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FILE – WNBA star and two-time Olympic gold medalist Brittney Griner speaks to her lawyers standing in a cage at a court room prior to a hearing, in Khimki just outside Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, July 26, 2022. A Russian court has on Tuesday, Oct. 23 started hearing American basketball star Brittney Griner’s appeal against her nine-year prison sentence for drug possession. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool, File)
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CNN
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Russian troops have denounced an “incomprehensible battle” in Donetsk after apparently sustaining heavy losses during a week of intense fighting in the key eastern region of Ukraine.
Moscow has been trying to break through Kyiv’s defenses around the town of Pavlivka for at least the past seven days, but it seems to have made little progress with as many as 300 men killed in action, according to an open letter published on a prominent Russian military blog on Monday.
The men of the 155th Brigade of the Russian Pacific Fleet Marines launched stinging criticism against a senior Russian official in a rare display of defiance, accusing authorities of “hiding” the number of casualties “for fear of being held accountable.”
The letter, purportedly sent from the front lines to a regional Russian governor, came amid Moscow’s shaky offensive in a region President Vladimir Putin claimed to have illegally annexed just over a month ago.
“Once again we were thrown into an incomprehensible battle by General Muradov and his brother-in-law, his countryman Akhmedov, so that Muradov could earn bonuses to make him look good in the eyes of Gerasimov (Russia’s Chief of the General Staff),” the men said in the memo, sent to the governor of Primorsky Krai.
“As a result of the ‘carefully’ planned offensive by the ‘great commanders’ we lost about 300 men, dead and wounded, with some MIA over the past four days.
“We lost 50% of our equipment. That’s our brigade alone. The district command together with Akhmedov are hiding these facts and skewing the official casualty statistics for fear of being held accountable.”
They implored Governor Oleg Kozhemyako: “For how long will such mediocrities as Muradov and Akhmedov be allowed to continue to plan the military actions just to keep up appearances and gain awards at the cost of so many people’s lives?”
Russian military commentators have also criticized the army’s approach in Donetsk.
“The situation in Pavlivka has been discussed at the highest level for several days, and the blood keeps spilling,” Aleksandr Sladkov, a Russian military journalist working for All-Russian State Television and Radio, said on Telegram.
“Troops say that there is a dilemma now: exhausted units cannot be withdrawn without fresh ones being brought in. There are no fresh units and no possibility of withdrawal and replacement due the constant firing,” Russian military journalist Alexey Sukonkin, also posted on Telegram.
“Why did we retreat from Pavlivka and have to recapture it now?” Aleksander Khodakovsky, a Russian-backed commander from the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, said in criticism of Moscow’s tactical approach to the region.
Khodakovsky said Russian troops had been using basements as defensive positions, which meant they had not seen a flanking movement by the Ukrainians.
“That’s why quite a few Marines, including company commanders, were taken prisoner then. Not because they were weak in spirit, but because they were held hostage by their organization of defenses,” Khodakovsky said, adding that Ukrainian reconnaissance troops had used high-rise buildings in nearby Vuhledar and cameras fixed to the top of mine shafts to guide artillery strikes.
“The defenders of Pavlivka will again be taken hostage. Supplies and rotations will be difficult, it will be impossible to move through Pavlivka,” he said.
CNN cannot verify how many soldiers signed the letter nor their ranks, but Governor Kozhemyako confirmed he had received a letter from the unit.
“We contacted our Marine commanders on the front lines. These are guys who have been in combat since the beginning of the operation,” the governor said on Telegram.
Kozhemyako added the combat commander had emphasized that the deaths of the (Primorsky) troops were considerably exaggerated.
“I also know at first hand that our fighters showed at Pavlivka, as well as during the whole special military operation, true heroism and unprecedented courage. We inflicted serious damage on the enemy.”
Kozhemyako said the complaint made by the soldiers had been sent to the military prosecutor’s office.
Russia’s defense ministry issued a rare public response to criticism of the military operation in Donetsk, denying that its forces suffered “high, pointless losses in people and equipment.”
Russia’s losses in the area of Vuhledar and Pavlivka in the Donetsk region “do not exceed 1% of the combat strength and 7% of the wounded, a significant part of whom have already returned to duty,” the ministry claimed Monday, Russian state media agency TASS reported.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the fierce battle for Donetsk “remains the epicenter of the biggest madness of the occupiers” and refuted Kozhemyako’s claims that Moscow’s losses were “not that big.”
“They are dying in hundreds every day,” Zelensky added. “The ground in front of the Ukrainian positions is literally littered with the bodies of the occupiers.”
Noting that the governor was some 9,000 kilometers (around 5,500 miles) from the frontlines, Zelensky said: “The governor probably can see better from there how many military men and in what way are being sent for slaughter from his region. Or he was simply ordered to lie.”
Social media and drone videos in the past few days show numerous Russian tanks and other armored vehicles being struck around Pavlivka, which is about 50 kilometers southwest of Donetsk and has been on the front lines for several months.
The Ukrainian military released footage showing two Russian T-72B tanks and three BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicles struck by Ukrainian artillery and anti-tank systems, with senior officials referencing repelled attacks of intense shelling in the area.
“The enemy is losing the opportunity to implement their plans,” Oleksii Hromov, deputy head of Ukraine’s Operations Directorate of the General Staff, said Thursday.
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CNN
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A branch of Ukraine’s Orthodox church has announced that it will allow its churches to celebrate Christmas on December 25, rather than January 7, as is traditional in Orthodox congregations.
The announcement by the Kyiv-headquartered Orthodox Church of Ukraine widens the rift between the Russian Orthodox Church and other Orthodox believers that has deepened due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The decision came after “taking into account the numerous requests and taking into account the discussion that has been going on for many years in the Church and in society; predicting, in particular due to the circumstances of the war, the escalation of calendar disputes in the public space,” the Orthodox Church of Ukraine said in a statement published October 18.
Each church will have the option to celebrate on December 25, which marks the birth of Jesus according to the Gregorian calendar, rather than January 7, which marks the birth of Jesus according to the Julian calendar, still used by the Russian Orthodox Church.
In recent years a large part of the Orthodox community in Ukraine has moved away from Moscow, a movement accelerated by the conflict Russia stoked in eastern Ukraine beginning in 2014.
That schism became more open in 2018, after Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople – a Greek cleric who is considered the spiritual leader of Orthodox believers worldwide – endorsed the establishment of an independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine and revoked a centuries-old agreement that granted the Patriarch in Moscow authority over churches in the country.
The Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, which has become closely entwined with the Russian state under Russian President Vladimir Putin, responded by cutting ties with Bartholomew.
Then in May the leaders of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), another branch which had been formally subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, broke ties with the Moscow church, which is led by Patriarch Kirill, who has given his support to the invasion of Ukraine and has put his church firmly behind Putin.
In a statement, the UOC said it had opted for the “full independence and autonomy” of the Ukrainian church.
The emergence of a church independent of Moscow has infuriated Putin, who has made restoration of the so-called “Russian world” a centerpiece of his foreign policy and has dismissed Ukrainian national identity as illegitimate.
And Kirill remains outspoken in his support of the invasion, announcing in September that Russian soldiers who die in the war against Ukraine will be cleansed of all their sins.
“He is sacrificing himself for others,” he said. “I am sure that such a sacrifice washes away all sins that a person has committed.”
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Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin and a key figure in the war in Ukraine, admitted bluntly on Monday to interfering in U.S. elections.
“Gentlemen, we interfered, we are interfering, and we will interfere,” declared Prigozhin in a statement quoted by his company, Concord. The oligarch has been sanctioned by Washington for running a “troll factory” to influence the outcome of votes in the U.S. and elsewhere.
“Accurately, precisely, surgically, and the way we do it, the way we know how to,” Prigozhin quipped in response to a request for comment on the specifics of the interference from a Russian news outlet.
Prigozhin is the financial benefactor behind a so-called Russian “troll farm” previously called the Internet Research Agency. The group, which has changed it’s name multiple times, creates and uses inauthentic social media pages to spread misinformation or incendiary speech to affect voters and sow discord. Such organizations are believed to exist in Russia, China and Iran, at least, with the same intent.
The U.S. Treasury Department accused Prigozhin and the Internet Research Agency of interfering in the 2016 presidential election and the 2018 midterm elections. The organization was frequently mentioned by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller in his probe into Russia’s election interference.
In July, the State Department offered a reward of up to $10 million for information on Prigozhin in connection with his “engagement in U.S. election interference.”
Prigozhin’s own admission came on the eve of this week’s round of U.S. midterm elections, which will be key to shaping the rest of President Joe Biden’s presidency. It was the first such admission from an individual who has been formally accused by Washington of efforts to influence American politics.
Speaking on Sunday to CBS’ “Face the Nation” moderator Margaret Brennan, Chris Krebs, the former director of the U.S. government cybersecurity agency said, “we’ve seen reports of Russia, China, Iran back at their old tricks,” referring to online interference operations.
Krebs said two U.S. research firms had released information suggesting trolls linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency “are back at it and are undermining Democratic candidates for Senate” in this week’s midterms.
Combined with Elon Musk’s tumultuous takeover of Twitter, Krebs said it was all “going to create a very chaotic environment” for the U.S. democratic process.
The Kremlin has repeatedly denied ever seeking to influence elections in the U.S. or any other outside nation. Russian President Vladimir Putin ridiculed Mueller’s 2018 indictment of 13 Russians accused of a conspiracy to meddle in the presidential election that put Donald Trump in the White House.
“How low the Western information and political environment has fallen if a restauranteur from Russia could influence elections in the United States or a European country,” the Russian leader said at the time, referring to Prigozhin.
Alexei Druzhinin/Sputnik/Kremlin Pool/AP
The businessman is sometimes called “Putin’s chef” for the lucrative catering contracts he received from the Russian state.
The oligarch has kept a low profile for years, but recently Prigozhin has emerged as an increasingly public figure as the mercenaries from his Wagner Group have become a key force in bolstering Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Prigozhin denied bankrolling the Wagner Group for years, but in September he admitted to funding the pseudo-military company since 2014. Since then, the private Wagner army has helped advance the Kremlin’s geopolitical and business objectives in conflicts from Syria and Africa to Ukraine.
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KYIV, Ukraine — The mayor of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, is warning residents that they must prepare for the worst this winter if Russia keeps striking the country’s energy infrastructure — and that means having no electricity, water or heat in the freezing cold cannot be ruled out.
“We are doing everything to avoid this. But let’s be frank, our enemies are doing everything for the city to be without heat, without electricity, without water supply, in general, so we all die. And the future of the country and the future of each of us depends on how prepared we are for different situations,” Mayor Vitali Klitschko told state media.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation Sunday that about 4.5 million people were without electricity. He called on Ukrainians to endure the hardships and “we must get through this winter and be even stronger in the spring than now.”
Russia has focused on striking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure over the last month, causing power shortages and rolling outages across the country. Kyiv was having hourly rotating blackouts Sunday in parts of the city and the surrounding region.
Rolling blackouts also were planned in the Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Kharkiv and Poltava regions, Ukraine’s state-owned energy operator, Ukrenergo, said.
Kyiv plans to deploy about 1,000 heating points, but it’s unclear if that would be enough for a city of 3 million people.
As Russia intensifies its attacks on the capital, Ukrainian forces are pushing forward in the south. Residents of Ukraine’s Russian-occupied city of Kherson received warning messages on their phones urging them to evacuate as soon as possible, Ukraine’s military said Sunday. Russian soldiers warned civilians that Ukraine’s army was preparing for a massive attack and told people to leave for the city’s right bank immediately.
Russian forces are preparing for a Ukrainian counteroffensive to seize back the southern city of Kherson, which was captured during the early days of the invasion. In September, Russia illegally annexed Kherson as well as three other regions and subsequently declared martial law in the four provinces.
The Kremlin-installed administration in Kherson already has moved tens of thousands of civilians out of the city.
Russia has been “occupying and evacuating” Kherson simultaneously, trying to convince Ukrainians that they’re leaving when in fact they’re digging in, Nataliya Humenyuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s Southern Forces, told state television.
“There are defense units that have dug in there quite powerfully, a certain amount of equipment has been left, firing positions have been set up,” she said.
Russian forces are also digging in in a fiercely contested region in the east, worsening the already tough conditions for residents and the defending Ukrainian army following Moscow’s illegal annexation and declaration of martial law in Donetsk province.
The attacks have almost completely destroyed the power plants that serve the city of Bakhmut and the nearby town of Soledar, said Pavlo Kyrylenko, the region’s Ukrainian governor, said. Shelling killed one civilian and wounded three, he reported late Saturday.
“The destruction is daily, if not hourly,” Kyrylenko told state television.
Moscow-backed separatists have controlled part of Donetsk for nearly eight years before Russia invaded Ukraine in late February. Protecting the separatists’ self-proclaimed republic there was one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justifications for the invasion, and his troops have spent months trying to capture the entire province.
Between Saturday and Sunday, Russia’s launched four missiles and 19 airstrikes hitting more than 35 villages in nine regions, from Chernihiv and Kharkiv in the northeast to Kherson and Mykolaiv in the south, according to Zelenskyy’s office. The strikes killed two people and wounded six.
In the Donetsk city of Bakhmut, 15,000 remaining residents were living under daily shelling and without water or power, according to local media. The city has been under attack for months, but the bombardment picked up after Russian forces experienced setbacks during Ukrainian counteroffensives in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions.
The front line is now on Bakhmut’s outskirts, where mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a shadowy Russian military company, are reported to be leading the charge.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the group who has typically remained under the radar, is taking a more visible role in the war. In a statement Sunday he announced the funding and creation of “militia training centers” in Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions in the southwest, saying that locals were best placed to “fight against sabotage” on Russian soil. The training centers are in addition to a military technology center the group said it was opening in St. Petersburg.
In Kharkiv, officials were working to identify bodies found in mass graves after the Russians withdrew, Dmytro Chubenko, a spokesperson for the regional prosecutor’s office, told local media.
DNA samples have been collected from 450 bodies discovered in a mass grave in the city of Izium, but the samples need to be matched with relatives and so far only 80 people have participated, he said.
In one sliver of good news, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was reconnected to Ukraine’s power grid, local media reported Sunday. Europe’s largest nuclear plant needs electricity to maintain vital cooling systems, but it had been running on emergency diesel generators since Russian shelling severed its outside connections.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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Kyiv, Ukraine — Russian forces are stepping up their strikes in a fiercely contested region of eastern Ukraine, worsening the already tough conditions for residents and the defending army following Moscow’s illegal annexation and declaration of martial law in Donetsk province, Ukrainian authorities said.
The attacks have almost completely destroyed the power plants that serve the city of Bakhmut and the nearby town of Soledar, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the region’s Ukrainian governor, said. Shelling killed one civilians and wounded three, he reported late Saturday.
“The destruction is daily, if not hourly,” Kyrylenko said in a state television interview.
Moscow-backed separatists controlled part of Donetsk for nearly eight years before Russia invaded Ukraine in late February. Protecting the separatists’ self-proclaimed republic there was one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justifications for the invasion, and his troops have spent months trying to capture the entire province.
While Russia’s “greatest brutality” was focused in the Donetsk region, “constant fighting” continued elsewhere along the front line that stretches more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.
Between Saturday and Sunday, Russia’s launched four missiles and 19 airstrikes impacting more than 35 villages in seven regions, from Chernihiv and Kharkiv in the northeast to Kherson and Mykolaiv in the south, according to the president’s office.
Andriy Andriyenko/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Russia has focused on striking energy infrastructure over the last month, causing power shortages and rolling outages across the country. The capital, Kyiv, was scheduled to have hourly blackouts rotating Sunday in various parts of the city of some 3 million and the surrounding region.
Rolling blackouts also were planned in the Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Kharkiv and Poltava regions, Ukraine’s state-owned energy operator, Ukrenergo, said in a Telegram post.
More positive news was the re-connection of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to Ukraine’s power grid, local media reported Sunday. Europe’s largest nuclear plant needs electricity to maintain vital cooling system, but it had been running on emergency diesel generators since Russian shelling severed its outside connections.
In the Donetsk city of Bakhmut, some 15,000 remaining residents were living under daily shelling and without water or power, according to local media. The city has been under attack for months, but the bombardment picked up after Russian forces experienced setbacks during Ukrainian counteroffensives in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions.
In Kharkiv, officials are working to identify bodies found in mass graves after the Russians withdrew, Dmytro Chubenko, a spokesperson for the regional prosecutor’s office, said in an interview with local media.
DNA samples have been collected from 450 bodies discovered in a mass grave in the city of Izium, but the samples need to be matched with relatives and so far only 80 people have participated, he said.
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TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — The timing of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s imminent trip to China and what signals he will give to Beijing have raised questions at home, a German member of the European Parliament said Thursday.
Reinhard Butikofer of the Green Party, which is part of the governing coalition, said in Taiwan that Scholz’s one-day trip is “probably the most controversially debated visit in the country for the last 50 years.”
Scholz, who will be in Beijing on Friday, will be the first European leader to visit China since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which Germany has strongly opposed. Beijing has provided Moscow with diplomatic backing, accused the U.S. and NATO of provoking the attack and scathingly criticized punishing economic sanctions imposed on Russia.
Some in the ranks of Scholz’s three-party governing coalition have questioned at least the timing of his visit. His trips to Ukraine and Russia in February also stirred controversy.
Butikofer, part of a delegation of European lawmakers in Taiwan, spoke to a joint news conference from his hotel room, where he was under quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19.
“Just as in other European countries and the EU, … China policy will be in transformation, in transition for some time,” Butikofer said. “We cannot return to the China policy of yesterday here, because the realities have changed.”
Scholz has pledged to use his trip to make the case for Chinese moderation and assistance in calming the situations with Ukraine and Taiwan.
In the face of Chinese threats to annex Taiwan by military force, the self-governing island republic has drawn increasing support from Western politicians, even while their governments maintain only unofficial relations with Taipei in deference to Beijing.
Butikofer said Germany’s governing coalition had agreed on a first-ever “clear expression of support for Taiwan’s democracy against China’s aggression,” as well as Taiwan’s “meaningful participation” in international organizations from which it is currently excluded at China’s insistence.
Butikofer is one of five members of the European Parliament banned from visiting China, a step taken by Beijing after the EU, Britain, Canada and the United States launched coordinated sanctions against officials in China over human rights abuses in the far-western Xinjiang region.
The European Parliament has said it won’t ratify a long-awaited business investment deal with China as long as sanctions against its legislators remain in place.
Visiting along with Butikofer were legislators Els Van Hoof of Belgium, Sjoerd Sjoerdsma of Holland and Mykola Kniazhytskyi of Ukraine.
In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian called the lawmakers’ visit a “clumsy political hype-up” and said efforts by Taiwan’s governing Democratic Progressive Party to garner foreign support are “doomed to fail.”
At the news conference, Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu said the delegation’s visit “demonstrates the strength of the relations between Taiwan and the European Union and the bond that unites us with like-minded democracies across the globe.”
Sjoerdsma said the visit had special resonance following last month’s twice-a-decade congress of China’s ruling Communist Party, at which Chinese leader Xi Jinping reiterated Beijing’s determination to “reunify” with Taiwan. The sides split amid civil war in 1949 and the vast majority of Taiwanese reject Beijing’s calls to accept Chinese rule.
“We have a message to Beijing and I think the core message of our visit here is … that Taiwan is not to be isolated, but that contacts will only increase, that we will not be intimidated, that we will be coming over more often, and that our relations and our friendships are not to be determined by others,” Sjoerdsma said.
Scholz’s visit to Beijing was also criticized by Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Nathan Law, who said it risked sending mixed messages over the Ukraine invasion.
“German Chancellor Scholz’s visit is damaging the unity that the world has against Russia’s war efforts,” Law told The Associated Press during a visit to Taiwan.
Scholz’s trip is “definitely giving a lot of opportunity for Xi Jinping to see it as a badge of honor, to see it as means to dismiss the unity of the free world and silently to decrease pressure for Russia,” said LLaw, who fled arrest in Hong Kong during a Beijing-ordered crackdown on dissidents in the semi-autonomous Chinese city. “I think this is such a bad move.”
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Associated Press video journalists Johnson Lai and Taijing Wu contributed to this story.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Diplomatic efforts salvaged a wartime agreement that allowed Ukrainian grain and other commodities to reach world markets, with Russia saying Wednesday it would stick to the deal after Ukraine pledged not to use a designated Black Sea corridor to attack Russian forces.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that Ukraine formally committed to use the established safe shipping corridor between southern Ukraine and Turkey “exclusively in accordance with the stipulations” of the agreement.
“The Russian Federation believes that the guarantees it has received currently appear sufficient, and resumes the implementation of the agreement,” the ministry said, adding that medition by the United Nations and Turkey secured Russia’s continued cooperation.
Russia suspended its participation in the grain deal over the weekend, citing allegations of a Ukrainian drone attack against its Black Sea fleet in Crimea. Ukraine did not claim responsibility for the attack, which some Ukrainian officials blamed on Russian soldiers mishandling their own weapons.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu informed Turkey’s defense minister that the deal for a humanitarian grain corridor would “continue in the same way as before” as of noon Wednesday.
Erdogan said the renewed deal would prioritize shipments to African nations, including Somalia, Djibouti and Sudan, in line with Russia’s concerns that most of the exported grain had ended up in richer nations since Moscow and Kyiv made separate agreements with Turkey and the U.N. in July.
U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said Monday that 23% of the total cargo exported from Ukraine under the grain deal went to lower or lower-middle income countries, which also received 49% of all wheat shipments.
Ships loaded with grain departed Ukraine on Tuesday despite Russia halting its support for the agreement, which aimed to ensure safe passage of critical food supplies meant for parts of the world struggling with hunger. But the United Nations had said vessels would not move Wednesday, raising concerns about future shipments.
The United Nations and Turkey brokered separate deals with Russia and Ukraine in July to ensure Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia would receive grain and other food from the Black Sea region during Russia’s eight month-old war in Ukraine.
Ukraine and Russia are key global exporters of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other food to developing countries where many are already struggling with hunger. A loss of those supplies before the grain deal was brokered in July surged global food prices and helped throw tens of millions into poverty, along with soaring energy costs.
The grain agreement brought down global food prices about 15% from their peak in March, according to the U.N. Losing Ukrainian shipments would have meant poorer countries paying more to import grain in a tight global market as places like Argentina and the United States deal with dry weather, analysts say.
After the announcement of Russia rejoining the deal, wheat futures prices erased the increases seen Monday, dropping more than 6% in Chicago.
At least a third of the grain shipped in the last three months was going to the Middle East and North Africa, and while a lot of corn was going to Europe, “that’s the traditional buyer for Ukraine corn. It’s not like that was so unusual,” Joseph Glauber, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, said.
He added that more wheat was going to sub-Saharan Africa and Asian markets that have become increasingly important buyers of Ukrainian grain.
In Ukraine on Wednesday, thousands of homes in the Kyiv region and elsewhere remained without power, officials said Wednesday, as Russian drone and artillery strikes continued to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Kyiv region Gov. Oleksiy Kukeba said 16,000 homes were without electricity and drones attacked energy facilities in the Cherkasy region south of the capital, prompting power outages.
Although power and water were restored to the city of Kyiv, Kuleba didn’t rule out electricity shortages lasting “weeks” if Russian forces continue to hit energy facilities there. In a Telegram post, he accused Russian forces of trying to prompt a serious humanitarian crisis.
Power outages were also reported in the southern cities of Nikopol and Chervonohryhorivka following “a large-scale drone attack,” Dnipropetrovsk Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said.
The two cities are located across the Dniper River from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest nuclear facility. Russia and Ukraine have for months traded blame for shelling at and around the plant that U.N.’s nuclear watchdog warned could cause a radiation emergency.
Continued Russian shelling across nine regions in southern and eastern Ukraine resulted in the deaths of at least four civilians and the wounding of 17 others between Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The shelling also pounded cities and villages retaken by Ukraine last month in the northeastern Kharkiv region, wounding seven people.
Russian fire damaged a hospital, apartment buildings in the Donetsk region city of Toretsk. Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said Wednesday Ukrainian and Russian forces continued to fight for control of the cities of Avdiivka and Bakhmut, both key targets of a Russian offensive in the region.
In southern Ukraine, Russian-installed authorities in the occupied Kherson region relocated civilians some 90 kilometers (56 miles) further into Russian-held territory in anticipation of a major Ukrainian counterattack to recapture the provincial capital of the same name. Russian forces dug trenches to prepare for the expected ground assault.
The Kherson region’s Kremlin-appointed officials on Tuesday expanded an evacuation area to people living within 15 kilometers (9 miles) of the Dnieper River. They said 70,000 residents from the expanded evacuation zone would be relocated this week, doubling the number moved earlier.
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Fraser reported from Ankara. Courtney Bonnell in London contributed reporting.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine and on the food crisis at https://apnews.com/hub/food-crisis
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian officials on Monday morning reported a massive barrage of Russian strikes on critical infrastructure in Kyiv, Kharkiv and other cities.
Part of the Ukrainian capital was cut off from power and water supplies as a result, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Officials reported possible power outages in the cities of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia resulting from the strikes.
Critical infrastructure objects were also hit in the Cherkasy region southeast of Kyiv, and explosions were reported in other regions of Ukraine.
In Kharkiv, the subway ceased operating. Some parts of Ukrainian railways were also cut off from power, the Ukrainian Railways reported.
The attack comes two days after Russia accused Ukraine of a drone attack against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet off the coast of the annexed Crimean Peninsula. Ukraine has denied the attack, saying that Russia mishandled its own weapons, but Moscow still announced halting its participation in a U.N.-brokered deal to allow safe passage of ships carrying grain from Ukraine.
Commenting on Monday’s attacks, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office Andriy Yermak said that Russian forces “continue to fight with civilian facilities.”
“We will persevere, and generations of Russians will pay a high price for their disgrace,” Yermak said.
It’s the second time this month that Russia unleashed a massive barrage of strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure. On Oct. 10, a similar attack rocked the war-torn country following an explosion on the Kerch Bridge linking annexed Crimea to mainland Russia — an incident Moscow blamed on Kyiv.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian officials on Monday morning reported a massive barrage of Russian strikes on critical infrastructure in Kyiv, Kharkiv and other cities.
Part of the Ukrainian capital was cut off from power and water supplies as a result, its mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Officials also reported possible power outages in the cities of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia resulting from the strikes.
The attack comes two days after Russia accused Ukraine of a drone attack against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet off the coast of the annexed Crimean peninsula. Ukraine has denied the attack, saying that Russia mishandled its own weapons, but Moscow still announced halting its particiaption in a U.N.-brokered deal to allow safe passage of ships carrying grain from Ukraine.
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Russia announced Saturday that it will immediately suspend its implementation of a U.N.-brokered grain deal that has seen more than 9 million tons of grain exported from Ukraine during the war and has brought down soaring global food prices.
The Russian Defense Ministry cited an alleged Ukrainian drone attack Saturday against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet ships moored off the coast of occupied Crimea as the reason for the move. Ukraine has denied the attack, saying that the Russians mishandled their own weapons.
The Russian declaration came one day after U.N. chief Antonio Guterres urged Russia and Ukraine to renew the grain export deal, which was scheduled to expire on Nov. 19. Guterres also urged other countries, mainly in the West, to expedite the removal of obstacles blocking Russian grain and fertilizer exports.
The U.N. chief said the grain deal — brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July — helps “to cushion the suffering that this global cost-of-living crisis is inflicting on billions of people,” his spokesman said.
U.N. officials were in touch with Russian authorities over the announced suspension.
“It is vital that all parties refrain from any action that would imperil the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which is a critical humanitarian effort that is clearly having a positive impact on access to food for millions of people,” said U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Saturday accused British specialists of being involved in the alleged attack by drones on Russian ships in Crimea. Britain’s Defense Ministry had no immediate comment on the claim.
“In connection with the actions of Ukrainian armed forces, led by British specialists, directed, among other things, against Russian ships that ensure the functioning of the humanitarian corridor in question (which cannot be qualified otherwise than as a terrorist attack), the Russian side cannot guarantee the safety of civilian dry cargo ships participating in the Black Sea initiative, and suspends its implementation from today for an indefinite period,” the Russian statement said.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Infrastructure said that Ukraine has never threatened the Black Sea grain corridor which “is exclusively humanitarian in nature,” and would continue to try to keep shipments going. It said since the first ship left the port of Odesa on Aug. 1, more than 9 million tons of food have been exported, including more than 5 million tons to African and Asian countries. As part of the U.N. World Food Program, it said, 190 thousand tons of wheat have been sent to countries where there is hunger.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, accused Russia of playing “hunger games” by imperiling global food shipments.
“We warned about Russia’s plans to destroy the (grain agreement). Now, under false pretenses, Moscow is blocking the grain corridor that ensures food security for millions of people,” he tweeted Saturday.
The head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andriy Yermak, denounced the suspension as part of Russia’s “primitive blackmail.”
Turkish officials said they haven’t received any official notice yet of the deal’s suspension.
Russia also requested a meeting of the U.N. Security Council for Monday because of the alleged attack on the Black Sea Fleet and the security of the grain corridor, said Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s first deputy representative to the U.N. It would be the fourth U.N. Security Council meeting on Ukraine-related issues that Russia has called since Tuesday.
Russia’s agriculture minister said Moscow stands ready to “fully replace Ukrainian grain and deliver supplies at affordable prices to all interested countries.” In remarks carried by the state Rossiya 24 TV channel, Dmitry Patrushev said Moscow was prepared to “supply up to 500,000 tons of grain to the poorest countries free of charge in the next four months,” with the help of Turkey.
Earlier Saturday, Ukraine and Russia offered differing versions on the Crimea drone attack in which at least one Russian ship suffered damage in Sevastopol, the port on the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.
The Russian Defense Ministry said a minesweeper had “minor damage” during an alleged pre-dawn Ukrainian attack on navy and civilian vessels docked in Sevastopol, which hosts the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. The ministry claimed Russian forces had “repelled” 16 attacking drones.
The governor of the Sevastopol region, Mikhail Razvozhaev, claimed the port saw a “massive attack” by air and sea drones. He provided no evidence, saying all video from the area would be seized for security reasons.
But an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry claimed that “careless handling of explosives” had caused blasts on four warships in Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Anton Gerashchenko wrote on Telegram that the vessels included a frigate, a landing ship and a ship that carried cruise missiles used in a deadly July attack on a western Ukrainian city.
In other developments on Saturday, Russian troops moved large numbers of sick and wounded comrades from hospitals in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region and stripped the facilities of medical equipment, Ukrainian officials said as their forces fought to retake the province.
Kremlin-installed authorities in the mostly Russian-occupied region have urged civilians to leave the city of Kherson, the region’s capital — and reportedly joined the tens of thousands who fled to other Russia-held areas.
“The so-called evacuation of invaders from the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region, including from medical institutions, continues,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Russians were “dismantling the entire health care system” in Kherson and other occupied areas.
“The occupiers have decided to close medical institutions in the cities, take away equipment, ambulances. just everything,” Zelenskyy said.
Kherson is one of four regions in Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and where he subsequently declared martial law. The others are Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.
As Kyiv’s forces sought gains in the south, Russia kept up its shelling and missile attacks in the country’s east. Three more civilians died and eight more were wounded in the Donetsk region, a front-line hotspot as Russian soldiers try to capture the city of Bakhmut, an important target in Russia’s stalled eastern offensive.
Russian shelling also hit an industrial building in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region. Around a quarter of the region — including its capital — remains under Ukrainian control.
In the latest prisoner exchange, 50 Ukrainian soldiers, including two former defenders of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, and two civilians were released Saturday as part of a swap with Russia, according to Yermak. Russia received 50 Russian soldiers.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Russian troops moved large numbers of sick and wounded comrades from hospitals in southern Ukraine‘s Kherson region, Ukrainian military officials reported Saturday as their forces fought to retake a province overrun by invading soldiers early in the war.
Kremlin-installed authorities in the mostly Russian-occupied region previously urged civilians to leave the city of Kherson, the region’s capital. The Moscow-appointed authorities in Kherson also were reported this week to have joined tens of thousands of residents who fled to other Russia-held areas ahead of an expected Ukrainian advance.
“The so-called evacuation of invaders from the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region, including from medical institutions, continues,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a morning update. “All equipment and medicines are being removed from Kherson hospitals.”
The military’s claims could not be independently verified. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a nightly video address Friday that the Russians were “dismantling the entire health care system” in Kherson and other occupied areas.
“The occupiers have decided to close medical institutions in the cities, take away equipment, ambulances. just everything,” Zelenskyy said. “They put pressure on the doctors who still remained in the occupied areas for them to move to the territory of Russia.”
Kherson is one of four regions of Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and where he subsequently declared martial law. The others are Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.
Elsewhere on Saturday, at least two Russian ships suffered damage in a major port in Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014. Ukraine and Russia offered different versions of what happened and who was to blame.
The Russian Defense Ministry said two ships received “minor damage” during an alleged Ukrainian drone attack on navy and civilian vessels docked in Sevastopol at 4:20 a.m. The city, Crimea’s largest, hosts the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
The ministry said 16 drones were used in the attack and that Russian forces had “repelled” them. Earlier Saturday, the Kremlin-installed governor of Sevastopol reported an “ongoing” drone attack.
An adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry gave a conflicting account, claiming that that “careless handling of explosives” had caused blasts on four warships in Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Anton Gerashchenko wrote on Telegram that the vessels included a frigate, a landing ship and a ship that carried cruise missiles used in a deadly July attack on a western Ukrainian city.
Neither side’s claim could be immediately verified.
As Kyiv’s forces sought gains in the south, Russia kept up shelling and missile attacks in the country’s east, Ukrainian authorities said Saturday. Three civilians died in the last day and eight more were wounded in the Donetsk region, which has again become a front-line hotspot as Russian soldiers try to capture the city of Bakhmut.
Western analysts have long identified Bakhmut as an important target in Russia’s stalled eastern offensive. Capturing Bakhmut would pave the way for Moscow’s forces to threaten Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, the two largest Ukrainian-held cities remaining in the long-embattled Donbas region.
Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk province make up the Donbas. Pro-Russia separatists have controlled parts of both provinces since 2014.
In the northeastern Kharkiv region, where Russia’s troops retreated last month and Ukrainian troops clawed back broad swaths of territory, Russian shelling overnight wounded three civilians, according to the region’s Ukrainian governor.
Gov. Oleh Syniehubov wrote on Telegram said that two women in their 40s and a 60-year-old man were wounded near Kupiansk, a town that served as a resupply hub for Russian forces in the region before Ukrainian troops regained control.
In neighboring Luhansk province, Gov. Serhii Haidai said late Friday that Ukrainian forces have shelled the entire length of the Kreminna-Svatove highway, where the Russians set up their main line of defense after their withdrawal from the Kharkiv region.
A Russian shelling attack Saturday also hit “critical infrastructure” in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, the Ukrainian governor of the illegally annexed province said. Around a quarter of the region, including the local capital, also called Zaporizhzhia, remains under Ukrainian military control.
Writing on Telegram, Gov. Oleksandr Starukh said the damage was being assessed. He did not specify what was struck and did not mention any casualties.
Political pressure for efforts to negotiate an end to the war are building in parts of western Europe. Zelenskyy had said his country won’t negotiate with Russia as long as Moscow insists the annexed regions are Russian territory.
In remarks to Yale University students on Friday, the Ukrainian leader reiterated his unwillingness to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government because of its “disrespect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
In his nightly remarks, the Ukrainian leader noted that about 4 million Ukrainians live in areas subject to rolling blackouts following weeks of Russia targeting power plants and other infrastructure. He warned the emergency blackouts were possible elsewhere in Ukraine.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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UNITED NATIONS — A senior U.N. official said Wednesday he is “relatively optimistic” the deal for returning Ukrainian grain and Russian grain and fertilizer to world markets will be extended beyond mid-November, but Russia’s U.N. ambassador said Moscow needs to see movement on its own exports first.
The deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July has led to more than 8.5 million metric tons of foodstuffs being shipped from three Black Sea ports in Ukraine.
But Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia told reporters that “Russia needs to see the export of its grain and fertilizers in the world market, which has never happened since the beginning of the deal.”
The deal has a 120-day limit. U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths, who has focused on the Ukraine side of the deal, and senior U.N. trade official Rebeca Grynspan, who has focused on the Russian side, were in Moscow earlier this month for talks with Russian officials including on an extension.
“We are keen to see that renewed promptly, now,” Griffiths said in response to a question. “It’s important for the market. It’s important for just continuity. And I’m still relatively optimistic that we’re going to get that. We’re working hard.”
Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine cut off shipments of grain and fertilizer from the two key world suppliers, causing food shortages and rising prices especially in developing countries.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres first raised the critical need to restart the supply of Ukraine’s agricultural production and Russia’s grain and fertilizer to world markets in late April during meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
Guterres then proposed the deal, pointing to fear that the war could further worsen hunger for up to 181 million people, particularly in poorer developing countries.
On the Ukraine side, the Joint Coordination Center overseeing the logistics and inspection of ships said Monday that there was a backlog — 113 ships registered for inspection and a further 60 vessels waiting to take on cargo.
It noted the next Ukrainian harvest is approaching and silos will soon be full again in the three ports — Odesa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny. The center said it has increased its inspection teams and is discussing ways to improve its operation.
Ukraine’s president on Saturday accused Russia of artificially creating a line of some 150 ships to slow down Ukrainian shipments.
Nebenzia said hurdles that need to be overcome for Russian grain and fertilizer to reach global markets remain the same as in July: getting insurance for vessels, conducting financial transactions, finding ports of call for Russian ships and freeing up fertilizer on ships detained at European ports that “we committed to distribute free of charge to countries in need.”
The fertilizer, he said, is slowly being “destroyed because these kinds of fertilizers cannot be kept indefinitely.”
“These are the main things which were there on the agenda a few months ago, and they still are the same,” Nebenzia said. “We recognize that the secretary-general and his team are trying to do their best to resolve those issues. But unfortunately, it’s not just on them that it depends upon.”
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A Russian court on Tuesday upheld American basketball star Brittney Griner‘s nine-year prison sentence for drug possession, rejecting her appeal in a session where she appeared via video call from a penal colony outside Moscow. Griner can still appeal to a higher court, but her lawyers have yet to confirm whether they will take the case further.
In the ruling, the court stated that the time Griner will have to serve in prison will be recalculated with her time in pre-trial detention taken into account. One day in pre-trial detention will be counted as 1.5 days in prison, so the basketball star will have to serve around eight years in prison.
The decision clears the way for the WNBA star to serve that sentence in a penal colony, unless the U.S. government negotiates a deal.
The eight-time all-star center with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and a two-time Olympic gold medalist was convicted on August 4 after police said they found vape canisters containing cannabis oil in her luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.
“This has been very traumatic experience, waiting for this day, waiting for the first court, and getting nine years for a crime that I was barely over the significant amount,” Griner told the Moscow hearing on Tuesday. “I don’t understand the first court’s decision to give one year less than the max when I’ve been here almost 8 months, and people with more severe crimes have gotten less than what I was given… I really hope that the court will adjust this sentence, because it’s been very, very stressful and very traumatic to my mental and psyche, being away from my family and not being able to communicate.”
“While their legal system is very different from ours, there is no doubt that the original sentence she received was extreme, even for the Russian legal system,” the WNBA said in a statement after Tuesday’s decision. “This appeal is further verification that BG is not just wrongfully detained – she is very clearly a hostage. Let us not be divided in this moment. Rallying around BG and all wrongfully detained Americans is the common thread of humanity that unites us without regard to ideology or political party. We must unite and support the stated public commitment of the Biden Administration and Congressional leaders to do everything possible to get her home.”
Earlier this month, Brittney’s wife, Cherelle Griner, told “CBS Mornings” co-host Gayle King that she was terrified of the WNBA star’s fate.
“It’s like a movie for me. I’m like, ‘In no world did I ever thought, you know, our president and a foreign nation president would be sitting down having to discuss the freedom of my wife.’ And so to me, as much as everybody’s telling me a different definition of what B.G. is, it feels to me as if she’s a hostage,” Cherelle said.
“That must scare you,” King replied.
“It terrifies me because, I mean, when you watch movies, like, sometimes those situations don’t end well. Sometimes they never get the person back,” said Cherelle.Griner’s February arrest came at a time of heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington, just days before Russia sent troops into Ukraine. At the time, Griner was returning to Russia, where she played during the U.S. league’s offseason.
EVGENIA NOVOZHENINA / REUTERS
During her trial, Griner admitted that she had the canisters in her luggage, but testified that she had inadvertently packed them in haste and that she had no criminal intent. Her defense team presented written statements that she had been prescribed cannabis to treat pain.
The nine-year sentence was close to the maximum of 10 years, and Griner’s lawyers argued after the conviction that the punishment was excessive. They said in similar cases defendants have received an average sentence of about five years, with about a third of them granted parole.
Before her conviction, the U.S. State Department declared Griner to be “wrongfully detained” — a charge that Russia has sharply rejected.
Reflecting the growing pressure on the Biden administration to do more to bring Griner home, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken took the unusual step of revealing publicly in July that Washington had made a “substantial proposal” to get Griner home, along with Paul Whelan, an American serving a 16-year sentence in Russia for espionage.
Blinken didn’t elaborate, but The Associated Press and other news organizations have reported that Washington has offered to exchange Griner and Whelan for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer who is serving a 25-year sentence in the U.S. and once earned the nickname the “merchant of death.”
The White House said it has not yet received a productive response from Russia to the offer.
Russian diplomats have refused to comment on the U.S. proposal and urged Washington to discuss the matter in confidential talks, avoiding public statements.
In September, U.S. President Joe Biden met with Brittney’s wife, Cherelle, as well as the player’s agent, Lindsay Colas. Biden also sat down separately with Elizabeth Whelan, Paul Whelan’s sister.
The White House said after the meetings that the president stressed to the families his “continued commitment to working through all available avenues to bring Brittney and Paul home safely.”
The Biden administration carried out a prisoner swap in April, with Moscow releasing Marine veteran Trevor Reed in exchange for the U.S. releasing a Russian pilot, Konstantin Yaroshenko, convicted in a drug trafficking conspiracy.
Moscow also has protested the arrest of another Russian currently in U.S. custody, Alexander Vinnik, who was accused of laundering billions of dollars via an illicit cryptocurrency exchange. Vinnik had been in custody in Greece after being arrested there in 2017 at U.S. request before being extradited to the U.S. in August. It wasn’t clear if Russia might demand Vinnik’s release as part of a potential swap.
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Moscow — A Russian warplane crashed into a residential building in the Siberian city of Irkutsk Sunday, killing both crewmembers — the second incident in less than a week in which a combat jet has crashed in a residential area.
The accidents appeared to reflect the growing strain that the fighting in Ukraine has put on the Russian air force.
Irkutsk Gov. Igor Kobzev said the Su-30 fighter jet came down on a private, two-story building housing two families. There were no casualties on the ground.
Irkutsk, a major industrial center of more than 600,000 in eastern Siberia, is home to an aircraft factory producing the Su-30s.
The Su-30 is a supersonic twin-engine, two-seat fighter that has been a key component of the Russian air force and also has been used by China, India and many other countries.
The United Aircraft Corporation, a state-controlled conglomerate of Russian aircraft-making plants, said in a statement that the plane came down during a training flight before its delivery to the air force. The jet carried no weapons during the flight.
The cause of the crash wasn’t immediately known and an official probe has started.
A surveillance cam video posted on Russian social networks showed the fighter coming down in a nearly vertical dive. Other videos showed the building engulfed by flames and firefighters deployed to extinguish the blaze.
Russian Emergencies Ministry/Handout via Reuters
The crash came less than a week after another Russian warplane crashed near an apartment building in the Sea of Azov port of Yeysk and exploded in a giant fireball, killing 15 and injuring another 19.
Sunday’s crash was the 11th reported noncombat crash of a Russian warplane since Moscow sent its troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24. Military experts have noted that as the number of Russian military flights increased sharply during the fighting, so did the crashes.
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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia’s defense chief alleged Sunday that Ukraine was preparing a “provocation” involving a radioactive device, a stark claim that was strongly rejected by U.S., British and Ukrainian officials amid soaring tensions as Moscow struggles to stem Ukrainian advances in the south.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made the allegations in phone calls with his counterparts from the United States, Britain, France and Turkey.
Russia’s defense ministry said Shoigu voiced concern about “possible Ukrainian provocations involving a ‘dirty bomb,’” a device that uses explosives to scatter radioactive waste. It doesn’t have the devastating effect of a nuclear explosion, but could expose broad areas to radioactive contamination.
Russian authorities repeatedly have made allegations that Ukraine could detonate a dirty bomb in a false flag attack and blame it on Moscow. Ukrainian authorities, in turn, have accused the Kremlin of hatching such a plan.
British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace strongly rejected Shoigu’s claim and warned Moscow against using it as a pretext for escalation.
The British Ministry of Defense noted that Shoigu, in a call with Wallace, “alleged that Ukraine was planning actions facilitated by Western countries, including the UK, to escalate the conflict in Ukraine.”
“The Defense Secretary refuted these claims and cautioned that such allegations should not be used as a pretext for greater escalation,” the ministry said.
The U.S. also rejected Shoigu’s “transparently false allegations,” White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement. “The world would see through any attempt to use this allegation as a pretext for escalation.”
In a televised address Sunday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested that Moscow itself was setting the stage for deploying a radioactive device on Ukrainian soil.
“If Russia calls and says that Ukraine is allegedly preparing something, it means only one thing: that Russia has already prepared all of it,” Zelenskyy said.
The mention of the dirty bomb threat in Shoigu’s calls seemed to indicate the threat of such an attack has risen to an unprecedented level.
The French Ministry of the Armed Forces said Shoigu told his counterpart, Sebastien Lecornu, that the situation in Ukraine was rapidly worsening and “trending towards uncontrollable escalation.”
“It appears that there is a shared feeling that the tensions have approached the level that could raise the real threat for all,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, the Kremlin-connected head of the Council for Foreign and Defense policies, a Moscow-based group of top foreign affairs experts.
The rising tensions come as Russian authorities reported building defensive positions in occupied areas of Ukraine and border regions of Russia, reflecting fears that Ukrainian forces may attack along new sections of the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line of the war, which enters its ninth month on Monday.
In recent weeks, Ukraine has focused its counteroffensive mostly on the Kherson region. Their relentless artillery strikes cut the main crossings across the Dnieper River, which bisects the southern region, leaving Russian troops on the west bank short of supplies and vulnerable to encirclement.
Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Russian-installed regional administration in Kherson, said Sunday in a radio interview that Russian defensive lines “have been reinforced and the situation has remained stable” since local officials strongly encouraged all residents of the region’s capital and nearby areas Saturday to evacuate by ferry to the river’s east bank.
The region is one of four that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and put under Russian martial law on Thursday. Kherson city has been in Russian hands since the early days of the war, but Ukraine’s forces have made advances toward reclaiming it.
About 20,000 Kherson residents have moved to places on the east bank of the Dnieper River, the Kremlin-backed regional administration reported. The Ukrainian military said Sunday that Russia’s military also withdrew its officers from areas on the west bank, leaving newly mobilized, inexperienced forces.
The Ukrainian claim could not be independently verified.
As Ukraine presses south after liberating the Kharkiv region in the north last month, authorities in the western Russian provinces bordering northeastern Ukraine appeared jittery.
The governor of Russia’s Kursk region, Roman Starovoit, said Sunday that two defensive lines have been built and a third one would be finished by Nov. 5.
Defensive lines were also established in the Belgorod region, Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
More defensive positions were being built in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, said Yevgeny Prigozhin, a millionaire Russian businessman who owns the Wagner Group, a mercenary military company that has played a prominent role in the war.
Prigozhin said his company was constructing a “Wagner line” in the Luhansk region, another of the Ukrainian provinces Putin illegally annexed last month. Prigozhin posted images last week showing a section of newly built defenses and trench systems southeast of the town of Kreminna.
The British Defense Ministry said Sunday “the project suggests Russia is making a significant effort to prepare defenses in depth behind the current front line, likely to deter any rapid Ukrainian counteroffensives.”
Russia’s forces captured Luhansk several months ago. Pro-Moscow separatists declared independent republics in the region and neighboring Donetsk eight years ago, and Putin made controlling all of both provinces a goal at the war’s outset.
The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in Washington, said Sunday that Russia’s latest strategy of targeting power plants appeared aimed at diminishing Ukrainians’ will to fight and forcing the government in Kyiv to devote more resources to protecting civilians and energy infrastructure.
It said the effort was unlikely to damage Ukrainian morale but would have significant economic impacts.
President Zelenskyy said Sunday that utilities workers were well on their way to restoring electricity supplies cut off by large-scale Russian missile strikes Saturday, but acknowledged that it would take longer to provide heating.
Nine regions across Ukraine, from Odesa in the southwest to Kharkiv in the northeast, saw more attacks targeting energy and other critical infrastructure over the past day, the Ukrainian army’s general staff said. It reported a total of 25 Russian airstrikes and more than 100 missile and artillery strikes around Ukraine.
In response, Zelenskyy appealed to mayors and other local leaders to ensure that Ukrainians heed official calls to conserve energy. “Now is definitely not the time for bright storefronts and signs,” he said.
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Aamer Madhani and Lolita Baldor in Washington and Joanna Kozlowska in London contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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STAVANGER, Norway (AP) — Norwegian oil and gas workers normally don’t see anything more threatening than North Sea waves crashing against the steel legs of their offshore platforms. But lately they have noticed a more troubling sight: unidentified drones buzzing in the skies overhead.
With Norway replacing Russia as Europe’s main source of natural gas, military experts suspect the unmanned aircraft are Moscow’s doings. They list espionage, sabotage and intimidation as possible motives for the drone flights.
The Norwegian government has sent warships, coastguard vessels and fighter jets to patrol around the offshore facilities. Norway’s national guard stationed soldiers around onshore refineries that also were buzzed by drones.
Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre has invited the navies of NATO allies Britain, France and Germany to help address what could be more than a Norwegian problem.
Precious little of the offshore oil that provides vast income for Norway is used by the country’s 5.4 million inhabitants. Instead, it powers much of Europe. Natural gas is another commodity of continental significance.
“The value of Norwegian gas to Europe has never been higher,” Ståle Ulriksen, a researcher at the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy, said. “As a strategic target for sabotage, Norwegian gas pipelines are probably the highest value target in Europe.”
Closures of airports, and evacuations of an oil refinery and a gas terminal last week due to drone sightings caused huge disruptions. But with winter approaching in Europe, there is worry the drones may portend a bigger threat to the 9,000 kilometers (5,600 miles) of gas pipelines that spider from Norway’s sea platforms to terminals in Britain and mainland Europe.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine in late February, European Union countries have scrambled to replace their Russian gas imports with shipments from Norway. The suspected sabotage of the Nordstream I and II pipelines in the Baltic Sea last month happened a day before Norway opened a new Baltic pipeline to Poland.
Amund Revheim, who heads the North Sea and environment group for Norway’s South West Police force, said his team interviewed more than 70 offshore workers who have spotted drones near their facilities.
“The working thesis is that they are controlled from vessels or submarines nearby,” Revheim said.
Winged drones have a longer range, but investigators considered credible a sighting of a helicopter-style bladed model near the Sleipner platform, located in a North Sea gas field 250 kilometers (150 miles) from the coast.
Norwegian police have worked closely with military investigators who are analyzing marine traffic. Some platform operators have reported seeing Russian-flagged research vessels in close vicinity. Revheim said no pattern has been established from legal marine traffic and he is concerned about causing unnecessary, disruptive worry for workers.
But Ulriksen, of the naval academy, said the distinction between Russian civilian and military ships is narrow and the reported research vessels could fairly be described as “spy ships.”
The arrest of at least seven Russian nationals caught either carrying or illegally flying drones over Norwegian territory has raised tensions. On Wednesday, the same day a drone sighting grounded planes in Bergen, Norway’s second-biggest city, the Norwegian Police Security Service took over the case from local officers.
“We have taken over the investigation because it is our job to investigate espionage and enforce sanction rules against Russia,” Martin Bernsen, an official with the service known by the Norwegian acronym PST. He said the “sabotage or possible mapping” of energy infrastructure was an ongoing concern.
Støre, the prime minister, warned that Norway would take action against foreign intelligence agencies. “It is not acceptable for foreign intelligence to fly drones over Norwegian airports. Russians are not allowed to fly drones in Norway,” he said.
Russia’s Embassy in Oslo hit back Thursday, claiming that Norway was experiencing a form of “psychosis” causing “paranoia.”
Naval academy researcher thinks that is probably part of the plan.
“Several of the drones have been flown with their lights on,” he said. “They are supposed to be observed. I think it is an attempt to intimidate Norway and the West.”
The wider concern is that they are part of a hybrid strategy to both intimidate and gather information on vital infrastructure, which could later be targeted for sabotage in a potential strike against the West.
“I do not believe we are heading for a conventional war with Russia,” Ulriksen said. “But a hybrid war … I think we are already in it.”
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CHUBYNSKE, Ukraine (AP) — In the last, brief conversations Viktoria Skliar had with her detained boyfriend, the Ukrainian prisoner of war was making tentative plans for life after his release in an upcoming exchange with Russia.
The next time Skliar saw Oleksii Kisilishin, he was dead — one of several bodies in a photo of people local authorities said were killed when blasts ripped through a prison in a part of Ukraine’s Donetsk region controlled by Moscow-backed separatists.
For months, Skliar had held out hope she would reunite with her partner, who had been one of the defenders of the Azovstal steel plant, the last redoubt of Ukrainian fighters in the besieged city of Mariupol.
Now, she has retrained her focus on getting his body back. Against enormous odds, Ukraine has now received the remains of dozens of prisoners who were held at the prison in Olenivka. But with experts still needing months to identify all the bodies — and no guarantee Kisilishin is among them — Skliar’s quest is far from over.
That she even knows her boyfriend is dead is remarkable. She recognized his tattoos in a photo shared on social media following the July 29 blasts. It showed him laid out, semi-naked, on the ground in a line with eight other bodies.
“When I saw the photo, my eyes did not go beyond Oleksii’s body,” Skliar told The Associated Press. “I didn’t have time to cry. I cried all my tears when they were in Azovstal. My first thought was to get the body back somehow.”
Skliar said she contacted representatives with the International Committee of the Red Cross, told them about the photo and gave them his name in the hopes that they’d be able to arrange for him to be brought home. The humanitarian organization couldn’t tell her much — the group had to wait for official lists of prisoners and agreements from politicians before it could help repatriate any bodies.
While she waited for word, Skliar feared her loved one would end up in a mass grave.
Kisilishin, who died at 26, was called back to the Azov Regiment, part of the Ukrainian National Guard, where he’d served until 2016, two weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February. The animal caregiver and activist had chosen to return to defend his hometown of Mariupol, rather than stay in Kyiv, where he’d met Skliar at an equestrian club a year before.
When Kisilishin was holed up at the Azovstal steel mill during a three-month siege of the city, they spoke every day until Russian forces encircled the plant.
In May, he was captured when the last Azovstal defenders were told by Ukraine’s military to turn themselves over to Russian forces.
From captivity, Skliar continued to have phone calls from him, though they never lasted longer than a minute. Her boyfriend said little about himself, responding only “it’s OK” or “bearable” when she asked him how he was.
Then, Skliar said she received a call from Kisilishin — and his voice was cheerful. “He said that they will be taken somewhere. He hoped for an exchange,” she said.
She believes he was taken to Olenivka that day or soon after. Later, she said she heard from the Red Cross that he would be part of an upcoming prisoner exchange. But three weeks after that, he was dead.
Authorities at the prison and Russian officials have said 53 Ukrainian POWs died in the blasts and another 75 were wounded. On a list of the victims released by Moscow and published in Russian media, Kisilishin was number 43.
What exactly happened in Olenivka remains unknown.
Russia claims Ukraine’s military hit the prison with rockets. The Ukrainian military denied launching any strikes and accused Russia of mining it. Kyiv alleges that the Kremlin’s forces tortured prisoners held in Olenivka — and that the blasts were meant to cover up any evidence of those crimes.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights raised concerns recently about reports that prisoners in Olenivka and elsewhere were subjected to beatings, electrocution and other abuse.
The Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment on Ukrainian allegations of what happened in Olenivka.
Russia and Ukraine agreed in August to a U.N. fact-finding mission, but U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said just over a week ago that the “appropriate security guarantees” were not in place for the work to start.
When other Ukrainian POWs returned in September, the photos showed emaciated but smiling faces. Skliar believes Kisilishin was supposed to be among them.
Instead, he probably returned to Ukraine in a bag labeled “Olenivka” — with 62 other bodies that were exchanged on Oct. 11. Relatives of soldiers have given DNA samples, and experts are now working to identify the remains, said the representative of the Patronage Service of the Azov Regiment, Natalia Bahrii.
It’s not clear why there were more than 60 bodies in the exchange, even though authorities put the death toll from the blasts at just over 50.
Kisilishin’s father, Oleksandr — who himself was captured as a POW and released — has given a sample.
To honor his son, the father, working with the NGO UAnimals, plans to arrange grants for animal shelters — continuing the work that Kisilishin devoted his life to.
The older Kisilishin and Skliar don’t talk much about their loved one. “We can’t have him back anyway,” Skliar recounted the father once said to her.
Still, Skliar hopes she will one day be able to bury him.
“He fought for the free people of a free country; he defended his city, Mariupol,” Viktoria said. “He is a warrior. And he has the right to be buried in the land he defended.”
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KYIV, Ukraine — Russian President Vladimir Putin doubled down Wednesday on his faltering invasion of Ukraine with a declaration of martial law in four illegally annexed regions and preparations within Russia for draconian new restrictions and crackdowns.
Putin’s drastic efforts to tighten his grip on Ukrainians and Russians follow a series of embarrassing setbacks: stinging battlefield defeats, sabotage and troubles with his troop mobilization.
The martial law order belies the Kremlin’s attempts to portray life in the annexed regions as returning to normal. The reality is that a military administration has replaced civilian leaders in the southern city of Kherson and a mass evacuation from the city is underway as a Ukrainian counteroffensive grinds on.
The battle for Kherson, a city of more than 250,000 people with key industries and a major port, is a pivotal moment for Ukraine and Russia heading into winter, when front lines could largely freeze for months. It’s the largest city Russia has held during the war, which began Feb. 24.
A trickle of evacuations from the city in recent days has become a flood. Local officials said Wednesday that 5,000 had left out of an expected 60,000. Russian state television showed residents crowding on the banks of the Dnieper River, many with small children, to cross by boats to the east — and, from there, deeper into Russian-controlled territory.
In announcing martial law effective Thursday, Putin told his Security Council, “We are working to solve very difficult large-scale tasks to ensure Russia’s security and safe future.”
Putin’s army is under growing pressure from a Ukrainian counteroffensive that has clawed back territory. The Russian leader is also faltering after the sabotage of a strategically important bridge linking Russia with Crimea, assassinations of Kremlin-installed officials in Kherson and mistakes he himself has admitted in his partial troop mobilization.
Putin’s martial law declaration authorized the creation of civil defense forces; the potential imposition of curfews; restrictions on travel and public gatherings; tighter censorship; and broader law enforcement powers in Kherson and the other annexed regions of Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.
In an ominous move, Putin opened the door for restrictive measures to be extended across Russia, too. That may lead to a tougher crackdown on dissent than the current dispersal of antiwar protests and jailing of people making statements or providing information about the fighting that differs from the official line.
The severity of new restrictions inside Russia depends on proximity to Ukraine.
Putin put areas nearest Ukraine on medium alert, including annexed Crimea, Krasnodar, Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, Rostov. Local leaders are authorized to organize territorial defense, ensure public order and safety, safeguard transportation, communication and energy facilities, and use these resources to help meet the Russian military’s needs.
Leaders in these border areas can also carry out resettlements of residents and restrict freedom of movement. Leaders in other areas have been granted similar powers, depending on their alert level.
In the Kherson region, Ukrainian forces have pushed back Russian positions on the west bank of the Dnieper River. By pulling civilians out and fortifying positions in the region’s main city, which backs onto the river, Russian forces appear to be hoping that the wide, deep waters will serve as a natural barrier against the Ukrainian advance.
Russia has said the movement of Ukrainians to Russia or Russian-controlled territory is voluntary, but in many cases, they have no other routes out, and no other choice.
Under martial law, authorities can force evacuations. Ukraine’s national security chief, Oleksiy Danilov, said on Twitter that Putin’s declaration is “preparation for the mass deportation of the Ukrainian population to the depressed regions of Russia to change the ethnic composition of the occupied territory.”
For months, reports have circulated of forced deportations, and an Associated Press investigation found that Russian officials deported thousands of Ukrainian children to be raised as Russian.
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said Putin’s decree is illegal, calling it part of his effort “to deprive the inhabitants of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine of even basic human rights.”
Russian authorities played up fears of an attack on Kherson, seemingly to persuade residents to leave. Text messages warned residents to expect shelling, Russian state media reported.
One resident reached by phone described military vehicles leaving the city, Moscow-installed authorities scrambling to load documents onto trucks, and thousands of people lining up for ferries and buses.
“It looks more like a panic rather than an organized evacuation. People are buying the last remaining groceries in grocery shops and are running to the Kherson river port, where thousands of people are already waiting,” the resident, Konstantin, said. The AP is withholding his family name, as he requested, for his safety.
“People are scared by talk of explosions, missiles and a possible blockade of the city,” he added.
Leaflets told evacuees they could take two large suitcases, medicine and food for a few days.
Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential office, called the evacuation “a propaganda show” and said Russia’s claims that Kyiv’s forces might shell Kherson “a rather primitive tactic, given that the armed forces do not fire at Ukrainian cities.”
Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said the operation could presage intense fighting and “the harshest” tactics from Russia’s new commander for Ukraine, Gen. Sergei Surovikin.
“They are prepared to wipe the city from the face of the Earth but not give it back to the Ukrainians,” Zhdanov said in an interview.
In a rare acknowledgement of the pressure that Kyiv’s troops are exerting, Surovikin described the Kherson situation as “very difficult.” Russian bloggers interpreted the comments as a warning of a possible Kremlin pullback. Surovikin claimed that Ukrainian forces were planning to destroy a hydroelectric facility, which local officials said would flood part of Kherson.
Incapable of holding all the territory it has seized and struggling with manpower and equipment losses, Russia has stepped up air bombardments, with a scorched-earth campaign targeting Ukrainian power plants and other key infrastructure. Russia has also increased its use of weaponized Iranian drones to hit apartment buildings and other civilian targets.
Russia launched numerous missiles over Ukraine on Wednesday. Ukrainian authorities said they shot down four cruise missiles and 10 Iranian drones. Energy facilities were hit in the Vinnytsia and Ivano-Frankivsk regions.
Air raid sirens blared in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, sending many people into metro stations for shelter. Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced the city would start seasonal centralized heating on Thursday at lower temperatures than normal to conserve energy.
A Ukrainian energy official, Oleksandr Kharchenko reported Wednesday that 40% of the country’s electric system had been severely damaged. Authorities warned all residents to cut consumption and said power supply would be reduced Thursday to prevent blackouts. One area where power and water were reported knocked out due to overnight shelling was Enerhodar. The southern city is next to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is one of the war’s most worrisome flashpoints.
Missiles severely damaged an energy facility near Zelenskyy’s hometown, Kryvyi Rih, a city in south-central Ukraine, cutting power to villages, towns and to one city district, the regional governor reported.
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Karmanau reported from Tallinn, Estonia.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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