Kyiv, Ukraine — Russia launched 122 missiles and a score of drones against Ukrainian targets, officials said Friday, killing at least 22 civilians across the country in what an air force official said was the biggest aerial barrage of the war.
The Ukrainian air force intercepted most of the ballistic and cruise missiles and the Shahed-type drones overnight, said Ukraine’s military chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi.
Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk wrote on his official Telegram channel that it was “the most massive aerial attack” since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Police and military carry the body of a local resident at the site of a Russian missile strike amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia, on Dec. 29, 2023.
STRINGER / REUTERS
According to the Ukrainian air force, the previous biggest assault was in November 2022 when Russia launched 96 missiles against Ukraine. This year, the biggest was 81 missiles on March 9, air force records show.
Western officials and analysts recently warned that Russia had limited its cruise missile strikes in recent months in an apparent effort to build up stockpiles for massive strikes during the winter, hoping to break the Ukrainians’ spirit.
An unknown number buried under rubble during the roughly 18-hour onslaught, Ukrainian officials said. Among the buildings reported to be damaged across Ukraine were a maternity hospital, apartment blocks and schools.
The health ministry in the city of Dnipro said the maternity hospital was “severely damaged” but the staff and patients managed to shelter in time, AFP reports.
A local resident stands as rescuers work at the site of a Russian missile strike amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia, on Dec. 29, 2023.
STRINGER / REUTERS
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Kremlin’s forces used a wide variety of weapons, including ballistic and cruise missiles.
“Today, Russia used nearly every type of weapon in its arsenal,” Zelenskyy said on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said Russia “apparently launched everything they have,” except for submarine-launched Kalibr missiles, in the attack.
The aerial attack that began Thursday and continued through the night hit six cities, including the capital, Kyiv, and other areas from east to west and north to south Ukraine, according to authorities.
In a statement Friday, President Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin “seeks to obliterate Ukraine and subjugate its people.” The U.S. president urged Congress to reach a bipartisan agreement to provide more funding for Ukraine.
“In the face of this brutal attack, Ukraine deployed the air defense systems that the United States and our allies and partners have delivered to Ukraine over the past year to successfully intercept and destroy many of the missiles and drones,” Mr. Biden said. “The American people can be proud of the lives we have helped to save and the support we have given Ukraine as it defends its people, its freedom, and its independence. But unless Congress takes urgent action in the new year, we will not be able to continue sending the weapons and vital air defense systems Ukraine needs to protect its people. Congress must step up and act without any further delay.”
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters work on a site of a building damaged after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Dec. 29, 2023.
Ukrainian officials have urged the country’s Western allies to provide it with more air defenses to protect it against aerial attacks like Friday’s. Their appeals have come as signs of war fatigue strain efforts to keep support in place.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was among Ukrainian officials calling on Kyiv’s allies to step up their support Friday. “Today, millions of Ukrainians awoke to the loud sound of explosions. I wish those sounds of explosions in Ukraine could be heard all around the world,” Reuters quotes him as saying.
Separately, Poland’s armed forces said Friday an unknown airborne object entered the country’s airspace from the direction of Ukraine and subsequently vanished off radars.
The Operational Command of the Armed Forces said on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, that the unidentified airborne object entered from the side of the border with Ukraine and was observed by radars of the country’s air defense system from the moment it crossed the border until the signal disappeared.
It also said troops have been mobilized to identify and find the object.
Local authorities said that the object crossed the border near the town of Hrubieszow.
There were no immediate reports of any explosion or casualties.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk convened a meeting with the defense minister, military commanders and heads of national security bodies, which was to be followed by a meeting of the National Security Bureau.
Poland’s border with Ukraine is also the European Union and NATO border with Ukraine.
Russia launched 122 missiles and numerous drones on cities across Ukraine Friday. Apartments, a shopping mall and a maternity hospital were among the locations struck. Ukraine said its air defense systems shot down most of the missiles and drones, but dozens of people were still killed. David Martin has the latest.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Russia launched 122 missiles and dozens of drones against Ukrainian targets, officials said Friday, killing at least 30 civilians across the country in what an air force official called the biggest aerial barrage of the war.
At least 144 people were injured and an unknown number were buried under rubble during the roughly 18-hour onslaught, Ukrainian officials said. A maternity hospital, apartment blocks and schools were among the buildings reported damaged across Ukraine.
In the capital, Kyiv, broken glass and mangled metal littered city streets. Air raid and emergency service sirens wailed as plumes of smoke drifted into a bright blue sky.
Kateryna Ivanivna, a 72-year-old Kyiv resident, said she threw herself to the ground when a missile struck.
“There was an explosion, then flames,” she said. “I covered my head and got down in the street. Then I ran into the subway station.”
Meanwhile, in Poland, authorities said that what apparently was a Russian missile entered the country’s airspace Friday morning from the direction of Ukraine and then vanished off radars.
In the attack on Ukraine, the air force intercepted most of the ballistic and cruise missiles and the Shahed-type drones overnight, said Ukraine’s military chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi.
Western officials and analysts had recently warned that Russia limited its cruise missile strikes for months in an apparent effort to build up stockpiles for massive strikes during the winter, hoping to break the Ukrainians’ spirit.
The result was “the most massive aerial attack” since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk wrote on his official Telegram channel. It topped the previous biggest assault, in November 2022 when Russia launched 96 missiles, and this year’s biggest, with 81 missiles on March 9, according to air force records.
Fighting along the front line is largely bogged down by winter weather after Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive failed to make a significant breakthrough along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) line of contact.
Ukrainian officials have urged the country’s Western allies to provide it with more air defenses. Their appeals have come as signs of war fatigue strain efforts to keep support in place.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the attack should stir the world to further action in support of Ukraine.
“These widespread attacks on Ukraine’s cities show (Russian President Vladimir) Putin will stop at nothing to achieve his aim of eradicating freedom and democracy,” Sunak said on social media platform X, formerly Twitter. “We must continue to stand with Ukraine — for as long as it takes.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the scale of the attack should wake people up to Ukraine’s continuing needs.
“Today, millions of Ukrainians awoke to the loud sound of explosions,” he wrote on X. “I wish those sounds of explosions in Ukraine could be heard all around the world. In all major capitals, headquarters, and parliaments, which are currently debating further support for Ukraine.”
In Kyiv, the bombardment damaged a subway station that lies across the street from a factory belonging to the Artem company, which produces components for various military-grade missiles. Officials did not say whether the factory was directly hit.
Overall, the attack hit six cities, and reports of deaths and damage came in from across the country. Several dozen missiles were launched towards Kyiv, with more than 30 intercepted, said Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv military administration. Eight people were killed there, officials said.
In Boyarka, near Kyiv, the debris of a shot-down drone fell on a home and started a fire. Andrii Korobka, 47, said his mother was sleeping next to the room where the wreckage landed and was taken to hospital suffering from shock.
“The war goes on, and it can happen to any house, even if you think yours will never be affected,” Korobka said.
Tetiana Sakhnenko lives next door and said neighbors ran with buckets of water to put out the blaze, but it spread quickly. “It’s so scary,” she said.
In the eastern city of Dnipro, four maternity hospital patients were rescued from a fire, five people were killed and 20 injured, officials said.
In Odesa, on the southern coast, falling drone wreckage started a fire at a multistory residential building, according to the regional head, Oleh Kiper. Two people were killed and 15, including two children, were injured, he said.
The mayor of the western city of Lviv, Andrii Sadovyi, said one person was killed there, with three schools and a kindergarten damaged in a drone attack. Local emergency services said 30 people were injured.
In northeastern Ukraine, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said the city was subjected to at least three waves of aerial attacks that included S-300 and Kh-21 missile launches. One person was killed and at least nine injured, officials said.
An aerial view of a destroyed building after Russian strikes hit the city center in Dnipro, Ukraine on December 29, 2023. A mall, maternity hospital and many other buildings were damaged in the attack.
Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images
Russia on Friday launched one of its worst aerial attacks on Ukraine since the start of the war, killing at least 18 civilians, according to officials.
Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba said around 110 Russian missiles and numerous drones targeted areas across the country, including a maternity ward, schools, hospitals, residential buildings and commercial areas.
The National Police of Ukraine put the number of reported deaths at 18 in an update at 1p.m. local time (6 a.m. ET).
Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk called it “the most massive attack from the air” on the messaging app Telegram.
“Today, Russia used nearly every type of weapon in its arsenal: ‘Kindzhals,’ S-300s, cruise missiles, and drones. Strategic bombers launched X-101/X-505 missiles. A total of around 110 missiles were fired against Ukraine, with the majority of them being shot down,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X.
“We will surely respond to terrorist strikes. And we will continue to fight for the security of our entire country, every city, and every citizen. Russian terror must and will lose,” he added.
A woman walks past a damaged business centre after a rocket attack in the centre of Kyiv on December 29, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Sergei Chuzavkov | Afp | Getty Images
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the death toll in the capital was now three, after bodies were pulled from the rubble of a warehouse. A metro station and business center were damaged and scores were injured.
Other deaths and injuries were reported in Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, Dnipro and beyond. The Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office said three died after the city was hit 22 times over three hours starting at 5 a.m. local time. Odesa’s governor said three people died and 22 were injured, including two children aged six and eight, and a pregnant woman.
UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine Denise Brown condemned the attacks, which she said had killed and injured civilians in “almost every region of the country.”
The Russian Ministry of Defense said in its daily briefing Friday that it had carried out “50 group and one massive strike” between Dec. 23 and Dec. 29 using “precision weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles.”
It claimed the strikes were against military facilities and storage units, and Ukrainian armed forces units.
Ukraine’s Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he wished the “sounds of explosions” could be heard “in all major capitals, headquarters, and parliaments, which are currently debating further support for Ukraine.”
“Our only collective response can and must be continued, robust, and long-term military and financial assistance to Ukraine,” he added.
Ukraine has the backing of the United States and European Union, but both have become embroiled in political disputes over the continuation of significant financial support for the war-torn country.
The U.S. on Wednesday released $250 million in weaponry for Ukraine, but officials warned this could be the final delivery as the release of further funds fails to pass Congress.
The EU earlier this month also failed to pass a 50-billion-euro ($54-billion) aid package for Ukraine after the move was vetoed by Hungary.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched 122 missiles and 36 drones against Ukrainian targets, officials said Friday, killing at least 13 civilians in what an air force official said was the biggest aerial barrage of the 22-month war.
The Ukrainian air force intercepted 87 of the missiles and 27 of the Shahed-type drones overnight, Ukraine’s military chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi said.
Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk wrote on his official Telegram channel: “The most massive aerial attack” since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
According to the Ukrainian air force, the previous biggest assault was in November 2022 when Russia launched 96 missiles against Ukraine. This year, the biggest was 81 missiles on March 9, air force records show.
Fighting along the front line is largely bogged down by winter weather after Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive failed to make a significant breakthrough along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) line of contact.
Ukrainian officials have urged the country’s Western allies to provide it with more air defenses to protect itself against aerial attacks like Friday’s one. Their appeals have come as signs of war fatigue strain efforts to keep support in place.
Scores of people were injured and an unknown number were buried under rubble during the roughly 18-hour onslaught, Ukrainian officials said. Among the buildings reported to be damaged across Ukraine were a maternity hospital, apartment blocks and schools.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Kremlin’s forces used a wide variety of weapons, including ballistic and cruise missiles.
“Today, Russia used nearly every type of weapon in its arsenal,” Zelenskyy said on social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said Russia “apparently launched everything they have,” except for submarine-launched Kalibr missiles, in the attack.
The aerial attack that began Thursday and continued through the night hit six cities, including the capital, Kyiv, and other areas from east to west and north to south Ukraine, according to authorities.
Russia’s ultimate war goal is to get rid of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and prime minister.
Medvedev, now deputy chairman of the Security Council of Russia, made the remarks in an interview with Russia’s state-run news agency RIA Novosti, and also on his Telegram channel, where he regularly issues nuclear threats against Ukraine.
Then Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin (L) and Dmitry Medvedev meet their supporters on December 1, 2011 in Moscow, Russia. Russia’s ultimate goal is to oust Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Medvedev. Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images
He has previously called for the elimination of the Ukrainian president, but it is the first time a Russian official has admitted it is a legitimate goal of the Kremlin in its “special military operation”—a term used by Russian President Vladimir Putin for his war in Ukraine.
“What about negotiations in 2024? Everything is quite obvious,” Medvedev said, answering a question about war goals for Russia next year. “The special operation will continue, its goal will remain the disarmament of Ukrainian troops and the renunciation of the current Ukrainian state from the ideology of neo-Nazism.”
Medvedev was repeating the Kremlin line that Putin’s war in Ukraine was launched to “denazify” the country and its leadership. Russia “will strive for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine,” Putin said, when launching his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“The removal of the ruling Bandera regime is clearly not declared, but the most important and inevitable goal that must and will be achieved,” Medvedev added.
Medvedev’s derogatory phrase to describe Zelensky’s government is a reference to Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist who joined forces with the German Nazis during World War II.
Zelensky, who is of Jewish descent, described Russian claims that the Kyiv government is full of neo-Nazis as “laughable” in a CNN interview last year.
Newsweek has contacted the foreign ministries of Ukraine and Russia for comment via email.
Zelensky denied any involvement, saying his country didn’t possess weapons capable of such strikes.
“After today’s terrorist attack, there are no options left aside [from] the physical elimination of Zelensky and his cabal,” said Medvedev on his Telegram channel.
The former Russian president also said Zelensky did not need to sign “an instrument of unconditional surrender.”
“Hitler, as is known, did not sign it either. There will always be some substitute,” Medvedev wrote.
A few months later, in August, Medvedev said on his Telegram channel that Zelensky’s administration “should be wiped off the face of the earth.”
“Even the ashes from him should remain. This dirt should not have a chance to be reborn under any circumstances,” he wrote. “If it takes years and even decades, so be it. We have no other choice: either we will destroy their hostile political regime, or the collective West will eventually tear Russia apart. And in this case, he will die with us.”
Do you have a tip on a world news story that Newsweek should be covering? Do you have a question about the Russia-Ukraine war? Let us know via worldnews@newsweek.com.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
The explosions lit up the sky above Moscow’s naval stronghold on Boxing Day, possibly killing dozens of servicemen.
A Ukrainian supersonic Su-24 jet is said to have launched the cruise missile which ripped apart the Novocherkassk said to be loaded with Iranian suicide drones.
But as many as 100 people could have been killed in the strike, military analyst Yan Matveev told The Times.
Now, Putin – said to be “completely furious” – has reportedly ordered death squads to hunt down anyone working for the resistance inside the occupied peninsula.
Ukrainian partisan group Atesh said on Telegram: “The flywheel of repression is spinning.
“Local residents have been raided throughout the city, their smartphones are being taken away and their houses are being searched.”
The ragtag resistance group, who state their goal is to “destroy the Russian army from the inside”, argued: “It is reported that Putin is completely furious over the destruction of the Novocherkassk large landing ship.”
The group also stated that Putin intends to remove top commanders based in Crimea and send them into Russia’s meat-grinder assaults at the front.
The huge coup for Kyiv had come amid surfacing reports that Putin told China’s president Xi Jinping back in March that Russia “will fight for at least five years” in Ukraine.
In an attempt to downplay his lack of visible battlefield gains, he sought to assure Xi that Russia would emerge victorious in the end, Nikkei Asia reports, citing sources.
He allegedly implied that a protracted war would favour China’s key ally at their Moscow meeting.
Last week, Putin told his generals that his war goals have not changed and stated: “We won’t give up what’s ours.”
However, he swiftly added: “If they want to negotiate, let them negotiate.”
Today, Putin’s top ally Dmitry Medvedev blasted Kyiv for allegedly rejecting negotiations for a possible ceasefire.
He stated that talks were “possible” and claimed that “Russia has never rejected them, unlike the crazy authorities of Ukraine.”
The Kremlin has reportedly been signalling since September that they are open for a ceasefire on the condition that Russia keeps Ukraine’s occupied territories, insider sources say.
The New York Times reported that former senior Russian officials said the Kremlin had been using back-channel diplomacy to signal they were open for negotiations.
However, some analysts have suggested its a ploy by Putin to suggest he is open to securing peace ahead of the 2024 presidential elections in March.
Such a move would likely favour him in the polls – although he is all but certain to win the sham elections.
As Kyiv blasted the warship out of the water on Boxing Day, Russia fired missiles at Kherson’s railway station as 140 people tried to flee the station.
At least one person was killed and several wounded in the attack that destroyed the train they were attempting to board, according to witnesses.
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Footage of the Boxing Day explosion that destroyed Russian landing ship NovocherkasskCredit: East2West
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Russia appears to be signalling they are open for negotiations on a ceasefire – but only if they keep the Ukrainian territories they have occupiedCredit: Getty
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The war in Ukraine has spiralled into a grinding war of attrition fought like World War One battlesCredit: EPA
A Russian soldier who was severely wounded while fighting in Ukraine has received only two buckets of carrots and a bag of onions from the government instead of the money his family thought he would receive, according to a new report.
The report was published on Tuesday by the independent investigative outlet Mozhem Obyasnit (We Can Explain), which reportedly interviewed the soldier’s wife for the story.
The Mozhem Obyasnit article said Oleg Rybkin, 45, was mobilized from Russia’s Volgograd region to fight in Ukraine in September 2022. In June, Rybkin was in combat near the village of Robotyne in Zaporizhzhia Oblast. As the outlet noted, Robotyne was the site of fierce fighting during the summer phase of Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive until Kyiv declared it had liberated the village from Russian President Vladimir Putin‘s forces in late August.
While serving in Robotyne, Rybkin “was wounded in the abdomen, liver, kidneys” and his “right knee joint was destroyed,” Mozhem Obyasnit wrote.
A Ukrainian soldier walks past a destroyed car near the village of Robotyne, in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine on October 1, 2023. A Russian soldier who was reportedly injured badly while in combat in Robotyne has received only some vegetables as compensation from the government, his wife tells an investigative website. Photo by ROMAN PILIPEY/AFP via Getty Images
Rybkin reportedly underwent an operation at a local hospital in Ukraine before undergoing abdominal surgery at a hospital in Sevastopol, Crimea. Russia’s military medical commission then deemed Rybkin to be “temporarily unfit” to fight, and he was sent to Saint Petersburg for further rehabilitation.
The soldier’s wife, Irina Rybkina, described her husband as being in extreme pain and in need of a knee surgery that he never received. Nevertheless, he was soon reportedly made to return to his unit.
Newsweek reached out to the Russian Ministry of Defense via email on Wednesday night for comment.
“He has severe pain, his knee cannot straighten, and he cannot walk without crutches. He’s on painkillers and sleeping pills,” Irina told Mozhem Obyasnit, which published a photo on its website of what is said was an extract from her husband’s medical record.
Medical professionals have told Irina that her spouse needs a knee replacement procedure, but she claimed that Russia’s military command doesn’t want to be forced to pay the 3 million rubles ($32,730) in compensation and a lifelong pension that Oleg would receive if he’s found permanently unfit to serve.
Instead of the rubles and a pension, Irina told Mozhem Obyasnit that the only help Russian government officials have given her family is in the form of two buckets of carrots and a bag of onions grown by local farmers.
“What vegetables, what gifts, do I need to replace my husband’s joint and get him discharged!” she said.
Mozhem Obyasnit reported that Oleg is currently back serving in his unit while using crutches.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
The Biden administration Wednesday announced a $250 million military assistance package for Ukraine.
The aid package — the final of 2023 — will include arms and equipment, including air defense munitions, anti-armor munitions, ammunition for high mobility artillery rocket systems, and more than 15 million rounds of small arms ammunition, a State Department spokesperson said to CBS News.
“Our assistance has been critical to supporting our Ukrainian partners as they defend their country and their freedom against Russia’s aggression,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement, urging Congress to “swiftly” approve a new aid package for Ukraine.
The U.S. “continued to demonstrate its enduring commitment to Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s brutal aggression with the announcement of additional arms and equipment to help Ukraine defend its territory and protect its people,” the State Department spokesperson said.
It also came as Ukraine’s allies have dramatically scaled back their funding of Ukraine, which has fallen to its lowest level since the start of the war, according to the German-based Kiel Institute’s Ukraine aid tracker.
Earlier this month, Senate Republicans blocked additional Ukraine funding over a dispute with Democrats over U.S. border security. On Dec. 14, Hungary blocked about $55 billion in European Union aid for Ukraine.
“The decisions we make now are going to determine the future for decades to come, particularly in Europe,” Mr. Biden said during his meeting with Zelenskyy. “And this is one of those moments. Congress needs to pass the supplemental funding for Ukraine before they break for the holiday recess, before they give [Vladimir] Putin the greatest Christmas gift they could possibly give him.”
A Ukrainian soldier is seen inside an artillery vehicle in his fighting position as Russia-Ukraine war continues in the direction of Kharkiv, Ukraine on November 20, 2023.
Diego Herrera Carcedo | Anadolu | Getty Images
At the start of 2023, hopes were high that a much-vaunted Ukrainian counteroffensive — expected to be launched in the spring — would change the dial in the war against Russia.
It didn’t, and the prospect of a breakthrough in 2024 is also unlikely, military experts and defense analysts told CNBC.
They predict intense fighting is likely to continue into the next year but say Kyiv’s forces are unlikely to launch any more counteroffensives. Russia, meanwhile, is likely to focus on consolidating the territory it has already seized, particularly in eastern Ukraine.
Away from the battlefield, military experts said that the trajectory the Russia-Ukraine war takes in 2024 will mostly be dictated thousands of miles away in the U.S., Ukraine’s largest military supporter, and whether aid declines in the run-up — and following — the U.S. presidential election.
“War is an uncertain endeavor,” retired Army Lt. General Stephen Twitty, former deputy commander of U.S. European Command, told CNBC.
“Russia can win the war, or the Ukrainians can win the war. And, as you’re seeing things now, if you really think about it, what has been achieved this year? Very little has been achieved by Russia, and you can say the same thing for the Ukrainians,” he said.
Ukrainian servicemen take part in a military training exercise not far from front line in the Donetsk region on June 8, 2023.
Anatolii Stepanov | Afp | Getty Images
“We’re in this situation now where if there’s not a clear winner, there’s going to be a stalemate, and there’s going to be, perhaps, a future frozen conflict. What can tilt the balance, in my view, is if the Ukrainians are not resupplied and they’re not re-funded and they don’t get the equipment and people that they need. Then this war could tilt to the Russians,” Twitty noted.
A year ago, Ukraine’s international military support was solid with NATO pledging to support Kyiv for “as long as it takes” as it defended itself against Russia’s invasion launched in Feb. 2022.
Over the summer, however, the challenge facing Ukraine’s forces was glaringly obvious as they struggled to break through heavily-fortified Russian positions and lines of defenses along a swathe of the 600-mile long frontline across the southern and east of the country.
After liberating a handful of villages in the summer, Ukrainian and Russian forces have been caught in largely attritional battles, with neither side making significant gains.
Ukrainian military officials have conceded that hopes and expectations of a great breakthrough in the counteroffensive were not met. Still, Ukraine’s leadership says steep losses have been inflicted on Russian forces and that its forces have made vital progress in other areas such as the Black Sea with Ukraine’s audacious attacks on Russian bases and assets in Crimea this summer prompting the Russian navy to withdraw a number of warships from Sevastopol, handing Kyiv a victory in the Battle of the Black Sea.
Panorama of the city from a bird’s-eye view, shot on a drone, covered with snow on December 7, 2023 in Avdiivka, Ukraine.
Libkos | Getty Images
Weather conditions are deteriorating in Ukraine, with mud, freezing rain, snow, and ice making offensive and reconnaissance operations challenging. Intense fighting continues nonetheless, and particularly around Bakhmut and Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine where Russian forces are conducting offensive operations and have made some recent, confirmed advances.
Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) noted last week that Russian forces have likely committed to offensive operations in multiple sectors of the front, during a period of the most challenging weather of the fall-winter season, “in an effort to seize and retain the initiative” prior to the Russian presidential elections in March 2024.
In the meantime, the ISW noted in analysis, “Ukrainian forces establish and consolidate defensive positions to conserve manpower and resources for future offensive efforts.”
Another year of war in Europe has undoubtedly drained Western military resources and the political appetite to maintain massive amounts of military aid for Ukraine.
Ongoing funding for Ukraine is far from secure in 2024 given the fact that the U.S. presidential election could herald a seismic change in the attitude toward, and support for Kyiv.
Specifically, all eyes are on former U.S. president and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, who cultivated close relations with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin during his presidency.
There are concerns that, given Trump’s previous good relations with Moscow and “America First” policy, aid for Ukraine could be shelved rapidly. Defense analysts agree that much of the outlook for Ukraine is dependent on the outcome of the U.S. vote.
“I think it’s important to understand the extent to which Ukraine is reliant on the U.S. right now, because it’s quite significantly more reliant on the U.S. than it is on the EU,” Sam Cranny-Evans, defense analyst at the Royal United Services Institute defense think tank told CNBC.
“If the U.S. election goes in a way that is not in Ukraine’s favor, coupled with the fact that the EU is not really stepping up to the plate — it’s ammunition production is so far off what it should have been by now to give Ukraine a hope of surviving and a hope of victory — it’s not a very cheery prediction for 2024.”
Good chemistry: President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands during a joint press conference after their summit on July 16, 2018 in Helsinki, Finland.
Chris McGrath | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Rumblings of discontent over continuing Ukraine aid have been heard in some Republican quarters for months now, as well as in eastern Europe.
Former U.S. ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker told CNBC he believes American and EU aid packages for Ukraine will be approved come January, saying he believed this funding would tide Ukraine over for another year, militarily. Volker said that aid packages must include more advanced weaponry for Ukraine, however, like F-16 fighter jets which have been pledged by Norway, Denmark and the Netherlands.
“A couple of things ought to change,” Volker told CNBC. “We ought to lift restrictions on the weapons we’re providing. We still don’t provide the longest range missiles and we still have not delivered any Western aircraft in Ukraine yet. Those things have to happen. And I think we have to try to give the Ukrainians more of a technological advantage,” he noted.
The United States has said that it will begin flight training for Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets.
Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Volker believes that a Trump presidency might not be the catastrophe for Ukraine that is feared, but said it would make future funding uncertain.
“I doubt that even if Trump were elected that he would abandon support for Ukraine overall, because it would be a disaster for U.S. interests, and it would appear to be a failure. You’d have these images of Russians over-running places, and brutality and so forth, so I don’t think he wants that. But it’s not clear exactly what he would do to try to end the war.”
For his part, Trump has said that he’d be able to resolve the Ukraine war “in one day” if he was re-elected, saying he’d convince the leaders of Ukraine and Russia to make a deal.
Ukraine’s defense ministry said last week that its main goal in 2024 is to boost its domestic defense industry in the face of uncertain future supplies from its Western allies. It has also changed conscription laws, foreseeing the need to bolster its forces, which are dwarfed in size by Russia’s but are more highly trained and equipped. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week that the military had asked for up to 500,000 additional conscripts but said he needed to hear “more arguments” to support the sensitive and costly proposal.
With both Ukraine and Russia investing heavily in the war, it’s unlikely there will be any negotiations to end the war or agree a cease-fire. Defense analysts argue that neither side would want to go into negotiations unless they’re in a position of strength and able to dictate terms.
“In the case of a Republican winning the presidential election next year, especially if that’s Donald Trump, who seems to be the front runner, and [if] funding is decreased substantially, then there will be increased pressure on Ukraine to negotiate,” Mario Bikarski, a Europe and Russia analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), told CNBC.
A Ukrainian tank drives along the field on December 7, 2023 in Avdiivka, Ukraine.
Kostya Liberov | Getty Images
“Of course, Ukraine currently doesn’t want to negotiate … but given the circumstances, it will have little choice but to comply with that. And then the question also remains if Russia will be willing to negotiate because if there are signs that the West will stop supporting Ukraine, and Ukraine will be coerced into these negotiations, Russia might see this as another window of opportunity to consolidate a lot more gains.”
Defense experts told CNBC their baseline scenario for 2024 was a continuation of the current intensity of fighting but the same sense of stalemate with neither side able to progress much on the ground and take or reclaim territory.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Christmas carried more than spiritual weight for many Ukrainians this year as the country newly observed it as a public holiday on Dec. 25 rather than the later date followed in Russia.
The change, enacted in legislation signed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in July, reflects both Ukrainians’ dismay with the 22-month-old Russian invasion and their assertion of a national identity.
Ukraine is predominantly Orthodox Christian, but the faith is divided between two churches, one of which had long affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church.
A woman dressed in national costume stands near the nativity scene to celebrate Christmas in the village of Pirogovo, outside the capital Kyiv, Ukraine, Dec. 25, 2023.Efrem Lukatsky—AP Photo
The Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which didn’t recognize the authority of the Russian church and had been regarded as schismatic, was granted full recognition in 2019 by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Orthodoxy’s top authority.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which was a branch of the Russian church, announced in 2022 after the start of the Russia-Ukraine war that it was breaking ties with Moscow and considered itself autonomous. However, its parishes continue to follow the same liturgical calendar as the Russian church and will observe Christmas on Jan. 7.
People pray as they attend Christmas service in a church in the village of Pirogovo outside capital Kyiv, Ukraine, Dec. 25, 2023. Efrem Lukatsky—AP Photo
Many Ukrainians embraced the move to celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25 with enthusiasm. “It’s historical justice,” said Yevhen Konyk, a 44-year-old serviceman who, along with his family, participated in traditional celebrations at an open-air museum in Kyiv. “We need to move forward not only with the world but also with the traditions of our country and overcome the imperial remnants we had.”
Oksana Poviakel, the director of the Pyrohiv Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of Ukraine, where the celebrations of Christmas took place, said that celebrating on Dec. 25 is “another important factor of self-identification.”
Women dressed in national suits sings carol as they celebrate Christmas in the village of Pirogovo outside capital Kyiv, Ukraine, Dec. 25, 2023. Efrem Lukatsky—AP Photo
“We are separating ourselves from the neighbor who is currently trying to destroy our state, who is killing our people, destroying our homes, and burning our land,” she said.
Asia Landarenko, 63, said she prays every day for her son, who is currently in the military. “The state of war affects everything, including the mood. The real celebration of Christmas will be after the victory, but as the Savior was born, so will be our victory,” she said.
People dressed in national suits celebrate Christmas in the village of Pirogovo outside capital Kyiv, Ukraine, Dec. 25, 2023. Efrem Lukatsky—AP Photo
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says in Christmas Eve address that ‘day by day, the darkness is losing’.
Russian attacks on Ukraine’s southern Kherson region have killed five people, according to Ukrainian officials, while Russian-installed authorities reported one person killed in Ukrainian shelling of the Russian-occupied eastern town of Horlivka.
Ukrainian officials said the deaths in the attacks on Sunday include an 87-year-old man and his 81-year-old wife who were killed when their Kherson City apartment building was shelled.
Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, the head of the press office of Kherson’s regional military administration, said nine other people, including a 15-year-old, were wounded and gas and water supplies were partially cut off in the attacks.
“There are no holidays for the enemy,” Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said in a post on social media. “They do not exist for us as long as the enemy kills our people and remains on our land.”
Russian forces have carried out repeated shelling of the city of Kherson since abandoning the administrative centre of the region more than a year ago.
The latest assault came as Ukraine prepared to mark Christmas on December 25 for the first time, after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a law moving the celebration from the January 7 date observed by the Russian Orthodox Church.
In an address to mark Christmas Eve, Zelenskyy assured Ukrainians fighting against Russia that “step by step, day by day, the darkness is losing”.
“Today, this is our common goal, our common dream. And this is precisely what our common prayer is for today. For our freedom. For our victory. For our Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said.
In Russian-controlled Horlivka, about 600km (400 miles) northeast of Kherson, Ukrainian shelling killed one woman and wounded six others, the Russian-installed mayor Ivan Prikhodko said on the Telegram messaging app.
The attacks also destroyed a shopping centre and several other buildings, Prikhodko said.
The United Kingdom’s defense ministry said on Saturday that both Ukrainian and Russian troops are likely experiencing severe rat and mice infestations at various sectors of the front line in Ukraine, with unverified reports suggesting that Russian combatants are suffering from infectious diseases dealt by the rodents.
The rodent problem is attributed to this year’s mild autumn, the defense ministry said, coupled with the abundance of food in fields left dormant due to ongoing fighting which has led to an increased rodent population. With colder weather setting in, the rodents are seeking shelter in military vehicles and defensive positions, the report said.
The infestations are a two-pronged issue for front-line combatants, with the rodents creating potential issues with military equipment as well as spreading infectious diseases. Rodents are known to gnaw through cables, a problem that was previously recorded in the same region during World War II, the defense ministry said.
A tank sits destroyed in an entrenched battlefield. The UK Ministry of Defence said on Saturday that Ukrainian and Russian troops are likely experiencing severe rat and mice infestations at various sectors of the front line in Ukraine, with Russian combatants potentially dealing with infectious disease. Andrew Burton/Getty Images
Unverified reports cited by the ministry point to the rodents potentially affecting Russian troops more than Ukrainian troops, with some Russian units suffering from increased sickness.
Newsweek has reached out to the British defense ministry and the Russian foreign ministry via email for comment.
Russian forces in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region have reportedly been grappling with an outbreak of “mouse fever,” impacting their combat effectiveness, Newsweek reported earlier this week. According to Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate (GUR), the spread of the disease among Russian troops is due to inadequate winter clothing and a lack of medical care.
Mouse fever, a type of hantavirus, is transmitted to humans from rodents. It can be contracted through direct contact with the pathogen, inhaling dust from mouse excrements, or consuming food contaminated by rodents.
Symptoms include severe headaches, rashes, fever, low blood pressure, joint pain and swelling, nausea, vomiting, intense low back pain, and difficulty urinating. In severe cases, untreated hantavirus infections can lead to shock and acute kidney failure.
GUR’s report, which Newsweek could not independently verify, suggests that Russian commanders may be ignoring the health concerns of their troops, perceiving them as attempts to avoid combat. The outbreak reportedly occurred near Kupyansk in the Kharkiv Oblast, significantly reducing the combat capability of the affected Russian forces.
Russia’s Domestic Front
The Russian military‘s current challenges in Ukraine are part of a broader array of issues impacting the Vladimir Putin-led country, according to an update last week from Newsweek’s Russia-Ukraine correspondent. Over 300,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded since the beginning of the invasion, and the economic repercussions are being felt by millions in the country.
Despite high approval ratings for the war among the Russian populace—largely influenced by Kremlin-controlled media—there is a disconnect between public perception and the reality of the conflict’s human and material costs.
The correspondent’s report also noted that the Kremlin’s pre-war propaganda did not prepare the Russian population for the true nature of the conflict. With increased casualties and ongoing military struggles, including the recent outbreak of mouse fever among troops, Russia faces the physical battle in Ukraine as well as a battle for maintaining domestic stability and support.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Ukraine lawmakers vote to legalize medical marijuana and help ease stress from the war with Russia – Cannabis Business Executive – Cannabis and Marijuana industry news
I wish I had more sympathy for liberals shocked by the apologias and celebrations of barbarity their progressive brethren have issued in response to Hamas’ slaughter of Israeli civilians on Oct. 7.
But liberals share great responsibility for the antisemitic eruptions on many college campuses and the streets of major cities by allowing left-wing ideologues to hijack their politics and their children – for turning conservatives into Cassandras by refusing to heed our warnings about the ongoing assault on truth and justice.
These same wounded souls offered no resistance as the Democratic Party tripled down on identity politics in recent years, assigning Americans to specific groups and then pitting them against one another. They stood by as the left falsely trashed America as a hotbed of hatred, white supremacy, and Christian nationalism. Now Jews are also somehow the bad guys.
They have supported Democratic prosecutors who have weaponized the criminal justice system by filing 91 felony charges against the former president, most of which are flimsy, some of them absurd.
They cheered the Department of Justice’s years-long fishing expedition based on Hillary Clinton’s slander that Trump stole the 2016 victory by colluding with Vladimir Putin. Once that hoax was exposed, they were happy to see Trump become the third president in history to be impeached merely for asking Ukraine’s president to look into the Biden family’s shady dealings in that country.
They supported numerous other efforts to remove Trump from office, including two impeachments, on bogus claims of corruption – Saudis are staying in his hotels! – while willfully ignoring Joe Biden’s own longstanding involvement in his family’s lucrative influence-peddling schemes with corrupt and hostile nations.
They defined Trump’s hyperbole and lies as an existential threat to democracy while dismissing President Biden’s incessantfalsehoods, starting with the claim that may have secured his election: “I never talk with my son or my brother or anyone else in the distant family about their business interests, period.”
They have shrugged their shoulders at evidence that the government has been working with Twitter (now X), Facebook, and other big tech players to censor speech it doesn’t like. Many have joined the effort to demonize Elon Musk for the sin of supporting free speech on X.
The same folks shocked at the rise of antisemitic rhetoric and behavior stood by when conservative speakers were bullied on campus and cancel culture became a favorite tool of the left to punish dissent. They supported divisive efforts to spin smears into facts by refusing to push back on phony claims about book-banning or prohibiting the use of the word gay, by demonizing parents concerned about what their children are taught, and by attributing all disparities between blacks and whites to racism.
Now they are shocked by the venomous responses to Israel’s actions.
It is easy to understand why liberals made this deal with the devil. As they became consumed by their fear of Trump and the tens of millions of Americans who support him, the left’s no-holds-barred tactics seemed to offer liberals a more effective way to crush their enemy than their traditional commitment to open dialogue and tolerance, democracy, and the rule of law.
Liberals were willing to suspend their values in the vain belief that they could control the forces they empowered. Like their naïve predecessors in Revolutionary Russia and 1930s Germany, American liberals are only beginning to realize their tragic mistake.
In just the last few years, the left has largely captured the most powerful forces of American politics and culture once dominated by liberals, including academia, corporate media, and the government’s permanent bureaucracy. They now control the narrative and the tools to punish those who challenge their dogma. Resistance can seem like an effort to push back the tide. It’s one reason liberals just keep their heads down and their mouths shut.
By revealing the inhumanity at the core of leftist ideology – which always and everywhere sees people as eggs that must be broken to make their pipe dream omelets – Oct. 7 has shown liberals in clear and horrifying terms the price of their dangerous alliance.
I fear that this recognition has come too late for them, and for America.
Still, resignation is unproductive. Given the spiritual season and the approach of a new year, we should allow room for hope. Despite our daunting challenges, small actions can lead to bigger things. Doing the right thing is good for the soul.
In this spirit I’d like to suggest one way liberals can stand up to the forces corrupting our culture: Don’t keep your head down any longer. Speak up. Realize that there is only safety in numbers if you make yourself heard. Resisting censorship begins with resisting the urge for self-censorship. Speak out, as the Old Testament advises us, on behalf of the oppressed, even if they might – heaven help us – sometimes vote Republican.
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Young Republican voters overwhelmingly want Donald Trump to be the GOP nominee in 2024, and they only disagree on whether he should choose Tucker Carlson or Vivek Ramaswamy as his running mate, according to a straw poll of participants who attended Turning Point Action’s annual AmericaFest.
Obtained exclusively by RealClearPolitics, the results provide a snapshot of the youth vote just weeks before the Iowa caucuses. The online poll was conducted by Turning Point Action Dec. 17-18 and surveyed 1,113 attendees at the TPUSA conference in Phoenix, Ariz.
The results show Trump as the clear favorite with 82.6% of respondents choosing the former president as their first choice. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis finished second with 7.6%, while Vivek Ramaswamy followed closely in third with 5.8%. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who has garnered national media attention and a recent bump in momentum, finished fifth.
Barely more than 1%, or 12 voters, at the Trump-friendly event said they preferred Haley compared to the 2.5% who remained “undecided.”
The topline results are not surprising given that the founder of Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk, remains an ardent ally of the former president and previously served as the CEO of Students for Trump. But the survey sheds light on a question currently dominating Trump world.
When asked whom Trump should choose as his vice president if he wins the nomination, 35%, a plurality, settled on former Fox News personality Tucker Carlson. Another 25.7%, meanwhile, preferred Ramaswamy. Both men made headlines with their remarks at the conference.
Ramaswamy responded from the main stage to criticism from CNN host Van Jones, who called him a demagogue earlier this month. “Just shut the f–k up,” the businessman-turned-politician said to applause. For his part, Carlson downplayed the idea of entering politics himself.
“It’s like the weather,” the pundit replied when asked about joining the ticket with Trump. “I can’t control it,” Carlson said after floating Ramaswamy instead for VP. “I don’t think I’d be that great at that.”
On the eve of the primary, the results reflect the policy appetites of the right-leaning youth. Attendees ranked border security and “deporting Biden-era illegal immigrants” as their top priority ahead of “election integrity” and “defunding the deep state,” which ranked second and third. Meanwhile, ending diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives from the government, which has been a calling card of the DeSantis campaign, ranked as their lowest priority.
Mirroring a larger shift on the right, the survey also shows a youth vote increasingly skeptical of foreign aid to Ukraine but largely supportive of Israel’s war with Hamas. A clear majority, 55.4%, backed giving lethal aid to Tel Aviv, less than 1% supported sending the same to Kyiv, and 39.4% responded that the United States shouldn’t provide such supplies to either Israel or Ukraine.
Congress generally earns poor approval ratings, but the young Republicans seemed to like newly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson, with 57% either somewhat or strongly approving of his job performance. They were somewhat split, meanwhile, on whether the House should have expelled former New York Rep. George Santos, who made numerous false representations about himself during the previous election.
While 32% approved of the Santos expulsion, 47% disapproved of the history-making move which had only occurred five times previously.
The same week that the House approved an impeachment inquiry of President Biden, 49.6% said that they supported removing him from office. Another 24.3% reported that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas should be impeached, while 15.2% wanted Attorney General Merrick Garland gone.
As both parties court the youth vote, the survey found that young Republicans in the Turning Point orbit are unsatisfied with RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. An overwhelming 87% said that she should step down, and 56% reported that her departure would make them “more likely” to donate to the party. Charlie Kirk supported Harmeet Dhillon in her unsuccessful challenge of McDaniel earlier this year.
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TAIPEI — 2024 will be a bumper year of elections around the world, but one of the first votes on the calendar will also be one of the most hotly contested and consequential: Taiwan, where there are vital strategic interests at play for both the U.S. and China on January 13.
If the campaign started with expectations in the U.S. that the ruling, pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), whose top brass are frequent and welcome guests in Washington, would stroll to victory, the final stages of the presidential and legislative race have turned into a nail-biter.
Chinese President’s Xi Jinping’s Communist Party leadership, increasingly assertive in its claim that democratic Taiwan is part of China and keen to see the ruling party in Taipei ousted, is trying to swing the election through a disinformation campaign of hoaxes and outlandish claims on social media.
And the tactics may be working. The latest polls for the first-past-the-post presidential race on the My Formosa portal have DPP leader William Lai on 35.2 percent, only just keeping his nose out in front of his main challenger from the Beijing-friendly Kuomintang (KMT), Hou Yu-ih,on 30.6 percent. On Tuesday, the Beijing-leaning United Daily News put both candidates on 31 percent.
“This is not a walk in the park,” admitted Vincent Chao, a city councillor and prominent DPP personality, speaking to POLITICO’s Power Play podcast at a campaign event in New Taipei, a municipality surrounding the capital.
It could hardly be a more febrile period in terms of security fears over the Taiwan Strait, where insistent Chinese maneuvering has been matched by a high-stakes U.S.-backed boost to the island’s defenses. Only on December 15, the U.S. approved another $300 million of spending on defense kit, sparking a retort from China that the expenditure would harm “security interests and threaten peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
Lai’s opponents are playing hard on these security implications of the vote, and are accusing him of bringing the island closer to conflict because of his past comments in favor of the island’s independence. China has, after all, continually warned that independence “means war” and Xi has said Beijing is willing to use “all necessary measures” to secure unification. Lai has hit back that his rivals “are parroting the [Chinese Communist Party line] as propaganda to score electoral benefits.”
For the global economy, open war over Taiwan would be a disaster, perhaps even outstripping the shock of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, due in particular to the island’s critical role in microchip supplies.
Head-to-head race
The specter of a DPP defeat has raised the temperature of the fevered last few weeks of the campaign.
Chao, the DPP councillor and a former political secretary in Taiwan’s Washington representation, admitted that the DPP ends the year in “a head-to-head race” in the final stretch. “I mean, it’s democracy and the party has been in power for eight years. Anything could change,” he said.
Wearing a jaunty white and green “Team Taiwan” tracksuit, the party’s signature colors, he talks above the backstage din of an evening event, held among the tower block estates of New Taipei. Volunteers hand out pork dumplings, the outgoing president Tsai Ing-wen gives a rousing speech about freedom and security, and there are ballads of national loyalty and singalong love songs. It feels heartfelt, but also very Taiwanese in its orderliness, the crowd sitting on stools in the evening heat, waving small flags in unison.
Chao is candid about the scale of China’s social media offensive.
The specter of a DPP defeat has raised the temperature of the fevered last few weeks of the campaign | Annabelle Chih/Getty Images
“What we’re seeing is a much more sophisticated China,” Chao reflected. “They’ve grown much more confident in their abilities to influence our elections, not through military coercion or other overt means, but through disinformation, through influencing public opinion, through controlling the information that people see … through social media organizations like TikTok.”
One of the many unfounded stories that gained currency on social posts was a claim the U.S. had asked Taiwan to develop biological weapons research, a rumor aimed at raising anxiety about an arms race. Another accused the DPP of covert surveillance of its rivals.
Trade and business links are another lever. According to Japan’s Nikkei newspaper, some 300 executives from big Taiwanese businesses operating China were called to a meeting by by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Director Song Tao, a close ally of China’s President Xi, in early December and roundly encouraged to fly home to Taiwan support a pro-Beijing outcome in January.
A third concern is an international system buckling under new conflicts and crises, with less time to devote to Taiwan’s freedoms, all compounded by an uncertain outcome in the upcoming U.S. election. In the wake of Beijing’s ’s clampdown on freedoms in Hong Kong and with the backwash of the Ukraine crisis, anxieties run high among DPP supporters about Taiwan’s outlook and the need for high levels of deterrence.
“We really do not want to be the next Ukraine,” Chao added, with feeling.
Bending with Beijing
Opinion is strongly divided about the smartest tactical response toward China’s muscle flexing.
Opinion is strongly divided about the smartest tactical response toward China’s muscle flexing. | Annabelle Chih/Getty Images
Across town, at one of the opposition’s bases, where campaigners wear tracksuits in the white and blue of the Kuomintang party, International Relations Director Alexander Huang said his political troops were “within touching distance” of a possible victory.
Keen to shake off a reputation of being reflexively pro-China, as opposed to merely cautious about riling its powerful neighbour, the KMT hosted cocktails for foreign journalists in a trendy, Christmas-decorated bar, bringing together Chinese news-agency writers with Western reporters covering the election.
Huang, who hails from a military intelligence background and studied Chinese military and security doctrine in Washington, argued renewed Western support and commitments of defence expenditure by the U.S. administration increased the risk of something backfiring over Taiwan’s security. “We are under a great military threat [from China],” he told Power Play. “Our position is deterrence without provocation: assurance without appeasement.”
He also reckoned the current chilly relations between the governing DPP party and Beijing were widening distrust. “Our current government has no direct communication with the other side. If you are not able to communicate your view to your adversary, how can you change that?”
It’s less clear what reassurances the KMT expects from Beijing in return for a more accommodating relationship. Huang cites a possible decrease in trade tensions, which can hit Taiwanese agriculture and fishing when Beijing turns the screws, and further action on climate change and pollution (Taiwan is downwind of China’s emissions).
Colorful cast
The race certainly does not lack for colorful personalities.
The DPP’s presidential candidate, Lai, is a doctor and parliamentarian, while his KMT rival Hou is a former policeman and mayor in New Taipei. Mindful that the mood has become cynical about political elites, both sides have chosen frontmen who can claim humble roots: Hou hails from a family that scratched a living as food market traders, while Lai, the epitome of a slick Taiwanese professional, grew up with a widowed mother after his father died in a mining accident.
Hou is a former policeman and mayor in New Taipei | Annabelle Chih/Getty Images
The “Veep” contenders are flashier than the main candidates and more media-friendly. Hsiao Bi-khim, educated in the U.S. and until recently ambassador to Washington, is a pet-lover who styles herself as an agile “cat warrior” in stark contrast to China’s pugnacious “wolf-warrior” diplomats. Her KMT opponent is Jaw Shaw-kong, a formidable, populist-tinged debater and TV personality, who channels overt pro-Beijing sentiment, recently calling for more alignment in military planning with China’s leadership.
The billionaire Foxconn founder Terry Gou, who had run as a maverick, wafting pets as incentives to couples to have more babies to combat a worryingly low birthrate, quit the race after China’s tax authorities launched punitive investigations into his company, the builder of iPhones.
Russell Hsiao of the Global Taiwan Institute, a non-partisan research organization, reckoned that even if the DPP wins, its mandate will be less compelling than in the glory days of 2020, when it surged to a record level.
The guessing game of how likely an intervention — or even invasion — by China is helps explain the nervy tenor of this race.
The KMT’s Huang thought a “full-scale, kinetic invasion” is unlikely in the immediate future. How long does he think that guarantee would hold? “I would say not for the next five years, if we get our policy right.”
Hardly the most durable time-frame.
Taipei politics being a small world, Huang is a longstanding frenemy of the DPP’s Chao, who counters that Taiwan urgently needs to retain its defiant stance and deepen its strategic alliances with the West. They just disagree widely on the means to secure its future.
“The aim of [Beijing’s] engagements is unification … by force if necessary. Democracy, freedom, they are not just words. They represent what our people sincerely believe and hope to uphold.”
Stuart Lau contributed reporting.
Anne McElvoy is host of POLITICO’s weekly Power Play interview podcast, whose latest episode comes from the Taiwan election campaign.
KYIV — The last time Valentyna Tkachenko, a 35-year-old mother of two from Chernihiv in northern Ukraine, saw her husband Serhii was just before Russia invaded her country.
Serhii, a National Guard soldier, was captured on February 24 of last year, the day Moscow launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine. His unit was guarding the Chernobyl nuclear power plant when it was attacked by the Russians. When the Russian military retreated from Chernobyl and the rest of the Kyiv region at the end of March, they took Serhii and 167 other POWs with them.
Since then, the wives of the captured soldiers have only heard from them once — a short handwritten note: “I am alive, everything is OK,” sent more than six months after they were taken prisoner.
Like thousands of other relatives of Ukrainian POWs, Tkachenko has contacted Ukrainian authorities and the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) and had written four letters, but heard nothing back until November 29. That’s the day she got a video call on the Viber messaging app.
“It was Serhii. We talked only for three minutes. I was not allowed to ask him questions. As soon as I tried, he shook his head and just said no. Instead, he kept saying: ‘Valya, go make things hard for Kyiv. Kyiv does not want to take us back,’” Tkachenko recalled. “Then he said he was sorry and ended the call, promising to call me back if he ever has a chance.”
Tkachenko didn’t go off to demonstrate against the government, although family protests have taken place in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.
Petro Yatsenko, spokesperson for Ukraine’s coordinating staff on the treatment of prisoners of war, told POLITICO that other families have received similar calls from soldiers being held by the Russians.
“A person has not heard from a relative for more than a year, and here he calls and says that he is alive. Russians are ready to exchange him, but Ukraine does nothing. Recently these calls became massive. So, we understood that this is a campaign to cause distrust in the government,” Yatsenko said.
It’s a stark change in policy from the first year of the war, when the two sides regularly exchanged prisoners. In all, 2,598 people have returned from Russian captivity during 48 swaps, according to the Ukrainian military. However, the last major exchange was on August 7.
“It has really slowed down due to reasons from the Russian Federation, but there are very specific reasons for this,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told a news conference in Kyiv this week.
Playing politics with POWs
The Russian refusal to exchange POWs appears aimed at inflaming tensions in Ukrainian society, where dissatisfaction with Zelenskyy is rising in the wake of this year’s disappointing counteroffensive, and the mood is turning grim as crucial aid for Ukraine stalls in the U.S. Senate and Hungary blocks the EU’s efforts to boost civilian and military help for Kyiv.
Tkachenko thinks her family, as well as other prisoners of war, have become tools in a political game.
Anastasiia Bugera with her boyfriend Kostyantyn Ivanov | Anastasiia Bugera for POLITICO
“They started so well, exchanging so many. But then suddenly it all stopped. I think Russians want to discredit our government. People are exhausted, and POWs’ relatives are losing their temper. They want to cause havoc,” Tkachenko said bitterly.
A large number of the Ukrainian POWs were captured following the bloody siege of Mariupol, a coastal city where Ukrainian troops held out for three months of ferocious attacks before surrendering the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works in May 2022.
Anastasiia Bugera, 22, from the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine, has not spoken to her boyfriend, 24-year-old Kostyantyn Ivanov, since March 2022. She was in Russian-occupied Izyum when Ivanov was ordered to surrender alongside several thousand other Azovstal defenders.
“I managed to call his mother from our neighbor’s outdoor toilet one day. She told me he was trying to call me and failed. I cried so hard standing in that toilet,” Bugera said. The toilet was the only place she could get a connection as the Russians were trying to block mobile signals. Izyum was liberated by the Ukrainians in September 2022.
“We have not had the opportunity to even say hello to each other. They were promised to be in captivity only for three to four months. But Russia lied,” Bugera said.
Ukraine has managed to exchange only a few dozen Azovstal defenders, including the commanders of the Azov Regiment, but thousands of regular troops, police and border guards captured in Mariupol are still being held. According to the Azovstal families’ association, Russia does not want to exchange them. Instead, families occasionally see them on videos from Russian courts, malnourished, exhausted, and on trial accused of war crimes. Russia continues to block any direct communication with them.
Life in prison
As of today, Russia holds more than 3,000 Ukrainian soldiers and some 28,000 civilians, the Ukrainian ombudsman’s office and reintegration ministry said. However, the real number may be even higher.
“For example, some of those who are in captivity have not been confirmed yet. Those people are still considered ‘missing’ although we have information they might be in captivity,” Yatsenko said.
The Ukrainians have not said how many Russians they hold, but they have so many that they’re building a second POW camp to hold them. Russians are also being held in a special facility in western Ukraine and housed in cells in pretrial detention centers.
“I would say during the counteroffensive Ukraine managed to increase the POWs exchange fund that was already big because of the stalled exchanges,” Yatsenko said. “But we are ready to accommodate all Russian troops fighting in Ukraine, in case they decide to surrender.”
Ukraine says it is treating its POWs according to international rules, but accuses Russia of mistreating its prisoners.
“More than 90 percent of prisoners of war whom we interview after their return say that they were subjected to torture, deprivation of sufficient nutrition and sleep,” Yatsenko said. “People are being forced to burn out tattoos or to consume only Russian propaganda. They are not allowed to communicate with relatives.”
A photo Kostyantyn Ivanov sent to his relatives from Mariupol, where he was fighting against overwhelming Russian forces together with thousands of other Azovstal Steel Mill defenders | Anastasiia Bugera for POLITICO
Russia insists it is treating its POWs well.
Russian Commissioner for Human Rights Tatiana Moskalkova on November 30 visited 119 Ukrainian POWs and said they were being held in conditions that correspond to international standards.
“Many of them reported that they were allowed to call their relatives by phone by the competent Russian authorities,” Moskalkova said in a statement published a day after Tkachenko got the video call from her husband.
Moskalkova said that arrangements are being made with her Ukrainian counterpart to allow for mutual visits.
The International Committee of the Red Cross visits POWs on both sides of the front — so far seeing 2,300 of them — but Russia hasn’t fully opened its facilities to outside inspection and the ICRC is institutionally limited in its ability to criticize countries out of fear that its access will be cut off.
“We are painfully aware that there are POWs that we still have not visited, and this is why we are constantly working towards improving our access to the places where they are held. We have also delivered more than 3,800 personal messages between POWs and their loved ones, on top of facilitating the exchanges of over 9,300 letters from and to prisoners of war,” said Achille Després, the ICRC spokesperson in Ukraine.
He refused to reveal any information about the specific conditions in which POWs are held.
“Our goal is to work directly with the detaining authorities, to influence towards the concrete improvement of the interment conditions and remind the relevant states of their legal obligations, notably that POWs must at all times be treated humanely and their rights upheld, as well as their integrity, dignity and privacy respected,” he said.
Hoping for release
With big prisoner exchanges frozen, the only way captured soldiers can make it back to their own side is in informal battlefield swaps between commanders.
“Unfortunately, such sporadic exchanges cannot replace the ones at the state level,” Yatsenko said.
In his news conference, Zelenskyy said he hopes to see a change of policy that will allow for a resumption of prisoner exchanges.
“We are now working to bring back a fairly decent number of our guys. God willing, we will succeed,” he said.
Ukraine hopes to jar the Kremlin into restarting swaps thanks to the growing number of Russian POWs it’s holding.
“As soon as we accumulate, if you’ll forgive me the language, the appropriate stockpile of enemy resources, we exchange them for our Ukrainian defenders … I really hope that our pathway will soon be activated,” Zelenskyy said.
