Vladimir Putin in Kiev: End of the Cold War and the Rise of the United States (Realization of the Crimea of Russia in the Early 1990s)

The war in Ukraine was a major part of Putin’s dream to make Russia great again. Instead, Russia can now no longer pretend to be a great power as it is unable to defeat an enemy on its own borders.

Russia illegally annexed the region of Zaporizhzhia last month, despite the fact that 20% of it is under Ukrainian control.

Putin, however, attempted to claim that the referendums reflected the will of “millions” of people, despite reports from the ground suggesting that voting took place essentially – and in some cases, literally – at gunpoint.

I would like the Kyiv authorities and their masters in the West to hear me. Everyone is supposed to remember. People living in Luhansk and Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia are becoming our citizens. Forever,” the Russian president said during the annexation ceremony Friday.

The Russian president said that the annexation was intended to fix a mistake that occurred after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Putin’s speech echoed his major foreign policy aim: restoring Russia as a major global power charged with protecting the Russian speaking world from the continued threat posed by Western forces.

Russia will now, despite the widespread international condemnation, forge ahead with its plans to fly its flag over some 100,000 square kilometers (38,600 square miles) of Ukrainian territory – the largest forcible annexation of land in Europe since 1945.

“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.”

Hill has advised three US Presidents on Russia’s national security and thinks Putin is trying an end game. “He feels a sense of acute urgency that he was losing momentum, and he’s now trying to exit the war in the same way that he entered it. He framing the whole terms of any kind of negotiation while being the person in charge. There is a word

Putin’s recent heavy-handed conscription drive for 300,000 troops won’t reverse his battlefield losses any time soon, and is backfiring at home, running him up a dangerous political tab.

According to official data from the EU, Georgia and Kazakhstan, around 220,000 Russians have fled across their borders since the “partial mobilization” was announced. The EU said its numbers – nearly 66,000 – represented a more than 30% increase from the previous week.

Traffic tailbacks at the Georgia border and the long lines at crossing into the rest of the world speak to the growing perception that Putin has lost his touch at reading Russia.

“The current onslaught of criticism and reporting of operational military details by the Kremlin’s propagandists has come to resemble the milblogger discourse over the past week. The Kremlin narrative had focused on general statements of progress and avoided detailed discussions of current military operations. The Kremlin had never openly recognized a major failure in the war prior to its devastating loss in Kharkiv Oblast, which prompted the partial reserve mobilization.”

He used the same playbook annexing Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and now, like then, threatens potential nuclear strikes should Ukraine, backed by its Western allies, try to take the annexed territories back.

Western leaders are in a battle of brinksmanship with Putin. Last Sunday US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Washington would respond decisively if Russia deployed nuclear weapons against Ukraine and has made clear to Moscow the “catastrophic consequences” it would face.

The Danes, Swedes and Putin: What is a good message for Europe? What is the role of the Russian seabed?

Both Danes and Swedes recorded a pair of detonations from close to the seabed, the first at 2 a.m. and the second at 7 p.m.

After finding roiling patches of the sea, the Danes and Germans sent warships to protect the area, and Norway increased security around its oil and gas facilities.

Russia has launched an investigation, denying it was responsible. But former CIA chief John Brennan said Russia has the expertise to inflict this type of damage “all the signs point to some type of sabotage that these pipelines are only in about 200 feet or so of water and Russia does have an undersea capability to that will easily lay explosive devices by those pipelines.”

Brennan is of the opinion that Russia is the most likely culprit for the sabotage and that Putin is trying to send a message to Europe. Who knows what he will be doing next.

Nord Stream 2 was never put into operation, whileNord Stream 1 was slowed down by Putin as Europe scrambled to replenish gas reserves ahead of winter, and also to dial back demands for Russian supplies.

Russia has a tightly controlled information space. The Russian military has lost a lot of soldiers in the counteroffensive by the Ukrainian military. And Putin last month declared a partial military mobilization, sending a message to the general population that their leader was going all in Ukraine, and that sacrifices are now in order.

Having failed in the face of Western military unity backing Ukraine, Putin appears set to test Western resolve diplomatically, by trying to divide Western allies over terms for peace.

Volker expects Putin to pitch France and Germany first “to say, we need to end this war, we’re going to protect our territories at all costs, using any means necessary, and you need to put pressure on the Ukrainians to settle.”

While Putin knows he is in a corner, he does not seem to realize that he has a small space, which is worrying because of his nuclear threats.

Kiev: The latest counter offensive on the Kremlin’s front-line region cranked by a Russian zelenskyy

KYIV, Ukraine — After being encircled by Ukrainian forces, Russia pulled troops out Saturday from an eastern Ukrainian city that it had been using as a front-line hub. It was the latest victory for the Ukrainian counteroffensive that has humiliated and angered the Kremlin.

Russian troops were withdrawn to more favorable positions, despite the Defense Ministry’s claims that they inflicted damage on Ukrainian forces. The Ukrainian President’s chief of staff posted photos of the Ukrainian flag being flown on the town’s outskirts and the air force said it moved into Lyman.

The leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, blamed the retreat, without evidence, on one general being “covered up for by higher-up leaders in the General Staff.” He wanted even more drastic measures.

The governor of the city of Sevastopol made an announcement of an emergency on the airfield there. Explosions and huge billows of smoke could be seen from a distance by beachgoers in the Russian-held resort. Authorities said a plane rolled off the runway at the Belbek airfield and ammunition that was reportedly on board caught fire.

The massive Russian response seemed intended to calm Putin allies who have grown increasingly critical of the Kremlin’s military strategy as Russian forces have repeatedly ceded territory to an ongoing Ukrainian advance. Many had been openly lobbying President Putin to strike Ukraine harder.

The fighting has centered on the north of the peninsula. Zelenskyy was upset by the latest attack in a Telegram post.

A group of people trying to flee the district were killed in an attack, according to the governor of the region. He said that it can’t be justified. A pregnant woman, as well as 13 children, were among the dead.

The Security Service of Ukraine, the secret police force known by the acronym SBU, posted photographs of the attacked convoy. There were charred corpses in the truck’s bed, and one truck appeared to have been blown up. The vehicle that was at the front of the convoy was on fire. There were bodies on the side of the road, or in some vehicles that had been hit by bullets.

And a Russian strike in the Zaporizhzhia region’s capital killed 30 people and wounded 88, Ukrainian officials said. The British Defense Ministry said the Russians “almost certainly” struck a humanitarian convoy there with S-300 anti-aircraft missiles. Russian-installed officials in Zaporizhzhia blamed Ukrainian forces, but gave no evidence.

In a move that may be intended to secure Moscow’s hold on the territory, Russian forces took the director-general of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant out of his office on Friday.

A part of the region currently in Russian control is home to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Fighting has repeatedly imperiled the plant, Europe’s largest nuclear power station, and Ukrainian authorities shut down its last operating reactor last month to prevent a radiation disaster.

The power plant has been under fire a number of times. Ukrainian technicians continued running it after Russian troops seized the power station, and its last reactor was shut down in September as a precautionary measure amid ongoing shelling nearby.

Putin and the West: What do we need to know about Russia and what we can do about it, what we don’t know, and how we can help

In Washington, President Joe Biden signed a bill Friday that provides another infusion — more than $12.3 billion — in military and economic aid linked to the war Ukraine.

The Kremlin used its propaganda channels to amplify President Putins argument that Russia is in a war with the West in Ukraine.

On Russia’s flagship Sunday political show, “News of the Week,” on Channel 1, the fall of Lyman wasn’t even mentioned until after more than an hour of laudatory coverage of Russia’s growth from 85 to 89 regions in an annexation most of the world views as illegal.

A day earlier, two powerful Putin supporters railed against the Kremlin and called for using harsher fighting methods because Lyman had fallen just as Moscow was declaring that the illegally annexed region it lies in would be Russian forever.

The soldiers who were interviewed by the Sunday broadcast said that they were forced to retreat because they were fighting with NATO soldiers.

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.” That has included robust criticism not just from hawkish men of power such as Kadyrov, but from pro-war milbloggers who have often provided a granular picture of battlefield realities for Russian forces.

The broadcast seemed to be intended to convince Russians that the West is intent on destroying Russia, and that they should not be angry about the war as long as they don’t know that it’s happening.

The idea that Russia is fighting a wider campaign, which was repeated in an interview with the father of a prominent nationalist commentator who was killed by a car bomb, was familiar to him.

Mr. Putin and Mr. Dugin both say that Western countries sabotaged the Nord Stream gas line, which was severed after underwater explosions last month.

“The West already accuses us of blowing up the gas pipeline ourselves,” he said. It is important to understand the scope and scale of our war with the West. In addition, we must join this fight with a mortal enemy who will use any method to get their point across.

At least for now, the nonstop messaging campaign is working. Many Russians feel threatened by the West, said Aleksandr Baunov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who is from Russia.

The left and the right in Russia are not happy with Putin’s handling of the military operation in Ukraine and are taking considerable risks by speaking out against him.

“We haven’t gone mad. Putin said they are aware of what nuclear weapons are. He added, without elaborating: “We have them, and they are more advanced and state-of-the-art than what any other nuclear power has.”

The primary utility, many U.S. officials say, would be as part of a last-ditch effort by Mr. Putin to halt the Ukrainian counteroffensive, by threatening to make parts of Ukraine uninhabitable. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe some of the most sensitive discussions inside the administration.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the strikes were a response to what he described as acts of “terrorism” by Kyiv. He blamed the explosion on the bridge on the special services of Ukraine and a list of other alleged crimes.

The Moscow-Zaporizhia war zone and Kiev’s retaken power plant as a target for a European Political Community

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.

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

Rafael Grossi, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, plans to talk with Ukrainian officials about the Russian move. He will talk about the need for a secure zone around the facility which was damaged in the fighting and has seen its director 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.

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

According to the Ukrainian military intelligence agency, the city of Kherson is under control of the Ukrainians.

The deputy head of the Ukrainian regional government said there were many wounded Russian soldiers in military hospitals and that the Russian medics lacked supplies. Once they are stabilized, Russian soldiers are being sent to Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

— In the devastated Ukrainian city of Lyman, which was recently recaptured after a months-long Russian occupation, Ukrainian national police said authorities have exhumed the first 20 bodies from a mass burial site. 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.

Lyman sustained heavy damage both during the occupation and as Ukrainian soldiers fought to retake it. About 100 people lined up for aid on Wednesday, including a 71-year-old gentleman named Mykola who gave only his first name.

The Russian War on Decay of the Crimes against the Dark Side of Europe: The Case of the assassination of Alexander Bastrykin

“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 do not yet have anything. Everything is destroyed and pillaged.

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.

“Here, as reported, we have no doubts that this is a terrorist attack aimed at the destruction of the critical infrastructure of Russian Federation. And authors, executors, and masterminds are the secret services of Ukraine,” Putin said during a meeting with Chairman of the Russian Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin on Sunday.

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. Ukraine has a lack of transparency when it comes to its military and covert plans.

Editor’s Note: Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America, and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. Bergen is the author of The Cost of Chaos. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has more opinions on it.

He continues to hold that attempts made by certain countries to rewrite and alter world history are becoming more aggressive, at least according to what he said in the Kremlin on Tuesday.

“There are many things Russia can do to make the war personal, not just for people of Ukraine but around Europe, to try to force pressure on governments to remove their support for Ukraine,” Giles said.

After the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Vladimir Putin is No longer a Demonstration of the Kremlin Legacy of the Russian Revolution

When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, they planned to install a puppet government and get out of the country as soon as it was feasible, as explained in a recent, authoritative book about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, “Afghan Crucible” by historian Elisabeth Leake.

The US initially resisted supporting the Afghan resistance due to fears of a bigger conflict with the Soviet Union. In 1986 the CIA gave the afghans anti-aircraft missiles that ended the Soviets air superiority, and they withdrew from the country in three years.

In 2022, American weapons are again playing a decisive role in Russian fortunes on the battlefield. At the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the US was also initially leery of deeper involvement, fearing a wider conflict with the Russians.

The US supplied anti-tank Javelin missiles to the Ukrainians and helped them push back against the Russians.

Putin is also surely aware that the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was hastened by the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan two years earlier.

The Romanov monarchy was weakened in 1905 by the Russian loss in the war against Japan. Czar Nicholas II’s feckless leadership during the First World War then precipitated the Russian Revolution in 1917. Subsequently, much of the Romanov family was killed by a Bolshevik firing squad.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the campaign wouldn’t be a war and that people could forget about it. Draftees, he promised falsely, would not fight, and military operations would be left to the professionals. And Putin’s Ministry of Defense delivered platitudes about progress on the battlefield, talking points quickly parroted by Russian state television.

Putin is a tragic example of how delusions can be allowed to shape an event without any challenge. Autocrats who put their cronies into key positions, control the media to crowd out discordant voices … are able to command their subordinates to follow the most foolish orders.”

Putin’s gamble may lead to a third dissolution of the Russian empire, which happened first in 1917 as the First World War wound down, and again in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Russian society has seen some criticism of the top brass running the war. Within limits, of course: Criticizing the war itself or Russia’s commander-in-chief is off limits, but those responsible for carrying out the President’s orders are fair game.

In a recent interview with Russian arch-propagandist Vladimir Solovyov, the head of the defense committee in Russia’s State Duma demanded that officials cease lying and level with the Russian public.

The ministry of defense was not telling the truth about Ukrainian cross-border strikes in Russian regions, according to Kartapolov.

He said that the Russian city of Valuyki was under constant fire. “We learn about this from all sorts of folks, from governors, Telegram channels, our war correspondents. But no one else. The reports from the Ministry of Defense have not changed. They say they destroyed 300 rockets, killed Nazis and so on. People are aware. Our people are not dumb. They don’t want to tell the whole truth. This can lead to a loss of credibility.”

Valuyki is located in the Belgorod region, which is near the border with Ukraine. When it comes to hitting Russian targets across the border, Kyiv generally has a neither-confirm-nor-deny stance.

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

Kadyrov has a penchant for naming Russian commanders that he blames for the retreat from the strategic Ukrainian city of Lyman.

The Russian information space has deviated considerably from the narratives of the Russian Ministry of Defense that things are generally under control, according to a recent analysis.

Russia has a penchant for World War II known in the country as the Great Patriotic War. Russia’s party of war often praises the use of punishment battalions and other brutal methods employed by the Red army to fight Hitler’s Wehrmacht.

Kadyrov – who recently announced that he had been promoted by Putin to the rank of colonel general – has been one of the most prominent voices arguing for the draconian methods of the past. He recently said in another Telegram post that, if he had his way, he would give the government extraordinary wartime powers in Russia.

“Yes, 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,” Kadyrov said in a post that also seemed to echo Putin’s not-so-subtle threats that Russia might contemplate the use of nuclear weapons.

Breakdown of the Crimean Bridge: What has been done in Ukraine since the February 11th #CrimeanBridge Explosion?

A few people have asked why this satellite image of the #CrimeanBridge shows so many damaged sections from a single explosion, so here’s a brief Bridges 101 on the likely failure mechanism. The song is called “? pic.twitter.com/1b4uZdU9Iu

The scope and timing of the commission have yet to be announced. The decision comes after Putin “received reports from [Russian Prime Minister] Russian President Putin had assigned the heads of the emergency situations and the Transport and Law enforcement agencies to the situation on the bridge.

Images of the Kerch bridge posted on social media appear to show a portion of the roadway of the vehicle and rail bridge had fallen into the waters below it. Flames are seen burning from rail cars above.

“As soon as the fire is extinguished, it will be possible to assess the extent of damage to the bridge and pillars, and it will be possible to talk about the timing of the restoration of traffic,” Aksenov said.

The bridge links the Krasnodar region of Russia with the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula and is strategically important.

KYIV, Ukraine — Nearly a week after an explosion damaged a vital bridge in Crimea, Russian and Ukrainian authorities are still trading accusations and offering competing theories as to what and who caused the blast. But definitive answers are hard to find.

The accident will be investigated, the damage will be repaired, and the part of the Ukrainian state that is similar to that of the Kiev regime.

“This is a necessary measure in order to deprive them (Russia) of the opportunity to provide reserves and reinforce their troops from Russian territory,” Maj. Gen. Dmytro Marchenko said in an interview with RBC-Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, the Kerch Bridge, and the Dnipro River: The Ilovaisk bombing of a Russian cargo train

The train in Ilovaisk was hit by a powerful explosion on Saturday, according to the adviser to the Mariupol Mayor.

Pro-Russian authorities in the self-declared republic of Donetsk confirmed the cargo train incident, releasing video Saturday showing the fire’s aftermath at a local railway station.

Putin personally opened the Kerch Bridge in May 2018 by driving a truck across it as a symbol of Moscow’s claims on Crimea. The bridge, the longest in Europe, is vital to sustaining Russia’s military operations in southern Ukraine.

“Russia’s construction of the bridge serves as a reminder of Russia’s ongoing willingness to flout international law,” according to a US State Department statement at the time.

The barrage continued on a day when the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to human rights activists in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, an implicit rebuke to Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin, for his invasion of Ukraine.

Overnight nearly 40 Russian rockets hit Nikopol, on the Dnipro River, damaging at least 10 homes, several apartment blocks and other infrastructure, according to the head of the regional military administration, Valentyn Reznichenko. He said that there was a death and a wounded person on Friday evening.

The meeting itself isn’t out of the ordinary – Putin regularly holds operational meetings with the Security Council, usually on a weekly basis, according to TASS. Just a few days ago the Russian President was humiliated when an explosion devastated parts of the road and rail bridge connecting the annexed Crimea and the Russian Federation.

The agenda has not been made public but the meeting is at a crossroads where the Kremlin has to make a series of difficult decisions.

Heavy-Ion Collisions at the Kiev-Mirror-Induced Bridge Between Kiev and Enerhodar in Zaporizhia

Road and train traffic has resumed on the bridge, which is estimated to be $3.7 billion. On Saturday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said repair works on the bridge would be carried out around the clock, with a damage survey to be completed within a day and divers scheduled to check all the supports of the bridge.

The first passenger services resumed travel across the bridge on Saturday, traveling from the Crimean Peninsula to Krasnodar Krai in southern Russia, Russia’s Ministry of Transport said in a statement.

The Deputy Prime Minister of Russia said on Sunday that the bridge has re-established car traffic in two lanes. In his Telegram post, he said traffic on the bridge has begun and that one lane was being used to slow down traffic. Since the blast, heavy trucks, vans and buses have traveled by ferry.

The Office of the President of Ukraine’s deputy head, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said 13 people were killed by a round of Russian missile strikes on the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Sunday dismissed the possibility of Russia using nuclear weapons in retaliation for the explosion on the bridge, Russian state media RIA Novosti reported.

Photographs of Ukrainian troops outside of the village of Luhansk were acknowledged by Hayday.

If Cuba sticks to its path, we would have a direct threat of use of a nuclear weapon, something Biden said was the first time since the Cuban missile crisis.

Crews restored power and cellular connection in Enerhodar, the city near Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant that is currently under Russian control, a senior official said Sunday.

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

The Ukrainian authorities tried multiple times to deliver humanitarian supplies with food, hygiene products, and so on, to the city, but Russian forces didn’t allow it, Orlov said.

Several cities across the country were hit by explosions in the most extensive attack on the country since Russia invaded in February. Hours after the attack on the bridge, Russia blamed Ukraine for an explosion that partially damaged it.

The Crimean Peninsula and Eastern Region of Ukraine: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the consequences for the nuclear power plant Zaporizhhia

— 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.

Putin put the federal security service of Russia in charge of the security of the bridge and energy infrastructure after he signed a decree late Saturday.

The new commander of Russia’s invasion was appointed as a result of growing setbacks. With the cost and pace of the Ukrainian counter-offensives, there is little sign that Gen. Sergey Sutovkin can lead his forces back onto the front foot before the end of the year.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has been going on for eight months. Kyiv also reported holding the line in continued fierce fighting around Bakhmut, where Russian forces have claimed some gains amid a seven-week Ukrainian counteroffensive that has led Russian troops to retreat in some other areas.

Russian tourists flock to the Crimean Peninsula, home to a Russian naval base. The Russian tourist association believed 50,000 tourists were in the peninsula on Saturday.

The Russian state media claimed on Wednesday that the United States planned the attack on the bridge in order to escalate a war against the West over Ukraine.

“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.

Demonstration of the war hawks in Ukraine: A missile strike, air raid sirens and a bomb attack on an apartment building

Explosions rocked civilian areas of Dnipro, a major southern city. A bus stop is nestled between apartment buildings. The bus was destroyed in front of the apartments when a missile slammed just a few feet in front of it.

Tetyana Lazunko, 73, and her husband, Oleksii, took shelter in the hallway of their top-floor apartment after hearing air raid sirens. The explosion shook the building and caused their possessions to fly. The couple looked at the damage to the home they have lived in for nearly 50 years.

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, a political analyst and speechwriter 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.

“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 called for a peaceful solution to the situation in Ukranian. India has said it is “deeply concerned” by the escalation of the conflict and said that “escalation of hostilities is in no one’s interest,” urging an “immediate cessation of hostilities” and return to the “path of dialogue. ” Other European leaders have also condemned the attack.

“Kamikaze drones and missiles are attacking all of Ukraine,” Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said. “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.”

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 explosions were heard far away from the battlefields of the northeast, east and south where Ukrainian forces have fought off Russian troops in recent weeks.

For several hours on Monday, the subway in the city was halted, with underground stations being used as a shelter. But the air raid alert in the city was lifted at midday, as rescue workers sought to pull people from the rubble caused by the strikes.

The Ukraine crisis in Kiev: Moscow, Ukraine and the EU have stepped up their support for Ukraine, and the United Nations Secretary-General is outraged

Demys Shmygal, Ukraine’s Prime Minister, said Monday that as of 11 a.m. local time, a total of 11 “crucial infrastructure facilities” in eight regions had been damaged.

In that case, Mr. Putin could lash out more broadly against Ukraine. The attacks of the past week — particularly striking critical civilian infrastructure — could be expanded across Ukraine if missile supplies hold out, while Russia could directly target the Ukrainian leadership with strikes or special operations.

The Russian-appointed head of annexed the Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, said on Monday he has good news and that Russia’s approach to its military operation in Ukraine has changed.

“I have been saying from the first day of the special military operation that if such actions to destroy the enemy’s infrastructure had been taken every day, we would have finished everything in May and the Kyiv regime would have been defeated,” he added.

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

Ukraine’s Western allies doubled down on their support for Kyiv following the strikes, with EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell Fontelles tweeting that “additional military support from the EU is on its way.”

The Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte claimed that Putin is terrorizing innocent civilians in other cities. These heinous acts were condemns by the Netherlands. Putin does not seem to know that the will of the Ukrainian people is not negotiable.

The attacks are unacceptable and civilians are always paying the highest price in war, according to the United Nations Secretary-General.

Ukraine’s Air Forces and Cultural Tourism During a Nearby Air Strike: Two Deadly Demonstrations in Kyiv

The G7 group of nations will hold an emergency meeting via video conference on Tuesday, the office of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz confirmed to CNN, and Zelensky said on Twitter that he would address that meeting.

Ukrainian emergency services report that several people are dead across the country, including at least five people in the the capital Kyiv, which hasn’t been hit since June. It’s the closest strike to the central part of the city since the war began, coming close to President Zelenskyy’s office.

Ukraine’s top brass released a statement that said that the country’s air defenses took down at least 40 incoming air attacks, but several dozen more got through. Ukrainian officials said that a number of the attacks were caused by Iranian-made suicide drones. Russia is a staging ground for Ukrainian attacks and after today’s attacks they requested more help from the Russian government.

In Kyiv, Ukraine Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko says that at least two museums and the National Philharmonic concert halls sustained heavy damage. The country’s main passenger terminal was damaged in a nearby strike this morning, which delayed trains during the rush hour.

Ihor Makovtsev, head of the department of transport for the Dnipro city council, said that it was at rush hour when the crash happened. He said that the bus driver and others were in the hospital with serious injuries.

How Viktor Shevchenko got a haircut in his 20th year of living under the shadow of a bullet in his balcony: Three minutes before the blast

“Our transportation is only for civilian purposes so I can’t find any logic in their work,” 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 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 that the blast blew open his cabinets and nearly knocked him to the ground. Five minutes before that, I would have been on the balcony, full of glass.

The Violations of Zelensky’s Law: the Crime against Business in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine

Our enemy thinks missile strikes are a way to intimidate. They are not. They are crimes against humanity. People are dying and getting injured. The missile terrorists must be brought to justice by the civilized world. Will do it. I have a link to this article and you can click on it to read it.

“We warned Zelenskyy that Russia hadn’t begun yet,” wrote Ramzan Kadyrov, who has been critical of the defense ministry for incompetence in carrying out the military campaign.

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. The opinions are of his own. CNN has more opinion.

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

The attacks came a day after the city of Zaporizhzhia was hit by multiple strikes on apartment buildings. At least 17 people were killed and several dozens injured.

The videos showed people on the sidewalks yelling “Glory to Ukraine” while cars drove in the city center. In one, Ukrainian soldiers drove slowly past a crowd as people reached out to touch the soldiers through the open windows.

One can deduce that businesses have been asked to Shift work online as much as possible, because millions of people in cities across Ukrainian will be spending most of the day in bomb shelters.

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.

The 2018 Russian-Putin bridge explosion: A challenge for the West to step up a unified approach to the 21st anniversary of the Cold War

dictators seem to like hardwiring newly claimed territory with record-breaking infrastructure projects. In 2018, Putin personally opened the Kerch bridge – Europe’s longest – by driving a truck across it. One of the first things that Beijing did after it reclaimed Macau was to build a bridge to connect the former Portuguese and British territories. The $20 billion, 34-mile road bridge opened after about two years of delays.

There was a quick reaction to the explosion, with hilarious posts lit up on social media. Many people shared their jubilation with text messages.

Sitting still was not an option for Putin, he was consumed by self-interest. He unleashed more death and destruction with the force that would make a former KGB officer proud.

Facing more criticism at home has placed Putin on thin ice, an act of selfish desperation.

In late August, Major General Kyrylo Budanov of the Main Intelligence Department of the Defense Ministry told the reporter Roman Kravets that they needed to enter the peninsula by the end of the year.

The significance of the strikes on central Kyiv, and close to the government quarter, cannot be overstated. On this 229th day of the war, western governments should see 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 also need to realize that rhetoric and sanctions have little if no impact on Putin’s actions. Even if it means moving military experts closer to the battlefield to speed up integration of high technology weapons, they need to continue to provide urgent training and arm Ukrainians.

Furthermore, high tech defense systems are needed to protect Kyiv and crucial energy infrastructure around the country. There is a need to protect heating systems ahead of winter.

The Russian Embassy in Kiev after the Ukraine Refers Crime to the United Nations and the U.S. As a Cold War: Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba

The time has come for the west to impose further restrictions on Russia’s travel and trade, but for Turkey and other Gulf states which receive so much Russian tourists to agree, it needs to be pressured.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken also spoke with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Monday to reiterate US support following the deadly strikes. Biden is expected on Tuesday to join an emergency video conference with G7 leaders during which Zelensky is expected to address the group.

Biden, the statement said, “also underscored his ongoing engagement with allies and partners to continue imposing costs on Russia, holding Russia accountable for its war crimes and atrocities, and providing Ukraine with security, economic, and humanitarian assistance.”

A senior Defense Department official added that work was continuing on improving Ukrainian air defenses, including “finding Soviet-era capabilities to make sure that countries were ready (and) could donate them and help move those capabilities.”

As of a Department of Defense briefing in late September, the US had yet to deliver NASAMS to Ukraine. At that time, there was a brigadier. Two systems would be delivered in the next two months, with six more expected to arrive by the end of the year, Gen. Patrick Ryder said.

Russia launched a total of 84 cruise missiles against targets across Ukraine on Monday, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a Facebook post.

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, also recently said he thinks Moscow should aim for the “complete dismantling” of Zelensky’s “regime.”

According to John Kirby, who worked at the National Security Council, Washington was in touch with the Ukrainian government almost hourly and was looking favorably on their requests. “We do the best we can in subsequent packages to meet those needs,” he told CNN’s Kate Bolduan.

“It’s clear that he’s feeling the pressure both at home and overseas, and how he reacts to that only he can say,” Kirby told CNN’s Kate Bolduan on “Erin Burnett OutFront.”

Kiev attacks on Monday night were nothing like the beginning of a new pivot in the Ukrainian war on the battlefield, the French President told the Associated Press

More than 30 fires broke out in a dozen regions and the capital, and have been put out, the emergency services said.

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian cities Wednesday knocked out power and water service and caused at least six civilian deaths in the latest assault on the country’s struggling energy grid, Ukrainian authorities said.

The attacks snatched away the semblance of normality that city dwellers, who spent months earlier in the war in subways turned into air raid shelters, have managed to restore to their lives and raised fears of new strikes.

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.

Kirby was also unable to say whether Putin was definitively shifting his strategy from a losing battlefield war to a campaign to pummel civilian morale and inflict devastating damage on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure, though he suggested it was a trend developing in recent days and had already been in the works.

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

Western concerns that Monday’s attacks in Ukraine could be the beginning of another pivot in the conflict were underscored by the French President.

“He was telegraphing about where he is going to go as we get into the winter. He is going to try to force the Ukranian population to compromise and give up territory by attacking the infrastructure, according to Vindman.

The number of drones and missiles downed and not kill innocent civilians, as Zhovkva says, could be raised if we had modern equipment.

A long campaign by Putin against civilians would be aimed at breaking the Ukrainians’ faith in the NATO alliance and unleashing a new wave of refugees into Western Europe that could cause more tension within the alliance.

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.

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.

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.

As Ukraine races to shore up its missile defenses in the wake of the assault, the math for Moscow is simple: A percentage of projectiles are bound to get through.

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

The Pentagon’s view at the time was that of its weapons stocks, Russia was “running the lowest on cruise missiles, particularly air-launched cruise missiles,” but that Moscow still had more than 50% of its pre-war inventory.

Some of that inventory was dispatched this week. Western officials say that Russia is using older and less precise KH-22 missiles and still has large inventories. Weighing 5.5 tons, they are designed to take out aircraft carriers. Dozens of people were killed at a shopping mall in Kremenchuck in June, by a KH-22.

The Russian air defense missile, the S-300, has been adapted for use as an offensive weapon. Their speed makes them difficult to intercept and they wreak havoc in Zaporizhzhia and Mykolaiv. But they are hardly accurate.

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

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday that more systems are needed to stop missile attacks. The air defense systems provided by NATO Allies are helping because many of the incoming missiles were shot down by the Ukrainian air defense systems. “But of course, as long as not all of them are shot down, of course there is a need for more.”

It’s also uneconomical to waste advanced systems on taking out cheap drones. But there may be other answers for the hundreds of attack drones Russia is now deploying. According to Zelensky, Russia has ordered 2,400 Shahed-136 drones from Iran.

Missiles for their existing systems, and a transition to Western-origin layered air defense system, were listed on the wish-list of Ukraine that was discussed at Wednesday’s meeting.

The system wouldn’t control all the airspace overUkrainian, but it would control priority targets that theUkrainian needs to protect. What you’re looking at really is short-range low-altitude systems and then medium-range medium altitude and then long-range and high altitude systems, and it’s a mix of all of these.”

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

This is just the beginning. The item on today’s agenda is bolstering the Ukrainian air defense, and that was something Reznikov said on Wednesday before meeting with the donors. A person is feeling optimistic.

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

The Crimea bridge incident in Kherson, Ukraine, claimed by the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and a top adviser to Ukraine

Poland was praised by a senior military commander for their training of an air defense battalion, which led to the destruction of 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 that figure by him. Mr. Zelensky said $17 billion was needed to rebuild schools, hospitals, transport systems and housing, with $2 billion going towards expanding exports to Europe and restoring Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

The images captured hundreds of cargo trucks lined up outside of a ferry terminal, waiting to cross into Russia after the bombing. The photos were taken Wednesday by Maxar Technologies, which show a big backup at the port in Kerch, and a line of trucks outside an airport that seems to be used for staging.

The long lines at the ferry crossing had worsened because of security precautions taken after the bridge explosion, said a Russia analyst at the International Crisis Group.

According to Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian intelligence believes the attack was a ploy to escalate the war in the country.

“The Crimea bridge incident gives the Russian military a convenient alibi for all of its defeats in southern Ukraine,” Podolyak told Ukraine’s national broadcaster.

Some of the hacks that have hit Ukrainian industries are related to Russia’s military objectives. The kind of large scale hack that takes out power or transportation networks has largely been missing.

Nick Waters of Bellingcat stated that the bridge’s underside shows barely any blast damage debunking the myth that a special naval operation destroyed the bridge.

The Ukrainian military later warned that Russia was preparing to strike the city from new positions across the river. A major bridge connecting the city of Kherson to the eastern bank was blown up in a massive explosion early Friday, residents said, severing the main transit route for Russian supplies coming in from Crimea and for Russians seeking to leave Kherson city.

The video of the X-ray of the truck was published by the FSB and it appeared to show explosives. Where on the “x-ray” another axle with wheels and a frame disappeared, the FSB does not specify ???? pic.twitter.com/onKbOndxVO

After Russian state media posted the government’s evidence for a truck bomb — the alleged truck involved and a X-ray scan of its cargo — Ukrainian journalists pointed out that the two images showed different trucks.

War in Ukraine, Russia’s Road to War with Ukraine (Review paper by Mika Tyry, M. Barr, L. Giles, C. K. Gallonov, EPR, Phys. Lett.

According to Barr, the damage was consistent with an explosion in the center of the bridge span, which would have caused damage to the pier.

Mika Tyry, a retired military demolition specialist, said that the flames and sparks are consistent with a thermite bomb. Thermite was used by Russia’s military and Ukraine could have recovered the substance from Russian munitions.

“It was a timed attack on a guarded structure with advanced explosives, and it was successful,” Barr says. “That’s highly suggestive of a carefully planned military operation rather than a lone actor or other group.”

For the first time in the war, it is entering an unpredictable 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.

Both sides – Russia and Ukraine with its western backers – are doing their best to turn the screws ahead of a winter which could ultimately decide who will win the most titanic clashes of forces in Europe since the Second World War. It’s worth a deep look at what’s in play right now.

The stakes of the war have been raised as winter approaches. Giles said that Russia wants to keep it up. The successes of the Ukrainians in the recent weeks have sent a direct message to the Kremlin. “They are able to do things that take us by surprise, so let’s get used to it,” Giles said.

These counter-offensives have shifted the momentum of the war and disproved a suggestion, built up in the West and in Russia during the summer, that while Ukraine could stoutly defend territory, it lacked the ability to seize ground.

Ukrainian troops hoist the country’s flag above a building in Vysokopillya, in the southern Kherson region, last month. Ukrainian officials claim to have liberated hundreds of settlements since their counter-offensive began.

According to an article written by the senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and author of Russia’s Road to War withUkraine, the Russians are trying to avoid a collapse in 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.”

The Oskil River crossing by the Ukrainian troops in late September resulted in the movement of Russian forces eastwards, as well as a likely defence of Starobilsk and Svatove in the Luhansk region.

A large blow in the back of the army would send a strong signal, and Ukraine would be eager to improve on their recent gains before the cold weather strikes and energy prices go up.

“There are so many reasons why there is an incentive for Ukraine to get things done quickly,” Giles said. The winter energy crisis in Europe is always a test of resilience for the Ukrainian government and its Western backers.

The UK’s spy chief said in a speech that Russian commanders on the ground know that their supplies are running out.

The I SW said in an update on the conflict on Monday that the strikes waste some of Russia’s dwindling precision weapons against civilian targets, as opposed to militarily significant targets.

Justin Bronk, a military expert with the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), agreed with that assessment, telling CNN that, “Ukrainian interception success rates against Russian cruise missiles have risen significantly since the start of the invasion in February.”

There’s a chance that some help for Putin is on the way. An announcement by Alexander Lukashenko that the two countries will have a joint regional group of troops raised concerns of deeper military cooperation between the close allies. Belarus has been complaining of alleged Ukrainian threats to its security in recent days, which observers say could be a prelude to some level of involvement.

Giles said the reopening of a northern front would be a new challenge for Ukranian. It could provide Russia with a route into the region that has been regained by the Ukrainians, he said.

The story of the conflict over the past two months was flipped by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who wanted to show his allies in Western Europe that the military aid they give to the country can help win the war.

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 Ukrainian Counter Offensive: Streakdown on a Russian Territories and its Implications for Security and Security in Russia

That’s not to say mobilized forces will be of no use. If they are used in support roles, the burden on the rest of Russia’s exhausted professional army might be lessened. Along the line of contact they could put in units, and even put in man checkpoint in the rear. They are not likely to be a capable fighting force. There are signs of trouble among soldiers in Russian garrisons.

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.

11 people were killed and 15 were injured when two men shot at Russian troops as they prepared to leave, according to the Defense Ministry.

Zelenskyy claimed that convicts were included “with long sentences for serious crimes” in the Russian army in return for pay and immunity.

— France, seeking to puncture perceptions that it has lagged in supporting Ukraine, confirmed it’s pledging air-defense missiles and stepped-up military training to Ukraine. Up to 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers are expected to be embedded with military units in France, rotating through for a few weeks of combat training, specialized training in logistical and other needs, and training on equipment supplied by France, according to the French defense minister.

The Institute for the Study of War said that Moscow may have been involved in the “ethnic cleansing” of Ukrainians.

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 Ukrainian military accused pro-Kremlin fighters of violating international humanitarian law by evicting civilians in occupied territories to house officers in their homes. It said the evictions were happening in Rubizhne, in the eastern Luhansk region. There wasn’t any evidence for its claim.

Kiev and the Ukraine crisis in light of the Kamikaze drone attacks against Ukraine on Monday, March 21 – Day after the Kuala Lumpur flight tragedy

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 is still the highest-profile suspect in a murder trial in a Dutch court.

Moscow’s battlefield failures have been lashed out at in recent social media posts. It was reported Sunday that he would get a $100,000 reward if he is captured.

Russia attacked vital energy facilities in three Ukrainian regions on Monday and disrupted power in a few areas, according to Ukraine’s prime minister.

Zelenskyy’s chief-of-staff, Andriy Yermak, again called on the west to provide Ukraine with more air defense systems. He said there wasn’t time for slow actions.

Klitshchko posted a photo of shrapnel labeled “Geran-2,” Russian’s designation for the Iranian drones, but he removed the picture after commenters criticized him for confirming a Russian strike.

European Union foreign ministers are scheduled to meet today in Luxembourg. The EU’s top diplomat told reporters before the meeting that the bloc would consider concrete proof that Iran was involved in the war in Ukraine.

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, also called suicide drones, are small, portable aerial weapon systems that are hard 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.

NPR coverage of the Kamianske attack on the Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine in the late October. I. State of Ukraine

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.

“Currently, all services are working on eliminating the consequences of shelling and restoring electricity supply. Shmyhal said each region has a crisis response plan.

We request Ukrainians to take a conscious and united approach to their consumption of electricity in order to stable the energy system. Especially during peak hours.

Ukraine’s state energy supplier Ukrenergo said the power grid in the country remains “under control,” adding that repair crews are working to curb the consequences of the attacks.

As Ukraine deals with a series of Russian attacks on its energy facilities, Shmyhal has made an announcement.

NATO will hold nuclear deterrence exercises starting Monday. NATO warned Russia not to use nukes on Ukraine, but they still conduct the “Steadfast Noon” drills every year.

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 General Assembly of the United Nations condemned Russia’s illegal annexation of 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.

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

David A. Andelman: Prolonging the War in the War of Europe for the next few years and his frustrations with the Kremlin

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 formerly was a correspondent for The New York Times and CBS News in Europe and Asia. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion at CNN.

He is trying to distract from the obvious, namely that he is losing badly on the battlefield and failing to achieve even his scaled back objectives.

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

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.

These include an emergency cap on the benchmark European gas trading hub – the Dutch Title Transfer Facility – and permission for EU gas companies to create a cartel to buy gas on the international market.

The European Commission has only a clear mandate to begin working on a gas cap mechanism in order to maintain European unity, according to French PresidentEmmanuelMacron.

Germany, the biggest economy of Europe, has doubts about price caps. Now energy ministers must work out details with a Germany concerned such caps would encourage higher consumption – a further burden on restricted supplies.

These divisions are all part of Putin’s fondest 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.

Both Germany and France disagree on a lot of these issues. Though in an effort to reach some accommodation, Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have scheduled a conference call for Wednesday.

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

Italy’s New Prime Minister, the President, and the Left: The Cold War in Washington and the Security of the Russian Military, the Military and the Industrial Complex

A new government has been formed in Italy. Italy has a new prime minister, the first women in Italy, and she has attempted to remove the post-fascist aura of her party. One of her far-right coalition partners meanwhile, has expressed deep appreciation for Putin.

In a secretly recorded audio tape obtained by LaPresse, Berlusconi stated that he returned Putin’s gesture with bottles of Lambrusco wine.

Matteo Salvini said during the campaign that he didn’t want the sanctions on Russia to hurt those who impose them more than those who are hit by them.

Poland, Hungary, and some of their allies in the right have differing opinions about the EU policies that appeared to reduce their influence. Poland has taken deep offense at the pro-Putin sentiments of Hungary’s populist leader Viktor Orban.

Similar forces seem to be at work in Washington where House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, poised to become Speaker of the House if Republicans take control after next month’s elections, told an interviewer, “I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine. They will not do it.

Meanwhile on Monday, 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 vast stretches of the country and its missiles and drones are striking deep into the interior.

Hours later, caucus chair Mia Jacob, facing a firestorm of criticism, emailed reporters with a statement “clarifying” their remarks in support of Ukraine. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also called his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba to renew America’s support.

The groundwork of their battlefield successes against a weakened, undersupplied and ill-prepared Russian military was made possible by this support in the form of arms, materiel and now training.

At the same time, the West is turning up the pressure on Russia. Last Thursday, the State Department released a detailed report on the impact of sanctions and export controls strangling the Russian military-industrial complex.

Russian production of hypersonic missiles has all but ceased “due to the lack of necessary semi-conductors,” said the report. Plants producing anti-aircraft systems have ceased production, and aircraft are being cannibalized for spare parts. The Soviet era was over 30 years ago.

Putin has also tried, though he has been stymied at most turns, to establish black market networks abroad to source what he needs to fuel his war machine – much as Kim Jong-un has done in North Korea. The United States has already uncovered and recently sanctioned vast networks of such shadow companies and individuals centered in hubs from Taiwan to Armenia, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, France, and Luxembourg to source high-tech goods for Russia’s collapsing military-industrial complex.

The Department of Justice has charged individuals and companies for violating sanctions by attempting to bring high tech equipment into Russia.

The War in Ukraine: The U.S. Embedded in the War on the Middle East and the Iran-Iran Nuclear Deal

A CNN producer and correspondent named Frida Ghitis is a world affairs columnist. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. There’s more opinion on CNN.

Much of the weaponry for these attacks that are wreaking havoc on the lives of Ukrainians is coming from Iran, which has already supplied Russia with hundreds of deadly drones.

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

The intersection of the war in Ukraine and the conflicts surrounding Iran is just one example of how Ukraine has become the pivot point for so many of the world’s geopolitical tensions.

The historian Yuval Noah Harari has argued that no less than the direction of human history is at stake, because a victory by Russia would reopen the door to wars of aggression, to invasions of one country by another, something that since the Second World War most nations had come to reject as categorically unacceptable.

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

There are repercussions to what happens far from the battlefields. The US accused the Saudis of helping Russia pay for its war in the oil-rich region when they decided to slash production. (An accusation the Saudis deny).

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/02/opinions/ukraine-russia-iran-weapons-geopolitical-ghitis/index.html

War, Inflation, and the Politics of Waxes: Why Russia and Turkey Are on the Defensive during the Cold War

As others have noted, Israel is reluctant to let go of its defensive systems partly because it could need them for its own defense. Hezbollah in the north holds a massive arsenal of missiles, and Hamas in the south has its own rockets.

Moscow temporarily suspended its agreement with the UN and Turkey after the Russian Navy ships were hit in the port of Sevastopol. wheat prices on global commodity markets surged after Putin’s announcement. Those prices partly determine how much people pay for bread in Africa and across the planet.

Higher prices not only affect family budgets and individual lives. When they come with such powerful momentum, they pack a political punch. The war has caused inflation to increase so incumbent political leaders are on the defensive in many countries.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/02/opinions/ukraine-russia-iran-weapons-geopolitical-ghitis/index.html

How the Cyberattacks on Ukraine During Ukraine’s Hybrid War Invasion Have Amounted to “Big Smile” to Putin, the Pentagon, and the Pentagon

It isn’t all on the fringes. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader who could become speaker of the House after next week’s US elections, suggested the GOP might choose to reduce aid to Ukraine. Progressive Democrats released and withdrew a letter calling for negotiations. Evelyn Farkas, a former Pentagon official during the Obama administration, said they’re all bringing “a big smile to Putin’s face.”

But experts who spoke to CNN suggest there is likely more to the question of why Russia’s cyberattacks haven’t made a more visible impact on the battlefield.

Cyber operations aimed at industrial plants can take many months to plan, and after the explosion in early October of a bridge linking Crimea to Russia, Putin was “trying to go for a big, showy public response to the attack on the bridge,” the senior US official said.

At least six different Kremlin-linked hacking groups conducted nearly 240 cyber operations against Ukrainian targets in the buildup to and weeks after Russia’s February invasion, Microsoft said in April. That includes a hack, which the White House blamed on the Kremlin, that disrupted satellite internet communications in Ukraine on the eve of Russia’s invasion.

Four officials from one of Ukraine’s main cyber and communications agencies — the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection (SSSCIP) — were killed October 10 in missile attacks, the agency said in a press release. 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.

Russian spies and military agencies have been hacking into Ukrainian government agencies for years with a variety of hacking tools.

“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.

In 2017, as Russia’s hybrid war in eastern Ukraine continued, Russia’s military intelligence agency unleashed destructive malware known as NotPetya that wiped computer systems at companies across Ukraine before spreading around the world, according to the Justice Department and private investigators. The incident caused billions of dollars to be spent by the global economy.

The operation involved injecting malicious code into Ukrainian software and identifying it, which was used to weaponize it, according to Matt Olney, director of threat intelligence.

“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

Ukraine’s Infrastructure Crisis After the March 11 U.N. War: State of the Art and Prospects for a New Wave of Cyberattacks

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

According to Tanel Sepp, the Russians could turn to a new wave of cyberattacks as their battles continue.

“Our main goal is to isolate Russia on the international stage” as much as possible, Sepp said, adding that the former Soviet state has not communicated with Russia on cybersecurity issues in months.

This week will be watched by the people of Ukraine, after some Republicans warned that the party could limit funding if they win control of the House of Representatives.

The Turkish President will be having a meeting with the Swedish Prime Minister. Before Sweden can join NATO, certain conditions have to be met.

The United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday is scheduled to discuss an International Atomic Energy Agency report, in which Ukraine is expected to be on the agenda.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of “energy terrorism,” as attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure left more than 4 million Ukrainians without electricity.

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

The Pentagon announced $400 million in additional security aid to Ukraine, on Nov. 4, to include 45 refurbished T-72 tanks, 1,100 Phoenix Ghost drones and other vehicles, technology and training.

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.

There are mines around water towers in Beryslav, a town that is less than 50 miles from Kherson city and just north of a critical dam at 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.

When Russian forces stormed across the Antonivsky Bridge over the Dnipro River in March and into Kherson city, a major port and a former shipbuilding center, it marked their biggest success of the early days of the war. Mr. Putin hoped to use the wider Kherson region as a bridgehead for a drive farther west, to the port city of Odesa, but that effort failed.

BLAHODATNE, Ukraine — Ukraine’s troops entered the key city of Kherson on Friday, its military said, as jubilant residents waved Ukrainian flags after a major Russian retreat.

Videos shared by Ukrainian government officials on social media showed scenes of civilians who had endured nearly nine months of occupation cheering the arrival of a contingent of Ukrainian troops.

Even as its soldiers fled, the Kremlin said that it still considered Kherson — which President Vladimir V. Putin illegally annexed in September — to be a part of Russia.

The residents of the region were excited to see the soldiers continue to move through their towns and villages.

Nightmares of the Russian Occupation in Kherson, Ukraine: Violation of the Fourth Ukrainian Constitution and the First Amendment Rights Rights Associated with Crime

According to the commander of his drone unit, there was no Russian troops or equipment along the front north of Kherson city.

“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 don’t see how they are leaving. They retreat quietly, at night.”

Residents of Kherson said that the final hours of the Russian occupation featured several explosions and were chaotic.

Serhiy, who asked not to be published for security reasons, said in a series of text messages that the worst of the conditions in the city had begun to happen 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, and no heating.

There was no Russian military presence in the city on Friday, but four residents said they saw Russians dressed in civilian clothes and moving about the city.

Russian forces were setting up defensive positions on the east bank of the Dnipro and attacking Ukrainians across the river, according to the report.

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 haven’t been focused on the depth of their suffering. For months, residents interviewed by journalists have told stories of friends being abducted, children illegally deported, relatives tortured and killed. Evidence of human rights abuses has surfaced when Russian have left.

The battle between Ukrainian and Russian forces that took place across the broad expanse of the Dnipro River that divides them was a victory for the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky.

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

There were fears that the Russian Army would retaliate for the fall of the city with a bombardment from its new positions on the eastern bank, after a series of fires in the southern district of the city.

The shells went up near the bridge. Near the riverfront, incoming rounds rang out with thunderous, metallic booms. It was not immediately possible to assess what had been hit.

The deaths of four children and four others in the attack by a mine on Kherson’s main square on Monday, March 26: after Mr. Zelensky’s surprise visit to the country

In order to restore essential services and clear land mines, the head of the Kherson regional military administration called for tens of thousands of residents in the city to leave.

The mines are in dire need of repair. A family of four, including a young child, were killed when a vehicle they were travelling in ran over a mine outside the city. Six railway workers were injured trying to restore service after lines were damaged. Ukrainian officials said that there were at least four more children who had been injured by mines.

The deaths underscored the dangers still on the ground, even as Mr. Zelensky made a surprise visit to Kherson.

Hundreds of ecstatic residents celebrated in the city’s main square on Monday after Mr. Zelensky said in a short appearance that he was going to come 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

“I wanna live in Kherson,” a Turkish girl’s voice voice whispering about Putin’s missile attacks against Ukraine, and the Ukraine’s war on Ukraine

“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 even more aggressive after they’re drunk. We are so scared here.” She asked that her surname be withheld for security.

Ivan wrote in a text message that the Russian people were roaming around and find empty houses. 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 the owners with local people who would like to stay in their place. It’s not abandoned and Russians don’t take it.

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

One thing is clear, no matter the circumstances of the missile. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg blamed Russia for its illegal war against Ukraine.

But beyond these most recent missile attacks lies a laundry list of horrors Putin has launched that only seems to have driven his nation further from the pack of civilized powers that he once sought so desperately to join.

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

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

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

Diplomatically, Putin finds himself increasingly isolated on the world stage. He was the only head of state to stay away from a session of the G20, which Zelensky dubbed the “G19.” Although Putin would like to return to the G7 (otherwise known as the G8 before he was kicked out of it), he seems to have forgotten about it. The comparison between Russia and North Korea is striking because of the banning of 100 Canadians, including Canadian-American Jim Carrey.

The leading Russian journalist, who has settled in Berlin, told me last week that he was prepared to accept reality, even if it meant that he may never be able to return to his homeland.

The French-German Joint Project for a Next-Generation Jet Fighter at the Nuclear Reactor of the Mykolaiv Nuclear Power Plant

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

Moreover, Putin’s dream that this conflict, along with the enormous burden it has proven to be on Western countries, would only drive further wedges into the Western alliance are proving unfulfilled. On Monday, word began circulating in aerospace circles that the long-stalled joint French-German project for a next-generation jet fighter at the heart of the Future Combat Air System – Europe’s largest weapons program – was beginning to move forward.

The Ukrainian energy company Ukrenergo said that it disconnected the nuclear power plants as a precautionary measure because of the Russian strikes.

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.

The nuclear plant located in the southern region of Mykolaiv has been cut from the grid, which leads to a risk of a reactor shutdown, according to the military administrator.

In many cases, the cascading effect is turning off the heat and water because of the power cuts. Water in pipes can freeze when it is cold, making it more complicated.

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.”

Russian President Zelenskyy: Is Russia ready for war or does it imply war is coming out of the Ukraine? Putin’s comments on the war between Ukraine and the West

The country is preparing for the winter. President Zelenskyy said in a Tuesday night video that 4,000 centers are available to take care of civilians if power is cut for an extended period.

They will give heat, water, phone charging and internet access, according to him. Some of the people will be in government buildings.

Russian President Putin said his special military operation inUkrainian is taking longer than he had anticipated, but he also said that his country’s nuclear weapons are making the conflict less violent.

“Of course, it could be a lengthy process,” Putin said of the more than 9-month-old war that began with Russia’s invasion Feb. 24 and has displaced millions from their homes, and killed and wounded tens of thousands. Despite its length, he showed no signs of letting up, vowing to “consistently fight for our interests” and to “protect ourselves using all means available.” For years, the West did not respond to Russia’s security demands, but only spit in the face, he said.

Speaking in a televised meeting in Russia with members of his Human Rights Council, Putin described the land gains as “a significant result for Russia,” noting that the Sea of Azov “has become Russia’s internal sea.” He mentioned that “Peter the Great fought to get access to that body of water”, in a reference to the Russian leader he admires.

“If it doesn’t use it first, it means it won’t be the second to do it, either, because of the potential for a nuclear strike on our territory,” he said.

Putin rejected Western criticism that his previous nuclear weapons comments amounted to saber-rattling, claiming they were “not a factor provoking an escalation of conflicts, but a factor of deterrence.”

The Russian leader made no mention of Russia’s battles or attempts to control the regions but acknowledged problems with supplies, the treatment of wounded soldiers and limited desertions.

The “dragon’s teeth” of the new anti-tank barriers were pictured in open fields by the governor. On Tuesday, the governor had said a fire broke out at an airport in the region after a drone strike. Workers were making anti-tank barriers in Belgorod. Belgorod has seen numerous fires and explosions, apparently from cross-border attacks, and its governor reported Wednesday that Russia’s air defenses have shot down incoming rockets.

Moscow responded with strikes by artillery, multiple rocket launchers, missiles, tanks and mortars at residential buildings and civilian infrastructure, worsening damage to the power grid. Ukrenergo, a private Ukrainian utility, said temperatures in eastern areas where it was repairing had dropped to as low as minus 17 degrees Celsius.

At his meeting, Putin discussed the mobilization of 300,000 reservists that he ordered in September to bolster forces in Ukraine. He said only about 150,000 have been deployed so far to combat zones and the rest are still undergoing training. Addressing speculation that the Kremlin could be preparing another mobilization, Putin said: “There is no need for the Defense Ministry and the country to do that.”

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.

Russia claimed that an airfield in theKursk region of Ukraine was targeted by a drone attack. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry has not commented on recent explosions deep within Russia. Officially, the targets are well beyond the reach of the country’s declared drones.

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

He ended his apparent off-the-cuff comments by claiming there is no mention of the water situation. Nobody has spoken about it in any of the places they have been. At all! Complete silence,” he said.

More shelling in Moscow by the cosmological heavy ion collisions at the Trans-Prussian Heavy Ion Collider

In defiance of international law, Russian authorities in the city have reported a lot of shelling this week.