Three Russian servicemen killed after their drones are shot down.

Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Grand Kremlin Palace Addressed the United Nations General Assembly on October 13, 2014 The Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea is part of Russia”

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia signed decrees on Friday to declare four Ukrainian regions part of Russia as the Kremlin seeks to solidify its tenuous hold over Ukrainian territory through a widely denounced illegal annexation.

The Russian leader spoke in the chandeliered St. George’s Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace — the same place where he declared in March 2014 that the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea was part of Russia.

Several hundred members of the Russian parliament and regional governors attended the speech of the leader of their country.

The United Nations General Assembly roundly condemned 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.

The West’s pressure is making real results. Russian President Putin announced martial law in Ukrainian territories, as well as attacks on civilians by a new hard-line commander named General Sergei Shurokin, all suggesting growing frustration bordering on fear.

He mentioned a list of military actions dating from the British Opium War in China in the 19th century to the Vietnam and Korean Wars.

Vladimir Putin and the U.S. Army in the Aftermath of the September 11th Streedy Tycov-Kuzmin Terror

Russian President Putin recently spoke about the growing threat of war and said his country might abandon its “no first use” nuclear weapons doctrine. The drone strikes hit military infrastructure deep inside Russia. Russia’s military blamed Ukraine for the strikes.

At least a dozen people died when part of a large apartment building was destroyed by Russian missile strikes in Zaporizhzhia.

Fierce fighting continues in Luhansk and other southern areas of eastern Ukraine, where Russia is proposing to annex. Moscow put the plan to action after the Russian army was routed in the fighting in September, and the Ukrainian advance appeared to be gathering force.

The host of the show told Mr. Dugin that he was under sanctions from the European Union and Britain. The condition is for our sovereignty. This is when we’ll be reckoned with. Russia needs to win and win in response to this terrorist attack.

There is a celebration on Red Square on Friday. Official ratification of the decrees will happen next week, said Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman.

The Kremlin in the War of the Donbas and the Donetsk Region: a response to Putin’s frustration with the West

Some referendums were held in occupied territories during a war in defiance of international law. Much of the provinces’ civilian populations has fled fighting since the war began in February, and people who did vote sometimes did so at gunpoint.

The two eastern regions that are known as the Donbas are an area that Mr. Putin wants to win so he could claim his primary prize.

But Mr. Putin nevertheless faces huge hurdles to reassert his control over an increasingly chaotic war, including a recent draft of hundreds of thousands of civilians into military service that has encountered opposition in Russia.

With his allies expressing concern and hundreds of thousands of citizens fleeing partial deployment, an increasingly isolated Putin has once again taken to making speeches offering his distorted view of history.

The timing was bad. Putin lost Lyman just as he was publicly declaring that the Donetsk region – in which Lyman sits – was now annexed by Russia.

Two powerful Putin supporters railed against the Kremlin and called for using harsher fighting methods after Moscow declared that the illegally annexed region would be Russian forever.

The soldiers on the Sunday broadcast said that they had to retreat because of the fighting with NATO soldiers.

The current onslaught of criticism and reporting of military operational details by the Kremlin’s propagandists has been likened to the milblogger discourse over the last week. General statements of progress were the focus of the Kremlin narrative. The Kremlin had never openly recognized a major failure in the war prior to its devastating loss in Kharkiv Oblast, which prompted the partial reserve mobilization.”

The broadcast was intended to convince Russians who have doubts about the war and are angry at the West that they are going to be blamed for hardship if they choose to go, even if it is only for a short time.

The idea that Russia is fighting a broader campaign came up again in an interview with a father whose daughter was Killed by a car bomb.

Mr. Dugin, like Mr. Putin, has accused Western countries of damaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines, which ruptured after underwater explosions last month in what both European and Russian leaders have called an act of sabotage.

He accused the West of blowing up the gas pipelines themselves. The war with the West is on a scale and extent we don’t know. In other words, we must join this battle with a mortal enemy who does not hesitate to use any means, including exploding gas pipelines.”

Russia will keep doing this because it works. And US President Joe Biden and other Western leaders consistently reassure Russia that it works by explicitly referring to the fear of escalation – precisely the fear Russia wants to stoke.

But a curious shift is underway in Russia’s tightly controlled information space. The counteroffensive by the military of Ukraine has made it difficult for the Russians to hide their losses. And Putin last month declared a partial military mobilization, sending a message to the general population that their leader was going all in Ukraine, and that sacrifices are now in order.

It is unlikely that there will be a collapse in Russian forces that will allow the Ukrainians to take more territory, according to American officials. The city of Kherson could be in the grasp of the Ukrainians if individual Russian units broke in the face of sustained Ukrainian pressure.

The Kremlin reflected the disarray of its forces on the ground and acknowledged that it did not know what new borders it would claim in southern Ukraine. The spokesman of Mr. Putin told reporters on Monday that they will continue to consult with the population of the regions.

Analysts inside and out of the government have doubted how useful such arms would be if Mr. Putin were to make good on his threats.

The campaign is designed to end Ukrainian resistance and to protect the civilian population from Russian drones and missiles.

Russia has used a variety of missiles and Iranian drones in an aerial assault on Ukraine in the last few days. But while the damage has been substantial, Ukraine claims that it has taken out around half of the missiles fired – and it expects that success rate to improve as new air defenses arrive from Germany, the US and elsewhere.

The London protests against the regime of fascism: From the Ukrainian flag to the Iranian flag, and into the flames of martyrdom in Iran

A former CNN producer and correspondent, named Frida Ghitis, is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. She has her own views that are expressed in this commentary. CNN has more opinion on it.

There were two groups of demonstrators in London. One person waved both Ukrainian and Iranian flags. When they met, they cheered each other, and chanted, “All together we will win.”

The struggles of the Ukrainian and the Iranian people have inspired support for democracy around the world because of their moral high ground. In this era of social media, their anthems against fascism have gone viral, as has the brutality of their foes.

These battles show bravery that is almost unthinkable to the rest of us, and are inspiring equally brave support in places like Afghanistan.

In Iran, the spark was the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini last month. She died in the custody of morality police who were called in to detain her for breaking the rules.

In defiance, Iranian women have shed their hijabs, danced around fires in the night and tossed them into the flames.

Their peaceful uprising is not really about the hijab; it’s about cutting the shackles of oppression, which is why men have joined them in large numbers, even as the regime kills more and more protesters.

Syria’s Repressive Regime: The Case of Mahsa Amini as a Demonstration of Russian Power in the Era of World War II

Russia still keeps a large force in Syria despite its dominance in the military there over the last year. The change may lead to a change in the balance of power in one of the most complicated conflict zones and could also cause Israel to rethink its stance on the Ukraine conflict.

By building up his forces, Putin thought he could conquerUkraine within a few days. The US intelligence thought Russia would capture the capital in a matter of days. It is reported that US offered to evacuate Zelensky after Russian forces moved in. But Zelensky refused.

Thousands of people have been killed, entire villages have been wiped out, and billions of dollars of infrastructure have been destroyed since Putin invasion of Ukraine began.

The repressive regimes in Moscow and Tehran are now isolated, pariahs among much of the world, openly supported for the most part by a smattering of autocrats.

The evidence that Tehran is closer to Russia than anyone else is delivered by the Iranian-made drones that Russia sent to divebombUkraine’s capital.

These are two very different regimes that have some in common in their desire to project power abroad, and their use of repressive tactics.

Iran’s prisons are filled with regime critics and courageous journalists – including Niloofar Hamedi, first to report what happened to Mahsa Amini. Journalists are a dangerous profession in Russia. So is criticizing Putin. After trying and failing to kill opposition leader Alexei Navalny, Putin’s people manufactured charges to keep him in a penal colony indefinitely.

For people in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, there’s more than passing interest in the admittedly low probability that the Iranian regime could fall. It would be helpful for their countries and their lives, which are heavily influenced by Tehran. Iran’s constitution calls for spreading the Islamization of the country.

Putin and Xi, the world’s leading autocrats, looked ascendant, unstoppable even. Meanwhile, Western democracies appeared unsettled, roiled by sometimes violent protests against Covid-19 restrictions. Putin was preparing for triumph in Ukraine. Heading into the Olympics, he was already in control of China.

These two headline packages alone could impact the course of the war. The threat from Russia is the constant bombardment of energy infrastructure. It is making winter unbearable for some, which means that some cities are getting up to 12 hours a day of darkness.

STAVKY, Ukraine — Racing down a road with his men in pursuit of retreating Russian soldiers, a battalion commander came across an abandoned Russian armored vehicle, its engine still running. There was a rifle, rocket propelled grenades, helmets and stuff inside. The men weren’t there.

“They dropped everything: personal care, helmets,” said the commander, who uses the code name Swat. I believe it was a special unit that was panicked. They dropped everything and moved when it was raining hard and the road was bad.

The Cost of Chaos: The Donald Trump Administration and the World, with an Emphasis on Russia’s Successes in Fighting the War in Afghanistan

There is a capital city. The Ukrainian military has a window of opportunity to make gains against Russia’s army over the next six weeks, according to American intelligence assessments, if it can continue its push in the south and the northeast before muddy ground and cloud cover force the opposing armies to pause and regroup.

Editor’s Note: Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America, and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. Bergen is the author of “The Cost of Chaos: The Trump Administration and the World.” The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more of CNN’s editorials.

Putin’s problems have only deepened in recent days with the surging Ukrainian counteroffensive that has seized key pockets of Russian-controlled territory, such as the transportation hub city of Lyman.

(Indeed, his revisionist account defines his rationale for the war in Ukraine, which he asserts has historically always been part of Russia – even though Ukraine declared its independence from the Soviet Union more than three decades ago.)

According to a recent book about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Soviets intended to install a puppet government in Afghanistan and leave the country as soon as possible.

During the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, the US was initially reluctant to escalate its support for the Afghan resistance, fearing a wider conflict with the Soviet Union. It took until 1986 for the CIA to arm the Afghans with highly effective anti-aircraft Stinger missiles, which ended the Soviets’ total air superiority, eventually forcing them to withdraw from Afghanistan three years later.

Meanwhile, Russia will continue to look for sources of replacement weapons as it scrapes the barrel for repurposed or adapted missiles to launch at Ukraine. And Iran may not be the only country willing to supply Russia in the future.

Air and missile defense are Kyiv’s greatest needs at this stage in the conflict. An essential component for keeping Ukraine in the fight is US plans to supply it with the advanced missile defense system, according to reports.

What Do Border Strikes About Russia? Incompetent Commanders and their Spokes on Telegram: The Sergei Shoigu and the Minister of Defense

The downfall of the Soviet Union was caused by the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan two years earlier.

The Romanov monarchy was weakened by the loss in the Russo-Japanese war in 1905. The Russian Revolution began in 1917 when Czar Nicholas II abdicated during the First World War. The Romanov family was killed by a Bolshevik firing squad.

The Great Patriotic War was a key feature of Putinism and it is known as a fetish in Russia. The use of punishment battalions, which were used by the Red Army to attack Hitler’s Wehrmacht, was talked about often by those in Russia’s party of war.

If Putin wins the war, it will cause a new era of global instability with less freedom, less peace and less prosperity for the world.

The founder of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, a former colonel-general in the Russian military said that they needed to stop lying. Many times prior, we brought this up. It seems that it is not getting through to individual senior figures.

The Ministry of Defense was not stating the full story about cross-border strikes in Russian regions.

Valuyki is in Russia’s Belgorod region, near the border with Ukraine. When it comes to striking Russian targets in the border, Kyiv has usually adopted 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. The deputy leader of the Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov lambasted Russian military commanders on Telegram, for allowing gaps on the battlefield that had 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.”

Kadyrov has been more forthcoming when it comes to blaming Russian commanders after Russia left the Ukrainian city of Lyman.

Kadyrov accused the commander of the Central Military District in Russia, Colonel-General Alexander Lapin, of moving his headquarters away from subordinates and failing to adequately provide for his troops.

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

Kadyrov, who recently was promoted to the rank of colonel general by Putin, has argued against the methods of the past. He wrote in a Telegram post that he wanted the government to have extraordinary wartime powers in Russia.

The leader of the Chechen kingdom, Kadyrov said in a post that he would declare martial law throughout the country and use any weapon, if it was his will, in order to protect his country from NATO.

The Dnipro River Bombing by Vladimir V. Putin: “A terrorist act” and “a reminder to Russia and its president for Ukrainian aggression”

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.

Overnight nearly 40 Russian rockets hit Nikopol, on the Dnipro River, damaging at least 10 homes, several apartment blocks and other infrastructure, according to the head of the regional military administration, Valentyn Reznichenko. One man died and another was wounded by shelling on Friday evening.

“We all know that the destruction of the Russian Federation’s critically important civilian infrastructure was a terrorist act,” Putin said in a video of a meeting with the chairman of Russia’s Investigative Committee. “And the authors, perpetrators, and those who ordered it are the special services of Ukraine.”

The Institute for the Study of War said videos of the bridge indicated the damage from the explosion “is likely to increase friction in Russian logistics for some time” but not cripple Russia’s ability to equip its troops in Ukraine.

He said that they had located the route of the truck to a number of places, including Georgia, North Ossetia and Krasnodar in southern Russia.

Recent fighting has focused on the areas north of the peninsula. The President of Ukranian lamented in a Telegram post.

Moscow’s Kerch Bridge on Crimea: After a Revolutionary Battle, Vladimir Putin Received and Fleeing from the Upper Floor

Stunned residents watched from behind police tape as emergency crews tried to reach the upper floors of a building that took a direct hit. A chasm at least 12 meters wide smoldered where apartments used to be. In an adjacent apartment building, the missile barrage blew windows and doors out of their frames in a radius of hundreds of feet. The city council Secretary said that at least 20 private homes and 50 apartment buildings were damaged.

Tetyana Lazunko, 73, and her husband, Oleksii, took shelter in the hallway of their top-floor apartment after hearing air raid sirens. The explosion shook the building and sent their possessions flying. The couple surveyed the damage to their home after Lazunko cried.

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.

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

“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.

Putin personally opened the Kerch Bridge in May 2018 by driving a truck across it as a symbol of Moscow’s claims on Crimea. The bridge, the longest in Europe, is vital to sustaining Russia’s military operations in southern Ukraine.

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

The First 20 Body(s) Removed from the Lyman Mass Cemetery in Kiev’s Eastern Hemisphere: Air-Strikes and Interactions

The first 20 bodies were removed from the mass burial site in the city of Lyman, which was recently re-conquered by the Ukrainian army. 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.

— The Ukrainian military said Sunday that fierce clashes were taking place around the cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russian forces have claimed some recent territorial gains. The General Staff of the armed forces of Ukraine did not acknowledge any loss of territory but said the most tense situation had arisen around those two cities.

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

At least four explosions were heard in Ukraine’s capital during rush hour on Monday morning. An adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukranian states on social media that a children’s playground was among the sites hit by a rocket or missile.

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.

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

The underground stations of the subway system in Constantinople were serving as a shelter for several hours on Monday. Rescue workers had to get people out of the rubble caused by the air raids and the alert was lifted at midday.

Ukraine’s Special Services and Prime Minister Demys Shmygal: Attacks and Planned Blackouts, and Military Support for the Ukrainian Civil Defense

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.

Mr. Zelensky said that the capital of Ukranian, Kyiv, has had Blackouts since the beginning of the year. Some are what he classified as “emergency” outages resulting from attacks. Others are what he called “stabilization” outages, or planned blackouts on a schedule.

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 said Monday that his Russian superiors had changed their approach to the special military operation in Ukraine.

If destruction of the enemy’s infrastructure were done every day during the special military operation, they would have defeated the regime in May.

This need has been understood by Ukraine’s allies. Ahead of a meeting in Brussels Wednesday of Ukraine’s supporters, General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that “after Russia attacked the Ukrainian civilian population, we will be looking for air defense options that will help the Ukrainians.”

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

The aftermath of the Kerch bridge explosion in Kiev: Laughing with the Kremlin after a huge attack on a strategically important bridge

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

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 is a regular contributor to CNN Opinion. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.

Even amid irrepressible jubilation here in Ukraine in the aftermath of a massive explosion that hit the hugely strategic and symbolic Kerch Straight bridge over the weekend, fears of retaliation by the Kremlin were never far away.

The strikes followed weeks of Ukrainian ground gains and began two days after a huge explosion damaged the Kerch bridge, the only crossing between the annexed Crimean peninsula and Russia. That blast, which was used by the Kremlin as a justification for Monday’s onslaught, bruised the Russian psyche and handed Ukraine a significant strategic boost.

As of midday local time, the area around my office in Odesa remained quiet between air raid sirens and reports of missiles and drones being shot down. Normally, at this time of the day, nearby restaurants would be heaving with customers and talking of upcoming weddings and parties.

A southeastern city was hit by many strikes on apartment buildings while people were sleeping on Monday. At least 17 people were killed and several dozens injured.

But Ukraine’s energy operators are getting used to repairing electricity substations, pylons and thermal power plants. Zelensky stated that most of the towns and villages which terrorists wanted to leave had electricity and communication.

In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, where the army has launched more attacks than in Kyiv, residents have crowded into their homes with food, gas, and drinking water. Yet they also entertained themselves at the Typsy Cherry, a local bar. “The mood was cheerful,” its owner, Vladyslav Pyvovar, told The Times. People had fun, and wondered when the electricity would come back. Hours later, the power came back.

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.

As many regions of Ukraine were starting to roar back to life, the attacks could cause another blow to business confidence since many asylum seekers return home.

These attacks began at the outset of the war and have only increased in scope and virulence since Ukrainian forces last month attacked a bridge – one particularly close to Putin’s heart – between mainland Russia and Crimea, which the Russians annexed in 2014.

The hilarious meme about the explosion 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 will not admit defeat. And he is quite prepared to inflict civilian carnage and indiscriminate terror in response to his string of battlefield reversals.

It was also an act of desperation, as Putin was placed on thin ice by increasing criticism at home.

Implications of the attacks of Monday on civilians and infrastructure in Ukraine for the future of the Russian-Indonesian War of Invasion

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

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

The West’s greatest challenge right now is to show unity and resolve against a man who probes for weakness and has an ability to exploit divisions. Western governments should realize that the sanctions they put in place have little effect on the actions of Putin. They need to continue to arm Ukrainians and provide urgent training, even if it means sending military experts closer to the battlefield to speed up the integration of high technology weapons.

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

Turkey and Gulf states, which receive lots of Russian tourists, need to be pressured into coming on board for the West to further isolate Russia with trade and travel restrictions.

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

The targets that were fired on Monday had little military value and were a sign that Putin was interested in finding new targets since he could not get victories on the battlefield.

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

The recent attacks on civilians, which killed at least 14 people, drove new focus to what action the US and its allies must take to respond to the proxy war with Moscow that has already cost billions of dollars.

The lesson of Ukraine from the first round of Russian “terror”: How Putin’s war is going to hurt civilians and destroy civilians

The White house didn’t say what advanced air systems would be sent, but they offered to help defense against Russian air attacks.

The National Security Council’s John Kirby suggested the United States looked favorably onUkraine’s requests and was in contact with the government almost every day. “We do the best we can in subsequent packages to meet those needs,” he told CNN’s Kate Bolduan.

Kirby was unable to say whether Putin was shifting his strategy from a losing battlefield war to a campaign to damage civilian morale and wreak havoc on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure or if it was just a trend already in the works.

They had been planning for something like that for a while. Kirby said that it was not clear if the explosion on the bridge might have sped up their planning.

The French President spoke out about the possibility of another pivot in the conflict after the rush hour attacks in Ukraine.

As we get into the winter, he was telegraphing where he was going. Vindman said that he was going to try to force theUkrainian 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.

If a lengthy campaign by Putin against civilians is allowed to go on then it might cause a new flood of refugees to enter Western Europe and open the possibility of rivalries among NATO allies.

The lesson of this horrible war is that everything Putin has done to fracture a nation he doesn’t believe has the right to exist has only strengthened and unified it.

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 is just another terror to provoke fear and panic, to scare people in other countries, to show to his own people that he is still a bloody tyrant, and look what fireworks we can arrange.

State television reported on the suffering and also showed 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.

It was a sign that domestic pressure on Russia was getting to be so great that the president felt a show of force was necessary.

One video from Monday shows a soldier using a missile to destroy a Russian projectile, which was supposedly a cruise missile.

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 Russians do not have enough precision weaponry to maintain that kind of high-tempo missile assault into the future, so the occasional volley of missile strikes will be reserved for shows of extreme outrage.

The Pentagon’s view at the time was that of its weapons stocks, Russia was “running the lowest on cruise missiles, particularly air-launched cruise missiles,” but that Moscow still had more than 50% of its pre-war inventory.

Some of that inventory was dispatched this week. But Russia has recently resorted to using much older and less precise KH-22 missiles (originally made as an anti-ship weapon), of which it still has large inventories, according to Western officials. They are designed to take out aircraft carriers. A KH-22 was responsible for the dozens of casualties at a shopping mall in Kremenchuk in June.

The Russians have also been adapting the S-300 – normally an air defense missile – as an offensive weapon, with some effect. These have wrought devastation in Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv, among other places, and their speed makes them difficult to intercept. But they are hardly accurate.

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

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday that Ukraine needed “more” systems to better halt missile attacks. “These air defense systems are making a difference because many of the incoming missiles (this week) were actually shot down by the Ukrainian air defense systems provided by NATO Allies,” he said. “But of course, as long as not all of them are shot down, of course there is a need for more.”

It’s also uneconomical to waste advanced systems on taking out cheap drones. Russia is using hundreds of attack drones. According to Zelensky, Russia has ordered 2,400 drones from Iran.

Missiles for their existing systems and a transition to Western-origin layered air defense system were included in the wish-list that was circulating at the meeting.

He said the system would not control the airspace over the country, but it would control priority targets that the country needs to protect. 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 systems of the western world are starting to trickle in. The first IRIS-T from Germany arrived in Ukranian airspace on Tuesday, and two units of the US National Advanced Surface-to- Air Missile System are expected soon.

“This is only the beginning. The first item on today’s agenda is improving Ukraine’s air defense, and that’s what Reznikov was talking about before he met with the donors. I feel optimistic.

Ukrainians will be grateful for the IRIS-T that arrived this week from Germany and the NASAMS that is expected from the US, said Bronk.

Ukraine’s successes in the past, and the prospects for the future: From Zaluzhnyi to the Kremlin

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 providedUkraine with systems to destroy drones. Reports surfaced last month that Poland had bought advanced Israeli equipment from Israel and was transferring it to Ukraine despite the fact that Israel does not sell advanced defensive technology to Kyiv.

The bombardment was similar to the start of the Russian invasion in February, and underscored that the conflict in Ukraine began again as winter nears.

Not for the first time, the war is teetering towards an unpredictable new phase. Keir Giles is a senior consultant at Chatham House and he said the war is likely to be the third, fourth, or fifth war they have been observing.

It means that, as winter approaches, the stakes of the war have been raised once more. “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 are able to do things that take us by surprise.

Ukrainian troops hoist the country’s flag above a building in Vysokopillya, in the southern Kherson region, last month. According to Ukrainian officials, hundreds of settlements have been liberated since their counter-offensive began.

The Ukrainian government is setting up evacuation routes to the cities of Mykolaiv and Kryvyi Rih, said Iryna Vereshchuk, a Ukrainian deputy prime minister. She stated that power supplies won’t be enough to heat homes where children, the sick, and people with reduced mobility live. It is not going to be a mass relocation. It will give coverage to people who are sick, elderly and without relatives to care for.

During the summer, there was a suggestion built up in the west and Russia that Ukrainians could not seize ground, because they couldn’t defend territory.

The Russian government is playing for the whistle, trying to avoid a collapse in their frontline before the winter season starts, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies 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.”

If Ukraine was to get a big win in the war, it could send a strong signal, and it will be more likely to improve on the gains before temperatures plummet on the battlefield.

“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, and energy infrastructure and power being destroyed in Ukraine itself, is always going to be a test of resilience for Ukraine and its Western backers.”

The national electricity company of Ukraine, Ukrenergo, says it has been able to provide power to the central and eastern regions of the country since Russian missile attacks on Monday and Tuesday. But Ukrainian Prime Minister has warned that “there is a lot of work to do” to fix damaged equipment, and asked Ukrainians to reduce their energy usage during peak hours.

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

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

It’s crucial to understand how much manpower each side has left in reserve and how the momentum will change in the coming weeks. Ukraine was able to intercept 18 cruise missiles on Tuesday and dozens more on Monday, but it is urging its Western Allies for more equipment to protect against future attacks.

There may be help for Putin on the way. Concerns were raised that the two countries would deepen military cooperation after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that his country will send a group of troops to Russia. Observers say that some level of involvement could be imminent because of the recent complaints about Ukrainian threats to its security.

Giles said that the reopening of a northern front would be a new challenge for Ukrainians. 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.

Zelensky wants to drive home some of the gains in the short-term. The leader has sought to highlight Ukraine’s success in intercepting Russian missiles, saying more than half of the missiles and drones launched at Ukraine in a second wave of strikes on Tuesday were brought down.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday that more missile defense systems for Ukraine were necessary ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers.

The role of the mobilized forces in Russia’s military and nuclear arsenals: Iran’s frustrations with the United States, Russia, and Ukraine

That’s not to say that the mobilized forces won’t be used. They can help ease the burden on the rest of Russia’s exhausted professional army by being used in support roles. They could place man checkpoint in the rear and cordon off some areas along the line of contact. They are, however, unlikely to become a capable fighting force. Already there are signs of discipline problems among mobilized soldiers in Russian garrisons.

An Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said this is a partnership of convenience between two dictatorships.

Both countries are deep in crisis, struggling economically and politically. Iran is trying to quell the street protests that pose a serious challenge to the government while Russia is just beginning to understand the impact of its unpopular war effort.

NATO will hold nuclear deterrence exercises starting Monday. NATO does not warn Russia to use nuclear weapons against Ukrainians but says the annual “Steadfast Noon” training is a routine activity.

The eight people who were held by Russian agents are suspected of carrying out a big explosion on the bridge.

Two men shot at Russian troops preparing to deploy to Ukraine, killing 11 people and wounding 15 before being killed themselves, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Oct. 15.

Russian Prime Minister Sergey Sobyanin, the commander of the Russian invasion, and the failure of his military deployments in the region after the invasion of Ukraine

Here you can read past recaps. You can find more of NPR’s coverage here. You can listen to NPR’s State of Ukranian for updates throughout the day.

Some regional officials — including the mayor of Moscow, Sergey Sobyanin — appeared to be taking pains to offer reassurances. “At present, no measures are being introduced to limit the normal rhythm of the city’s life,” Mr. Sobyanin wrote on his Telegram channel.

The regional governors of the four regions that have received power from Mr. Putin said no entry or exit restrictions would be imposed.

Analysts say many people in Russia will see a warning message when Moscow declares martial law for the first time in 70 years.

People are worried that the siloviki will close the borders and that Mr. Putin will do what he wants.

On Tuesday, the newly appointed commander of the Russian invasion, Gen. Sergei Surovikin, acknowledged that his army’s position in Kherson was “already quite difficult” and appeared to suggest that a tactical retreat might be necessary. General Surovikin said he was ready to make “difficult decisions” about military deployments, but did not say more about what those might be.

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.

The Battle of War: David A. Andelman, the German Chancellor and the French President on the Warped Right Hand Side of the Eurozone

David A. Andelman is a CNN contributor, twice winner of the Deadline Club Award, and the author of “A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still happen.” He was a reporter for CBS News in Europe and Asia. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has more opinion.

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.

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.

In the early hours of Friday in Brussels, European Union powers agreed a roadmap to control energy prices that have been surging on the heels of embargoes on Russian imports and the Kremlin cutting natural gas supplies at a whim.

The Dutch Title Transfer Facility is a benchmark European gas trading hub, and an emergency cap has been put in place.

The European Commission has a clear mandate to start working on a gas cap mechanism, which the French President conceded was something that had been kept under wraps at the summit.

Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, is wary 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. European forces could be central to achieving success if the Kremlin is right, as they are failing to agree on essentials.

France and Germany have been at odds on a lot of these issues. In an attempt to reach some sort of compromise, the Chancellor of Germany and French President will hold a conference call on Wednesday.

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

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s “Fascist” Response to the Putin-Initio War on Ukraine

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.

At a gathering of his party loyalists, Silvio Berlusconi was recorded describing the 20 bottles of vodka Putin sent him on his 86th birthday.

Matteo Salvini said during the campaign that he would not want the sanctions on Russia to harm those who impose them more than those who are hit by them.

While Poland and Hungary were against liberal policies of the EU that seemed to reduce their influence, they now disagree about Ukraine. Poland has taken deep offense at the pro-Putin sentiments of Hungary’s populist leader Viktor Orban.

This is trickier. The new Speaker, Republican Kevin McCarthy, warned the Biden administration that they cannot expect a blank cheque from the House of Representatives.

Meanwhile on Monday, the influential 30-member Congressional progressive caucus called on Biden to open talks with Russia on ending the conflict while its troops are still occupying vast stretches of the country and its missiles and drones are striking deep into the interior.

Mia Jacob, the chair of the caucus, sent a statement to clarify her remarks in support of Ukraine. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also called his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba to renew America’s support.

When Congress authorized $40 billion for Ukraine last May, it was only Republicans who voted against it.

Cold War in Ukraine and the War on the Cold War. The State Department Observations of the Military-Industrial Complex as a Case Study

In short, there is every incentive for Putin to prolong the conflict as long as possible to allow many of these forces in the West to kick in. There could be irresistible pressure to dial back on financial and military support if a long cold winter in Europe and high interest rates lead to a recession on both sides of the Atlantic.

This support in terms of arms, materiel and now training for Ukrainian forces have been the underpinnings of their remarkable battlefield successes against a weakening, undersupplied and ill-prepared Russian military.

The pressure is being put on Russia by the West. The impact of sanctions on the Russian military-industrial complex was reported last week by the State Department.

The lack of semi-conductors has led to the halt in Russian production of hypersonic missiles. 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 ended more than 30 years ago.

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 vast networks of such shadow companies and individuals centered in hubs from Taiwan to Armenia, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, France, and Luxembourg to source high-tech goods for Russia’s collapsing military-industrial complex.

The Justice Department has brought charges against individuals and companies that attempt to bring high-tech equipment into Russia in violation of sanctions.

The strengthened relationship between Moscow and Tehran has attracted the attention of Iran’s rivals and foes in the Middle East, of NATO members and of nations that want to restore the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran which was meant to prevent Iran’s ability to build an atomic bomb.

The historian Yuval Noah Harari has argued that no less than the direction of human history is at stake, because a victory by Russia would reopen the door to wars of aggression, to invasions of one country by another, something that since the Second World War most nations had come to reject as categorically unacceptable.

The United States and the West led by them supported the country. The war in Ukraine reinvigorated NATO, even bringing new applications for membership from countries that had been committed to neutrality. A lot of eastern European countries are interested in orienting their future to Europe and the West from the former Soviet satellites.

There is still a lot that goes on far from the battlefields. The US accused the Saudis of financing the war in Chechnya by bolstering its oil revenues after Saudi Arabia decided to slash production. The Saudis deny the accusation.

Israel supports and stands with the west but will not move those systems to a country that does not want them, according to Israeli Defense Minister Benny Netanyahu.

Russia suspended an agreement to open Ukraine’s maritime corridors after Russian Navy ships were rammed at the port of Sevastopol. Putin’s announcement was immediately followed by a surge in wheat prices on global commodity markets. Those prices partly determine how much people pay for bread in Africa and across the planet.

The war in Ukraine is affecting all of us. The conflict has also sent fuel prices higher, contributing to a global explosion of inflation.

Families and individual lives are affected by higher prices. When they come with such powerful momentum, they pack a political punch. In many countries, political leaders are under attack because of inflation that has been worsened by the war.

The Story of Russia’s Failure on the Battlefield of Kherson: A CNN Spectator Report on the Attacks in the Donbas Region

And it’s not all on the fringes. McCarthy is expected to be the next speaker of the House, but he said the GOP could choose to reduce aid to Ukraine. Progressive Democrats released and withdrew a letter calling for negotiations. Evelyn Farkas, a former Pentagon official during the Obama administration, said they’re all bringing “a big smile to Putin’s face.”

Russian news media reported that soldiers were telling their families about the high casualty rates they had suffered as well as films filmed by Ukrainian drones showing the Russian infantry being struck by the enemy’s guns. The exact location of the videos on the front line could not be determined due to not being independently verified.

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

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 said in a statement on Thursday that Russian forces would likely have had more success if they waited until enough people had arrived to build a large force that could overcome Ukrainian defenses.

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.

Experts who spoke to CNN suggested there is more to the question of whyRussia hasn’t made a bigger impact on the battlefield.

Russian bombs have destroyed Ukraine’s power grid in the last two months, taking down 50% of the country’s electric infrastructure and leaving the majority of the country without power. Ukrainians have been cut off from the rest of the world for more than 200 miles west of the ongoing fighting in the region known as Donbas, where they are only allowed to store food outside and keep backup food and water supplies. Water supplies have been disrupted, along with the country’s rail system. And winter, with only a fraction of the country’s heating systems operational, still looms ahead.

A senior US official said that Putin wanted to show off after the bridge attack and that cyber operations aimed at industrial plants can take many months to plan.

At least six different Kremlin-linked hacking groups conducted nearly 240 cyber operations against Ukrainian targets in the buildup to and weeks after Russia’s February invasion, Microsoft said in April. The White House blamed the Kremlin for a hack that disrupted satellite internet communications in Ukrainian on the eve of Russia’s invasion.

According to the agency, four officials from the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection, were killed in missile attacks. 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.

Hackers linked with Russian spy and military agencies have for years targeted Ukrainian government agencies and critical infrastructure with an array of hacking tools.

The Western official did not believe that Russia would measure success in cyberspace by a single attack and rather by their cumulative effect on the Ukrainians.

The NotPetya cyber crime was unleashed by Russia’s military intelligence agency during the hybrid war in eastern Ukranian and spread 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. “And that takes time and it takes opportunities that sometimes you can’t just conjure.”

Russian withdrawal from the Dnipro river and the invasion of Crimea by Ukraine during the November 4 – 4 general assembly meeting of the United Nations

The deputy chairman of SSSCIP, a Ukrainian official who is on the board, called for the western governments to tighten the sanctions on Russia because it could feed its hacking arsenal.

It is possible that the Russians will ramp up cyberattacks, according to the ambassador-at-large for cyber affairs.

Sepp said that the main goal was to make Russia look bad on the international stage.

Ukraine will be keeping an eye on America’s mid-term election results this week and 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. Erdogan insists Sweden must meet certain conditions before it can 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.

Russia rejoined a UN brokered deal to export grain and other agricultural goods to Ukraine on Nov. 2. The deal had been suspended by Moscow after it claimed that Ukraine launched a attack on its ships in the Black Sea.

$400 million in additional security aid was announced by the Pentagon on November 4, and includes 45 refurbished T-72 tanks, 1,100 Phoenix Ghost drones and other vehicles.

After Russia withdrew from Kherson on the Dnipro River, Ukrainian and Russian forces traded fire across the wide expanse of the river, with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky victorious.

Officials in southern Ukraine warned of continued danger from the fighting in regions that have already suffered Russian occupation after the Dnipro became the new front line.

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

There were puffs of smoke after mortar shells hit near the bridge. There were loud booms near the river. It was not possible to assess what had been hit.

Safety concerns in Kherson city: U.S. military and Russian forces respond to a jubilant celebration of Zelensky’s visit

The mines are dangerous. Four people, including an 11-year-old, were killed when a family driving in a village outside of the city ran over a mine. Six railway workers were injured trying to restore service after lines were damaged. And there were at least four more children reportedly injured by mines across the region, Ukrainian officials said in statements.

The deaths emphasized the threats that were still on the ground, even as Mr. Zelensky made a surprise visit to Kherson.

“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.

Russian troops continued to shoot across the river on towns and villages that were captured by Ukrainian forces, according to the Ukrainian military. Two Russian missiles struck the town of Beryslav, which is just north of a critical dam, the military said. It was not immediately known if there were any casualties.

One resident said thatOccupants were robbing local people and selling the items for homemade alcohol, called “smogon,” or homemade liquor. “Then they get drunk and even more aggressive. We are so scared here.” She asked that her surname be withheld for security.

“Russians roam around, identify the empty houses and settle there,” Ivan, 45, wrote in a text message. He lives in Skadovsk, which is south of Kherson city, and asked that his surname not be used out of concern for his safety. “We try to connect with the owners and to arrange for someone local to stay in their place. So that it is not abandoned and Russians don’t take it.”

The Message of the Midterm Elections to the World: Biden, Xi, and the Health of the U.S. Democracy

With democracy suddenly looking like it’s on firmer ground and key autocracies facing serious problems, it was an ideal moment for Biden to speak frankly to Xi about areas of disagreement between the two superpowers while trying to build safeguards to prevent the rivalry from careening into conflict as the relationship has deteriorated to its most tense state in decades.

Biden pointed out that the results of the midterm elections “sent a very strong message around the world” that the US will remain engaged. There was more than just a bigger message. The most important signal to the world from the midterms is about the health of America’s democracy. The US elections went smoothly and peacefully, but they also dealt a blow to many of the most antidemocratic elements in the country.

That’s not the only reason, however, why this was the perfect moment — from the standpoint of the United States and for democracy — for this meeting to occur: There’s much more to this geopolitical moment than who controls the US House of Representatives and Senate.

As Biden and Xi were meeting, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made an emotional, triumphant return to the devastated, now liberated city of Kherson, the one provincial capital that Russian invaders had conquered.

Putin’s adventure turned to disaster as the Ukrainians defended their country with unexpected tenacity and as Biden rallied allies in a muscular push to support Ukraine.

By September, China had done nothing to support Russia, and Putin admitted that he was worried about the situation in Ukraine. The Russian President threatened to use nuclear weapons, which promptedXi to rebuke him.

Tellingly, Putin chose not to attend the G20 summit in Bali, avoiding confrontations with world leaders as he increasingly becomes a pariah on the global stage.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/15/opinions/biden-xi-meeting-democracy-ghitis/index.html

The I want to live campaign: an assessment of the first missile intercepted in Poland by the U.S. and Russia during the first two months of the Beijing crisis

Biden isn’t the only leader with a strong hand. China’s leader, Deng Xiaoping, died in 2005, but he can still rule for as long as he wants after he secured a third term. He doesn’t have to worry about elections, about a critical press or a vociferous opposition party. He is essentially the absolute ruler of a mighty country for many years to come.

And yet Xi faces a mountain of daunting problems. The economy has slowed down so much that China is reluctant to reveal economic data. China’s Covid-19 vaccine, once a tool of global diplomacy, is a disappointment. And partly because of that, China is imposing draconian lockdowns as the rest of the world gradually returns to normalcy after the pandemic.

Also crucial in the epochal competition between the two systems is showing that democracy works, defeating efforts of autocratic countries such as China and Russia to discredit it and proving that unprovoked wars of aggression, aimed at suppressing democracy and conquering territory, will not succeed.

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

The Ukrainian Air Force did not claim responsibility for the device, but said it was the result of what Russia was doing.

That said, a growing number of Russian soldiers have rebelled at what they have been asked to do and refused to fight. Amid plummeting morale, the UK’s Defense Ministry believes Russian troops may be prepared to shoot retreating or deserting soldiers.

The hotline and Telegram channel was launched by a Ukrainian military intelligence project called “I want to live.” It has taken off with over 3000 calls in the first two months.

Above all, many of the best and brightest in virtually every field have now fled 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.

U.S. and Ukraine’s requests for cluster munitions in the framework of the Future Combat Air System have not been responded to the Biden administration

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 is the President of the European Commission and she told the G20 that they have learnt to not dependency on one another.

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.

According to multiple US and Ukrainian officials, one of the most controversial requests the Ukrainians have made to the US has been for cluster munitions.

Senior Biden administration officials have been fielding this request for months and have not rejected it outright, CNN has learned, a detail that has not been previously reported.

A long-term risk to anyone who is near a cluster bomb is similar to a landmine, because they scatter bomblets all over large areas that can fail to explode. They also create “nasty, bloody fragmentation” to anyone hit by them because of the dozens of submunitions that detonate at once across a large area, Mark Hiznay, a weapons expert and the associate arms director for Human Rights Watch, previously told CNN.

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

Some of the unexploded ordnance has a higher rate and that raises the risk that they will pose to civilians. President Joe Biden could override that restriction, but the administration has indicated to the Ukrainians that that is unlikely in the near term.

A congressional aide told CNN the ability of the Ukrainians to make gains in the current conflict and future conflict is not dependent on the amount of weapons the Ukrainians procure.

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

The US replaced the dual-purpose improved conventional munitions, known as DPICMs, with the M30A1 alternate warhead. The small steel fragments contained in the M30A1 do not discharge unexploded weapons on the ground. Ukrainian officials think that the US has more of the DPICMs in storage than the M30A1, which could make a huge difference on the battlefield.

Vladimir Putin and the Ukrain: Who blew up the Kursk nuclear power line, or the water in Donetsk, Ukraine?

He spoke to a group of soldiers who were receiving the awards, and held a glass of champagne.

He pointed out a number of events he thinks are the fault of the Ukrainians. Who blew up the power lines from the Kursk nuclear power plant?”

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 offered no comment on recent explosions, including in Kursk, which are deep within Russia. The country declared its drones to be above the reach of the targets.

He claimed that people do not mention that the water has been cut off in Donetsk because they don’t want to offend anyone. “No one has said a word about it anywhere. At everything! Complete silence.”

Donetsk has been held by Russian-backed separatists for eight years and it is one of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow attempted to annex in October, in violation of international law.

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.

Ukranian Energy Minister and State Deputy Minister of State Ivan Zelensky during the Ukrainian War on Drugs and Crime (Journals of Ukraine)

“The pace of restoration [to household consumers] is slowed down by difficult weather conditions,” it said, with the damage “made worse by the freezing and rupture of wires in distribution networks.”

A top Ukrainian official said the attacks on the country’s energy grid are genocide. The prosecutor general of Ukranian made a comment to the British Broadcasting Corporation.

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

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

The vicious assaults on Ukrainian plants and equipment that they rely on for heat and light have drawn condemnation from world leaders, and has put the Ukranian economy into a crisis of power shortages with crews having to restore power twice.

“The power system is now, to put it mildly, very far from a normal state — there is an acute shortage in the system,” he said, urging people to reduce their power use to put less strain on the battered power grid.

He said that even if there aren’t any heavy missile strikes it doesn’t mean there are no problems. There are missile attacks in different regions almost every day. Almost every day,energy facilities are hit.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the Russian Orthodox Church in the wake of Brittney Griner’s return to the United States

The president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has threatened to ban the Russian Orthodox Church in his country due to their alleged links to Moscow.

The European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the Norwegian Prime Minister were invited to a dinner by the French President.

The country is going to co- host a conference in France with the help of 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. Some Republicans have been complaining about the prisoner swap and other Americans still being held by Russia.

New measures targeting Russian oil revenue took effect Dec. 5. The embargo on most Russian oil imports by the European Union and a price cap are included in the report.

The church in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol has been reported to be used as a Russian military base. Ukrainian forces used long-range cannon to reach their targets, according to officials.

It was 2019. The president went to Paris for a summit to negotiate a peace deal with Putin. Zelensky gave few concessions despite the doubts of many.

Violence against civilians in the occupied region of Kyiv: the biggest assault since the end of the 2014 war by the Russians and the Kremlin

The Russian-installed official says that the biggest assault on the occupied region since the end of the war in 2014) was by the Ukrainians.

“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.

The Kherson military administration says that the city was hit 86 times with weapons in the past 24 hours.

A volunteer member of the international organization was one of the victims. They were killed by pieces of enemy shells when they were on the street.

The city of Kherson was left without power supplies due to the strikes, according to the regional head of the Kherson military administration.

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

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

This week, the Kremlin appeared to reject the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s peace solution that called on Russia to pull its troops out of Ukrainian territory by Christmas.

“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.

The realities seem to suggest that the Russian Federation has new places to go.

The Russian Navy is not at War with Ukraine, but It’s Helping the Army to Resolve the Cold War with the United States,” said Defense Secretary Oren Liebermann

Barbara Starr and Oren Liebermann, who were the first to report that the US was close to sending the system to Ukraine, said it takes a large amount of personnel to be trained.

“Earlier, many experts, including those overseas, questioned the rationality of such a step which would lead to an escalation of the conflict and increase the risk of directly dragging the US army into combat,” Zakharova said at a briefing in Moscow.

One of the most capable and versatile long-range air defense systems on the market is the US Army’s Patriot system, which has been requested several times by the Ukrainian government.

The Pentagon’s press secretary was asked about the Russian warnings about the system. Gen. Pat Ryder said those comments would not influence US aid to Ukraine.

It’s very telling that officials from the country that attacked its neighbor would use words like provocative to describe defensive systems meant to save lives and protect civilians.

The US is not at war with Russia and did not seek conflict. Our focus is to provide security assistance toUkraine.

The Russian defense ministry shared a video of the installation of a intercontinental missile into a silo in the Kaluga region for the commander of the Kozelsky missile formation.

Appearing this week on Russian state TV, Commander Alexander Khodakovsky of the Russian militia in the Donetsk region suggested Russia could not defeat the NATO alliance in a conventional war.

Zelensky in the trenches: how the French President criticized Putin and the Russians during the early stage of the invasion of Ukraine

Smaller air defense systems can only have a few people to properly operate them. The training for Patriot missile batteries normally takes multiple months, a process the United States will now carry out under the pressure of near-daily aerial attacks from Russia.

Zelensky was interviewed by The Economist on Thursday and he rejected the idea of Ukraine trying to recover only land seized by Russia since February 1992 and not parts of the country that have been under Russian control.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told the French news outlet France 24 this week, before the Patriot missile development, that the alliance still has two main objectives: provide aid to Ukraine and also make sure that NATO forces don’t become directly involved and escalate the war.

Old ammo. CNN reported earlier this week that Russian forces had to rely on 40-year-old weapons, due to their dwindling supplies of new weapons.

“You load the ammunition and you cross your fingers and hope it’s gonna fire or when it lands that it’s gonna explode,” said the official, speaking to reporters.

In the trenches. CNN’s Will Ripley filed a video report from trenches and fortifications being built along Ukraine’s border with Belarus, where there is growing concern about Russia once again assembling troops. Ripley talks to a sewing machine repairman turned tank driver.

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

In Paris at the time, I witnessed how Zelensky pulled up to the Élysée Palace in a modest Renault, while Putin motored in with an ostentatious armored limousine. The host, the French President, shook the hand of Zelensky rather than hug Putin.

In 22 years, Zelensky’s name will become known as the instantly recognizable wartime president in olive green, as he rallies his countrymen and stirs the imaginations of globetrotting citizens, as he makes allies pay for refusing to arm his military.

Zelensky was shaped into a bully when he was a kid in the rough and tumble neighborhoods of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine.

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

This is the leader who joked before he was offered a ride out of the US when Russia launched a full-scale invasion.

The Zelensky era: a pivotal moment in geopolitics for Putin and the tough guy from Kryvyi Rih

Zelensky celebrated his victory in the campaign party in a renovated nightclub with fresh-faced Zelensky thanking his supporters. Standing on stage among the fluttering confetti, he looked in a state of disbelief at having defeated incumbent veteran politician Petro Poroshenko.

The war appears to have turned his ratings around. Just days after the invasion, Zelensky’s ratings approval surged to 90%, and remain high to this day. Zelensky’s handling of international affairs was rated high by Americans early in the war by way of comparison to US President Joe Biden.

His bubble includes many people from his previous professional life as a TV comedian in the theatrical group Kvartal 95. The April press conference was held on the platform of a metro station to emphasize the war setting, even though it was in the middle of the war.

As a comforter in chief, his nightly addresses brought solace in the midst of explosions and air raid sirens, I remember well.

Zelensky is projecting confidence and competence in a modern way, by wearing T-shirts and hoodies, the youthful, egalitarian uniform of Silicon Valley, rather than suits, according to a fashion historian.

Zelenska has shown she can be an effective communicators even in countries where her husband can’t. Most recently, she met with King Charles during a visit to a refugee assistance center at the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Family in London. Zelenska was not on the cover of Time magazine, even though they included a reference in their text.

There are some signs that Zelensky’s international influence could be waning. For example, last week, in what analysts called a pivotal moment in geopolitics, the G7 imposed a $60 a barrel price cap on Russian crude – despite pleas from Zelensky that it should have been set at $30 in order to inflict more pain on the Kremlin.

All this adds up to a complex path ahead for the Zelensky administration, especially if liberating Crimea from Russia is part of the definition of victory envisioned by most Ukrainians. For the time being, and true to form, the tough guy from Kryvyi Rih shows no sign of backing down.

“Paradoxically, Zelensky achieved the thing that Putin most wanted to achieve but failed … to rally support domestically with a patriotic war in order to deflect and distract from his abject failures at home. Michael Popow, a New York-based business analyst told me that in Putin’s mind, it’s painful to be shown up by a comedian.

Zelensky said in his video address that when the world is truly unified, it is the world that determines how events develop.

Rishi Sunak: First parliamentary appearance before the Commons Liaison Committee on Monday, February 6. Russian-Ukranian tension and nuclear safety

An official announcement is expected on a European Union cap on natural gas prices, the latest measure to tackle an energy crisis largely spurred by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

On Tuesday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak makes his first appearance as prime minister before the Commons Liaison Committee, where the Ukraine war and other global issues are discussed. That follows Sunak’s meeting with members of a European military force on Monday.

According to reports in Russia, Russian President Putin and his Chinese counterpart have a meeting later this month.

Ukrainians and Russians are about to spend their first Christmas or Hanukkah since the Kremlin launched an invasion of Ukraine in late February.

The agency agreed to send nuclear safety and security experts to each of the nuclear power plants in Ukraine.

A 65-person prisoner exchange freed an American from Russian-controlled territory. Suedi told ABC News that he was imprisoned in eastern Ukranian for months after being tortured in a basement.

The legislature approved funding for Ukraine and more sanctions against Russia. The aid package followed pledges earlier in the week from dozens of countries and global institutions to support more than $1 billion in winter relief funds for Ukraine, helping the country with power, heat, food and medical supplies.

The Failure of the United States to Respond to Russian and Ukrainian Forces in the Cold War: Implications for the American Revolution, NATO and the Security Council

Russia and its backers around the world will see this as a dangerous escalation. That’s nonsense, but it’s highly effective nonsense.

Russia has a free pass to behave in any way it pleases because of the UN Security Council veto and the fear it instills through nuclear propaganda, without fear of interference from a global community.

That is a disastrous example to follow for other aggressive powers. Nuclear weapons allow you to wage wars of destruction against your neighbors because other nations are not allowed to intervene, it says.

The West and the US would prefer other states to receive the same message, but more assertive means of attacking Russia should be included in the package.

There are two key headline deliverables: first, the Patriot missile systems. They have been called the US’s “gold standard” of air defense. NATO protects them and requires the personnel who operate them to be properly trained.

The second are used for Ukrainian jets. Russia and Ukraine mostly have dumb munitions that are fired towards a target. Ukraine has been provided with more and more Western standard precision artillery and missiles, like Howitzers and HIMARS respectively.

Moscow is running out of new cards to play, and it is struggling to equip and rally its conventional forces. It is not likely that the option of using nuclear force will be taken up because China and India have joined the West in opposing it.

According to Western analysts, Russia has grumbled about these deliveries but not much in the way of practical response to the crossing of what may have been considered a red line.

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.

There are remnants of the Trumpist “America First” elements of the party who don’t like how the US is sending aid to the edges of eastern Europe.

The bill for the long and expensive defeat of Russia is light for the US given its huge annual defense budget.

Vladimir Putin and the War in Ukraine, as discussed by Vlasov and Zakharova in a special military operation on Thursday

He is an inspiring rhetorician, and – as a former reality TV star turned unexpected president – the embodiment of how Putin’s war of choice has turned ordinary Ukrainians into wartime heroes.

The speech “connected the struggle of Ukrainian people to our own revolution, to our own feelings that we want to be warm in our homes to celebrate Christmas and to get us to think about all the families in Ukraine that will be huddled in the cold and to know that they are on the front lines of freedom right now,” Clinton said on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” Wednesday.

Zelensky’s historic address strengthened both Democrats and Republicans who understand the stakes in the fight against Putin and Russian aggression as well as the fact that Iran is an ally of the United States.

“I think around now, what [Putin] is considering is how to throw more bodies, and that’s what they will be – bodies of Russian conscripts – into the fight in Ukraine,” Clinton said.

When Clinton met Russian President Putin as the secretary of state he said that the leader was very difficult to predict because of his popularity at home and the conflict in Ukraine.

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.

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

Maria Zakharova said that no matter how much military support the West gives the Ukrainian government, they will not achieve anything.

Zakharova said that the tasks set in the framework of the special military operation will be fulfilled, taking into account the situation on the ground.

Peskov added that “there were no real calls for peace.” Zelensky repeated the 10-point plan devised by Ukraine during his address to the US Congress on Wednesday.

The meeting showed that the US is engaging in a proxy war against Russia, according to Peskov.

Russian President Putin used the word war to refer to the conflict in Ukranian for the first time on Thursday, deviating from his carefully crafted description of Moscow’s invasion as a “Special Military operation” 10 months after it began.

“Our goal is not to spin the flywheel of military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war,” Putin told reporters in Moscow, after attending a State Council meeting on youth policy. We have been working for that and will continue to do so.

Nikita Yuferev, a municipal lawmaker from St. Petersburg who fled Russia due to his antiwar stance, on Thursday said he had asked Russian authorities to prosecute Putin for “spreading fake information about the army.”

Yuferev said that there was no decree to end the military operation. “Several thousand people have already been condemned for such words about the war.”

A US official told CNN their initial assessment was that Putin’s remark was not intentional and likely a slip of the tongue. However, officials will be watching closely to see what figures inside the Kremlin say about it in the coming days.

Putin accused Zelensky of refusing to negotiate, as he said “all conflicts, armed conflicts also end one way or another with some kind of negotiations.”

“We never refused, it was the Ukrainian leadership that refused itself to conduct negotiations … sooner or later any party to the conflict will sit down and negotiate and the sooner those opposing us realize it, the better,” he said.

Russian Servicemen killed in a drone attack on a naval airfield: The attack on Engels is already being investigated by law enforcement agencies

Putin and Shoigu talked about the Kremlin’s investment in the military on Wednesday. The initiatives include increasing the size of the armed forces, accelerating weapons programs and deploying a new generation of hypersonic missiles to prepare Russia for what Putin called “inevitable clashes” with its adversaries.

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.

The incident took place in the western port city of Engels, some 500 miles (more than 800 kilometers) southeast of Moscow, located on the Volga River. This is the second attempted attack on the city this month, and it is located in the city’s military airfield.

The governor said on Monday that the incident at the airfield is being investigated by law enforcement agencies. The comments, posted on his official Telegram channel, came after reports circulated of an explosion in the city.

There were no emergencies in the residential areas of the city, and there was no damage to infrastructure. The government would help the families of the servicemen, he said.

The Russians thought the war wouldn’t affect them in Russia or anywhere else. Therefore, as we see, such things are happening more and more often, and let’s hope that this will only benefit Ukraine,” said Ihnat.

“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. We should make sure to proceed to the shelter and take into account this, as we should be prepared for this.

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

But the attacks, which remain sensitive enough that the Ukrainian government has not publicly acknowledged them, have forced Russia to move planes, potentially complicating Moscow’s campaign of aiming cruise missile strikes at Ukraine’s energy grid.

Since there are missiles on the ground in Russia that could be damaged by air strikes, they might not be able to be deployed.

“If somebody attacks you, you fight back,” Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defense minister who now advises President Volodomyr Zelensky, said in an interview earlier this month, after the first Ukrainian long-range strike on Russian military targets hit Engels and another airfield in central Russia.

The Kinzhal is in short supply: a threat to the civilian population and to the security of the Russian air force and civil society, writes Vladimir Budanov

The Kinzhal, the most sophisticated missile in Russia, is in short supply, Mr. Budanov said.

“If you mess with it, it puts all sorts of systems out of whack”, says the director of the defense priorities think tank, who recently returned from a visit to the Ukrainian capital. It’s not only an annoyance, but an enormous cost as well. It’s an effort to create pain for the civilian population, to show that the government can’t protect them adequately.”