Donetsk, the industrialized Donbas region, is a Russian region since Ukraine left Ukraine in February 2014 after a heavy air attack

Ukrainian troops have pushed forward in their wake after Russian forces fled, capturing many villages and settlements in the Kherson region above Dnipro.

Those towns and Donetsk are in the industrialized Donbas region, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Kyiv since 2014. The Donetsk region is among four that were illegally annexed by Russia last month.

“This is a Russian region,” Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, told reporters on Friday. “It has been legally fixed and defined. There is no chance of changes here.

Russia is sending new conscripts to the front line in a bid to stop the recent advances of the Ukrainians and resupplied the ground forces that were decimated during the war. Military analysts predicted the deployment of Russian men to front line areas in the fall, after a chaotic deployment in September. The Russian military is on the attack in the east, but on defense in the south.

At least two people were killed in attacks on Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region. The city had been hit by at least four rockets, which were likely S 300s, according to the Regional Military Administration of the Kharkiv.

Hours before the air strikes, the country’s president announced that the military had taken back three more villages from Russia.

The World Trade Center, Zaporizhzhia, and the European Political Community: a day after the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Governor Oleksandr Starukh wrote on his Telegram channel that many people were rescued from the multi-story buildings, including a 3-year-old girl who was taken to a hospital for treatment.

Despite the fact that 20% of Zaporizhzhia remains under Ukrainian control, it was illegally annexed by Russia last month.

Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, plans to talk with Ukrainian officials about the Russian move. He will discuss the attempts to set up a secure protection zone after the facility was damaged and staff were kidnapped by Russian troops.

Meanwhile, leaders from more than 40 countries are meeting in Prague on Thursday to launch a “European Political Community” aimed at boosting security and prosperity across the continent, a day after the Kremlin held the door open for further land grabs in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian flag was raised over the seven Kherson region villages that had been occupied by the Russians. The closest of the liberated villages to the city of Kherson is Davydiv Brid, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) away.

Russia said it would help evacuate Kherson residents to other areas as the Ukrainians made gains in the region. In a sign that Russian forces were struggling in the face of Ukrainian advance, the announcement came after the head of the Moscow backed administration appealed to the Kremlin for help moving residents out of harm’s way.

Ukrainian national police said that the first 20 bodies had been exhumed from a mass burial site in the devastated Ukrainian city of Lyman, which was recently recovered from Russian occupation. It appears that around 200 people are buried in one location and that another contains the bodies of fallen Ukrainian soldiers. The civilians, including children, were buried in single graves, while members of the military were buried in a 40-meter long trench, according to police.

Lyman sustained heavy damage both during the occupation and as Ukrainian soldiers fought to retake it. Mykola, a 71-year-old man who only gave his first name, was among about 100 residents who lined up for aid.

Kiev woke up after the bridge attack: The Ukrainian president has been awarded the Nobel peace prize for crimes against humanity in Russia, and his message to the Russian government

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

In his nightly address, a defiant Zelenskyy switched to speaking Russian to tell the Moscow leadership that it has already lost the war that it launched Feb. 24.

On the same day that the prize was given to human rights activists in Russia, it was also announced that Russia’s president had been awarded the peace prize.

Russia has blamed the Ukrainian government for the attack on the bridge in Simferopol. Ukrainian intelligence says the strikes had been planned before the attack, but that he said they were in response to it.

The bridge was temporarily closed but both cars and trains were able to cross again on Sunday. Russia also restarted a car ferry service.

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

Recent fighting has focused on the regions just north of Crimea, including Zaporizhzhia. In a Telegram post, the Ukrainian President expressed his indignation over the latest attack.

Vladimir Putin hasn’t responded as hard as expected to angry war hawks: The case of the Dostoyevsky region

Stunned residents watched as emergency crews tried to reach the upper floors of a building that was hit by a direct hit. Apartments used to be located near a chasm at least 40 feet wide. In an adjacent apartment building, the missile barrage blew windows and doors out of their frames in a radius of hundreds of feet. The secretary of the city council said that 50 apartment buildings and at least 20 private homes were damaged.

After hearing air raid sirens, the wife and husband took shelter in the hallway of their apartment. Their possessions flew off of the building when the explosion shook it. Lazunko wept as the couple surveyed the damage to their home of nearly five decades.

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

Abbas Gallyamov, an independent Russian political analyst and a former speech writer for Putin, said that the Russian president had not responded forcefully enough to satisfy angry war hawks. The attack and response, he said, has “inspired the opposition, while the loyalists are demoralized.”

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

In May of last year, Putin personally opened the Kerch Bridge to the public by driving a truck across it. The bridge, the longest in Europe, is vital to sustaining Russia’s military operations in southern Ukraine.

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

The region is called the Dostoyevsky region. The General Staff of the Ukrainian military stated in its daily report that Russian forces had used air strikes to support their troops in the Bakhmut area.

Ukrainian missile attacks on Kyiv and Donetsk during the Ukrainian Christmas Eve crisis: “Immediate cessation of hostilities”

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

A photo shared by authorities in the Ukranian region showed a fragment of a missile in the snow, which said that the air defense system had fallen. Kyiv city’s military administration claimed that 37 of 40 missiles targeted at the capital were intercepted.

In the west of the country, one regional administrator, Serhii Hamalii, said on Telegram that most of the surrounding area was without power and water due to the Russian attacks. The Khmelnytskyi nuclear power station was offline.

After the strikes, China said that it hopes the situation will de-escalate soon. India called for an “immediate cessation of hostilities” and returned to the “path of dialogue” as it expressed deep concern about the increase in the conflict. The European leaders condemned the attack.

A video on social media claimed to show hits near the TarasShevchenko National University of Kyiv, which is a short stroll from the Presidential Office Building. Ukrainian officials said five people were killed in strikes on the capital.

Against the backdrop of a vicious winter season and a grinding war of attrition in the battlefield, the strikes in the regions of Donetsk and Kherson were intensified.

Zelensky’s message came after Ukrainian officials said Russia had launched deadly rocket strikes into downtown Kherson on Christmas Eve, killing at least 10 people and injuring dozens. Zelensky said that the attacks were intended for intimidation and pleasure.

In Kyiv, Ukraine Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko says that at least two museums and the National Philharmonic concert halls sustained heavy damage. A nearby strike damaged the country’s main passenger terminal, delaying trains during this morning’s rush hour, according to Ukraine’s National Railway.

Ihor Mozotsev, the head of the transport department for the Dnipro city council, stood by the crash as he said it happened at rush hour. He added that the bus driver and four passengers had been taken to the hospital with serious injuries.

Ukranian attack on the first floor. Vlasov Zelensky, 81, says Moscow is not ready for war

“It’s difficult for me to find any logic to their so-called artillery work because all our transportation is only for civilian purposes,” Makovtsev said.

81-year-old Viktor Shevchenko looked out from what once were the windows of his first floor balcony, just next to the bus stop. Shattered glass covered the ground below. He went to his kitchen to make breakfast after he had been watering the plants on his balcony.

He said the blast blew open all of his cabinets and nearly knocked him to the ground. “Only five minutes before, and I would have been on the balcony, full of glass.”

Volodymyr Zelensky said that drones and missiles were attacking all of Ukranian. “The enemy can attack our cities, but it won’t be able to break us. The occupiers will get only fair punishment and condemnation of future generations. And we will get victory.”

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov wrote that they warned Zelenskyy that Russia wasn’t really started yet.

Kiev Air Raiders: Is There Still Time to Give Up? Ukrainians’ Joys in the Aftermath of Putin’s Decay

Michael Bociurkiw is a global affairs analyst. He is a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council and was formerly a spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He is a contributor to CNN. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. You can read more about it at CNN.

Recent days have shown that sites far from ground fighting are not immune to attacks. The fact that a target so far away in Russian-held territory could be hit suggests a serious Ukrainian threat towards key Russian assets, and it is not clear how the attack was carried out.

The area around my office in Odesa remained quiet in between air raid sirens with unconfirmed 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).

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

As the sirens wailed, people in coats and scarves gathered in the underground stations. Their faces were lit by their cell phones as they scrolled through updates.

Most of the day will be spent in bomb shelters in Ukrainian cities, as businesses have been told 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.

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 explosion that took place in Ukrainians’ houses lit up social media channels like Christmas trees. They said their sense of joy was shared via text messages.

Sitting was never an option for Putin, who was consumed with self-interest. He unleashed more death and destruction because he knows how to unleash the force that comes naturally to a former KGB officer.

Facing increasing criticism at home, as well as state- controlled television, has placed Putin on thin ice.

The Importance of the Kyiv Data Crisis for the West and the Security of the Invasion of the Russian Navy by the Great Reactor

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

The significance of the strikes that happened on central Kyiv cannot be overstated. It should be seen by the Western governments as a red line being crossed.

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

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 will need to realize that rhetoric and sanctions have little or no impact on Putin. They need to continue to arm Ukrainians and provide urgent training, even if it means sending military experts closer to the battlefield to speed up the integration of high technology weapons.

It’s necessary to protect important energy infrastructure in the country with high tech defense systems. The need to protect heating systems is very important for the winter.

The time has also come for the West to further isolate Russia with trade and travel restrictions – but for that to have sufficient impact, Turkey and Gulf states, which receive many Russian tourists, need to be pressured to come on board.

Ukrainian Counter-offensives during the Kherson Firefighting: How a Russian Response to the Cold War turned it into a New War

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

The next few weeks of the war are expected to be vital, as both sides look to strike another blow, and with the winter approaching, ground combat is likely to slow down.

The war is going toward 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.

As the winter season begins, the stakes in the war have been raised again. “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 the people were able to do things that took them by surprise.

The counter-offensives helped shift the war’s focus and disproved notions that Ukrainians lacked the ability to seize ground.

BLAHODATNE, Ukraine — Ukraine’s troops swept into the key southern city of Kherson on Friday, its military said, greeted by jubilant residents waving Ukrainian flags after a major Russian retreat.

Russia’s Road to War with Ukraine: A Deep Study of the Ukrainian Defense Forces and Counter-offensives, and Why the Russians are Playing for the Whist

“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.”

Getting a big win in the war in the Ukraine will signal to the world that it’s time to get back to business, and the full impact of rising energy prices will be felt around Europe.

There are a number of reasons why theUkrainians want to get things done quickly. “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 regardless of how long the war takes, but several European countries – particularly those that relied heavily on Russian energy – are staring down a crippling cost-of-living crisis which, without signs of Ukrainian progress on the battlefield, could endanger public support.

Experts believe it is unlikely that Russia will form a recurrent pattern of aerial bombardments, while estimating the military reserves of either army is a murky endeavor, Western assessments suggest Moscow may not have the capacity to keep it up.

The British spy chief said that Russian commanders on the ground knew that their supplies were running out.

Russia uses a limited number of precision weapons in this role, which may make it hard for Putin to disrupt the Ukrainian counter-offensives.

The Ukrainian military said that the majority of cruise missiles fired at Ukraine on Thursday were intercepted, with its defense forces shooting down 54 of 69, according to preliminary data. Klitschko said 16 missiles were destroyed by Ukraine’s air defenses over Kyiv.

Strikes of the scale like the one launched Thursday’s have become less frequent since they began Oct. 10. The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence said earlier this week that Russia is running low on cruise missiles.

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 reopening the northern front would be a new challenge for the country. He said it would allow Russia a new route into the area which has been reclaimed by the Ukrainians.

By flipping the narrative of the conflict over the last two months, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has achieved one of his own goals and that is making his Western allies see that military aid can help him win the war.

Ahead of the meeting of NATO defense ministers in Belgium, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Ukraine needed more to stop missile attacks.

“These air defense systems are making a difference because many of the incoming missiles [this week] were actually shot down by the Ukrainian air defense systems provided by NATO Allies,” he said.

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.

The Kremlin rocket attack on the Ukrainian mayor’s building in Kyiv’s office is not a threat to Russia but a problem for Ukraine

Giles believes that Russia could use the war to force governments to remove their support forUkraine, even if it was just for the people of Ukraine.

It is not to conclude that the mobilize forces will not be utilized. If used in support roles, like drivers or refuelers, they can lighten the burden on Russia’s exhausted military. They could also fill out depleted units along the line of contact, cordon some areas and man checkpoints in the rear. They are unlikely to become a fighting force. Already there are signs of discipline problems among mobilized soldiers in Russian garrisons.

If that happened, Mr. Putin could act more aggressively against the Ukrainians. The Ukrainian leadership could be targeted with strikes or special operations by Russia if the missile supplies hold out.

The Defense Ministry said that 11 people were killed and 15 wounded by two men who opened fire on Russian troops.

The mayor’s building was damaged in the rocket attack. The building had rows of windows that blew out, as well as a partially collapsed ceiling. Cars nearby were burned out. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Kyiv didn’t claim responsibility or comment on the attack.

Russian troops have been ordered to stay away from the front line: a counterattack against Russia on Ukrainian refugees in Dnipropetrovsk

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

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, a missile was also destroyed, according to Reznichenko. He said that energy infrastructure in the region was being targeted.

France, as it seeks to puncture perception that it has lag in supporting Ukraine, confirmed it was ramping up military training and promised air defense missiles. The French defense minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said in an interview with Le Parisien that up to 2000 Ukrainian soldiers were going to be embedded with military units in France and that they would be given specialized training and equipment.

— The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in Washington, accused Moscow late Saturday of conducting “massive, forced deportations of Ukrainians,” which it said likely amount to ethnic cleansing.

It referenced statements made this week by Russian authorities that claimed that “several thousand” children from a southern region occupied by Moscow had been placed in rest homes and children’s camps amid the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The original remarks by Russia’s deputy prime minister, Marat Khusnullin, were reported by RIA Novosti on Friday.

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

“The Russian invaders continue their looting of settlements from which they are retreating,” spokesman for the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces Oleksandr Shtupun said. “The enemy is also trying to damage power lines, other transport and critical infrastructure facilities of Kherson region.”

Russian generals who he claims direct the war effort far from the frontline have been denounced by him for being unaware of warnings about putting equipment and personnel so close together. Girkin was previously minister of defense of the self-proclaimed, Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic, and was found guilty by a Dutch court of mass murder for his involvement in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Girkin has been on an international wanted list over his alleged involvement in the downing of Kuala Lumpur-bound flight MH17, which killed 298 people. He remains the most high-profile suspect in a related murder trial in a Dutch court, with a verdict expected Nov. 17.

Moscow’s battlefield failures are being lashed out at by Girkin’s social media posts. Ukraine’s defense intelligence agency said Sunday it would offer a $100,000 reward to anyone who captures him.

Kamikaze Drone Attacks on Kyiv: Reports from the Ukrainian Armed Forces and Cyber-Scale Forces

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

Kamikaze drones or suicide drones are small portable weapon systems that are difficult to detect and can be fired at a distance. They can be easily launched and are designed to hit behind enemy lines and be destroyed in the attack.

NATO will be holding nuclear deterrence exercises next week. NATO has warned Russia not to use nuclear weapons on Ukraine but says the “Steadfast Noon” drills are a routine, annual training activity.

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

Russia was condemned by the UN General Assembly for annexing four regions of Ukraine. Four countries voted along with Russia and only four voted in favor of Ukraine’s resolution, while 35 abstained.

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

The scale of Russian losses in these infantry advances is uncertain. The institute described the advances as “impaling” ill-prepared units on well dug-in defensive positions of Ukraine’s battle-hardened troops. The Ukrainian military is believed to have overstated its numbers of Russian casualties, but with a relative increase in reported numbers it suggests a rising toll. More than 800 Russian soldiers had been wounded or killed over the last 24 hours, according to the Ukrainian military.

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.

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

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 will most likely struggle to maintain the pace of their offensive operations, which can lead to a tactical or operational pause,” the institute concluded.

Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed that its troops had inflicted heavy losses on Ukrainian soldiers in the eastern part of Ukraine, killing over 200 of them. It said Russian forces had successfully targeted US-made equipment and brought down one MiG-29 fighter aircraft over Donetsk, as well as a number of drones.

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 in the vicinity of Kherson and conflicting signals over what will happen, the residents of the city have been stocking up on food and fuel.

While state media in Russia said that Ukrainian shelling had damaged the power lines, Yaroslav Yanushevych, the exiled Ukrainian head of the Kherson regional military administration, blamed Russian troops.

The Russian forces have also placed mines around water towers in Beryslav, Mr. Yanushevych said, referring to a town less than 50 miles from Kherson city and just north of a critical dam near the front lines of the fighting.

Some 250,000 people lived in the city before the war. Ukrainian activists estimate that 30,000 to 60,000 people remain, but it is impossible to know how accurate such guesses are.

The loss of Kherson would be Russia’s third major setback of the war, following retreats from Kyiv, the capital, last spring, and from the Kharkiv region in the northeast in September. Kherson was the only provincial capital Russia had captured since invading in February, and it was a major link in Russia’s effort to control the southern coastline along the Black Sea.

Ukrainian forces swept into the key city of Kherson on Friday as Russian troops retreated to the east, delivering a major victory to Kyiv and marking one of the biggest setbacks for President Vladimir Putin since his invasion began.

The Kremlin still considers Kherson to be a part of Russia even after soldiers fled.

Videos shared by the Ukrainian government showed images of civilians who had been through a lot celebrating the arrival of Ukrainian troops.

Elated civilians who had survived months of Russian occupation descended on Kherson’s central square, hugging newly arrived Ukrainian soldiers, snapping selfies with them, and waving Ukrainian flags.

The commander of a Ukrainian drone warfare group said he had never seen Russian troops or equipment in his area.

“The Russians left all the villages,” he said. “We looked at dozens of villages with our drones and didn’t see a single car. We are not sure how they are leaving. They retreat at night.

According to the residents of Kherson, the final hours of the Russian occupation consisted of several explosions and were chaotic.

Serhiy, a retiree in the city who asked that his last name be kept confidential for security reasons, said in a series of text messages that conditions had deteriorated overnight.

“At night, a building burned in the very center, but it was not possible even to call the fire department,” he wrote. “There was no phone signal, no electricity, no heating and no water.”

Moscow time on Friday: Russian forces retreated towards the Dnieper river in Kherson city, annexed by Russia in September

There was no visible military presence in the city on Friday, but four residents say they saw Russian soldiers dressed in civilian clothes move around the city.

It will be easier for Russia to replenish troops and gain defense in depth when they move to the east bank. Any attempt by Ukrainian forces to cross the Dnipro would be costly as Russian forces are dug in along the river. Civilians were removed from homes near the river after trenches appeared on satellite imagery.

In Kherson city, where a crowd was waving flags and chanting “ZSU,” President Zelensky posted a night-time video of the celebrations.

Russian forces have retreated to the east bank of the Dnipro River, which cleaves through the wider region, also called Kherson, that was annexed by Russia in September in violation of international laws.

Russian military units moved towards the left bank of the Dnieper River in the Kherson direction. [Moscow time] this morning,” the ministry said on its official Telegram channel, using the Russian spelling for the river.

The east bank of the country did not receive any fire Friday, but Ukraine did say that a missile attack in the city of Mykolaiv killed seven people.

Earlier Friday, the Ukrainian military’s southern operational command said Russian forces had been “urgently loading into boats that seem suitable for crossing and trying to escape” across the river.

Surviving the destruction of the bridge over the Dnipro in the Kherson region, a country illegally annexed by Russia

On Friday there were images and video showing the destroyed bridge over the Dnipro in the Kherson region.

A reporter from the Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda was embedded with Russian forces and filmed a video on his Telegram channel showing the entire bridge being destroyed. “Behind me are the two collapsed spans of (the) bridge,” Kots said. “They were likely blown up during the withdrawal of the Russian group of forces from the right bank to the left,” or western bank to eastern bank.

Russia still has control over 60 percent of the Kherson region, which is north and east of the Dnipro, and the coastline along the Sea of Azov. So long as Moscow’s troops control and fortify the Dnipro’s east bank, Ukrainian forces will struggle to damage or disrupt the canal that carries fresh water to Crimea.

A video circulating on social media on Friday, geolocated and authenticated by CNN, showed Ukrainian forces being greeted by residents on the main highway in Tyahinka. The village is just 14 miles (20 km) west of the hydroelectric dam and bridges that stretch across the Dnieper river at Nova Kakhovka.

The residents of the town of Bilozerka raised a Ukrainian flag and tore down Russian billboards on Friday, according to videos on social media.

There were several scenes of people greeting Ukrainian troops across the region, far different from the ones in Kherson, where Russian officials claimed that almost all of the voters there supported integration into the Russian Federation. Kherson was one of four Ukrainian regions illegally annexed by Russia in September.

An official in southern Ukraine warned on Friday that residents should be wary of returning to areas recently liberated from Russian troops due to the risk of mines, while officials in the capital had warned that retreating Russian troops could turn Kherson into a “city of death” on the way out.

Vitaliy Kim, the head of Mykolaiv region military administration, said there are a lot of mines in the liberated territories. You should not go there for no reason. There are casualties.”

The Russian Revolution in the Kherson Region: Recent Progress in the U.S. and the Prospects for New Developments in Kherson and Dominated Donbas

During a regular press briefing, Peskov said that this is a subject of the Russian Federation. “It has been legally fixed and defined. There can not be any changes here.

The relatively few residents who remain in Kherson have endured curfews, shortages of goods, partisan warfare and an intense campaign to force them to become Russian citizens and accept Moscow’s warped version of their culture and history.

They have yet to come into focus of their suffering. For months, residents interviewed by journalists have told stories of friends being abducted, children illegally deported, relatives tortured and killed. When Russian have pulled out elsewhere in Ukraine, evidence of human rights abuses has eventually surfaced.

In Moscow, some hawkish commentators have lamented the withdrawal as a humiliation and an embarrassment. But others who were previously critical of the Defense Ministry have accepted the move. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said Surovikin had saved a thousand soldiers and “made a difficult but right choice between senseless sacrifices for the sake of loud statements and saving the priceless lives of soldiers.”

While facing a punishing counteroffensive by the Ukrainians, the Russians decided to pull out of the area so as to protect the lives of civilians and troops.

President Zelensky hailed Friday as a historic day. Zelensky said that we are returning the south of the country.

The success in Kherson could allow exhausted Ukrainian units some respite, and allow the focus to shift to Donbas, where fierce fighting continues.

Ukranian authorities also have a massive task of reconstruction ahead in Kherson, where Russian forces destroyed critical infrastructure and left a huge number of mines behind.

New damage has also appeared on a critical dam that spans the Dnipro in the Kherson region city of Nova Kakhovka, on the east bank of the river. The two sides accused each other of planning to destroy the dam to deprive the nuclear power plant of water to cool its reactor and cause extensive flooding on the east bank.

Events in Kherson and Kharkiv have shown that the Ukrainians possess tactical agility that seems alien to the Russian way of war, as well as far superior battlefield intelligence.

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

The south of the city was the area where the Russian army’s new positions on the eastern bank were picking up fire, stoking fears that the Russians would retaliate for the loss of the city.

Mortar shells struck near the bridge, sending up puffs of smoke. There were thundering, metallic booms near the river. It wasn’t possible to assess what had been hit.

The Battles of Kherson: Land-mines, Soldiers, and the State of the War in the Hearts of Russian Soldiers

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

The mines are dangerous. A family run over a mine and killed four people, including an 11-year-old, outside the city. Six railway workers were hurt when they were trying to restore service after lines were damaged. The officials said at least four more children were hurt by mines in the region.

The deaths underscored the threats still remaining on the ground, even as Mr. Zelensky made a surprise visit to Kherson, a tangible sign of Ukraine’s soaring morale.

Mr. Zelensky told residents in the city’s main square on Monday that they were on their way to all of the country.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/11/14/world/russia-ukraine-war-news/kherson-residents-describe-beatings-and-thefts-at-the-hands-of-russian-soldiers

Security Messages from Nuclear Power Plants in Mykolaiv: After the Shutdown of the Nuclear Reactors in Kherson City

“Occupants rob local people and exchange stuff for samogon,” or homemade vodka, said one resident, Tatiana, who communicated via a secure messaging app from Oleshky, a town across the river from Kherson City. They get drunk and are even more aggressive. We are so scared here.” She asked that her surname be withheld for security.

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

The nuclear power plants were disconnected from the grid for safety reasons, Ukrenergo said in a statement.

After a brief emergency shutdown, the nuclear reactors have been turned back on, but were still not reconnected to the national grid, the company added.

Vitaliy Kim, the military administrator of the southern region of Mykolaiv, reported that the nuclear plant had been cut off from the grid and that it was likely to be shut down.

Ukrainian officials stress that the power cuts have the cascading effect of turning off the heat and water in many cases. The water in the pipes could freeze if temperatures get cold, adding more problems.

Ukraine’s defense ministry has refused to negotiate with Russia over a “dark and cold” plan: A warning from the US on cluster munitions

In Moldova, President Maia Sandu wrote this about Russia on Facebook: “We can’t trust a regime that leaves us in the dark and cold, that purposely kills people for the mere desire to keep other peoples poor and humble.”

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

He said they will provide heat, water, phone charging and internet access. Many of them will be in government buildings.

Top US officials have publicly stated that they plan to give the Ukrainians as much support as they need to give them an upper hand at the negotiating table with Russia, should it come to that. The Ukrainians said to the US that they could use cluster munitions currently gathered in storage because western military equipment is not infinite.

The Biden administration has been fielding the request for months and not rejecting it, a detail that has not been previously reported.

The design of cluster munitions can cause them to miss out on impact and pose a long term risk to anyone who comes in contact with them. They create “nasty, bloody fragmentation” to anyone they hit because of the amount of sub-munitions that explode at once across a large area, according to a weapons expert.

The Biden administration has not stopped considering the option, even if there is a risk of low stockpiles. The proposal hasn’t received a lot of attention because of restrictions Congress put on the US’s ability to transfer cluster munitions.

Those restrictions apply to munitions with a greater than one percent unexploded ordnance rate, which raises the prospect that they will pose a risk 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 they wait until an agreement is reached with a supplier before making a comment, but they don’t comment upon requests for specific weapons systems.

When there is a concentration of Russians, the Ukrainian official said that DPICMs are more effective.

Vladimir Putin: “Why aren’t we providing water to Donetsk?” — On the threat of an airfield in Kursk to Ukraine’s declared drone attacks

Speaking after an awards ceremony for “Heroes of Russia” at the Kremlin, he addressed a group of soldiers receiving the awards, clutching a glass of champagne.

At the awards ceremony, Putin continued to list alleged aggressions: “Who is not supplying water to Donetsk? Not giving water to the city of million is a crime.

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

Source: https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-12-08-22/h_aea9d9149a72232d60137554cc312f1e

“No water”: The Melitopol shelling attack in Russia’s annexing of the Donetsk-annexed city

He claimed that there is no mention of the water situation. “No one has said a word about it anywhere. At not at all! Complete silence. He said that’s true.

Local Russian authorities in Donetsk — which Putin claimed to annex in defiance of international law — have reported frequent shelling of the city this week.

The Melitopol mayor Ivan Fedorov said there had been several explosions, including at the Melitopol Christian Church, “which the occupiers seized several months ago and turned into their hideout.”

The missile attack on Melitopol destroyed a recreation center where people, civilians, and military base personnel were having dinner on the night of the attack, according to Russia’s acting governor.

Ukrainian missiles were launched in the direction of the Kalininsky districts, according to the head of the Russian-backed city administration.

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 in Simferopol, said the Russian-appointed head of the peninsula. All services are working as usual.

The news comes amid reports that 1.5 million people in the Odesa region of Ukraine have been left without power following strikes by Iranian-made drones.

He said Ukrainian sky defenders shot down 10 of the drones, but the damage was still critical, and it will be a few days before there is electricity in the region.

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

From Ukraine to Europe – the story of Brittney Griner and Viktor Bout in the wake of Russian attacks on the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine

Zelensky said that Russia was trying to bring disaster to the city with their attitude towards 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.

Ukrainian authorities have been stepping up raids on churches accused of links with Moscow, and many are watching to see if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy follows through on his threat of a ban on the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

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.

France is set to host a conference with Ukraine in support of Ukrainians through the winter, with a video address by President Zelenskyy.

There were months of negotiations that culminated in the freedom of American basketball player, Brittney Griner. Her release came in exchange for the U.S. handing over convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. Griner is back in the U.S. and reunited with her wife. Bout is back in Russia and is reported to have joined an ultranationalist party.

Ukraine’s largest attack on Donetsk since 2014: Russia-installed official reacted to the invasion and new measures on Russian oil revenue

The new measures targeting Russian oil revenue took effect on December 5. A price cap and European Union embargo on Russian oil imports are included.

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

Ukrainian forces have unleashed the biggest attack on the occupied Donetsk region since 2014, according to a Russia-installed official, in the wake of heavy fighting in the east of the country.

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

“Forty rockets from BM-21 ‘Grad’ MLRS were fired at civilians in our city,” he said Thursday, adding that a key intersection in Donetsk city center had come under fire.

The Kherson regional head of the military administration said that the city has been hit 86 times in the past 24 hours.

A member of the rapid response team was one of the victims. He said they were killed by fragments of enemy shells while on the street.

The regional head of the Kherson military administration says that the strikes left the city completely disconnected from power supplies.

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

The Energy Security Project delivered over 130 generators and four excavators, according to Klitschko. Equipment was free of charge.

Kremlin warning on Ukrainian drone strikes on December 5, in Kharkiv region, in the wake of the December 5 attack on Engels

The Ukrainian side needs to take into account realities that have evolved over this time, according to the Kremlin.

“And these realities indicate that the Russian Federation has new subjects,” he said, referring to four areas Russia has claimed to have annexed, Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.

“They have set a goal to leave Ukrainians without light, water and heat,” Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told a government meeting, adding that 60 of the 76 missiles fired at Ukraine were intercepted by its air defense forces.

The events of December 5, when the Russians launched a missile strike on Syria, reminded the spokesman of the present situation. “Therefore, we should be prepared for this, take it into account in our plans and do not forget to proceed to the shelter.”

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

At least 10 missiles struck various targets in Kharkiv region, in the north, damaging energy facilities and a hospital, according to Oleh Syniehubov, head of the regional military administration. Power was beginning to be restored in Kharkiv city after being knocked out for much of the day. The mayor of Kharkiv told residents to use makeshift centers to get food and drink and to charge their cellphones in the wake of the recent power failures.

Oleksandr Starukh, the regional military administration’s chief, said the southeastern region was hit by more than a dozen missile strikes, but it was not clear what had been targeted.

It is the second time Engels has been targeted by Ukrainian drones; on Dec. 5, unprecedented drone strikes on Engels and the Dyagilevo base in the Ryazan region in western Russia killed a total of three servicemen and wounded four more. The missile attack on homes and buildings in Ukraine left scores of people dead.

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. Their statement was not clear if a Kinzal was used in the attacks.

“We know that their defense industrial base is being taxed,” Kirby said of Russia. “We know they’re having trouble keeping up with that pace. We know that Russia’s President has trouble refilling precision guided bombs.

The Biden administration is finalizing plans to send the Patriot, the US’ most advanced ground-based air defense system, to Ukraine, according to two US officials and a senior administration official. The system was requested by the Ukrainian government for its defense against Russian missile and drones. The system would be the most effective defensive weapon system ever sent to the country and it would help with security of the North Atlantic Treaty and America’s airspace in eastern Europe.

He did not say what the next security assistance package for Ukraine would be but that there will be one, and that more air defense capabilities should be expected.

Shelling of a Ukrainian town in the Kherson region by Russian shelling in the past 24 hours, says Kherson’s Ukrainian governor Yaroslav Yanushevich

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

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, just back from his quick trip to Washington, posted photos of the wreckage on his social media accounts. Ukrainians were starting their Christmas celebrations as the destruction happened, so many Orthodox Christians will participate in the traditional celebration January 7.

“This is not sensitive content — it’s the real life of Kherson,” Zelenskyy tweeted. There were cars on fire, bodies on the street and windows blown out in the images.

Three state emergency workers, who were demining, were among 16 people killed by Russian attacks across the Kherson region on Saturday. He said that another 64 people had injuries of varying severity.

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

There were no details of casualties when the settlement of Stepne was hit by shelling, according to the governor.

A defiant Christmas address for Ukrainians in the face of the deadly Russian attacks: Zelensky, the hammer and sword of our spirit and conscience

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

He urged the nation to hold on to their guns, in the face of a brutal winter of energy shortages, the absence of loved ones and the potential for Russian attacks.

“There may be empty chairs around it. And our houses and streets can’t be so bright. And Christmas bells can ring not so loudly and inspiringly. Through air raid sirens, gunshots and explosions.

He said that Ukraine had been resisting evil forces for three hundred days and eight years, however, “in this battle, we have another powerful and effective weapon. The hammer and sword of our spirit and consciousness. The wisdom of God. Courage and bravery. We are inclined to do good and overcome evil.

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

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

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

Orthodox Christian customs say that Christmas can be celebrated on January 7 in line with the calendar of the birth of Jesus.

“The terrorist country continues bringing the Russian world in the form of shelling of the civilian population. Kherson. In the morning, on Saturday, on the eve of Christmas, in the central part of the city,” he said.

He told Telegram on Saturday that they are not military facilities. This is not a war according to the rules. It is killing for the sake of fun and intimidation.

Russian forces in the Bakhmut area and outskirts of Dnipropetrovsk region: A state television interview with Putin

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

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

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

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

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

Seven drones were shot down over the southern Mykolaiv region, according to Gov. Vitali Kim, and three more were shot down in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said.

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

Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat: a drone attack on the Dnipropetrovsk province is not the consequence of what Russia is doing

He said there were no emergencies in residential areas of the city and no damage to civilian infrastructure. The government will give help to the families of the servicemen, he said.

In comments Monday, Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat did not claim direct responsibility for the drone, but did suggest the attack was the “consequence of what Russia is doing.”

Ukrainian military did not confirm or deny the strike, but did acknowledge what appeared to be the same attack that Russia reported.

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

There was a quiet night from Sunday to Monday in Ukraine. The Russian forces have not bombarded the Dnipropetrovsk region in weeks, the governor reported on Telegram.

Since some cruise missiles are launched from bombers that fly from the airfields hit in the attacks, the strikes could potentially destroy the missiles on the ground at the Russian airfields before they can be deployed.

He added that the person would attack them because they are fighting back and he did not speak for the government. There is absolutely no strategic reason not to try to do this.”

The first strike of a cruise missile on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, as perpetrated by the Krematorsk missile attack on January 7, 2019

The Kinzhal is the most advanced missile in Russia’s arsenal, but it is only available in short supply.

Several residential buildings in the capital Kyiv were destroyed, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the lead for disaster response in the Ukrainian presidential office.

Ukrainian air defense systems shot down 21 cruise missiles near Odesa, said Maksym Marchenko, the regional administrator for that region along the Black Sea. The city did not have electricity or water because of successful missile strikes.

In separate comments to Russian media Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted Moscow would continue to pursue its objectives in Ukraine with “perseverance” and “patience.”

Authorities have been cautioning for days that Russia was preparing to launch an all-out assault on the power grid to close out 2022, plummeting the country into darkness as Ukrainians attempt to ring in the New Year and celebrate the Christmas holidays, which for the country’s Orthodox Christians falls on January 7.

Hryn said that life in the capital went back to normal after the sirens sounded, after meeting her neighbors with their child who were in a rush to see the new movie. People went to work, while parents took their kids to school, despite the fact that holiday plans were in defiance.

CNN arrived at the scene and heard the first strike on Kramatorsk. Two impacts took place within one minute of each other. two women ran yelling from the car and other civilians took a shelter wherever they could The bullet came off the blastproof glass of the CNN vehicle.

Senseless barbarism. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said those were the only words that came to mind watching Moscow launch a fresh wave of attacks on Ukrainian cities ahead of the New Year, adding there could be “no neutrality” in the face of such aggression.

The assigned targets have been neutralised. The defense ministry claims that the attack has caused the cessation of the production and maintenance of military hardware and the cancellation of the reassigning of reserve forces from western regions of Ukraine.

Russian and Ukrainian forces are losing a lot of ground in the city. CNN could not confirm Russia’s claims.

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

A large number of Russian soldiers are said to have been killed in an apparent Ukrainian strike in eastern Ukraine.

The Russian defense ministry on Monday acknowledged the attack and claimed that 63 Russian servicemen died, which would make it one of the deadliest single episodes of the war for Moscow’s forces.

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.

“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.”

Those who made a decision to use this facility should be reprimanded, Bezsonov said. There are plenty of abandoned facilities with sturdy buildings that can be quarters for personnel.

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

The military equipment, which stood close to the building without any camouflage, was destroyed. There are still no figures on casualties, as many people are still missing.

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.”

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

Russian forces fought back on Bakhmut with an exploding drone attack on Feb. 24, 2019: Moscow’s invasion of Beryslav goes awry

Russian forces lost 760 people yesterday and are continuing to try and take action on Bakhmut, a military statement said Sunday.

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

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of “energy terrorism” as the aerial bombardments have left many people without heat amid freezing temperatures. Russian officials say they are demoralizing the Ukrainian resistance.

Moscow’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24 has gone awry, putting pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin as his ground forces struggle to hold ground and advance. He said in the New Year that it would be a difficult year of decisions.

The West condemns Putin’s claim that he had no choice but to send troops intoUkraine because he said it threatened Russia’s security.

The Russian forces attacked the city of Beryslav, the official said, firing at a local market, likely from a tank. Three people are in serious condition and will be going to Kherson.

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

Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/02/1146556299/russia-ukraine-donestk-attack

Russian soldiers and civilians in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine: A new missile attack in the aftermath of the Makiivka strike

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

In Russia, a Ukrainian drone hit an energy facility inside the Bryansk region, according to the Bryansk regional governor. A village was left without power as a result, he said.

A CNN team on the ground has seen no indication of any massive casualties in the area. The team said there was no unusual activity in and around Kramatorsk.

The Russian strike on two college dormitories did not appear to be significant, as was reported by a reporter in Kramtorsk.

The Russian Defense Ministry said “the main cause” of the Makiivka strike was the widespread use of cell phones by Russian soldiers, “contrary to the ban,” which allowed Ukraine to “track and determine the coordinates of the soldiers’ locations.”

A rare public blame game broke out between the Russian government and some pro-Kremlin leaders and military experts in the aftermath of the strike, after Moscow appeared to blame its own soldiers’ use of cell phones.

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.

There was a new missile attack on the city of Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine Thursday, sending flames and huge clouds of smoke into the sky as people tried to escape.

Rescue workers searched through piles of rubble to try and locate survivors in the aftermath of Wednesday’s attack, which damaged eight apartment buildings. Authorities also evacuated people to a local school for shelter.

Investigating the attack on a village bordering Sumy-Seredyna-Buda by Russian forces in Kramatorsk and Dvorichna

“A country bordering absolute evil. It is necessary that a country overcomes it in order to prevent tragedies from happening again. We will definitely get to the bottom of what happened. They are not deserving of mercy.

Moscow’s attack in Kramatorsk came after a top Kyiv official said Russia is gearing up for a “maximum escalation” of the nearly years-long war in Ukraine.

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

Kharkiv, Sumy and Luhansk regions: Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv regional military administration, said two civilians were killed in Dvorichna, a village east of the city of Kharkiv. The Russian forces are on the Oskil River.

According to Operational Command North, the border between Sumy and Seredyna-Buda has been bombarded by the occupiers 12 times on Wednesday evening. No casualties were reported.

The Russians had reached a road northwest of the city and fighting was continuing there according to an account of troops from the 46th brigade who had been in Bakhmut for several weeks.