Nov 29 Buonasera Mag
Day 279: Kherson EnergyGrid USAid IAEA Crimea Papel RUAirDef Kudrin Wagner Xi oil$ EU HUN ROM MOL G7 Iran NATO-A&Ps-Kalesnikova Shmyhal Zelenska Biden Vakulenko Ferri Avdeeva Rankin
Catching up…
EA Worldview’s Ukraine Up-date- hop over to Scott’s amazing hourly Ukraine up-date page. I’ll fill in with some bits and bobs.
Stories we’re following…
11:52 CET: Air raid alerts were issued across all Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, following warnings by officials that Russia was preparing a new wave of missile attacks. There were no immediate reports of any new strikes, and Kyiv sounded the all clear after about 10 minutes of air raid warnings.
Zelensky: Russia attacked Kherson Oblast 258 times over past week. President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address that Russian forces fired 258 times at 30 settlements in Kherson Oblast over the past week.
General Staff: Russian troops trying to advance in 3 directions in Donbas. Russian forces are trying to advance in the Lyman, Bakhmut, and Avdiivka directions in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine's General Staff said.
Ukraine’s supplies of spare parts for its battered electricity grid are running out amid sustained Russian bombing. European companies are being asked to urgently donate surplus kit to help the country get through the winter, after the latest step in Russian bombings targeting power plants and substations resulted in power cuts lasting 48 hours or more across the country.
The US will provide Ukraine with $53 million for power grid equipment purchases. The US State Department says that this emergency measure will give Ukraine transformers and circuit breakers to help counteract Russia's infrastructure strikes. Ukraine made a joint push to NATO today for air defence systems and power grid assistance.
People should not forget the war in Ukraine this Christmas, the country’s first lady has said ahead of a speech to British MPs on Tuesday. Olena Zelenska is expected to address MPs and peers on Tuesday as she visits London, days after Rishi Sunak made his first visit as prime minister to Kyiv to meet Ukraine‘s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
IAEA to strengthen its presence in all of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants. The agency's head Rafael Grossi said on Nov. 29 that it would help protect the country's energy infrastructure.
Kyiv plans to erect Christmas trees, minus lights, throughout the battered city in a defiant display of holiday spirit as the capital area’s millions of residents suffer through blackouts due to Russian attacks, officials said. “No one is going to cancel the New Year and Christmas, and the atmosphere of the New Year should be there,” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko told the RBC-Ukraine in an interview.
Ukraine considers expelling all Russian citizens who illegally moved to Crimea after 2014—after it's deoccupied. "The decision is simple and doesn't contradict international law: people who came illegally must leave by voluntary departure or forced expulsion," Tamila Tasheva, representative of Ukraine’s president in Crimea.
The former deputy head of Kherson is detained Vladimir Pepel is suspected of collaborating with the Russians during the occupation of Kherson. He is currently in custody.
Russia transfers 15 air defense systems to Belarus. Russia has transferred a large convoy of military equipment to Belarus, including at least 15 Tor-M2 surface-to-air missile systems and 10 engineering vehicles, the Belarusian Hajun, a group that monitors the movement of Russian weapons, reported.
Putin has moved Alexei Kudrin from the chairman of the Chamber of Accounts to the head of the "Russian" part of "Yandex", assigning him 5% of Yandex. This is another step towards the nationalization of Yandex, and biron control over public opinion.
As Moscow's war on Ukraine lurches into a new, uncertain phase, Russian authorities are increasingly turning to the country's prisons to replenish depleted units. The Vagner Group is leading the effort, and the result, in some cases, is inmates being coerced into signing up -- or even threatened. Read the report by RFE/RL's Siberia.Realities here.
President Xi has said Beijing is ready to “forge a closer partnership” with Moscow to “maintain international energy security”. The Chinese leader was cited by state-owned broadcaster CCTV as writing, in a congratulatory letter to the Fourth China-Russia energy forum: “China is willing to work with Russia to forge a closer energy partnership, promote clean and green energy development and jointly maintain international energy security and the stability of industry supply chains.”
Bloomberg: Price of Russian oil falls below proposed EU cap. Russia’s Urals crude oil fell to $51.96 a barrel at the Baltic Sea port of Primorsk, Bloomberg reported, citing data provided by Argus Media Ltd., a publisher of commodity prices.
European Council criminalizes evasion of sanctions. The European Council added the violation of restrictive measures to the list of “EU crimes” on Nov. 28. The criminalization will help ensure the same level of sanctions across the EU and prevent attempts to evade the union’s restrictions, according to the Council.
More than 60 organizations, including a number of media outlets focused on exposing fraud and corruption in Russia, have been declared “undesirable” by the Russian authorities to date.
Rocketing energy bills are forcing Hungary to shutter libraries, theatres, swimming pools and even its new football stadiums for winter, AFP reports.
Romania believes that it is necessary to accelerate the NATO strategy, which involves increasing the presence of alliance forces on the eastern flank. This was stated by the President of Romania Klaus Iogannis.
Moldovans have been warned of rolling power blackouts, as this small nation prepares for the impact of Russian missile strikes in neighbouring Ukraine. Because of the way power infrastructure was built in Soviet times, Moldova is uniquely exposed to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Reuters: US considers giving Ukraine 100-mile strike weapon. The Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB) system could be delivered to Ukraine in spring, according to a document acquired by Reuters.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken intends to hold a telephone conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Serhii Lavrov for the first time since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine. Blinken announced this during the briefing.
The G7 group has agreed to set up a network to coordinate investigations into war crimes to prosecute suspected atrocities in Ukraine. In a joint declaration, G7 justice ministers said member countries would ensure there is a central national contact point in each state for the prosecution of international crimes.
The case of jailed 2022 Nobel laureate Ales Byalyatski has been sent to a Belarusian court, with the rights activist and three of his colleagues from Vyasna facing up to 12 years in prison on smuggling and tax-evasion charges that his supporters dismiss as politically motivated retribution.
On the protests in Iran: "We believe in the right of peaceful protest," — NSC Spokesperson John Kirby on the ongoing protests in Iran. U.S. stands with Iranian women, and will "hold the regime accountable for the way it's treating its people. And we will continue to do whatever we can to not only support their right of protest but to hold the regime accountable for the way it's treating its people.,” he added.
NATO Foreign Ministers Meeting: Romania
NATO FMs met today and and will meet again tomorrow in Bucharest where the alliance’s support for Ukraine since the Russian invasion will be discussed.
Romania, as well as neighboring Moldova, has been hard hit by the war, and around two million people fleeing Ukraine have passed through the country.
Russia has asked Iran to provide new missiles, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said. "We clearly say that no country should support the illegal Russian war.
Foreign Minister: NATO to consider providing new military, energy aid to Ukraine. “For the first time, the meeting will be equally dedicated to Ukraine’s defense issues, namely new weapons, ammunition, military equipment, and to the country’s energy system,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said, promising there would be “more solutions” from the allies.
Volodymyr Vakulenko was born on July 1, 1972 in Kharkiv region. He is an author of 13 books, among which there are "Monoliteracy" (2008) "You Are… Not" (2011), "The Sun’s Family" (2011), "We, the Province!" (2013). His pen name is Volodymyr Vakulenko-K.
His own genre, which contains elements of postmodernism, modernism, neo-classicism, and logical absurdism, Volodymyr defines as "contrliterature". Vakulenko is a winner of several Ukrainian and international literary prizes.
His works have been translated into English, German, Belarussian, Crimean Tatar, and Esperanto languages.
Mario Ferri…an Italian volunteer helping Ukraine…
Nicknamed ‘Il Falco’, or ‘The Falcon’, Ferri is a 35-year-old activist and a footballer from Pescara, Italy.
He travelled from Pescara to Poland to help Ukrainians. Just weeks after Russian tanks first rolled over the Ukraine border, Ferri rented a car to help refugees cross between Lviv and Poland. He says on his Instagram that 60 people were saved. Ferri has many tattoos and one is on the Ukrainian trident, which is the gold coat of arms of Ukraine.
Virginie Nguyen Hoang, Ukrainian Hospital Stymied Russians With Defiant Doctors and a Fake Covid Outbreak- The Wall Street Journal
In occupied Kherson, Tropinka staffers outwitted—and outwaited—the invaders, as they fought over hallway posters and the flag out front.
The first time Russian soldiers came to Tropinka Hospital, they told Leonid Remiga, the hospital’s chief physician, to take down the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag hanging over the main entrance. He refused.
“You can shoot me if you want,” 68-year-old Dr. Remiga recalls saying, “but I’m not going to do it.”
The Russians left without insisting. But that meeting on March 7, days after Russia seized this southern city, was the start of a battle for control of the hospital that raged through the entire occupation. The Russians detained two doctors, banned Ukrainian symbols and put hand-picked people in charge. To thwart them, the staff faked a Covid-19 outbreak, hid equipment and spied for Ukrainian forces.
Jennifer Rankin, ‘Russia wins by losing’: Timothy Snyder on raising funds for Ukrainian drone defence- The Guardian
That only happens if Russia loses the war. “Russia wins by losing. Russia really needs to lose this war, and to lose it decisively,” he said. “The whole colonial move towards Ukraine is a distraction, a substitute for the internal changes which Russia really has to make.”
It would also be good for world peace if Russia lost, he said, sending a signal to other powers with imperial ambitions. “Russia losing this war makes it much less likely that China will try something adventurous in Taiwan.”
“What European history really shows, and quite powerfully, is that in order to become, quote unquote, a ‘normal’ European country, you have to become post-imperial [meaning] you have to lose your wars.”
For this reason, he thinks meaningful negotiations can only take place once Ukraine has won the war. Russians are already signalling that negotiations are only a means “to regroup and attack again. And so I think we should probably listen to them when they say that.”
