviser told the Center for Strategic and International Studies

Ret said the Shahed drones have a disadvantage of their speed. Marine Col. Mark Cancian, who now serves as a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“The problem with them is that they’re slow,” Cancian said. They are not very fast and they are like all propeller-driven drones. They are susceptible to being shot down by missiles or aircraft guns.

The US has said that the drones used in the attacks are Iranian but that Iran has denied any involvement with Russia.

Russia will be looking for replacements as it tries to find a way to launch missiles at Ukraine. Iran is the only country that is willing to supply Russia in the future.

Iran has consistently said it isn’t siding with any side in the Russia-Ukraine war. Iran has not given arms to either warring side,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Twitter.

Both Nadimi and Cancian compared the Russian decision to target cities as it is losing on the frontlines to The Blitz – the German bombing campaign that targeted London in World War II.

By focusing on the cities, Cancian added, Ukraine’s military would likely have more time to recover on the front lines, similar to Britain’s recovery in WWII.

The delivery of the NASAMS, a ground-based air defense system, is speeding up, and the systems are expected to arrive in Ukraine in a few weeks.

The Zamchenkos, a woman and her husband killed by a Russian kamikaze drone strike intl-hnk

A pregnant woman and her husband killed in Kyiv by what Ukrainian officials said was a Russian “kamikaze” drone strike were inseparable, like “yin and yang,” their close friend has told CNN.

“They had a lot of plans – they dreamed of their own home, children, a full-fledged family, travel. They had very big plans for this life,” Petrukova said.

The Zamchenkos died at home in their apartment in Kyiv on Monday, following a barrage of strikes by Russian-launched, Iranian-made “kamikaze” drones, according to Ukrainian officials.

According to the woman who spoke to Victoria minutes before her death, the first strike trapped the couple in their apartment.

The incoming hit at the power plant made it impossible for them to leave the house. “So they were sitting in the corridor.”

The last message was at 8:18 a.m. [when] she heard two more incoming hits. After that, obviously, there was a fifth one. And the connection with her was lost.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/19/europe/russia-ukraine-kyiv-couple-killed-kamikaze-drone-strike-intl-hnk/index.html

Victoria Rinve and her friend, Victoria, in Kiev, during a visit to Rinve, West Ukraine, in August 1997, revisited

In August, Victoria went back to her home city of Rinve in western Ukraine. She missed her job as a wine shop’s sommelier.

She was cheerful, intelligent and funny, according to her friend. There was something to talk about, and something to be silent about.

“It is impossible to imagine them separately. They hugged and held hands. It was a lot of warmth between them. It was always a pleasure to be around them. They were fun people.”

The death of a Ukrainian MiG pilot killed by a small drone after a collision with a house in the outlying area

These larger surveillance drones can be expensive, so both Ukrainian and Russian forces have employed quadcopters — battery-powered commercial drones that are far cheaper. Quadcopters fly shorter distances and hover over a position before dropping small weapons like grenades on enemy troops and vehicles. After their batteries are refreshed, they are designed to be used again.

In March, the Pentagon announced it would send 100 “tactical unmanned aerial systems” called Switchblades. The administration said in the month that they’d give another 300. The Defense Department said eight days later that it would send 120 drones to Ukraine. In July the United States gave money for Ukraine to purchase more of them.

In August, the Pentagon said it would send Puma drones — small aircraft that soldiers toss into the air to launch and then control by remote control from up to nine miles away. Pumas can stay at altitudes of about 500 feet.

A Ukrainian MiG pilot who shot down five Iranian Shahed-136 drones in the middle of a Ukrainian city became a folk hero, but only after crashing into the debris of the last one. According to military policy, the pilot who identified himself by only his nickname, Karaya, told the local news media that within a short time, they would destroy it successfully.

After colliding with the airborne debris, he said, Karaya steered his MiG away from Vinnytsia and ejected. Nobody was hurt when the jet crashed into houses in the outlying area. Karaya later visited the site to apologize.

Raptor, a soldier in Mykolaiv, Ukraine during the Second Day of World War II. The Russian Army and the General Relative

He said that when he showed up in his tattered uniform, he apologized and thanked the residents for their steel nerves. He joked that it was a violation of military protocol. “Lost them while leaving the office,” he wrote.

MyKolaiv, Ukraine. Two Ukrainian army volunteers were instructed to deliver anti-tank missiles to their fellow soldiers on the second day of the war with Russia. Then, as they stood exposed on a highway, Nikitin, who goes by the battle nickname Concrete, says they received new orders.

“A guy on the radio said, ‘There are two Russian tanks coming at you. “If you want to keep up with the news, try to hit one and watch it on the internet!”, asks Nikitin sitting on a park bench in the city of Mykolaiv.

Both soldiers had never fired an NLAW. As the tanks approached, they hid under some trees and watched a video on how to do it. They were ready to fire the missiles.

“Then the commander says, ‘Oh, it’s ours! Volovyk calls it the nickname Raptor, because he goes by the name. We did not fire. It was a really close call.”

They said their training was a mix of adventure and black comedy and they fought in both environments. The first days of battle were filled with confusion, as two men commented on their unvarnished view of the fighting.

“It was a total mess and I wore a beard,” says the 40-year-old, who heads a construction company. The Russians were more chaotic than us.

Volovyk was learning to speak English by playing video games. He says Russian tactics and decision-making have improved during the war, but he found some of their early actions perplexing. For instance, the Russians deployed riot police who headed toward Kyiv, only to be wiped out.

“We see how they advance, we see how they fight and we were like, ‘Okay, is this their best or are they just mocking us?'” recalls Volovyk, who wears a camouflage cap with the message “Don’t Worry, Be Ready.”

The Russians began to retreat from the Kyiv suburbs in late March. After this, the two men followed orders and headed south to fight a very different kind of war. They left behind the protection of suburban buildings and forests outside the capital for sweeping farm fields with little cover. They started working in the trenches.

“It sucks,” says Volovyk. “You dig. You dig. If you do not dig, you will be dead in this war, so that’s the only thing you can do.

The men were offered new jobs after a couple of weeks. It’s dangerous work that involves getting close to enemy lines and trying to evade detection. The men jumped at the chance to get out of the trenches.

They now operate drones and serve as the eyes of the artillery, helping to guide fire on everything from Russian tanks to ammunition depots in the Kherson region.

The soldiers have had some heart-stopping moments. Nikitin recalls traveling with a team of engineers when they came across a Russian soldier in a field.

“He looks at me, I look at him and he just jumps into the bushes,” recalls Nikitin. He ordered the engineers to shoot the Russians and his fellow soldiers.

Nikitin and Volovyk joined the army reserve six years ago, after the Russians invaded Crimea. Nikitin says they weren’t prophets, but they knew Russia would try to take the rest of Ukraine. They want to liberate Kherson, the regional capital.

Some Russian soldiers have rebelled against what they have been told to do and refuse to fight. The UK’s Defense Ministry believes Russian troops could shoot retreating soldiers.

There are a number of videos that have been filmed by Ukrainian drones that show Russian infantry being struck by bombardment in poorly prepared positions, as well as reports in Russian news media of soldiers telling their families about high casualty rates. The videos have not been independently verified, and their location on the front line could not be determined.

The statement said that the Russian forces were staging up to 80 assaults per day, which was in addition to a telephone conversation with the American general.

General Zaluzhnyi said that they talked about the situation at the front. Ukrainian forces, he said he had told his U.S. colleague, were beating back the attacks, “thanks to the courage and skills of our warriors.”

The increase in infantry in the east didn’t lead to Russia getting new ground, according to an assessment from the Institute for the Study of War.

Russian forces will struggle to maintain their pace of offensive operations in Bakhmut, and may seek to initiate a tactical or operational pause.

In its two counteroffensives in the northeast and the south, the Ukrainian military has reported step-by-step gains in cutting supply lines and targeting Russian ammunition and fuel depots with long-range rockets and artillery.

In the south, where Ukrainian troops are advancing toward the Russian-occupied city of Kherson, the Ukrainian military said Friday morning that its artillery battalions had fired more than 160 times at Russian positions over the past 24 hours, but it also reported Russian return fire into Ukrainian positions.

With conflicting signals over what may be happening in Kherson, the remaining residents of the city have been stocking up on food and fuel.

Why is Russia’s cyber attacks so successful in launching a cyber attack on Ukraine? How Russian hackers are hacking and the intelligence community in Ukraine are attacking tech companies

But experts who spoke to CNN suggest there is likely more to the question of why Russia’s cyberattacks haven’t made a more visible impact on the battlefield.

In the weeks after the February invasion of Russia, six different Kremlin-linked hack groups conducted more than 200 cyber operations against Ukrainian targets. That includes a hack, which the White House blamed on the Kremlin, that disrupted satellite internet communications in Ukraine on the eve of Russia’s invasion.

Four officials from the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection (SSSCIP) were killed in missile attacks, according to a press release. The four officials did not have cybersecurity responsibilities, but their loss has weighed heavily on cybersecurity officials at the agency during another grim month of war.

Zhora told CNN that there is a chance that the Russian government hacking groups are working on some high-complexity attacks. “It is highly unlikely that all Russian military hackers and government-controlled groups are on vacation or out of business.”

According to a Western official, Russia wouldn’t measure the success in cyberspace by one attack, rather by their cumulative effect on the Ukranians.

According to the Justice Department and private investigators, Russia unleashed malicious computer code known as NotPetya that wiped out computer systems at companies across Ukraine before spreading around the world. The incident cost the global economy billions of dollars by disrupting shipping giant Maersk and other multinational firms.

That operation involved identifying widely used Ukrainian software, infiltrating it and injecting malicious code to weaponize it, said Matt Olney, director of threat intelligence and interdiction at Talos, Cisco’s threat intelligence unit.

“All of that was just as astonishingly effective as the end product was,” said Olney, who has had a team in Ukraine responding to cyber incidents for years. It takes time and opportunities that sometimes you can’t just conjure.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/05/politics/russia-cyber-attacks-missiles-ukraine-blackouts/index.html

Ukraine’s new weapons: cyber attacks on the U.N., the Midterm Ukrainian Report, and the United Nations General Assembly report on Russia’s cyber activities

Zhora, the Ukrainian official who is a deputy chairman at SSSCIP, called for Western governments to tighten sanctions on Russia’s access to software tools that could feed its hacking arsenal.

Tanel Sepp, Estonia’s ambassador-at-large for cyber affairs, told CNN that it’s possible the Russians could turn to a “new wave” of stepped up cyberattacks as their battlefield struggles continue.

Sepp said that their main goal is to isolate Russia on the international stage, and that they haven’t communicated with Russia on cybersecurity issues in months.

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

Also Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will host Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. Sweden has to meet certain conditions in order to join NATO.

The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday is scheduled to discuss an International Atomic Energy Agency report, in which Ukraine is expected to be on the agenda.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of “energy terrorism,” as attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure left more than 4 million Ukrainians without electricity.

Russia reentered a deal with the U.N. to safely export food from Ukraine on Nov. 2. The deal was halted by Moscow a few days before due to the fact that Ukraine had launched a drones attack on its Black Sea ships.

The new deal is expected to include the supply of JDAMs, or Joint Direct Attack Munitions which can be used to target unguided missiles or bombs. This will increase their accuracy and decrease the rate in which they burn. A lot of the $1.8 billion is expected to fund munitions replacements and stocks.

The Russian Revolution and the War of the Cold War: A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars that might still happen

The author of “A red line in the sand: Diplomacy, strategy, and the History of wars that might still happen” David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, was twice winner of the Deadline Club Award. He was a correspondent for CBS News in Europe and Asia. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. You can find more opinions at CNN.

Poland is facing repercussions from these attacks and not the only country bordering them. The Polish incident attracted attention, but Russian rockets knocked out power in neighboring Moldova, which is not a NATO member.

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

But beyond these most recent missile attacks lies a laundry list of horrors Putin has launched that only seems to have driven his nation further from the pack of civilized powers that he once sought so desperately to join.

Indeed a hotline and Telegram channel, launched as a Ukrainian military intelligence project called “I want to live,” designed to assist Russian soldiers eager to defect, has taken off, reportedly booking some 3,500 calls in its first two months of activity.

Putin has also tried, though he has been stymied at most turns, to establish black market networks abroad to source what he needs to fuel his war machine – much as Kim Jong-un has done in North Korea. The United States has already uncovered and recently sanctioned many shadow companies and individuals that are in hubs from Taiwan to Armenia to Switzerland to source high-tech goods for Russia.

Putin is getting more isolated on the world stage. He was the only head of state to stay away from a session of the G20, which Zelensky dubbed the “G19.” After his removal from the G7 after the annexation of Crimea, it seems like a distant dream for Putin to return to the group. Russia’s sudden ban on 100 Canadians, including Canadian-American Jim Carrey, from entering the country only made the comparison with North Korea more striking.

Most 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.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/17/opinions/putin-poland-missile-ukraine-nato-andelman/index.html

Putin meets the Kremlin: the fate of the Russian airfield in the context of the emergence of the next-generation fighter jet

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

Putin’s dream that the conflict would drive further wedges into the Western alliance are not being realized. On Monday, the long-stalled project for a next- Generation jet fighter at the heart of the Future Combat Air System was beginning to move forward.

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.”

He held a glass of champagne while speaking to a group of soldiers who had received the awards.

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

The reference is to the announcement by Russia that an airfield in theKursk region was attacked by drones. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry did not offer a comment on recent explosions that took place deep within Russia. Officially, the targets are well beyond the reach of the country’s declared drones.

Shelling in the city of Melitopol and the air defense system in the Odesa region of Ukraine, according to Vladimir Zelensky

He claims there is no mention of the water situation. No one has said anything about it. It was at all! Complete silence,” he said.

There has been shelling in the city this week, according to local Russian authorities.

The attack on Melitopol came amid social media footage and reports of several blasts in the Crimean city of Simferopol at around 9 p.m. local time on Saturday.

However, Ukrainian officials have not commented on the explosions in Crimea or in the Donetsk People’s Republic and CNN is unable to verify the cause of the blasts or the extent of the damage.

“The Russian military is settling in local houses they seized, schools and kindergartens. Federov said in November that military equipment is located in residential areas.

The head of the Russian-backed city administration said that Ukraine had launched Grad missiles. local time Sunday in the direction of the Voroshilovsky and Kalininsky districts.

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

The air defense system worked on Simferopol, according to Sergey Aksenov, the Russian-appointed head of Crimea. All services are working as usual.

Reports state that over a million people in the Odesa region of Ukraine have lost power as a result of strikes by Iranian-made drones.

“In general, both emergency and stabilization power outages continue in various regions,” Zelensky said. The power system is not a normal state at this time.

The true attitude of Ukraine towards Odesa residents – deliberate bullying, deliberate attempt to bring disaster to the city,” said Ukranian president Volodymyr Zelensky

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

The new support package from Norway is worth 100 million dollars and will be used for the restoration of the energy system in the country, Zelensky said.

Mr. Zelensky said in his speech that 10 of the drones had been shot down by Ukraine. It was not immediately possible to verify his total.

The attacks on the plants and equipment that Ukrainians depend on for heat and light have brought condemnation from world leaders, which has pushed Ukraine into a grim cycle in which crews rush to restore power only to have it knocked out again.

The power system is far from normal and there is an acute shortage in the system, he said.

Even if there are no heavy missile strikes this does not mean that there are no problems. “Almost every day, in different regions, there is shelling, there are missile attacks, drone attacks. Almost every day the energy facilities are hit.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has threatened a ban on the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, which many are watching to see if he follows through.

French Prime Minister Receipts Russia over the Invasion of Kherson and Moscow during Brittney Griner’s Return to the United States

French PresidentEmmanuelMacron hosted European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store for dinner 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.

Following Brittney Griner’s release from Russian prison, fans, friends and family are celebrating the basketball player’s return to the U.S. The prisoner swap and other held US citizens in Russia have caused some Republican politicians to complain.

Russian oil revenue was targeted by new measures. They include a price cap and a European Union embargo on most Russian oil imports and a Russian oil price cap.

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

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

At least 10 missiles struck various targets in Kharkiv region, in the north, damaging energy facilities and a hospital, according to Oleh Syniehubov, head of the regional military administration. The power was going to be restored to the city after it went out for a while. The mayor of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekhov, said the city has suffered a ” colossal infrastructural damage” and urged residents to use impromptu relief centers to get food and drinks.

The head of the military administration in Kherson stated that four people died in the city when it was bombarded by shelling and rocket attacks in November. The body of a man was found in one apartment, the Ukrainian prosecutor-general’s office said. Basic services are not restored in the city.

The Kremlin says that two planes were slightly damaged in an attack from a drones on the air base in early December. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

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. They are having trouble keeping up with that pace. We know that the Russian president is having trouble revitalizing precision guided weapons.

The Kremlin objected to the transaction because it said the US would prolong the Ukrainian people’s suffering.

He did not announce any details on the next package for Ukraine, but he did say that more air defense capabilities should be expected.

The Russia War on Everybody: What It Means for You? The Iranian-made, Self-detonating Drones in the Sea of Azov

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.

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

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

An artificial Christmas tree in the center of the city was decorated over the weekend, and will be illuminated with energy-saving garlands that will be powered by a generator at specific times.

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

“Ukrainian children in their letters to St. Nicholas are asking for air defense, for weapons, for victory – a victory for them, a victory for all Ukrainians,” he said.

Keir Giles is working with Chatham House, an international affairs think tank in the UK. He is the author of “Russia’s War on Everybody: And What it Means for You.” The views expressed in this commentary are his own. Read more on CNN.

In fact, repetition of the narrative that any one of a wide range of events that Russia would dislike will ensure “guaranteed escalation to the Third World War” has been highly effective in shaping US and Western behavior.

And yet, Russia’s UN Security Council veto and the fear it has instilled through nuclear propaganda have given it a free pass to behave as it wishes, without fear of interference from a global community looking on in either ambivalence or helpless paralysis.

Russia’s efforts at deterrence continue to bring success in the form of arguments for a ceasefire as a preferable outcome to a Ukrainian victory – based on fear of the consequences of Russia suffering a defeat.

It set a terrible example for other powers around the world. It says possession of nuclear weapons allows you to wage genocidal wars of destruction against your neighbors, because other nations won’t intervene.

In order for the US and the West to deter other countries from invading, they need to send a loud and clear message by way of supply of Patriot.

The second is for Ukrainian jets. Russia and the Ukraine are equipped with “dumb” bombs that are roughly fired towards a target. The Ukrainian government has been given Western standard precision missiles like Howitzers.

Noisily, but that may be all. Kremlin watchers like to parse the latest statements from the Russian President Vladimir Putin each time US weapons deliveries improve Ukraine’s position. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday the latest tranche “leads to an aggravation of the conflict and does not bode well for Ukraine.”

Russia has complained repeatedly about these deliveries, but it has been less assertive when it comes to crossing what may have been considered “red lines” as recently as January.

Whatever the eventual truth of the matter – and military aid is opaque at the best of times – Biden wants Putin to hear nothing but headline figures in the billions, to sap Russian resolve, push European partners to help more, and make Ukraine’s resources seem limitless.

This is not easy. Kevin McCarthy, the likely speaker of the House, has warned that the new GOP-led House cannot expect a blank cheque from the Biden administration.

In support of Ukraine, the US will have no fewer arms: a resolution of the Ukrainian crisis in Kyiv and the need for peace

The remnants of the America First elements in the party have reservations about the amount of aid the US should send towards eastern Europe.

Realistically, the bill for the slow defeat of Russia in this dark and lengthy conflict is relatively light for Washington, given its near trillion-dollar annual defense budget.

Zelensky is trying to remind the Republicans of the seriousness of the fight in Ukraine, and of how a defeat for Kyiv would embolden Moscow, and likely lead to the US entering a boots-on-the ground war.

As a former reality TV star turned unexpected president, he is the embodiment of how Putin turned ordinary Ukrainians into wartime heroes.

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

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

“As the leadership of our country has stated, the tasks set within the framework of the special military operation will be fulfilled, taking into account the situation on the ground and the actual realities,” Zakharova added, referring to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

After Zelensky spoke from the US Capitol, her comments came, expressing gratitude for American aid in fighting Russian aggression since the war began.

Peskov added that “there were no real calls for peace.” Zelensky told Congress on Wednesday that there was a need for peace and reiterated the 10-point plan devised by the Ukrainians.

The US is in a proxy war with Russia that is going to last until the last Ukrainian, Peskov told journalists.

Investigating a Ukrainian Infantry Regime in Crime: The New York Times Investigates the killings along Yablunska Street in March

This investigation was reported and produced by Yousur Al-Hlou , Masha Froliak , Dmitriy Khavin , Christoph Koettl , Haley Willis , Alexander Cardia , Natalie Reneau and Malachy Browne .

When Russian forces withdrew, Times reporters spent several months in the city interviewing residents, gathering security camera footage, and obtaining exclusive government records. In New York, Times investigators analyzed the materials and reconstructed the killings along this one street down to the minute. Records from the phones of commanders on Russian radio channels are some of the most damning evidence implicating the 234th.

The killings were a part of a plan to gain access to the capital, Kyiv. Soldiers interrogated and executed unarmed men of fighting age, and killed people who unwittingly crossed their paths — whether it was children fleeing with their families, locals hoping to find groceries or people simply trying to get back home on their bicycles.

Historically, journalists and investigators relied on a single photograph or video to expose wartime atrocities. In 1992, Time magazine published a photo of an emaciated prisoner in Bosnia on its cover. A video shows the execution of Tamil Tiger fighters in the last days of the civil war.

The scale and detail of the evidence that links a single unit and its commander to specific killings may have implications for ongoing investigations. The International Criminal Court (I.C.C.) is already investigating possible war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine.

Two dozen members of the 234th Infantry were confirmed by The Times by analyzing phone numbers and social media profiles of their family members. In many cases, we interviewed their relatives and spoke to some of the soldiers themselves, two of whom confirmed they were in the 234th and served in Bucha. We cross-referenced our findings with personal data sourced from leaked and official Russian databases provided by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit group focused on global security.

The Times identified — for the first time — three dozen people who were killed along Yablunska Street in March. We reviewed death certificates for most of these victims, and the predominant cause of death was gunshot wounds.

The victims were residents of Bucha or neighboring towns, from all ages and professions. Among the victims killed by Russian paratroopers were 52-year-old Tamila Mishchenko and her 14-year-old daughter, Anna, on March 5. Four women fled for their lives after Russian soldiers fired on their minivan.

After Russian troops retreated from the Kyiv region, Lt. Col. Gorodilov received a promotion to colonel in April from the then-head of the airborne forces, Col. Gen. Andrey Serdyukov. The shocking images from Bucha emerged a few days after the ceremony.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/video/russia-ukraine-bucha-massacre-takeaways.html

Ukrainian President Zelensky urged to act fast in the face of Russian attacks, air raid sirens, gunshots and explosions

The report was written by Evan Hill and others. The research and translations by Aleksandra, Oksana, and Milana was done by three people.

In a Christmas address, the president called on Ukrainians to have faith andpatience because of the Russian strikes.

He urged the nation to rise up in the face of the dark winter and Russian attacks, as well as a missing loved ones.

“There may be empty chairs around it. Our homes and streets can’t be so bright. Christmas bells can not be as loud or inspiring. Air raid sirens, gunshots or explosions, or even worse.

He said that Ukraine had been resisting evil forces for three hundred days and eight years, however, “in this battle, we have another powerful and effective weapon. The hammer and sword of the conscious and spirit. The wisdom of God. Courage and bravery. Virtues that incline us to do good and overcome evil.”

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

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

Zelensky concluded: “We will celebrate our holidays! As always. We are going to smile and be happy. As always. The difference is one. We will not wait for a miracle. We create it ourselves.

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

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

Vladimir Putin tells the putin that war is not killing: “It’s not a war according to the rules, it’s terror”

“These are not military facilities,” he wrote on Telegram Saturday. This is not a war according to the rules. It’s killing for pleasure and intimidation, and it’s terror.

Putin said in a state television interview, excerpts of which were released on Sunday afternoon that Russia is “prepared to negotiate some acceptable outcomes with all the participants of this process.”

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.

Russian militarybloggers recently acknowledged that Ukrainian forces in the Bakhmut area have slowed down the pace of the Russian advance around it.

There have been at least 16 deaths in the region, including three workers killed in the process of demining. Yanushevich said that 64 more have been wounded.

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.

He said that there were no emergencies in the residential areas of the city, and that no 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. At the time, Gov. Busargin also reassured residents that no civilian infrastructure was damaged and that “information about incidents at military facilities is being checked by law enforcement agencies.”

Night is not over: Russian shelling of the Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine lasts for the third time in 5.5 months

In Ukraine, the night from Sunday into Monday appeared unusually quiet. The governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region reported on Telegram that Russian forces did not shell the region for the first time in weeks.

“This is the third quiet night in 5.5 months since the Russians started shelling” the areas around the city of Nikopol, Reznichenko wrote. Nikopol is located across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is under control of the Russian forces.

Ukrainian-controlled areas of the neighbouring Kherson region were shelled 33 times over the past 24 hours, according to Kherson’s Ukrainian Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevich. No casualties were reported.