KYIV, Ukraine — In a carpeted meeting room of what used to be a posh hotel, Ukrainian children are screaming with happiness at a performance put on for them and the joy of opening presents.
In a country where children have seen the horrors of a 10-month war, there are people trying to bring some peace and happiness to them, at least for a moment during this holiday season in Ukraine.
The upscale Venice hotel on the outskirts of Kyiv is now a rehabilitation center housing children who have experienced the horrors of the Russian invasion.
“When it’s a holiday, it’s easier,” said Ksenia, a 12-year-old girl from Bakhmut, a city in eastern Ukraine that has been the epicenter of a fierce battle between the Russian and Ukrainian armies.
“We forget about the war. It’s easier to distract,” she added after a performance by actors, some dressed as Disney characters.
Ksenia was among the 62 children, between 6 and 12, celebrating Saint Nicholas’ day on Monday. It’s a traditional date when Ukrainian kids get presents and that marks the beginning of the winter holiday season.
“Why do our soldiers fight? For the sake of the future because without it, there will be nothing. And children are our future,” said Artem Tatarinov, the director of the rehabilitation center. Here, he said, they have received children who instead of playing had to hide in a shelter to escape bombs and who have discovered grief when their relatives were killed.
UNICEF estimates that of the around 7 million Ukrainian children, at least 1.2 million are currently displaced within the country because of the war.
This center houses children for two weeks, and during that period they get therapeutic lessons and have sessions with psychologists to try to process the trauma of the war. “It is like a temporary rehabilitation from the war,” said Alevtyna, a tutor, who refused to give her last name for security reasons.
She works with the children around the clock, sacrificing her own life, but also finding a safe place for herself. Like other mentors in the center, Alevtyna comes from eastern Ukraine, which is now under constant fire. Her native Kostyantynivka is just 23 kilometers (14 miles) from Bakhmut.
For children, Alevtyna said, the center can be a sort of an island of happiness, but it’s not easy for them.
“They often talk about the war, cry,” she said. “Children are afraid to fall asleep, are afraid to turn off the light.”
Over the past six months, the center has received more than 1,300 children from across the country.
“It is difficult to work like this when you see children who do not smile, when their childhood was taken away,” Tatarinov, the center’s director said. He mentioned that once he met a 12-year-old boy who discovered the headless body of his brother, 10 meters away from their house, after a mortar strike.
“This is impossible to forget, but we do everything we can,” added Tatarinov.
That’s why this week, he and the tutors tried to focus on the holidays. On Monday, the the performance brought cheer to the children for a little while.
“At least for an hour, but they can believe in miracles again, believe in goodness again, where fairy-tale heroes come,” said Tetiana Hraban, head of the Golda Meir Institute of Civil Society, who helped to organize the performance.
The actors on the stage asked the children what they want for this holiday. The heartbreaking replies were shouted over each other: “A generator,” “a power bank,” “a house.”
“Victory!,” said one child, and all the others repeated it in a single shout, followed by applause.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
A United States official has said President Joe Biden’s administration will soon announce a $1.8bn military aid package for Kyiv, which will for the first time include a Patriot missile battery and precision-guided bombs for Ukrainian fighter jets, amid reports the war-torn country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, may visit Washington, DC.
US officials described details of the aid package on condition of anonymity on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.
Media organisations citing unnamed sources also reported on Wednesday that Zelenskyy could travel to Washington, DC to meet Biden and visit the US Congress. Zelenskyy’s spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on the trip and security concerns could yet force the Ukrainian leader to change his plans, a source told the Reuters news agency.
US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi earlier on Tuesday said in a letter that there would be a session of Congress on Wednesday night, which would have a “very special focus on democracy”, further heightening speculation the Ukrainian president would visit the US capital.
The $1.8bn aid package due to be announced by Biden, according to AP, signals an expansion in the kinds of advanced weaponry the US is sending Ukraine to bolster the country’s air defences against what has been an increasing barrage of Russian missile attacks.
The package, which is expected to be announced on Wednesday, according to the AP, will include about $1bn in weapons from Pentagon stocks and another $800m in funding through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which funds weapons, ammunition, training and other assistance, officials said.
The Biden administration’s decision to send the Patriot missile system comes despite Russian threats that delivery of such an advanced surface-to-air missile battery would be considered a provocative step and that the system – and any crews accompanying it – would be a legitimate target for Moscow’s military.
When the Patriot would arrive on the front lines in Ukraine is unknown and US forces must also train Ukrainians on how to use the high-tech system. That training could take several weeks and is expected to be undertaken at the Grafenwoehr Training Area in Germany.
All US and Western allies’ training of Ukraine forces has taken place in European countries.
The expected announcement of the aid package comes as the US Congress is poised to approve another $44.9bn in assistance for Ukraine as part of a significant spending bill. That would ensure US support for Kyiv will continue next year and beyond, as Republicans take control of the House of Representatives in January.
Some Republican politicians have expressed wariness about the amount of US assistance being channelled to Ukraine.
Also included in the soon-to-be-announced package will be an undisclosed number of Joint Direct Attack Munitions kits, or JDAMs, officials said.
The kits will be used to modify bombs by adding tail fins and precision navigation systems so that rather than being simply dropped from a fighter jet onto a target, they can be guided to the target on release.
US fighter and bomber aircraft use the JDAMs and the Pentagon has been working to modify them so they can be used by Ukraine’s air force.
Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials have pressed Western leaders to provide more advanced weapons, particularly for air defence, and the Patriot would be the most advanced surface-to-air missile system the West has given Ukraine to help repel Russian aerial attacks.
Reluctance to supply hi-tech weaponry
Washington has been reluctant to give Ukraine US fighter jets and Moscow has warned the advanced aircraft would also be considered provocative.
Instead of providing Ukraine with aircraft, the Pentagon is helping Kyiv find innovative ways to upgrade its existing fleet with the latest capabilities available on US fighters.
The soon-to-be-announced aid package will also include an undisclosed number of rockets for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, thousands of artillery and mortar rounds, trucks and HARM air-to-surface anti-radiation missiles.
According to officials, Kyiv’s urgent pleas and the devastating destruction of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, including loss of electricity and heat during winter, ultimately overcame US reservations about supplying the Patriots.
French President Emmanuel Macron also said on Tuesday that France had delivered more air defence missile systems and other weapons to Ukraine and would send more early next year.
“In recent days, France has sent Ukraine more arms, rocket launchers, Crotale (air defence batteries), equipment beyond what we had already done,” Macron told France’s TF1 and LCI television.
“We are also working with the armed forces minister [Sebastien Lecornu] to be able to deliver useful arms and ammunition again in the first quarter [of 2023] so that the Ukrainians would be able to defend themselves against bombardments,” he said.
Future planned shipments include new Caesar mobile artillery units but Macron provided no precise figures.
The French president said the number “will depend” on the outcome of ongoing discussions with Denmark, which had ordered the Caesar guns from France and may agree to give at least some of them to Kyiv.
Since Russia’s invasion in February, France has sent Ukraine 18 Caesar units and a 155-mm howitzer mounted on a six-wheeled truck chassis, capable of firing shells at ranges of more than 40 km (25 miles).
Macron said he had two “red lines” when it came to arms deliveries: that it did not affect France’s ability to defend itself and did not make Paris a co-belligerent in the war.
The arms were to “enable Ukraine to defend itself” in the face of a relentless barrage of Russian missiles and drone attacks, he said.
Paris has also already delivered anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles as well as armoured personnel carriers.
The legislation includes $772.5 billion for non-defense discretionary programs and $858 billion in defense funding, according to a bill summary from Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, chair of the Senate Committee on Appropriations.
The sweeping package includes roughly $45 billion in emergency assistance to Ukraine and NATO allies, boosts in spending for disaster aid, college access, child care, mental health and food assistance, more support for the military and veterans and additional funds for the US Capitol Police, according to Leahy’s summary and one from Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee.
However, the bill, which runs more than 4,000 pages, left out several measures that some lawmakers had fought to include. An expansion of the child tax credit, as well as multiple other corporate and individual tax breaks, did not make it into the final bill. Neither did legislation to allow cannabis companies to bank their cash reserves – known as the Safe Banking Act. Also, there was also no final resolution on where the new FBI headquarters will be located.
The spending bill is the product of lengthy negotiations between top congressional Democrats and Republicans. Lawmakers reached a “bipartisan, bicameral framework” last week following a dispute between the two parties over how much money should be spent on non-defense domestic priorities. They worked through the weekend to craft the legislation.
The Senate is expected to vote first to approve the deal this week and then send it to the House for approval before government funding runs out on December 23. The bill would keep the government operating through September, the end of the fiscal year.
Congress originally passed a continuing resolution on September 30 to temporarily fund the government in fiscal year 2023, which began October 1.
More aid for Ukraine: The spending bill would provide roughly $45 billion to help support Ukraine’s efforts to defend itself against Russia’s attack.
About $9 billion of the funding would go to Ukraine’s military to pay for a variety of things including training, weapons, logistics support and salaries. Nearly $12 billion would be used to replenish US stocks of equipment sent to Ukraine through presidential drawdown authority.
Also, it would provide $13 billion for economic support to the Ukrainian government.
Other funds would address humanitarian and infrastructure needs, as well as support European Command operations.
Emergency disaster assistance: The bill would appropriate more than $38 billion in emergency funding to help Americans in the west and southeast affected by recent natural disasters, including tornadoes, hurricanes, flooding and wildfires. It would aid farmers, provide economic development assistance for communities, repair and reconstruct federal facilities and direct money to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund, among other initiatives.
Overhaul of the electoral vote counting law: A provision in the legislation aims at making it harder to overturn a certified presidential election, in a direct response to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
The changes would overhaul the 1887 Electoral Count Act, which then-President Donald Trump tried to use to overturn the 2020 election.
The legislation would clarify the vice president’s role while overseeing the certification of the electoral result to be completely ceremonial. It also would create a set of stipulations designed to make it harder for there to be any confusion over the accurate slate of electors from each state.
Higher maximum Pell grant awards: The bill would increase the maximum Pell grant award by $500 to $7,395 for the coming school year. This would be the largest boost since the 2009-2010 school year. About 7 million students, many from lower-income families, receive Pell grants every year to help them afford college.
Increased support for the military and veterans: The package would fund a 4.6% pay raise for troops and a 22.4% increase in support for Veteran Administration medical care, which provides health services for 7.3 million veterans.
It would include nearly $53 billion to address higher inflation and $2.7 billion – a 25% increase – to support critical services and housing assistance for veterans and their families.
The bill also would allocate $5 billion for the Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund, which provides additional funding to implement the landmark PACT Act that expands eligibility for health care services and benefits to veterans with conditions related to toxic exposure during their service.
Beefing up nutrition assistance: The legislation would establish a permanent nationwide Summer EBT program, starting in the summer of 2024, according to Share Our Strength, an anti-hunger advocacy group. It would provide families whose children are eligible for free or reduced-price school meal with a $40 grocery benefit per child per month, indexed to inflation.
It would also change the rules governing summer meals programs in rural areas. Children would be able to take home or receive delivery of up to 10 days worth of meals, rather than have to consume the food at a specific site and time.
The bill would also help families who have had their food stamp benefits stolen since October 1 through what’s known as “SNAP skimming.” It would provide them with retroactive federal reimbursement of the funds, which criminals steal by attaching devices to point-of-sale machines or PIN pads to get card numbers and other information from electronic benefits transfer cards.
More money for child care: The legislation would provide $8 billion for the Child Care and Development Block Grant, a 30% increase in funding. The grant gives financial assistance to low-income families to afford child care.
Also, Head Start would receive nearly $12 billion, an 8.6% boost. The program helps young children from low-income families prepare for school.
Help to pay utility bills: The bill would provide $5 billion for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Combined with the $1 billion contained in the earlier continuing resolution, this would be the largest regular appropriation for the program, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. Home heating and cooling costs – and the applications for federal aid in paying the bills – have soared this year.
Enhance retirement savings: The bill contains new retirement rules that could make it easier for Americans to accumulate retirement savings – and less costly to withdraw them. Among other things, the provisions would allow penalty-free withdrawals for some emergency expenses, let employers offer matching retirement contributions for a worker’s student loan payments and increase how much older workers may save in employer retirement plans.
More support for the environment: The package would provide an additional $576 million for the Environmental Protection Agency, bringing its funding up to $10.1 billion. It would increase support for enforcement and compliance, as well as clean air, water and toxic chemical programs, after years of flat funding.
It also would boost funding for the National Park Service by 6.4%, restoring 500 of the 3,000 staff positions lost over the past decade. This would be intended to help the agency handle substantial increases in visitation.
Plus, the legislation would provide an additional 14% in funding for wildland firefighting.
Additional funding for the US Capitol Police: The bill would provide an additional $132 million for the Capitol Police for a total of nearly $735 million. It would allow the department to hire up to 137 sworn officers and 123 support and civilian personnel, bringing the force to a projected level of 2,126 sworn officers and 567 civilians.
It would also give $2 million to provide off-campus security for lawmakers in response to evolving and growing threats.
Investments in homelessness prevention and affordable housing: The legislation would provide $3.6 billion for homeless assistance grants, a 13% increase. It would serve more than 1 million people experiencing homelessness.
The package also would funnel nearly $6.4 billion to the Community Development Block Grant formula program and related local economic and community development projects that benefit low- and moderate income areas and people, an increase of almost $1.6 billion.
Plus, it would provide $1.5 billion for the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, which would lead to the construction of nearly 10,000 new rental and homebuyer units and maintain the record investment from the last fiscal year.
Increased health care funding: The package would provide more money for National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response. The funds are intended to speed the development of new therapies, diagnostics and preventive measures, beef up public health activities and strengthen the nation’s biosecurity by accelerating development of medical countermeasures for pandemic threats and fortifying stockpiles and supply chains for drugs, masks and other supplies.
More resources for children’s mental health and for substance abuse: The bill would provide more funds to increase access to mental health services for children and schools. It also would invest more money to address the opioid epidemic and substance use disorder.
Tiktok ban from federal devices: The legislation would ban TikTok, the Chinese-owned short-form video app, from federal government devices.
Some lawmakers have raised bipartisan concerns that China’s national security laws could force TikTok – or its parent, ByteDance – to hand over the personal data of its US users. Recently, a wave of states led by Republican governors have introduced state-level restrictions on the use of TikTok on government-owned devices.
Enhanced child tax credit: A coalition of Democratic lawmakers and consumer advocates pushed hard to extend at least one provision of the enhanced child tax credit, which was in effect last year thanks to the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. Their priority was to make the credit more refundable so more of the lowest-income families can qualify. Nearly 19 million kids won’t receive the full $2,000 benefit this year because their parents earn too little, according to a Tax Policy Center estimate.
New cannabis banking rules: Lawmakers considered including a provision in the spending bill that would make it easier for licensed cannabis businesses to accept credit cards – but it was left out of the legislation. Known as the Safe Banking Act, which previously passed the House, the provision would prohibit federal regulators from taking punitive measures against banks for providing services to legitimate cannabis businesses.
Even though 47 states have legalized some form of marijuana, cannabis remains illegal on the federal level. That means financial institutions providing banking services to cannabis businesses are subject to criminal prosecution – leaving many legal growers and sellers locked out of the banking system.
FBI headquarters: There was also no final resolution on where the new FBI headquarters will be located, a major point of contention as lawmakers from Maryland – namely House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer – pushed to bring the law enforcement agency into their state. In a deal worked through by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the General Services Administration would be required to conduct “separate and detailed consultations” with Maryland and Virginia representatives about potential sites in each of the states, according to a Senate Democratic aide.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Moscow could launch new strikes over Christmas, hours before Russian missiles killed at least five people in an attack on the southern city of Kherson.
“With the approaching holiday season, Russian terrorists may become active again,” Zelenskyy said late on Friday. “They despise Christian values and any values in general. Therefore, please heed the air raid signals, help each other and always take care of each other.”
The Russian attack on Kherson on Saturday also injured at least 35 people, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office, said on Telegram.
Zelenskyy condemned the Kherson assault as an act of terror. “These are not military facilities,” he wrote on Facebook. “This is not a war according to the rules defined. It is terror, it is killing for the sake of intimidation and pleasure.”
Zelenskyy sent a stark warning to Russia, according to the transcript of his Friday address.
“Citizens of Russia must clearly understand that terror never goes unanswered,” he said.
The warning comes as Russia is likely to be limiting its strikes on key infrastructure due to a shortage of missiles, the U.K. Defense Ministry said on Saturday.
“Russia has likely limited its long-range missile strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure to around once a week due to the limited availability of cruise missiles,” the ministry said. A broader shortage of munitions is weighing on Russian military operations, it said, adding that “Russia is unlikely to have increased its stockpile of artillery munitions enough to enable large-scale offensive operations.”
Ukrainian troops killed another 480 Russians soldiers, Kyiv’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday, taking the overall Russian casualties to more than 101,000 since Moscow’s tanks rolled into Ukraine in February. The Ukrainian ministry also said that Russia lost another tank and more drones. POLITICO hasn’t independently verified these figures.
Zelenskyy also thanked the Netherlands for its new €2.5 billion support package for Ukraine. While the allocation of the funds will depend on Kyiv’s needs, the Dutch government said on Friday it expects the money to help fund “military aid, support essential repair and reconstruction activities and contribute financially to efforts to combat impunity.”
The Ukrainian president spoke after a meeting with his military commanders, saying that Kyiv is “preparing for different variants of actions of the terrorist state” and “will respond.” The country is also working to step up its diplomatic efforts toward traditional partners and “countries in which our influence is still less than we need,” such as Latin American and African nations, he said.
An overnight drone attack on Monday targeted the Engels airbase deep inside Russia for the second time this month, killing three servicemen in what appears to be a renewed sign of Ukraine’s readiness to target offensive threats way beyond its border areas.
Russian Telegram channels reported a strong explosion and a fire, while Russia’s state-run Ria-Novosti news agency, citing the defense ministry, said air defenses downed a Ukrainian drone heading towards the base. Engels air base is located about 600 km northeast of the Ukrainian border.
Delivering a symbolic blow, this second long-range attack on one of Russia’s most strategically important bases — home to nuclear-capable bombers — came on the same day the Russian army was celebrating the 107th anniversary of the creation of its air defense units.
The previous attack happened on December 5. New York Times has reported that Ukraine carried out the attack with drones and the help of a military reconnaissance unit coordinating it deep inside Russian territory. Russian authorities claimed that attack damaged two planes, killed three servicemen and wounded four others.
On Monday, locals reported a strong blast in the same airfield but the Russian defense ministry claimed no significant damage was done to its aircraft.
Ukraine has not taken responsibility for either strike.
“There is absolutely no threat to residents. Civil infrastructure facilities were not damaged,” Roman Busargin, governor of the Saratov region, said in a statement.
“Law enforcement agencies have been investigating the incident at a military facility.”
Busargin also issued a warning about criminal liability for spreading false information, claiming that news on the incident published in media and by citizens will be promptly sent to law enforcement agencies.
Engels airfield is a base for Russian strategic bombers used to carry missile strikes against Ukraine. In addition, those bombers are also a part of Russia’s nuclear triad, as they can carry nuclear warheads.
LONDON — Elon Musk’s controversial Twitter firing spree is sending workers into the arms of organized labor, according to the new head of Britain’s Trades Union Congress.
“Elon Musk is a perfect recruitment tool for the trade union movement,” Paul Nowak told POLITICO. Since the Tesla billionaire took over the social media platform in October, Prospect, one of the trade union federation’s 48 affiliates, “has seen its membership in Twitter go up tenfold,” he said.
The influx is “precisely in response” to Musk, argued Nowak, who “thinks he can issue a directive from San Francisco that somehow just happens all around the world with no regard to employment law.”
Musk has fired roughly 3,700 employees — nearly half of Twitter’s workforce — in a round of mass layoffs since buying the company.
U.K. Twitter employees earmarked for an exit received an email saying their job would be “potentially” impacted or “at risk,” because, under British law, firms are required to consult with staff over mass redundancies.
In November, Musk meanwhile gave staff an email ultimatum to either go “extremely hardcore” by “working long hours at high intensity” or quit the company.
Musk’s behavior is, Nowak said, “a great recruiting tool for us.”
“If I was a young worker in tech, I’d be thinking that being a union member might be a good investment at the moment,” he said. “If it can happen at Twitter, it can happen anywhere.”
Unions have in recent years ramped up their activity in another part of the tech world: the gig economy. Uber and food delivery service Deliveroo recently signed agreements with unions, while some Apple stores have voted for union recognition. Last year also saw the first-ever industrial action ballots at a U.K. Amazon warehouse.
Organized labor is “beginning to make inroads” in tech, Nowak said — but it still needs “to step up that work.” Twitter had not responded to a request for comment by the time of publication.
Strikes
Nowak takes the helm at the TUC at a time of major industrial unrest in the U.K, as employees in a host of sectors rail against stagnant wages amid soaring inflation.
U.K. Twitter employees earmarked for an exit received an email saying their job would be “potentially” impacted or “at risk” | Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s railway workers, postal workers, nurses, paramedics, our members aren’t on strike for the sake of it,” he said.
Since the financial crisis in 2008, the median income in Britain has fallen behind neighboring countries in Europe. An analysis by the TUC shows workers are £20,000 poorer, on average, since 2008 because pay has failed to keep up with inflation. By 2025 the union group expects that gap to increase to £24,000, with even larger gulfs for frontline healthcare staff who are striking.
Britain’s Retail Price Index measure inflation reached 14 percent last year, and economists forecast inflation — in part spurred by the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — will persist longer in the U.K. than among its G7 partners.
“Households can’t afford as much as they have been able to in the past,” said Josie Dent, managing economist at the Centre for Economics and Business Research. “Naturally that creates weaker demand.”
Against that backdrop, Novak said he wants the British government to stimulate domestic demand by putting more pay in workers’ pockets. The government argues boosting public sector pay will further fuel inflation and push its already shaky public finances further into the red.
“What do our members do when our members get paid and get decent pay rises? They go and spend that money in local shops, hotels, restaurants,” said Nowak, and “they don’t squirrel it away in offshore bank accounts, or save it away for a rainy day.”
“You have to create demand internally in the economy as well,” he added. “We’ve had the government sort of turn that common sense on its head.”
The liberation of Kherson by Kyiv troops more than a month ago hasn’t brought peace of mind nor a feeling of security to residents of the southern Ukrainian city.
Moscow launched a missile strike on the city Saturday morning, killing at least eight people and injuring another 58, with 18 of the injured were in serious condition, according to local officials.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other Kyiv officials published graphic pictures of burning cars and people lying in blood on the streets.
“Social networks will most likely mark these photos as ‘sensitive content.’ But this is not sensitive content — it is the real life of Ukraine and Ukrainians,” Zelenskyy wrote. “These are not military facilities. This is not a war according to the rules defined. It is terror, it is killing for the sake of intimidation and pleasure.”
Bridget Brink, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, called Saturday’s assault “another brutal attack by Russia on recently-liberated Kherson.”
“Truly horrific, especially on Christmas Eve,” Brink said in a tweet.
Kherson, which had a pre-war population of about 300,000, became a target for Russian troops after their withdrawal from the city and other settlements on the western bank of the Dnipro River to the eastern bank in November in an attempt to avoid being cut off by the artillery of advancing Ukrainian troops. Over the past weeks, Russian forces have attacked Kherson and other Kyiv-controlled territories around the city with artillery, rocket launchers and mortars on a daily basis, according to local authorities.
On Friday, Russian troops shelled the Kherson region 74 times, as a result of which five civilians were killed, 17 people were injured, Yaroslav Yanushevych, the regional governor, wrote on his social media.
Intensified daily bombardments put many civilians in front of a difficult choice — either to risk their lives staying in Kherson or to leave the city for safer Kyiv-controlled areas of the country.
Ukraine’s Ministry for Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories said earlier this week that more than 12,000 people have been evacuated from liberated territories in the Kherson region “over the past months.”
On Friday, the ministry said that local authorities urged residents of the Ostriv district of Kherson, which remains “a zone of increased danger” due to constant enemy shelling, to leave their homes as they may be left without electricity, heat and water supply.
PARIS — France will deliver “light” battle tanks to Ukraine, President Emmanuel Macron’s office announced Wednesday, adding that France would be the first country to send such Western-designed armored fighting vehicles to the war.
The Elysée said after a phone call between Macron and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy that France will send AMX-10 RC armored fighting vehicles, which Paris has been gradually replacing with new Jaguar battle tanks.
Several countries have already sent Soviet-era tanks to Ukraine. Both France and Germany have been under pressure to supply tanks to Ukraine, but had refused Kyiv’s requests, until now.
An adviser to France’s Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu said Wednesday’s decision was made to help Ukraine prepare for “a possible Russian offensive” in the spring.
“Ukraine is at a tipping point now at the frontline … Russia is trying to terrorize the population with its drone attacks that sometimes reach as far as Kyiv, but Ukraine could also start a counter-offensive,” he said.
Zelenskyy thanked Macron on Twitter, saying the two leaders had “a long and detailed conversation” and that the French president’s “leadership brings our victory closer.”
However, Ukraine’s requests for more arms from allies have still not been fully satisfied: In December, Kyiv formally asked for another model of tank, the Leclerc — France’s main battle tank — rather than AMX-10 vehicles, which are being phased out. The AMX-10 is lighter, less protected and has a shorter range than the Leclerc.
However the delivery of French armoured vehicles, though not fully-fledged battle tanks, might encourage others to follow suit, argued retired French colonel and military consultant Michel Goya.
“We’ve made a gesture … we can now boast that we were the first to send tanks, even though they are not the same class as the battle tanks used in Ukraine. But the move can also have an incitement effect on others,” said Goya.
On Wednesday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz faced renewed calls to send Leopard-2 tanks to Ukraine.
“The argument constantly advanced by the chancellery that Germany must not go it alone is absolutely out of date,” said Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, who heads Germany’s parliamentary defence committee in an interview with AFP.
“France is once again taking on the role that was expected of Germany, and is going ahead alone,” she said.
Macron’s government did not specify how many vehicles it will send. The French and Ukrainian defense ministries are expected to discuss the details of the equipment delivery soon.
For retired general Jérôme Pellistrandi, director of National Defense magazine, the rate of replacement of the AMX-10s by new generation vehicles within the French army gives an indication of the potential scale of the supplies.
“The land forces have received 38 Jaguar vehicles, that means that the same number of AMX-10s have been removed from service, so thirty thereabouts should be available to be transferred to Ukraine,” Pellistrandi said.
Built for Soviet times
The AMX-10 is a light, highly mobile, armoured vehicle equipped with a 105mm cannon. It has been used in reconnaissance missions for the French army and was deployed as recently as the Barkhane mission in Africa, which formally ended in November.
“It’s a vehicle that was designed in the 70s and 80s to track the advance of Soviet armed land forces. The paradox is that it will be used today for the purpose it was built for … because the Russians have shown their doctrine hasn’t shifted much since the Soviet times,” Pellistrandi said.
The light tanks are useful in operations and can be deployed ahead of Ukrainian battle tanks in the event of a renewed Russian offensive in the spring, according to Pellistrandi.
However, Goya argued that the delivery of several dozen French AMX-10s to the warzone is unlikely to change the dynamic on the Ukrainian battlefield.
“It can help, but in terms of numbers it’s not much given that there are hundreds of thousands of armoured vehicles in Ukraine. The Ukrainians will use them well, but they don’t fire as far as Russian tanks,” he said.
It’s likely that the Ukrainians will keep up the pressure on France and Germany to send battle tanks, alongside other high tech military equipment. But according to a French Armed Forces ministry adviser, the upkeep of France’s defense capacities has remained “a red line” for Macron, which limits the scope for deliveries.
Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.
Visiting newly liberated Kherson back in November, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced, “this is the beginning of the end of the war.”
However, only in hindsight will it become clear whether the Russian retreat did indeed mark the beginning of the end, or whether it will be seen as a false dawn in a much longer war — particularly since all signs indicate Russia is readying for a lengthy fight.
For the past month, neither Ukrainian nor Russian forces have had much to show in terms of territorial gains made in the ferocious fight on the front lines of Donetsk and Luhansk — only high tallies of dead and wounded and the depletion of weapons, especially artillery shells and rockets.
Despite the modern additions of drones and electronic warfare, much of the fighting has been reminiscent of World War I. “Bent double, like old beggars under sacks / Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,” is how poet Wilfred Owen had depicted the stark realities of trench warfare. And soldiers in the Donbas are living those words today.
Once the ground freezes, Ukraine will seemingly have two tactical options: to launch an offensive in the south, aimed at severing Russia’s land bridge with Crimea, or to focus on Luhansk in the northeast. To be able to do either, however, will require a massive resupply from Western powers.
On a visit to Washington this week — Zelenskyy’s first trip outside Ukraine since Russia invaded — he pressed the case hard for more and better. Supplies are getting low in Western arsenals too, but urgency for Ukraine is mounting: Ordnance and materiel will be needed not only for Ukraine to launch offensives but likely for defense as well.
Meanwhile, there’s growing alarm that Russian forces in Ukraine under the command of General Sergei Surovikin — a commander who, as POLITICO predicted, has proven more tactically astute than his predecessors — are preparing a counteroffensive that will be boosted by more than 200,000 newly mobilized draftees.
In recent months, Russia hasn’t had the manpower to secure any breakthroughs. And while the new conscripts may not be the best trained or motivated, throwing such a number into battle could nonetheless have significant impact — particularly as Russian President Vladimir Putin is just as callous as Stalin in terms of overlooking the number of casualties among his forces. That’s the Russian way of war — seek to overwhelm with numbers, regardless of the human cost.
By contrast, Ukraine will only be feeding in 30,000 newly trained troops this winter, and the discrepancy is worrying military officials in Kyiv. “The enemy shouldn’t be discounted. They are not weak . . . and they have great potential,” General Oleksandr Syrsky, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, said this week.
Russia is also in the throes of what Andrew Monaghan, an associate fellow at the NATO Defense College, has dubbed “a rethink” of strategy, as calls of “all for the front, all for victory” mount in Moscow. In comments to his military chiefs midweek, Putin seemingly responded to those calls, vowing not only to continue the so-called special military operation into 2023 but to ramp up, saying there was no limit to the amount of money Russia was willing to spend.
In other words, having already ordered its industry to retool to boost military supplies, the Kremlin is digging in for a long war. Yet, how Russia will escalate, what tactical goals it will pursue with its new troops and what lessons it’s learned from the conflict so far remain unclear. Also unclear is how it will amass the ordnance it needs.
A compound used by the Russian military as a barracks and local headquarters in Kupiansk, Kharkiv | Carl Court/Getty Images
Rumors of a shake-up in the higher echelons of Russia’s armed forces have been teeming in Moscow for weeks, with talk that Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov is likely to be replaced. Will Putin once again turn to younger men to get the results he wants, as he did when he broke with the pattern of seniority in October and appointed 44-year-old Colonel Oleg Gorshenin to command the powerful National Defense Management Center?
If a reshuffle does come, it “will provide some clarity, perhaps, on how Moscow understands the scale of the war going into 2023 and what any further escalation might look like, including intensified campaigning — or even a major offensive — later in the winter or in the spring,” according to Monaghan.
But no one in Kyiv doubts a renewed Russian offensive is coming. Although Putin avoided predicting any imminent successes or goals in his remarks this week, he made clear he expects results. “The country and government is giving everything that the army asks for — everything. I trust that there will be an appropriate response and the results will be achieved,” he said.
And the results Putin will likely want to see are in the regions he formally annexed earlier this year, only to see chunks of them subsequently liberated by Ukraine. But Western military analysts don’t expect Russia to mount a push along the whole snaking, elongated front — more likely a multi-pronged assault focusing on some key villages and towns around Donetsk, on towns between Kharkiv and Luhansk and in Zaporizhzhia, where there have been reports of increased movements of troops and equipment across the border in Russia.
Russia could throw in a wildcard too — like another attack from Belarus toward Kyiv and also west of the capital toward Vinnytsia, imperiling rail lines running from the West and the E40 highway linking Lviv with Kyiv.
There’s been a steady buildup of Russian forces in Belarus in recent weeks, with Ukrainian sources telling POLITICO that Russian warplanes have seemingly been testing Ukraine’s air defenses along the border. And the Institute for the Study of War said it was continuing to observe signs consistent with “a renewed Russian invasion of northern Ukraine from Belarus.”
It also said that independent Belarusian sources continue to report growing Russian mechanized forces in the country, with about 30 Russian T-80 tanks reportedly deployed around December 20. However, no strike groups appear to be forming as yet, suggesting an attack from Belarus “is not very likely imminent.”
Imminent or not, though, American military strategist Edward Luttwak has warned of “a scythe maneuver from Belarus down to Vinnytsia to cut off Kyiv from its westward supply lines.” And as Ukrainian General Valerii Zaluzhnyi said this week, he has “no doubt [Russia] will have another go at Kyiv.”
KYIV — Even when the Russians are invading your country, that doesn’t stop the clock when it comes to sweeping out corruption and fixing the judiciary in line with EU convergence criteria.
With the EU set to issue reports on Kyiv’s progress in March and then again in October, Ukraine’s advances on rule of law are swifter than expected, but it’s a case of two steps forward and one (very worrying) step back.
For Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has declared that his country’s “future is in the EU,” it is vital to maintain momentum, when he knows Kyiv’s membership faces resistance from traditional EU members, whose powers would be diluted by such a big new member. France’s President Emmanuel Macron said in May that Kyiv was “in all likelihood decades” from EU membership, and Western European countries express constant concerns about insecurity, corruption and the cost of rebuilding a nation shattered by war.
In that context, Ukraine is now moving surprisingly quickly. The appointment of a new chief prosecutor has given the fight against graft a boost with many high-profile cases finally resulting in sentences. The Ukrainian parliament also liquidated the Kyiv Administrative District Court, infamous as the most corrupt court in Ukraine.
On the downside, however, concern is now growing over the Constitutional Court, with its supreme legal oversight that can overrule government decisions. A new reform threatens to allow political interference in a body that would filter candidates for judges. This could throw a major hurdle in the path of Ukraine’s European aspirations. Both the European Commission and the Venice Commission, a Council of Europe advisory body on constitutional law, have already sounded the alarm.
Shutting Ukraine’s most corrupt court
Ukraine’s liquidation of the Kyiv Administrative District Court is being widely viewed as one of the most positive steps in the battle against corruption, but it didn’t come easily.
Zelenskyy submitted the bill to kill off the court as a priority back in April 2021. However, the Ukrainian parliament did so only on December 13, four days after the U.S. Department of State sanctioned its chairman, Pavlo Vovk, for soliciting bribes in return for interfering in judicial and other public processes.
The U.S. sanction on the court’s head judge was the final straw, said Mykhailo Zhernakov, chairman of the board of the Dejure Foundation, a nongovernmental organization focusing on legal reform.
But Vovk’s removal was also the fruit of intense pressure from Ukrainian civil society groups that exposed the court’s misdeeds and anti-corruption organizations that investigated its lead judges.
In 2020, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) released the so-called Vovk tapes — wiretaps of both Administrative Court judges and top lawyers in connection to a criminal case against Vovk — which revealed a large number of fake lawsuits, unlawful rulings and pressure by Vovk on judges and officials.
“What made the Kyiv Administrative District Court so powerful was its unique jurisdiction that covered not only local authorities of Kyiv, but also all the government bodies located in Kyiv. And that means all government bodies,” Zhernakov said. “That broad jurisdiction gave them an enormous concentration of power. And that is why it must be divided with the creation of the new administrative court.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
After the tapes were published by local investigative journalists, the public got an insight into massive obstruction of justice and bribery flourishing at the highest level. All of the judges and officials identified on the tapes deny their authenticity to this day, however.
Vovk himself called the liquidation of the court “a rushed decision” by parliament, adopted under pressure from “certain activists and lobbyists groups.” British Ambassador Melinda Simmons, by contrast, called it a “good day for judicial reform.”
Rostyslav Kravets, a lawyer defending many Ukrainian judges, said the accusations against Vovk were all fabricated and slammed the court reform as “backed by foreign forces.”
Activists and Ukraine’s international partners have indeed repeatedly asserted that foreign experts should guarantee transparent competition over appointments in the Ukrainian judicial system, highly infiltrated by political connections, but Kravets resented the international pressure.
“This is wrong. Can you imagine me coming to London to help them elect judges?” Kravets said. “Europe has been trying to sell the idea that all judges in Ukraine are criminals, who take bribes. That forced many to leave their posts or rule in favor of unlawful decisions.”
A second step forward
The second major advance has come with the appointment of Oleksandr Klymenko as the chief anti-corruption prosecutor.
In 2021, the notorious Kyiv Administrative District Court blocked the appointment of the former detective from the NABU anti-corruption bureau. Klymenkobecamefamous for investigating a bribery case against another top official in Zelenskyy’s administration: Oleg Tatarov, deputy head of the president’soffice. Although Tatarov was charged with bribery, his case was transferred from the jurisdiction of independent anti-corruption bodies to the security service of Ukraine. Shortly afterward, the case died.
Deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, who is responsible for law enforcement, Oleg Tatarov | Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty images
Tatarovpublicly promised to prove his innocence and said the case against him was a personal vendetta by Artem Sytnyk, then head of the NABU.
On the same day that Ukraine liquidated the administrative court, however, it made a major misstep on reforming its all-important Constitutional Court.
On December 13, Ukraine’s parliament voted on a law to reform the Constitutional Court, but watchdogs pointed out the potential for political interference in the way judges are appointed in the new system.
The new procedure establishes an advisory group of three government officials and three independent experts with the same number of votes during the selection of judges. They would choose candidates by a simple majority vote. The decision of the group is also not final, making it possible for candidates who did not pass the evaluation to still run for Constitutional Court seats.
On December 19, the Venice Commission recommended changing the new law and introducing a seventh member to the advisory group to give the independent experts a casting vote during the selection. It also recommended making the decisions of the advisory group binding, making it impossible for candidates with negative evaluations to become Constitutional Court judges.
Only the next day, however, Zelenskyy, on his way from the frontline city of Bakhmut to Washington, signed the bill into law, ignoring the Venice Commission’s recommendation.
“Simple majority voting means that independent experts will need the votes of the political appointees from the government to select a candidate to the next stage. With these kind of rules, the advisory group won’t be able to push through independent candidates,” said Zhernakov from the Dejure Foundation.
Ukraine’s reformists need pressure from abroad
Ukrainian civil society groups called on international partners to keep up their pressure over the Constitutional Court reform. Zhernakov argued that, because of the Russian invasion, some foreign partners were now shying away from public criticism of Kyiv in order not to play into the hands of Russia or of Ukraine’s critics in the EU.
“Due to Zelenskyy’s well-deserved popularity, international partners prefer not to criticize Ukraine as harshly as they did before as they don’t want to undermine him in any way during active warfare. But there has to be a red line,” Zhernakov said.
On December 23, the European Commission finally weighed in. Ana Pisonero, spokesperson for enlargement, said the Commission expected Ukrainian authorities to fully address the Venice Commission recommendations, and would monitor the process.
Vitaliy Shabunin, the head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, a Kyiv-based watchdog, said in a statement that, if not changed, the new selection procedure would give effective control over the Constitutional Court to the president’s office. The president’s office did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
“This is a fantastic risk. The Constitutional Court is the only institution that currently limits political power in the country. And precisely because it is not controlled by the government, it can control the government,” Zhernakov said.
In a sign of the Constitutional Court’s importance, it ignited a crisis in 2020 when it recognized certain parts of Ukraine’s law as unconstitutional. That decision canceled public access to the electronic declaration of assets, as well as criminal punishment for lies in electronic declarations. Those changes practically paralyzed the fight against corruption in Ukraine, the National Agency on Corruption Prevention reported. The court’s decision was criticized by the Venice Commission and condemned by international society.
More than a thousand officials avoided responsibility for lying in declarations, and only the efforts of the authorities and the public made it possible to neutralize the threat to the anti-corruption infrastructure.
Civil society and international partners with the help of Zelenskyy managed to clean the Constitutional Court, as well as other high judicial authorities. And the ex-chairman of the court fled abroad.
When asked why Zelenskyy had now signed such a controversial law, Zhernakov said that while the Ukrainian government has been doing a lot to bring Ukraine closer to the EU, there are still people in the president’s office resisting change.
“And while Zelenskyy is in Bakhmut or in the U.S., they are slipping in things like this. Because they want to keep control over the key legislative institutions,” Zhernakov said.
Civil society is getting ready to fight back, although now the space for criticism is limited because of war. Zhernakov said the risk was that Russia would unfairly use criticism like that over the Constitutional Court to cast Ukraine as an undemocratic and corrupt country.
“Usually, Russian propaganda is baseless and can be refuted with simple fact-checking. But when instead of EU integration reforms the authorities sign the laws like the Constitutional Court one, they give not just a weapon, but a HIMARS to Russian propaganda,” Zhernakov said.
BERLIN — This year, the number of refugees arriving to Germany is almost as high as it was in 2015 and 2016 — when the government nearly fell apart over it.
When civil war broke out in Syria, refugees came in masses to Europe. Between the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016, tens of thousands arrived in Germany. Then-Chancellor Angela Merkel said, “Wir schaffen das” — “We got this.” Merkel’s government allowed migrants to enter Germany even though, under the EU’s framework, other countries in the bloc would also have been responsible for them. The massive influx led to friction both within Germany and between European capitals.
Germany saw nearly 1.2 million applications for asylum in 2015 and 2016. At first, many Germans applauded the Syrians arriving at train stations and offered support — coining the term Willkommenskultur. But as cities and towns were overwhelmed, with gyms and container villages being set up to house the influx of refugees, the political mood soon soured.
Fast-forward to 2022: The number of refugees from Ukraine amounted to just more than 1 million people receiving temporary protection. Add to that around 214,000 applications by asylum-seekers with no connection to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, according to the German interior ministry. That means that this year, more people have sought refuge in Germany than in 2015 and 2016 combined.
But things are different this time around. While authorities on the ground still fear being overwhelmed, the situation has changed, including how EU countries handle refugees. Here are three key points:
1. Refugees from Ukraine form a distinct category
First of all, Germany is not going it alone now, as the EU has activated the so-called Temporary Protection Directive for refugees from Ukraine. This means that they automatically receive temporary asylum status and can claim social benefits in any EU country, spreading the burden across countries in the bloc.
Within Germany, a new distribution system known as “FREE,” in place since July, considers family ties and other factors. This has created a steering effect, as distribution can be linked and tracked. Furthermore, when able to privately organize accommodation themselves, refugees from Ukraine may choose where to settle. Only if they apply for social welfare or housing may they be allocated throughout Germany like other refugees.
Almost three-quarters of refugees from Ukraine live in private apartments and houses, according to the study “Refugees from Ukraine in Germany” (conducted between August and October this year). Of these, around 25 percent live with relatives or friends in Germany. Only 9 percent live in shared accommodation for refugees.
In contrast, refugees not coming from Ukraine are spread among German states via the so-called “EASY” system. After an initial period at regional reception centers, migrants are distributed at random to municipalities across the country.
That system does not take individual preferences into account; it only grants a higher probability of assigning refugees to facilities in the same region if family members have been registered in the region — and if there is capacity.
2. Not all cities and towns are overwhelmed — yet
“Reception capacities are exhausted in many places, tent shelters and gymnasiums already have to be used,” Burkhard Jung, the mayor of Leipzig and vice president of the German Association of Cities, said in November.
Plenty of déjà vu with 2015 on this front.
“We don’t know a concrete number, but we are getting feedback from very many federal states that the municipalities are reaching their limits,” Alexander Handschuh, a spokesperson for the German Association of Towns and Municipalities, confirmed earlier this month. He pointed out that large cities such as Berlin or Munich are more popular among refugees from Ukraine — a trend that is ongoing.
“Meanwhile, however, heavy burdens are being reported from all over Germany,” Handschuh added.
While many refugees from Ukraine were initially welcomed into private accommodation “with overwhelming willingness to help,” this is becoming increasingly difficult the longer the war continues. Thus, German municipalities are now calling for help from the federal government, demanding full reimbursement for the costs of handling refugees and calling for higher reception capacity at the regional level.
Migration researcher Hannes Schammann of the University of Hildesheim says he is hearing mixed signals from local authorities. “There are isolated hot spots where we have this situation with gymnasiums and the like. But there are also municipalities where this can still be managed quite well,” Schammann told POLITICO.
The newly arriving refugees are not the problem, he believes. Rather, he said, the issue is German bureaucracy, as the distribution system itself causes delays and uncertainty.
3. Although the situation is tense, it is not surprising
Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) confirmed that migration pressure is currently “increasing significantly” not only in Germany, but also at the EU’s external borders. “Although the numbers have increased every year … the current influx of arrivals has a higher dynamic compared to previous years,” it said. As to why, the BAMF cited a catch-up effect after pandemic travel restrictions were lifted, and economic and political situations in transit states such as Turkey, Tunisia and Libya.
Yet, the number of refugees now arriving from countries other than Ukraine is within the expected range, Schammann said. This becomes a problem, however, when that flow comes up against any uneven distribution of Ukrainian refugees.
In addition, many municipalities held on to both physical and policy infrastructure built up during the situation in 2015 and 2016. “Those who maintained it did quite well,” Schammann pointed out.
The main countries of origin for asylum-seekers besides Ukraine continue to be Syria, Afghanistan, Turkey and Iraq — as in previous years. “There are currently no noticeable developments in individual countries of origin,” a spokesperson from the interior ministry told POLITICO. Nevertheless, he confirmed a somewhat tense situation in terms of the ability to receive refugees.
Schammann expects the debate to heat up because of bottlenecks that may arise due to the distribution of refugees already in Germany. He described it as a difficult situation and definitely a source of strain on the system. “But it’s not collapsing. It will continue to function regardless,” he said.
Without a magic crystal ball, the ministry declined to provide an outlook for the months to come.
KYIV — Ukrainian intelligence officials are warning that the Kremlin plans a new mobilization wave for up to 500,000 men to fight in Ukraine starting in mid-January.
The new conscription drive, which would be larger than last autumn’s Russian draft of 300,000, would include a push in big cities, including some strategic industrial centers in Russia, Andriy Cherniak, an official with the Main Military Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, told POLITICO on Saturday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in December said a suggested new conscription wave would be pointless as currently only 150,000 previously mobilized soldiers have been deployed in the invasion of Ukraine. The rest are still training or serving in the Russian rear.
Russia announced the end of the earlier “partial” mobilization of 300,000 men on October 31. But Cherniak claimed that Moscow has continued secret conscription all along.
Now, Ukrainian military intelligence expects a new major wave of official mobilization might begin after January 15.
“This time the Kremlin will mobilize residents of big cities, including the strategic industries centers all over Russia,” Cherniak said. “This will have a very negative impact on the already suffering Russian economy.”
Moscow plans to use the 500,000 extra conscripts in a possible new massive offensive against Ukraine, the Guardian reported, citing Vadym Skibitsky, deputy chief of Ukrainian military intelligence.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that Russia has seen more than 100,000 soldiers killed in action in Ukraine. The latest blow that Moscow’s army has endured was in Makiivka, a town in the occupied part of Donetsk Oblast, where hundreds of newly conscripted Russian soldiers were killed or wounded in a high-precision strike by Ukrainian forces on January 1. Although the number of casualties cannot be verified independently, the Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged the deaths of 89 soldiers, which makes it the biggest one-time military loss recognized by Moscow in the Ukraine war.
Ukrainian Armed Forces Chief Commander Valery Zaluzhnyy, in a December interview with the Economist, said Russia will conduct a new attempt at a massive offensive against Ukraine in February-March 2023. It might not start in Donbas, but in the direction of Kyiv through Belarus.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine keeps watching Russian steps in all directions.
“Russia will not be able to conceal in silence its preparations for a new wave of aggression against Ukraine and the whole of Europe. The world will know in all details — how and when the aggressor is preparing a new escalation in this war,” Zelenskyy said in an evening video statement on January 5.
“And every new mobilization step of Russia will be known to the world even before Russia makes it,” Zelenskyy said. “We will ensure this.”
SAINT-PAUL-LEZ-DURANCE, France — Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has ripped apart Moscow’s ties with the EU and the U.S. on everything from energy to trade to travel — but there’s one partnership they can’t escape.
Tucked away in a quiet sun-soaked corner of southern France, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) — an effort to harness the power of nuclear fusion to unleash vast amounts of clean energy — continues to purr along with the participation of Russian scientists and Russian technology.
Earlier this month, scientists at ITER hailed a major breakthrough announced by the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, which said it had overcome a major barrier — producing more energy from a fusion experiment than was put in.
The 35-nation ITER — born out of U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s 1985 meeting after decades of Cold War tensions — has no way of removing a member gone rogue; there’s no path to kicking Russia out of the experiment without torpedoing the entire scheme.
The €44 billion project aims to test nuclear fusion — a process occurring in the center of stars — as a viable source of carbon-free energy that’s minimally radioactive. By injecting hot plasma that reaches 150 million degrees Celsius into a deviceand confining it with magnetic fields, hydrogen nuclei fuse into a helium nucleus and additional neutrons, releasing huge amounts of energy.
The EU shoulders around half of ITER’s costs and manages its participation through the bloc’s Barcelona-based Fusion 4 Europe (F4E) agency; India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea and the U.S. each have a roughly 9 percent share.
As an active participant in ITER, Russia still has around 50 staff, including engineers, working onsite.
Flags of participant nations fly outside the ITER complex | Photo by Victor Jack/POLITICO
Immediately after Moscow launched its full-scale assault on Ukraine in February, the project was left in a tight spot, especially as Russian government representatives form part of the high-level decision-making board, the ITER Council, alongside their European and American counterparts.
“It’s a difficult balance between condemning a member and facing the consequences for the project,” said ITER Communication Officer Sabina Griffith, who adds that there were initially intensive discussions about how to respond. Staff even briefly discussed putting a banner on the project’s website condemning the war, before scrapping the idea.
Even if “the organization itself is apolitical … many people were questioning” what to do after the invasion began, according to ITER’s chief engineer Alain Bécoulet, who added that there was “a lot of sadness” among the staff.
“The political situation so far is stable, [with] all members … declaring that they want to continue to work together,” he said, adding that the first ITER Council meeting after the invasion in June was “very constructive.”
ITER Council members again “reaffirmed their strong belief in the value of the ITER mission” when they met at the site for their latest gathering in October.
The experiment — over budget and over deadline — has already had its fair share of controversies. France’s nuclear safety authority in January suspended the assembly of the fusion reactor over safety concerns. F4E has been plagued by accusations of a high-pressure and overwork culture that critics have linked to at least one suicide.
Vladimir Tronza | Photo by Victor Jack/POLITICO
Unlike Geneva-based particle physics laboratory CERN — a collaborative research center that suspended its ties with Russia after the war began — ITER is an international agreement like the U.N., making it hard to suspend Moscow, said Bécoulet.
That’s because up to 90 percentof the funding comes not in the form of cash but “in-kind” contributions of equipment, with participant countries each manufacturing a one-of-a-kind bespoke piece of the overall reactor that is then put together like a giant puzzle.
While the set-up was designed to create specialized fusion expertise across the world and stimulate domestic manufacturing, it now means that if one member doesn’t deliver a part, the entire project could collapse, wasting billions.
Even if they wanted to, countries couldn’t formally kick Russia out of the project, as there’s no clause in ITER’s constitution that would allow them to do so— instead, every other country would have to pull out.
Going nuclear
But that doesn’t mean the project hasn’t been impacted by Russia’s war.
For one, Western sanctions and Moscow’s counter-sanctions have made it a minefield to procure Russian-made parts, according to Bécoulet.
“It turns out 2022 is one very important year in terms of Russian deliveries” for the project, he said, with Moscow producing crucial parts including busbars — aluminum bars feeding the reactor with a huge electric current — and a 200-ton ring-shaped magnet that shapes the plasma and keeps it suspended in the reactor, called a poloidal field coil.
Transporting the busbars by truck and the field coil — which is on its way from St. Petersburg to Marseille — by ship required “more paperwork, more justification to explain to the various European countries that no, we are not subject to sanctions — we have derogations,” he said. The “painful” process delayed deliveriesby up to two months, he added.
It also left Russian staff in the lurch, including Moscow-born assembly engineer Vladimir Tronza, who’s worked onsite since 2016.
“In the beginning, everyone was like, ‘What’s going to happen? Should we look for another job? Should we pack and go back?’” he said, adding that Russian staff members were initially concerned that Moscow would exit the project.
But Tronza said he hasn’t heard of Russian staff going home, with the “majority not interested to go back” given many have settled in southeastern France.
“Collaboration is important — it’s important to keep the ties and … talk,” he said, adding that the project is “a global good.”
KYIV — On a frosty Saturday morning, several altar boys posed for group selfies next to the Dormition Cathedral of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra Monastery complex in the Ukrainian capital.
“It is for history! Moskals used to occupy this place, and now we are here,” said one of the boys, using a Ukrainian slur for Russians.
“No time for photos, boys! We have work to do,” a priest admonished the youngsters as the first-ever Christmas service of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine was about to start in Lavra — an 11th-century monastery that is the most important religious center for Ukrainian Orthodox believers.
“God has graced us with a great gift during difficult trials: For the first time, the Ukrainian prayer of the local autocephalous Orthodox Church of Ukraine is heard in the main cathedral church of the Assumption of the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. Christ was born! Let’s praise Him!” Church Metropolitan Epifaniy said during the Christmas service.
Just as Ukraine is fighting against Russia to maintain its sovereignty, Ukraine’s independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine is battling against Russian-backed priests for control over the Lavra Monastery complex, which is also known as the Monastery of the Caves. Rising numbers of Ukrainians have been moving away from the Russia-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is also known as the Ukrainian Church of Moscow Patriarchate, and have been switching allegiance to the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine, especially since February when Russia invaded Ukraine.
After Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian-backed church started to be seen as a weapon of Moscow’s influence in Ukraine as many priests have allegedly collaborated with the Kremlin’s invading forces, according to the Ukrainian government.
‘Moral victory’
“We have already achieved a moral victory because all people of goodwill condemn the acts of genocide, terror, and numerous war crimes committed by the evil Russian empire on our land,” Metropolitan Epifaniy said in the Christmas service.
Hundreds of parishioners came to Lavra for the first Christmas service in the Ukrainian language inside these walls. The Dormition Church was soon full of soldiers, priests and other believers, and people kept coming. Some had to stay outside and watch the service on TV screens even though the temperature was minus 8 degrees Celsius. Many people cried with joy.
“This is a historical event. A turning point. Even though it is still unclear whether the Ukrainian Orthodox Church will get the long-time rent from the state, we saw the government’s position. And it is clear. There will be no Moscow Church here anymore, thank God,” one believer, 19-year-old Hanna from Kyiv, told POLITICO. “Of course, we want them to go peacefully. We want to celebrate the birthday of Christ in peace.”
Ukraine’s independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine is battling against Russian-backed priests for control over the Lavra Monastery complex | Ethan Swope/Getty Images
Previously, parishioners and priests of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine were not allowed to pray here, as the Dormition Cathedral, the main church of the Kyiv Pechersk Monastery, used to be the main headquarters of the Russia-affiliated Ukrainian Orthodox Church, also known as the Moscow Patriarchate Church. So far it is unclear whether the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine will be allowed to stay in churches for more than one Christmas day, because the previous tenants, Moscow-backed priests, won’t agree to go in peace.
Although the Lavra priests deny they still have ties to Moscow, many of them are currently under investigation by the Security Service of Ukraine for alleged collaboration with Russian security forces and invading soldiers after Russian passports and Russian propaganda material were found during searches of monasteries. The priests refute the accusations.
While the entire Lavra complex is state-owned, Russian-affiliated orthodox priests had rented the Dormition Cathedral and nearby Trapezna Church from the state since the 1990s. In December, their lease expired and the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, the primary manager of Lavra, refused to prolong it, returning both temples to the state on January 5.
Cathedral clash
Russian-affiliated priests refused to acknowledge the decision, claiming despite the expiration of the lease that they have the right to stay in the Lavra churches until the war ends. Russian-affiliated priests also assert that the Orthodox Church of Ukraine has no right to serve in the Dormition Cathedral.
“The events announced on the territory of the Lavra are an attempt to forcibly seize the cathedral by means of blackmail and misleading society,” the Russian-affiliated church said in a statement on Thursday.
The priests claimed the Orthodox Church of Ukraine announced the service before it received official permission and pressured the government in Kyiv to grant it.
The Lavra priests consider themselves the only genuine local Orthodox Church in Ukraine. Many times, Moscow-backed priests have called the Orthodox Church of Ukraine schismatic even though in 2019 Bartholomew I, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, officially recognized the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and granted it self-governorship.
“The Ukrainian shrine should serve the entire Ukrainian people, and we will adhere to this principle in the future,” Ukrainian Minister of Culture Oleksandr Tkachenko said in a statement on Telegram on Thursday.
Some 3,000 police officers were guarding the Lavra premises during the Christmas service Saturday morning.
KYIV — Ukraine’s Orthodox worshippers have always celebrated Christmas on January 7 — but that will change for many this year, with the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) for the first time allowing its congregations to celebrate on December 25.
This move creates a dividing line with Russia, which celebrates on January 7, and is likely to widen a rift between Ukraine’s two feuding churches.
In 2018, the OCU split from the similarly named Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which is seen as politically linked to Moscow and is facing public demands for its closure amid accusations that it is a hotbed of fifth columnists — that is, people who support and secretly help the enemies of the country they live in.
Indeed, the OCU’s decision to allow a shift of Christmas observance to December 25 (for those who want to) has already infuriated the Russian-oriented UOC.
“We are giving people the option to celebrate on a different day,” said Archbishop Yevstratiy Zoria of the OCU in Kyiv.
Yevstratiy told POLITICO there had been a groundswell for a change since 2017, when December 25 became a public holiday in Ukraine. Many of the church’s adherents had lobbied for a move away from the Julian calendar, which is observed by the Russian Orthodox Church.
The calls for the switch have only grown louder since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, prompting the OCU to allow its 7,000 parishes to hold full religious services on December 25, if desired.
According to Yevstratiy, already before the invasion, more than a third of Ukrainians wanted to change to the Gregorian calendar. “The numbers are probably higher now, and we are having an experiment to try to understand what worshippers really want,” he said.
“We are not moving the day of Christmas,” he added. “This will be an additional day of worship,” with celebrations held in accordance with the official Julian church calendar.
In the meantime, the church will “consider what to do in the future, and we will observe closely how many congregations take up the opportunity to celebrate on December 25,” Yevstratiy continued.
Despite opposition from the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church, in 2019 the OCU was granted ecclesiastical independence by Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople — considered the spiritual leader of Orthodox believers worldwide. His decision revoked a centuries-old agreement that granted the patriarch in Moscow authority over the church in Ukraine.
Political differences underpin the the split between the churches of the predominantly Orthodox nation: Western-oriented OCU churches offered support to the Maidan protesters of 2014, which toppled Viktor Yanukovych, Moscow’s viceroy in Ukraine. Over recent years, the church been a strong advocate of Ukrainian statehood and sovereignty.
The Russian-tied UOC claimed in May to have ended its subordination to Moscow’s Metropolitan Kirill, a vociferous supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin — although few believe the split is sincere. The church’s spokesperson, Metropolitan Klyment, dismissed as a political stunt the OCU’s decision to allow its congregants to celebrate on December 25, claiming it as evidence of how the rival church is not a religious institution but a political organization eager to do the government’s bidding.
“Families historically are used to celebrating on [January 7],” he told POLITICO. “The people who go to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are not requesting any change,” he said. “It has been four years since the government announced December 25 as an official holiday, and since then, you have not seen people celebrating it as Christmas Day,” he added.
The Kyiv-headquartered UOC dismisses the charge that its decision to allow congregations to celebrate Christmas on December 25 has anything to do with politics. Instead, it is merely responding to “numerous requests and taking into account the discussion that has been going on for many years in the church and in society.”
The OCU response to the new Christmas option, says Archbishop Yevstratiy, is par for the course. “They have always treated us as a political group. They don’t accept us as a religious organization or as a church,” he said.
“It is very similar to how Russia treats Ukraine in general,” he continued. “From our side, we have often offered to start a dialogue without any preconditions, but they generally don’t respond — and when they do, they insist we acknowledge that we are not a church, have no canonical rights and that our clergy are not clergy.”
More than 1,600 parishes have defected from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church since it was recognized by the Patriarchate of Constantinople — about 1,000 of them since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Gregorian calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory in 1582; the Julian calendar, established by Julius Caesar, harks back to 46 B.C.
A summit between the European Union and Ukraine will take place in Kyiv in a month, on February 3, Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office announced Monday.
In a discussion between the Ukrainian president and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, “the parties discussed expected results of the next Ukraine-EU summit to be held on February 3 in Kyiv and agreed to intensify preparatory work,” the statement reads.
“I look forward to meeting you in Ukraine soon,” von der Leyen later confirmed on Twitter.
Top EU officials have already been to the Ukrainian capital on official visits: von der Leyen herself visited twice, first last April, then in September, while European Parliament President Roberta Metsola and European Council President Charles Michel both went to Kyiv in April.
During their first phone call of the year, Zelenskyy and von der Leyen also discussed overarching issues related to the war in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian president stressed “the importance of receiving the first tranche” of the latest €18 billion EU aid package to Ukraine “in January.” This would amount to a €3 billion payment.
Georgia’s former President Mikheil Saakashvili says he fears for his life in detention by the authorities in Tbilisi, while medical reports seen by POLITICO reveal traces of “mercury and arsenic” in his hair and nails, and lacerations “throughout his body.”
A personal enemy of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Saakashvili was arrested when he returned to his homeland from a self-imposed exile in October 2021. In exclusive audio tapes obtained by POLITICO, the pro-Western, U.S.-educated lawyer said he lost consciousness on several occasions after beatings by his captors.
Increasing evidence about his worsening condition is likely to ramp up international pressure on the government in Tbilisi, led by the Georgian Dream party, which many Georgians fear is seeking to preserve good relations with the Kremlin. In a sign that the treatment of Saakashvili could also throw up a significant hurdle to the country’s EU bid, the European Parliament passed a resolution last week seeking his release on “humanitarian grounds.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also called for Saakashvili to be set free, offering him a place in a Ukrainian clinic and saying his continued detention by the Georgian authorities is an act of cruelty.
In a sign of his frailty, Saakashvili appeared gaunt and emaciated in a video appearance before a Georgian court on Thursday.
A few weeks ago, he was visited by his American lawyer, Massimo D’Angelo, and two doctors, in the Tbilisi clinic where he is held. Recordings of their conversations were shared with POLITICO.
Asked whether he was “in constant fear for (his) life and safety,” Saakashvili answered: “Yes, for sure.”
The former president said he “lost consciousness” on several occasions, after “many episodes” where he was “beaten” by prison guards.
‘Then I blacked out’
“They tried to squeeze my hands and to grab me and to pull me down to the floor,” he recounted. “And then I blacked out.”
These events “have clinical features highly suggestive of seizures,” according to the report from one of the physicians who examined Saakashvili. He had “lacerations … throughout his body, including the left arm and forearm,” the report added.
Traces of “mercury and arsenic” were found in his hair and nail samples, which were collected during that visit, according to a toxicology report seen by POLITICO.
It concludes that Saakashvili suffers from “heavy metal poisoning,” putting him at a “significant increased risk of mortality if he is not immediately transferred out of Georgia and properly treated.”
In a statement published on Facebook on Tuesday, the Georgian Penitentiary service said it offered to conduct its own toxicology analysis in late November, but claims Saakashvili refused.
Asked if he suspected he was being poisoned, Saakashvili said: “Well, everything could happen here. But I don’t know.”
‘Hung by his balls’
Saakashvili became president at 37, in January 2004 — just weeks after storming parliament in Tbilisi along with thousands of demonstrators, forcing his predecessor to resign.
He served two consecutive terms until 2013, pushing a pro-Western agenda in the Caucasian republic.
Saakashvili became a personal enemy of Putin, who famously accused Saakashvili of triggering the war between the two countries in August 2008 and said he should be “hung by his balls.”
He then fled his country in 2014, and spent most of his next seven tumultuous years in exile in Ukraine, where he was briefly appointed governor of the Odesa region, later arrested for forming a “criminal group” and then freed three days later.
In 2018, he was sentenced in absentia by a Georgian court to a six-year prison term on abuse of power charges, which he says are politically motivated.
The ex-president was arrested in Georgia in October 2021, shortly after he had returned home in an unexpected effort to boost his United National Movement party in municipal elections.
After his arrest, Saakashvili went on a 50-day hunger strike, which caused significant damage to his health.
He has been detained ever since.
European Dream imperiled
The case now looks set to hamper Georgia’s efforts to join the European Union.
Georgia applied for membership last March, together with Ukraine and Moldova. But, unlike the other two, it was not granted candidate status, and will have to implement several reforms first.
Saakashvili’s situation is “symbolic” and “one of the main indicators of how the Georgian judiciary works,” together with that of another jailed political opponent, broadcaster Nika Gvaramia, European lawmaker Anna Fotyga told POLITICO.
These “will be important factors while assessing Georgia’s application,” said Fotyga, who sits in the EU-Georgia Parliamentary Association Committee.
MEP Raphaël Glucksmann warned: “If Saakashvili dies in jail, it’s the end of Georgia’s European fate, and a shame for European leaders.”
“Doors are wide open for Georgia if the government makes gestures that can reassure us on rule of law issues,” added the Frenchman, who is a former adviser and “personal friend” of Saakashvili.
Earlier this month, Georgian Dream Chairman Irakli Kobakhidze said Saakashvili could not be released because it would “destabilize the country,” Georgian news agency InterPressNews reported.
Last week, Kobakhidze called the European Parliament’s resolution asking for Saakashvili’s release a “manifestation of corruption,” according to InterPressNews.
Pointing to the corruption scandal that is rocking the EU, he said the resolution reflected “corruption problems and oligarchic influences that are clearly visible in the European Parliament.”
If the authorities do not budge, it will pit them against their own people, Glucksmann said. According to the latest polls, 85 percent of Georgians support EU membership.
‘All about politics’
Yet, a growing number of Georgians fear that their government is moving closer to Moscow under Georgian Dream, the ruling party, in power since 2012.
Its founder, former chairman and ex-Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, has close ties to Russia, where he built his fortune in the 1990s.
Officially no longer involved in politics, the billionaire is still widely believed to be pulling the strings.
Saakashvili claims he is a “political prisoner” and says his incarceration “is all about politics.”
“He is dying in a Georgian jail, at the hands of an oligarch that made his fortune in Russia,” said Glucksmann, the French MEP, calling it “an incredible injustice.”
“He was Putin’s personal enemy. Now, he’s Putin prisoner,” Glucksmann added.
Contacted by POLITICO, Georgian Dream Chairman Kobakhidze was not available for comment.
Multiple explosive drones attacked Ukraine‘s capital before dawn Monday, local authorities reported, as Russian President Vladimir Putin prepared to visit ally Belarus, which provided the Kremlin’s forces with a launch pad for its invasion of Ukraine almost 10 months ago.
The drone attack came three days after what Ukrainian officials described as one of Russia’s biggest assaults on Kyiv since the war started and as Moscow presses on with its effort to torment Ukraine from the air amid a broad battlefield stalemate.
Russia launched 23 self-exploding drones over Kyiv while the city slept, but Ukrainian forces shot down 18 of them, the Kyiv city administration said on Telegram. No major casualties were reported.
Ukraine’s atomic agency, Energoatom, said that one drone had flown over a part of the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant.
“This is an absolutely unacceptable violation of nuclear and radiation safety,” Energoatom said in a statement on social media. “We call once again to prevent nuclear facilities from being exposed to the risk of attack by the Russian army and posing a threat to the nuclear and radiation safety of Ukraine and the world.”
Monday was St. Nicholas Day, an occasion that marks the start of the Christmas holidays in Ukraine and is when children typically receive their first gifts hidden under pillows.
“This is how Russians congratulated our children on the holiday,” Serhii Kruk, the head of Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, wrote on Telegram, attaching photos of firefighters barely distinguished amid the flames of an infrastructure facility that got hit.
“In the night when everyone is waiting for a miracle, the terrorist country continues to terrorize the peaceful Ukrainian people,” Ukraine’s human rights chief, Dmytro Lubinets, said.
Bits of wreckage from the downed drones damaged a road in the central Solomianskyi district and broke windows in a multi-story building in the Shevchenkyvskyi district of Kyiv, city officials said.
One drone struck the home of Olha and Ivan Kobzarenko, ages 84 and 83, in the outskirts of the capital. Ivan sustained a head injury.
Their garage was completely destroyed and their dog, Malysh, was killed. Olha, speaking in her bedroom where shattered glass and blood covered the floor, said the blast flung the front gate into the couple’s house.
“I know that I am not alone,” Olha said. “Everyone is suffering. Everyone.”
Nina Sobol, a 59-year-old clerk working at one of the city’s power companies, was on her way to work when the strikes happened. Like many of her colleagues, she waited outside while emergency services inspected damage.
“I feel really anxious,” she said. “Anxious because you never know at which moment there will be an incoming missile.”
Authorities said a critical infrastructure point was also hit, without giving more details.
Although the capital appeared to be the main target of the latest Russian attack, the armed forces said other places in the country were also targeted.
Kyiv region Gov. Oleksii Kuleba said on Telegram that some infrastructure facilities were damaged across the Kyiv region, as well as private houses, and at least two people were injured.
Ukraine’s air force said on Telegram that its personnel were able to destroy 30 of at least 35 self-exploding drones that Russia launched across the country from the eastern side of the Azov Sea on Ukraine’s southeast coast. Russia is on the other side of the sea.
The Ukrainian military has reported increasing success in shooting down incoming Russian missiles and explosive drones.
Moscow has targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, including in Kyiv, since October as part of a strategy to try to leave the country without heat and light during the bitterly cold winter. It has kept up that effort despite Western sanctions and the supply of Western air defense systems to Ukrainian forces.
On Friday, Ukraine’s capital was attacked as part of a massive strike from Russia. Dozens of missiles were launched across the country, triggering widespread power outages.
Putin was set to travel Monday to Belarus for talks with its authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, who allowed Russian forces to use Belarusian territory for invading Ukraine and has close defense links with Moscow.
It was to be a rare trip to Minsk by Putin, who usually receives Lukashenko at the Kremlin. Belarus is believed to have Soviet-era weapons stockpiles that could be useful for Moscow, while Lukashenko needs help with his country’s ailing economy.
Analysts say the Kremlin might look again for some kind of Belarusian military support for its Ukraine operations. But the winter weather and Russia’s depleted resources mean any attack probably won’t come soon, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in Washington.
“The capacity of the Russian military, even reinforced by elements of the Belarusian armed forces, to prepare and conduct effective large-scale mechanized offensive operations in the next few months remains questionable,” the think tank said in an assessment published Sunday.
It also concluded that “it is unlikely that Lukashenko will commit the Belarusian military (which would also have to be re-equipped) to the invasion of Ukraine.”
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s capital was targeted by multiple drones in an attack early Monday, authorities reported, three days after what they described as one of Russia’s biggest assaults on Kyiv since the beginning of the war.
The Kyiv city administration said on its Telegram account that more than 20 Iranian-made drones were detected over the capital’s air space and at least 15 of them were shot down.
It added that a critical infrastructure point was hit, without giving more details.
Kyiv region Gov. Oleksii Kuleba said on Telegram that some infrastructure facilities were damaged, as well as private houses, and at least two people were injured.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that explosions were heard in two districts, Shevchenkivskyi and Solomianskyi. He said also on Telegram that there were no immediate casualties reported, and that the emergency services are working in the area.
Although the capital seemed the main target of the latest Russian attack, the armed forces said that other places in the country were also targeted.
Ukraine’s air force said on Telegram that they were able to destroy 30 of at least 35 self-explosives drones that Russia launched across the country from the eastern side of the Azov Sea.
The Ukrainian military has reported increasing success in shooting down missiles and explosive drones.
Russia has been targeting energy infrastructure, including in Kyiv, as part of a strategy to try to freeze Ukrainians.
On Friday, Ukraine’s capital was attacked as part of a massive strike from Russia. Dozens of missiles were launched across the country, triggering widespread power outages.
