Vladimir Putin’s actions against civilians and Russian army in the occupied region Lyman, Ukraine: a diplomatic retribution against Putin

Russian stragglers in the key city of Lyman were taken back from Russia by the Ukrainians on Sunday and despite their baseless claim, they fled with empty eyes, according to a major Russian newspaper.

The shift was a sign of domestic pressure getting to President Putin and he thought a show of force was necessary for the benefit of his own people.

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

The state media in Russia has claimed that the country only hit military targets in Ukraine, ignoring the suffering caused to millions of civilians.

This possibility that Putin could be heralding a bloody new twist in a war that has gone through multiple strategic phases since the invasion in February was weighing heavy on the minds of political and military leaders in Washington Monday. Their reaction was laced with revulsion that Putin was again unleashing callous warfare against civilians that recalled Europe’s 20th century horrors.

The head of the defense committee in the parliament demanded that officials stop lying during a recent interview with the Russian anti-Putin activist, Vladimir Solovyov.

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

Valuyki is in Russia’s Belgorod region, near the border with Ukraine. Kyiv has generally adopted a neither-confirm-nor-deny stance when it comes to striking Russian targets across the border.

Some criticism has also come from Russian-appointed quislings who have been installed by Moscow to run occupied regions of Ukraine. In a recent four-minute rant on the messaging app Telegram, the Russian-appointed deputy leader of Ukraine’s occupied Kherson region, Kirill Stremousov, lambasted Russian military commanders for allowing “gaps” on the battlefield that had allowed the Ukrainian military to make advances in the region, which is illegally claimed by Russia.

Boris Rozhin, who also blogs about the war effort under the nickname Colonelcassad, said that “incompetence and an inability to grasp the experience of war continue to be a serious problem.”

Kadyrov is less reticent about naming the Russian commanders that he blames for the retreat from the strategic Ukrainian city of Lyman.

Kadyrov blamed the commander of Russia’s Central Military District for the debacle, accusing him of moving his headquarters away from his subordinates and failing to provide for his troops.

The Russian information space has deviated from the narrative preferred by the Russians that things are well under control.

The Great Patriotic War, also known in Russia as the World War II, is one of the central features of Putinism. The Red Army fought against Hitler’s Wehrmacht using brutal tactics and punishments, including the use of punishment battalions and sending soldiers accused of desertion as cannon fodder.

Kadyrov, the leader of Chechnya, was recently promoted to the rank of colonel general by Putin, and has been one of the main proponents of harsher 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 the post that he would declare martial law and use weapons if he had the ability to, because they are at war with the NATO bloc.

U.S. counterattack on Ukraine’s nuclear power plant: Odesa, Ukraine, after a bridge explosion on New Year’s Eve

A senior official said Sunday that crews have restored power and cellular connection in the city near a nuclear power plant that is under Russian control.

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

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

TheUkrainian authorities have tried many times to deliver humanitarian supplies with food and hygiene products to the city, but Russian forces have refused to allow it to go through.

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

The bridge explosion came at a time when the Ukrainian counteroffensive has seized key pockets of Russian-controlled territory, including in regions Putin recently annexed.

Ukraine struck two military bases inside Russia. The New York Times reported that drones launched from Ukrainian territory to attack Russia demonstrated Ukraine’s willingness to take the fight deep into Russia and capabilities to attack at a distance.

Both pro-Russian and Ukrainian accounts say that the Russian conscripts went on strike just after midnight on New Years Day, in the eastern part of the country.

At midday local time, the area around my office in Odesa remained quiet with reports of missiles and drones being shot down. (Normally at this time of the day, nearby restaurants would be heaving with customers, and chatter of plans for upcoming weddings and parties).

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.

Repair work to fix infrastructure facilities across Ukraine is ongoing. Most power plants are now supplying energy to the national grid after they were temporarily shut down in late November when Moscow sent a barrage of missiles to target energy “generation facilities,” Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s state-run energy operator, said.

In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, which has seen more bombardments than Kyiv, residents shifted to war footing and stocked up on canned 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. The people had fun, and wondered when the electricity would go back on. (Power came back hours later.)

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.

For Putin, the symbolism of the only bridge linking mainland Russia and Crimea cannot be overstated. The timing of the attack, on his 70th birthday, made it sound like a blow to an aging autocrat whose ability to endure shame and humiliation is what makes him unique.

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. The world’s longest sea crossing bridge was one of the first things China did after it reclaimed Macau and Hong Kong. The $20 billion, 34-mile road bridge opened after about two years of delays.

Putin’s reaction to the Ukraine’s explosion, an attack of self-defense against the Kremlin, Russia, and the West

The reaction among Ukrainians to the explosion was quickly lit up by meme, like a Christmas tree. Many shared their sense of jubilation via text messages.

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.

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

It’s important that Washington and other allies use urgent telephone diplomacy to convince China and India to refrain from using more lethal weapons, as they might still have leverage over Putin.

Against a man who probes for weakness and tends to exploit divisions, the most important thing for the West right now is to show unity and resolve. Western governments also need to realize that rhetoric and sanctions have little if no impact on Putin’s actions. Even with sending military experts closer to the battlefield to speed up the integration of high technology weapons, they need to continue giving urgent training and arms to the Ukrainians.

High tech defense systems are necessary to protect the energy infrastructure around the country. It’s important to protect heating systems with winter just around the corner.

Military bombings of Ukrainian cities and infrastructure during the January 11 crisis: The role of the Kremlin in fighting the Russian war on civilians

Turkey and Gulf states, which receive a lot of Russian tourists, need to be pressured to join the West in imposing travel and trade restrictions on Russia.

The city dwellers who spent months earlier in the war in subways turned into air raid shelters have regained their lives, but have been frightened by the new strikes because the attacks snatched away the semblance of normality.

The targets on Monday did little military value, and they were seen as a sign of Putin’s need to find new targets because of his inability to impose his will on the battlefield.

As winter sets in, the bombing of power installations appeared to be a hint of the misery that the Russian President could cause as he tries to keep his troops in the south of the country.

The White House didn’t say exactly what type of advanced air system Biden was talking about, but he offered it to the Ukrainian president in order to defend against Russian air attacks.

The National Security Council has a person named John Kirby who works for strategic communications who talks to the government in Kyiv almost every day. He told Kate that he does his best to meet those 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. Now that’s not to say that the explosion on the Crimea bridge might have accelerated some of their planning,” Kirby said.

Russia’s practice of carrying out missile and artillery strikes on civilian targets has already become notorious, from the Mariupol theater airstrike in May that killed 600 people to the bombings of multiple sites in central Kyiv that Russia carried out in October in retaliation for the destruction of the Kerch bridge linking the Crimean peninsula to Russia. The repeated failures of Russia’s military to take or hold territory in the face of the Ukrainian counteroffensive seem only to have amplified the Kremlin’s preference for softer, nonmilitary targets: In late November, Ukrainian defense minister Oleksii Reznikov wrote that fully 97 percent of Russia’s 16,000 missile strikes have targeted civilians. “We are fighting against a terrorist state where people are killed,” wrote Reznikov.

The rain of fire against Ukrainian civilians on Monday was also chilling, given that it occurred following Putin’s latest nuclear threats and days of debate over whether he might use a tactical nuclear weapon. If he doesn’t, it seems likely that any decision he makes will be made solely to spare the lives of innocents. Still, Kirby said that there was no indication that Russia was activating nuclear arms or that the US needed to change its own nuclear posture.

The Monday rush-hour attacks inUkraine could be the start of another pivot in the conflict according to French PresidentEmmanuelMacron.

The strikes on Monday and a number of others throughout the week are a sign of Russian President Vladimir Putin lashing out at the setbacks he has suffered in the war.

Igor Zhovkva, Zelensky’s chief diplomatic adviser, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on “The Situation Room” that Ukraine had shot down 56 of the 84 missiles and drones that were fired by Russia, in apparent revenge for an explosion on a strategic bridge leading to annexed Crimea that is critical for Moscow’s war effort and is a symbol of Putin’s rule.

“If it were not for air defense, the number of casualties would have been different. Much bigger,” he stressed. This is one more proof that the world needs to increase support for Ukrainians.

A campaign by Putin against civilians could cause a number of casualties, possibly breaking the Ukrainian spirit, and may cause a new wave of refugees to come into Western Europe, causing divisions 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.

The mother of three who is documenting the war on YouTube said that she was angry about the return of fear and violence to the lives of Ukrainians.

She stated that this is just another terror to cause panic, to scare you guys in other countries or to show to his own people that he is still a bloody tyrant.

We need it as fast as we can because after the war is over we will have our peace back.

On Monday, state television not only reported on the suffering, but also flaunted it. It showed plumes of smoke and carnage in central Kyiv, along with empty store shelves and a long-range forecast promising months of freezing temperatures there.

Russian counter-offensive in Ukraine: a triumphant win for the Kremlin and the Russian ambassador to the War with Ukraine

Not for the first time, the war is teetering towards an unpredictable new phase. Keir Giles said that the war is the third, fourth, or fifth different war that they have been observing.

With the war expected to get more intense as the winter progresses and the ground combat likely to slow down, experts say the next few weeks are crucial.

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 were able to do things that made us take them lightly.

In the southern Kherson region, troops hoisted the flag over a building last month. The Ukrainians have liberated hundreds of settlements since the start of their counter-offensive.

Russia said it would help evacuate residents of Kherson to other areas if the offensive of the Ukrainians continued. The announcement came just after the head of the Moscow-backed administration in Kherson appealed to the Kremlin for help moving residents out of harms way, signalling that Russian forces were struggling in the face of Ukrainian advances.

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.”

Russia is trying to stop recent Ukrainian moves while rebuilding its own ground forces decimated during eight months of war by pouring new conscripts across the entire front line. Military analysts predicted high numbers of casualties when Russians were sent to front line areas after a chaotic mobilization in September. Russian forces are attacking in the east, but on defense in the south.

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

“There are 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.”

NATO leaders have vowed to stand behind Ukraine no matter how long the war takes, but several European countries rely heavily on Russian energy, which could endanger public support if the war does not end soon.

Much of the power supply to the central regions of the country was disrupted by Russian missile attacks on Monday and Tuesday, but according to Ukrenergo, the power supply has since been restored. A lot of work is to be done to fix damaged equipment, and Ukrainian Prime Minister has asked his countrymen to reduce their energy usage during peak hours.

Western estimates suggest Moscow may not have the capacity to keep up with Russia’s aerial bombardment, which experts believe is unlikely.

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

In its daily update on the conflict, the IW said that the strikes “wasted some of Russia’s dwindling precision weapons against civilian targets, as opposed to militarily significant targets.”

The US announced a new $1.8 billion aid package to Ukraine, which included the “first-ever transfer to Ukraine of the Patriot Air and Missile Defense System, capable of bringing down cruise missiles, short-range ballistic missiles, and aircraft at a significantly higher ceiling than previously provided air defense systems.”

“The barrage of missile strikes is going to be an occasional feature reserved for shows of extreme outrage, because the Russians don’t have the stocks of precision munitions to maintain that kind of high-tempo missile assault into the future,” Puri said.

There could be a psychological impact from further involvement in the war. “Everyone’s mind in Ukraine and in the West has been oriented towards fighting one army,” he said. This war is about reconciling the lands of ancient Rus states, and would play into Putin’s narrative that this invasion is about that.

Giles said that the reopening of a northern front was a new challenge for Ukraine. He said that a new route would be provided to Russia if Putin tried to take back the territory that has been regained by the Ukrainians.

Now Zelensky will hope for more supplies in the short-term as he seeks to drive home those gains. The leader said more than half of the missiles and drones launched atUkraine in a second wave of strikes on Tuesday were brought down.

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

Many incoming missiles this week were shot down by the Ukrainian air defense systems, which is why air defense systems made a difference.

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

Russian shelling attacks in the Belgorod region: The number of killed and wounded is growing rapidly, according to the institute for the study of war

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

The scale of Russian losses in these infantry advances is uncertain. The institute said the advances were a result of poorly prepared units on the defensive positions of Ukrainian troops. The Ukrainian military’s estimates of Russian casualties are seen to be inflated, but the relative increase in the reported numbers suggests a rising toll. More than 800 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded in the previous 24 hours, according to the Ukrainian military.

Videos filmed by Ukrainian drones depicting Russian infantry being struck by cannon in poor prepared positions have supported the claims of high casualty rates, as has reporting in Russian news media of soldiers talking to their families about their deaths. The locations of the videos on the front line can not be determined because they have not been verified.

Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the commander of the Ukrainian military, said in a statement posted on the Telegram messaging app on Thursday that Russian forces had tripled the intensity of attacks along some parts of the front. He didn’t say when or where the attacks were coming from.

The situation at the front was the topic of a conversation between the two Generals. He said that he had told the U.S. colleague that the Ukranian forces were fighting back.

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

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

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 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.

The Russian War Between the USA, Europe, and the Middle East: A Memorandum from the Cold Cold Cold War with David Andelman

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

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

Whatever the circumstances, there is only one thing that’s clear. “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.

The hotline and Telegram channel, launched as a Ukrainian military intelligence project intended to assist Russian soldiers who want to defect, was booked out by two months, according to a report.

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.

Putin has become increasingly isolated on the world stage. He wasn’t the leader of state that stayed away from the G20 session. Putin once thought of returning to the G7 but now it seems like a distant dream. Russia banned Canadians including Jim Carrey from entering the country, making the comparison with North Korea more striking.

Many of the best and brightest in almost every field have left Russia. This includes writers, artists, journalists, 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

Russian President Putin: Weakening Russia by destroying the Russian armed forces in a war on Ukraine with the Future Combat Air System

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

The burden of this conflict on Western countries is proving to be unfulfilled, even though this was Putin’s dream and he hoped that it would drive wedges into the Western alliance. On Monday, word began to come in that the long-stalled joint French-German 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.”

Russian President Putin made comments regarding the attacks from the Russian armed forces on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

He concluded the speech by adding that “it won’t interfere with our combat missions,” before raising a toast to the listening soldiers and sipping from his champagne glass.

He listed a series of events he blames on the Ukrainians: “Who hit the Crimean bridge? 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 targets are far from the country’s declared drones.

Putin: Who is not supplying water to Donetsk? An act of genocide for the whole universe, Russian President and chief prosecutor

He claimed that there was no mention of the water situation. “No one has said a word about it anywhere. At all! He said there would be complete silence.

Local Russian authorities reported that the city had been hit by shelling this week.

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

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

The Russian president compared the reactions to attacks on Russia and attacks on Ukraine, saying that they should sound a noise for the whole universe.

The repair of the distribution networks is made worse by the freezing and rupture of wires, causing the pace of restoration to be slowed.

The country’s energy grid has been attacked, which is considered genocide by a top Ukrainian official. Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Andriy Kostin made the comments while speaking to the BBC last month.

The administrators said that four missiles hit the city, killing two and injuring ten, while the mayor stated that there were multiple explosions at a church.

A recreation center, where people, civilians and military base personnel were having dinner on Saturday night, was destroyed by the missile attack on Melitopol, said the acting governor of Zaporizhzhia.

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

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

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

Attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine during the Odesa crisis: Russia’s response to the U.S. air defences and the conflict with the United Nations

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

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

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

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

Zelensky said that Russia is trying to bring disaster to the city with their treatment of Odesa residents.

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

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

He said that the power system is far from normal and urged people to reduce their power use.

“There are attacks on civilian infrastructure in different regions of our country. The place for festivals was damaged. There are dead and injured,” he wrote.

Russian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ukraine: A warning from the U.S. to the eastern part of the country

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy threatened to ban the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine because of his suspicions of links with Moscow, but many are watching him to see if he follows through.

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

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

U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner was freed Dec. 8 after nearly 10 months in Russian detention and following months of negotiations. Her release came in exchange for the U.S. handing over convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. She is back in the U.S. and together with her husband. Bout is back in Russia and is reported to have joined an ultranationalist party.

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

Zelenskyy said the city of Bakhmut was turned into burned ruins by Russian forces. Russia is trying to advance on the city in the eastern region of the country.

The State of Ukraine: A Report from President Zelenskyy at the White House on Dec. 11 and its Implications for the Security and Security of Ukraine

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.

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

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.

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.

Zelensky made a historic speech from the US Capitol expressing gratitude for American aid in fighting Russian aggression since the war began.

The US Army’s Phased array Tracking Radar for intercept on Target system is one of the most capable long- range air defense systems on the market, and it has been repeatedly asked for by the Ukrainian government.

The United States and other countries are following a path of constantlyExpanding the Range and Raising the Technical Level of the Weapons that they Supply to Ukraine, which is what the Kremlin believes. This won’t contribute to a quicker settlement of the situation.

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

Peskov said the US is in a proxy war against Russia and to the last Ukrainian.

The 234th Regiment: Investigating the Killings Along Yablunska Street, Bucha, Romania, and the International Criminal Court

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 .

The Times reporters spent months in Bucha after Russian troops left, interviewing residents, obtaining security camera footage and obtaining exclusive records from government sources. In New York, Times investigators reconstructed the killings along this one street. The evidence linking the 234th included phone records and call signs used by commanders on Russian radio channels.

The evidence shows that the killings were part of a plan to get a route to the capital. It was children fleeing with their families, locals trying to find groceries, and people simply trying to get home on their bicycles who were killed by soldiers when they inadvertently crossed their paths.

Historically, journalists and investigators relied on a single photograph or video to expose wartime atrocities. In 1992, Time magazine published a photograph of an impoverished prisoner in Bosnia. Almost 20 years later, a video captured the execution of captured Tamil Tiger fighters in the final days of Sri Lanka’s civil war.

The scale of detail that link a single unit to specific killings is the reason why the evidence discovered in Bucha is different. Possible war crimes in Ukraine are being investigated by the International Criminal Court.

By analyzing the phone numbers dialed by Russian soldiers and uncovering social media profiles associated with their family members, The Times confirmed the identity of two dozen paratroopers as members of the 234th Regiment. We spoke to some of the people who served in the 234th, including two who confirmed they were there, and talked to their relatives. We used leaked and official Russian data to compare our findings with those of the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, which is 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. The women fled when the Russian soldiers opened fire on their minivan.

Col. Gen. Serdyukova promoted Lieutenant Colonel Gorodiov to colonel after the Russians retreated from the region. The ceremony was held days after the shocking images from Bucha emerged.

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

A Russian Cyber War in the Crimes of Cyber-Insurgery: a Presidential Statement on Russian Cyber Security and Security Forces in Engels

Reporting was contributed by Evan Hill , Ishaan Jhaveri and Julian Barnes . Translations and research by Aleksandra Koroleva , Oksana Nesterenko and Milana Mazaeva .

According to Russian state news agencies, three Russian servicemen were killed on Monday when a Ukrainian drone was shot down by air defense near a military airfield in Saratov Oblast.

There was an incident in the city of Engels on the western port city’s outskirts, located on the Volga River. The city houses a bomber air base, and it was the target of another attempted attack this month.

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 official Telegram channel after reports of an explosion in the city.

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

A source for the South of Ukraine Security and Defense forces warned that there could be a Russian reprisal strike on Monday.

There appeared to be an explosion in the sky. Gov. Busargin told people that there was no civilian infrastructure damaged or that information about incidents at military facilities was checked by law enforcement agencies.

While looking back, it is clear that Russia’s cyberwar in the country was a warning sign that it would be equally as aggressive in its physical assaults. Russia’s real war tactic has been to bombard civilian critical infrastructure, with no strategy other than to project its power and cause pain hundreds of miles past the war’s front lines.

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

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

The sound of air raid sirens and a blast woke up the 34-year-old Hryn and her son who went to the basement shelter. But they were not particularly surprised, nor did they let it dampen their spirits.

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

Vladimir Putin does not want to negotiate with Kyiv, he tells the Kremlin. Ukraine’s Electric Infrastructure is onslaught

As the war looks set to stretch into another year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that Moscow will not negotiate with Kyiv on the basis of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s proposed 10-point peace formula, which includes Russia’s withdrawal from all Ukrainian territory, a path to nuclear safety, food security, a special tribunal for alleged Russian war crimes, and a final peace treaty with Moscow.

Still, he stressed Russia was open for diplomatic solutions, echoing comments made by Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent days that he wanted an end to the war. Putin’s claim that he is open to negotiating was roundly dismissed by Kyiv and the West as a ruse.

Russia’s onslaught on Thursday was aimed at the country’s electrical infrastructure, and knocked out power in several regions. The New Year’s holiday comes this weekend and engineering crews were working to restore services.

The capital’s life support system is functioning normally. Currently, 30% of consumers are without electricity. Due to emergency shutdowns,” he said on Telegram.

At least three people, including a 14-year-old, were injured and two people pulled from a damaged home on Thursday, Klitschko said earlier. The military administration of the city said homes, an industrial facility, and a playground were damaged in the capital.

“Senseless barbarism.” The Foreign Minister of Ukraine said “No neutrality” could be expected in the face of the new wave of attacks on Ukrainian cities by Moscow.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of “following the devil” and waging a war to ensure that its President Vladimir Putin remains in power “until the end of his life.”

Zelensky switched to speaking Russian in his nightly address on Saturday to send a message to the Kremlin and Russian citizens, as Moscow launched a series of deadly strikes that swept several regions of Ukraine ahead of New Year.

Russian air strikes on civilian areas in Donetsk and Avdiivka: a critical test of new-years-eve-strikes

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

There was a person wounded. Two were killed and one wounded in the Kharkiv region. Two people were wounded in the Kherson region while one died.

The enemy had 26 air strikes on civilian infrastructure. In particular, the occupants used 10 Shahed-136 UAVs, but all of them were shot down. The General Staff said that the enemy launched 80 missiles, hitting civilian settlements and making 80 attacks.

Russia continues to conduct offensive actions at the Bakhmut directions, and is trying to improve the situation at the Avdiivka directions.

The open portion of the red metro line in the city has been checked for remnants of missile debris.

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

The Ukrainian Warfighter’s Almaty in Makiivka: Why Do Russian Soldiers in the Donetsk Building Can Be Quarters?

I want to win and have more bright impressions from then on. I miss it quite a bit. I want to travel and open borders as well. And I also think about personal and professional growth, because one should not stand still. I have to develop and work for the benefit of the country,” said Alyona Bogulska, a 29-year-old financier.

This year, it’s a symbol instead of a small victory, but a symbol that we survived the year, says a pharmacy employee.

The Ukrainian military said that an apparent Ukrainian strike killed a large number of Russian troops located next to a cache of weapons.

According to the Russian defense ministry, 63 of their own soldiers died in the attack, it would be one of the worst episodes of the war for Moscow.

Russian senator Grigory Karasin said that those responsible for the killing of Russian servicemen in Makiivka must be found, Russian state news agency TASS reported Monday.

Daniil Bezsonov, a former official in the Russian-backed Donetsk administration, said on Telegram that “apparently, the high command is still unaware of the capabilities of this weapon.” And Igor Girkin, a Russian propagandist who blogs about the war effort on Telegram, claimed that the building was almost completely destroyed by the secondary detonation of ammunition stores.

“Greetings and congratulations” to the separatists and conscripts who “were brought to the occupied Makiivka and crammed into the building of vocational school,” the Strategic Communications Directorate of the Chief Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Telegram. “Santa packed around 400 corpses of [Russian soldiers] in bags.”

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

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

The building almost completely was destroyed by the secondary detonation of ammunition stores, as claimed by a Russian propagandist who writes on Telegram.

Nearly all the military equipment which stood close to the building without any camouflage was destroyed. “There are still no final figures on the number of casualties, as many people are still missing.”

Russian generals that he says direct the war efforts far from the frontline are not learned in principle, and unwilling to listen to warnings about putting equipment and personnel close together. The minister of defense of the self-proclaimed Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic was found guilty of murder by a Dutch court for his involvement in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine.

There are unnecessary losses, which might have been avoided if precautions had been taken regarding the dispersal and concealment of personnel.

The Ukrainian strike of December 27th, 2002 by Russian missiles killed 676 people and injured 135, according to the general staff of the WarGonzo unit

Russian forces “lost 760 people killed just yesterday, (and) continue to attempt offensive actions on Bakhmut,” the military’s general staff said Sunday.

Air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine over the weekend as fresh rounds of Russian missile strikes hit several regions. At least six people were killed and a man was injured during the attacks in the eastern part of the country.

The Russian government and some pro-Kremlin leaders and military experts began a public blame game after Moscow blamed its soldiers for the Ukrainian strike that killed at least 89 troops on New Year’s Day.

But that account was angrily dismissed by an influential military blogger and implicitly contradicted by the leader of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine, pointing to discord in the Russian command over Moscow’s response to the attack.

Semyon Pegov, who blogs under the alias WarGonzo and two weeks ago was personally awarded the Order of Courage by President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin, attacked the Ministry of Defense’s statement as “not convincing” and “a blatant attempt to smear blame.”

He questioned how the Ministry of Defense could be “so sure” that the location of soldiers lodging in a school building could not have been determined using drone surveillance or a local informant.

He was suspicious of the official death toll because it was revised upward by Moscow to 89 from 63.

In another post on Wednesday, Pegov warned that apathy on the battlefield will lead to more “tragedies.” He said that if he were asked what the most dangerous thing in war would be, he wouldn’t bother.

Pegov and Pushilin praised the soldiers killed in the strike, even after the government blamed them.

“We know, and we know firsthand, what it is to suffer losses,” Pushilin said on Telegram Wednesday. I am certain that there were many displays of courage and real heroism by the guys in this unit.

Russia cell phone reaction intl: “Nobody cares what happened to me in the attack on the school, no matter what happened next,” said Serhiii Cherevatyi

The Russian defense ministry statement drew mockery from the Ukrainian military. It is a mistake to use phones with latitude and longitude. The spokesman for the Eastern Group of the Ukrainian armed forces, Serhii Cherevatyi, said there is clear evidence that this version is ridiculous.

The Russians are searching for who is to blame after they made a mistake. They are blaming each other.

“It is clear that this [use of phones] was not the main reason. They weren’t able to covertly deploy these personnel. They took advantage of that and destroyed the target.

Sunday’s strike had already sparked vocal criticism of Moscow’s military from pro-Russian bloggers, who claimed that the troops lacked protection and were reportedly being quartered next to a large cache of ammunition, which is said to have exploded when United States-made HIMARS rockets hit the school.

On Telegram, the influential editor-in-chief of state-run networkRT welcomed the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the strike. She hoped that the responsible officials would be held accountable.

It is the first time this has been done publicly during the entire military operation. I hope the extent of punishment will be announced as well.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/04/europe/makiivka-strike-russia-cell-phone-reaction-intl/index.html

U.S. Ambassador to the Southwest Samara Region: The southwestern region’s defense minister meets with the governor of the country’s national security ministry

The governor of Russia’s southwestern Samara region held talks in Moscow on Tuesday with the leadership of the country’s defense ministry.