Vladimir V. Putin and the Russian Army in Lyman, a city in the eastern half of Donbas, Ukraine: the last day of the Russian war of 1917

After weeks of fierce fighting, Russia retreated from a riverbank that has become a dividing line between Russia and the Ukrainians.

Two days after President Vladimir V. Putin held a grandiose ceremony to commemorate the incorporation of four Ukrainian territories into Russia, the debacle in the city — Lyman, a strategic railway hub in the eastern region of Donbas — ratcheted up pressure on a Russian leadership already facing withering criticism at home for its handling of the war and its conscription of up to 300,000 men into military service.

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

When he was captured outside of the eastern city of Lyman, there was little to no attire, except a piece of cloth that said his loyalties were Russian or Ukrainian. To keep him warm, the Ukrainian soldiers gave him a Russian parka they had lying around in their trench.

Serhiy, one of the Ukrainian soldiers who found Alexander, told a pair of New York Times reporters that he went to their positions after coming out of the forest.

There has been little time for reflection for the Ukrainians as they press their counterattack, focused on keeping the pressure on the retreating Russian army to prevent it from regrouping. After months in the trenches, Ukrainian soldiers and commanders have been given a chance to size up Russian troops and have been engaging them up close.

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. Inside there was a sniper rifle, rocket propelled grenades, helmets and belongings. The men were gone.

“They dropped everything: personal care, helmets,” said the commander, who uses the code name Swat. “I think it was a special unit, but they were panicking. It was raining very hard, the road was bad and they drop everything and move.”

Violence in Ukraine: The aftermath of the weekend bombing of the city of Donetsk, Ukraine, and the aftermath of an attack by a nuclear power plant

Starting slowly at the end of the summer, and then in large measure at the beginning of October, Ukrainian forces have regained hundreds of square miles of territory that Russia held since the early days of its full-scale invasion.

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

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

Struggling on the battlefield in southern and eastern Ukraine, Russia felt war on its own territory on Sunday as more than a dozen explosions ripped through a Russian border region, and a series of blasts severely damaged the offices of Russia’s puppet government in the Ukrainian city of Donetsk.

A video that is not real has hit near the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, just a short walk from the Presidential Office Building. Ukrainian officials say that five people were killed as a result of strikes on the capital.

At midday, the area around my office in Odesa remained completely quiet with no sirens or reports of missiles being shot down. Usually at this time of the day, nearby restaurants would be bustling with customers and chatting about upcoming weddings and parties.

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

In a defiant video filmed outside his office Monday, the president of Ukraine said many of the 100 or so missiles launched across the nation were focused on the country’s energy infrastructure. At least 11 important infrastructure facilities in eight regions and the capital have been damaged; some provinces are without power, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.

Some of the media outlets moved their operations to underground bomb shelters when Russian forces were close to the capital. In one metro station serving as a shelter, large numbers of people took cover on platforms as a small group sang patriotic Ukrainian songs.

According to the predictions, most of the day will be spent in bomb shelters, while businesses have been asked to shift work online as much as possible.

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

For Putin, the symbolism of the only bridge linking mainland Russia and Crimea cannot be overstated. The fact that the attack took place a day after his 70th birthday was taken as a blow to an aging autocrat whose ability to tolerate shame and humiliation is questionable.

Hardwiring newly claimed territory with expensive, record-breaking infrastructure projects seems to be a penchant of dictators. In 2018, Putin personally opened the Kerch bridge – Europe’s longest – by driving a truck across it. That same year, one of the first things Chinese President Xi Jinping did after Beijing reclaimed Macau and Hong Kong was to connect the former Portuguese and British territories with the world’s longest sea crossing bridge. The road bridge that cost $20 billion opened after two years of delays.

Putin’s Crimea Attack on Ukraine: The Russian War and the Challenge to Prepare for the Coming War in the Balge of Security and Security in the Middle East

The reaction among Ukrainians to the explosion was instantaneous: humorous memes lit up social media channels like a Christmas tree. Many 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 chief of the Main Intelligence Department at theUkrainian Defense Ministry said in late August that they would have to enter Crimea at the minimum by the end of the year.

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.

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.

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

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/10/opinions/putin-russia-war-ukraine-strikes-crimea-bridge-bociurkiw/index.html

Serious raped sexual assault in the Kherson conflict: “It wasn’t your fault, you weren’t my friend,” a neighbor tells her

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.

On the same day as the blasts, Russian soldiers opened fire at a military base in the Belgorod region, killing 11 and injuring 15 before they died of their wounds.

The scars of war can be seen here. Russia used sexual violence as a weapon of war in its conquest of Ukraine, according to UN investigators. They’ve even made allegations of Russian soldiers carrying Viagra.

Six accusations of sexual assault have been documented in two weeks of work in the Kherson region. They say the real number is probably much higher.

She says that they walked around the rooms. One of the two people who raped me came in here. He came in, walked a little bit around the room and here in this place, he started groping me.”

He pinned her against the wardrobe, she says, and tore at her clothes. She cried and begged him to stop but with no success. “The only thought I had was to stay alive.”

He warned her not to tell anyone, she recalls. She said she didn’t tell her husband immediately. I told my cousin and husband, but they were not aware. He said, ‘You should have told me the truth, but you kept silent.’”

She spent three days at home, in a daze, too ashamed to step outside. She says she confronted the commander of the Russian soldier.

“His commander found the head of his unit. The man told me that he had punished the man severely, and that the most severe punishment was on the way. Like shooting. The commander asked if he was up for it. I said I wanted them all to be shot.

No sexual crimes in Skadovsk, a small village seized by Ukrainian soldiers in the aftermath of a lightning counteroffensive

Although the prosecutor, Kleshchenko, and police officer Oleksandr Svidro are looking specifically for evidence of sexual crimes, everywhere they go they are confronted with the horrors of occupation.

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

A man in the crowd tells the investigators that he was held by Russian soldiers and subjected to mock execution. It’s hard to hear, tales of torture like this are common here, but that’s not the subject of their work today.

A mother and daughter are in Tverdomedove, which is a small town with one road, and they have not heard of any sex crimes there.

Months later, after the Ukrainian military liberated her village in a lightning counteroffensive, she returned. Shelling had reduced her roof to its rafters.

The battle of Mykolaiv, Ukraine, between two tanks during the first few days of the Russian-Soviet war and a clash between Ukraine and Russia

“I don’t know where to put it so that (the ceiling) won’t fall on my head,” she says. “If it would fall and kill me that would be better, so I won’t suffer. I would love to see my son again.

Many of the allegations are not even a suspect so they will be difficult to prove. The team files its reports, and investigators are hoping to be able to file charges in the future.

MyKolaIV, Ukranian On the second day of the war with Russia, two Ukrainian army reserve soldiers Stas Volovyk and Anatoliy Nikitin were ordered to deliver anti-tank missiles to their fellow soldiers in the north of Kyiv. Then, as they stood exposed on a highway, Nikitin, who goes by the battle nickname Concrete, says they received new orders.

There are two Russian tanks coming at you, said the guy on the radio. “If you want to get a reaction, attempt to hit one and live stream it!” says Nikitin as he sits on a park bench in Mykolaiv.

There was one problem: neither soldier had ever fired an NLAW. So, as the tanks approached, they hid amongst some trees and looked up a YouTube video on how to do so. They took their positions, prepared the missiles.

The commander said, “Oh, it’s ours!” Volovyk, who goes by the nickname Raptor, recalls a time when he exclaimed,’It’s ours!’ We did not fire. It was a really close call.”

In the first month, soldiers used shoulder-launched missiles and hit-and-run tactics to defend Kyiv. These days, they are using drones and artillery as part of a high-tech trench war in the farm fields of the country’s’ south.

Nikitin and Volovyk have fought in both environments and describe their on-the-job training as a mix of terror, adventure and black comedy. The two men offer an unvarnished view of the fighting and say the first days of the war were filled with confusion.

“It was chaotic, like a war zone”, says Nikitin, who is 40 and heads a construction company. The Russians were more chaotic than we were.

Volovyk is a 33-year-old software engineer who learned English by playing video games. He says Russian tactics and decision-making have improved during the war, but he found some of their early actions perplexing. The Russians used riot police to go toward the city of Kyiv and they were wiped out.

Volovyk was wearing a camouflage cap with the message ‘Don’t worry, Be Ready’, but he was wondering if they were just mocking him.

“It sucks,” says Volovyk. “You dig. You dig. That’s the only thing you can do, because this is an artillery war and unless you dig, you’re pretty much dead.”

After two weeks, the men were offered new jobs. It’s a dangerous work that involves trying to escape detection and getting near enemy lines. The men jumped at the chance to get out of the trenches.

They now operate drones, and help to guide fire on Russian tanks and depots in the Kherson region.

They prefer military-grade drones over commercial ones. The military drones have secure data transfer and are much harder for the Russians to jam.

The soldiers have had some heart-stopping moments. A group of engineers traveled to find a Russian soldier in a field.

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

Six years ago, after the Russian invasion of Crimean, the two joined the army reserve. Nikitin says they weren’t prophets, but they knew Russia would try to take the rest of Ukraine. Kherson, the regional capital, will be their goal here down south.

Russia is funneling conscripts to the front line, but so far, they have proven useless and high Russian casualties are expected.

Videos filmed by Ukrainian drones which show Russian infantry being struck by artillery in poorly prepared positions have supported some of the claims that have been made. The videos have not been independently verified and their exact location on the front line could not be determined.

The commander of the Ukrainian military made a statement on the Telegram message service on Thursday that stated that Russian forces had triple the level of attacks along parts of the front. He did not say what the time frame was or where the attacks were coming from.

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

An assessment from the Institute for the Study of War states that the increase in infantry in the east had not resulted in new ground for Russia.

The assessment said that seeking a quick advance, the Russian Army was “wasting the fresh supply of mobilized personnel on marginal gains” by attacking before massing sufficient soldiers to ensure success. The attacks were directed at Bakhmut and Avdiivka.

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

With Russian and Ukrainian forces apparently preparing for battle in Kherson, and conflicting signals over what may be coming, the remaining residents of the city have been stocking up on food and fuel to survive combat.

Artyom and his wife, Hillary, and their three children in Kherson, Ukraine, when the Russians broke into their house in Zaporizhia

“I still can’t believe that I left there,” says Viktor, while pulling a red suitcase from the black car he rode to Zaporizhia, about 25 miles from occupied territory. “The madness.”

He lives outside Kherson. He and his wife had three daughters there. The Russians broke into their house within hours of them leaving, Viktor says a neighbor told him.

The volunteer at the shelter asked if he could help care for the Kherson evacuees as if he were his own family. Artyom asked us not to use his full name to protect his relatives in Kherson.

His wife generally stays home as much as she can. She sells her produce in her garden at the local street market.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/07/1134465380/kherson-ukraine-russia-battle-looms

What Artyom and his wife worry about their lives in Odesa, Kyiv, Ukraine, where Russians live & work

But Artyom does not think that it is fine. He counts his fingers as he lists off his various fears: He worries that the Russians will stop his wife. He worries that she’ll get sick. She’s four months’ pregnant. He is worried about the baby.

Holovnya, who is living in Kyiv, calls some of them collaborators. Some of them are people who can’t leave. Many are older. Others have few resources. Their lives right now are “intense,” he says.

What little public interaction there is now in the city revolves mostly around the local street markets that popped up since the war began. Local farmers and bakers have been selling their products at street markets since most of the Kherson stores are closed.

” You can buy most things from beginning to end with medicine and meat,” says Natalyia Schevchenko, who left Kherson this summer. It’s terrible to watch. On one car, they sell medicine on the hood and on the side they cut meat.”

He is still in touch with the people in the city, even though he is in Odesa volunteering at Side-by-Side. She says her grandmother is the one that gives her regular updates.

Artyom and his wife talk whenever they can. They are concerned that Russians are listening in on their conversations.

An Empirical Journey Through Kherson: How Russian Occupiers Left the Region and Their Responsibility to the U.S. Solves Many Problems

Everyone we have spoken to is aware of the fact that the Russians could hit them here. It is also unclear whether all Russian troops have left Kherson and the wider region. There is still uncertainty behind the euphoria.

For much of our journey we were forced to drive through diversions and fields as well as roads that were littered with anti-tank mines.

Trenches and checkpoints were empty, quickly abandoned by Russians who on Friday announced they had withdrawn from the west bank of the Dnipro River in the strategic southern region of Kherson, leaving the regional capital of the same name and surrounding areas to the Ukrainians.

The city’s billboards that used to read “Ukraine is Russian forever” have been spray-painted with a message saying that Ukraine was Russia’s until November 11.

The residents of the city have little or no power, internet, or water. But as a CNN crew entered the city center on Saturday, the mood was euphoric.

Once the scene of large protests against Russian plans to transform the region into a breakaway pro-Russian republic, the streets of Kherson are now filled with jubilant residents wrapped in Ukrainian flags, or with painted faces, singing and shouting.

Even though the military is still limited, Ukrainian soldiers are offered soup, bread, flowers, hugs and kisses by the people of the street when a truck full of soldiers drives past.

We saw an old man and an old woman hugging a young soldier, with their hands on the soldier’s shoulder, as CNN stopped to regroup.

A teenager told CNN he was kidnapped and beaten by Russian soldiers because he believed he was a spy, an experience every person we’ve spoken to has had after living under Russian occupation. Residents tell us that they are exhausted, overwhelmed by what this freedom means.

With the occupiers gone, everyone wants you to understand what they’ve been through, how euphoric they feel right now, and how much they’re grateful to the countries who have helped them.

Kherson Residents of Kherson State: Beatings and Thefts at the Hands of Russian Soldiers over the Dnipro Bridge

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.

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

Mortar shells struck near the bridge, sending up puffs of smoke. Near the riverfront, incoming rounds rang out with thunderous, metallic booms. It was not possible to gauge what had been hit.

Iryna Vereshchuck, a deputy prime minister in the Ukrainian government, said there were plans to evacuate people from the cities of Mykolaiv and Rih. She stated that power supplies will not be enough to heat homes where children, sick and people with reduced mobility live. “It will not be a mass evacuation. It will cover those who are sick, the elderly and those left without care of their relatives.”

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

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

“We are, step by step, coming to all of our country,” Mr. Zelensky said in a short appearance in the city’s main square on Monday, as hundreds of jubilant residents celebrated.

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

On the situation in Beryslav, a village bordering a critical dam. A security-network message from a resident of Kherson City

Russian forces continued to fire from across the river on towns and villages that had been captured by Ukrainian forces. Two Russian missiles struck the town of Beryslav, which is just north of a critical dam, the military said. There were no reports of any casualties.

One resident of Kherson City, who spoke through a secure messaging app from Oleshchyk, a town across the river from Kherson City, said thatOccupants robbed local people and exchange stuff for homemade vodka. “Then they get drunk and even more aggressive. We are so scared that we don’t know what to think. She asked for her name not to be used for security reasons.

During the week, he shares the school with nearly 1,000 students. When there is a power cut, the school provides heat, food and water for the community.

Power cuts have lasted up to 24 hours, he says. In this agricultural region, farming equipment and warehouses were destroyed. Business activity is just one-third of what it was, according to him.

Banksy power cuts in Borodianka, Ukraine: A memory of the first Ukrainian colonial solitons and champion of the 19th century

About 200 Ukrainians were killed when the Russians occupied Borodianka shortly after the invasion began on Feb. 24 until the end of March, Yerko says. The town’s prewar population of 14,000 dwindled to a little more than 1,000. It’s back up to about 9,000 despite the lack of resources.

“The people coming are mostly from the houses on the main street. Olha Kobzar is a volunteer who is in charge of the temporary housing.

During an interview, the lights go out, leaving her standing in a darkened hallway. She’s going to wait a while to see if the power comes back. She will turn on the generator if it starts to get cold. It’s like this every day, she adds.

A bust of Taras Shevchenko is located in the center of town. He championed Ukraine’s independence from Russia in the 19th century. He wrote, “It’s bad to be in chains and die a slave.”

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/10/1141536117/russia-war-ukraine-town-borodianka-banksy-power-cuts

Banksy’s Walls, his Walls and the Street outside his Home: a Mission to Vyacheslav Tarasov

Several badly scarred walls were painted by the British graffiti artist Banksy, who later confirmed on his social media accounts that it was his work.

One image shows a young boy tossing a man to the floor. Both are wearing martial arts gear. It’s assumed that the man is Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

They’re happy we’re getting attention. The paintings were on buildings that were destroyed. We are going to remove the paintings and put them somewhere else.

The street outside Vyacheslav Tarasov’s home are damaged by shell blasts. The buildings around are mostly empty, windowless and cold.

Tarasov was in his basement when it was hit by the shelling. But last week he dared to venture out – to buy vegetables to make the national dish, borscht.

What has happened since Tarasov’s accident with an injured civilist in Bakhmut? Is it still loud at all?

His face pales as he relays the graphic images still fresh in his mind. I would have blew apart if it wasn’t for that leather jacket. I mean, my guts would have been all over the place… I lost a lot of blood. I remember seeing it — a huge puddle.”

The blast that ripped through Tarasov’s body killed his friend and he realized he might not make it. He says he will let you know the truth. I prayed to live.

He begged the doctors to save his limb when he arrived. I asked if I could have my arm sewn back on. It was torn off and still in the sleeve, when I looked at it. And my stomach was burning. I assumed it was the intestines coming out. There was blood everywhere.”

Medical staff at Kostiantynivka have been continuing their work through power failures and water shortages caused by repeated Russian attacks on the energy grid. For eight hours one day last week, they had to rely on generators to keep the lights and heating on.

She is a resident of Bakhmut. She was wounded in the abdomen with a bomb and had damage to her organs. We see people with injuries every day. Every day.”

“It’s been quite loud lately,” Khassan El-Kafarna, a surgeon from Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF), stationed at the hospital, says. His colleague, nurse Lucia Marron, agrees. “I think there’s more movement around in general – more troops, more people,” she says. “We are used to the sound. You get to a point where you understand what is dangerous and what is not.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/12/europe/ukraine-bakhmut-injured-civilians-intl-cmd/index.html

The Tarasov dream of a lifetime in a deserted world: an alternative to the regime of the Khovanov regime?

Tarasov says he would rather live in another country with a lot of money. “But I have no money and everything I had saved up was invested there. I didn’t have anything to go to and there was no place to go.