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Tag: Russian armed forces

  • Putin: More than 700,000 Russian soldiers on front line in Ukraine

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    More than 700,000 Russian soldiers are currently fighting in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.

    Putin made the announcement at a meeting with parliamentary leaders in Moscow, the TASS news agency reported.

    The meeting was primarily about creating quotas for the subsequent employment of veterans of the war.

    “You see, there are more than 700,000 people on the front line,” Putin was quoted as saying.

    Whether the figure Putin quoted corresponds to reality cannot be independently verified.

    Military experts recently estimated the total strength of the Russian armed forces, including those outside Ukraine, at just under 1.3 million men.

    Kiev’s forces are estimated at around 900,000 active soldiers.

    Russia has been at war with Ukraine for over three and a half years and has occupied around a fifth of the country. Neither side has offered precise details of their losses to date.

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  • US intel chief thinking ‘optimistically’ for Ukraine forces

    US intel chief thinking ‘optimistically’ for Ukraine forces

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    KYIV, Ukraine — The head of U.S. intelligence says fighting in Russia’s war in Ukraine is running at a “reduced tempo” and suggests Ukrainian forces could have brighter prospects in coming months.

    Avril Haines alluded to past allegations by some that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s advisers could be shielding him from bad news — for Russia — about war developments, and said he “is becoming more informed of the challenges that the military faces in Russia.”

    “But it’s still not clear to us that he has a full picture of at this stage of just how challenged they are,” the U.S. director of national intelligence said late Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California.

    Looking ahead, Haines said, “honestly we’re seeing a kind of a reduced tempo already of the conflict” and her team expects that both sides will look to refit, resupply, and reconstitute for a possible Ukrainian counter-offensive in the spring.

    “But we actually have a fair amount of skepticism as to whether or not the Russians will be in fact prepared to do that,” she said. “And I think more optimistically for the Ukrainians in that timeframe.”

    In recent weeks, Russia’s military focus has been on striking Ukrainian infrastructure and pressing an offensive in the east, near the town of Bakhmut, while shelling sites in the city of Kherson, which Ukrainian forces liberated last month after an 8-month Russian occupation.

    In his nightly address on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lashed out at Western efforts to crimp Russia’s crucial oil industry, a key source of funds for Putin’s war machine, saying their $60-per-barrel price cap on imports of Russian oil was insufficient.

    “It is not a serious decision to set such a limit for Russian prices, which is quite comfortable for the budget of the terrorist state,” Zelenskyy said, referring to Russia. He said the $60-per-barrel level would still allow Russia to bring in $100 billion in revenues per year.

    “This money will go not only to the war and not only to further sponsorship by Russia of other terrorist regimes and organisations. This money will be used for further destabilisation of those countries that are now trying to avoid serious decisions,” Zelenskyy said.

    Australia, Britain, Canada, Japan, the United States and the 27-nation European Union agreed Friday to cap what they would pay for Russian oil at $60 per barrel. The limit is set to take effect Monday, along with an EU embargo on Russian oil shipped by sea.

    Russian authorities have rejected the price cap and threatened Saturday to stop supplying the nations that endorsed it.

    In yet another show of Western support for Ukraine’s efforts to battle back Russian forces and cope with fallout from the war, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland on Saturday visited the operations of a Ukrainian aid group that provides support for internally displaced people in Ukraine, among her other visits with top Ukrainian officials.

    Nuland assembled dolls out of yarn in the blue-and-yellow colors of Ukraine’s flag with youngsters from regions including northeastern Kharkiv, southern Kherson, and eastern Donetsk.

    “This is psychological support for them at an absolutely crucial time,” Nuland said.

    “As President Putin knows best, this war could stop today, if he chose to stop it and withdrew his forces — and then negotiations can begin,” she added.

    ———

    Merchant reported from Washington, D.C.

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  • Official says over 10,000 Ukrainian troops killed in war

    Official says over 10,000 Ukrainian troops killed in war

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    KYIV, Ukraine — A top adviser to Ukraine’s president has cited military chiefs as saying 10,000 to 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in the country’s nine-month struggle against Russia’s invasion, a rare comment on such figures and far below estimates of Ukrainian casualties from Western leaders.

    Russian forces kept up rocket attacks on infrastructure and airstrikes against Ukrainian troop positions along the contact line, the Ukrainian general staff said Friday, adding that Moscow’s military push has focused on a dozen towns including Bakhmut and Avdiivka — key targets for Russia in the embattled east.

    At least three civilians were killed and 16 wounded in Ukraine in the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian president’s office reported on Friday. Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the office’s deputy head, said on Telegram that Russian forces had attacked nine regions in the southeast of Ukraine using heavy artillery, rockets and aircraft.

    Late Thursday, Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, relayed new figures about Ukrainian soldiers killed in battle, while noting that the number of injured troops was higher and civilian casualty counts were “significant.”

    “We have official figures from the general staff, we have official figures from the top command, and they amount to between 10,000 and 12,500-13,000 killed,” Podolyak told Channel 24.

    The Ukrainian military has not confirmed such figures and it was a rare instance of a Ukrainian official providing such a count. The last dates back to late August, when the head of the armed forces said that nearly 9,000 military personnel had been killed. In June, Podolyak said that up to 200 soldiers were dying each day, in some of the most intense fighting and bloodshed this year.

    On Wednesday, Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union’s executive Commission, said 100,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed before her office corrected her comments — calling them inaccurate and saying that the figure referred to both killed and injured.

    Last month, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that as many as 40,000 Ukrainian civilians and “well over” 100,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the war so far. He added that it was the “same thing probably on the Ukrainian side.”

    The U.N. human rights office, in its latest weekly update published Monday, said it had recorded 6,655 civilians killed and 10,368 injured, but has acknowledged that its tally includes only casualties that it has confirmed and likely far understates the actual toll.

    Ukrainians have been bracing for freezing winter temperatures as Russia’s campaign has recently hit infrastructure including power plants and electrical transformers, leaving many without heat, water and electricity.

    Ukraine has faced a blistering onslaught of Russian artillery fire and drone attacks since early October. The shelling has been especially intense in southern Kherson since Russian forces withdrew and Ukraine’s army reclaimed the southern city almost three weeks ago.

    Kherson’s regional governor said Friday that three people were killed and seven injured in shelling on Thursday. The Russian army hit residential areas of the city of Kherson, part of which remained without electricity after power was knocked out by Russian strikes Thursday.

    In the eastern Donetsk region, Ukrainian governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said Russian shelling has intensified significantly. The Russian army is seeking to encircle the key town of Bakhmut by capturing several surrounding villages and cutting off an important road.

    Russian strikes targeting towns located across the Dnieper river from the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant also were reported. And in northeastern Kharkiv province, officials said that Russian shelling injured two women.

    ———

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

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  • Russian, Chinese bombers fly joint patrols over Pacific

    Russian, Chinese bombers fly joint patrols over Pacific

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    In this handout photo taken from video released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2022, a view of a Tu-95 strategic bomber of the Russian air force taxiing before takeoff for a joint air patrol with Chinese bombers at an airbase in an unspecified location in Russia. Russian and Chinese strategic bombers on Wednesday flew a joint patrol over the western Pacific in a show of increasingly close defense ties between the two countries. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

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  • Noted Russian nationalist says army has too few doctors

    Noted Russian nationalist says army has too few doctors

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    MOSCOW — One of Russia’s most prominent nationalist politicians said the Russian military does not have an adequate number of doctors among other problems, a message he delivered in a meeting Saturday with the mothers of soldiers mobilized for the fight in Ukraine.

    The comments by Leonid Slutsky, leader of the populist Liberal Democratic Party and chairman of the foreign relations committee in the lower house of parliament, was an unusually public admission of problems within the military as Russian forces suffer a series of battlefield setbacks.

    “There are not enough doctors in the military units; everyone says this. I cannot say they do not exist at all, but they are practically not seen there,” Slutsky said at the meeting in St. Petersburg.

    Olga Suyetina, foster mother of a soldier mobilized for the Ukraine conflict said she has heard from her son that the troops are underequipped.

    “There are no gunsights, nothing, we have to buy them by crowdfunding,” she said, referring to a device on a gun that helps to aim it. “There is nothing; they left Kharkiv, there was zero, there was not even polyethylene to cover the dugouts.”

    Slutsky, a strong supporter of Russia’s fight in Ukraine, said he would address the Defense Ministry about problems that troops face in Ukraine.

    “We must understand that the whole world is watching us. We are the largest state and when we do not have socks, shorts, doctors, intelligence, communications, or simply care for our children, questions arise that will be very difficult to answer,” he said.

    The meeting came a day after President Vladimir Putin met with another group of soldiers’ mothers. At that meeting Friday he hit out at what he said were skewed media portrayals of Moscow’s military campaign.

    “Life is more difficult and diverse that what is shown on TV screens or even on the internet. There are many fakes, cheating, lies there,” Putin said.

    Putin said that he sometimes speaks with troops directly by telephone, according to a Kremlin transcript and photos of the meeting.

    “I’ve spoken to (troops) who surprised me with their mood, their attitude to the matter. They didn’t expect these calls from me,” Putin said.

    He added that the calls “give me every reason to say that they are heroes.”

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  • Europe scrambles to help Ukraine keep the heat and lights on

    Europe scrambles to help Ukraine keep the heat and lights on

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    KYIV, Ukraine — European officials are scrambling to help Ukraine stay warm and keep functioning through the bitter winter months, pledging Friday to send more support that will mitigate the Russian military’s efforts to turn off the heat and lights.

    Nine months after Russia invaded its neighbor, the Kremlin’s forces have zeroed in on Ukraine’s power grid and other critical civilian infrastructure in a bid to tighten the screw on Kyiv. Officials estimate that around 50% of Ukraine’s energy facilities have been damaged in the recent strikes.

    France is sending 100 high-powered generators to Ukraine to help people get through the coming months, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said Friday.

    She said Russia is “weaponizing” winter and plunging Ukraine’s civilian population into hardship.

    British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, arriving Friday in Kyiv for an unannounced visit, said a promised air-defense package, which Britain valued at 50 million pounds ($60 million), would help Ukraine defend itself against Russia’s bombardments.

    “Words are not enough. Words won’t keep the lights on this winter. Words won’t defend against Russian missiles,” Cleverly said in a tweet about the military aid.

    The package includes radar and other technology to counter the Iran-supplied exploding drones that Russia has used against Ukrainian targets, especially the power grid. It comes on top of a delivery of more than 1,000 anti-air missiles that Britain announced earlier this month.

    “As winter sets in, Russia is continuing to try and break Ukrainian resolve through its brutal attacks on civilians, hospitals and energy infrastructure,” Cleverly said.

    His visit came a day after European officials launched a scheme called “Generators of Hope,” which calls on more than 200 cities across the continent to donate power generators and electricity transformers.

    The generators are intended to help keep essential Ukrainian facilities running, providing power to hospitals, schools and water pumping stations, among other infrastructure.

    Generators may provide only a tiny amount of the energy that Ukraine will need during the cold and dark winter months.

    But the comfort and relief they provide is already evident, as winter begins in earnest and power outages occur regularly. The whine and rumble of generators is becoming commonplace, allowing stores that have them to stay open and Ukraine’s ubiquitous coffee shops to keep serving hot drinks that maintain a semblance of normality.

    Ukrainian authorities are opening thousands of so-called “points of invincibility” — heated and powered spaces offering hot meals, electricity and internet connections. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy said late Thursday that almost 4,400 such spaces have opened across most of the country.

    He scoffed at Moscow’s attempts to intimidate Ukrainian civilians, saying that was the Russian military’s only option after a string of battlefield setbacks. “Either energy terror, or artillery terror, or missile terror — that’s all that Russia has dwindled to under its current leaders,” Zelenskyy said.

    Elsewhere, Ukrainian officials and energy workers continued their push to restore supplies after a nationwide barrage Wednesday left tens of millions without power and water.

    Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said Friday morning that heating was back on in a third of the capital’s households, but that half of its population still lacked electricity.

    Writing on Telegram, Klitschko added that authorities hoped to provide all consumers in Kyiv with electricity for a period of three hours on Friday, following a pre-set schedule.

    As of Friday morning in Kharkiv, all residents of Ukraine’s second-largest city had had their electricity supplies restored, but more than 100,000 in the outlying region continued to see interruptions, the regional governor said.

    In the south, authorities in the city of Mykolayiv said that running water was set to start flowing again after supplies were cut off by Russian strikes on Thursday.

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

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  • Two Swedish men charged with spying for Russia go on trial

    Two Swedish men charged with spying for Russia go on trial

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    STOCKHOLM — A trial opened Friday in Sweden in the case of two Iranian-born Swedish brothers who have been charged with spying for Russia and its military intelligence service GRU for a decade.

    Peyman Kia, 42, and Payam Kia, 35, appeared before the Stockholm District Court to face accusations of having worked jointly to pass information to Russia between Sept. 28, 2011, and Sept. 20, 2021.

    Between 2014 and 2015, Peyman Kia worked for Sweden’s domestic intelligence agency but also for Sweden’s armed forces. Sweden’s prosecutors allege that the data they gave the Russians originated from several authorities within the Swedish security and intelligence service, known by its acronym SAPO.

    Swedish media said that Peyman Kia worked for the armed forces’ foreign defense intelligence agency, whose Swedish acronym is MUST, and reportedly worked with a top secret unit under MUST which was dealing with Swedish spies abroad.

    Intelligence expert Joakim von Braun told Swedish broadcaster SVT as the trial opened that even though many details remain unknown, it appeared to be one of most damaging cases of espionage in Sweden’s history because the men compiled a list of all the employees within SAPO.

    “That alone is a big problem because Russian intelligence focuses on human sources,” von Braun said.

    Peyman Kia was arrested in September 2021 and his brother in November 2021. Both denied any wrongdoing, their defense lawyers told the court.

    Payam Kia, 35, helped his brother and “dismantled and broke a hard drive which was later found in a trash can” when his brother was arrested, according to charge sheet obtained by The Associated Press.

    The naturalized Swedish citizens face sentences up to life imprisonment if convicted.

    In another case, Swedish authorities on Thursday released one of two people arrested this week on suspicions of spying against Sweden and another foreign power, but that the freed person remains a suspect.

    The two were arrested Tuesday in a predawn operation in the Stockholm area. Authorities have given few details about the case, but Swedish media cited witnesses who described elite police rappelling from two Black Hawk helicopters to arrest them.

    According to the Swedish reports, the two were a couple and are both Russians who arrived in Sweden in the late 1990s. The AP could not confirm these reports.

    The Swedish Prosecution Authority said late Thursday that one of the two had been released but was still a suspect. It did not explain the reasoning for releasing one and but keeping the other in detention.

    The investigation had been under way for some time, SAPO said. It said that one of those arrested was suspected of aggravated espionage against Sweden and against “a foreign power.” Authorities did not identify the other country allegedly spied on.

    Authorities in Sweden have said that that case was not related to other cases of espionage.

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  • Kherson celebrates Russian exit yet faces huge rebuilding

    Kherson celebrates Russian exit yet faces huge rebuilding

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    KHERSON, Ukraine — Residents of Kherson celebrated the end of Russia’s eight-month occupation for the third straight day Sunday, even as they took stock of the extensive damage left behind in the southern Ukrainian city by the Kremlin’s retreating forces.

    A jubilant crowd gathered in Kherson’s main square, despite the distant thumps of artillery fire that could be heard as Ukrainian forces pressed on with their effort to push out Moscow’s invasion force.

    “It’s a new year for us now,” said Karina Zaikina, 24, who wore on her coat a yellow-and-blue ribbon in Ukraine’s national colors. “For the first time in many months, I wasn’t scared to come into the city.”

    “Finally, freedom!” said 61-year-old resident Tetiana Hitina. “The city was dead.”

    But even as locals rejoiced, the evidence of Russia’s ruthless occupation was all around, and Russian forces still control some 70% of the wider Kherson region.

    With cellphone networks knocked out, Zaikina and others lined up to use a satellite phone connection set up for everyone’s use in the square, enabling them to swap news with family and friends for the first time in weeks.

    Downtown stores were shuttered. With many people having fled the city during the Russian occupation, the city streets were thinly populated. Many of the few people venturing out Sunday carried yellow and blue flags. On the square, people lined up to ask soldiers to autograph their flags and rewarded them with hugs. Some wept.

    More bleakly, Kherson is also without electricity or running water, and food and medical supplies are short. Residents said Russian troops plundered the city, carting away loot as they withdrew last week. They also wrecked key public infrastructure before retreating across the wide Dnieper River to its east bank. One Ukrainian official described the situation in Kherson as “a humanitarian catastrophe.”

    “I don’t understand what kind of people this is. I don’t know why they did it,” said resident Yevhen Teliezhenko, draped in a Ukrainian flag.

    Still, he said, “it became easier to breathe” once the Russians had gone.

    “There is no better holiday than what’s happening now,” he declared.

    Ukrainian authorities said the demining of critical infrastructure is under way in the city. Reconnecting the electricity supply is the priority, with gas supplies already assured, Kherson regional governor Yaroslav Yanushevych said.

    The Russian pullout marked a triumphant milestone in Ukraine’s pushback against Moscow’s invasion almost nine months ago. In the past two months, Ukraine’s military claimed to have retaken dozens of towns and villages north of the city of Kherson.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to keep up the pressure on Russian forces, reassuring the people in Ukrainian cities and villages that are still under occupation.

    “We don’t forget anyone; we won’t leave anyone,” he said.

    Ukraine’s retaking of Kherson was a significant setback for the Kremlin and the latest in a series of battlefield embarrassments. It came some six weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed the Kherson region and three other provinces in southern and eastern Ukraine — in breach of international law — and declared them Russian territory.

    The U.S. embassy in Kyiv tweeted comments Sunday by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who described the turnaround in Kherson as “an extraordinary victory” for Ukraine and “quite a remarkable thing.”

    The reversal came despite Putin’s recent partial mobilization of reservists, raising troop numbers by some 300,000. That has been hard for the Russian military to digest.

    “Russian military leadership is trying and largely failing to integrate combat forces drawn from many different organizations and of many different types and levels of skill and equipment into a more cohesive fighting force in Ukraine,” commented the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, a think tank that tracks the conflict

    British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said the Kremlin will be “worried” by the loss of Kherson but warned against underestimating Moscow. “If they need more cannon fodder, that is what they’ll be doing,” he said.

    Ukrainian police called on residents to help identify collaborators with Russian forces. Ukrainian police officers returned to the city Saturday, along with public broadcasting services. The national police chief of Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko, said about 200 officers were at work in the city, setting up checkpoints and documenting evidence of possible war crimes.

    In what could perhaps be the next district to fall in Ukraine’s march on territory annexed by Moscow, the Russian-appointed administration of the Kakhovka district, east of the city of Kherson, announced Saturday it was evacuating its employees.

    “Today, the administration is the No. 1 target for Ukrainian attacks,” said the Moscow-installed leader of Kakhovka, Pavel Filipchuk. “We, as an authority, are moving to a safer territory, from where we will lead the district.”

    Kakhovka is located on the east bank of the Dnieper River, upstream of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station.

    ———

    John Leicester contributed to this story from Kyiv, Ukraine.

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

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  • After Kherson success, Kyiv vows to keep pushing out Russia

    After Kherson success, Kyiv vows to keep pushing out Russia

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    MYKOLAIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s president vowed to keep pushing Russian forces out of his country after they withdrew from Kherson, leaving behind devastation, hunger and booby traps in the southern Ukrainian city.

    The Russian retreat from Kherson marked a triumphant milestone in Ukraine’s pushback against Moscow’s invasion almost nine months ago. Kherson residents hugged and kissed the arriving Ukrainian troops in rapturous scenes.

    “We will see many more such greetings” of Ukrainian soldiers liberating Russian-held territory,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address Saturday.

    He pledged to the people in Ukrainian cities and villages that are still under occupation: “We don’t forget anyone; we won’t leave anyone.”

    Ukraine’s retaking of Kherson was a significant setback for the Kremlin and the latest in a series of battlefield embarrassments. It came some six weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed the Kherson region and three other provinces in southern and eastern Ukraine in breach of international law and declared them Russian territory.

    As Ukrainian forces on Sunday consolidated their hold on Kherson, authorities contemplated the daunting task of clearing out explosive devices and restoring basic public services in the city.

    One Ukrainian official described the situation in Kherson as “a humanitarian catastrophe.” The remaining residents in the city are said to lack water, medicine and food. There are shortages of key basics such as bread because of a lack of electricity.

    Ukrainian police called on residents to help identify collaborators with Russian forces during the eight-month occupation. Ukrainian police officers returned to the city Saturday, along with public broadcasting services, following the departure of Russian troops.

    The national police chief of Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko, said Saturday on Facebook that about 200 officers were at work in the city, setting up checkpoints and documenting evidence of possible war crimes.

    In what could perhaps be the next district to fall in Ukraine’s march on territory illegally annexed by Moscow, the Russian-appointed administration of the Kakhovka district, east of Kherson city, announced Saturday it was evacuating its employees.

    “Today, the administration is the number one target for Ukrainian attacks,” said the Moscow-installed leader of Kakhovka, Pavel Filipchuk.

    “Therefore, by order of the government of the Kherson region, we, as an authority, are moving to a safer territory, from where we will lead the district,” he wrote on Telegram.

    Kakhovka is located on the left bank of the River Dnieper, upstream of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station.

    Meanwhile, the city of Nikopol, further upstream, was heavily shelled overnight, Dnipropetrovsk Regional Council chair Mykola Lukashuk reported Sunday.

    Writing on Telegram, he said that two women were wounded but are in a stable condition in hospital. One private house and two farm buildings were destroyed, while over 40 residential buildings, more than 24 commercial buildings, a college, a register office and electricity networks were damaged.

    According to Lukashuk, the city of Marhanets also came under fire. Two private houses were damaged, but no injuries were reported. Nikopol and Marhanets lie across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest.

    In Kherson, photos on social media Saturday showed Ukrainian activists removing memorial plaques put up by the occupation authorities. A Telegram post by Yellow Ribbon, the Ukrainian resistance movement in the occupied territories, showed two people in a park taking down plaques picturing Soviet-era military figures.

    Moscow’s announcement that Russian forces were withdrawing across the Dnieper River, which divides both the Kherson region and Ukraine as a whole, followed a stepped-up Ukrainian counteroffensive in the country’s south. In the past two months, Ukraine’s military claimed to have retaken dozens of towns and villages north of the city of Kherson, and the military said that’s where stabilization activities were taking place.

    Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba sought to temper the excitement over the Russian retreat from Kherson.

    “We are winning battles on the ground, but the war continues,” he said from Cambodia, where he was attending a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told journalists Sunday that a joint statement on the results of the summit was not adopted, since “the American side and its partners insisted on an unacceptable assessment of the situation in Ukraine and around it.”

    The Kremlin is angered by the support Ukraine receives from its Western allies, including the United States.

    ———

    Leicester reported from Kyiv, Ukraine.

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

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  • Russia claims all troops gone from city in southern Ukraine

    Russia claims all troops gone from city in southern Ukraine

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    MYKOLAIV, Ukraine — Russia said its troops finished withdrawing Friday from the western bank of the river that divides Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, allowing Ukrainian forces to move cautiously toward reclaiming the country’s only Russian-occupied provincial capital in what would be a major victory.

    In a statement carried by Russian state news agencies, Russia’s Defense Ministry said the withdrawal was completed at 5 a.m. and not a single unit of military equipment was left behind. The retreat, which came two months after Russian forces withdrew from eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, represents another huge setback for Moscow in its 8 1/2-month war in Ukraine.

    Reports emerged of residents hoisting Ukrainian flags in places the Russians pulled out of, including the city of Kherson. A Ukrainian regional official, Serhii Khlan, said he heard the flags were “appearing en masse all over the place.” He disputed the Russian claim that retreating forces took all their equipment with them, saying he was told “a lot” of hardware got left behind.

    Khlan, who spoke to journalists from outside the city, said he heard that some Russian troops also were left behind and had dressed in civilian clothes, possibly with plans to engage in acts of sabotage.” He said their exact number was unclear.

    The Kremlin remained defiant Friday, insisting the development in no way represented an embarrassment for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Moscow continues to view the entire Kherson region as part of Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

    He added that the Kremlin doesn’t regret holding festivities just over a month ago to celebrate the illegal annexation of Kherson and three other occupied or partially occupied regions of Ukraine. Despite abandoning their positions on the western bank, Russian forces still control about 70% of the Kherson region.

    Shortly before the Russian announcement, the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the situation in the province as “difficult.” It reported Russian shelling of some of the villages and towns Ukrainian forces reclaimed in recent weeks during their counteroffensive in the Kherson region.

    The General Staff of Ukraine’s army said the Russian forces also left looted homes, damaged power lines and mined roads in their wake. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak predicted Thursday the departing Russians would seek to turn Kherson into a “city of death” and would continue to shell it after relocating across the Dnieper River.

    Ukrainian officials were wary of the Russian pullback announced this week, fearing their soldiers could get drawn into an ambush in Kherson city, which had a prewar population of 280,000. Military analysts also had predicted it would take Russia’s military at least a week to complete the troop withdrawal.

    Without referencing events unfolding in Kherson, Zelenskyy said in a video message thanking U.S. military personnel on Veterans Day that that “victory will be ours.”

    “Your example inspires Ukrainians today to fight back against Russian tyranny,” he said. “Special thanks to the many American veterans who have volunteered to fight in Ukraine and to the American people for the amazing support you have given Ukraine. With your help, we have stunned the world and are pushing Russian forces back.”

    However, some quarters of the Ukrainian government barely disguised their glee at the pace of the Russian withdrawal.

    “The Russian army leaves the battlefields in a triathlon mode: steeplechase, broad jumping, swimming,” Andriy Yermak, a senior presidential adviser, tweeted. Social media videos apparently filmed by soldiers on routes toward Kherson showed villagers hugging the Ukrainian troops.

    Recapturing the city could provide Ukraine a strong position from which to expand its southern counteroffensive to other Russian-occupied areas, potentially including Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014.

    From its forces new positions on the eastern bank, however, the Kremlin could try to escalate the war, which U.S. assessments showed may already have killed or wounded tens of thousands of civilians and hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

    A Russian S-300 missile strike overnight killed seven people in Mykolaiv, a city about 68 kilometers (42 miles) from Kherson’s regional capital, Zelenskyy’s office said Friday morning. Rescue crews sifted through the rubble of a five-story residential building in search of survivors.

    Standing in front of what used to be his family’s apartment, Roman Mamontov, 16, awaited news about his missing mother.

    Mamontov said he found “nothing there” when he opened an apartment door to look for his mother after the missile struck. Friday was her 34th birthday, the teenager said.

    “My mind was blank at that moment. I thought it could not be true,” he said. “The cake she prepared for the celebration is still there.”

    Zelenskyy called the missile strike “the terrorist state’s cynical response to our successes at the front.”

    “Russia does not give up its despicable tactics. And we will not give up our struggle. The occupiers will be held to account for every crime against Ukraine and Ukrainians,” Zelenskyy said.

    The Russian Defense Ministry didn’t acknowledge striking a residential building in Mykolaiv, saying only that an ammunition depot was destroyed “in the area of the city.”

    The president’s office said Russian drones, rockets and heavy artillery strikes across eight regions killed at least 14 civilians between Thursday morning and Friday morning.

    The state of the key Antonivskiy Bridge that links the western and eastern banks of the Dnieper in the Kherson region remained unclear Friday. Russian media reports suggested the bridge was blown up following the Russian withdrawal; pro-Kremlin reporters posted footage of the bridge missing a large section.

    But Sergei Yeliseyev, a Russian-installed official in the Kherson region, told the Interfax news agency that “the Antonivskiy Bridge hasn’t been blown up, it’s in the same condition.”

    Gen. Ben Hodges, former commanding general of U.S. Army forces in Europe, described the retreat from Kherson as a “colossal failure” for Russia and said Russian military commanders should have pulled all their forces out of the city “weeks ago,” to put the Dnieper River between them and Ukraine’s advancing troops.

    Hodges, speaking in a phone interview with The Associated Press, said he expected Ukrainian commanders would work to keep the pressure on Russia’s depleted forces in the weeks ahead, ahead of a possible future push next year for Crimea, seized by Russia in 2014.

    Russia is “going to have a very difficult time over the next several months continuing to hold back a very confident Ukrainian military that has a strong wind in their back” in the wake of the offensive for Kherson, he said.

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

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    Leicester reported from Kyiv.

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  • Russia accused of ‘kidnapping’ head of Ukraine nuclear plant

    Russia accused of ‘kidnapping’ head of Ukraine nuclear plant

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    KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s nuclear power provider accused Russia on Saturday of “kidnapping” the head of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, a facility now occupied by Russian troops and located in a region of Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin has moved to annex illegally.

    Russian forces seized the director-general of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Ihor Murashov, around 4 p.m. Friday, Ukrainian state nuclear company Energoatom said. That was just hours after Putin, in a sharp escalation of his war, signed treaties to absorb Moscow-controlled Ukrainian territory into Russia.

    Energoatom said Russian troops stopped Murashov’s car, blindfolded him and then took him to an undisclosed location.

    “His detention by (Russia) jeopardizes the safety of Ukraine and Europe’s largest nuclear power plant,” said Energoatom President Petro Kotin said.

    Kotin demanded that Russia immediately release Murashov.

    Russia did not immediately acknowledge seizing the plant director. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has staff at the plant, did not immediately acknowledge Energoatom’s claim of Murashov’s capture.

    The Zaporizhzhia plant repeatedly has been caught in the crossfire of the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian technicians continued running it after Russian troops seized the power station. The plant’s last reactor was shut down in September amid ongoing shelling near the facility.

    On Friday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the war in Ukraine was at “a pivotal moment.” He called Putin’s decision to take over more territory – Russia now claims sovereignty over 15% of Ukraine – “the largest attempted annexation of European territory by force since the Second World War.”

    Elsewhere in Ukraine, however, a Ukrainian counteroffensive that last month embarrassed the Kremlin by liberating a region bordering Russia was on the verge of retaking more ground, according to military analysts.

    The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said Ukraine likely will retake another key Russian-occupied city in the country’s east in the next few days. Ukrainian forces already have encircled the city of Lyman, some 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.

    Citing Russian reports, the institute said it appeared Russian forces were retreating from Lyman. That corresponds to online videos purportedly showing some Russian forces falling back as a Ukrainian soldier said they had reached Lyman’s outskirts.

    The Ukrainian military has yet to claim taking Lyman, and Russia-backed forces claimed they were sending more troops to the area.

    Ukraine also is making “incremental” gains around Kupiansk and the eastern bank of the Oskil River, which became a key front line since the Ukrainian counteroffensive regained control of the Kharkiv region in September.

    Ukraine’s military claimed Saturday that Russia would need to deploy cadets before they complete their training because of a lack of manpower in the war. Putin ordered a mass mobilization of Russian army reservists last week to supplement his troops in Ukraine, and thousands of men have fled the country to avoid the call-up.

    The Ukrainian military’s general staff said cadets at the Tyumen Military School and at the Ryazan Airborne School would be sent to participate in Russia’s mobilization. It offered no details on how it gathered the information, though Kyiv has electronically intercepted mobile phone calls from Russian soldiers amid the conflict.

    In a daily intelligence briefing, the British Defense Ministry highlighted an attack Friday in the city of Zaporizhzhia that killed 30 people and wounded 88 others.

    The British military said the Russians “almost certainly” struck a humanitarian convoy there with S-300 anti-aircraft missiles. Russia is increasingly using anti-aircraft missiles to conduct attacks on the ground likely due to a lack of munitions, the British said Saturday.

    “Russia’s stock of such missiles is highly likely limited and is a high-value resource designed to shoot down modern aircraft and incoming missiles, rather than for use against ground targets,” the British said. “Its use in ground attack role has almost certainly been driven by overall munitions shortages, particularly longer-range precision missiles.”

    The British briefing noted the attack came while Putin was preparing to sign the annexation treaties.

    “Russia is expending strategically valuable military assets in attempts to achieve tactical advantage and in the process is killing civilians it now claims are its own citizens,” it said.

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  • Kremlin gets ready to annex 4 regions of Ukraine on Friday

    Kremlin gets ready to annex 4 regions of Ukraine on Friday

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    KYIV, Ukraine — Russia on Friday will formally annex occupied parts of Ukraine where it held Kremlin-orchestrated “referendums” in which it claimed that residents had voted overwhelmingly to live under Moscow’s rule. The Ukrainian government and the West have denounced the ballots as illegal, forced and rigged.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend a ceremony Friday in the Kremlin when four regions of Ukraine — Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — will be officially folded into Russia, spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday.

    Peskov said the pro-Moscow administrators of those regions will sign treaties to join Russia during the ceremony at the Kremlin’s St. George’s Hall. The official annexation was widely expected following the votes that wrapped up on Tuesday in the areas under Russian occupation in Ukraine.

    The Kremlin’s announcement was met with swift rejection from European officials.

    “It’s absolutely unacceptable,” said Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky, whose country currently holds the European Union presidency. “We reject such one-sided annexation based on a fully falsified process with no legitimacy.”

    Lipavsky described the pro-Russia referendums as “theater play” and insisted the regions remain “Ukrainian territory.”

    Other officials who denounced Russia on Thursday over the “sham” votes included the prime ministers of Italy and Denmark and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

    “Under threats and sometimes even (at) gunpoint, people are being taken out of their homes or workplaces to vote in glass ballot boxes,” she said at a conference in Berlin.

    “This is the opposite of free and fair elections,” Baerbock said. “And this is the opposite of peace. It’s dictated peace. As long as this Russian diktat prevails in the occupied territories of Ukraine, no citizen is safe. No citizen is free.”

    Armed Russian troops had gone door-to-door with election officials to collect ballots in five days of voting. The suspiciously high margins in favor are being characterized by the West as a land grab by an increasingly cornered Russian leadership after Russian troops faced some embarrassing military losses in Ukraine.

    Moscow-installed administrations in the four regions of southern and eastern Ukraine claimed Tuesday night that 93% of the ballots cast in the Zaporizhzhia region supported annexation, as did 87% in Kherson, 98% in Luhansk and 99% in Donetsk.

    Ukraine too has dismissed the referendums as illegitimate, saying it has every right to retake those territories, a position that has won support from Washington.

    The Kremlin has been unmoved by the criticism. After a counteroffensive by Ukraine this month dealt Moscow’s forces heavy battlefield setbacks, Russia said it would call up 300,000 reservists to join the fight. It also warned it could resort to nuclear weapons. In response, tens of thousands of Russian men have sought to leave the country.

    On the battlefront Thursday, Ukrainian authorities said Russian shelling killed at least eight civilians, including a child, and wounded scores of others. A 12-year-old girl was pulled alive out of rubble after an attack on Dnipro, officials said.

    “The rescuers have taken her from under the rubble, she was asleep when the Russian missile hit,” said local administrator Valentyn Reznichenko.

    A Russian rocket attack on Kramatorsk, a city in the eastern Donetsk region still held by Ukraine, wounded 11 people and inflicted damage on the city, Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko said.

    Reports of new shelling came as Russia appeared to lose more ground around the key northeastern city of Lyman, which is coming as the Russian military is struggling with a chaotic mobilization of troops and trying to prevent fighting-age men from leaving the country, according to a Washington-based think-tank and the British intelligence reports.

    The Institute for the Study of War, citing Russian reports, said Ukrainian forces have taken more villages around Lyman, a city 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. The report said Ukrainian forces may soon encircle Lyman entirely, in what would be a major blow to Moscow’s war effort.

    “The collapse of the Lyman pocket will likely be highly consequential to the Russian grouping in northern Donetsk and western Luhansk oblasts and may allow Ukrainian troops to threaten Russian positions along the western Luhansk” region, the institute said.

    British military intelligence claimed the number of Russian military-age men fleeing the country likely exceeds the number of forces that Moscow used to initially invade Ukraine in February.

    “The better off and well educated are over-represented amongst those attempting to leave Russia,” the British said. “When combined with those reservists who are being mobilized, the domestic economic impact of reduced availability of labor and the acceleration of ‘brain drain’ is likely to become increasingly significant.”

    Russia’s partial mobilization has been deeply unpopular in some areas, however, triggering protests and scattered violence. Russian men have formed miles-long lines trying to leave at some borders and Moscow also reportedly has set up draft offices at its borders to intercept some of those fleeing.

    On the subject of sabotage that has hit Russian gas pipelines to Europe this week, Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, claimed Thursday that the Nord Stream pipeline accidents would have been impossible without a government’s involvement.

    “It looks like a terror attack, probably conducted on a state level,” Peskov told reporters. “It’s a very dangerous situation that requires a quick investigation.”

    He dismissed media reports about Russian warships spotted in the area as “stupid and biased,” claiming that many more NATO aircraft and ships “have been spotted in the area.”

    European officials have noted that Russia benefits from higher gas prices when supplies to Europe are disrupted.

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  • Live Updates: Russia-Ukraine War

    Live Updates: Russia-Ukraine War

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    KYIV, Ukraine — STOCKHOLM — A fourth leak to the Nord Stream pipelines conveying natural gas from Russia to Germany has been reported off southern Sweden.

    Earlier, three leaks had been reported on the two underwater pipelines. Seismologists detected two explosions were detected before reports of the leaks which officials believe were “deliberate actions.”

    Some experts have said Russia is likely to blame for any sabotage — it directly benefits from higher energy prices and economic anxiety across Europe.

    Sweden’s coast guards told Swedish news agency TT on Thursday that the fourth leak was off Sweden. All the leaks are in international waters.

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    KEY DEVELOPMENTS:

    — Russia poised to annex occupied Ukrain e after sham vote

    — US: Focus new Russia sanctions on oil revenue, arms supplies

    — Europe ramps up energy security after suspected sabotage

    — Moscow tries to draft fleeing Russian men at the borders

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    OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:

    KYIV — Authorities say Russian missile fire targeted the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro overnight, killing at least three people and wounded five others.

    Valentyn Reznichenko, the governor of the wider Dnipropetrovsk region, said fire damaged homes, a market, cars, buses and electrical lines.

    ——

    KYIV — Authorities say the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has again been targeted by Russian missile fire.

    Ukrainian military officials said Thursday a Russian Kh-59 missile struck Kryvyi Rih on Wednesday night. The Russian fire struck a grain depot while others were shot down.

    Kryvyi Rih is some 350 kilometers (215 miles) southeast of Kyiv.

    ——

    KYIV — The Ukrainian military says it is sending undertrained fighters to the battle front as it tries to reinforce its positions in the eastern Ukrainian city of Lyman.

    The Ukrainian military’s general staff said Thursday that of seven Russian tanks sent to Lyman recently, Russian troops crashed two of them on the way there.

    It also said troops manning the tanks did not undergo training on how to use the vehicle’s weapons.

    The Ukrainian military did not elaborate on how it knew about the tank unit’s condition. But Ukraine’s intelligence services have played purportedly intercepted phone calls of Russian troops complaining about their conditions on the front line.

    ——

    KYIV — Britain’s military says the number of Russian military-age men fleeing the country likely exceeds the number of forces Moscow used to initially invade Ukraine in February.

    The British Defense Ministry made the estimate in its daily intelligence briefing Thursday amid a Russian push to mobilize more troops to replenish losses its forces have suffered in Ukraine.

    The ministry said those who are financially better off and better educated are over-represented amongst those attempting to leave Russia.

    It added that the economic impact from the call-up as a result of a loss of labor in combination with a ‘brain drain’ “is likely to become increasingly difficult.”

    ——

    KYIV — A Washington-based think tank says Ukrainian soldiers continue to advance around a key northeastern city occupied by Russian forces and may soon encircle it entirely.

    The Institute for the Study of War, citing Russian reports, said Thursday that Ukrainian forces have taken more villages around Lyman, a city some 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.

    Lyman had been a key node in Russia’s front-line operations in the region before Ukrainian forces retook vast swathes of territory in the northeast earlier this month.

    The institute said a possible collapse of the Lyman pocket would allow Ukrainian troops to “threaten Russian positions along the western Luhansk” region.

    The institute suggested additional Russian losses would further erode morale amid a call-up of hundreds of thousands of men — the country’s first since World War II.

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

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