The Russian War on Ukraine: The Shadow of the Military and the Intelligence of the High-Power Officials in the United States and in the Pentagon

Putin stated in the video that it was a terrorist act to destroy vital civilian infrastructure of the Russian Federation. “And the authors, perpetrators, and those who ordered it are the special services of Ukraine.”

While Russia has not retaliated in a specific way for the assassination, the United States is concerned that such attacks — while high in symbolic value — have little direct impact on the battlefield and could provoke Moscow to carry out its own strikes against senior Ukrainian officials. American officials have been frustrated with Ukraine’s lack of transparency about its military and covert plans, especially on Russian soil.

The US-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War noted that Russian battlefield setbacks, coupled with the unease in Russian society over mobilization, “was fundamentally changing the Russian information space.” It has included criticism from men of power like Kadyrov, but also from pro-war milbloggers who often give a detailed picture of battlefield realities for Russian forces.

Russia has seen unusual public criticism of the top brass running Putin’s war. Criticizing the war itself or Russia’s leader is off limits, but those who are responsible for carrying out the President’s orders are fair game.

The head of the defense committee in the Russian parliament demanded in a recent interview that officials stop lying and level with the Russian public.

The Ministry of Defense was evading the truth about cross-border strikes in Russia and Ukraine, said Kartapoliov.

Located in the Belgorod region is Valuyki. Kyiv has generally adopted a neither-confirm-nor-deny stance when it comes to striking Russian targets across the border.

Nowhere was that more evident than the recent weeks of Russian drone and missile strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Russian military hacking, not bombs, was the cause of darkness for more than a quarter,000,000 Ukrainians.

“There is no need to somehow cast a shadow over the entire Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation because of some, I do not say traitors, but incompetent commanders, who did not bother, and were not accountable, for the processes and gaps that exist today,” Stremousov said. The Minister of defense could shoot himself if he wanted to, according to many. You know, the word officer is not known to many.

But after Russia’s retreat from the strategic Ukrainian city of Lyman, Kadyrov has been a lot less shy about naming names when it comes to blaming Russian commanders.

Kadyrov blamed the Central Military District commander for the debacle, accusing him of moving his headquarters away from his subordinates and not providing enough for his troops.

“The Russian information space has significantly deviated from the narratives preferred by the Kremlin and the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) that things are generally under control,” ISW noted in its recent analysis.

The Great Patriotic War was the name of the World War II that was fought in Russia. The brutal tactics of the Red Army to fight Hitler’s Wehrmacht, including the use of punishment battalions and desertion, are praised by those in Russia’s party of war.

Kadyrov was promoted recently to the rank of colonel general by Putin, one of the most prominent voices advocating for the use of repressive methods. He said in a Telegram post he would grant extraordinary wartime powers to Russia if he had his way.

According to Kadyrov, “If it were my will I would declare martial law throughout the country and use any weapon, because today we are at war with the whole NATO bloc.”

After the bombardment of Ukraine began on Monday, Mr. Putin said he had ordered it in retaliation for a truck-bombing that badly damaged the vital Kerch Strait Bridge connecting Russia to the occupied Crimea Peninsula. The impact of the attack has been minimized by Moscow but new satellite imagery shows that it has been large.

Escalation in the war: Monday’s strikes come on the heels of other recent attacks across Ukraine. Last week, Russian forces intensified missile attacks on residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia over the past week, with at least 43 civilians dead in the past week, including 14 on Saturday alone, according to Zelensky. The only bridge connecting annexed Crimea to the Russian mainland was damaged in an explosion early Saturday. At least three people were were killed, according to Russian officials. Putin called the explosions a “terrorist attack” and said the organizers and executors were “Ukrainian special services.”

“Flight of the zombies” in Zaporizhia, Ukraine: amidst heavy attack on civilians and civilians

“We have already established the route of the truck,” he said, adding that it had been to Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, North Ossetia and Krasnodar — a region in southern Russia — among other places.

“Again, Zaporizhzhia. In the middle of the night, there were brutal attacks on civilians and residential buildings. There were missiles that killed at least 19 people in the city on Thursday.

Strikes hit multiple Ukrainian regions: A total of 84 cruise missiles were fired at Ukraine Monday along with a number of attack drones, Ukrainian officials say, adding that the military destroyed 56 of the Russian weapons. In at least eight regions and in the Ukrainian city of Kyiv, more than 30 fires broke out due to critical infrastructure facilities being hit. At least 11 people died and 64 were injured following the attacks, officials said.

Faced with growing setbacks, the Kremlin appointed a new overall commander of Russia’s invasion. The pace and cost of the counter-offensives against Ukrainian forces make it hard to see what will happen before the end of the year.

Recent fighting has focused on the regions just north of Crimea, including Zaporizhzhia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lamented the latest attack in a Telegram post.

The explosion and demoralization of the Russian president in Dnipro — a frustrated politician says the Russian government is lying to the people

Explosions rocked civilian areas of Dnipro, a major southern city. A bus stop was located between high rise apartment buildings. A missile slammed just a few feet in front of a bus on its morning route to pick up commuters, destroying the bus and blowing out the windows in the nearby apartments.

“There was one explosion, then another one,” 76-year-old Mucola Markovich said. In a flash, the fourth-floor apartment he shared with his wife was gone.

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 political analyst and a former speechwriter for Putin, said that the Russian president did not respond 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.

On Sunday, the Ukrainian military said that fierce clashes had been ejected by the Russian occupation of Bakhmut and Avdiivka

Hardwiring newly claimed territory with expensive, record-breaking infrastructure projects seems to be a penchant of dictators. In 2018, Putin personally opened the Kerch bridge – Europe’s longest – by driving a truck across it. The former Portuguese and British territories were connected with the world’s longest sea bridge that year, after Beijing reclaimed Macau and Hong Kong. The bridge opened after about two years of delays.

Many Russians go to the resort of Crimea for vacations. People trying to drive to the bridge and onto the Russian mainland on Sunday encountered hours-long traffic jams.

The Ukrainian national police said that authorities had exhumed the first twenty bodies from a mass burial site, which was destroyed by the Russian occupation. Initial indications are that around 200 civilians are buried in one location, and that another grave contains the bodies of fallen Ukrainian soldiers. The civilians, including children, were buried in single graves, while members of the military were buried in a 40-meter long trench, according to police.

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

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s biggest, had lost its last external power source early Saturday, according to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Ukraine’s civilian population is going through tough times: When Russian missile strikes hit Kiev last week, civilians went back to their homes and had their lives

The Ukrainian authorities said that Russia struck multiple Ukrainian cities with missiles. You can get up to speed on Monday’s developments.

“All the Ukrainian citizens are now living in these circumstances,” said Victor Zhora, a senior Ukrainian government cybersecurity official, referring to the blackouts and water shortages. “Imagine your ordinary day in the face of constant disruptions of power or water supply, mobile communication or everything combined.”

China and India also call for de-escalation: After the strikes, China expressed hope that the situation in Ukraine will “de-escalated soon.” India said it was worried by the escalation of hostilities and urged them to stop and return to the path of dialogue. ” Other European leaders have also condemned the attack.

Russia hit at least eleven Ukrainian cities with missiles yesterday in its broadest aerial assault against civilians since the invasion. But even amid destruction, many people sheltered for only a few hours. They quickly returned to their lives. As my colleague Megan Specia, a Times foreign correspondent, left a shelter in the capital of Kyiv, she saw residents walking dogs and riding electric scooters.

President Zelenskyy said in a video posted to social media that the strikes disproportionately targeted civilian infrastructure in 11 of Ukraine’s 25 regions, including power plants and water heating facilities.

“It’s a tough morning when you’re dealing with terrorists,” said Zelenskyy in the video, which recalled the selfie he took the night Russia invaded in February. They chose targets to harm as many people as possible.

Viktor Shevchenko’s balcony woken up to the attack of the Soviet air defence minister Viktor Ihor Tkachenko

In Kyiv, Ukraine Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko says that at least two museums and the National Philharmonic concert halls sustained heavy damage. During the rush hour this morning, trains were delayed as a result of the damaged passenger terminal.

“This happened at rush hour, as lots of public transportation was in the city,” said Ihor Makovtseva, the head of the department of transport for the Dnipro city council. He added that the bus driver and four passengers had been taken to the hospital with serious injuries.

“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.

There was a time before the bus stop when Viktor Shevchenko looked out from his first floor balcony. The ground was covered with shattered glass. He said he had been watering the plants on his balcony just minutes before the blast, but went to his kitchen to make breakfast.

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

“When Ukraine receives a sufficient number of modern and effective air defense systems, the key element of Russian terror – missile strikes – will cease to work.”

“We warned Zelenskyy that Russia hadn’t really started yet,” wrote Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a loyalist to Putin who repeatedly has attacked Russia’s Defense Ministry for incompetence in carrying out the military campaign.

Monday’s bomb attack on the Russian Embassy in Odesa, Ukraine: a signal of strength in Putin’s self-interest to fight back in the air

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

Recent days have meanwhile shown that sites beyond the current theater of ground fighting are far from immune to attacks. It’s not clear how the bridge bomb was carried out, but the fact that it could have been done by a team of Ukranians suggests a serious threat to Russian assets.

The area around my office in Odesa was quiet as air raid sirens rang out, 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 upcoming weddings and parties.

In scenes reminiscent of the early days of the war when Russian forces neared the capital, some Kyiv media outlets temporarily moved their operations to underground bomb shelters. In one metro station serving as a shelter, large numbers of people took cover on platforms as a small group sang patriotic Ukrainian songs.

Indeed, millions of people in cities across Ukraine will be spending most of the day in bomb shelters, at the urging of officials, while businesses have been asked to shift work online as much as possible.

With so many asylum seekers coming back home, the attacks can cause another blow to business confidence.

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

The explosion lit up social media with funnymemes, like a Christmas tree. Many shared their joy with text messages.

For Putin, consumed by pride and self-interest, sitting still was never an option. His only way to make a difference was to unleash more death and destruction with the force of a former KGB spy.

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.

Before Monday’s strikes, the Chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate at Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, had told Ukrainian journalist Roman Kravets in late August that, “by the end of the year at the minimum we have to enter Crimea” – suggesting a plan to push back Russian forces to pre-2014 lines, which is massively supported by Ukrainians I’ve spoken to.

The significance of the strikes on central Kyiv, and close to the government quarter, cannot be overstated. Western governments should see it as a red line being crossed on this 229th day of the war.

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

The most important thing for the West right now is to show unity and resolve against a man who probes for weakness and likes to exploit divisions. They need to know that rhetoric and sanctions have little effect on Putin’s actions. If they want to speed up integration of high technology weapons, then they need to arm Ukrainians and give them urgent training even if that means sending military experts closer to the battlefield.

It is necessary to protect vital energy infrastructure around the country with high tech defense systems. With winter just around the corner, the need to protect heating systems is urgent.

Emergency Services and the State of Emergency Service in Kyiv, Ukraine, during the Fourth Ukrainian-Mexico World War II: Russian Attacks on Sunday

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.

According to the Ukrainian State Emergency Service, at least 19 people were killed and 105 others were injured in Russian missile attacks on Monday.

More than 30 fires broke out in the capital and 12 other regions, the emergency services said.

Russian missiles damaged a glass-bottomed footbridge in Kyiv that is a popular tourist site, tore into traffic during rush hour, and crashed down near a children’s playground on Monday. In recent months the terror suffered by civilians during the invasion had faded, as power outages and water supply disruptions wreaked havoc across the country.

The attacks took away the sense of normal that people in the city have had since the beginning of the war in subways became air raid shelters.

But the targets on Monday also had little military value and, if anything, served to reflect Putin’s need to find new targets because of his inability to inflict defeats on Ukraine on the battlefield.

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

The attacks on civilians, which killed at least 14 people, also drove new attention to what next steps the US and its allies must take to respond, after already sending billions of dollars of arms and kits to Ukraine in an effective proxy war with Moscow.

President Joe Biden Monday spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and offered advanced air systems that would help defend against Russian air attacks, but the White House did not specify exactly what might be sent.

John Kirby, the coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council, suggested Washington was looking favorably on Ukraine’s requests and was in touch with the government in Kyiv almost every day. He told Kate that they do the best they can in subsequent packages.

Kirby could not say if Putin had decided to shift his war strategy from a losing battle to a campaign of damage to Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, which he suggested was a trend that had already been in the works.

“It likely was something that they had been planning for quite some time. The explosion on the bridge might have accelerated some of their planning, according to Kirby.

It’s consistent with the resume of the new commander of the war, a man who was in Syria and Chechnya. Russia is accused of committing serious human rights violations in both places, and it bombarded civilian areas and demolished built-up districts.

The rain of fire against Ukrainian civilians on Monday was also chilling, given that it occurred following Putin’s latest nuclear threats and days of debate over whether he might use a tactical nuclear weapon. It appears unlikely that any decision to use such a terrible weapon would be made to spare innocents from it. Kirby said that there wasn’t any indication that Russia was getting atomic arms or that the US had to change its nuclear posture.

There were concerns that Monday’s rush-hour attacks in Ukraine could be the beginning of another pivot in the conflict.

“He was telegraphing about where he is going to go as we get into the winter. He is going to try to force the Ukrainian population to compromise, to give up territory, by going after this infrastructure,” Vindman said on CNN’s “New Day.”

Zhovkva said that modern equipment could probably raise the number of drones and missiles downed and not kill innocent civilians or hurt Ukrainians.

Any prolonged campaign by Putin against civilians would be aimed at breaking Ukrainian morale and possibly unleashing a new flood of refugees into Western Europe that might open divisions among NATO allies that are supporting Ukraine.

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

Olena Gnes, a mother of three who is documenting the war on YouTube, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper live from her basement in Ukraine on Monday that she was angry at the return of fear and violence to the lives of Ukrainians from a new round of Russian “terror.”

“This is just another terror to provoke maybe panic, to scare you guys in other countries or to show to his own people that he is still a bloody tyrant, he is still powerful and look what fireworks we can arrange,” she said.

“We do not feel desperate … we are more sure even than before that Ukraine will win and we need it as fast as possible because … only after we win in this war and only after Russia is defeated, we will have our peace back here.”

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

The sharp shift was a sign that domestic pressure over Russia’s flailing war effort had escalated to the point where President Vladimir V. Putin believed that a brutal show of force was necessary — as much for his audience at home as for Ukraine and the West.

The calculation for Moscow is simple: a percentage of projectiles will get through the missile defenses of Ukraine.

The great unknown is just how far such a blitz is depleting Russian inventories – and whether increasingly they will resort to stocks of older, less accurate but equally powerful missiles.

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

The Russians are adapting the S-300 missile as an offensive weapon. Their speed makes them difficult to intercept, and has caused devastation in Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, and other places. They are not accurate.

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

The Defense Department official said work was going on to improve Ukrainian air defenses and that the Soviet-era capabilities could be donated and help move them.

Ukrainian air defense battalions have become innovative: One video from Monday, referenced by Zelensky, showed a soldier using a shoulder-held missile to bring down a Russian projectile, purportedly a cruise missile.

Last month, the US deputy undersecretary of defense for policy said the US had seen evidence that the Iranian drones have already experienced numerous failures.

Missiles for their existing systems and a transition to Western-origin air defense system were included in a wish-list that was tabled at Wednesday’s meeting.

The system would not be able to control the airspace over Ukraine, but it was designed to control priority targets that the Ukrainians need to protect. There are short-range low- altitude systems and then medium- range medium altitude and then long-range and high altitude systems.

Western systems are beginning to trickle in. The first IRIS-T from Germany and two units of the US National Advanced Surface-to-AIR Missile System are expected to arrive soon, according to the Ukrainian Defense Minister.

“This is only the beginning. The first thing that needs to be done is strengthenUkraine’s air defense, which is one item on today’s agenda. Feeling optimistic.”

But these are hardly off-the-shelf-items. The IRIS-T had to be manufactured for Ukraine. Western governments have limited inventories of such systems. And Ukraine is a very large country under missile attack from three directions.

The Oct. 8 Attack on the Ukrain Bridge: Why did it happen so fast, or did it explode too fast? Investigations of the incident and its aftermath by a senior Ukrainian military commander

The senior military commander of Ukraine, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, thanked Poland as “brothers in arms” for training their air defense battalion that destroyed nine Shaheeds.

He said Poland had given Ukraine “systems” to help destroy the drones. Last month there were reports that the Polish government had bought advanced Israeli equipment (Israel has a policy of not selling “advanced defensive technology” to Kyiv) and was then transferring it to Ukraine.

This week, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine told the international community just how much money his country currently needed to rebuild and keep its economy afloat: $57 billion. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank were given the figure by him. Zelensky estimated that $17 billion was required to rebuild schools, hospitals, transport systems and housing, while $2 billion would be used to expand exports to Europe and restore Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

The images captured hundreds of cargo trucks backed up and waiting to cross from Crimea into Russia by ferry, some five days after the bombing. The images, captured on Wednesday by Maxar Technologies, show a big backup at the port in Kerch and a line of trucks miles away at an airport that is apparently being used as a staging area.

The long lines for the ferry crossing had been made worse by the security checkpoints set up after the bridge explosion, said a senior Russia analyst at the International Crisis Group.

The adviser to the Ukrainian President says that they think that Russian forces planned the attack in order to escalate the war.

The Russian military is a scapegoat for its losses in southern Ukraine, according to Podolyak.

Credible theories abound in Ukraine and abroad about who is responsible for the Oct. 8 attack and how they did it. It’s difficult to be certain of this despite all of the publicly available photos and videos, says Andrew Barr, an impact dynamics researcher.

New photos posted on social media Wednesday show bent support beams on the Russia-bound lanes as well. There was a blast on the bridge and traffic was limited on that side of it.

Nick Waters, an analyst with the digital forensics firm Bellingcat, points out that the bridge’s underside shows barely any blast damage, dismissing a popular Ukrainian theory that a special naval operation destroyed the bridge from below.

Many in the country celebrated the bridge’s strategic value to Russia as a Ukrainian victory, even though Ukraine didn’t take credit for the blasts.

A video of the “X-ray” of the truck was published by the FSB. Where does the fsb say that another wheel and a frame have disappeared on the “x-ray”? pic.twitter.com/onKbOndxVO

The Ukrainian journalists pointed out the differences between the two images when they saw Russian state media’s evidence for a truck bomb.

He says the single section of road on the bridge is designed to be detached from other sections. When one span falls into the water, it pulls several other spans with it.

Based on the ways the flames repeatedly shot out from the blast site, Barr also suggests that the truck was loaded with specialized compounds that burned hot enough to ignite a passing fuel train traveling on a parallel rail bridge, severely weakening it.

Mika Tyry, a retired military demolition specialist, told YLE that the sparks and flames are consistent with a thermite bomb. Russia’s military has been known to use thermite, though Ukraine could have recovered the substance from unexploded Russian munitions.

“This was a successful attack on a guarded structure with advanced explosives, timed to coincide with the train,” Barr says. That is suggestive of a carefully planned military operation rather than a single actor or group.

Not for the first time, the war is teetering towards an unpredictable new phase. Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, said that this is the third and fourth different war that they have been observing.

The next few weeks of the war will be critical, and experts say another surge of intensity looms over Ukraine as each side seeks to strike another blow.

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

In the southern Kherson region last month, Ukrainian troops hoisted the country’s flag above a building. Ukrainian officials say they have freed hundreds of settlements since their counter-offensive began.

Russia said Thursday its forces would help evacuate residents of occupied Kherson to other areas, as Ukraine’s offensive continued to make gains in the region. The announcement came shortly after the head of the Moscow-backed administration in Kherson appealed to the Kremlin for help moving residents out of harm’s way, in the latest indication that Russian forces were struggling in the face of Ukrainian advances.

According to the author of ” Russia’s Road to War with Ukraine”, the Russians are trying to avoid collapsing their frontline before winter sets in.

“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.”

Ukrainian troops are focused primarily on pushing Russian forces eastwards, having crossed the Oskil River in late September, with Moscow likely preparing to defend the cities of Starobilsk and Svatove in the Luhansk region, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

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

Giles said that there are a lot of reasons why things can be done quickly in Ukraine. “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.

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

“Russia’s use of its limited supply of precision weapons in this role may deprive Putin of options to disrupt ongoing Ukrainian counter-offensives,” the ISW assessed.

The naval intercept success rates against Russian cruise missiles have risen dramatically since the start of the invasion, according to a military expert with the Royal United Services Institute.

Russia’s troops began arriving in Belarus Oct. 15 as part of the “regional grouping” of forces to protect the country from potential threats from the west and Ukraine.

The reopening of the northern front would be a new challenge for the country, according to Giles. It would provide Russia a new route into the Kharkiv oblast (region), which has been recaptured by Ukraine, should Putin prioritize an effort to reclaim that territory, he said.

Now Zelensky will hope for more supplies in the short-term as he seeks to drive home those gains. The leader has sought to highlight Ukraine’s success in intercepting Russian missiles, saying more than half of the missiles and drones launched at Ukraine in a second wave of strikes on Tuesday were brought down.

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

The lines were operating as usual, despite reports of attacks on infrastructure near the city’s main rail station.

The enemy can attack our cities, but it won’t break us. The occupiers will get only fair punishment and condemnation of future generations, and we will get victory,” wrote Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Ukranian needs more air defense systems according to Zelenskyy’s chief-of-staff. “We don’t have time for slow actions,” he said.

commenters criticized him for posting a picture of a bomb with the designation of “Geran-2”, but he removed it.

EU foreign ministers will meet in Luxembourg for a meeting on the threat of a nuclear strike on Ukraine: “Scaling the energy crisis in Dnipropetrovsk”

European Union foreign ministers are scheduled to meet today in Luxembourg. Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, told reporters that the bloc would look into “concrete evidence” that Iran might have been involved in the Ukrainian conflict.

The attack on energy infrastructure in the Kamianske district of the Dnipropetrovsk region caused “fire” and “serious destruction,” according to regional military official Valentyn Reznichenko.

Every service is working on eliminating the consequences of shelling and restoring electricity supply. Shmyhal said that each region has a crisis response plan.

“We ask Ukrainians, in order to stabilize the energy system, to take a united and conscious approach to economical consumption of electricity. Especially during peak hours.

Ukrenergo said the power grid in the country is under control, and that repair crews are trying to curb the consequences of the attacks.

Shmyhal’s announcement comes as Ukraine grapples with sweeping attacks on critical energy facilities, following deadly Russian strikes over the past week.

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

U.S. actions against Ukraine in the State of Ukraine: NPR’s coverage of the Oct. 12 explosion on a bridge to Crimea

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.

The United Nations General Assembly roundly condemned Russia’s move to illegally annex four regions of Ukraine. In the Oct. 13 session, four countries voted alongside Russia, but 143 voted in favor of Ukraine’s resolution, while 35 abstained.

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

Past recaps can be found here. For context and more in-depth stories, you can find more of NPR’s coverage here. You can get updates throughout the day on the State of Ukraine podcasts.

The French War in the Cold Ice: A Roundup with David A. Andelman, Editor’s Note: The Decline of the EU and the Crisis in Europe

Editor’s Note: David A. Andelman, a contributor to CNN, twice winner of the Deadline Club Award, is a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, author of “A Red Line in the Sand: Diplomacy, Strategy, and the History of Wars That Might Still Happen” and blogs at Andelman Unleashed. He used to be a reporter for CBS News in Europe and Asia. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has more opinion.

He wants to distract his nation from the obvious, namely that he is losing badly on the battlefield and not being able to achieve even the minimal objectives of his invasion.

There are incentives for Putin to prolong the conflict as long as possible in order to allow some of these forces in the West to kick in. A long, cold winter in Europe, persistent inflation and higher interest rates leading to a recession on both sides of the Atlantic could mean irresistible pressure on already skeptical leaders to dial back on financial and military support.

The ability to keep going depends on a lot of variables, from the availability of critical and affordable energy supplies for the coming winter to the popular will across a wide range of nations with often conflicting priorities.

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

An emergency cap on the European gas trading hub, the Dutch Title Transfer Facility, and permission for gas companies in the EU to create a group to buy gas on the international market are included.

While French President Emmanuel Macron waxed euphoric leaving the summit, which he described as having “maintained European unity,” he conceded that there was only a “clear mandate” for the European Commission to start working on a gas cap mechanism.

Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, is skeptical of price caps. Germany fears that caps on consumption may encourage higher levels of usage, which could lead to a further burden on restricted supplies.

These divisions are part of Putin’s greatest dream. Manifold forces in Europe could prove central to achieving success from the Kremlin’s viewpoint, which amounts to the continent failing to agree on essentials.

Germany and France are already at loggerheads on many of these issues. A conference call was scheduled for Wednesday by the German Chancellor and the French President.

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

Italy’s new prime minister: Why Russia can’t do it, but its military-industrial cooperation desperately depends on it: Meloni, Berlusconi, Salvini, Blinken and McCarthy

A new administration has taken power in Italy. Giorgia Meloni was sworn in Saturday as Italy’s first woman prime minister and has attempted to brush aside the post-fascist aura of her party. Her far-right coalition partner has a deep appreciation for Putin.

In a secretly recorded audiotape, Berlusconi said that he had returned Putin’s gesture with bottles of wine and that he had known the man as a sensible person.

Matteo Salvini, named Saturday as the new deputy prime minister of Italy, said during the campaign that he wouldn’t want sanctions on Russia to harm those who put them in place.

Poland and Hungary have different views of the EU’s policies overUkraine, and both have long been allies of the ultra-right. Poland has taken deep offense at the pro-Putin sentiments of Hungary’s populist leader Viktor Orban.

In Washington, Kevin McCarthy, poised to become Speaker of the House if Republicans take control after next month’s elections, said during an interview that people are going to sit in a recession and they are not going to write a blank check. They just won’t do it.”

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

After facing backlash for her comments in support of Ukranian people, the chair of the caucus sent reporters a clarification. Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked to his Ukrainian counterpart about renewing America’s support.

In comparison to the $60 billion of aid offered by the US since Biden took office, only Republicans voted against the most recent aid package.

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

All these actions point to an increasing desperation by Russia to access vitally-needed components for production of high-tech weaponry stalled by western sanctions and embargos that have begun to strangle the Kremlin’s military-industrial complex.

According to the report, the lack of necessary semi-conductors has caused Russian production of hypersonic missiles to stop. Plants that make anti-Aircraft systems have ceased production, so Russia has reverted to Soviet-era defense stocks for replenishment. The Soviet era ended more than 30 years ago.

A day before this report, the US announced seizure of all property of a top Russian procurement agent Yury Orekhov and his agencies “responsible for procuring US-origin technologies for Russian end-users…including advanced semiconductors and microprocessors.”

The Justice Department also announced charges against individuals and companies seeking to smuggle high-tech equipment into Russia in violation of sanctions.

How Russian Cyber Attacks on Ukrainian Targets During the 2016 Ukrainian War in Ukraine lasted for four days, according to an US Military Official

A US military official who focuses on cyber defense argued that combining cyber and kinetic operations requires high level planning and execution. “The Russians can’t even pull that sh*t off between their aviation, artillery and ground assault forces.”

The senior US official said that Putin wanted to go for a big showy public response to the attack on the bridge after the explosion in early October.

Microsoft in April said that there were at least six different hacking groups linked to the Kremlin who conducted cyber operations against Ukrainian targets in the weeks after Russia’s February invasion. On the eve of Russia’s invasion, the White House blamed a hack on the Kremlin and said satellite internet communications in Ukraine were disrupted.

According to a press release, four people from the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection (SSSCIP), which is a cyber and communications agency in Ukraine, died in missile attacks. The four officials did not have cybersecurity responsibilities, but their loss has weighed heavily on cybersecurity officials at the agency during another grim month of war.

Zhora told CNN that there’s a chance that Russian government hacking groups are working right now on some high-complexity attacks. It is very unlikely that Russian military hackers are out of work or on vacation.

“I don’t think Russia would measure the success in cyberspace by a single attack,” the Western official said, rather “by their cumulative effect” of trying to wear the Ukrainians down.

The Justice Department and private investigators say that during Russia’s war in eastern Ukraine in 2017, Russia’s military intelligence agency unleashed a destructive computer program known as NotPetya that decimated computer systems across the country before spreading around the world. The incident cost the economy billions of dollars and affected multinational firms like Maersk.

Matt Olney, director of threat intelligence and interdiction at Talos, said the operation involved infiltrating Ukrainian software, injecting malicious code into it and trying to weaponize it.

“All of that was just as astonishingly effective as the end product was,” said Olney, who has had a team in Ukraine responding to cyber incidents for years. “And that takes time and it takes opportunities that sometimes you can’t just conjure.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/05/politics/russia-cyber-attacks-missiles-ukraine-blackouts/index.html

Vladimir Zhora: Threats on Russia from the SSSCIP era and the Estonian cyber ambassador-at-large for cyber affairs

Zhora, the Ukrainian official who is a deputy chairman at SSSCIP, called for Western governments to tighten sanctions on Russia’s access to software tools that could feed its hacking arsenal.

The ambassador-at-large for cyber affairs of Estonia told CNN that it is possible that the Russians could use a new wave of cyberattacks as their battles continue.

The main goal is to get Russia isolated as much as possible on the international stage, Sepp said.