Ukraine

mickeyrat

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-zelenskyy-kherson-9202c032cf3a5c22761ee71b52ff9d52

 

Russia-Ukraine war NATO Kyiv Poland Andrzej Duda Jens Stoltenberg Duda Government and politics

Poland: Russian-made missile fell on our country, killing 2

By JOHN LEICESTER and JAMES LAPORTA

43 mins ago

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Poland said early Wednesday that a Russian-made missile fell in the eastern part of the country, killing two people in a blast that marked the first time since the invasion of Ukraine that Russian weapons came down on a NATO country.

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy decried the strike as “a very significant escalation” of the war.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the government was investigating and raising its military preparedness.

A statement from the Polish Foreign Ministry identified the missile as being made in Russia. But President Andrzej Duda was more cautious about its origin, saying that officials did not know for sure who fired it or where it was made. He said it was “most probably” Russian-made but that is being still verified.

“We are acting with calm," Duda said. “This is a difficult situation.”

Meanwhile, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called an emergency meeting for later in the day of the alliance's envoys to discuss the events close to the Ukrainian border in Poland.

The U.N. Security Council also planned to meet Wednesday for a previously scheduled briefing on the situation in Ukraine. The strike in Poland was certain to be raised.

In their statements, Poland and NATO used language that suggested they were not treating the missile blast as a Russian attack, at least for now.

Poland’s statement did not address the circumstances of the strike, including whether it could have been a targeting error or if the missile could have been knocked off course by Ukrainian defenses. A NATO statement called it a “tragic incident.”

If Russia had deliberately targeted Poland, it would risk drawing the 30-nation alliance into the conflict at a time when it is already struggling to fend off Ukrainian forces.

Polish media reported that the strike took place in an area where grain was drying in Przewodów, a village near the border with Ukraine.

The Russian Defense Ministry denied being behind “any strikes on targets near the Ukrainian-Polish border” and said in a statement that photos of purported damage “have nothing to do” with Russian weapons.

Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau summoned the Russian ambassador and “demanded immediate detailed explanations,” the government said.

The strike came to light Tuesday as Russia pounded Ukraine’s energy facilities with its biggest barrage of missiles yet, striking targets across the country and causing widespread blackouts.

The barrage also affected neighboring Moldova. It reported massive power outages after the strikes knocked out a key power line that supplies the small nation, an official said.

The missile strikes plunged much of Ukraine into darkness and drew defiance from Zelenskyy, who shook his fist and declared: “We will survive everything.”

In his nightly address, the Ukrainian leader said the strike in Poland offered proof that “terror is not limited by our state borders.”

"We need to put the terrorist in its place. The longer Russia feels impunity, the more threats there will be for everyone within the reach of Russian missiles,” Zelenskyy said.

Russia fired at least 85 missiles, most of them aimed at the country's power facilities, and blacked out many cities, he said.

The Ukrainian energy minister said the attack was “the most massive” bombardment of power facilities in the nearly 9-month-old invasion, striking both power generation and transmission systems.

The minister, Herman Haluschenko, accused Russia of “trying to cause maximum damage to our energy system on the eve of winter.”

The aerial assault, which resulted in at least one death in a residential building in the capital, Kyiv, followed days of euphoria in Ukraine sparked by one of its biggest military successes — the retaking last week of the southern city of Kherson.

The power grid was already battered by previous attacks that destroyed an estimated 40% of the country’s energy infrastructure.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has not commented on the retreat from Kherson since his troops pulled out in the face of a Ukrainian offensive. But the stunning scale of Tuesday’s strikes spoke volumes and hinted at anger in the Kremlin.

By striking targets in the late afternoon, not long before dusk, the Russian military forced rescue workers to labor in the dark and gave repair crews scant time to assess the damage by daylight.

More than a dozen regions — among them Lviv in the west, Kharkiv in the northeast and others in between — reported strikes or efforts by their air defenses to shoot missiles down. At least a dozen regions reported power outages, affecting cities that together have millions of people. Almost half of the Kyiv region lost power, authorities said.

“Most of the hits were recorded in the center and in the north of the country. In the capital, the situation is very difficult,” said a senior official, Kyrylo Tymoshenko.

He said a total of 15 energy targets were damaged and claimed that 70 missiles were shot down. A Ukrainian Air Force spokesman said Russia used X-101 and X-555 cruise missiles.

As city after city reported attacks, Tymoshenko urged Ukrainians to “hang in there.”

With its battlefield losses mounting, Russia has increasingly resorted to targeting Ukraine’s power grid, seemingly hoping to turn the approach of winter into a weapon by leaving people in the cold and dark.

Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra took to a bomb shelter in Kyiv after meeting his Ukrainian counterpart and, from his place of safety, described the bombardment as "an enormous motivation to keep standing shoulder-to-shoulder” with Ukraine.

The strikes came as authorities were already working furiously to get Kherson back on its feet and beginning to investigate alleged Russian abuses there and in the surrounding area.

The southern city is without power and water, and the head of the U.N. human rights office’s monitoring mission in Ukraine, Matilda Bogner, decried a “dire humanitarian situation” there.

Speaking from Kyiv, Bogner said her teams are looking to travel to Kherson to try to verify allegations of nearly 80 cases of forced disappearances and arbitrary detention.

The head of the National Police of Ukraine, Igor Klymenko, said authorities are to start investigating reports from Kherson residents that Russian forces set up at least three alleged torture sites in now-liberated parts of the wider Kherson region.

The retaking of Kherson dealt another stinging blow to the Kremlin. Zelenskyy likened the recapture to the Allied landings in France on D-Day in World War II, saying both were watershed events on the road to eventual victory.

But large parts of eastern and southern Ukraine remain under Russian control, and fighting continues.

In other developments, leaders of most of the world’s economic powers were drawing closer to approval of a declaration strongly denouncing Russia’s invasion.

On Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden and Zelenskyy pressed fellow G20 leaders at the summit in Indonesia for a robust condemnation of Russia’s nuclear threats and food embargoes. More discussion and a possible vote come Wednesday.

___

Associated Press writers Joanna Kozlowska in London; Jamey Keaten in Geneva; Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands; Hanna Arhirova in Kherson, Ukraine; Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia; Vanessa Gera and Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Poland; Raf Casert and Lorne Cook in Brussels; and Nomaan Merchant in New York contributed to this report.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

mickeyrat

https://apnews.com/article/g-20-summit-nato-biden-andrzej-duda-25e615909ba0d871d5092f5b3aec21c8

 

Joe Biden G-20 Summit NATO Poland United States Andrzej Duda Duda Government and politics

Biden calls 'emergency' meeting after missile hits Poland

By SEUNG MIN KIM and ZEKE MILLER

5 mins ago

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AP) — President Joe Biden convened an “emergency” meeting of the Group of Seven and NATO leaders in Indonesia Wednesday morning for consultations after NATO-ally Poland said a “Russian-made” missile killed two people in the eastern part of its country near the Ukraine border.

Biden, who was awakened overnight by staff with the news of the missile explosion while in Indonesia for the Group of 20 summit, called Polish President Andrzej Duda early Wednesday to express his “deep condolences” for the loss of life. Biden promised on Twitter “full U.S support for and assistance with Poland’s investigation,” and “reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to NATO.”

Meeting at a large round table in a ballroom in his hotel, the U.S. president hosted the leaders of the G-7, which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the European Union, along with the president of the European Council and the prime ministers of NATO allies Spain and the Netherlands.

Biden replied “no” to reporters who asked if he would provide an update on the situation in Poland.

A statement from the Polish Foreign Ministry identified the missile as being made in Russia. But Poland's president, Duda, was more cautious about its origin, saying that officials did not know for sure who fired it or where it was made. He said it was “most probably” Russian-made, but that is being still verified. If confirmed, it would be the first time since the invasion of Ukraine that a Russian weapon came down on a NATO country.

The foundation of the NATO alliance is the principle that an attack against one member is an attack on them all.

mickeyrat

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-g-20-summit-nato-biden-government-and-politics-c76bead57a11bc8397a30ee7bb06264e

 

Russia-Ukraine war NATO British politics Poland Andrzej Duda Jens Stoltenberg Duda Government and politics

Poland, NATO say missile landing wasn't Russian attack

By VASILISA STEPANENKO

24 mins ago

PRZEWODOW, Poland (AP) — Poland said Wednesday there is “absolutely no indication” that a missile which came down in Polish farmland, killing two people, was a intentional attack on the NATO country, and that neighbor Ukraine likely launched the Soviet-era projectile as it fended off a Russian air assault that savaged its power grid.

“Ukraine’s defense was launching their missiles in various directions and it is highly probable that one of these missiles unfortunately fell on Polish territory," said Polish President Andrzej Duda. “There is nothing, absolutely nothing to suggest that it was an intentional attack on Poland.”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, at a meeting of the military alliance in Brussels, agreed with the assessment.

“An investigation into this incident is ongoing and we need to await its outcome. But we have no indication that this was the result of a deliberate attack,” Stoltenberg told reporters.

The preliminary findings came after U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western backers of Ukraine had thrown their weight behind the investigation and amid repeated assertions from Russia that it didn't fire the missile.

Biden said it was “unlikely” that Russia fired the missile but added: "I’m going to make sure we find out exactly what happened."

---

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The missile came down Tuesday near Poland's border with Ukraine. Three U.S. officials said preliminary assessments suggested it was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian one. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

That assessment and Biden’s comments at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia contradicted information earlier Tuesday from a senior U.S. intelligence official who told The Associated Press that Russian missiles crossed into Poland.

Former Soviet-bloc country Ukraine maintains stocks of Soviet- and Russian-made weaponry, including air-defense missiles, and has also seized many more Russian weapons while beating back the Kremlin’s invasion forces.

Ukrainian air defenses worked furiously against the Russian assault Tuesday on power generation and transmission facilities, including in Ukraine’s western region that borders Poland. Ukraine’s military said 77 of the more than 90 missiles fired were brought down, along with 11 drones.

Residents in recently liberated Kherson were continuing to celebrate on Monday following Russia's withdrawal from the city. (Nov. 14)

The Kremlin on Wednesday denounced Poland’s and other countries’ initial reaction to the missile incident and, in rare praise for a U.S. leader, hailed the response of the U.S.

“We have witnessed another hysterical, frenzied, Russophobic reaction that was not based on any real data,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday. He added that “immediately, all experts realized that it could not have been a missile linked to the Russian armed forces,” and pointed to a “restrained, much more professional reaction” of the U.S. and its president, Joe Biden.

In Brussels, NATO countries were coming together Wednesday for emergency talks. There was no immediate proof that Tuesday’s blast was a deliberate, hostile attack on NATO member Poland that could trigger the alliance’s provisions for a collective military response.

Russia denied any involvement. But Ukraine was under countrywide Russian bombardment Tuesday by barrages of cruise missiles and exploding drones, which clouded the picture of what exactly happened in Poland and why.

In Europe, NATO members Germany and the U.K. were among those stressing the need for a full investigation. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned against jumping to conclusions “in such a serious matter.”

Still, Scholz and others also laid overall but not specific blame on Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

“This wouldn’t have happened without the Russian war against Ukraine, without the missiles that are now being fired at Ukrainian infrastructure intensively and on a large scale,” Scholz said.

U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak echoed that assessment, saying: “This is the cruel and unrelenting reality of Putin’s war.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it “a very significant escalation." On the other end of the spectrum, China was among those calling for calm and restraint.

Former Soviet-bloc country Ukraine maintains stocks of Soviet- and Russian-made weaponry, including air-defense missiles, and has also seized many more Russian weapons while beating back the Kremlin's invasion forces.

Damage from the aerial assault in Ukraine was extensive and swaths of the country were plunged into darkness. Zelenskyy said about 10 million people lost power but tweeted overnight that 8 million were subsequently reconnected, with repair crews laboring through the night. Previous Russian strikes had already destroyed an estimated 40% of the country’s energy infrastructure.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called the meeting in Brussels of the alliance’s envoys. The U.N. Security Council also planned to meet Wednesday for a previously scheduled briefing on the situation in Ukraine.

If Russia had deliberately targeted Poland, it would risk drawing NATO into the conflict.

Polish media reported that the strike took place in an area where grain was drying in Przewodow, a village near the border with Ukraine.

Russia's Defense Ministry denied being behind “any strikes on targets near the Ukrainian-Polish border” and said in a statement that photos of purported damage “have nothing to do” with Russian weapons.

The Russian bombardment also affected neighboring Moldova. It reported massive power outages after the strikes in Ukraine disconnected a power line to the small nation.

The assault killed at least one person in a residential building in Ukraine's capital, Kyiv. It followed days of euphoria in Ukraine sparked by one of its biggest military successes — the retaking last week of the southern city of Kherson.

With its battlefield losses mounting, Russia has increasingly resorted to targeting Ukraine’s power grid, seemingly hoping to turn the approach of winter into a weapon by leaving people in the cold and dark.

___

Vanessa Gera and Monika Scislowska in Warsaw; Zeke Miller in Nusa Dua, Indonesia; Michael Balsamo and Lolita Baldor in Washington, D.C.; and James LaPorta in Wilmington, North Carolina, contributed to this story.

___

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Poncier

Could Ukraine have intentionally fired a Russian made missile into Poland (during a heavy Russia missile onslaught) to try and fool NATO into thinking Putin attached a NATO country and get them to help and engage Russia?
As Bo says...just a thought.

Merkin Baller

Poncier said:

Could Ukraine have intentionally fired a Russian made missile into Poland (during a heavy Russia missile onslaught) to try and fool NATO into thinking Putin attached a NATO country and get them to help and engage Russia?
As Bo says...just a thought.

Did Vladimir Putin hack your 10c account? 

static111

Poncier said:

Could Ukraine have intentionally fired a Russian made missile into Poland (during a heavy Russia missile onslaught) to try and fool NATO into thinking Putin attached a NATO country and get them to help and engage Russia?
As Bo says...just a thought.

I was hoping this wasn't gonna be some gulf of Tonkin or WMD justification. Glad the truth came out and the situation wasn't manipulated and spun to start WW3. I have to admit I also had a thought similar to yours cross my mind.

static111

Merkin Baller said:

Poncier said:

Could Ukraine have intentionally fired a Russian made missile into Poland (during a heavy Russia missile onslaught) to try and fool NATO into thinking Putin attached a NATO country and get them to help and engage Russia?
As Bo says...just a thought.

Did Vladimir Putin hack your 10c account? 

Did Joe McCarthy's ghost hack yours?

Merkin Baller

static111 said:

Merkin Baller said:

Poncier said:

Could Ukraine have intentionally fired a Russian made missile into Poland (during a heavy Russia missile onslaught) to try and fool NATO into thinking Putin attached a NATO country and get them to help and engage Russia?
As Bo says...just a thought.

Did Vladimir Putin hack your 10c account? 

Did Joe McCarthy's ghost hack yours?

By all accounts Ukraine is pushing back Russian forces, why would they do what Poncier suggested now as opposed to 4 or 5 months ago? 

Oh wait... you've self admittedly never posted anything serious in this forum. Never mind. 

static111

Merkin Baller said:

static111 said:

Merkin Baller said:

Poncier said:

Could Ukraine have intentionally fired a Russian made missile into Poland (during a heavy Russia missile onslaught) to try and fool NATO into thinking Putin attached a NATO country and get them to help and engage Russia?
As Bo says...just a thought.

Did Vladimir Putin hack your 10c account? 

Did Joe McCarthy's ghost hack yours?

By all accounts Ukraine is pushing back Russian forces, why would they do what Poncier suggested now as opposed to 4 or 5 months ago? 

Oh wait... you've self admittedly never posted anything serious in this forum. Never mind. 

I've never been serious on the internet.  There is a difference.

Merkin Baller

static111 said:

Merkin Baller said:

static111 said:

Merkin Baller said:

Poncier said:

Could Ukraine have intentionally fired a Russian made missile into Poland (during a heavy Russia missile onslaught) to try and fool NATO into thinking Putin attached a NATO country and get them to help and engage Russia?
As Bo says...just a thought.

Did Vladimir Putin hack your 10c account? 

Did Joe McCarthy's ghost hack yours?

By all accounts Ukraine is pushing back Russian forces, why would they do what Poncier suggested now as opposed to 4 or 5 months ago? 

Oh wait... you've self admittedly never posted anything serious in this forum. Never mind. 

I've never been serious on the internet.  There is a difference.

Lol

mickeyrat

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-nato-army-europe-government-and-politics-cd4784c14184575269e5073b28899a72

 

Russia-Ukraine war NATO Poland Army Joint Chiefs of Staff Government and politics

Russia didn't take US phone call after Poland missile strike

By TARA COPP and LOLITA C. BALDOR

37 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The top U.S. military officer said Wednesday that he tried to reach out to his Russian counterpart in the aftermath of the missile explosions in Poland, but wasn't able to get through.

Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said his staff tried to get Russia's top-ranking military official Gen. Valery Gerasimov on the phone to discuss the incident with “no success.”

Milley didn’t elaborate on the efforts, but the lack of communications raises concerns about high-level U.S.-Russian communications in a crisis. A strike against Poland, a NATO member, could have risked a larger conflict if it turned out that Russia had launched the strike.

The U.S. and other top leaders now say they believe the strike was probably launched by Ukrainian air defenses to defend against a Russian missile bombardment. But uncertainty swirled for hours. Several U.S. defense officials said it isn't unusual for Gerasimov to not be available for a call.

The lack of communication is worrisome, especially given the potential implications of the strike, said John Tierney, executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington.

Open lines of communication “are vital if we are to avoid the risk of conflict caused by misconception, miscalculations or mistake,” Tierney said. “It is unsettling to learn from General Milley that his counterpart was unreachable or not willing to engage when an explosion occurred in Poland.”

---

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Milley did talk to his military counterparts in Ukraine and Poland as the governments worked quickly to assess whether the missile that killed two people in Poland had been launched by Russia or Ukraine.

The conversation came as Milley has said that Russia's recent defeat in the key southern city Kherson and the possible slowdown of military operations in the winter could provide an opportunity to negotiate.

“You want to negotiate at a time when you’re at your strength, and your opponent is at weakness,” Milley said at a Pentagon briefing Wednesday. “The Russian military is suffering tremendously," he said, citing large losses of Russian tanks, fighting vehicles, fighter jets and helicopters.

If fighting slows down, Milley said that may become “a window” for talks about a political solution.

Both he and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that they expect Ukraine to keep fighting through the winter, and the U.S. and its allies will continue to provide more support and weapons. And it will be up to Ukraine to determine any negotiation plans.

“We’ve said repeatedly that the Ukrainians are going to decide that and not us. And we will support them for as long as it takes,” said Austin, who was also at the briefing.

The missile that landed in Poland Tuesday was launched during the "largest wave of missiles that we’ve seen since the beginning of the war,” Austin said. On Tuesday Russia launched as many as 100 missiles at Ukraine as Moscow intensifies its airstrikes following significant ground losses.

Milley said it's unlikely that either side can gain a military victory quickly. He said the chance of Russia, which currently controls about 20% of Ukraine, overrunning the entire country “is close to zero.” And, he added, the “task of militarily kicking the Russians physically out of Ukraine is a very difficult task. And it’s not going to happen in the next couple of weeks unless the Russian army completely collapses, which is unlikely.”

mickeyrat

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-business-government-and-politics-179426c8a7e66b4f1e0054ec915e6fbd

  

Russia-Ukraine war Kyiv United Nations Government and politics

Russia launches new Ukraine barrage as grain deal extended

By JOHN LEICESTER

1 hour ago

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian airstrikes targeted Ukraine’s energy facilities again Thursday as the first snow of the season fell in Kyiv, a harbinger of the hardship to come if Moscow’s missiles continue to take out power and gas plants as winter descends.

Separately, the United Nations announced the extension of a deal to ensure exports of grain and fertilizers from Ukraine that were disrupted by the war. The deal was set to expire soon, renewing fears of a global food crisis if exports were blocked from one of the world's largest grain producers.

Even as all sides agreed to extend the deal, air raid sirens sounded across Ukraine on Thursday. At least four people were killed and more than a dozen others wounded in the drone and missile strikes, including one that hit a residential building, authorities said.

The Kremlin’s forces have suffered a series of setbacks on the ground, the latest being the loss of the southern city of Kherson. In the face of those defeats, Russia has increasingly resorted to aerial onslaughts aimed at energy infrastructure and other civilian targets in parts of Ukraine it doesn’t hold.

Thursday's salvo appeared to be on a lesser scale than the nationwide barrage of more than 100 missiles and drones that knocked out power to 10 million people earlier this week. Tuesday's strikes were described by Ukraine’s energy minister as the biggest barrage yet of the nearly 9-month-old invasion against the battered power grid.

---

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NATO sees no Russia threat amid Poland blast investigation

It also resulted in a missile landing in Poland, killing two people. Authorities are still trying to ascertain where that missile came from, with early indications pointing to a Ukrainian air defense system meant to counter the Russian bombardment.

The renewed bombings come as many Ukrainians are coping with the discomforts of regular blackouts and heating outages, as winter approaches. A light snow dusted the capital Thursday, where the temperature fell below freezing.

The city’s military administration said air defenses shot down at least two cruise missiles and five Iranian-made exploding drones.

Russian strikes also hit the central city of Dnipro and Ukraine’s southern Odesa region for the first time in weeks. And critical infrastructure was also hit in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, in the area of Izyum, wounding three workers, the regional administration said.

The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, called the strikes on energy targets “naive tactics of cowardly losers” in a Telegram post on Thursday.

“Ukraine has already withstood extremely difficult strikes by the enemy, which did not lead to results the Russian cowards hoped for,” Yermak wrote.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted on Telegram a video that he said was one of the blasts in Dnipro. The footage from a vehicle dashcam showed a fiery blast engulfing a rainy road.

“This is another confirmation from Dnipro of how terrorists want peace,” Zelenskyy wrote, referring to the Kremlin's forces. “The peaceful city and people’s wish to live their accustomed lives. Going to work, to their affairs. A rocket attack!”

Valentyn Reznichenko, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said a large fire erupted in Dnipro after the strikes on the city hit an industrial target. The attack wounded at least 14 people, Reznichenko said.

An infrastructure target was hit on the Odesa region, Gov. Maksym Marchenko said on Telegram, warning about the threat of a “massive missile barrage on the entire territory of Ukraine.”

Elsewhere, a Russian strike that hit a residential building killed at least four people overnight in Vilnia in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia. Rescuers combed the rubble for any other victims, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a senior official in the Ukrainian presidential office.

Officials in the Poltava, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi and Rivne regions urged residents to stay in bomb shelters.

The war's impact has been felt far beyond Ukraine, perhaps most significantly in global food markets. Ukraine and Russia are among the world's largest exporters of grain, and Russia is also a significant producer of fertilizer.

There were concerns in recent days about the fate of a U.N.- and Turkey-brokered deal meant to address disruptions to those exports that was set to expire Saturday. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres confirmed it had been extended for four months.

In addition to securing the safe passage of Ukrainian exports, Guterres said in a statement the United Nations is also “fully committed” to removing obstacles that have impeded the export of food and fertilizer from Russia.

The Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed the extension, and Zelenskyy called it a “key decision in the global fight against the food crisis.”

___

Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva, and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

mickeyrat

https://apnews.com/article/nato-g-20-summit-china-indonesia-india-5ec464cb624b46d0cca9bcbb0c08371f

 

Russia-Ukraine war G-20 Summit NATO China India Indonesia United States Beijing New Delhi Moscow Bali Government and politics

Analysis: Have China and India shifted stance on Russia war?

By FOSTER KLUG

Today

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AP) — China and India, after months of refusing to condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine, did not stand in the way of the release this week of a statement by the world’s leading economies that strongly criticizes Moscow.

Could this, at last, signal a bold new policy change by Beijing and New Delhi to align themselves with what the United States and its allies believe is the best way to end a war that has brought death and misery to Ukraine and disrupted millions of lives as food and energy prices soar and economies crack?

There's certainly an eagerness by a world weary of war to see it as the beginning of a shift by the burgeoning global powers.

Look close enough, however, and there’s enough subtlety, not to mention spots of vagueness, in both the official statement released at the end of the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, and in actions from China and India themselves, to raise questions about whether a real change is underway.

Their positions will become clearer in coming weeks, but for now both nations, which have significant trade ties with Russia and have so far stopped short of outright criticism of the war, may simply be looking out for their own interests and keeping future options open.

---

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Figuring out what exactly happened in Bali matters because there’s growing worry that without political and diplomatic pressure by China and India, Russia will be far less likely to end its war.

The conflict in Ukraine loomed large over the two-day summit on Bali, which was attended by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. News early Wednesday of an explosion that rocked eastern Poland prompted U.S. President Joe Biden to hastily arrange an emergency meeting with Group of Seven and NATO members at the summit.

The backroom wrangling at the G-20 over how to address Russia’s invasion in its statement was “very, very tough,” summit host Indonesian President Joko Widodo said.

“Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy,” the statement said.

The less-than-universal language — “most members” — signals the presence of dissent, as does an acknowledgement that “there were other views and different assessments” and that the G-20 is “not the forum to resolve security issues.”

The final product, however, was seen by some as a strong rebuke of a war that has killed thousands, heightened global security tensions and disrupted the world economy.

The public statement used language from a March U.N. resolution that deplored “in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine” and demanded “its complete and unconditional withdrawal” from Ukrainian territory.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the G-20 summit’s “surprisingly clear words” on Ukraine “wouldn’t have been possible if important countries hadn’t helped us to come together this way — that includes India and it also includes, for example, South Africa.”

“This is something which shows that there are many in the world who don’t think this war is right, who condemn it, even if they abstained in the votes at the United Nations for various reasons,” Scholz said. “And I am sure that this is one of the results of this summit: the Russian president stands almost alone in the world with his policy.”

John Kirton, director of the G-20 Research Group, called it a “big breakthrough” and an “active shift” by China and India in which they joined the “democratic side of the great immediate geopolitical divide.”

Privately, however, some diplomats were wary about declaring that China has shifted its stance on Russia.

Chinese President Xi Jinping may have simply made a decision to not be seen as a spoiler or outlier during face-to-face meetings with other leaders in Bali. The statement also allows China to avoid going all-in with a Russia that is looking more and more isolated as it increases attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure.

What Beijing hasn’t done is change — or even publicly question — its fundamental relations with Russia.

China has closely aligned its foreign policy with Russia in recent years, as pipeline projects and natural gas sales have brought them closer economically.

It has refused to publicly criticize Russia’s aggression or even refer to it as an invasion, while criticizing sanctions and accusing the United States and NATO of provoking Putin, although it has warned against allowing the conflict to go nuclear.

Just weeks before Moscow's invasion, the Russian and Chinese leaders met in Beijing, where they signed a joint statement affirming that their bilateral relationship had “no” limits.

It was unclear whether China pushed for the softening language in the G-20 statement acknowledging “other views and different assessments” and that the G-20 is “not the forum to resolve security issues,” but Shi Yinhong, professor of international relations at Beijing’s Renmin University, said it has pushed for such phrases on other occasions.

For India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also avoided criticism of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Modi, however, indicated for the first time in public India’s discomfort with the attack when he met Putin in September.

“I know that today’s era is not of war,” Modi told Putin.

That message "resonated very deeply across all the delegations and helped to bridge the gap across different parties and contributed to the successful outcome of the document” in Bali, Indian Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra told reporters.

Navdeep Suri, a retired Indian diplomat, said he sees a subtle shift in India’s position in dealing with Russia.

China, however, may be “in a far more awkward position than India because China is the one that promised unlimited support to Russia a few days before the invasion,” Suri said. "China has (now) gone along with such tough language, including the unconditional and complete withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine.”

Dilip Sinha, another retired Indian diplomat, noted that India continues to buy oil, to trade with Russia and to abstain from U.N. resolutions critical of Russia.

"There is a feeling of bravado in India that it has its way. I don’t see any change at all in India’s policy on Russia on the war in Ukraine,” Sinha said.

___

Foster Klug, AP’s news director for the Koreas, Japan, Australia and the South Pacific, has covered Asia since 2005.

___

Associated Press writer Ashok Sharma in New Delhi contributed to this story.

Halifax2TheMax

Banksy invades Ukraine.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/ClEaVDJOPaM/?igshid=NTdlMDg3MTY=

mickeyrat

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-europe-sergei-shoigu-government-and-politics-c1807bad8b7a92022a5c40e8d989439a

 

Russia-Ukraine war Vladimir Putin Estonia Moscow Sergei Shoigu Government and politics

Where's Putin? Leader leaves bad news on Ukraine to others

By DASHA LITVINOVA

Today

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — When Russia's top military brass announced in a televised appearance that they were pulling troops out of the key city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, one man missing from the room was President Vladimir Putin.

As Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Gen. Sergei Surovikin, Russia’s chief commander in Ukraine, stiffly recited the reasons for the retreat in front of the cameras on Nov. 9, Putin was touring a neurological hospital in Moscow, watching a doctor perform brain surgery.

Later that day, Putin spoke at another event but made no mention of the pullout from Kherson -– arguably Russia’s most humiliating withdrawal in Ukraine. In the days that followed, he hasn't publicly commented on the topic.

Putin’s silence comes as Russia faces mounting setbacks in nearly nine months of fighting. The Russian leader appears to have delegated the delivery of bad news to others — a tactic he used during the coronavirus pandemic.

Kherson was the only regional capital Moscow’s forces had seized in Ukraine, falling into Russian hands in the first days of the invasion. Russia occupied the city and most of the outlying region, a key gateway to the Crimean Peninsula, for months.

---

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Moscow illegally annexed the Kherson region, along with three other Ukrainian provinces, earlier this year. Putin personally hosted a pomp-filled Kremlin ceremony formalizing the moves in September, proclaiming that “people who live in Luhansk and Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia become our citizens forever.”

Just over a month later, however, Russia's tricolor flags came down over government buildings in Kherson, replaced with the yellow-and-blue banners of Ukraine.

The Russian military reported completing the withdrawal from Kherson and surrounding areas to the eastern bank of the Dnieper River on Nov. 11. Since then, Putin has not mentioned the retreat in any of his public appearances.

Putin “continues to live in the old logic: This is not a war, it is a special operation, main decisions are being made by a small circle of ‘professionals,’ while the president is keeping his distance,” political analyst Tatyana Stanovaya wrote in a recent commentary.

Putin, who was once rumored to personally supervise the military campaign in Ukraine and give battlefield orders to generals, appeared this week to be focused on everything but the war.

He discussed bankruptcy procedures and car industry problems with government officials, talked to a Siberian governor about boosting investments in his region, had phone calls with various world leaders and met with the new president of Russia’s Academy of Science.

On Tuesday, Putin chaired a video meeting on World War II memorials. That was the day when he was expected to speak at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia — but he not only decided not to attend, he didn't even join it by video conference or send a pre-recorded speech.

The World War II memorial meeting was the only one in recent days in which some Ukrainian cities -– but not Kherson -– were mentioned. After the meeting, Putin signed decrees awarding the occupied cities of Melitopol and Mariupol the title of City of Military Glory, while Luhansk was honored as City of Labor Merit.

Independent political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin attributed Putin’s silence to the fact he has built a political system akin to that of the Soviet Union, in which a leader – or “vozhd” in Russian, a term used to describe Josef Stalin – by definition is incapable of making mistakes.

“Putin and Putin’s system … is built in a way that all defeats are blamed on someone else: enemies, traitors, a stab in the back, global Russophobia -– anything, really,” Oreshkin said. “So if he lost somewhere, first, it’s untrue, and second -– it wasn’t him.”

Some of Putin’s supporters questioned such obvious distancing from what even pro-Kremlin circles viewed as a critical developments in the war.

For Putin to have phone calls with the leaders of Armenia and the Central African Republic at the time of the retreat from Kherson was more troubling than “the very tragedy of Kherson,” said pro-Kremlin political analyst Sergei Markov in a post on Facebook.

"At first, I didn’t even believe the news, that’s how incredible it was,” Markov said, describing Putin’s behavior as a “demonstration of a total withdrawal.”

Others sought to put a positive spin on the retreat and weave Putin into it. Pro-Kremlin TV host Dmitry Kiselev, on his flagship news show Sunday night, said the logic behind the withdrawal from Kherson was “to save people.”

According to Kiselev, who spoke in front of a large photo of Putin looking preoccupied with a caption saying, “To Save People,” it was the same logic the president uses – “to save people, and in specific circumstances, every person.”

That's how some ordinary Russians can view the retreat, too, analysts say.

“Given the growing number of people who want peace talks, even among Putin’s supporters, any such maneuver is taken calmly or even as a sign of a possible sobering up –- saving manpower, the possibility of peace,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment.

For Russia's hawks -– vocal Kremlin supporters who have been calling for drastic battlefield steps and weren’t thrilled about the Kherson retreat -– there are regular barrages of missile strikes on Ukraine’s power grid, analyst Oreshkin said.

Moscow launched one Tuesday. With about 100 missiles and drones fired at targets across Ukraine, it was the biggest attack to date on the country’s power grid and plunged millions into darkness.

Oreshkin believes that such attacks don’t inflict too much damage onto Ukraine’s military and don’t change much on the battlefield.

“But it is necessary to create an image of a victorious ‘vozhd.’ So it is necessary to carry out some kind of strikes and scream about them loudly. That’s what they’re doing right now, in my opinion,” he said.

—-

Follow AP coverage of the war in Ukraine at: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Halifax2TheMax

Damn you Brandon! Now you’re getting the attention of conservative opinion writers. What’s next? An endorsement from Maggie Three Names for re-election?

Opinion  Biden deserves props for his masterful Ukraine policy

This week’s report that a Russian-made missile had fallen in Poland, a NATO ally, could have increased tensions with Russia and even led to direct conflict between the belligerent nation and the Western alliance. The fact that it didn’t casts a light on one of the year’s underreported stories: how masterfully the Biden administration has handled the Ukraine crisis.

Some of my fellow conservatives will strenuously disagree with this assessment. In their telling, the United States has no essential national security interest in a free and democratic Ukraine. President Biden’s decision to send massive amounts of military aid to the nation unnecessarily risked war with nuclear-armed Russia. And his decision to join our European allies in imposing severe economic sanctions on Russia is harming our economy, too.

But that ignores the key fact: America’s primary national security interest is to keep our potential enemies far away from our shores, and the least costly and most effective way of doing that is to assemble a network of allies across the globe. We take interest in their security objectives; they, in turn, assist us in obtaining ours.

Biden understood from the start of the conflict in Ukraine that our European allies in NATO viewed Russian designs very differently. Our allies in Eastern Europe, such as Poland, feared they would be next if NATO allowed Ukraine to be conquered. Our allies in Western Europe, such as Germany and France, also feared an aggressive Russia but thought that Russian President Vladimir Putin could be bought off with his country’s extensive economic ties with their countries. Balancing those views was the most important principle animating U.S. policy in the run-up to the invasion.

Thus came Biden’s elegant two-step: First, he warned the world that the invasion was coming and that there would be serious consequences if Russia went through with it. Second, he let Germany and France take the diplomatic lead, giving them the opportunity to prove that their assessments of Putin were correct. Biden also chose not to rush massive amounts of arms to Ukraine, an act that would have given Putin a pretext for the invasion he had already decided to launch. Being too quick to provide weapons also would have harmed Biden’s ability to rally recalcitrant allies in an anti-Russian cordon.

This dance worked perfectly. The Eastern allies knew we shared their fears, and the Western allies were shocked into action after their views about Putin proved dangerously naive. This gave Biden massive credibility to shape the alliance’s actions regarding Russia.

As a result, the economic sanctions the U.S.-led grouping levied were far more severe than almost any observer would have thought possible beforehand. And the military aid the alliance provided has been much more lethal than any that had been contemplated just a year ago. Ukraine now has the upper hand in a war against a foe three times as large. That’s all due to Biden’s superb diplomacy.

This maneuvering has also created collateral behaviors that redound to U.S. security. European powers had been leery of confronting China before Russia’s invasion, weakening the United States’ ability to contain its primary security threat. Now, with Chinese President Xi Jinping tacitly supporting Russia, Europe no longer sees China as a benign power. Even though many European elites resent America for its sometimes overbearing diplomatic manner and military swagger, they also know they share more values with the United States than they ever could with an autocratic Russo-Chinese axis. They are now likelier to back our initiatives to reduce China’s economic and diplomatic influence.

None of this was preordained. A U.S. president whose primary goal was to prevent confrontation with Russia might have been inclined to cut a deal with Putin that effectively gave him what he wanted, pushing Europe further into a strategy of appeasement. A president who intended to confront Russia might have involved the United States too deeply in Ukraine, alienating our allies and setting up the potential for a direct military clash between superpowers. Biden’s middle course avoided these missteps and set the United States up to reap massive benefits.

Biden will have to keep this balanced approach as the war continues. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would like to see the United States and NATO involve themselves more directly in his war, which is why he was quick to argue that his country was not responsible for the missile that fell in Poland. But the more territory Ukraine retakes, the closer it gets to the territory Russia seized in 2014. We now know Putin will not risk war with the West over Kherson or Zaporizhzhia. He might feel differently if a U.S.-armed Ukraine threatens to retake Crimea.

But those concerns are in the future. For now, it appears that Biden has reinvigorated NATO and brought the Europeans closer to our views on China. That’s cause for celebration across the partisan divide.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/biden-deserves-props-ukraine-russia-missile-poland/

mickeyrat

Halifax2TheMax said:

Damn you Brandon! Now you’re getting the attention of conservative opinion writers. What’s next? An endorsement from Maggie Three Names for re-election?

Opinion 

 Biden deserves props for his masterful Ukraine policy

This week’s report that a Russian-made missile had fallen in Poland, a NATO ally, could have increased tensions with Russia and even led to direct conflict between the belligerent nation and the Western alliance. The fact that it didn’t casts a light on one of the year’s underreported stories: how masterfully the Biden administration has handled the Ukraine crisis.

Some of my fellow conservatives will strenuously disagree with this assessment. In their telling, the United States has no essential national security interest in a free and democratic Ukraine. President Biden’s decision to send massive amounts of military aid to the nation unnecessarily risked war with nuclear-armed Russia. And his decision to join our European allies in imposing severe economic sanctions on Russia is harming our economy, too.

But that ignores the key fact: America’s primary national security interest is to keep our potential enemies far away from our shores, and the least costly and most effective way of doing that is to assemble a network of allies across the globe. We take interest in their security objectives; they, in turn, assist us in obtaining ours.

Biden understood from the start of the conflict in Ukraine that our European allies in NATO viewed Russian designs very differently. Our allies in Eastern Europe, such as Poland, feared they would be next if NATO allowed Ukraine to be conquered. Our allies in Western Europe, such as Germany and France, also feared an aggressive Russia but thought that Russian President Vladimir Putin could be bought off with his country’s extensive economic ties with their countries. Balancing those views was the most important principle animating U.S. policy in the run-up to the invasion.

Thus came Biden’s elegant two-step: First, he warned the world that the invasion was coming and that there would be serious consequences if Russia went through with it. Second, he let Germany and France take the diplomatic lead, giving them the opportunity to prove that their assessments of Putin were correct. Biden also chose not to rush massive amounts of arms to Ukraine, an act that would have given Putin a pretext for the invasion he had already decided to launch. Being too quick to provide weapons also would have harmed Biden’s ability to rally recalcitrant allies in an anti-Russian cordon.

This dance worked perfectly. The Eastern allies knew we shared their fears, and the Western allies were shocked into action after their views about Putin proved dangerously naive. This gave Biden massive credibility to shape the alliance’s actions regarding Russia.

As a result, the economic sanctions the U.S.-led grouping levied were far more severe than almost any observer would have thought possible beforehand. And the military aid the alliance provided has been much more lethal than any that had been contemplated just a year ago. Ukraine now has the upper hand in a war against a foe three times as large. That’s all due to Biden’s superb diplomacy.

This maneuvering has also created collateral behaviors that redound to U.S. security. European powers had been leery of confronting China before Russia’s invasion, weakening the United States’ ability to contain its primary security threat. Now, with Chinese President Xi Jinping tacitly supporting Russia, Europe no longer sees China as a benign power. Even though many European elites resent America for its sometimes overbearing diplomatic manner and military swagger, they also know they share more values with the United States than they ever could with an autocratic Russo-Chinese axis. They are now likelier to back our initiatives to reduce China’s economic and diplomatic influence.

None of this was preordained. A U.S. president whose primary goal was to prevent confrontation with Russia might have been inclined to cut a deal with Putin that effectively gave him what he wanted, pushing Europe further into a strategy of appeasement. A president who intended to confront Russia might have involved the United States too deeply in Ukraine, alienating our allies and setting up the potential for a direct military clash between superpowers. Biden’s middle course avoided these missteps and set the United States up to reap massive benefits.

Biden will have to keep this balanced approach as the war continues. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would like to see the United States and NATO involve themselves more directly in his war, which is why he was quick to argue that his country was not responsible for the missile that fell in Poland. But the more territory Ukraine retakes, the closer it gets to the territory Russia seized in 2014. We now know Putin will not risk war with the West over Kherson or Zaporizhzhia. He might feel differently if a U.S.-armed Ukraine threatens to retake Crimea.

But those concerns are in the future. For now, it appears that Biden has reinvigorated NATO and brought the Europeans closer to our views on China. That’s cause for celebration across the partisan divide.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/biden-deserves-props-ukraine-russia-missile-poland/

feeble minded doddering old fool.

mickeyrat

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-europe-business-46c1061fc44458c903cf12fa442c57e1

  

Russia-Ukraine war Moscow

'We survived': Kherson comes alive after Russian withdrawal

By HANNA ARHIROVA

Yesterday

KHERSON, Ukraine (AP) — A week since the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson was liberated, residents can't escape reminders of the terrifying eight months they spent under Russian occupation.

People are missing. There are mines everywhere, closed shops and restaurants, a scarcity of electricity and water, and explosions day and night as Russian and Ukrainian forces battle just across the Dnieper River.

Despite the hardships, residents are expressing a mix of relief, optimism, and even joy — not least because of their regained freedom to express themselves at all.

“Even breathing became easier. Everything is different now,” said Olena Smoliana, a pharmacist whose eyes shone with happiness as she recalled the day Ukrainian soldiers entered the city.

Kherson's population has dwindled to around 80,000 from its prewar level near 300,000, but the city is slowly coming alive. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy triumphantly walked the streets on Monday, hailing Russia’s withdrawal — a humiliating defeat for Russian President Vladimir Putin — as the “beginning of the end of the war.”

People are no longer afraid to leave home or worried that contact with Russian soldiers might lead to a prison or torture cell. They are gathering in city squares — adorned with blue-and-yellow ribbons on their bags and jackets — to recharge phones, collect water and to talk with neighbors and relatives.

---

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“If we survived the occupation, we will survive this without any problems,” said Yulia Nenadyschuk, 53, who had hunkered down at home with her husband, Oleksandr, since the Russian invasion began but now comes downtown every day.

The worst deprivation was the lack of freedom to be yourself, which was like being in a “cage,” she said.

“You couldn’t say anything out loud, you couldn’t speak Ukrainian,” said Oleksandr Nenadyschuk, 57. “We were constantly being watched, you couldn’t even look around.”

Residents of Kherson talk about the "silent terror'' that defined their occupation, which was different than the devastating military sieges that turned other Ukrainian cities — such as Mariupol, Sievierodonetsk, and Lysychansk — to rubble.

Russian forces entered Kherson in the early days of the war from nearby Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014, and quickly took over the city. The city was the only regional capital Moscow captured after the invasion began on Feb. 24.

People mostly communicate in Russian in Kherson. Early on in the war, some residents were tolerant of neighbors who sympathized with Russia, but there was a palpable shift during the occupation, said Smoliana, the pharmacist.

“I'm even ashamed to speak Russian,” she said. “They oppressed us emotionally and physically.”

Many people fled the city, but some just disappeared.

Khrystyna Yuldasheva, 18, works in a shop across the street from a building the Russian police used as a detention center and where Ukrainian officials are investigating allegations of torture and abuse.

“There is no one here anymore,” she told a woman who recently came by looking for her son.

Other people sought to leave, but couldn’t. “We tried to leave three times, but they closed all possible exits from the city,” said Tetiana, 37, who didn’t want to be identified by her last name.

While people were euphoric immediately after the Russian retreat, Kherson remains a city on hold. The Russian soldiers left a city devoid of basic infrastructure — water, electricity, transportation and communications.

Many shops, restaurants and hotels are still closed and many people are out of work. Residents were drawn downtown this past week by truckloads of food that arrived from Ukrainian supermarket chains or to take advantage of internet hotspots that were set up.

Russian products can still be found in small shops that survived through occupation. And the city is still adorned with banners touting Russian propaganda like “Ukrainians and Russians are a single nation,” or that encourage Ukrainians to get a Russian passport.

Some Ukrainians curse out loud when they walk past the remnants of war.

The humiliating Russian retreat did not end the sounds of war in Kherson. About 70% of the wider Kherson region is still in Russian hands. Explosions are heard regularly, although locals aren’t always sure whether they are from the mine-removal work or from clashing Russian and Ukrainian artillery.

On Saturday evening, two missiles struck an oil depot in Kherson — the first time a depot was hit in the city since the Russians withdrew, according to firefighters. Associated Press reporters saw a blazing fire and thick black smoke at the scene. Firefighters said the Russians stole firetrucks and ambulances as they retreated, leaving local authorities scrambling for resources to respond to attacks.

“There was a strong explosion,” said Valentyna Svyderska, who lives nearby. “We were scared, everyone was scared ... Because this is an army that is at war with the civilian population."

Earlier in the day, people excitedly waited for the first train to arrive in Kherson since the early days of the invasion. Mykola Desytniakov, 56, hasn’t seen his wife since she left for Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, with their two daughters in June.

Desytniakov stayed behind to take care of his ailing parents, he said, holding a single rose and peering anxiously over the platform.

“She will scold me, she doesn’t like flowers,” he said of his wife. “But I will give them to her anyway.”

Ludmila Olhouskaya didn’t have anyone to meet but went to the station anyway to show her support.

“This is the beginning of a new life,” the 74-year-old said, wiping off tears of joy. “Or rather, the revival of a former one.”

A major obstacle to bringing people back to Kherson, and to the rebuilding effort, will be clearing all the mines the Russians placed inside offices and around critical infrastructure, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

“Demining is needed here to bring life back,” Mary Akopian, the deputy internal affairs minister, said. Kherson has a bigger problem with mines than any of the other cities Ukraine reclaimed from the Russians because it had been under occupation for the longest period, she said.

Akopian estimated it would take years to completely clear mines from the city and the surrounding province. Already, 25 people have died clearing mines and other explosives left behind.

Before retreating, Russian soldiers looted from stores and businesses — and even museums. The Ukrainian government estimates that 15,000 artifacts have been stolen from museums in the Kherson region and taken to Crimea, which itself was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

“There is, in fact, nothing there,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a senior official in Zelenskyy's office, wrote after a trip to the Kherson region. “The Russians killed and mined and robbed all cities and towns.”

Despite the ongoing fighting nearby, people in Kherson feel confident enough about their safety to ignore air-raid warning sirens and gather in large numbers on the streets — to greet each other and to thank Ukrainian soldiers.

Like many residents, the Nenadyschuks do not wince when they hear the explosions in the distance, and they are loathe to complain about any other difficulty they face.

“We are holding on. We are waiting for victory. We won’t whine,” said Yulia Nenadyschuk. “All of Ukraine," her husband added, "is in this state now.”

___

Sam Mednick contributed to this story.

___

Follow all AP stories on the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.

mickeyrat

  https://youtu.be/fyaG64rGWoU

mickeyrat

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-kyiv-europe-government-and-politics-06f7d7958e3a0f44746918c2d6c5dab1

 

Russia-Ukraine war Kyiv Government and politics

US sending Ukraine $400 million in ammunition, generators

By TARA COPP

1 hour ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is sending an additional $400 million in ammunition and generators to Ukraine, the White House announced Wednesday, and is pulling the gear from its own stockpiles to get the support to Kyiv as fast as possible as Russia continues to target Ukraine's energy sources and winter sets in.

Including the latest aid, the U.S. has committed more than $19 billion in weapons and other equipment to Ukraine since Russia attacked on Feb. 24. The new package of aid will be provided through presidential drawdown authority, which allows the Pentagon to take weapons from its own stock and quickly ship them to Ukraine.

The latest package includes 200 generators, an undisclosed amount of additional rounds for both the advanced NASAMS air defense systems and the HIMARS artillery systems the U.S. has shipped to Ukraine, 150 heavy machine guns with thermal sights to shoot down drones, 10,000 120mm mortar rounds and 20 million rounds of small arms ammunition, among other items, the Pentagon said.

Now in its ninth month, the intense firefight in Ukraine has had both sides firing thousands of rounds of munitions a day, from bullets for small arms to truck-sized cruise missiles. In a sign of how intense the ground battle has been, the U.S. to date has provided 104 million rounds of small arms ammunition to Ukraine.

---

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“With Russia’s unrelenting and brutal missile and (drone) attacks on Ukrainian critical energy infrastructure, additional air defense capabilities remain an urgent priority," the Pentagon said in a statement. “The additional munitions for NASAMS and heavy machine guns will help Ukraine counter these urgent threats.”

The continued push of weapons to Kyiv, however, is raising questions about how long the U.S. and partner nations can continue to sustain the fight without harming their own military readiness. Many European nations have already said they have pushed forward all the excess they can afford to send.

Last week, the Pentagon's top weapons buyer, Bill LaPlante, traveled to Brussels to meet with representatives of 45 partner nations to discuss some of Ukraine's top priorities, including more air defense systems and long-range weapons. They discussed coordinating efforts to keep weapons flowing by identifying the capabilities of their individual defense industrial bases as well as the supply chain and production constraints they face, the Pentagon said in a statement.

The flow of weapons comes as the Biden administration seeks to pass an additional $37 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine during the post-election session of Congress, before Republicans take over control of the House in January. Some Republican members, including potential speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., have questioned the amount of money being spent on Ukraine.

___

Follow the AP's coverage of Russia's war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.