What the Russians and the Kremlin had to say about the Ukrainian War on the Baluchuk-Kuzakhstan border

The secretary of defense said that he believed that the situation in the Kherson region of the country was stabilizing and that there was a change in the battlefield dynamics.

Austin said Ukrainian forces have used “technology like HIMARS” and employed it in the “right way” to “conduct attacks on things like logistical stores and command and control, that’s taking away — taken away significant capability from the Russians.”

While the US has provided the Ukrainians with a number of weapons, they have not requested Army Tactical Missile Systems, which have a longer-range than the US has provided.

You have the equipment, but it’s not the only thing. It’s about how you employ that equipment, how you synchronize things together to create battlefield effects that then can create opportunities,” he said.

Ukraine has become the epicenter of a global conflict, a hub that connects every country to every life. Russia’s aggression – its Iranian drones, civilian targets, and weaponization of hunger – has already taken a global toll, lowering worldwide living standards and raising international tensions.

There is no chance that Russian forces will collapse in a big way that would allow the Ukrainians to seize another large swath of territory. Individual Russian units can break in the face of sustained Ukrainian pressure and allow the army to continue taking towns in the Donbas, which would be a big victory in the war.

Russian President Putin did not involve a border dispute during his invasion of Ukranian. As Putin began the march to war, the importance of stopping Russia from gaining control of its neighbor, with its peaceable democracy, was clear.

The disarray of the forces was reflected by the Kremlin which did not yet know what its borders would be in southern Ukranian. The spokesman for Mr. Putin said on Monday that the leader will consult with the population of the regions on the borders.

Russia is pouring the new conscripts across the whole of the front line in an attempt to halt recent Ukrainian advances while rebuilding ground forces decimated during eight months of war. Military analysts predicted the deployment of Russian men to front line areas in the fall, after a chaotic deployment in September. Russian forces are attacking in the east, but on defense in the south.

U.S. officials maintain that the risk remains low, having detected no evidence of a nuclear mobilization. The Times reports that they are more worried about the possibility of a strike than they were at the start of the conflict. How should the world respond to Putin breaking the Nuclear taboo? Here’s what people are saying.

Russia is trying to destroy the Ukrainian resistance by making them uninhabitable through its campaign of drones and missiles.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces have repeatedly hit Ukraine’s capital and other large cities around the country in recent weeks, seeking to wipe out the power grid and forcing millions of Ukrainians to go without electricity, heating and water during the freezing winter months.

CNN’s David and Goliath: defending the freedom of Iran and Ukraine in a global fork-in-the-road

A former CNN producer and correspondent named Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist. She is a columnist for the Washington Post and a weekly opinion contributor to CNN. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.

On Sunday, almost by accident, two groups of demonstrators came together in London. One was waving Ukrainian flags; the other Iranian flags. When they met, they cheered each other, and chanted, “All together we will win.”

Nobody knows what happens next. Everyone knows how this ends. The world is at a fork in the road, as the people in Iran and Ukraine fight for their freedom. The history is waiting to be written.

These David and Goliath battles show bravery that is almost unimaginable to the rest of us, and is inspiring similarly brave support in places like Afghanistan.

The Zina Project: Killing Zelensky with Forces Against the Violent Crimes of the Khmer Rouge in Iran

The death of a young woman in Iran last month started a domino effect. She was known as Zina and died in the custody of morality police who arrested her for breaking rules requiring women to dress modestly.

Iranian women shed their hijab to throw it into the fire, in a scene of exhilarated defiance, while dancing around fires in the night.

It’s why women are climbing on cars, waving their hijab in the air, like a flag of freedom, and gathering crowds of supporters in city streets, and in universities, where security forces are opening fire to try and silence them.

After all, Russian President Vladimir Putin entered the civil war in Syria to protect the leader of the country who was overthrown by Iran.

Putin had built up his forces and thought he could conquer democratic, neighboring Ukraine in a few days. Even US intelligence predicted Russia would capture the capital, Kyiv, in a matter of days, if not hours. That’s why the US reportedly offered to evacuate Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky to safety just after Russian forces moved in. Zelensky refused.

His forces have planted mines in vast stretches of territory in Kherson from which they’ve recently withdrawn – much as the Khmer Rouge did in Cambodia stretching back to the 1970s. Indeed, Cambodian de-mining experts have even been called in to assist with the herculean task facing Ukraine in 2022. At the same time, Russian armies have also left behind evidence of unspeakable atrocities and torture, also reminiscent of the Khmer Rouge.

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.

Now, CNN has reported Iran is about to start sending even more – and more powerful – weapons to Russia for the fight against Ukraine, according to a western country closely monitoring Iran’s weapons program.

Transnational Repression in the Iran-Russia War: What Do We Need to Know about Putin and How Does Russia Operate in the Middle East?

There is a lot in common between these two regimes in terms of their tactics of oppression and their willingness to project power abroad.

Multiple Putin critics have suffered mysterious deaths. Many have fallen out of windows. And both Iran and Russia have become leading practitioners of transnational repression, killing critics on foreign soil, according to Freedom House and other democracy research and advocacy groups.

There is more to interest people in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen than the chance that the Iranian regime could fall. It would be transformative for their countries and their lives, heavily influenced by Tehran. After all, Iran’s constitution calls for spreading its Islamist revolution.

Experts think that the coming weeks will be crucial for both the battlefield and Europe. “As ever, where Putin goes next depends on how the rest of the world is responding,” Giles said. “Russia’s attitude is shaped by the failure of Western countries to confront and deter it.”

Dugina’s car bombing in Stavroky, Ukraine, killed a prominent Russian nationalist and killed the U.S.

WASHINGTON — United States intelligence agencies believe parts of the Ukrainian government authorized the car bomb attack near Moscow in August that killed Daria Dugina, the daughter of a prominent Russian nationalist, an element of a covert campaign that U.S. officials fear could widen the conflict.

The United States didn’t participate in the attack by providing assistance or intelligence, officials said. American officials said they would have opposed the killing if they had been consulted. Afterward, American officials admonished Ukrainian officials over the assassination, they said.

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 lot of stuff inside, including a rifle, helmets, and belongings. The men were not in sight.

The commander, who uses the code name “Scum”, said that the people dropped all their personal care gear. “I think it was a special unit, but they were panicking. They drop everything because the road was bad and it was raining.

Against the lies of the Russian military in the wake of the Ukrainian invasion of Ukraine, writes Kadyrov on Telegram and the Kremlin

The Institute for the Study of War found that Russian battlefield setbacks were changing the Russian information space. That has included robust criticism not just from hawkish men of power such as Kadyrov, but from pro-war milbloggers who have often provided a granular picture of battlefield realities for Russian forces.

Stremousov might have been aware of the fact that troublesome leaders of Russian-sponsored entities have a habit of dying violently, but some of this criticism is not new. Just weeks after Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, one of his key domestic enforcers, Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, urged the Russian military to expand its campaign, implying that Moscow’s approach had not been brutal enough.

“First of all, we need to stop lying,” said Andrei Kartopolov, a former colonel-general in the Russian military and a member of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party. “We brought this up many times before … It seems that it is not getting through to individual senior figures.

The Ministry of Defense was covering up what happened in Russian regions near the borders of Ukranian and Georgia, complained Kartapolov.

He said that the Russian city of Valuyki is under constant fire. “We learn about this from all sorts of folks, from governors, Telegram channels, our war correspondents. But no one else. The reports come from the Ministry of Defense. They say they killed Nazis and destroyed 300 rockets. But they know. Our people are not stupid. But they don’t want to even tell part of the truth. This can cause a loss of credibility.

Valuyki is in Russia’s Belgorod region, near the border with Ukraine. The stance of Kyiv regarding striking Russian targets across the border has usually been neither confirm nor deny.

Some criticism has also come from Russian-appointed quislings who have been installed by Moscow to run occupied regions of Ukraine. In a recent rant on the messaging app Telegram, Kirill Stremousov lambasted Russian military commanders for allowing gaps on the battlefield that allowed the Ukrainian military to make advances.

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

After Russian retreat from the strategic Ukrainian city of Lyman, Kadyrov has become a lot more open about blaming Russian commanders.

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

According to a recent analysis, the Russian information space has deviated from the narratives preferred by the Kremlin and the MoD that things are generally under control.

One of the central features of Putinism is a fetish for World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War. Punishment battalions were used to prosecute desertion, cowardice and wavering against German positions in the Wehrmacht, and they are often praised by those in Russia’s party of war.

While being promoted by Putin to the rank of colonel general, Kadyrov has been one of the most outspoken advocates of the methods of the past. He recently said in another Telegram post that, if he had his way, he would give the government extraordinary wartime powers in Russia.

Kadyrov said in a post that the country was at war with the NATO bloc, and that he would use any weapon to do so.

Ukrain and Ukraine: the two days after the Kerch Bridge Bombing, 24 hours after the First Ukrainian Militan Air Raids on a Central Power Plant

Editor’s Note: Michael Bociurkiw (@WorldAffairsPro) 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. CNN has more opinion.

Recent days have meanwhile shown that sites beyond the current theater of ground fighting are far from immune to attacks. It remains unclear exactly how the Kerch bridge bombing was carried out – and Kyiv has not claimed responsibility – but the fact that a target so deep in Russian-held territory could be successfully hit hinted at a serious Ukrainian threat towards key Russian assets.

These two headline packages alone could impact the course of the war. Russia’s most potent threat now is the constant bombardment of energy infrastructure. It is making winter colder and unbearable for some, plunging cities into darkness of up 12 hours a day and sometimes longer, in the hope of sapping high Ukrainian morale.

Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Energy Industry Research Center, a Ukrainian research and consulting company, said on Ukrainian TV that power outages had been rolled out prior to the strikes as a preventative measure to protect the grid from blackouts. He said the result of the attacks Friday morning would be unpleasant.

As of midday local time, the area around my office in Odesa remained eerily quiet in between air raid sirens, with reports that three missiles and five kamikaze drones were shot down. (Normally at this time of the day, nearby restaurants would be heaving with customers, and chatter of plans for upcoming weddings and parties).

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. Several dozens of people were injured and at least 17 were killed.

There were sections of the Ukrainian railway that were out of power because of the strikes. The minister of energy said that a number of the power generating plants were damaged in the attacks.

The sirens wailed as residents bundled in winter coats, hats and scarves gathered in the underground stations. Huddled on escalators, their faces were lit by their phones as they scrolled through updates.

It is known that many people in Ukrainian cities will be staying in bomb shelters the majority of the day, while businesses have been asked to shift work online as much as possible.

With many asylum seekers returning home, the attacks may cause another blow to business confidence.

Russia is struggling on the ground and has failed to achieve supremacy in the air, but Monday’s attacks may have achieved one goal, sending a signal of strength towards the growing list of Putin’s internal critics.

The tendency of dictators is hardwiring newly claimed territory with huge infrastructure projects. In 2018, Putin personally opened the Kerch bridge – Europe’s longest – by driving a truck across it. That same year, one of the first things Chinese President Xi Jinping did after Beijing reclaimed Macau and Hong Kong was to connect the former Portuguese and British territories with the world’s longest sea crossing bridge. The road bridge took about two years to open.

The reaction of the Ukrainians to the explosion: a warning to Kiev, the Kremlin, and the future of the fighting in Kyiv

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

The new overall commander was appointed because of the setbacks. Even though the Ukrainian counter-offensives have been expensive, there is not enough evidence to show that Gen. Sergey Sergeevkin can get his forces back on the front foot before the end of the year.

Washington and other allies need to use urgent telephone diplomacy to resist China and India using more lethal weapons, which is very important as they still have some leverage over Putin.

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

At this juncture in the conflict, air and missile defense are the most important needs for Kyiv. It’s reported the US is planning to give Ukraine a missile defence system in order to keep it in the fight.

It is time for the West to impose more restrictions on travel and trade with Russia, and that means Turkey and the Gulf states should be pressured to do so.

U.S. Navy Surface-to-Air Missile System Delivery to Ukraine: Resolving Zelensky’s Ruling with Russia

The White House did not specify which air defense systems Biden discussed with Zelensky, but the United States previously committed to providing Ukraine with National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems. NASAMS would be capable of engaging Russian cruise missiles.

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.

Ned Price, a State Department spokesman, told reporters on Tuesday that the United States would continue to prioritize sending air defense systems to help “our Ukrainian partners defend themselves from the brutal Russian aggression that we’ve seen for the better part of a year now.”

As of a Department of Defense briefing in late September, the US had yet to deliver NASAMS to Ukraine. At the time, Brig. The general said that two systems would be delivered within the next couple of months, and that the other six would be arriving by the end of the year.

The General Staff of the armed forces of Ukraine said on their Facebook page that 84 cruise missiles were launched by Russia against targets across Ukranian.

Missile strikes by Russia will cease to function when Ukraine gets enough effective air defense systems.

The deputy head of Russia’s Security Council said that he thinks Moscow should aim for a complete dismantlement of Zelensky’s regime.

Russian-Brussuv Cooperation in the Ukraine War and the US-Brazil War as a Test of Putin’s Nuclear Policy

Yes. There is an enormous $45 billion aid package in the works, and while not all military, it is part of a consistent drumbeat from the Biden administration. The message is that aid will not stop even if boots on the ground are not used, because Ukraine is getting as much aid as Washington can provide.

Kirby told Kate that he was sure that he was feeling the pressure both at home and overseas.

Putin’s rhetoric towards Russia’s nuclear posture is reckless and dangerous, despite the fact that no change has been seen in the country’s nuclear posture.

Russia massed tens of thousands of troops in Belarus before its February invasion and used Belarusian territory as a staging ground for its initial, unsuccessful assault on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. Moscow still has hundreds of troops in Belarus, from which it launches missiles and bombing raids, but their number is now expected to increase sharply.

Mr. Lukashenko told officials in the military that there will be more than a thousand troops.

In rambling remarks reported by the state news agency Belta, Mr. Lukashenko said that work had already started on the formation of what he called a “joint regional group of troops” to counter “possible aggression against our country” by NATO and Ukraine.

Some assistance for Putin may be on the way. An announcement by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that Belarus and Russia will “deploy a joint regional group of troops” raised fears of deepened military cooperation between the close allies and that Belarusian troops could formally join Russia in its invasion. Belarus has been complaining of alleged Ukrainian threats to its security in recent days, which observers say could be a prelude to some level of involvement.

Heavily dependent on Moscow for money, fuel and security assistance, all vital to his own survival after 28 years in power, Mr. Lukashenko is widely believed to be under growing Russian pressure to get more involved in the Ukraine war.

The math behind Moscow’s calculations is simple: A percentage of projectiles are bound to get through.

The Russians have been using a mix of missile stocks. The missiles were delivered by the bombers near the Caspian Sea. They also launched Kalibrs, Iskander missiles and dozens of attack drones from the Black Sea.

There will be occasional shows of extreme outrage because the Russians don’t have the adequate stocks of precision munitions to sustain the kind of high-tempo missile assault into the future.

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.

Over the past nine months, the Ukrainians have also had plenty of practice in using their limited air defenses, mainly BUK and S-300 systems. But Yurii Ihnat, spokesman for the Air Force Command, said Tuesday said of these systems: “This equipment does not last forever, there may be losses in combat operations.”

Zelensky referred to a video that showed a soldier using his shoulder-held missile to bring down a Russian projectile, purportedly a cruise missile.

Estimating the proportion of Iranian-made Shahed drones being eliminated is more difficult, because so many are being used. Zelensky said that every 10 minutes he receives a message about the use of Iranian Shaheds. He said that the majority were being shot down.

Air Defense in Ukraine: A New Era of Air Defense (Case-Detay of Shaheeds and Detahn Forces)

At Wednesday’s meeting, Ukraine’s wish-lists included missiles for their existing systems as well as a transition to Western-origin air defense system.

The system is widely considered one of the most capable long-range weapons to defend airspace against incoming ballistic and cruise missiles as well as some aircraft. It has the ability to destroy Russian missiles and aircraft far from their intended destinations inside Ukranian.

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

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

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.

Poland helped training an air defense battalion that destroyed nine of the Shaheeds. General Valerii Zaluzhnyi thanked Poland as “brothers in arms” on Tuesday.

He said Poland had given Ukraine “systems” to help destroy the drones. The Polish government bought advanced Israeli equipment and was transferring it to Ukraine, according to reports last month.

The Ukrainian War is Teetering towards an Unpredictable New Phase: The Challenges and Prospects for Russia and Eurasia

Not for the first time, the war is teetering towards an unpredictable new phase. “This is now the third, fourth, possibly fifth different war that we’ve been observing,” said Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Programme.

Despite the fact that the war has favored Russia, American and Ukranian officials say the fighting is likely to continue for months more. And a number of variables could become particularly pertinent in shifting the trajectory of the conflict: more difficult fighting conditions in December, the extent to which President Vladimir V. Putin is willing to escalate the fight, whether Europe’s unity can be maintained this winter as energy prices soar and the potentially changing political environment in the United States that could result in a decrease of military support to Ukraine.

Giles said that anything that could be described as a Ukraine victory is very much more plausible. “The response from Russia is likely to escalate further.”

A laundry list of horrors Putin has unleashed that only seems to have left his nation further from a civilized group of powers that he once sought to join, is beyond the most recent missile attacks.

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

There is a chance of a battle for Kherson, a Russian-occupied city. Kremlin-installed officials have been evacuating civilians in preparation for a potential Ukrainian counteroffensive.

There was a suggestion during the summer that while Ukraine could defend, it did not have the ability to seize ground.

The Russians are attempting to avoid a collapse in their frontline before the winter sets in, according to the senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

If the Russians can get to Christmas with their frontline looking the same as it is, that will be a huge success.

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.”

The United States led a massive support for it’s ally, Ukraine. The war in Ukraine reinvigorated NATO, even bringing new applications for membership from countries that had been committed to neutrality. It also helped reaffirm the interest of many in eastern European states – former Soviet satellites – of orienting their future toward Europe and the West.

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

“We know – and Russian commanders on the ground know – that their supplies and munitions are running out,” Jeremy Fleming, a UK’s spy chief, said in a rare speech on Tuesday.

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

Exactly how much weaponry and manpower each side has left in reserve will be crucial to determining how the momentum will shift in the coming weeks. On Tuesday and Monday, Ukrainian forces successfully shot down 18 cruise missiles, but they are calling for more equipment to protect them from future attacks.

The impact of such an intervention in terms of pure manpower would be limited; Belarus has around 45,000 active duty troops, which would not significantly bolster Russia’s reserves. But it would threaten another assault on Ukraine’s northern flank below the Belarusian border.

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

Now Zelensky will hope for more supplies in the short-term as he seeks to drive home those gains. More than half of Russian missiles and drones were brought down in the second wave of Ukrainian strikes on Tuesday, according to the leader.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday that Ukraine needs more anti-missile systems in order to stop missile attacks.

The impact of the Sept. 11 attacks on civilian aviation and civilian civilians in Kyiv: an emergency service response and U.S. deployments

That’s not to say mobilized forces will be of no use. If used in support roles, like drivers or refuelers, they might ease the burden on the remaining parts of Russia’s exhausted professional army. Along the line of contact they could fill out some units and at the same time cordon some areas. They are not likely to become a fighting force. There are signs of discipline problems among soldiers mobilized to Russian garrisons.

The White House is not providing Kyiv with larger drones like the Predator and Reaper that U.S. forces used in the wars that began after the Sept. 11 attacks. Both aircraft can fly for hours while sending live video feeds of the ground and carry laser-guided missiles and guided bombs.

The military administration of the city said that 18 out of 23 drones spotted in the sky over the capital were destroyed. Authorities said that a critical infrastructure facility was hit, but no deaths were recorded. Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv city military administration, said that emergency services were working to limit the consequences of the attack.

The Pentagon sent 100 “tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems” known as Switchblades. The next month, the administration said it would provide another 300. The Pentagon said it would send 120 Phoenix Ghost drones toUkraine eight days later. In July, the United States provided funds for Ukraine to buy 580 more of them.

In August, the Pentagon said that it would send drones that soldiers can control by remote control from up to nine miles away. Pumas can stay at altitudes of about 500 feet.

The Israeli Embassy in Vinnytsia, Armenia, and a UAV Suspected by the Russian Consulate General Relativity

After colliding with the airborne debris, he said, Karaya steered his MiG away from Vinnytsia and ejected. The jet hit houses but missed the people on the ground. Karaya later visited the site to apologize.

He wrote that he apologized to the residents for causing distress and thanked them for their steel nerves. He said that it was a violation of military protocol. He wrote that he lost them while leaving the office.

The Iranian mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment about the new expected shipment. Iran has previously denied supplying Russia with weapons for use in Ukraine, saying it “has not and will not” do so.

The Iranian drones are known as a “loitering munition” because they are capable of circling for some time in an area identified as a potential target and only striking once an enemy asset is identified.

The strengthening relationship between Moscow and Tehran has drawn the attention of Iran’s rivals and foes in the Middle East, of NATO members and of nations that are still – at least in theory – interested in restoring the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which aimed to delay Iran’s ability to build an atomic bomb.

Earlier this month John Kirby, the communications coordinator at the National Security Council, said the presence of Iranian personnel was evidence of Tehran’s direct engagement in the conflict.

We knew that the drones were used to target civilians. Iran is denying that it is happening despite all the evidence.

Last month the US sanctioned an air transportation provider for its involvement in the shipment of the Iranian drones, also known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to Russia. The US is also ready to “target producers and procurers” contributing to the UAV program, the Treasury Department’s Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence said.

The Russian War in Ukraine and the Empirical Puzzle of the World: The Instability and Inflation of the 21st Century

If Putin is allowed to win, it will mark a new era of global instability and less peace and prosperity for the world.

Much of what happens today far from the battlefields still has repercussions there. Saudi Arabia, along with other oil-production nations, decided last month to slash production, and the US accused them of helping Russia fund the war by boosting its oil revenues. (An accusation the Saudis deny).

Separately, weapons supplies to Ukraine have become a point of tension with Israel, which has developed highly effective defense systems against incoming missiles. Israel is unwilling to give the systems requested by Ukraine, citing its own strategic concerns.

The UN and Turkey brokered a deal that allowed the reopening of Ukraine’s maritime corridors, but this week they were temporarily suspended after the Russian Navy ships struck 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.

In fact, the war in Ukraine is already affecting everyone, everywhere. The conflict has also sent fuel prices higher, contributing to a global explosion of inflation.

Family budgets and individual lives are not always affected by higher prices. They pack a strong political punch when they have such powerful momentum. Inflation, worsened by the war, has put incumbent political leaders on the defensive in countless countries.

The New Russia: Counteroffensive Forces in the Ukraine, and the Implications for the Midterm Election Results from the House of Representatives

It is not just on the fringes. The Republican leader of the congress suggested that the GOP might decide to cut aid to the Ukranian government. The letter that the Progressives withdrew called for negotiations. Evelyn Farkas, a former Pentagon official during the Obama administration, said they’re all bringing “a big smile to Putin’s face.”

Grisly videos filmed by Ukrainian drones showing Russian infantry being struck by artillery in poorly prepared positions have partly supported those assertions, as has reporting in Russian news media of mobilized soldiers telling relatives about high casualty rates. The videos have not been independently verified and their exact location could not be determined.

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.

The Institute for the Study of War said in their assessment that there was no new ground gained by Russia in the eastern part of the country.

If there had been more personnel available to mobilize, the Russians would have had more success in their offensive operations.

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 approaching the Russian-occupied city of Kherson, the Ukrainian military said Friday morning that its units had fired 160 times at Russian positions over the past 24 hours, while also reporting Russian return fire into Ukrainian positions.

With conflicting signals about what may be happening, and with Russian and Ukrainian forces preparing for the battle, the residents of Kherson have been stocking up on food and fuel.

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

State of Ukraine: NPR catches up with Ukraine in the week after Ukraine announces a NATO-brokered deal to repair Ukraine’s infrastructure

Also Tuesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will host Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. Before Sweden can join NATO, certain conditions have to be met by it.

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.

On November 2, Russia rejoined a U.N.-brokered deal to export grain and other agricultural goods from Ukraine. Moscow had suspended its part in the deal a few days prior after saying Ukraine had launched a drone attack on its Black Sea ships.

More than $1 billion was pledged on Tuesday by about 70 countries to help repair Ukraine’s infrastructure. The additional $275 million in security assistance was approved by the Pentagon last week. In November, the US announced a $53 million package to support repairs to Ukraine’s power system.

You can read the 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.

The Russia-Ukraine War: A Moment of Rejoindness with a Family, a Friends, and a Stranger

David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, two time winner of the Deadline Club Award, is an author of “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. The Russian rockets knocked out power in neighboring Moldova, which is not a NATO member, and therefore attracted less media attention than the Polish incident.

Whatever the exact circumstances of the missile, one thing is clear. NATO Secretary General JensSwaltenberg said that Russia bears ultimate responsibility for the illegal war against Ukraine.

A growing amount of Russian soldiers are refusing to fight because of what they are being asked to do. Amid plummeting morale, the UK’s Defense Ministry believes Russian troops may be prepared to shoot retreating or deserting soldiers.

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

Putin has also tried, though he has been stymied at most turns, to establish black market networks abroad to source what he needs to fuel his war machine – much as Kim Jong-un has done in North Korea. The United States has already uncovered and recently sanctioned 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.

Many of the best and brightest in virtually every field have moved to other countries. Writers, artists, journalists, scientists and engineers are included.

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.

Russian vengeance in the wake of the G20: why the French-German joint project isn’t going to go that way

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 told the G20 that the European Commission understood and learned that dependency was unsustainable.

The burden it has on Western countries has proved to be unfulfilled despite Putin’s dream that the conflict would drive more wedges into the Western alliance. 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.

Russian President Putin still doesn’t seem to have figured out that vengeance isn’t a good way to act on or off the battlefield and is most likely to hurt Russia’s ability to compete in the future.

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.”

The Russians have used cluster bombs more frequently than the Ukrainians since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, but the Russians also use them against civilian targets more often than the Ukrainians.

Senior Biden administration officials have been fielding the request for many months and have not rejected it completely, as was previously reported.

A long-term risk to anyone who is near clusters is similar to being hit by mines because of their ability to fail to explode on impact. 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.

If the Biden administration is forced to resort to it’s last resort, it is not off the table. According to sources, the proposal hasn’t been taken seriously because of the restrictions that Congress put on the US’s ability to transfer cluster munitions.

Those restrictions were put in place because of 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.

“The ability of Ukraine to make gains in current and upcoming phases of conflict is in no way dependent on or linked to their procuring said munitions,” a congressional aide told CNN.

The Defense ministry told CNN it doesn’t comment on reports regarding requests for particular weapons systems or bullets until agreement is reached with the supplier.

“They [DPICMs] are more effective when you have a concentration of Russian forces,” the Ukrainian official told CNN, noting that Ukraine has been asking for the weapons “for many months.”

More than one million people in the southern port city of Odesa were left without power due to Russian strikes over the weekend, according to President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“The enemy wanted to massively disperse the attention of air defense,” a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, Yurii Ihnat, said. Ukraine’s top military chief, Valeriy Zaluzhny, later said that 60 of the missiles were downed by the country’s air defense forces.

Ukrainians depend on plants and equipment that are attacked multiple times to get heat and light, putting them into a cycle in which crews must restore power only to have it knocked out again.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in his nightly address Sunday, said electricity had been restored to a total of nine million Ukrainians following that round of strikes, but large-scale outages remained in some areas.

“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.

“It must be understood: Even if there are no heavy missile strikes, this does not mean that there are no problems,” he continued. “Almost every day, in different regions, there is shelling, there are missile attacks, drone attacks. Energy facilities are hit almost every day.”

Two US officials and a senior administration official have said that the Biden administration is close to sending the most advanced ground-based air defense system in the US to Ukraine. Ukraine’s government has long requested the system to help it defend against repeated Russian missile and drone attacks. It would be the most effective long-range defensive weapons system sent to the country and officials say it will help secure airspace for members of the North Atlantic Treaty and America (NATO) in eastern Europe.

The Pentagon’s plan needs to be approved by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in order for it to be sent to President Joe Biden. The three officials told CNN that approval is expected.

The Defense Secretary’s Direct Action Plan for a Multi-Chern-Upforce Combat in the Light of Secretary of State John Zelensky

Not to mention the significant logistical needs; just one battery is operated by roughly 90 soldiers, and includes computers, an engagement control system, a phased array radar, power generating equipment, and “up to eight launchers,” according to the Army.

The plan is to have Ukrainians trained in using them at a US army base in Germany in the coming days.

It requires a lot of manpower to train, according to CNN’s Barbara Starr and Oren Liebermann who were the first to report the US is close to sending the system to Ukraine.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle was the question of manpower. About 90 positions are typically assigned to operate one missile battery. The course lengths for launching station operators and maintenance roles are between 13 and 53 weeks, according to Army recruitment materials.

In order to curb threats posed by Iran and its allies, the US has sent missiles to Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

It is in Washington. Two U.S. officials said Tuesday that the US is close to agreeing to send its ground-based air defense system to Europe to help protect against attacks by Russia.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III could approve a directive as early as this week to transfer one Patriot battery already overseas to Ukraine, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Final approval would then rest with President Biden.

The White House, Pentagon and State Department have not commented on the details of the transfer of a sophisticated battery to the Ukrainian military.

Mr. Zelensky requested funding for weapons first in his speech to the Group of 7 nations.

Are we going to end the war in Ukraine? A US Army envoy tells CNN: We don’t want to retake the fight against Russia

“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.

Retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, former commander of US Army Europe, told CNN that there is likely some unrealistic expectations about what a Patriot battery will be able to do for Ukraine. It will only be available to use after the US agrees to give it, and training troops on how to use the complex system takes around a year, Hertling said. And it won’t be able to provide blanket cover for the entire country.

“I find it ironic that officials from a country that attacked their neighbor in an illegal and unprovoked invasion would choose to use words such as provocative to describe defensive systems that are meant to save lives and protect civilians,” Ryder told reporters.

However, he added, “The US is not at war with Russia, and we do not seek conflict. The focus of our efforts is on providing security assistance to Ukraine.

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.

In an interview with The Economist published Thursday, Zelensky also rejected the idea recently suggested by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Ukraine seek to reclaim only land seized by Russia since February 2022 and not areas like Donbas and Crimea, which have been under Russian control since 2014.

According to France 24, NATO still has two main objectives, one being to provide aid to Ukraine and the other being to make sure that NATO doesn’t escalate the war.

Old gun. CNN’s Ellie Kaufman and Liebermann reported earlier this week on a US military official who says Russian forces have had to resort to 40-year-old artillery ammunition as their supplies of new ammo are “rapidly dwindling.”

A senior official speaking to reporters said that if you load the ammunition it will either fire or explode.

In the trenches, in the fortifications and in the cities. Kyiv, Kryvyi Rih, Kherson and Engels

In the trenches. Will Ripley reported on the construction of trenches and other fortifications along the Ukrainian-Bosnia border, fearing that Russia could once again assemble troops. Ripley is talking to a sewing machine repairman.

According to the Prime Minister of the Ukraine, the goal is to leave Ukrainians without light, water and heat.

“The enemy is massively attacking Ukraine. Increased danger is something that has increased. Oleksiy Kuleba, the head of the Kyiv regional military administration, wrote a message on the Telegram messaging app which asked residents to stay in shelters.

Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said explosions had hit the city and that three districts had been struck in the onslaught of rockets, disrupting water supplies across the capital. He suggested residents prepare a stock of drinking water and not leave shelters, while technicians worked to restore the supply.

In the central city of Kryvyi Rih, officials said a Russian missile had hit a three-story residential building, killing at least two people and that emergency services were digging through the wreckage. There may be people under the rubble, said the deputy head of the presidential administration.

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

Meanwhile, artillery and rocket attacks continued in the southern city of Kherson, which was liberated by Ukrainian forces in November, targeting critical infrastructure, residential buildings, medical aid and public transport, leaving four dead, according to the head of the region’s military administration. The Ukrainian Prosecutor-General’s Office said that the multi-storey apartment building was set ablaze and that the body of a man was found in one apartment. The city is still struggling to restore basic services.

A small number of missiles were thrown at the Engels air base, which is home to Russia’s long-range nuclear- capable bomber, in early December. The attack was not claimed by Kyiv.

An MiG-31K, a supersonic aircraft capable of carrying a Kinzal hypersonic missile, was also seen in the sky over Belarus during the air attacks on Friday in Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s Armed Forces. It wasn’t clear whether a Kinzal was used in the attacks.

“We know that their defense industrial base is being taxed,” Kirby said of Russia. They’re having difficulty keeping up with that pace. We know that he’s (Russian President Vladimir Putin’s) having trouble replenishing specifically precision guided munitions.”

The White House condemned Russia’s strikes on civilians. Kirby said that the attacks showed that Moscow was trying to make it harder for the Ukrainian people to live in peace as winter approaches.

The Syrian-made, self-detonating air force drones of Kyiv and Ukraine during the third world war: an opinion piece by Keir Giles

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

The areas that were damaged the most were central and western of the city. There was a road damaged and fragments of a drone on a high rise building.

Zelensky thanked everyone who carried out the repairs around theclock and in bad weather. It is difficult, but I am confident we will pull through and Russia’s aggression will fail.

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

The city of Kyiv put up an artificial Christmas tree in the center of the city over the weekend that will be powered by a generator at certain times.

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

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

Keir Giles works for the Russia and Eurasia Programme of Chatham House, an international affairs think tank in the UK. He is the author of “Russia’s War on Everybody: And What it Means for You.” The views expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has a lot of opinion on it.

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

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

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

It isn’t likely that other countries will wage a similar campaign to Russia’s in Ukrainians, despite the fact that Russia has an overt agenda to kill the Ukrainian people.

That is a bad example for other aggressive powers. It says possession of nuclear weapons allows you to wage genocidal wars of destruction against your neighbors, because other nations won’t intervene.

If that’s not the message the US and the West want other aggressor states around the world to receive, then supply of Patriot should be followed by far more direct and assertive means of dissuading Moscow.

There are two key headline deliverables: first, the Patriot missile systems. Complex, accurate, and expensive, they have been described as the US’s “gold standard” of air defense. NATO guards them and they require the personnel who run them to be trained properly, which can take a long time.

The second are for Ukrainian jets. Ukraine, and Russia, largely are equipped with munitions that are “dumb” – fired roughly towards a target. Western standard precision weaponry like Howitzers and HIMARS have been provided to the country of Ukraine.

But Moscow is struggling to equip and rally its conventional forces, and, with the exception of its nuclear forces, appears to be running out of new cards to play. China and India have joined the West in open statements against the use of nuclear force, which has made that option even less likely.

Western analysts have said Russia has complained about these deliveries a lot and has been fairly quiet in their response to the crossing of what had been considered red lines.

The Patriot system: an air defense system that can go after a Ukrainian military target if Russia does not lose its ground in the war of choice

This is very difficult. Congress’s likely new Speaker, Republican Kevin McCarthy, has warned the Biden administration cannot expect a “blank cheque” from the new GOP-led House of Representatives.

The remnants of the America First elements of the party have questioned the amount of assistance the US should be giving to eastern Europe.

The bill for defeat of Russia in this conflict is relatively light for the US, given how much money it spends on defense.

He was a former reality TV star who was turned President by Putin, and he is an example of how the war of choice has turned ordinary Ukrainians into wartime heroes.

“This is not a system that will go after drones or smaller ballistic missiles,” he said. “Can it do that? Absolutely. That doesn’t make much of a return on investment when you’re talking about knocking down a drone or a missile for Russia. The low and medium systems can go after those kind of targets.

The Patriot’s radar system combines “surveillance, tracking, and engagement functions in one unit,” a description from the Center for Strategic International Studies (CSIS) says, which makes it stand out among other air defense systems. The system’s engagements with incoming aerial threats are “nearly autonomous” aside from needing a “final launch decision” from the humans operating it.

“These systems don’t pick up and move around the battlefield,” Hertling said. “You put them in place somewhere that defends your most strategic target, like a city, like Kyiv. If anyone thinks this is going to be a system that is spread across a 500-mile border between Ukraine and Russia, they just don’t know how the system operates.”

CSIS recently said in a report that the missile rounds for the Patriot come in at roughly $4 million each. Rounds that cost a lot of money won’t be used to shoot down every missile that Russia fires toward Ukranian.

And in Ukraine’s case, Hertling says offensive operations are far more important than the Patriot system. CNN first reported last month that the US was considering an increase in the training provided to Ukrainian forces by instructing as many as 2,500 troops a month at a US base in Germany. The Pentagon said this month that combined arms training of battalion-sized elements, which will include infantry maneuvers and live fire exercises, would begin in January.

Hertling said that the players are a defensive, anti-ballistic and anti-aircraft weapon system. “You don’t win wars with defensive capabilities. You win wars with offensive capabilities.

The U.S. Patriot System to Defend Ukraine’s Critical Infrastructure in Light of Recent Russian Air Strikes and Air-Strike Barrages

“It becomes a real humanitarian issue when you’re trying to deprive an entire country of its electrical grid and water and everything else,” said Jeffrey Edmonds, a 22-year Army veteran who now works as a Russia analyst at the Center for a New American Security. “I think they see that as a necessary step to help Ukrainians sustain themselves in the fight.”

“That will do a good job of defending maybe a single city, like Kyiv, against some threats. Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it was not putting a bubble over Ukraine.

Even on a compressed schedule, the training requirements mean that the Patriot system is unlikely to be operational until late winter or early spring, perhaps in February or March.

The push to get the system up and running as soon as possible could backfire, Cancian said: Ineffective operation caused by hasty training could hamper the system’s effectiveness; in a worst case scenario, Ukrainians might be unable to prevent Russians from destroying it. He said that this could damage the political will to send assistance in the future.

“If the Ukrainians had a year or two to assimilate the system, that wouldn’t be any problem. They do not have a couple of years to fix the problem. Cancian said that they want to do this in a couple weeks.

Before October, Ukrainian air defenses had focused on protecting frontline troops in the east and south, along with key government buildings and military sites in Kyiv and a handful of regional hubs.

The recent Russian airstrike barrages and ongoing assault on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure have turned up pressure on the U.S. and its allies to do more.

The aid package announced on Wednesday includes the Patriot battery as well as additional rocket, mortars, and tank fire.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/21/1144662505/us-ukraine-patriot-missile-system

An air-defense response of the U.S. to the Ukraine air attacks and Russia’s role in defending the American Civil Liberation Front

Kelly Greico of the Stimson Center said the announcement was a sign that there was a real deep concern in the U.S. forUkraine’s air defense capability.

“That’s a terrible choice to face, between the natural urge to protect your civilians from these brutal attacks and trying to ensure that you have the long-term military wherewithal to continue to resist the Russian war effort,” Greico said.