Tag: Ukraine government

Trump says he’s sending his envoys to see Putin and Ukrainians after fine-tuning plan to end war

President Donald Trump says his plan to end the war in Ukraine has been “fine-tuned.” He said Tuesday that he is sending envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with the Russian president and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll to meet with Ukrainian officials. (AP Production: Marissa Duhaney)

President Donald Trump says his plan to end the war in Ukraine has been “fine-tuned.” He said Tuesday that he is sending envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with the Russian president and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll to meet with Ukrainian officials. (AP Production: Marissa Duhaney)

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November 29, 2025
From basement to battlefield: Ukrainian startups create low-cost robots to fight Russia

NORTHERN UKRAINE (AP) — Struggling with manpower shortages, overwhelming odds and uneven international assistance, Ukraine hopes to find a strategic edge against Russia in an abandoned warehouse or a factory basement.

An ecosystem of laboratories in hundreds of secret workshops is leveraging innovation to create a robot army that Ukraine hopes will kill Russian troops and save its own wounded soldiers and civilians.

Defense startups across Ukraine — about 250 according to industry estimates — are creating the killing machines at secret locations that typically look like rural car repair shops.

Employees at a startup run by entrepreneur Andrii Denysenko can put together an unmanned ground vehicle called the Odyssey in four days at a shed used by the company. Its most important feature is the price tag: $35,000, or roughly 10% of the cost of an imported model.

Denysenko asked that The Associated Press not publish details of the location to protect the infrastructure and the people working there.

The site is partitioned into small rooms for welding and body work. That includes making fiberglass cargo beds, spray-painting the vehicles gun-green and fitting basic electronics, battery-powered engines, off-the-shelf cameras and thermal sensors.

The military is assessing dozens of new unmanned air, ground and marine vehicles produced by the no-frills startup sector, whose production methods are far removed from giant Western defense companies’.

A fourth branch of Ukraine’s military — the Unmanned Systems Forces — joined the army, navy and air force in May.

Engineers take inspiration from articles in defense magazines or online videos to produce cut-price platforms. Weapons or smart components can be added later.

“We are fighting a huge country, and they don’t have any resource limits. We understand that we cannot spend a lot of human lives,” said Denysenko, who heads the defense startup UkrPrototyp. “War is mathematics.”

One of its drones, the car-sized Odyssey, spun on its axis and kicked up dust as it rumbled forward in a cornfield in the north of the country last month.

The 800-kilogram (1,750-pound) prototype that looks like a small, turretless tank with its wheels on tracks can travel up to 30 kilometers (18.5 miles) on one charge of a battery the size of a small beer cooler.

The prototype acts as a rescue-and-supply platform but can be modified to carry a remotely operated heavy machine gun or sling mine-clearing charges.

“Squads of robots … will become logistics devices, tow trucks, minelayers and deminers, as well as self-destructive robots,” a government fundraising page said after the launch of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces. “The first robots are already proving their effectiveness on the battlefield.”

Mykhailo Fedorov, the deputy prime minister for digital transformation, is encouraging citizens to take free online courses and assemble aerial drones at home. He wants Ukrainians to make a million of flying machines a year.

“There will be more of them soon,” the fundraising page said. “Many more.”

Denysenko’s company is working on projects including a motorized exoskeleton that would boost a soldier’s strength and carrier vehicles to transport a soldier’s equipment and even help them up an incline. “We will do everything to make unmanned technologies develop even faster. (Russia’s) murderers use their soldiers as cannon fodder, while we lose our best people,” Fedorov wrote in an online post.

Ukraine has semi-autonomous attack drones and counter-drone weapons endowed with AI and the combination of low-cost weapons and artificial intelligence tools is worrying many experts who say low-cost drones will enable their proliferation.

Technology leaders to the United Nations and the Vatican worry that the use of drones and AI in weapons could reduce the barrier to killing and dramatically escalate conflicts.

Human Rights Watch and other international rights groups are calling for a ban on weapons that exclude human decision making, a concern echoed by the U.N. General Assembly, Elon Musk and the founders of the Google-owned, London-based startup DeepMind.

“Cheaper drones will enable their proliferation,” said Toby Walsh, professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. “Their autonomy is also only likely to increase.”

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July 17, 2024
Putin says he offered Wagner mercenaries the option to stay as a single unit

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he offered the Wagner private military company the option of continuing to serve as a single unit under their same commander after their short-lived rebellion, while some of the mercenaries were shown Friday in Belarus, possibly heralding the group’s relocation there.

Putin’s comments appeared to reflect his efforts to secure the loyalty of Wagner mercenaries, some of the most capable Russian forces in Ukraine, after the group’s brief revolt last month that posed the most serious threat to his 23-year rule.

The fate of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin remains unclear since the June 23-24 armed rebellion and new cracks have appeared in the Russian military as the war grinds through its 17th month and Ukraine presses a counteroffensive against the invading forces.

In remarks published Friday in the business daily Kommersant, Putin for the first time described a Kremlin event attended by 35 Wagner commanders, including Prigozhin, on June 29, five days after the rebellion. He said he praised their efforts in Ukraine, deplored their involvement in the mutiny — which he previously denounced as an act of treason — and offered them alternatives for future service.

Putin told Kommersant that one option would see Wagner keep the same commander who goes by the call sign “Gray Hair” and has led the private army in Ukraine for 16 months. The commander, Andrei Troshev, is a retired military officer who has played a leading role in Wagner since its creation in 2014 and faced European Union sanctions over his role in Syria as the group’s executive director.

“All of them could have gathered in one place and continued to serve,” Putin told the newspaper, “And nothing would have changed for them. They would have been led by the same person who had been their real commander all along.”

Putin said many Wagner troops nodded in approval at the proposal, but Prigozhin, who was sitting in front and didn’t see their reaction, quickly rejected it, responding that “the boys won’t agree with such a decision.”

Putin didn’t mention where and in what numbers Wagner could be deployed under his offer, or say what proposal the forces eventually accepted, if any. He said nothing about Prigozhin’s role.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov refused to elaborate on Wagner’s future while speaking with reporters Friday.

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Putin has previously said Wagner troops had to choose whether to sign contracts with the Defense Ministry, move to neighboring Belarus or retire from service.

Speaking to Kommersant, Putin emphasized that “rank-and-file soldiers of Wagner have fought honorably” in Ukraine, adding that “it’s a cause for regret that they were drawn” into the mutiny.

Putin’s remarks were to a Kommersant reporter who has special access to the president. They appeared to be part of efforts to denigrate Prigozhin while trying to maintain control over Wagner mercenaries and secure their loyalty.

Putin previously denied any links between the government and Wagner, and acknowledged after the mutiny that Prigozhin’s company has received billions of dollars from the state. He noted that investigators would probe whether any of the funds had been stolen, a warning to Prigozhin that he could face financial crimes.

State-controlled media have posted videos and photos of Prigozhin’s opulent mansion in St. Petersburg, including stacks of cash, gold bars and fake passports. The images appeared to be part of a smear campaign against the Wagner chief, who has portrayed himself as an enemy of corrupt elites even though he owes his wealth to Putin.

Putin also said Wagner has operated without legal basis.

“There is no law on private military organizations. It simply doesn’t exist,” he told Kommersant, adding that the government and the parliament have yet to discuss the issue of private military contractors.

In the revolt that lasted less than 24 hours, Prigozhin’s mercenaries quickly swept through the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and captured the military headquarters there without firing a shot, before driving to within about 200 kilometers (125 miles) of Moscow. Prigozhin called it a “march of justice” to oust Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and General Staff chief Gen. Valery Gerasimov, who demanded that Wagner sign contracts with the Defense Ministry by July 1.

The mutiny faced little resistance and fighters downed at least six military helicopters and a command post aircraft, killing at least 10 airmen. Prigozhin ordered his mercenaries back to their camps after striking a deal to end the rebellion in exchange for an amnesty for him and his men, and permission to move to Belarus.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who brokered the deal, has said Prigozhin was in Russia while Wagner’s troops were in their field camps. He didn’t specify the camps’ location but Prigozhin’s mercenaries fought alongside Russian forces in eastern Ukraine before their revolt and also have bases in Russia.

Lukashenko said his military could benefit from the private army’s combat experience, and Belarusian state TV broadcast video Friday of Wagner instructors training Belarusian territorial defense forces at a firing range near Asipovichy, where a camp offered to Wagner is located. A Belarusian messaging app channel alleged Prigozhin spent a night at the camp this week and posted a photo of him in a tent.

The Belarusian Defense Ministry didn’t say how many Wagner troops were in Belarus or specify if more will follow. Lukashenko has previously said it was up to Prigozhin and Moscow to decide on a move to Belarus. The Kremlin has refrained from comment.

Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said most mercenaries have remained in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, but added that “at this stage, we do not see Wagner forces participating in any significant capacity in support of combat operations in Ukraine.”

While the fate of Prigozhin remains cloudy, the Defense Ministry said Wednesday that Wagner was completing the handover of its weapons to the Russian military. That appeared to show attempts by Russian authorities to defuse the threat posed by the mercenaries and also seemed to herald an end to the group’s operations in Ukraine.

At the same time, new fissures have emerged in the military command. Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov, commander of the 58th army in the Zaporizhzhia region, a focal point in Ukraine’s counteroffensive, said he was dismissed after speaking out about problems faced by his troops in what he described as a “treacherous” stab in the back.

Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, refused to comment on Popov’s remarks, referring questions to the Defense Ministry that also hasn’t commented.

In the latest fighting, Ukraine said it shot down 16 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched overnight from Russia’s southern Krasnodar region. The presidential administration said at least four civilians were killed and 10 wounded since Thursday.

In southern Russia, three drones were destroyed late Thursday while approaching the city of Voronezh, regional Gov. Alexander Gusev said, adding there were no injuries or damage.

A drone also crashed and exploded in Kurchatov, where the Kursk nuclear power plant is located, without causing any damage to key facilities, said regional Gov. Roman Starovoit.

And three people were wounded when a car exploded in a residential area of Belgorod, near the Ukraine border, according to regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba responded to suggestions this week by British Defense Minister Ben Wallace that Ukraine could show more “gratitude” for Western military aid. The remark was an “unfortunate misunderstanding on the part of the British minister,” Kuleba said.

“No one has any reason to accuse us of any ingratitude. But the truth is that, sorry, we are at war,” he said. “When we win, then I will say, ‘thank you, the weapons were enough,’ but while the struggle continues, the weapons are not enough.”

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Lolita C. Baldor in Washington and Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed.

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July 14, 2023
Russia says it foiled Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow as Kyiv’s counteroffensive grinds on

Russian air defenses on Tuesday foiled a Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow that prompted authorities to briefly close one of the city’s international airports, officials said, as a Western analysis said that Russia has managed to slow Kyiv’s recently launched counteroffensive.

The drone attack, which follows previous similar raids on the Russian capital, was the first known assault on the city since an abortive mutiny launched 11 days ago by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. His Wagner troops marched on Moscow in the biggest — though short-lived — challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin in more than two decades of his rule.

Authorities in Ukraine, which generally avoids commenting on attacks on Russian soil, didn’t say whether it launched the drone raid.

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The Russian Defense Ministry said that four of the five drones were downed by air defenses on the outskirts of Moscow and the fifth was jammed by electronic warfare means and forced down.

There were no casualties or damage, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

As with previous drone attacks on Moscow, it was impossible to verify the Russian military’s announcement that it downed all of them.

The drone attack prompted authorities to temporarily restrict flights at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport and divert flights to two other Moscow main airports. Vnukovo is about 15 kilometers (nine miles) southwest of Moscow.

In May, two daring drone attacks jolted the Russian capital, in what appeared to be Kyiv’s deepest strikes into Russia.

Tuesday’s raid came as Ukrainian forces have continued probing Russian defenses in the south and the east of their country in the initial stages of a counteroffensive.

Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s Security and Defense Council, said that the military was currently focusing on destroying Russian equipment and personnel, and that the past few days of fighting have been particularly “fruitful.” He provided no evidence and it wasn’t possible to independently verify it.

The Ukrainians are up against minefields, anti-tank ditches and other obstacles, as well as layered defensive lines reportedly up to 20 kilometers (12 miles) deep in some places as they attempt to dislodge Russian occupiers.

The U.K. Defense Ministry said Tuesday the Kremlin’s forces have “refined (their) tactics aimed at slowing Ukrainian armored counteroffensive operations in southern Ukraine.”

Moscow has placed emphasis on using anti-tank mines to slow the onslaught, the assessment said, leaving the attackers at the mercy of Russian drones, helicopters and artillery.

“Although Russia has achieved some success with this approach in the early stages of Ukraine’s counteroffensive, its forces continue to suffer from key weaknesses, especially overstretched units and a shortage of artillery munitions,” the assessment said.

Western analysts say the counteroffensive, even if it prospers, won’t end the war, which started with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Russia, meanwhile, has continued its missile and drone barrage deep behind the front line.

Russian shelling of Pervomaiskyi, a city in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, wounded 43 civilians, Kharkiv Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said Tuesday. Among the wounded were 12 children, including two babies, according to officials.

Oleksandr Lysenko, mayor of the city of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine, said that three people were killed and 21 others were wounded in a Russian drone strike on Monday that damaged two apartment buildings.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack also damaged the regional headquarters of the Security Service of Ukraine, the country’s main intelligence agency. He argued that the country needs more air defense systems to help fend off Russian raids.

In all, Ukraine’s presidential office reported Tuesday, at least seven Ukrainian civilians were killed and 35 others injured in the fighting over the previous 24 hours.

Putin referred to the recent mercenary rebellion that rattled the Kremlin during a video call Tuesday with leaders of the countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or SCO, which is a security grouping dominated by Moscow and Beijing.

Putin said that “Russian political circles, the entire society have shown unity and responsibility for the fate of the motherland by putting up a united front against the attempted mutiny.”

He thanked the SCO members for what he described as their support during the uprising.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu also said that a united front thwarted Prigozhin’s mutiny. He said Monday in his first public comment about the episode that it “failed primarily because the armed forces personnel have remained loyal to their military oath and duty.” He said that the uprising had no impact on the war in Ukraine.

Dmitry Medvedev, head of Russia’s Security Council chaired by Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Tuesday that the mutiny had not changed the attitude of Russian citizens toward signing up as professional contract soldiers in Ukraine. In a video posted on Telegram, he said almost 10,000 new recruits had joined up in the last week, with 185,000 joining the Russian army as professional contract soldiers since the start of the year.

In contrast, Prigozhin said that he had the public’s backing for his “march of justice” toward Moscow.

On Tuesday, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe adopted a resolution recognizing Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism and the Wagner private mercenary group as a terrorist organization.

The declaration urges member states to take measures against the Wagner Group and any affiliated or successor structures. In addition, the document calls on members to recognize “the responsibility of Russia as a state sponsor of this terrorist organization.”

Meanwhile, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday it saw “no grounds” to extend a deal that has allowed Ukraine to ship grain through the Black Sea to parts of the world struggling with hunger. The statement came less than two weeks before the expiration of the agreement, which was extended for two months in May.

Moscow has complained that a separate agreement with the United Nations to overcome obstacles to shipments of its fertilizers has not produced results.

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July 4, 2023
Ukraine’s dam disaster is ‘unlikely’ to derail its plans for a counteroffensive against Russia

A Ukrainian serviceman fires a rocket launcher during a military training exercise not far from front line in Donetsk region on June 8, 2023.

Anatolii Stepanov | Afp | Getty Images

The collapse of a strategically important dam in Russian-occupied Ukraine raises questions about the ability of Kyiv to launch a long-anticipated counteroffensive, but analysts believe the resulting carnage is unlikely to deter the next phase of the war.

The Nova Kakhovka dam, which is situated on the Dnieper River, was blown up on Tuesday. The breach has since wrought havoc for a swathe of southern Ukraine, with tens of thousands of people fleeing as entire cities were reduced to ruins by the cascading floodwater.

Ukraine accused Russian forces of blowing up the dam, while the Kremlin denied the attack and said Kyiv intentionally sabotaged the dam to distract attention from its counteroffensive. CNBC has not been able to independently verify the claims.

The dam breach comes amid months of buildup to Ukraine’s counteroffensive, a phase of the war that many see as potentially pivotal in Kyiv’s pursuit of victory.

NBC News reported Thursday that Ukraine had finally launched its counteroffensive, citing a senior officer and a soldier near the front lines. The report said a wave of Ukrainian attacks on the war’s southeastern front lines appeared to reflect a significant new push.

A spokesperson for the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Friday, however, dismissed reports that a counteroffensive had begun, according to Reuters. Ukraine’s government has repeatedly said there will be no public announcement of the start of the counteroffensive.

Andrius Tursa, central and Eastern Europe advisor at Teneo, a political risk consultancy, said the destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam may alter Ukraine’s offensive plans — but was “unlikely to derail” them.

In a note published Thursday, Tursa said intensifying and offensive actions by Ukraine could indicate the start of a wider campaign, but it is likely to be “gradual and cautious.”

“Ukraine’s offensive was long expected to focus on liberating southeastern regions of the country, which could sever Russia’s ‘land bridge’ to Crimea, split the occupying forces, and pose new risks to Russian military assets in the peninsula,” Tursa said.

“While this likely remains one of the objectives, Ukraine is also under increasing political pressure to demonstrate that Western military equipment and training have enabled it to deal major blows to the Russian forces and recapture significant areas of occupied territory regardless of where it is.”

Volunteers sail on boats during an evacuation from a flooded area in Kherson on June 8, 2023, following damages sustained at Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant dam.

Genya Savilov | Afp | Getty Images

If Russia is behind the destruction of the dam, and it was approved by Russian President Vladimir Putin and military leadership, Tursa said “it shows a lack of confidence in their ability to defend the entire frontline by conventional means.”

What’s more, the dam collapse sends a message to the international community that Moscow is prepared to continue to use “asymmetric, escalatory, and highly destructive methods of defending, even if it hurts Russian interests too,” Tursa added.

Ramifications of the Nova Kakhovka dam breach

Ukraine had long warned that the Nova Kakhovka dam was a target for Russia. In November, Kyiv expressed concerns that the dam could be destroyed by retreating Russian forces from the right bank of the Dnieper River in the Kherson region.

Ian Bremmer, founder and president of political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, also said that he doesn’t expect the destruction of the dam to make much of a difference to the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

“This is not where the ‘land bridge’ [to Crimea] is most easily broken so that is probably not an impact,” Bremmer said Wednesday via Twitter, and stressed the importance of waiting for evidence as to who was behind the dam collapse.

Russian forces and occupation authorities have since sought to exacerbate the humanitarian ramifications of the flooding from Tuesday’s dam break, according to analysis from the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think tank.

This includes Russian forces hiding among civilians seeking to evacuate from flooded settlements on the east bank of the Dnieper River, according to the think tank, and reportedly shelling a flooded evacuation site in Kherson City, killing one civilian and injuring several others.

Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksiy Goncharenko, meanwhile, said the floodwaters unleashed following the dam blast would “definitely” make a counteroffensive more difficult in this area.

“We have several hundred miles of the frontlines more so there [are places] to attack but in this exact place, it will be harder. I am not a military person so I can’t use the word impossible. I don’t know but definitely much harder,” Goncharenko said Wednesday in an interview with Channel 4 News.

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June 9, 2023
Ukrainian court puts an Orthodox leader under house arrest

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Kyiv court ordered a leading priest to be put under house arrest Saturday after Ukraine’s top security agency said he was suspected of justifying Russian aggression, a criminal offense. It was the latest move in a bitter dispute over a famed Orthodox monastery.

Metropolitan Pavel is the abbot of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery, Ukraine’s most revered Orthodox site. He has denied the charges and resisted the authorities’ order to vacate the complex.

In a court hearing earlier in the day, the metropolitan said the claim by the Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU, that he condoned Russia’s invasion was politically driven and that he had “never been on the side of aggression.”

After the court’s ruling, a monitoring bracelet was placed around his ankle, despite his objections that he has diabetes and should not wear it. The house arrest was to last two months.

“I am accepting this,” he said shortly before the bracelet was attached. “Christ was crucified on the cross, so why shouldn’t I accept this?”

Earlier in the week, he cursed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, threatening him with damnation.

The monks in the monastery belong to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which has been accused of having links to Russia. The dispute surrounding the property, also known as the Monastery of the Caves, is part of a wider religious conflict that has unfolded in parallel with the war.

The Ukrainian government has cracked down on the UOC over its historic ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, whose leader, Patriarch Kirill, has supported Russian President Vladimir Putin in the invasion of Ukraine.

Many Orthodox communities in Ukraine have cut their ties with the UOC and transitioned to the rival Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which more than four years ago received recognition from the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.

The UOC has insisted that it’s loyal to Ukraine and has denounced the Russian invasion. But Ukrainian security agencies say some in the church have maintained close ties with Moscow. The agencies have raided numerous holy sites of the church and then posted photos of rubles, Russian passports, and leaflets with messages from the Moscow patriarch as proof that some church officials have been loyal to Russia.

The government had ordered the monks to leave the compound by March 29. It claims they violated their lease by making alterations to the historic site, and other technical infractions. The monks rejected the claim as a pretext.

Dozens of UOC supporters gathered outside the monastery on Saturday, singing hymns in the rain. A smaller group of protesters also turned up, accusing the other side of sympathizing with Moscow.

“They wash the brains of people with Russian support, and they are very dangerous for Ukraine,” said Senia Kravchuk, a 38-year-old software developer from Kyiv. “They sing songs in support of Russia, and that’s horrible, here, in the center of Kyiv.”

Third-year seminary student David, 21, disagreed. Dressed in a priest’s robes and with a Ukrainian flag draped round his shoulders, he insisted the Lavra priests and residents were in no way pro-Russian. The state, he said, was trying to evict hundreds of people from Lavra without a court order.

“Look at me. I’m in priest’s clothes, with a Ukrainian flag and a cross around my neck. Could you say that I’m pro-Russian?” said David, who declined to give his last name because of the tensions surrounding the issue. “The priests are currently singing a Ukrainian hymn, and they’re being called pro-Russian. Can you believe it?”

In other news Saturday, Zelenskyy condemned the U.N. Security Council for allowing Russia to assume its presidency. The council’s 15 members each serve as president for a month, on a rotating basis.

Zelenskyy said Russian artillery had killed a 5-month-old boy in the town of Avdiivka on Friday, “one of hundreds of artillery attacks” each day, and added that Russia presiding over the Security Council “proves the complete bankruptcy of such institutions.”

Two civilians were reported killed in Russian shelling on Saturday, one each in the Kherson and Kharkiv regions, Ukrainian authorities there said.

Zelenskyy also said he spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday about defense cooperation.

While Ukraine is preparing for a counteroffensive expected later this spring, Russian forces have kept pressing their effort to capture the city of Bakhmut. Fighting in that stronghold in Ukraine’s east has dragged on for eight months.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said during a Saturday visit to the military headquarters overseeing the action in Ukraine that Russia’s defense industries have boosted production of ammunition “by several times.”

The U.K. Defense Ministry said in an analysis Saturday that the Russian offensive overseen by Gen. Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff of the Russian military, has fizzled.

“Gerasimov’s tenure has been characterized by an effort to launch a general winter offensive with the aim of extending Russian control over the whole of the Donbas region,” the British ministry said on Twitter. “Eighty days on, it is increasingly apparent that this project has failed.”

The ministry said Russian forces have made only marginal gains in the Donbas “at the cost of tens of thousands of casualties.” Russia was “largely squandering its temporary advantage in personnel” from a partial mobilization of 300,000 reservists Putin ordered in the fall, the U.K. analysis said. ___

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April 2, 2023
Japan’s PM offers Ukraine support as China’s Xi backs Russia

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made a surprise visit Tuesday to Kyiv, engaging in dueling diplomacy with Asian rival President Xi Jinping of China, who met in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin to promote Beijing’s peace proposal for Ukraine that Western nations have all but dismissed as a non-starter.

The two visits, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) apart, highlighted how countries are lining up behind Moscow or Kyiv during the nearly 13-month-old war. Kishida, who will chair the Group of Seven summit in May, became the group’s last member to visit Ukraine and meet President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, after paying tribute to those killed in Bucha, a town that became a symbol of Russian atrocities against civilians.

Xi and Putin announced no major progress toward implementing the Chinese peace deal, although the Russian leader said it could be a basis for ending the fighting when the West is ready. He added that Kyiv’s Western allies have shown no interest in that.

U.S. officials have said any peace plan coming from the Putin-Xi meeting would be unacceptable because a cease-fire would only ratify Moscow’s territorial conquests and give Russia time to plan for a renewed offensive.

“It looks like the West indeed intends to fight Russia until the last Ukrainian,” Putin said, adding the latest threat is a British plan to give Ukraine tank rounds containing depleted uranium.

“If that happens, Russia will respond accordingly, given that the collective West is starting to use weapons with a nuclear component,” he said, without elaborating. Putin has occasionally warned that Russia would use all available means, including possibly nuclear weapons, to defend itself, but also has sometimes backed off such threats.

Putin’s comment referred to remarks Monday by U.K junior Defense Minister Annabel Goldie, who wrote: “Alongside our granting of a squadron of Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, we will be providing ammunition, including armor-piercing rounds which contain depleted uranium. Such rounds are highly effective in defeating modern tanks and armored vehicles.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the plan shows that the British “have lost the bearings,” and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said “it marked another step, and there aren’t so many of them left.”

But weapons expert Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, former commander of Britain’s Royal Tank Regiment, said it was “reckless” of Putin “to try and suggest Britain is sending nuclear material” to Ukraine. He said depleted uranium is a common component of tank rounds, possibly even used by Russia.

“Putin insinuating that they are some sort of nuclear weapon is bonkers,” he told The Associated Press. “Depleted uranium is completely inert. There is no way that you could create a nuclear reaction or a nuclear explosion with depleted uranium.”

Beijing insists it is a neutral broker in Ukraine, and Xi said after his talks with Putin: “We adhere to a principled and objective position on the Ukrainian crisis based on the goals and principles of the U.N. Charter.” The Chinese plan seeks to “actively encourage peace and the resumption of talks,” he said.

In a joint statement, Russia and China emphasized the need to “respect legitimate security concerns of all countries” to settle the conflict, echoing Moscow’s argument that it sent in troops to prevent the U.S. and its NATO allies from turning the country into an anti-Russian bulwark.

“Russia welcomes China’s readiness to play a positive role in the political and diplomatic settlement of the Ukrainian crisis” and the “constructive ideas” contained in Beijing’s peace plan, the statement said. It added: “The parties underline that a responsible dialogue offers the best path for a lasting settlement … and the international community should support constructive efforts in this regard.”

After meeting Kishida, Zelenskyy told reporters his team had sent his own peace formula to China but hasn’t heard back, adding that there were “some signals, but nothing concrete about the possibility of a dialogue.”

Kishida called Russia’s invasion a “disgrace that undermines the foundations of the international legal order” and pledged to “continue to support Ukraine until peace is back on the beautiful Ukrainian lands.”

Hours before Xi and Putin dined at a state dinner in glittering Kremlin opulence, Kishida laid flowers at a church in Bucha for the town’s victims.

“Upon this visit to Bucha, I feel a strong resentment against cruelty,” he said. “I would like to represent the people in Japan, and express my deepest condolences to those who lost their loved ones, were injured as a result of this cruel act.”

U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel noted the “two very different European-Pacific partnerships” that unfolded Tuesday.

“Kishida stands with freedom, and Xi stands with a war criminal,” Emanuel tweeted, referring to Friday’s decision by the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant for Putin, saying it wanted to put him on trial for the abductions of thousands of children from Ukraine.

Kyiv’s allies pledged more support. Washington is accelerating its delivery of Abrams tanks to Ukraine, sending a refurbished older version that can be ready faster, the Pentagon announced. The aim is to get the 70-ton behemoths to the war zone by fall.

The Russia-China front against the West was a prominent theme of Xi’s visit. Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov accused NATO of seeking to become the world’s dominant military force. “That is why we are expanding our cooperation with China, including in the security sphere,” he said.

Putin is keen to show he has a heavyweight ally and market for Russian energy products under Western sanctions. He and Xi signed agreements on economic cooperation, noting Russian-Chinese trade rose by 30% last year to $185 billion and is expected to top $200 billion this year.

Russia stands “ready to meet the Chinese economy’s growing demand for energy resources” by boosting deliveries of oil and gas, he said, while listing other areas of cooperation, including aircraft and shipbuilding industries and other high-tech sectors.

Whether China will provide military support is a key question. Western officials “have seen some signs” Putin also wants lethal weapons from Beijing, though there is no evidence it has granted his request, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in Brussels.

Further contacts are planned. Xi said he invited Putin to China this year to discuss a regional initiative that seeks to extend Beijing’s influence through economic cooperation.

Moscow and Beijing have both weathered international condemnation of their human rights records. The Chinese government is accused of atrocities against Uighur Muslims in its far western Xinjiang region. The allegations include genocide, forced sterilization and the mass detention of nearly 1 million Uighurs. Beijing has denied the allegations. Russia has been accused of war crimes in Ukraine, charges it denies.

Kishida rode a train from Poland to Kyiv just hours after he met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi and a week after a breakthrough summit with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yoel.

Both China and Japan have enjoyed recent diplomatic successes that emboldened their foreign policy.

Japan, which has engaged in territorial disputes over islands with both China and Russia, is particularly concerned about the Beijing-Moscow relationship. Both nations have conducted joint military exercises near Japan’s coasts.

Beijing’s diplomatic foray follows its recent success in brokering a deal between Iran and its chief Middle Eastern rival, Saudi Arabia, to restore relations after years of tensions. The move displayed China’s influence in a region where Washington has long been the major foreign player.

Kishida became Japan’s first postwar leader to enter a war zone.

Due to its pacifist principles, Japan’s support for Ukraine has been limited to nonlethal equipment and humanitarian supplies. It has contributed more than $7 billion to Ukraine and accepted more than 2,000 displaced Ukrainians, despite its strict immigration policy.

Tokyo joined the U.S. and European nations in sanctioning Russia over the invasion. By contrast, China has refused to condemn Moscow’s aggression and criticized Western sanctions against Moscow, while accusing NATO and Washington of provoking Putin’s military action.

Japan fears the possible impact of a war in East Asia, where China’s military has grown increasingly assertive and has escalated tensions around self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its territory.

In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said of Kishida’s trip: “We hope Japan could do more things to deescalate the situation instead of the opposite.”

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Associated Press writers Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo, Lolita C. Baldor in Washington and Jill Lawless in London contributed.

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March 21, 2023
A year into the war, Ukraine and the West prepare for the biggest reconstruction since World War II

People help to clean up debris at a bus station damaged after a shelling, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kherson, Ukraine February 21, 2023.

Lisi Niesner | Reuters

One year since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s economy and infrastructure are in tatters, with the government and its allies planning the largest rebuilding effort since World War II.

The World Bank estimates that Ukrainian GDP shrank by 35% in 2022, and projected in October that the population share with income below the national poverty line would rise to almost 60% by the end of last year — up from 18% in 2021.

The World Bank has so far mobilized $13 billion in emergency financing to Ukraine since the war began, including grants, guarantees and linked parallel financing from the U.S., U.K., Europe and Japan.

The International Monetary Fund estimates that the Ukrainian economy contracted by 30%, a less severe decline than previously projected. Inflation has also begun to decelerate, but ended 2022 at 26.6% year-on-year, according to the National Bank of Ukraine.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva visited Ukraine this week, meeting with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and NBU Governor Andriy Pyshnyy, among others.

In a statement Tuesday, Georgieva said she saw “an economy that is functioning, despite the tremendous challenges,” commending the government’s vision to move from recovery to a “transformational period of reconstruction and EU accession.”

“Shops are open, services are being delivered and people are going to work. This is remarkable testament to the spirit of the Ukrainian people,” Georgieva said, also noting that government agencies, economic institutions and the banking system are fully operational.

“Notwithstanding the attacks on critical infrastructure, the economy is adjusting, and a gradual economic recovery is expected over the course of this year,” she added.

This handout picture taken and released by the Ukrainian President press-service in Kyiv on May 16, 2022 shows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (R) and Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Kristalina Georgieva (on the screen) holding a video conference.

STR | AFP | Getty Images

Georgieva reiterated the IMF’s commitment to supporting Ukraine, and the Washington-based institution has provided $2.7 billion in emergency loans over the past year. However, it is also working with Ukraine under an economic policy monitoring program, a precursor to establishing a fully-fledged IMF lending program, as Kyiv seeks a $15 billion multi-year support package.

“The international community will continue to have a vital role in supporting Ukraine, including to help address the large financing needs in 2023 and beyond,” Georgieva concluded.

“The war in Ukraine has had far-reaching consequences for the local, regional, and global economy. Only if we work together as a global community will we be able to build a better future.”

Massive infrastructure rebuild

At a G-20 meeting on Thursday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called on the IMF to “move swiftly” toward the fully financed loan program, with Washington readying economic assistance to the tune of $10 billion in the coming weeks.

The U.S. has provided a cumulative $76.8 billion in bilateral military, economic and humanitarian aid to Ukraine between Jan. 24, 2022, and Jan. 15, 2023, according to Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

This includes $46.6 billion in military grants and loans, weapons and security assistance, by far outstripping the rest of the world. The U.K. has been the second-largest military contributor at $5.1 billion, followed by the European Union at $3.3 billion.

As the conflict enters its second year and shows no sign of abating, with Russia increasingly attacking critical infrastructure and power shortages persisting, the Ukrainian economy is expected to contract again this year, albeit at a low single-digit rate.

A recent estimate from the Kyiv School of Economics put the total damage to Ukrainian infrastructure at $138 billion, while Zelenskyy has estimated that rebuilding the country could end up costing more than $1 trillion.

Destruction seen through a broken car window in Lyman, Ukraine, on Feb. 20, 2023.

Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

“Since the beginning of Russia’s war against Ukraine, at least 64 large and medium-sized enterprises, 84.3 thousand units of agricultural machinery, 44 social centers, almost 3 thousand shops, 593 pharmacies, almost 195 thousand private cars, 14.4 thousand public transport, 330 hospitals, 595 administrative buildings of state and local administration have been damaged, destroyed or seized,” the KSE report highlighted.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s budget deficit has risen to a record $38 billion and is expected to remain elevated, though strong external support from Western governments and the IMF is likely, according to Razan Nasser, emerging market sovereign analyst at T. Rowe Price.

“This should help to plug the financing gap, which in turn should help to reduce reliance on monetary financing this year,” Nasser said.

In its January policy meeting, NBU officials discussed a number of measures aimed at avoiding a return to monetary financing of the budget deficit.

External creditors in August agreed to a two-year standstill on sovereign debt, acknowledging the immense pressure being exerted by the war on the country’s public finances.

“This will likely be the first step of the restructuring, with a deep haircut on the debt likely. It is difficult to predict the size of this debt reduction as it depends on the state of the Ukrainian economy at the time the restructuring is agreed,” Nasser said.

He added that a “political decision” will be needed on how much private creditors should contribute to the reconstruction costs in light of the colossal damage inflicted on infrastructure so far.

A worker inspects the damage near a railway yard of the freight railway station in Kharkiv, which was partially destroyed by a missile strike, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine on September 28, 2022.

Yasuyoshi Chiba | AFP | Getty Images

“When this war does eventually end, the scale of the reconstruction and recovery effort is likely to eclipse anything Europe has seen since World War II,” he said.

This sentiment was echoed on Wednesday by Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, who told Politico during an interview in Brussels that the reconstruction should start this year, despite there being no immediate end to the conflict in sight.

“It’s going to be the biggest reconstruction [since] World War II,” she said. “We need to start now.”

Although beginning the rebuild while the war is still ongoing and Russia continues to target civilian infrastructure might seem counterintuitive, Daniela Schwarzer, executive director of Open Society, told CNBC on Thursday that it was essential.

“Ukrainians very clearly make the case that actually, reconstruction has to begin in some parts of the country while the war is still ongoing because for the country, the destruction of infrastructure — which really happens every day — needs to be handled otherwise people can’t live, the economy can’t pick up, and so there’s a huge task,” she said.

“We will see over the next few months how international financial institutions, including the European ones such as the International Bank of Reconstruction and the European Investment Bank along with governments and the EU, plus the United States, but the next important question is how can private investments eventually be brought back to Ukraine because governments alone can’t rebuild the country.”

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February 25, 2023
Ukraine’s tragic week shows there’s no safe place in war

BROVARY, Ukraine (AP) — A small broom and dustpan in hand, Olga Prenzilevich cleans up the debris along the road in a sleepy Kyiv suburb next to a cordoned-off mound of charred vehicles and misshapen wreckage.

But she can’t sweep away the terrible memory of seeing the government helicopter that carried Ukraine’s interior minister tumbling through the fog and crashing into the kindergarten building. Or the frantic dash afterward to save the children, their tiny bodies in flames.

“I am still in shock,” the 62-year-old custodian says, the acrid stench of burning still in the air.

Nearby, Oksana Yuriy, 33, watches investigators photograph the scene to try to piece together how Wednesday’s crash happened.

“I thought this was a safe place,” she said. “Now I understand there is no such thing.”

This is the hard lesson Ukrainians have had to learn in a week of mourning at least 59 dead in places that many considered safe from the violence of the war against Russia, now in its 11th month.

Since February, they have seen lives lost from missile strikes and battlefield combat, and civilians dying in schools, theaters, hospitals and apartment buildings. They have suffered irretrievable losses: a loved one, a place to call home, and for some, any hope for the future.

But this past week seemed to have a special cruelty to it.

It started on the weekend, when a barrage of Russian missiles slammed into an apartment complex that housed about 1,700 people in the southeastern city of Dnipro. The Jan. 14 barrage killed 45 civilians, including six children — the deadliest strike on civilians since spring — in an area once considered safe for many who fled front-line areas farther east.

Then came Wednesday’s helicopter crash at the kindergarten in the Kyiv suburb of Brovary that killed 14, including Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi, other members of his ministry and the aircraft’s crew. One child on the ground was killed and 25 people were injured, including 11 children.

Monastyrskyi, 42, had been traveling to the front line when the Super Puma helicopter went down in the fog, although no official cause has been determined.

Flowers piled up Friday at the fence outside the kindergarten. A 73-year-old woman hung a plastic bag full of aloe vera plants after reading that they might help heal burn victims.

But not all the mourning was in Brovary or Dnipro.

At a cemetery in the town of Bucha, near the capital, Oleksy Zavadskyi was laid to rest after falling in battle in Bakhmut, where fighting has been intense for months. His fiancee, Anya Korostenstka, tossed dirt on his casket after it was lowered into the grave. Then she collapsed in tears.

“The courage of our military and the motivations of the Ukrainian people is not enough,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a news conference Thursday at the Mariinskyi Palace in Kyiv.

He had appeared a day earlier in a video link to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he asked his high-powered audience to stand silently to honor those killed in the helicopter crash. His wife, Olena Zelenska, who had traveled to the conference to muster support for Ukraine in person, dabbed tears from her eyes as she learned of the crash.

At an event Thursday at Kyiv’s lavish Fairmont Hotel, U.S. Ambassador Bridget Brink told attendees that some of the embassy’s staff had died in fighting on the front.

“I know a lot of Ukrainians inside and outside the government are hurting right now,” she said, urging her audience of diplomats, businessmen and journalists to not lose faith.

“If you’re looking at it day to day, it’s almost too hard,” she added. “In the bigger sweep of things, it’s a different story.”

Inside a hospital ward in Dnipro, where she was recovering from last weekend’s missile attack Olha Botvinova, 40, celebrated with birthday balloons and cards. It wasn’t her actual birthday, she said, but she believes she was born a second time by merely surviving.

“We plan to keep living,” she said.

She had fled war-ravaged Donetsk in 2014 when Moscow-backed separatists seized the city. In the spring of 2022, they had to flee again, this time from the city of Kherson after it fell to the Russians.

She thought she would be safe in Dnipro.

The missile attack blew out kitchen and bedroom walls of dozens of apartments. Inside, life as it was moments before the blast is preserved: In an eighth floor kitchen with bright yellow walls, a bowl of apples was untouched.

Many residents are still without windows. Oleksii Kornieiev returned from the eastern front to help his wife clean up.

“Our family’s mood is low,” he said, saying they must cope with power outages amid frigid temperatures. “But we’re glad to be alive.”

Clothes, pillows, blankets and mattresses were being handed out at distribution points in the city.

“Yesterday they had everything, and today they have nothing,” volunteer Uliana Borzova, said of the residents.

“I am trying to hold on,” she added. “Because otherwise, we will all just drown in sorrow.”

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January 22, 2023
Ukraine’s Zelenskyy tells Davos supplies of Western tanks must outpace another Russian offensive

“Mobilization of the world must outpace a next military mobilization of our joint enemy,” Zelenskyy said via videoconference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday said the supplies of Western tanks must outpace another Russian attack, reviving Kyiv’s push for the delivery of heavily armored vehicles amid fears the Kremlin could soon launch a new mobilization drive.

“Mobilization of the world must outpace a next military mobilization of our joint enemy,” Zelenskyy said via videoconference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“The supplying of Ukraine with air defense systems must outpace Russia’s next missile attacks. The supplies of Western tanks must outpace another invasion of Russian tanks.”

“The restoration of security and peace in Ukraine must outpace Russia’s attacks on security and peace in other countries. A tribunal for military crimes must prevent new ones,” Zelenskyy said.

His comments come amid speculation that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be poised to announce another mobilization round.

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a U.S.-based think tank, said Tuesday that Putin may announce “a second mobilization wave in the coming days, possibly as soon as January 18.”

Zelenskyy and senior Ukrainian officials have repeatedly urged Western allies to provide heavy military vehicles and weapons in order to help defeat Russia’s nearly year-long onslaught.

Poland, France and the U.K. have recently pledged to send tanks to the Ukrainian military, while Finland says it could also donate a small number of German-made Leopard 2 tanks to help Kyiv protect itself.

Germany’s government said last week, however, that it has no plans to provide Ukraine with the Leopard 2 tanks.

‘Another horrible day for Ukraine’

Earlier on Wednesday, the three main figures of Ukraine’s Interior Ministry died in a helicopter crash in a suburb of the capital Kyiv.

The helicopter fell near a kindergarten and a residential building in Brovary with the cause of the crash being investigated.

Ukraine’s Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskyi, First Deputy Minister Yevhenii Yenin and the Interior Ministry’s State Secretary Yurii Lubkovych were among those killed in the crash.

Ukrainian authorities said at least 14 people died in the crash. Initially, reports indicated 18 people had died in the crash, although this has since been revised.

Zelenskyy described the incident as a “tragedy” and led delegates at Davos in a minute’s silence “to honor the memory of every person Ukraine has lost.”

Separately, Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska said at a news conference that it was “another horrible day for Ukraine.”

— CNBC’s Holly Ellyatt contributed to this report.

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January 18, 2023
Poland signs deal to buy 2nd batch of U.S. Abrams tanks

WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s defense minister on Wednesday signed a deal to buy a second batch of U.S Abrams main battle tanks as Warsaw beefs up its defensive capabilities and strengthens military cooperation with Washington in light of Russia’s war in neighboring Ukraine.

Officials said Poland is the first U.S. ally in Europe to be receiving Abrams tanks.

Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak signed the $1.4 billion deal at a military base in Wesola, near Warsaw. The agreement foresees the delivery of 116 M1A1 Abrams tanks with related equipment and logistics starting this year.

Attending the signing ceremony were U.S. deputy chief of mission in Poland Daniel Lawton and U.S. Brig. Gen. John Lubas, deputy commander of the 101st Airborne Division, elements of which are stationed in southeastern Poland close to the border with Ukraine.

The deal follows last year’s agreement for the acquisition of 250 upgraded M1A2 Abrams tanks that will be delivered in 2025-26. Poland is also awaiting delivery of U.S. HIMARS artillery systems and has already received Patriot missile batteries.

Speaking in Wesola, Polish and U.S. officials said the deals strengthen Poland, the region and NATO’s eastern flank as the war in Ukraine continues.

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January 4, 2023
Drone advances in Ukraine could bring dawn of killer robots

KYIV, Ukraine — Drone advances in Ukraine have accelerated a long-anticipated technology trend that could soon bring the world’s first fully autonomous fighting robots to the battlefield, inaugurating a new age of warfare.

The longer the war lasts, the more likely it becomes that drones will be used to identify, select and attack targets without help from humans, according to military analysts, combatants and artificial intelligence researchers.

That would mark a revolution in military technology as profound as the introduction of the machine gun. Ukraine already has semi-autonomous attack drones and counter-drone weapons endowed with AI. Russia also claims to possess AI weaponry, though the claims are unproven. But there are no confirmed instances of a nation putting into combat robots that have killed entirely on their own.

Experts say it may be only a matter of time before either Russia or Ukraine, or both, deploy them.

“Many states are developing this technology,” said Zachary Kallenborn, a George Mason University weapons innovation analyst. ”Clearly, it’s not all that difficult.”

The sense of inevitability extends to activists, who have tried for years to ban killer drones but now believe they must settle for trying to restrict the weapons’ offensive use.

Ukraine’s digital transformation minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, agrees that fully autonomous killer drones are “a logical and inevitable next step” in weapons development. He said Ukraine has been doing “a lot of R&D in this direction.”

“I think that the potential for this is great in the next six months,” Fedorov told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

Ukrainian Lt. Col. Yaroslav Honchar, co-founder of the combat drone innovation nonprofit Aerorozvidka, said in a recent interview near the front that human war fighters simply cannot process information and make decisions as quickly as machines.

Ukrainian military leaders currently prohibit the use of fully independent lethal weapons, although that could change, he said.

“We have not crossed this line yet – and I say ‘yet’ because I don’t know what will happen in the future.” said Honchar, whose group has spearheaded drone innovation in Ukraine, converting cheap commercial drones into lethal weapons.

Russia could obtain autonomous AI from Iran or elsewhere. The long-range Shahed-136 exploding drones supplied by Iran have crippled Ukrainian power plants and terrorized civilians but are not especially smart. Iran has other drones in its evolving arsenal that it says feature AI.

Without a great deal of trouble, Ukraine could make its semi-autonomous weaponized drones fully independent in order to better survive battlefield jamming, their Western manufacturers say.

Those drones include the U.S.-made Switchblade 600 and the Polish Warmate, which both currently require a human to choose targets over a live video feed. AI finishes the job. The drones, technically known as “loitering munitions,” can hover for minutes over a target, awaiting a clean shot.

“The technology to achieve a fully autonomous mission with Switchblade pretty much exists today,” said Wahid Nawabi, CEO of AeroVironment, its maker. That will require a policy change — to remove the human from the decision-making loop — that he estimates is three years away.

Drones can already recognize targets such as armored vehicles using cataloged images. But there is disagreement over whether the technology is reliable enough to ensure that the machines don’t err and take the lives of noncombatants.

The AP asked the defense ministries of Ukraine and Russia if they have used autonomous weapons offensively – and whether they would agree not to use them if the other side similarly agreed. Neither responded.

If either side were to go on the attack with full AI, it might not even be a first.

An inconclusive U.N. report suggested that killer robots debuted in Libya’s internecine conflict in 2020, when Turkish-made Kargu-2 drones in full-automatic mode killed an unspecified number of combatants.

A spokesman for STM, the manufacturer, said the report was based on “speculative, unverified” information and “should not be taken seriously.” He told the AP the Kargu-2 cannot attack a target until the operator tells it to do so.

Fully autonomous AI is already helping to defend Ukraine. Utah-based Fortem Technologies has supplied the Ukrainian military with drone-hunting systems that combine small radars and unmanned aerial vehicles, both powered by AI. The radars are designed to identify enemy drones, which the UAVs then disable by firing nets at them — all without human assistance.

The number of AI-endowed drones keeps growing. Israel has been exporting them for decades. Its radar-killing Harpy can hover over anti-aircraft radar for up to nine hours waiting for them to power up.

Other examples include Beijing’s Blowfish-3 unmanned weaponized helicopter. Russia has been working on a nuclear-tipped underwater AI drone called the Poseidon. The Dutch are currently testing a ground robot with a .50-caliber machine gun.

Honchar believes Russia, whose attacks on Ukrainian civilians have shown little regard for international law, would have used killer autonomous drones by now if the Kremlin had them.

“I don’t think they’d have any scruples,” agreed Adam Bartosiewicz, vice president of WB Group, which makes the Warmate.

AI is a priority for Russia. President Vladimir Putin said in 2017 that whoever dominates that technology will rule the world. In a Dec. 21 speech, he expressed confidence in the Russian arms industry’s ability to embed AI in war machines, stressing that “the most effective weapons systems are those that operate quickly and practically in an automatic mode.”

Russian officials already claim their Lancet drone can operate with full autonomy.

“It’s not going to be easy to know if and when Russia crosses that line,” said Gregory C. Allen, former director of strategy and policy at the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center.

Switching a drone from remote piloting to full autonomy might not be perceptible. To date, drones able to work in both modes have performed better when piloted by a human, Allen said.

The technology is not especially complicated, said University of California-Berkeley professor Stuart Russell, a top AI researcher. In the mid-2010s, colleagues he polled agreed that graduate students could, in a single term, produce an autonomous drone “capable of finding and killing an individual, let’s say, inside a building,” he said.

An effort to lay international ground rules for military drones has so far been fruitless. Nine years of informal United Nations talks in Geneva made little headway, with major powers including the United States and Russia opposing a ban. The last session, in December, ended with no new round scheduled.

Washington policymakers say they won’t agree to a ban because rivals developing drones cannot be trusted to use them ethically.

Toby Walsh, an Australian academic who, like Russell, campaigns against killer robots, hopes to achieve a consensus on some limits, including a ban on systems that use facial recognition and other data to identify or attack individuals or categories of people.

“If we are not careful, they are going to proliferate much more easily than nuclear weapons,” said Walsh, author of “Machines Behaving Badly.” “If you can get a robot to kill one person, you can get it to kill a thousand.”

Scientists also worry about AI weapons being repurposed by terrorists. In one feared scenario, the U.S. military spends hundreds of millions writing code to power killer drones. Then it gets stolen and copied, effectively giving terrorists the same weapon.

To date, the Pentagon has neither clearly defined “an AI-enabled autonomous weapon” nor authorized a single such weapon for use by U.S. troops, said Allen, the former Defense Department official. Any proposed system must be approved by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and two undersecretaries.

That’s not stopping the weapons from being developed across the U.S. Projects are underway at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, military labs, academic institutions and in the private sector.

The Pentagon has emphasized using AI to augment human warriors. The Air Force is studying ways to pair pilots with drone wingmen. A booster of the idea, former Deputy Defense Secretary Robert O. Work, said in a report last month that it “would be crazy not to go to an autonomous system” once AI-enabled systems outperform humans — a threshold that he said was crossed in 2015, when computer vision eclipsed that of humans.

Humans have already been pushed out in some defensive systems. Israel’s Iron Dome missile shield is authorized to open fire automatically, although it is said to be monitored by a person who can intervene if the system goes after the wrong target.

Multiple countries, and every branch of the U.S. military, are developing drones that can attack in deadly synchronized swarms, according to Kallenborn, the George Mason researcher.

So will future wars become a fight to the last drone?

That’s what Putin predicted in a 2017 televised chat with engineering students: “When one party’s drones are destroyed by drones of another, it will have no other choice but to surrender.”

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Frank Bajak reported from Boston. Associated Press journalists Tara Copp in Washington, Garance Burke in San Francisco and Suzan Fraser in Turkey contributed to this report.

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

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This story has been updated to correct when the U.N. report was issued. It came out in 2021, not last year.

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January 3, 2023
Russia, shaken by Ukrainian strike, could step up drone use

KYIV, Ukraine — Emergency crews on Tuesday sifted through the rubble of a building struck by Ukrainian rockets, killing at least 63 Russian soldiers barracked there, in the latest blow to the Kremlin’s war strategy as Ukraine says Moscow’s tactics could be shifting.

An Associated Press video of the scene in Makiivka, a town in the partially Russian-occupied eastern Donetsk region, showed five cranes and emergency workers removing big chunks of concrete under a clear blue sky.

In the attack, which apparently happened last weekend, Ukrainian forces fired rockets from a U.S.-provided HIMARS multiple launch system, according to a Russian Defense Ministry statement.

It was one of the deadliest attacks on the Kremlin’s forces since the war began more than 10 months ago and an embarrassment that stirred renewed criticism inside Russia of the way the war is being conducted.

The Russian statement Monday about the attack provided few other details. Other, unconfirmed reports put the death toll much higher.

The Strategic Communications Directorate of Ukraine’s armed forces claimed Sunday that around 400 mobilized Russian soldiers were killed in a vocational school building in Makiivka and about 300 more were wounded. That claim couldn’t be independently verified. The Russian statement said the strike occurred “in the area of Makiivka” and didn’t mention the vocational school.

Satellite photos analyzed by The AP show the apparent aftermath of the strike. An image from Dec. 20 showed the building standing. One from Jan. 2 showed it in ruins. Other days had intense cloud cover, making it impossible to see the site by standard satellite imagery.

Vigils for soldiers killed in the strike took place in two Russian cities Tuesday, the state RIA Novosti agency reported.

In Samara, in southwestern Russia, locals gathered for an Orthodox service in memory of the dead. The service was followed by a minute’s silence, and flowers were laid at a Soviet-era war memorial, RIA reported.

Unconfirmed reports in Russian-language media said the victims were mobilized reservists from the region.

With the fighting raging much longer than anticipated by the Kremlin, and becoming bogged down in a war of attrition amid a Ukrainian counteroffensive backed by Western-supplied weapons, Russian President Vladimir Putin is mulling ways of regaining momentum.

In a video address late Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country needs to strengthen its defenses in the face of what he described as Russian plans for a new offensive.

“There is no doubt, that todays bosses of Russia will gather all they can to try to reverse the battlefield situation or at least delay their defeat,” he said. “We must derail that Russian scenario and are getting ready for it.”

In comments a day earlier, Zelenskyy had claimed the Kremlin plans to step up the use of Iranian-made exploding drones.

“We have information that Russia is planning a prolonged attack by Shaheds (exploding drones),” he said Monday night.

Zelenskyy said the goal is to break Ukraine’s resistance by “exhausting our people, (our) air defense, our energy.”

For the Russian military, the exploding drones are a cheap weapon which also spreads fear among the enemy. The United States and its allies have sparred with Iran over Tehran’s role in allegedly supplying Moscow with the drones.

The Institute for the Study of War said Putin is striving to strengthen support for his strategy among key voices in Russia.

“Russia’s air and missile campaign against Ukraine is likely not generating the Kremlin’s desired information effects among Russia’s nationalists,” the think tank said late Monday.

“Such profound military failures will continue to complicate Putin’s efforts to appease the Russian pro-war community and retain the dominant narrative in the domestic information space,” it added.

Meanwhile, drone advances in Ukraine have accelerated a trend that could soon bring the world’s first fully autonomous fighting robots to the battlefield. Experts say it may be a matter of time before Russia or Ukraine deploy them.

Putin’s additional reliance on currently available drones might not help him achieve his goals, however, as Ukraine claims a high success rate against the weapons. Even so, part of the intention of using drones is to exhaust Ukrainian air defenses.

During the first two days of the new year, which were marked by relentless nighttime drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure, the country’s forces shot down more than 80 Iranian-made drones, Zelenskyy said.

Since September, Ukraine’s armed forces have shot down almost 500 drones, Ukrainian air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat claimed in a television interview Tuesday.

As well as seeking to wear down resistance to Russia’s invasion, the long-range bombardments have targeted the power grid to leave civilians at the mercy of biting winter weather.

In the latest fighting, a Russian missile strike overnight on the city of Druzhkivka in the Donetsk region wounded two people, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, reported Tuesday.

The Russian military on Tuesday acknowledged strikes on Druzhkivka and Kramatorsk, also in Donetsk. The Defense Ministry claimed it destroyed four HIMARS launchers in the area. This claim could not be independently verified.

A reporter with French broadcaster TF1 was live on television screens when a blast from one of the strikes erupted behind him in Druzhkivka. A German reporter with Bild newspaper suffered a minor injury from shrapnel in the same bombardment.

Officials said the attack ruined an ice hockey arena described as the largest hockey and figure skating school in Ukraine.

In recently retaken areas of the southern Kherson region, Russian shelling on Monday killed two people and wounded nine, Kherson’s Ukrainian governor, Yaroslav Yanushevych, said Tuesday. He also said two people were killed in the Kherson region Tuesday after driving over a mine.

In other developments Tuesday:

— Ukraine’s main security service said it was bringing criminal charges against two high-ranking Russian commanders accused of overseeing strikes against civilians.

The Security Service of Ukraine said on its website that it had collected a “high-quality body of evidence” against Sergei Kobylash, commander of Russia’s long-range aviation force, and Igor Osipov, the former head of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The two are charged under Ukrainian law with violating the country’s territorial integrity and with “planning, preparing, initiating and conducting a war of aggression,” which carry a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Although it is unlikely that Kyiv will be able to bring Kobylash and Osipov to trial in the near future, the announcement marks the first time Ukrainian authorities brought charges linked directly to attacks on residential areas and civilian infrastructure.

— Ukraine’s chief military officer, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, said he had his first phone call this year with U.S. Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Zaluzhnyi said on Facebook that he told Milley about heavy battles around Svatove-Kreminna and in the direction of Lysychansk. “The most difficult situation remains in the Soledar-Bakhmut-Mayorsk area,” he said, adding that the Russians are trying to advance by “effectively marching on corpses of their own.” He said Ukrainian forces securely keep their defenses in the Zaporizhzhia region and make efforts to protect Kherson from Russian shelling, while the situation along the border with Belarus is fully controlled.

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Jon Gambrell in Rome contributed to this report.

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January 3, 2023
Drone advances in Ukraine could bring dawn of killer robots

KYIV, Ukraine — Drone advances in Ukraine have accelerated a long-anticipated technology trend that could soon bring the world’s first fully autonomous fighting robots to the battlefield, inaugurating a new age of warfare.

The longer the war lasts, the more likely it becomes that drones will be used to identify, select and attack targets without help from humans, according to military analysts, combatants and artificial intelligence researchers.

That would mark a revolution in military technology as profound as the introduction of the machine gun. Ukraine already has semi-autonomous attack drones and counter-drone weapons endowed with AI. Russia also claims to possess AI weaponry, though the claims are unproven. But there are no confirmed instances of a nation putting into combat robots that have killed entirely on their own.

Experts say it may be only a matter of time before either Russia or Ukraine, or both, deploy them.

“Many states are developing this technology,” said Zachary Kallenborn, a George Mason University weapons innovation analyst. ”Clearly, it’s not all that difficult.”

The sense of inevitability extends to activists, who have tried for years to ban killer drones but now believe they must settle for trying to restrict the weapons’ offensive use.

Ukraine’s digital transformation minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, agrees that fully autonomous killer drones are “a logical and inevitable next step” in weapons development. He said Ukraine has been doing “a lot of R&D in this direction.”

“I think that the potential for this is great in the next six months,” Fedorov told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

Ukrainian Lt. Col. Yaroslav Honchar, co-founder of the combat drone innovation nonprofit Aerorozvidka, said in a recent interview near the front that human war fighters simply cannot process information and make decisions as quickly as machines.

Ukrainian military leaders currently prohibit the use of fully independent lethal weapons, although that could change, he said.

“We have not crossed this line yet – and I say ‘yet’ because I don’t know what will happen in the future.” said Honchar, whose group has spearheaded drone innovation in Ukraine, converting cheap commercial drones into lethal weapons.

Russia could obtain autonomous AI from Iran or elsewhere. The long-range Shahed-136 exploding drones supplied by Iran have crippled Ukrainian power plants and terrorized civilians but are not especially smart. Iran has other drones in its evolving arsenal that it says feature AI.

Without a great deal of trouble, Ukraine could make its semi-autonomous weaponized drones fully independent in order to better survive battlefield jamming, their Western manufacturers say.

Those drones include the U.S.-made Switchblade 600 and the Polish Warmate, which both currently require a human to choose targets over a live video feed. AI finishes the job. The drones, technically known as “loitering munitions,” can hover for minutes over a target, awaiting a clean shot.

“The technology to achieve a fully autonomous mission with Switchblade pretty much exists today,” said Wahid Nawabi, CEO of AeroVironment, its maker. That will require a policy change — to remove the human from the decision-making loop — that he estimates is three years away.

Drones can already recognize targets such as armored vehicles using cataloged images. But there is disagreement over whether the technology is reliable enough to ensure that the machines don’t err and take the lives of noncombatants.

The AP asked the defense ministries of Ukraine and Russia if they have used autonomous weapons offensively – and whether they would agree not to use them if the other side similarly agreed. Neither responded.

If either side were to go on the attack with full AI, it might not even be a first.

An inconclusive U.N. report last year suggested that killer robots debuted in Libya’s internecine conflict in 2020, when Turkish-made Kargu-2 drones in full-automatic mode killed an unspecified number of combatants.

A spokesman for STM, the manufacturer, said the report was based on “speculative, unverified” information and “should not be taken seriously.” He told the AP the Kargu-2 cannot attack a target until the operator tells it to do so.

Fully autonomous AI is already helping to defend Ukraine. Utah-based Fortem Technologies has supplied the Ukrainian military with drone-hunting systems that combine small radars and unmanned aerial vehicles, both powered by AI. The radars are designed to identify enemy drones, which the UAVs then disable by firing nets at them — all without human assistance.

The number of AI-endowed drones keeps growing. Israel has been exporting them for decades. Its radar-killing Harpy can hover over anti-aircraft radar for up to nine hours waiting for them to power up.

Other examples include Beijing’s Blowfish-3 unmanned weaponized helicopter. Russia has been working on a nuclear-tipped underwater AI drone called the Poseidon. The Dutch are currently testing a ground robot with a .50-caliber machine gun.

Honchar believes Russia, whose attacks on Ukrainian civilians have shown little regard for international law, would have used killer autonomous drones by now if the Kremlin had them.

“I don’t think they’d have any scruples,” agreed Adam Bartosiewicz, vice president of WB Group, which makes the Warmate.

AI is a priority for Russia. President Vladimir Putin said in 2017 that whoever dominates that technology will rule the world. In a Dec. 21 speech, he expressed confidence in the Russian arms industry’s ability to embed AI in war machines, stressing that “the most effective weapons systems are those that operate quickly and practically in an automatic mode.” Russian officials already claim their Lancet drone can operate with full autonomy.

“It’s not going to be easy to know if and when Russia crosses that line,” said Gregory C. Allen, former director of strategy and policy at the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center.

Switching a drone from remote piloting to full autonomy might not be perceptible. To date, drones able to work in both modes have performed better when piloted by a human, Allen said.

The technology is not especially complicated, said University of California-Berkeley professor Stuart Russell, a top AI researcher. In the mid-2010s, colleagues he polled agreed that graduate students could, in a single term, produce an autonomous drone “capable of finding and killing an individual, let’s say, inside a building,” he said.

An effort to lay international ground rules for military drones has so far been fruitless. Nine years of informal United Nations talks in Geneva made little headway, with major powers including the United States and Russia opposing a ban. The last session, in December, ended with no new round scheduled.

Washington policymakers say they won’t agree to a ban because rivals developing drones cannot be trusted to use them ethically.

Toby Walsh, an Australian academic who, like Russell, campaigns against killer robots, hopes to achieve a consensus on some limits, including a ban on systems that use facial recognition and other data to identify or attack individuals or categories of people.

“If we are not careful, they are going to proliferate much more easily than nuclear weapons,” said Walsh, author of “Machines Behaving Badly.” “If you can get a robot to kill one person, you can get it to kill a thousand.”

Scientists also worry about AI weapons being repurposed by terrorists. In one feared scenario, the U.S. military spends hundreds of millions writing code to power killer drones. Then it gets stolen and copied, effectively giving terrorists the same weapon.

The global public is concerned. An Ipsos survey done for Human Rights Watch in 2019 found that 61% of adults across 26 countries oppose the use of lethal autonomous weapons systems.

To date, the Pentagon has neither clearly defined “autonomous weapon” nor authorized a single such weapon for use by U.S. troops, said Allen, the former Defense Department official. Any proposed system must be approved by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and two undersecretaries.

That’s not stopping the weapons from being developed across the U.S. Projects are underway at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, military labs, academic institutions and in the private sector.

The Pentagon has emphasized using AI to augment human warriors. The Air Force is studying ways to pair pilots with drone wingmen. A booster of the idea, former Deputy Defense Secretary Robert O. Work, said in a report last month that it “would be crazy not to go to an autonomous system” once AI-enabled systems outperform humans — a threshold that he said was crossed in 2015, when computer vision eclipsed that of humans.

Humans have already been pushed out in some defensive systems. Israel’s Iron Dome missile shield is authorized to open fire automatically, although it is said to be monitored by a person who can intervene if the system goes after the wrong target.

Multiple countries, and every branch of the U.S. military, are developing drones that can attack in deadly synchronized swarms, according to Kallenborn, the George Mason researcher.

So will future wars become a fight to the last drone?

That’s what Putin predicted in a 2017 televised chat with engineering students: “When one party’s drones are destroyed by drones of another, it will have no other choice but to surrender.”

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Frank Bajak reported from Boston. Associated Press journalists Tara Copp in Washington, Garance Burke in San Francisco and Suzan Fraser in Turkey contributed to this report.

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January 3, 2023
Minister: Ukraine aims to develop air-to-air combat drones

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine has bought some 1,400 drones, mostly for reconnaissance, and plans to develop combat models that can attack the exploding drones Russia has used during its invasion of the country, according to the Ukrainian government minister in charge of technology.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov described Russia’s war in Ukraine as the first major war of the internet age. He credited drones and satellite internet systems like Elon Musk’s Starlink with having transformed the conflict.

Ukraine has purchased drones like the Fly Eye, a small unmanned aerial vehicle used for intelligence, battlefield surveillance and reconnaissance.

“And the next stage, now that we are more or less equipped with reconnaissance drones, is strike drones,” Fedorov said. “These are both exploding drones and drones that fly up to three to 10 kilometers and hit targets.”

He predicted “more missions with strike drones” in the future, but would not elaborate. “We are talking there about drones, UAVs, UAVs that we are developing in Ukraine. Well, anyway, it will be the next step in the development of technologies,” he said.

Russian authorities have alleged several Ukrainian drone strikes on its military bases in recent weeks, including one on Monday in which they said Russian forces shot down a drone approaching the Engels airbase located more than 600 kilometers (over 370 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

Russia’s military said debris killed three service members but no aircraft were damaged. The base houses Tu-95 and Tu-160 nuclear-capable strategic bombers that have been involved in launching strikes on Ukraine.

Ukrainian authorities have never formally acknowledged carrying out such drone strikes, but they have made cryptic allusions to how Russia might expect retaliation for its war in Ukraine, including within Russian territory.

Ukraine is carrying out research and development on drones that could fight and down other drones, Fedorov said. Russia has used Iranian-made Shahed drones for its airstrikes in Ukrainian territory in recent weeks, in addition to rocket, cruise missile and artillery attacks.

“I can say already that the situation regarding drones will change drastically in February or March,” he said.

Fedorov sat for an interview in his bright and modern office. Located inside a staid ministry building, the room contained a vinyl record player, history books stacked on shelves and a treadmill.

The minister highlighted the importance of mobile communications for both civilian and military purposes during the war and said the most challenging places to maintain service have been in the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa and Kyiv regions in the center and east of the country.

He said there are times when fewer than half of mobile phone towers are functioning in the capital, Kyiv, because Russian airstrikes have destroyed or damaged the infrastructure that power them.

Ukraine has some 30,000 mobile-phone towers, and the government is now trying to link them to generators so they can keep working when airstrikes damage the power grid.

The only alternative, for now, is satellite systems like Starlink, which Ukrainians may rely on more if blackouts start lasting longer.

“We should understand that in this case, the Starlinks and the towers, connected to the generators, will be the basic internet infrastructure,” Fedorov said.

Many cities and towns are facing power cuts lasting up to 10 hours. Fedorov said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree that instructs mobile phone companies to ensure they can provide signals without electricity for at least three days.

Meanwhile, with support from its European Union partners, his ministry is working to bring 10,000 more Starlink stations to Ukraine, with internet service made available to the public through hundreds of “Points of Invincibility” that offer warm drinks, heated spaces, electricity and shelter for people displaced by fighting or power outages.

Roughly 24,000 Starlink stations already are in operation in Ukraine. Musk’s company, SpaceX, began providing them during the early days of the war after Fedorov tweeted a request to the billionaire.

“I just stood there on my knees, begging them to start working in Ukraine, and promised that we would make a world record,” he recalled.

Fedorov compared Space X’s donation of the satellite terminals to the U.S.-supplied multiple rocket launchers in terms of significance for Ukraine’s ability to mount a defense to Russia’s invasion.

“Thousands of lives were saved,” he said.

As well as the civilian applications, Starlink has helped front-line reconnaissance drone operators target artillery strikes on Russian assets and positions. Fedorov said his team is now dedicating 70% of its time to military technologies. The ministry was created only three years ago.

Providing the army with drones is among its main tasks.

“We need to do more than what is expected of us, and progress does not wait,” Fedorov said, scoffing at Russian skill in the domain of drones. “I don’t believe in their technological potential at all.”

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Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten contributed to this report.

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This version has been corrected to show the transliteration of minister’s surname is Fedorov, not Federov.

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January 3, 2023
Russia, shaken by Ukrainian strike, said mulling more drones

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia is preparing to step up its attacks on Ukraine using Iranian-made exploding drones, according to Ukraine’s president, as Moscow looks for ways to keep up the pressure on Kyiv after at least 63 Russian soldiers were killed in an attack in the latest battlefield setback for the Kremlin’s war strategy.

“We have information that Russia is planning a prolonged attack by Shaheds (exploding drones),” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address late Monday.

He said the goal is to break Ukraine’s resistance by “exhausting our people, (our) air defense, our energy,” more than 10 months after Russia invaded its neighbor.

Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be exploring ways to regain momentum in his flawed war effort, which in recent months has been undermined by a Ukrainian counteroffensive backed by Western-supplied weapons. That has brought sharp rebukes in some Russian circles of the military’s performance.

In the latest embarrassment for the Kremlin, Ukrainian forces fired rockets at a facility in the eastern Donetsk region where Russian soldiers were stationed, killing 63 of them, according to Russia’s Defense Ministry. Other, unconfirmed reports put the death toll much higher.

It was one of the deadliest attacks on the Kremlin’s forces since the war began more than 10 months ago.

In the attack, Ukrainian forces fired six rockets from a HIMARS launch system and two of them were shot down, a Russian Defense Ministry statement said.

However, the Strategic Communications Directorate of Ukraine’s Armed Forces claimed Sunday that around 400 mobilized Russian soldiers were killed in a vocational school building in Makiivka and about 300 more were wounded. That claim couldn’t be independently verified. The Russian statement said the strike occurred “in the area of Makiivka” and didn’t mention the vocational school.

Satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show the apparent aftermath of the strike. An image from Dec. 20 showed the building standing. An image from Jan. 2 showed the building reduced to rubble. Other days had intense cloud cover, making seeing the site by standard satellite imagery impossible.

For the Russian military, the Iranian-made exploding drones are a cheap weapon which also spreads fear among troops and civilians. The United States and its allies have sparred with Iran over Tehran’s role in allegedly supplying Moscow with the drones.

The Institute for the Study of War said that Putin is looking to strengthen support for his strategy among key voices in Russia.

“Russia’s air and missile campaign against Ukraine is likely not generating the Kremlin’s desired information effects among Russia’s nationalists,” the think tank said late Monday.

“Such profound military failures will continue to complicate Putin’s efforts to appease the Russian pro-war community and retain the dominant narrative in the domestic information space,” it added.

Zelenskyy warned that in the coming weeks, “the nights may be quite restless.”

He added that during the first two days of the new year, which were marked by relentless nighttime drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure, the country’s forces shot down more than 80 Iranian-made drones.

As well as hoping to wear down resistance to Russia’s invasion, the long-range bombardments have targeted the power grid to leave civilians at the mercy of biting winter weather as power outages ripple across the country.

“Every downed drone, every downed missile, every day with electricity for our people and minimal shutdown schedules are exactly such victories,” Zelenskyy said.

In the latest fighting, a Russian missile strike overnight on the city of Druzhkivka in the partially occupied eastern Donetsk region wounded two people, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, reported Tuesday.

Officials said the attack ruined an ice hockey arena described as the largest hockey and figure skating school in Ukraine.

Overnight Russian shelling was also reported in the northeastern Kharkiv region and the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region.

In the recently retaken areas of the southern Kherson region, Russian shelling on Monday killed two people and wounded nine others, Kherson’s Ukrainian governor, Yaroslav Yanushevich, said Tuesday. He said the Russian forces fired at the city of Kherson 32 times on Monday.

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Jon Gambrell in Rome contributed to this report.

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January 3, 2023
Moscow says Ukrainian rocket strike kills 63 Russian troops

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces fired rockets at a facility in the eastern Donetsk region where Russian soldiers were stationed, killing 63 of them, Russia’s defense ministry said Monday, in one of the deadliest attacks on the Kremlin’s forces since the war began more than 10 months ago.

Ukrainian forces fired six rockets from a HIMARS launch system and two of them were shot down, a defense ministry statement said. It did not say when the strike happened.

The strike, using a U.S.-supplied precision weapon that has proven critical in enabling Ukrainian forces to hit key targets, delivered a new setback for Russia which in recent months has reeled from a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

According to the governor of Russia’s Samara region, Dmitry Azarov, an unspecified number of residents of the region were among those killed and wounded by the strike on the town of Makiivka.

Russian military bloggers, whose information has largely been reliable during the war, said ammunition stored close to the facility had exploded in the attack and contributed to the high number of casualties.

Expressing anger at the losses, Daniil Bezsonov, an official with the Russian-appointed administration in Russian-occupied Donetsk, called for the punishment of military officers who ordered a large number of troops to be stationed at the facility.

The Ukrainian military appeared to acknowledge the attack Monday, with the General Staff confirming that Makiivka was hit on Dec. 31, and saying 10 Russian military vehicles were destroyed or damaged. It added that Russian personnel losses were still being clarified.

In a claim that could not be independently verified, the Strategic Communications Directorate of Ukraine’s Armed Forces had maintained Sunday that some 400 mobilized Russian soldiers were killed in a vocational school building in Makiivka and about 300 more were wounded. The Russian statement said the strike occurred “in the area of Makiivka” and didn’t mention the vocational school.

Meanwhile, Russia deployed multiple exploding drones in another nighttime attack on Ukraine, officials said Monday, as the Kremlin signaled no letup in its strategy of using bombardments to target the country’s energy infrastructure and wear down Ukrainian resistance to its invasion.

The barrage was the latest in a series of relentless year-end attacks, including one that killed three civilians on New Year’s Eve.

On Monday, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that 40 drones “headed for Kyiv” overnight. All of them were destroyed, according to air defense forces.

Klitschko said 22 drones were destroyed over Kyiv, three in the outlying Kyiv region and 15 over neighboring provinces.

Energy infrastructure facilities were damaged as the result of the attack and an explosion occurred in one city district, the mayor said. It wasn’t immediately clear whether that was caused by drones or other munitions. A wounded 19-year-old man was hospitalized, Klitschko added, and emergency power outages were underway in the capital.

In the outlying Kyiv region a “critical infrastructure object” and residential buildings were hit, Gov. Oleksiy Kuleba said.

Russia has carried out airstrikes on Ukrainian power and water supplies almost weekly since October.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of “energy terrorism” as the aerial bombardments have left many people without heat amid freezing temperatures. Ukrainian officials say Moscow is “weaponizing winter” in its effort to demoralize the Ukrainian resistance.

Ukraine is using sophisticated Western-supplied weapons to help shoot down Russia’s missiles and drones, as well as send artillery fire into Russian-held areas of the country.

Moscow’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24 has gone awry, putting pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin as his ground forces struggle to hold ground and advance. He said in his New Year’s address to the nation that 2022 was “a year of difficult, necessary decisions.”

Putin insists he had no choice but to send troops into Ukraine because it threatened Russia’s security — an assertion condemned by the West, which says Moscow bears full responsibility for the war.

Russia is currently observing public holidays through Jan. 8.

Drones, missiles and artillery shells launched by Russian forces also struck areas across Ukraine.

Five people were wounded in the Monday morning shelling of a Ukraine-controlled area of the southern Kherson region, its Ukrainian Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevich said on Telegram.

The Russian forces attacked the city of Beryslav, the official said, firing at a local market, likely from a tank. Three of the wounded are in serious condition and are being evacuated to Kherson, Yanushevich said.

Seven drones were shot down over the southern Mykolaiv region, according to Gov. Vitali Kim, and three more were shot down in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, a missile was also destroyed, according to Reznichenko. He said that energy infrastructure in the region was being targeted.

Ukraine’s Air Force Command reported Monday that 39 Iranian-made exploding Shahed drones were shot down overnight, as well as two Russian-made Orlan drones and a X-59 missile.

“We are staying strong,” the Ukrainian defense ministry tweeted.

A blistering New Year’s Eve assault killed at least four civilians across the country, Ukrainian authorities reported, and wounded dozens. The fourth victim, a 46-year-old resident of Kyiv, died in a hospital on Monday morning, Klitschko said.

Multiple blasts rocked the capital and other areas of Ukraine on Saturday and through the night. The strikes came 36 hours after widespread missile attacks Russia launched Thursday to damage energy infrastructure facilities, and the unusually quick follow-up alarmed Ukrainian officials.

In Russia, a Ukrainian drone hit an energy facility in the Bryansk region that borders with Ukraine, Bryansk regional governor Alexander Bogomaz reported on Monday morning. A village was left without power as a result, he said.

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January 2, 2023
Ukraine reports more Russian drone attacks

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia deployed multiple drones overnight to attack parts of Ukraine and dozens were shot down, Ukrainian officials said Monday, in a series of relentless attacks through the weekend that killed three civilians on New Year’s Eve.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that 40 drones “headed for Kyiv” overnight, according to air defense forces, and all of them were destroyed.

Klitschko said 22 drones were destroyed over Kyiv, three in the outlying Kyiv region and 15 over neighboring provinces.

Energy infrastructure facilities were damaged as the result of the attack and an explosion occurred in one city district, the mayor said. It wasn’t immediately clear whether that was caused by drones or other munitions. A wounded 19-year-old man was hospitalized, Klitschko added, and emergency power outages were underway in the capital.

In the outlying Kyiv region a “critical infrastructure object” and residential buildings were hit, Gov. Oleksiy Kuleba said.

Seven drones were shot down over the southern Mykolaiv region, according to Gov. Vitali Kim, and three more were shot down in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, a missile was also destroyed, according to Reznichenko. He said that energy infrastructure in the region was being targeted.

Ukraine’s Air Force Command reported Monday that 39 Iranian-made exploding Shahed drones were shot down overnight, as well as two Russian-made Orlan drones and a X-59 missile across Ukraine.

A blistering New Year’s Eve assault killed at least four civilians across the country, Ukrainian authorities reported, and wounded dozens. The fourth victim, a 46-year-old resident of Kyiv, died in a hospital on Monday morning, Klitschko said.

Multiple blasts rocked the capital and other areas of Ukraine on Saturday and through the night. The strikes came 36 hours after widespread missile attacks Russia launched Thursday to damage energy infrastructure facilities, and the unusually quick follow-up alarmed Ukrainian officials.

Russia has carried out airstrikes on Ukrainian power and water supplies almost weekly since October, increasing the suffering of Ukrainians, while its ground forces struggle to hold ground and advance.

In Russia, a Ukrainian drone hit an energy facility in the Bryansk region that borders with Ukraine, Bryansk regional governor Alexander Bogomaz reported on Monday morning. A village was left without power as a result, he said.

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January 2, 2023
Ukraine conflict casts shadow on Russia as it enters 2023

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s New Year’s address to the nation usually is rather anodyne and backed with a soothing view of a snowy Kremlin. This year, with soldiers in the background, he lashed out at the West and Ukraine.

The conflict in Ukraine cast a long shadow as Russia entered 2023. Cities curtailed festivities and fireworks. Moscow announced special performances for soldiers’ children featuring the Russian equivalent of Santa Claus. An exiled Russian news outlet unearthed a video of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, now the Ukrainian president despised by the Kremlin, telling jokes on a Russian state television station’s New Year’s show just a decade ago.

Putin, in a nine-minute video shown on TV as each Russian time zone region counted down the final minutes of 2022 on Saturday, denounced the West for aggression and accused the countries of trying to use the conflict in Ukraine to undermine Russia.

“It was a year of difficult, necessary decisions, the most important steps toward gaining full sovereignty of Russia and powerful consolidation of our society,” he said, echoing his repeated contention that Moscow had no choice but to send troops into Ukraine because it threatened Russia’s security.

“The West lied about peace, but was preparing for aggression, and today it admits it openly, no longer embarrassed. And they cynically use Ukraine and its people to weaken and split Russia,” Putin said. “We have never allowed anyone and will not allow anyone to do this.”

The Kremlin has muzzled any criticism of its actions in Ukraine, shut independent media outlets and criminalized the spread of any information that differs from the official view — including diverging from calling the campaign a special military operation. But the government has faced increasingly vocal criticism from Russian hardliners, who have denounced the president as weak and indecisive and called for ramping up strikes on Ukraine.

Russia has justified the conflict by saying that Ukraine persecuted Russian speakers in the eastern Donbas region, which had been partly under the control of Russian-backed separatists since 2014. Ukraine and the West says these accusations are untrue.

“For years, the Western elites hypocritically assured all of us of their peaceful intentions, including the resolution of the most difficult conflict in the Donbas,” Putin said.

Western countries have imposed wide sanctions against Russia, and many foreign companies pulled out of the country or froze operations after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.

“This year, a real sanctions war was declared on us. Those who started it expected the complete destruction of our industry, finances, and transport. This did not happen, because together we created a reliable margin of safety,” Putin said.

Despite such reassurances, New Year’s celebrations this year were toned down, with the usual fireworks and concert on Red Square canceled.

Some of Moscow’s elaborate holiday lighting displays made cryptic reference to the conflict. At the entrance to Gorky Park stand large lighted letters of V, Z and O – symbols that the Russian military have used from the first days of the military operation to identify themselves.

“Will it make me a patriot and go to the front against my Slavic brothers? No, it will not,” park visitor Vladimir Ivaniy said.

Moscow also announced plans to hold special pageant performances for the children of soldiers serving in Ukraine.

The Russian news outlet Meduza, declared a foreign agent in Russia and which now operates from Latvia, on Saturday posted a video of Zelenskyy, who was a hugely popular comedian before becoming Ukraine’s president in 2019, performing in a New Year’s Day show on Russian state television in 2013.

Zelenskyy jokes that the inexpensive sparkling wine Sovietskoe Shampanskoye, a popular tipple on New Year’s, is in the record books as a paradox because “the drink exists but the country doesn’t.”

Adding to the irony, the show’s host was Maxim Galkin, a comedian who fled the country in 2022 after criticizing the military operation in Ukraine.

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Elise Morton contributed to this report from London.

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December 31, 2022
Ukraine’s debts: US aims to get IMF to reexamine loan fees

WASHINGTON — A provision in the recently signed defense spending bill mandates that the United States work to ease Ukraine’s debt burden at the International Monetary Fund, which could create tensions at the world’s lender-of-last-resort over one of its biggest borrowers.

The National Defense Authorization Act requires American representatives to each global development bank, including the IMF, where the U.S. is the largest stakeholder, to use “ the voice, vote, and influence ” of the U.S. in seeking to assemble a voting bloc of countries that would change each institution’s debt service relief policy regarding Ukraine.

Among other things, the U.S. is tasked with forcing the IMF to reexamine and potentially end its surcharge policy on Ukrainian loans. Surcharges are added fees on loans imposed on countries that are heavily indebted to the IMF.

The U.S. interest in changing the policy comes as it has distributed tens of billions for Ukrainian military and humanitarian aid since the Russian invasion began in February. Most recently, Ukraine will receive $44.9 billion in aid from the U.S. as part of a $1.7 trillion government-wide spending bill.

Inevitably, some U.S. grant money is spent servicing IMF loans.

“I can see why the Senate would want to relax the surcharge for Ukraine,” Peter Garber, an economist who most recently worked at the global markets research division of Deutsche Bank, wrote in an email. “As the principal bankroller of economic aid for Ukraine, the US would not want to deliver funds only to have them go right to the coffers of the IMF.”

Economists Joseph Stiglitz at Columbia University and Kevin P. Gallagher at Boston University wrote in February about surcharges, saying that “forcing excessive repayments lowers the productive potential of the borrowing country, but also harms creditors” and requires borrowers “to pay more at exactly the moment when they are most squeezed from market access in any other form.”

Other economists say the fees provide an incentive for members with large outstanding balances to repay their loans promptly.

Even with the aid, the beleaguered Ukrainian economy is expected to shrink by 35 percent, according to the World Bank, and the country will owe roughly $360 million in surcharge fees alone to the IMF by 2023.

The effort to wrangle the IMF’s 24 directors, who are elected by member countries or by groups of countries, to end the surcharges may not be so easy.

Just before Christmas, the directors decided to maintain the surcharge policy. They said in a Dec. 20 statement that most directors “were open to exploring possible options for providing temporary surcharge relief,” but others “noted that the average cost of borrowing from the Fund remains significantly below market rates.”

Prominent economists studying the war’s impacts pointed out in a December report — “Rebuilding Ukraine: Principles and Policies,” by the Paris- and London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research — that “some significant voting members may have interests that are not aligned with having Ukraine succeed economically.”

Securing consistent financing to Ukraine could become harder as the war rages on. There are growing fears of a global recession and concerns that European allies are struggling to deliver on their financing promises. In addition, the GOP is set this coming week to take control of the House, with the top Republican, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, saying his party will not write a “blank check” for Ukraine.

Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, said the surcharge issue affects not just Ukraine, but also other countries facing debt crises. Among them: Pakistan, hit by flooding and humanitarian crises, as well as Argentina, Ecuador, and Egypt, who together are on the hook for billions in surcharges.

“There is no logic to the IMF imposing surcharges on countries already in crisis,” Weisbrot said, “which inevitably happens because the surcharges are structured to hit countries already facing financial problems.”

He said the issue will become more urgent as Ukraine’s debt grows and the war drags on.

Jeffrey Sachs, an economist and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, said “these surcharges should certainly be eliminated,” adding: “The IMF undercuts its core lender-of-last-resort role.”

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December 31, 2022