As the war enters, its 628th day, these are the main developments.
Here is the situation on Monday, November 13, 2023.
Fighting
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned Ukrainians to prepare for Russia to attack the country’s energy infrastructure as winter approaches in a repeat of last year’s relentless attacks on the power grid that left hundreds of thousands without heating or electricity in the coldest months of the year. “We must be prepared for the possibility that the enemy may increase the number of drone or missile strikes on our infrastructure,” Zelenskyy said in his daily address. “All our attention should be focused on defence… The Ukrainian air shield is already stronger than last year.”
On Saturday, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the capital came under air attack for the first time in nearly two months. No major damage or casualties were reported in Kyiv itself, but some buildings were damaged in the Kyiv region.
Ukraine and Russia reported intensified fighting around the eastern city of Bakhmut, which was captured by Russia in May after months of heavy battles. The head of Ukraine’s ground forces, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said Moscow’s forces were “more active” and “trying to recover lost positions”. Russian accounts of the fighting said its forces had repelled five Ukrainian attacks near the ruined city.
Ukrainian military intelligence said an explosion killed at least three Russian servicemen in the Russian-occupied southern town of Melitopol, which it described as an “act of revenge” by resistance groups.
Russian law enforcement said it had begun a “terrorism” investigation after a goods train was derailed by an improvised explosive device in the Ryazan region southwest of Moscow. Some 19 carriages travelling from the town of Rybnoye were thrown from the tracks and 15 were damaged, investigators wrote in a statement on social media.
Moscow accused Ukraine of carrying out a series of attacks in Russia’s border regions of Bryansk and Belgorod, damaging five railway carriages and injuring one person in the town of Valuyki some 30km (19 miles) from the border.
Russia said it has begun a “terrorism” investigation after a cargo train was derailed by an explosive device in the Ryazan region [Investigative Committee of Russia via AP Photo]
A Ukrainian special forces commander played a key role in sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September last year, according to a joint investigation by Der Spiegel and the Washington Post. Ukraine has denied being behind the attack.
Politics and diplomacy
Ukraine presidential aide Andriy Yermak said he had arrived in the United States with a delegation headed by Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko for talks on cooperation and support. “I will have meetings in the White House, Congress, think tanks and with representatives of civil society organisations,” Yermak said, with discussions being focused on issues including “the President’s formula for peace” and strengthening Ukraine’s defence.
Weapons
The German government has agreed in principle to double the country’s military aid for Ukraine next year to 8 billion euros ($8.5 billion), a political source told the Reuters news agency. Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, interviewed by broadcaster ARD, referred to the planned doubling of military aid to Ukraine as sending “a strong signal to Ukraine that we will not leave them in the lurch”. The plan needs parliamentary approval.
Churches, cathedrals, museums and libraries across the country have been bombed, burned and shelled. Museum employees have been arrested and kidnapped by Russian soldiers. And thousands of paintings, antiques and artifacts have been stolen from museums, looted by invading Russian forces.
Standing in a ruined church, the building having been shelled by Russian forces, Ihor Poshyvailo, co-founder of The Heritage Emergency Response Initiative, an organization documenting these attacks, told “60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker that Russia’s intentions are clear.
“‘We don’t need your traditions, beliefs, your culture. You will not exist,’” Poshyvailo said.
The Khanenko Museum in the capital of Kyiv is trying to prevent their artwork from suffering the same fate that many other collections in Ukraine have suffered. They have packed and moved every painting, artifact, and sculpture they can to a secret location in hopes of keeping the items safe.
Whitaker took a tour of the empty museum with its acting director, Yulia Vaganova. Walking from room to room, they found empty display cases with captions describing objects that were no longer on display. Walls where paintings once hung now only contained outlines, ghostly silhouettes etched in dust.
Paintings were removed from the walls of the Khanenko Museum in Ukraine.
60 Minutes
“It’s very sad,” Vaganova told Whitaker. “[A] generation of people grows [up] without the museum, without this art, without this culture, because they cannot see it.”
The constant threat of missile and drone attacks is driving the museum’s efforts to hide its collection. Last year, a Russian missile struck close to it, shattering museum windows. In August, while the “60 Minutes” team was reporting in Kyiv, 28 cruise missiles and 16 drones were launched at the city. One drone caused a fiery explosion near the hotel where they were staying.
Yulia Vaganova told “60 Minutes” that even in a more secure location, the artwork is not totally protected from these attacks.
“The missile could hit any part of Ukraine, unfortunately. It means that wherever you hide the art…it’s not totally protected,” she explained.
Despite its hollow state, the Khanenko Museum remains open to visitors. Vaganova said that visitors are welcome to tour the museum and remind themselves of what they used to have.
Whitaker asked Vaganova what she felt justice would look like. She answered that Russia should return all the stolen artwork, pay for the destruction they have caused, and admit what they have done for the world to hear.
“This is exactly what we call acknowledgment,” she said. “This is only the way.”
The video above was produced and edited by Will Croxton.
Last month a UN report found new evidence that Russia had committed war crimes in Ukraine with deliberate killings and widespread use of torture. But they have yet to examine the intentional destruction of cultural property, which also is a war crime. Ukraine accuses Russian forces of targeting churches, libraries, and looting the country’s most important museums. And while plunder is as old as war itself, Ukrainian investigators say this is different. They see a campaign of cultural genocide to destroy Ukraine’s identity as a nation. Today, a network of cultural warriors in Ukraine is building the case against Russia. It’s a heritage war, one told us. And we joined them on the frontlines.
Not much was left of the tiny village of Viazivka, a few hours northwest of Kyiv, after Russian forces overwhelmed the region last March. But we weren’t prepared for this…
Bill Whitaker: My God, so Ihor what happened here?
Ihor Poshyvailo: Liberation of Ukraine by Russian occupation forces. You see what this liberation means.
Bill Whitaker: Why would they target a church?
Ihor Poshyvailo: In this small village this was the main place. And it was targeted just to destroy what keeps the whole village and the whole community together.
Ihor Poshyvailo shows Bill Whitaker art from a destroyed church in Ukraine.
60 Minutes
Ihor Poshyvailo is director of the Contemporary Maidan Museum in Kyiv. He’d brought us to see the carcass of the Church of the Nativity on Ukraine’s heritage list. Poshyvailo told us the Russians had deliberately shelled it when they retreated last year. There was no fighting nearby. Built in 1862, the church had survived two world wars, communism, and a revolution. but not this.
Bill Whitaker: So what message do you think the Russians were trying to send by destroying this church?
Ihor Poshyvailo: We are strong. You should be afraid of us. And we will do what we want to do. We don’t need you on this land. We don’t need your traditions, beliefs, your culture. You’ll not, you’ll not exist.
Bill Whitaker: Erase you.
Ihor Poshyvailo: Erase you, exactly.
As we sifted through the wreckage, Poshyvailo told us the church had been famous for its unique centuries-old folk art.
Bill Whitaker: And these are all paintings?
Ihor Poshyvailo: Yes, and you can see that they still have…
Bill Whitaker: Wow, look at that.
He told us this was one of 700 churches that have been hit so far. Some were collateral damage. Many were not. To document the destruction, Poshyvailo co-founded the Heritage Emergency Response Initiative, a sort of cultural SWAT team that travels to damaged sites, interviewing eyewitnesses, and saving what they can.
Ihor Poshyvailo: It’s a nightmare for me because every morning I get up and I think that’s it’s, it’s not reality, what we have and at the same time, the feelings that we will never forgive.
Bill Whitaker: Never forgive?
Ihor Poshyvailo: We will never forgive. I mean, the cultural legacy, cultural heritage, this is what makes us rich and what we have to protect and pass to future generations. That’s why I can see that it’s one of the front lines of this war. Because destroying our past, Russians tries to destroy our future.
It’s not only churches. Hundreds of museums, libraries, and monuments have been bombed, burned, or shelled. Last February, the Russians razed this small folk museum near Kyiv to the ground. Nearby buildings were untouched. Farther east, Russian artillery destroyed this museum. Locals carried out the only surviving statue of its patron saint like a wounded patient.
Poshyvailo—and others—told us they believe it’s a strategy that comes straight from the Kremlin. For years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has publicly dismissed Ukraine’s right to exist at all. “We are all Russians,” he said. Many museum workers have been arrested—even kidnapped—by Russian soldiers.
Bill Whitaker: You don’t usually think of museum workers as being in danger.
Milena Chorna: Oh they are among the first people Russians come for.
Bill Whitaker: Why?
Milena Chorna: Well first of all, they are interested in the collections. Where did they hide the collections? Uh what is the value of the collections? And the second reason is, uh, museum workers are leaders, uh, in their community.
Milena Chorna talks to Bill Whitaker
60 Minutes
Milena Chorna is head of international exhibits at the National War Museum in Kyiv. She helped set up a museum crisis hotline for workers in the war zone trying to save their collections. They were soon swamped with calls for help: sending money for Russian bribes, devising escape routes, hiding paintings, and sometimes just to talk.
Milena Chorna: You cut off all your emotions trying to do everything you can to help. Putting it all through yourself, it is really difficult. And at some point, you realize, yeah, that you have PTSD already, although you haven’t been to the forefront.
Milena Chorna told us many workers actually moved into their museums to help guard the collections, even as the bombs fell. In the north, during the siege of Chernihiv, she told us about one museum worker who moved in with her 8-year-old daughter. There was no electricity, no water, no heat.
Weeks later, volunteers trying to deliver a generator to the museum were killed.
Bill Whitaker: She stayed?
Milena Chorna: She stayed. She stayed until the liberation, yes. And now, she is in the army.
Bill Whitaker: What do you think of that?
Milena Chorna: I believe at some point, she might have, uh, acknowledged that, uh, what we are doing is not good enough. And at some point we will all have to become soldiers, we might all have to become soldiers.
Ukraine has accused Russia of looting more than 30 museums, calling it the biggest art theft since the Nazis in World War II. In Kherson, Russian soldiers cut paintings from frames, dragged out priceless antiques, and cleaned out more than 10,000 works of art. Even so, Chorna told us, many museum workers wouldn’t leave.
Milena Chorna: How can I leave these things to be looted or destroyed, if I know it’s the history that will last for generations?
Bill Whitaker: Can you explain that passion to me?
Milena Chorna: I might not be able to say that without emotions uh, but um um I think that um well speaking of myself uh, I understand that uh the value of these items it’s much higher than the price of my life.
Bill Whitaker: Higher than the price of your life?
Milena Chorna: Yes, yes, because the scope of affect these artifacts can have on future generations, it’s uncomparable to the scope of affect, me, myself, a single person, can do for the culture.
Chorna told us a top Russian target was Ukraine’s priceless Scythian gold collection at the Melitopol Museum. Museum workers hastily hid the treasures in cardboard boxes in the museum’s dank unfinished basement. When the Russians invaded, they wasted no time before heading to the museum, threatening to shoot the locks off the door to break in. This CCTV footage—never broadcast before—shows the Russians harassing employees, searching the museum, stashing what they took in white cloth sacks. That morning, they left without finding the gold. Undeterred, a group of soldiers turned up at the door of museum director Leila Ibrahimova and kidnapped her.
Bill Whitaker: They put a bag over your head and kidnapped you?
Leila Ibrahimova in Ukrainian (English translation): I was very scared, she told us. There were eight of them. They were wearing balaclavas and carried machine guns. One soldier did all the talking. They turned my house upside down, then they put a bag on my head and put me in a car.
Ibrahimova is in hiding so we agreed not to show her face. She told us the Russians interrogated her about the museum but she refused to cooperate. They let her go but when her name later surfaced on a Russian execution list, she fled the country.
Leila Ibrahimova in Ukrainian (English translation): My life was at risk, she told us, and staying would jeopardize my colleagues, my family. I was afraid my husband and son would be searched again.
In the end, the Russians found the gold: 198 ancient gold artifacts worth untold millions.
The Russians’ plunder has all the earmarks of a war crime, according to Vitaliy Tytych, a criminal lawyer of 30 years.
Vitaliy Tytych
60 Minutes
He leads a new unit of the Ukrainian military investigating Russia’s targeting of heritage sites. Intentionally looting or destroying cultural property during a war is a crime. But Tytych told us, the Russians have flipped the law on its head.
Vitaliy Tytych in Ukrainian (English translation): The Russians keep saying they’re evacuating these artifacts to safeguard them during the fighting, he told us, and they will return them when the war is over. That is a lie and we are ready to prove it.
But Tytych told us he’s under no illusions. There have only been two convictions for cultural war crimes since the law was passed in 1954.
Bill Whitaker: So Ukraine wants to prosecute Russia for war crimes. How likely do you think they will actually be prosecuted?
Vitaliy Tytych in Ukrainian (English translation): I’m worried, he told us. The International treaties to prevent war crimes have not proven effective. Nor, he said, has the international criminal court but that’s all we’ve got.
In the village of Lukashivka, outside Chernihiv, museum director Ihor Poshyvailo showed us what was left after the Russians set up a base camp inside this church, a protected architectural monument.
60 Minutes
In the battle to force the Russians out, a massive fire demolished the church’s historic frescos.
Ihor Poshyvailo: Here’s also you can see, you can see the plaster from the wall…
Bill Whitaker: You still have the cross here.
Ihor Poshyvailo: Yeah, so the the church itself had so many layers of history and culture but everything is lost now.
In the nave…this was all that was left. Ooshyvailo told us this war is about more than land.
Ihor Poshyvailo: This is a war against our historical memory, against our being Ukrainian.
Bill Whitaker: You said before against your soul.
Ihor Poshyvailo: Against, exactly, against our soul, against everything which makes us Ukrainians different from Russia. And this war has signs of being a genocide war against Ukrainian nation.
Bill Whitaker: Genocide? You consider this genocide?
Ihor Poshyvailo: Yes. Because it’s, it’s an attempt to totally destroy Ukraine and Ukrainian nation.
But it will never work, Poshyvailo told us. The more the Russians attack, the more resilient Ukrainians become. We saw proof of that at the Holy Dormition Cathedral in Kyiv. A 3D laser scanner was meticulously capturing every architectural detail so that if disaster strikes, the church can be rebuilt. It’s work that’s going on across the country, saving the cultural soul of Ukraine for future generations.
Produced by Heather Abbott. Associate producer, LaCrai Scott. Broadcast associate, Mariah B. Campbell. Edited by Craig Crawford.
KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces have ramped up attacks in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to gain ground near two key front line cities, Ukrainian military officials said Sunday.
Moscow’s troops have begun a push to regain territory near Bakhmut, the eastern mining city that was the site of the war’s bloodiest battle before falling into Russian hands in May, the head of Ukraine’s ground forces wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukrainian troops had recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and made some advances west, north and south of the city since Kyiv launched its summer counteroffensive.
“Toward Bakhmut, the Russians have become more active and are trying to recapture previously lost positions. … Enemy attacks are being repelled,” Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote in a Telegram update on Sunday afternoon.
A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said Sunday that Russian forces over the previous day repelled five Ukrainian attacks near Klischiivka and Kurdyumivka, two small settlements lying south of Bakhmut. Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov made the claim at the latest of regular press briefings.
Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive has so far resulted in only incremental gains and heavy losses, with Ukrainian troops struggling to punch through Russian lines in the south. Meanwhile, Moscow’s forces have attempted to press forward in the northeast, likely with a view to distract Kyiv and minimize the number of troops Ukraine is able to send to key southern and eastern battles.
Ukraine’s General Staff said that Russian troops were also continuing their weekslong push to encircle Avdiivka, a Ukrainian stronghold south of Bakhmut and a key target since the beginning of the war. It’s considered the gateway to parts of the eastern Donetsk region under Kyiv’s control. The General Staff said Russia’s air force was playing a key part in the latest assault.
Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who leads Ukrainian troops fighting in and near Avdiivka, said Sunday that the attacking Russian forces were ramping up airstrikes, particularly those using guided bombs. He wrote on Telegram that Russian troops had launched 30 airstrikes and 712 artillery barrages at the city and surrounding areas over the previous day, and clashed almost 50 times with Ukrainian units.
Also on Sunday, Ukraine’s intelligence agency claimed responsibility for a powerful blast in the country’s occupied south the day before that they said killed “at least three” officers serving with Russia’s internal military force.
In an online statement, the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense called the explosion, which rocked the headquarters of the Russian occupation authorities in the city of Melitopol on Saturday, “an act of revenge (…) carried out by representatives of the local resistance movement.”
“At least three officers of the Russian (National) Guard were eliminated,” the statement said, referring to Russia’s internal military agency that reports directly to the Kremlin.
It added that the strike was carried out “during a meeting of the occupiers” attended by National Guard officers as well as operatives from Russia’s main security agency, the FSB.
Russian authorities did not immediately respond to the Ukrainian claims, which could not be independently verified.
Melitopol, a city in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region that had a pre-war population of over 150,000, was captured by Russian troops just days into the war. It now lies well behind its southern front line, even as a Ukrainian counteroffensive continues to grind on in Zaporizhzhia.
In the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, a 64-year-old man was killed when Russian shells slammed into his yard, Ukrainian regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said. Prokudin added that the man’s wife was hospitalized with a skull injury, concussion and shrapnel wounds to her legs.
Prokudin said that Russian forces shelled Kherson and the surrounding region 62 times over the previous 24 hours, wounding four civilians and damaging one of the city’s libraries. The city has come under near-daily attacks since Ukraine recaptured it a year ago.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell recently said former President Ronald Reagan would “turn over in his grave” at the current GOP’s views on helping Ukraine win its war against Russia.
McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, has been a vocal supporter of Ukraine since Russia invaded the Eastern European country in February 2022. Most recently, he has shown a willingness to work with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, on President Joe Biden‘s request of nearly $106 billion worth of aid, which includes $61.4 billion for Ukraine and $14.3 billion for Israel to support its war with Palestinian militant group Hamas following their surprise attack on October 7.
However, other members of the Republican Party do not see an importance to keep funding Ukraine’s war. Newly-elected House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, decoupled the president’s aid package and pushed a standalone aid package of $14.3 billion to Israel, which the House passed on November 2. The bill was blocked by the Democrat-controlled Senate on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans released a proposal on Monday regarding policy changes on immigration, mainly focusing on limiting migrants’ ability to enter or stay in the United States once they are apprehended. Senate Republicans will demand that the proposal be attached to any funding package for Ukraine.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on October 24 in Washington, D.C. McConnell recently said former President Ronald Reagan would “turn over in his grave” at the current GOP’s views on helping Ukraine win its war against Russia. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
“Honestly, I think Ronald Reagan would turn over in his grave if he saw we were not going to help Ukraine,” McConnell told The Associated Press this week.
McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984, at a time when the now-late Reagan was fighting the Cold War against the now-dissolved Soviet Union.
The senator told the AP that cutting off aid to Ukraine would be “a huge setback for the United States,” and its reputation as the leader of the free world.
McConnell also explained how the U.S.’s foreign policy shifted after the Cold War to focus on terrorism. However, as tensions grow between the U.S. and its adversaries, China and Russia, and Israel continues its operation in Gaza following Hamas’ attack, the senator said “what we have now is both the terrorism issue and the big power competition issue all at the same time, which is why I think singling out one of these problems to the exclusion of the others is a mistake.”
Newsweek reached out to McConnell and Johnson via email for comment.
Some senators, meanwhile, believe that Johnson is more aligned with their views.
“I think the fact that Speaker Johnson has a little bit more agency is in part because he is the Speaker of the House,” Senator J.D. Vance, an Ohio Republican who is against a combined aid package for Ukraine and Israel, told the AP. “But it’s also important because he has a membership that is much, much more in tune with where Republican voters actually are.”
Senator Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican who has also criticized Ukraine funding, told the AP that “nationally, the Republican leader right now is the speaker of the House of Representatives.”
However, there are Republican senators who disagree with Johnson’s efforts to decouple the aid package.
Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina recently told reporters, “I support the package staying together. I think Secretary [of State Antony] Blinken and [Defense Secretary Lloyd] Austin gave a good answer why we should not break it apart. At the end of the day, I think all of these conflicts have to be dealt with strongly, and they should be dealt with together.”
Senator Mitt Romney, a Utah Republican, told CNN, “My view is that the substantial majority of members of the House, as well as the substantial majority of senators, support for Ukraine and Israel, combined.”
Meanwhile, Make America Great Again (MAGA) supporters criticized Johnson for aiding another country while there are issues domestically.
“MIKE JOHNSON PUTS ISRAEL 1ST KNOWING THERE ARE 4 MILLION ILLEGAL RIDING TRAIN CARAVANS THROUGH MEXICO,” Rumble personality Ryan Matta said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, late last month.
“Politicians are incapable of putting America First!” Donald Trump supporter Cynthia Holt wrote about Johnson.
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.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is known for its frequent launches, which now dominate the space industry. But thesatellites that the rockets send to space are just as important for the company as the launches. Starlink is SpaceX’s answer to providing global, high-speed internet coverage using a network of thousands of satellites buzzing around the planet in a region known as low Earth orbit (LEO), about 342 miles above the Earth’s surface.
SpaceX launched its first batch of Starlink satellites in 2019. Adoption of the service has ballooned since then. The company has said Starlink has more than 2 million active customers and is available on all seven continents and in over 60 countries.
“This growth is uncharacteristic in the sense of its magnitude. Whereas prior satellite service providers have ramped up to anywhere at most between 500,000 to a little bit over a million subscribers. And this has taken, you know, a ten-year period, Starlink’s race to 2 million subscribers has taken only the better part of two years,” says Brent Prokosh, a Senior Affiliate Consultant at Euroconsult.
A Falcon 9 rockets launches a Starlink mission on January 20, 2021.
SpaceX
Experts estimate that the global market for consumer satellite services, including TV, radio, and broadband internet, was worth over $92 billion in 2022. And Starlink could be in a good position to capture a big piece of the market. Although initially conceived for the consumer segment, Starlink’s offerings have expanded to serve enterprise customers including in the maritime and aviation industries.
“Starlink’s importance to SpaceX overall as a company is imperative. Euroconsult estimates that, optimistically, by the end of 2023, this business of Starlink could represent upwards of 40% of SpaceX’s overall business. This total would be somewhere in excess of $3 billion generated from Starlink,” Prokosh says.
Starlink has been praised for its ability to connect remote parts of the world that would otherwise not have access to reliable internet. The service has also become indispensable in areas hit by natural disasters, and, more recently, during times of conflict, particularly in the Russia-Ukraine war.
“The big benefit of Starlink and how it’s being used in Ukraine today is communications. It’s providing a pathway for the military, for civilians to stay connected to the outside world. It allows a pathway for the military to communicate with each other and to provide command and control direction to their forces,” says Kari Bingen who is the Director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Ukrainian forces set up Starlink satellite receivers to provide connection for civilians at Independence Square after the withdrawal of the Russian army from Kherson to the eastern bank of Dnieper River, Ukraine, on November 13, 2022.
Metin Atkas | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
But Starlink’s growing influence is garnering condemnation from critics who say Musk is meddling in geopolitics. Meanwhile, the scientific community has its own concerns.
“The astronomical community got concerned about the first launch of the Starlink satellite a few years ago because the projection of the full constellation of several tens of thousands of satellites in low Earth orbit was immediately seen as an interference to both the optical observation and to radio observation,” says Piero Benvenuti, who is the Interim General Secretary, International Astronomical Union.
To find out more about Starlink’s rapid expansion and if it can continue, watch the video.
The sky was lit up following the alleged explosion at a gunpowder factory
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A loud explosion was reportedly heard moments before the sky was set ablaze on FridayCredit: Twitter
4
Footage showed the huge fire burning from miles away
The dramatic footage shows a blazing fire on the horizon in Kotovsk which Russian media reports claim was from the factory.
A loud explosion was reportedly heard moments before the sky was set ablaze around midnight on Friday.
The huge fire can be seen lighting up the sky from miles away in the Tambov region, south of Moscow.
Ukrainian telegram channels claimed it was caused by one of their kamikaze drones.
No casualties have been reported as of yet.
Hours earlier on Friday two Russian assault boats with crew on board were allegedly blown up by the same drones.
The ships were reportedly carrying loaded armoured vehicles, including personnel carrier BTR-82.
The Russians are also alleged to have had Tor-M2 air defence systems on board the boats, for cover of their group on the island and in the Black Sea.
Ukrainian media outlet TSN news wrote on Telegram on Friday morning: “As a result of a night operation on the territory of the temporarily occupied Crimea, small landing ships of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation were damaged by soldiers.
“We are talking about boats of project 11770 (of the “Serna” class).”
It alleged the small boats, used by Russia during the occupation of Zmiinyi Island to transfer military equipment, were carrying a crew and loaded vehicles.
Dramatic black and white footage showed the moment alleged Ukrainian kamikaze drones hit the Russian navy crafts near Crimea.
A ship can be seen in the aim sight of a sea drone camera before a huge explosion engulfs the screen.
Ukraine‘s “invisible” underwater kamikaze drones, capable of carrying 1,000lbs of explosives, are Vladimir Putin‘s newest nightmare.
The newly-designed $355k and 20ft Marichka torpedo-like weapons were only recently taken for a test swim, as Ukraine ramped up production of unmanned marine assault weapons.
It is the latest creation of Ammo.Ukraine, a volunteer organisation that is helping to turn the tides in the so-called “War of the Drones”.
Vladimir Solovyov, prominent Russian propagandist and staunch ally to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that there “can be no mutual coexistence” between Russia and Western nations.
Solovyov is the host of political programs on Kremlin-controlled television and radio. He is also well-known for making controversial statements, such as suggesting during a recent broadcast of his television show that Germany will eventually exist “under a Russian flag.” Last month, Solovyov also made headlines when he warned of a new world war that would see the West pitted against Muslims all over the world.
Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, on Monday posted a translated clip on X, formerly Twitter, of Solovyov recently discussing what he characterized as Russia’s long-running conflict with the West on his radio show.
Newsweek reached out to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the White House via email for comment Thursday night.
“We need to realize that the West is our existential enemy. There can be no mutual coexistence,” Russian propagandist Solovyev tells his audience. He advises people to prepare for a long war. pic.twitter.com/OurkYfuEYF
“We need to recognize the West is our enemy—systemic, centuries-old, millennia-old, existential. There can be no mutual coexistence,” Solovyov said, according to Gerashchenko’s translation.
The Russian broadcaster then called on his countrymen to be vigilant as he detailed what he feels is a long struggle between Russia and the Western world.
“We can be so strong that they have to bite their filthy tongues, or as soon as we weaken, they will try to destroy us, as they have done every century. Any games with them weaken us,” he said.
Solovyov continued: “We should only act out of expediency. There is no need to change their minds or to please them. We just need to realize that they are the enemy. Systemic, well-trained, motivated, convinced. Which means we have to fight for minds. Not theirs, but ours.”
The U.S. State Department has detailed Solovyov’s efforts to spread disinformation from the Kremlin. In a list identifying well-known figures involved in Russian propaganda published on its website in 2022, the State Department described Solovyov as perhaps “the most energetic Kremlin propagandist around today.”
During the course of Russia’s war with Ukraine, which is now in its 21st month, Solovyov has advocated multiple times for Moscow to make use of its nuclear capabilities against the countries that back Ukraine.
He has also said the Kremlin should unleash a nuclear strike on any country that would attempt to detain Putin over the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in March for alleged war crimes.
Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov is seen during the ceremony of the annexation of four Ukrainian regions, at the Grand Kremlin Palace on September 30, 2022, in Moscow, Russia. Solovyov recently said that the West is Russia’s “enemy” and that there “can be no mutual coexistence.” Getty Images
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.
During the third Republican presidential debate, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie explained that his support for Ukraine against the continuing Russian invasion traces back to promises made during the 1990s.
“In 1992, this country made a promise to Ukraine,” Christie said during the Nov. 8 debate in Miami. “We said, ‘If you return nuclear missiles that were part of the old Soviet Union to Russia, and they invade you, we will protect you.’”
This makes the U.S. obligation to defend Ukraine sound cut and dried. However, as we’ve previouslywritten, it was anything but.
Christie’s campaign did not respond to an inquiry for this article.
The crack-up of the USSR and the 1994 Budapest agreement
When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, the rest of the world expressed concern over the fate of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, which was spread across not just Russia but also three newly independent states, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.
Belarus and Kazakhstan agreed to dismantle or return to Russia what they had. But Ukraine looked at the roughly 1,900 warheads on its soil and began seeking something in exchange before it ceded them.
“Essentially, it was something that they traded off in order to encourage international recognition,” Brian Finlay, a specialist in nonproliferation at the Stimson Center, a military-focused Washington, D.C., think tank told PolitiFact in 2015.
According to a 2011 report by Steven Pifer, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 1998 to 2000, Ukraine wanted Russia to promise to respect its sovereignty and its borders, a promise that Russia made but has since broken. Ukraine also wanted money, and it knew that going non-nuclear would open the door to better ties with the West.
In early 1994, the United States agreed to provide money to dismantle Ukraine’s nuclear infrastructure, while Russia agreed to forgive Ukraine’s debts. In December 1994, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom and Ukraine signed the Budapest Memorandum of Security Assurances.
The agreement reaffirmed certain commitments among the parties:
Pifer described in his report the lengths to which Washington lingered over the precise phrasing of the U.S. security obligations to Ukraine.
State Department lawyers “took careful interest in the actual language … to keep the commitments of a political nature,” Pifer wrote. “U.S. officials also continually used the term ‘assurances’ instead of ‘guarantees,’ as the latter implied a deeper, even legally binding commitment of the kind that the United States extended to its NATO allies.”
Pifer wrote that American diplomats made sure that the Russians and Ukrainians understood specifically that the English meaning of “assurance” was not the same as a “guarantee.”
Has anything changed?
We asked several experts whether anything had changed since we last covered this topic eight years ago (which also came during a presidential election cycle, in comments by Republican candidates Ben Carson and Ted Cruz).
The experts agreed that although Russia has continued to break its promise to respect Ukraine’s borders, the U.S. obligations remain the same. The U.S. under President Joe Biden has supported Ukraine as it tries to fend off Russia’s invasion, including providing arms and money. But the U.S. has done this by choice, not because the Budapest agreement legally obligates it to do so.
Christie seems to be framing it as a pledge akin to NATO’s Article 5, which treats an attack on one member as an attack on all, obligating a response, said Erik Herron, a West Virginia University political scientist who specializes in Eastern Europe. But such an obligation “is not part of any written agreement,” Herron said.
Pifer, the former ambassador to Ukraine, told PolitiFact that when negotiating the language, “Ukrainian officials asked us, the U.S. officials, what the United States would do if Russia violated its commitments. We responded that the United States would take an interest and support Ukraine, but we made clear that we were not committing to send U.S. troops.”
And that is basically what has happened since Russia invaded in 2022, Pifer said.
“To my mind, U.S. support for Ukraine over the past two years has lived up to what we told Ukrainian officials in the early 1990s,” he said.
Our ruling
Christie said, “In 1992, this country made a promise to Ukraine. We said, ‘If you return nuclear missiles that were part of the old Soviet Union to Russia, and they invade you, we will protect you.’”
Setting aside that the agreement was signed in 1994, not 1992, Christie makes it sound as if the U.S. had an ironclad obligation to protect Ukraine if its borders were violated — that it had a “promise” to “protect” Ukraine.
But the United States carefully avoided making a strong promise. The agreement deliberately steered away from the term “guarantee” in favor of “assurances,” which entails a lesser degree of obligation.
The United States agreed to respect Ukraine’s borders and go to the United Nations if another power threatened Ukraine’s borders.
PUFFY Putin has got the internet laughing again after emerging with swollen cheeks that look like he used “butt filler” to cling onto his youth.
A recent video shows the Russian tyrant struggling to smile through his possibly botox-stuffed cheeks as rumours of his deteriorating health continue to swirl.
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Vladimir Putin’s cheeks appear puffier than ever as rumours swirl he is a botox addictCredit: Twitter/Gerashchenko
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His changing facial features have provoked plenty of ridicule onlineCredit: Twitter/Gerashchenko
In the strange clip from this week, it’s hard to ignore Putin‘s changing facial features as his cheeks appear puffier than ever.
It seems that with each public appearance, Putin keeps the world guessing with a sordid series of health rumours, death scares and possible string of body doubles.
One Twitter user marvelled at the differences in Putin’s face this week.
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Attributing his cheek changes to “butt implants”, he asked: “What the f*** is going on?”
Another joked: “Did he get stung by bees in both of his cheeks?”
And while speculation surrounding his internal health issues continues, his changing facial features cannot be ignored.
After two decades of his iron-fist rule, Putin almost appears younger than when he first rose to power.
The rumours, which have been swirling since 2011, concern how his once gaunt, slim face now looks round and full – with little signs of visible ageing.
Speaking to The Sun, leading UK cosmetic surgeon Gerard Lambe is adamant that all signs lead to Putin having regular botox and filler injections.
“Mr Putin’s appearance has undergone a dramatic change over the years,” he said.
“The biggest changes I see are in his facial shape which is likely due to cheek fillers but this is often overdone in a bid to avoid a facelift – this is something I see in my clinic on a regular basis.
“He may have had fat injections to fill out hollows in the cheeks and temple regions also.”
His giant table meeting was a far cry from his recent close up meetings with other officials and further incited rumours that the tyrant uses body doubles for certain engagements.
The AI chatbot Kandinsky managed to get the Russian flag wrong and create both a headless image of Putin and an embarrassingly naked portrait of Putin.
Kandinsky’s developers were reportedly summoned to the Russian prosecutor’s office as a result.
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An image of a far younger Putin shows how different his facial features have become
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Experts allege that he has clearly had cosmetic surgeryCredit: AFP
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The Kremlin was recently forced to deny their leader had diedCredit: Getty
NEWMARKET, Ontario, November 9, 2023 (Newswire.com)
– Terradyne Armored Vehicles Inc. successfully completed the final vehicles ordered by the Ukraine Ministry of Health through the State Enterprise Medical Procurement of Ukraine.
Durward Smith, President and CEO of Terradyne, commented, “Dealing with the State Enterprise Medical Procurement team was nothing but professional. The entire process was transparent and open from beginning to end. Ukraine can be proud of what this team has accomplished.”
The vehicles, 13 in total, were funded through United 24 (www.u24.gov.ua), which is a fund-raising initiative of President Zelensky. Protection levels are according to NATO STANAG 4569 level II, which means they can stop armour-piercing bullets. In addition, they come equipped with run-flat tire technology, winches, NATO stretchers and can transport multiple wounded personnel sitting or in stretchers across rough terrain.
According to Oleg Klots, Head of Logistics Department, State Enterprise – Medical Procurement of Ukraine, “Terradyne has been great to deal with and once we received the first vehicle, it was beyond our expectations. It was absolutely perfect. These vehicles will be critical to evacuate injured soldiers and civilians from dangerous areas. They will definitely save lives.”
Terradyne is a recognized leader in the light tactical wheeled / SWAT / light MRAP / rescue and evacuation vehicle product range with many governments and police/law enforcement agencies around the world choosing Terradyne due to superior ballistic and blast protection along with a long-standing reputation for quality made products. Terradyne headquarters is located just north of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Last winter, Europeans faced exorbitant energy bills as the Continent rapidly weaned itself off Russian gas. This year the EU is better prepared — but now a second war also threatens to roil its energy markets.
The conflict between Israel and Hamas threatens to disrupt Europe’s relationships with the Middle East, or even draw Iran into direct confrontation with Israel and its Western partners. While markets are relatively calm for now, either of those scenarios could cause chaos.
Nevertheless, Europe is “equipped to face oil and diesel global market tightness,” Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson told POLITICO in an interview. Officials have learned lessons from Russia’s war on Ukraine, and are working to build “a good understanding of all our vulnerabilities to best address them and how we can be prepared for any incidents or emergencies.”
EU officials have held a slew of meetings with oil-producing nations in recent weeks, both old friends like Norway and emerging partners such as Algeria and Nigeria, to get ahead of any potential disruptions, she said.
“After the Gaza crisis unfolded, we are faced with two conflicts in the European neighborhood. The Eastern Mediterranean is an important theater for European energy security, as Europe’s energy transition is still entangled in geopolitical uncertainties,” Simson said, attributing the lack of drama in the markets to “the preparedness and crisis management that the EU put in place to respond to Russia’s energy blackmail.”
Fighting in Gaza and, to a lesser extent, along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon has had only a limited impact on oil markets. Prices initially rose on the news of the attack by Hamas militants on October 7 and Israel’s massive response, but key crude benchmark Brent dropped back by 4.2 percent this week to around $81 per barrel, around the levels seen before the start of the violence.
Markets have avoided a repeat of 1973, when the Yom Kippur War between Israel and its neighbors prompted the big Arab producers, led by Saudi Arabia, to embargo their exports to Israel’s allies. Gulf country relations with Israel have improved markedly in the past 50 years: The UAE and Bahrain recognized its sovereignty under the 2020 Abraham Accords, while Saudi Arabia is in negotiations to do the same.
Traders are therefore betting that as long as the conflict doesn’t expand, supplies of oil will remain more or less stable, said Viktor Katona, lead crude analyst at energy intelligence firm Kpler.
The risk stems more from Iran, he said. In the worst case, an expansion of the conflict could cause Iran to disrupt shipping from Gulf Arab countries through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s own crude oil, while sanctioned by the West, is exported in large quantities to China. “If Israel starts to strike the Iranian territory and Iran as a consequence needs to export less, then China doesn’t have enough crude and needs to buy from somewhere else,” sending global prices rocketing, Katona said. “It’s an entire spiral that gets triggered immediately.”
While Iran’s theocratic leadership has consistently vowed to destroy the state of Israel and publicly endorsed Hamas’ attacks last month, it denies involvement in their planning and execution. The Israel Defense Forces say they have carried out strikes on militant groups in Syria with close links to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but have so far stopped short of hitting targets inside Iran itself.
Lessons learned
Gas markets felt a more immediate impact from the war. Israel turned off the taps at its Tamar offshore gas field in the hours following Hamas’ surprise attack, amid reports that it was a target for rocket attacks. While Israel produces only relatively small quantities of natural gas — around 21 billion cubic meters last year, compared to Russia’s 618 billion — it is a key exporter to neighboring Egypt, and the downtime worsened regular rolling power outages there. The flow has since been resumed, albeit in smaller quantities.
Any escalation with Iran could affect gas as well as oil markets, given a third of the world’s liquefied natural gas and a sixth of its oil is shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. “If things stay as they are there’s no problem, but if there’s a war where Iran was included and they [block trade through] the Hormuz strait then prices will go up for sure,” said one EU diplomat with knowledge of internal energy strategy talks, granted anonymity to speak candidly.
However, “all the big players want to avoid escalation, Iran wants to avoid this” because of threat of sanctions, the envoy insisted.
Absent that dire scenario, the impact on EU gas markets is likely to be limited, says Tom Marzec-Manser, head of gas analytics at commodities intelligence company ICIS — but more because of the last conflict than the most recent one.
“From a European gas pricing perspective, we’re still looking relatively OK and that’s been driven largely by weak demand. Many industrial consumers continue to use noticeably less gas than they did prior to the energy crisis last year, so consumption in Europe has remained low,” he said.
According to the European Commission, member states collectively shaved almost 20 percent from their natural gas use in the run-up to last winter, with industry slowing output and renewable power playing a much larger role in electricity generation. Despite that, consumption actually rose in October for the first time since the start of the war, in an early sign that businesses could be tentatively trying to restore lost productivity.
But even though the bloc’s gas reserves are more than 99 percent full ahead of schedule, prices have still remained stubbornly high across the Continent compared to other regions. That means Europeans are more at risk of short-term spikes in the cost of energy, with industry potentially having to slow down again if bills become unaffordable.
“We are in a much better situation than in 2022,” said Georg Zachmann, a senior fellow at the Bruegel energy think tank. “We have more heat pumps, power plants are back in the picture that we didn’t have available last year, and we’ve built more liquified natural gas terminals.” However, he warned, if member states lose focus on reducing demand and try to give their own industries a head start with subsidies, that could spark a wasteful race “that is essentially to everyone’s detriment.”
At the same time, winter in Europe isn’t what it used to be. Record-breaking temperatures have been recorded across the globe for the past four months, according to an EU Copernicus satellite monitoring report published this week, while last winter was the second-warmest ever recorded on the Continent. While that might be good news for conflict-prone fossil fuel supplies in the short term, it’s probably bad news for just about everything else in the not-so-much-longer term.
KYIV — Inna Kozich, a communications specialist from Kyiv, still cries when she remembers the first weeks of last year’s Russian siege of the Ukrainian capital.
“At one moment my kids and I slept in a corridor for three weeks. I was going to bed, not sure if we all wake up the next day,” Kozich remembers.
But the air defenses now protecting the capital make her feel safer in Kyiv than anywhere else in Ukraine — so much so that she’s afraid of venturing beyond the city.
“I was even afraid to take my kids for a summer vacation because I knew other regions unfortunately do not have as strong air defense as we now do. And I feel so much pain for Ukrainians from other regions, who are still forced to live under daily Russian bombardment,” Kozich said.
When the full-scale Russian invasion launched on February 24, 2022, a desperate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for the West to close Ukraine’s skies to Russian aviation and missiles. That didn’t happen, but Ukraine’s allies have steadily sent some of their best air defense systems to help protect the country’s cities, and especially Kyiv.
When the war broke out, Kyiv relied on Soviet-era S-300 and Buk M1 medium-range anti-missile systems — a problem as replacement missiles are largely made by Russia.
Those defenses have now been beefed up by short-range Gepard systems from Germany and Avenger Short-Range Air Defense from the U.S. to knock down drones and cruise missiles. At medium range, Ukraine is using MIM-23 Hawks from the U.S. made by Raytheon; NASAMS, developed by Raytheon and Norway’s Kongsberg; and Germany’s IRIS-T SLM. Long-range defenses are provided by the U.S. Patriot PAC-3 and the Eurosam SAMP/T supplied by France and Italy.
Ukrainian air defense troops have shown they are capable of integrating modern systems with Soviet ones, Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, told POLITICO.
“We continue to expect support from allies and partners. We need more air defense. Diverse. And not only for the capital but also for every Ukrainian city. Each anti-aircraft missile complex is worth its weight in gold,” Popko said.
“We were waiting for those Patriots like manna from heaven,” Kozich said. “It was such a relief.”
Soon, people from other regions, where air defense is not as strong, started moving to Kyiv and the surrounding region, even though it is still frequently attacked. This weekend Russia sent waves of drones against Kyiv, most of which were shot down.
Ukrainian air defense troops have shown they are capable of integrating modern systems with Soviet ones | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
“Your accuracy, guys, is literally life for Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in a weekend public address. “As winter approaches, there will be more Russian attempts to make the strikes more powerful. It is crucial for all of us in Ukraine to be one hundred percent effective.”
Safe haven
Ukraine’s cities have become lifeboats for people fleeing Russian attacks. Kyiv and the surrounding region now host almost 600,000 displaced people from other parts of Ukraine, the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration estimated in September. Other large cities are also seeing influxes of internal refugees, with about half a million now sheltering each in the Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions.
“The first active phase of internal migration began immediately after the liberation of the Kyiv region. People from cities where active hostilities were taking place were coming at that time. Then, when Patriot arrived, people from Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia began to actively move and look for housing in Kyiv, explaining this by the fact that Kyiv is protected and fewer missiles are flying here than in their cities,” said Oleksandr Zhytiuk, a local realtor.
“Ukrainians from abroad also started to return after this May, when Russians were shelling us almost daily, proving the effectiveness of air defense. Today people believe it is calmer in Kyiv,” he added.
That’s led to a jump in local real estate prices from a collapse in the early months of the war.
Before the full-scale invasion, about 3.9 million people lived in the Ukrainian capital. By the spring of 2022, however, 1.9 million had fled, said Denys Sudilkovsky, brand and business director of LUN, an online real estate platform. Most are now back.
“Back then it was not uncommon to find offers to rent apartments in Kyiv for the cost of utilities,” Sudilkovsky said.
Rental prices had almost returned to pre-invasion levels by the fall of 2022, according to LUN data.
“The return of people slowed down when Russians started shelling energy infrastructure. However, the winter of 2022-2023 showed Kyiv is capable of protecting its skies with modern Western air defense systems, and already from the spring of 2023, we began to observe a further increase in demand for long-term rental housing in Kyiv,” Sudilkovsky said.
Still a war zone
But the capital isn’t entirely safe — as this weekend’s attacks showed. Air raid sirens still howl almost daily, and Ukrainian officials urge people to remain cautious, Popko said.
“With the additional air defense systems, the level of protection of the capital from air attacks has become better. But I never get tired of repeating that the best defense is to go to the shelter during an air alert. Bitter experience proves that even shot-down missiles carry a deadly threat due to numerous debris,” he said.
While people in Kyiv do feel safer, those in Ukraine’s eastern and southern regions are still suffering from daily bombardments. Russians are hitting Odesa and its strategic port, as well as the regions of Kherson, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia.
“I still remember the sound I heard when our Patriot shot down the first [Russian hypersonic] Kinzhal missile this summer. After that I know whatever Russians shoot at us, our air defense will shoot it down. However, other cities still cannot allow the luxury of feeling like I do,” Kozich said, adding she is still afraid to leave the city to go to her country house.
The Ukrainian government has been urging its allies to provide more air defenses to cover other cities.
“The more protected the Ukrainian skies, Ukrainian cities, and villages are, the more opportunities our people will have for economic activity, for production, among other things, [for] defense industries, ” Zelenskyy said in a video statement.
The Ukraine president also said Kyiv wants to co-produce weapons with its partners, and expects its allies to send more air defense systems by the end of the year to fend off Russia’s anticipated winter attacks on energy infrastructure.
“Russians are insidious, and intimidation of civilians with missile terror is one of their strategies. They will never give up shelling civilians and infrastructure. Therefore, we must be sure we have something to protect our people,” Kozich said.
BRUSSELS — When EU digital chief Věra Jourová sat down in Beijing with a senior Chinese official in September, her complaint list was as long as the 11-course dinner her host had prepared.
Sore points included Beijing’s disinformation campaigns, electoral interference, state control over Artificial Intelligence development, and ties with Russia.
Predictably, Jourová didn’t get many straight answers from her counterpart, Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing. It’s a nail-biting time to be a politician in China, as major figures such as Qin Gang and Li Shangfu have recently been purged as foreign and defense ministers, and no one wants to be accused of making big concessions to the West.
Then, in a sudden surprise initiative, Zhang said he was ready to offer a goodie to European businesses facing an increasingly hostile political environment in President Xi Jinping’s China. He explained Beijing was willing to move on data flows — a sphere where China has been trying to curb the ability of foreign companies to export data generated within the country. All that data is a goldmine for European business, but China guards it zealously.
A deal on data flows was a big call from Zhang, but can be explained by China’s growing fears about its precarious economy. While security is front-and-center to Chinese policymakers, they also know they have to offer some big carrots to keep foreign investors onside.
“You could feel that something clicked on the spot,” said an EU official with knowledge of the discussion, recalling the heated debates on data over Chinese delicacies like beef in lotus leaves and dim sum.
Although the dinner happened in September, three officials with knowledge of China’s switching tack have only now explained how the change of heart in Beijing came about.
“The vice-premier told her he understood the proposal makes sense, and asked the relevant authorities to take the matter forward,” the first official said. Zhang immediately turned to his junior colleagues from the Cyberspace Administration of China and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. “You had a feeling that that was the moment the big guy gave the go-ahead.”
According to another official, when Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis visited Beijing shortly after Jourová, he received the final confirmation of the changes to the data laws from his counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng, an influential economic aide to President Xi Jinping.
Shortly afterward, China agreed to reverse the burden of proof under the relevant laws, allowing most data stored in China to be transferred out of the country unless expressly excluded by the authorities. EU officials, though, cautioned that they’ll still wait to see how Chinese authorities at all levels implement the new provision.
Special gift to Europe
Even though U.S., Japanese and other companies had also been pushing for this kind of measure from Beijing on data, China offered the diplomatic win to the EU.
The European Union Chamber of Commerce, among the first to be notified when Beijing made the legal revision, sent Jourová a congratulatory letter, seen by POLITICO.
China’s Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing | Lintao Zhang/Getty Images
“Make no mistake, China is merely fixing a problem of its own making,” the second official noted. “It’s not an act of benevolence. It’s an act of self-correction.”
Still, that self-correction is far from a given under a nationalistic government facing stiff competition from the U.S.
Increasingly, China’s uncompromising ideological focus is forcing many companies to adjust their business strategies, including by taking their new investments out of China. Indeed, the EU and the rest of the G7 rich democracies are calling on their companies to “de-risk,” as Russia’s war against Ukraine prompts concerns about a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
According to a report issued Wednesday by Penta, a business research group, one in five EU policymakers considers China to be the most pressing issue facing the bloc — while only 16 percent of people say they’re open to working with companies from China, bottom of the list.
It’s against this backdrop that Beijing wants — and needs — to throw some bones to the EU.
“For sure there’s a lot of self-interest for China [to give EU the data deal], where there’s a sharp drop of foreign direct investment which China desperately needs,” the first official said.
European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images
Over the past three months, Beijing has welcomed a long line of EU officials in a thaw from the 2021 low point where China’s sanctions on EU politicians and intellectuals were followed by an indefinite freeze of a massive EU-China trade deal, which remains unratified.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her European Council counterpart Charles Michel are expected to attend an EU-China Summit in December and meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.
EU officials should use China’s underperforming economy — most specifically in the real estate sector — as leverage, according to Luisa Santos, deputy director of BusinessEurope, a Brussels-based lobby group, who is currently visiting China.
Speaking before her trip, Santos described the Chinese economy as “not in a great situation,” adding that EU officials should seize this opportunity to convince Beijing to open up further.
“China needs to recognize that what is happening in our bilateral relationship is something that is not sustainable,” she said.
BRUSSELS — The EU will deliver a million artillery shells to Ukraine — but not by the March deadline leaders had agreed, the CEO of the European Defence Agency Jiří Šedivý told POLITICO.
The agency has been at the heart of efforts to transform the bloc’s military industry by matching contractors with capitals in massive joint ammunition deals targeted at boosting local production and supplying arms to Ukraine.
The million shell target was decided by EU leaders last March to support Kyiv in its fight against invading Russian forces, but there were deep divisions over the success of the policy during Tuesday’s meeting of defense ministers in Brussels.
Some, like Germany Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, said the target wouldn’t be reached and questioned the sense of setting it in the first place, while others, like Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, said the bloc was capable of producing enough ammunition — as long as governments sign contracts with arms-makers.
The EDA chief leans toward a more optimistic assessment.
“The target of 1 million will be achieved — maybe even beyond that — but indeed, the timeline is too ambitious,” Šedivý said in an interview just hours after meeting defense ministers in his role as the chief of the bloc’s technical agency.
So far, EU countries have dispatched around 300,000 shells to Ukraine, with the EDA running a second track to jointly procure ammo to refill national stocks as well as provide further support to Ukraine.
In October, the agency said seven member countries agreed to place orders for critical 155 millimeter ammunition under a fast-track joint procurement scheme.
While the EDA won’t disclose the total volume of those contracts, Šedivý said that, coupled with national orders from larger countries like Germany, France and Sweden, it would add up to “lower 100,000s of ammunition” which would still put the bloc well beneath the 1 million mark.
“The orders are just being placed,” Šedivý, a former Czech defense minister, said. “The industry is just being engaged.”
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said Tuesday at the ministerial that contractors should be urged to boost deliveries to countries supplying Ukraine by curbing exports to non-EU clients.
But that’s easier said than done.
Some, like Germany Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, said the target wouldn’t be reached and questioned the sense of setting it in the first place | Tobia Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images
“It’s quite unrealistic to imagine that customers outside the EU would accept any reprioritization,” Šedivý said.
Instead, governments need to start committing to contracts running “five to 10 years” to spur investment in the EU, Šedivý added, in the same way that healthcare firms got bulk orders to build up stocks of COVID masks and testing kits during the pandemic.
“We will not achieve this [million rounds] target by March 2024, most probably,” he said. “But at the same time we are getting there.”
Freshly minted House Speaker Mike Johnson is defending his plan to fund U.S. aid to Israel by gutting the Internal Revenue Service as evidence of Republicans “trying to be good stewards of the taxpayer’s resources,” even as research points to the plan adding significantly to the government deficit.
Johnson’s first significant move since his meteoric rise to power was to push forward with a bill to pay for a $14.3 billion aid package for Israel by cutting the same amount from the IRS.
The bill, which passed the House largely along party lines on Thursday, faces a steep uphill battle in the Senate, given that Majority Leader Chuck Schumerpromises to avoid bringing it up for a vote.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he’d prefer to have the Israel aid incorporated into a broader aid package that would include funding to Ukraine and Taiwan as well as reforms to U.S. border policy. President Joe Biden—who in October proposed a $106 billion foreign aid package that would do just that—has also threatened to veto the House legislation if it comes across his desk
Johnson defended his plan in a Sunday interview with Fox News’ Shannon Beam. “We weighed priorities and said, ‘It is more important to protect Israel than to hire more IRS agents,’” he said.
“Instead of printing new dollars or borrowing it from another nation to send over to fulfill our obligations and help our ally, we want to pay for it. What a concept,” he added. “We are trying to change how Washington works.”
A nonpartisan report released by the Congressional Budget Office challenges Johnson’s assessment and finds that the plan would actually result in over $26 billion in lost government revenue over the next decade, which translates to adding over $12 billion to the deficit.
That’s because the cuts target funding to the agency provided by Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act that focuses on making it easier for people to pay their taxes and for the agency to crack down on wealthy tax cheats.
“All of those [Inflation Reduction Act] funds go to increased scrutiny on tax evasion going on at the highest wealth — that is millionaires, billionaires, large corporations and large complex partnerships,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfelsaid last week. “When you reduce those audits, you reduce the amount of money that we can collect and return to the Treasury for other priorities,” Werfel predicted the GOP plan would add up to $90 billion to the deficit.
In his Sunday interview, Johnson dodged a question from Beam about whether his plan would add to the deficit. “Right now, we have a $33.6 trillion deferral debt. Just last week, the Treasury Department of the Biden administration said we’re going to have to borrow over $1.5 trillion over the next two quarters, six months to continue our operation as a government,” Johnson said. “This is not a sustainable track. We can take care of our obligations, but we can do it in a responsible manner, and that’s what we’re committed to.”
Johnson also defended the House GOP’s plans to marry funding for Ukraine with funding for the U.S. southern border. “When you couple Ukraine and the border, that makes sense to people,” he said. “If we’re going to protect Ukraine’s border … we have to take care of our own border first.”
Though the House’s Israel aid bill is almost certainly dead on arrival in the Senate, Johnson’s intransigence does mean that Congress will likely continue to struggle to approve any emergency spending plan that would provide aid to Israel and Ukraine in the coming weeks.
The number of Russian troops that Kyiv says has been “liquidated” has gradually increased from between 300 and 600 a day since early July to between 600 and 1,000 soldiers since early October. Since July, the lowest-recorded daily total was 320 on September 26 and while, on August 8, there was a high of 820. Most daily losses were in the region of 600. Newsweek could not as yet independently verify the figures. Estimates of casualty numbers vary, given the changing nature of the conflict.
However, in its update on Saturday, Ukraine said that Russia had faced losses of 830. This took the total over the course of the war that started on February 24, 2022 to 304,100. The grim milestone of 300,000 was reached earlier this week.
Ukraine’s tally of Russian losses of both troops and equipment is higher than other estimates. At the end of October, British defense officials said that Russia had lost between 150,000 and 190,000 personnel. This comprised those either killed or permanently injured, although it did not include soldiers from the Wagner Group of mercenaries. The U.K. Ministry of Defence said that the push for Avdiivka was behind the rise in losses.
An airstrike on the Metinvest coke plant is seen in the background on October 30, 2023 in Avdiivka, Ukraine. Ukraine has released figures it says show a spike in Russia troop losses, as Moscow undertakes an offensive towards the Donetsk town. (Vlada Liberova/Getty Images
Meanwhile, figures from the investigation outlet Mediazona, in collaboration with the BBC News Russian service, which draws on publicly accessible sources, have calculated that, as of Saturday, 35,780 Russian soldiers have been killed.
It said on November 3, that the actual number of deaths is likely much higher and it had previously estimated that, by the end of May 2023, Vladimir Putin‘s invasion of Ukraine had killed 47,000 Russians below the age of 50. Again, Newsweek could not as yet independently verify the figures.
In its update released Friday, Mediazona said that 900 names of Russian dead had been added to the list. Obituaries came in from losses in the battle for Avdiivka, a Ukrainian strike at a ship in Sevastopol and those killed from the ATACMS strikes on the Berdyansk and Luhansk airports on October 17.
Mediazona added that most of those killed in action come from the Russian regions, namely Sverdlovsk, Bashkiria, Chelyabinsk and Buryatia.
Russian troops have made confirmed gains on Avdiivka, according to the U.S.-based independent think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW). It said that geolocated footage published on Friday showed Moscow’s advances 2½ miles north of the city.
The Ukrainian General Staff said its troops had repelled more than 17 Russian assaults north, west and southwest of the town.
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.
Russian President Vladimir Putin during a press conference on Oct. 13,2023, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
Contributor | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Russia is watching very closely as Western nations try to build alliances in what has traditionally been seen as its “backyard” and sphere of influence.
One top official in Moscow was fuming as he claimed the West was “luring” its “neighbours, friends, and allies” away from Russia.
The latest Western leader to court Central Asia is French President Emmanuel Macron. Visiting oil- and mineral-rich Kazakhstan on Wednesday, he complimented the former Soviet state for refusing to side with Moscow against Ukraine.
“I don’t underestimate by any means the geopolitical difficulties, the pressures … that some may be putting on you,” Macron said as he addressed his Kazakh counterpart, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, in Astana.
“France values … the path you are following for your country, refusing to be a vassal of any power and seeking to build numerous and balanced relations with different countries,” he said.
The French leader’s comments are likely to have enraged Moscow, which is already watching Western efforts to court Central Asia with suspicion and disdain. CNBC has asked the Kremlin to comment on Macron’s trip and is awaiting a response.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview last week that the West was trying to pull Russia’s “neighbours, friends and allies” away from it.
“They have created numerous formats such as ‘Central Asia plus’ involving the United States, the EU, and Japan … On top of the Central Asia plus EU format, the Germans have created their own format. The French won’t be wasting time and will do the same,” he said.
“These frameworks for diplomatic engagements are aimed at luring our Central Asian neighbours, friends, and allies towards the West which promises them economic and trade incentives and delivers relatively modest aid programmes.”
L-R: Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, Turkmenistan President Serdar Berdimuhamedow, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko enter the hall during the Commonwealth of Independent States’ Head of States Meeting at the Ala-Archa State Residence on Oct. 13, 2023, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
Contributor | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Lavrov said alliances with the West could not be “compared with the benefits the Central Asian countries enjoy from cooperating with Russia … in sensitive areas such as border security, law enforcement training, and traditional security.”
He claimed that Western countries were “funneling money and resources into equipment and technology supplied to these regions” in a bid to woo them, adding, “We openly discuss these matters with our Central Asian brothers.”
Mark Galeotti, a London-based political scientist, lecturer and author of several books on Russia, told CNBC Thursday that Macron’s visit to Central Asia would have touched a nerve in Moscow but that Central Asia had increasingly been looking elsewhere, to Europe, China and the United States, for trade and security guarantees.
“Yes, the Russians are grumbling at what they see as Macron’s posturing … but it’s more that this kind of initiative reminds them of the fact that, really, they are losing their authority in Central Asia.”
“There clearly is concern [in Russia at Central Asia’s geopolitical trajectory], but more than anything else, I think the concern is driven by a painful awareness, that, in a way, Central Asia has already been lost,” Galeotti said.
“Essentially, Moscow’s main hold on Central Asia had long been, essentially, as a security guarantor,” he noted, adding that “Russia was the country you went to when you were looking for assistance in security matters.”
“But ever since February of last year [when it invaded Ukraine], we’ve seen a very rapid decline in Russia’s authority in Central Asia.”
The degree to which a sense of “brotherhood” is felt in Central Asia’s leadership toward Russia is debatable.
Central Asian states have to tread a fine line with Moscow, being careful not to alienate or antagonize their powerful neighbor while also trying to forge their own independent international trade and foreign policies with the West and China.
This ambivalent position has often led Central Asian states “sitting on the fence” when it comes to certain geopolitical matters, such as the war in Ukraine.
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, as well as neighboring Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan, were among 35 U.N. members that abstained on a U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s annexation of four mostly Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine last year. Central Asian state Tajikistan was absent from the vote.
Voting results shown during a U.N. General Assembly emergency meeting to discuss Russian annexations in Ukraine at the U.N. headquarters in New York City on Oct. 12, 2022.
Ed Jones | Afp | Getty Images
Only one of Russia’s neighbors, Belarus — its closest ally in its backyard — was among the five countries to reject the resolution condemning the annexation of the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions. The other countries were North Korea, Nicaragua, Russia and Syria.
Central Asian states have been accused of helping Russia to dodge Western sanctions imposed on it for the invasion of Ukraine, with European and Chinese products exported to Central Asia and then funneled into Russia.
Nonetheless, the war in Ukraine has created the irony that a distracted Russia has lost a degree of power, control and leverage over its own wider “backyard” made up of former Soviet states, stretching from the South Caucasus region — which includes Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia — to Central Asia.
Russia has already felt aggrieved to see former Soviet republics incorporated into the West, such as Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, and to watch as others like Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova head in the same direction. Kyiv’s leaning toward the West over the past 20 years laid the foundation for the conflict we see today, with Russia looking to reassert its power and influence over its neighborhood.
Russia’s “final backstop of authority was the possibility that it could invade or intervene,” Galeotti noted, “but now, with 97% of the Russian army mired in Ukraine, no one’s really worried about that anymore.”
There’s certainly a tussle for influence that’s taking place in Central Asia, with China also “courting” the region to a certain extent.
China held a summit with Central Asian states in early summer, months before U.S. President Joe Biden met with the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in September, as part of the first ever presidential summit of the “C5+1” format launched in 2015. The group pledged to expand their economic and security cooperation.
Jim Watson | Afp | Getty Images
Alexander Titov, lecturer in modern European history at Queen’s University of Belfast, told CNBC that the position of Central Asian states — “squeezed” between Russia to the west, China to the east and Afghanistan to the south — added complexity and nuance to the region’s international relations.
Still, while Russia has been vocally critical of Europe’s and the U.S.’ engagement with Central Asia, it has been ostensibly less so when it comes to its ally China. Analysts say this is based on Moscow’s calculation that China will remain more of a backseat partner in the region, for now at least.
Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, chairman of the People’s Council of Turkmenistan, at the Third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, in Beijing on Oct. 19, 2023.
“While there clearly is alignment between Russia and China when it comes to Central Asia, and particularly when it comes to keeping ‘the West’ out of the region after the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Russia is unlikely to relinquish completely its traditional grip on the region, nor is China likely to actively wrestle Moscow for greater control in the near future,” global security analysts Anastassiya Mahon and Stefan Wolff wrote in analysis for the U.K.-based Foreign Policy Centre think tank.
“While there is undoubtedly a rebalancing of power afoot between Russia and China, this is likely to take the form of a gradual power transition.”
The analysts noted that “while the West will hardly be seen as an alternative in such a hegemonic power transition from Russia to China, the transition itself, nevertheless, offers opportunities.”
The U.S., U.K., and EU can strengthen their own engagement and cooperation with Central Asia, they noted, “precisely because this presents the states there with a chance for some re-balancing of their own and for strengthening their traditional aspiration for a multi-vector foreign policy.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday claimed without evidence that some Western weapons intended for Ukraine have been sold to the Taliban on the illegal arms market.
Putin made the accusation during a meeting with members of the Russian Civic Chamber while discussing what he characterized as a high level of corruption in the Ukrainian government.
According to Reuters, Jürgen Stock, the head of Interpol, warned last year that a portion of the steady stream of guns and heavy arms being provided to Ukraine for its defenses against Putin’s invading forces could end up being purchased by organized crime groups on the international arms market. However, Ukrainian officials have maintained they keep a close watch on weapons sent from Western allies.
But Putin said some weapons sent to Kyiv’s military have already been sold because, according to him, “everything is for sale” in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday is shown during a meeting with the Russian Civic Chamber in Moscow. During the meeting, Putin claimed without proof that Western weapons sent to Ukraine have been sold to the Taliban. Getty Images
“Now they say: Weapons are getting into the Middle East from Ukraine. Well, of course they are, because they are being sold,” Putin said, according to a Reuters translation of his comments. “And they are being sold to the Taliban, and from there, they go onto wherever.”
Newsweek reached out to the Russian and Ukrainian ministries of foreign affairs via email for comment Friday night.
TASS, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, also reported on Putin’s claim about Western weapons being bought by the Taliban. Putin reportedly went on at length about Ukraine and his accusations of corruption there.
“In Russia, we have plenty of problems. We, in Russia, and in the entire world are fighting corruption, but corruption in Ukraine has taken on a life of its own—there is nothing like it in the world, you can take it from me,” he said, according to TASS.
The Russian president—who has been accused of rigging national elections and keeping tight control over what is reported by his country’s media—then claimed former Ukrainian leaders used to quote prices to him for the cost of getting things done.
“Believe me, I had close contacts with [Ukraine’s] former leaders—they buy everything: The vote in the Supreme Court, the vote in the Constitutional Court. Buy!” he said, per TASS.
Putin reportedly added: “This coming from the highest officials! I was taken aback! I said: ‘This is how you do things here?’ [And the answer was]: ‘Well, yes, this is the way it is here.'”
While admitting that there is a level of corruption in Russia, Putin described the situation as worse in Ukraine.
“The scope is different: There [in Ukraine], corruption is actually legal,” he said.
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.
In first news conference, new House Speaker promises to do nothing at all unless the IRS stops harassing his rich friends.
On Thursday, newly-minted House Speaker Mike Johnson (R. LA) held his first formal news conference since assuming the speakership last week. Appearing at Georgetown Dunkin’ Donuts, Johnson met with nearly a score of reporters, all but one of whom worked for Fox News, Breitbart News, or the Drudge Report.
Mike Johnson caricature by DonkeyHotey, flickr.com.
The one exception, Ali Vitali of MSNBC, had her mike turned off when she posed her question, and so she received no response from the speaker.
In his opening statement, the speaker dusted off a page from FDR, and cited “7 freedoms inherent in American life,” which include freedom from debt; freedom to practice any (Christian) religion; freedom to own, bear, and “righteously use” arms in defense of the border, or against BLM, undocumented immigrants, and homosexual groomers. “And I’m not talking about dog groomers,” he added with a twinkle and his now familiar boyish grin.
Johnson went on to compare America to a family, noting that there were things that “every family had to do” to survive. He cited “Your weird uncle Eddie,” now too old to take care of himself. He drew parallels between a hypoethetical “Eddie” and Joe Biden, whom Johnson said was “on his last legs, both physically and mentally.”
He said he looked forward to a good working relationship with the “presidential imposter.” Johnson added that every family must hew to a budget, meaning that not every whim could be catered to. The examples he cited here were Food Stamps, Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.
The speaker then segued to questions from the assembled reporters, pausing for just an instant to request more coffee and another donut, which he chewed loudly, with his mouth open.
When asked his opinion of increased aid to Israel, he said he was a strong proponent of new aid to the beleaguered nation, which is now at war with the terrorist group Hamas. Johnson said that the “Democrat Party” should not turn aid to Israel into a political football by tying it to supplemental aid to Ukraine, which he characterized as a “territorial dispute with our good friend and ally Vladimir Putin.”
Johnson said he would consider more aid to Ukraine, however, but only if it is offset by the deletion of appropriations to the Internal Revenue Service, whom he said was “conducting a witch-hunt” among “the more civilized classes” of billionaires. “America,” he said, “was built on the back of the wealthy.”
Johnson was asked if there was “reliable evidence” pointing to reasons to impeach the current president. The speaker replied that he had personally served on the defense team of the president, both times he was impeached, and that in the current political environment he didn’t think a third impeachment of Trump was in the offing.
Concerning a budget bill, Johnson said he favored a tiered or “laddered continuing resolution,” whereby funds for essential services and purchases could be approved, leaving the rest “for later.” Asked what should be immediately approved, he mentioned the military, congressional salaries, and aid to Israel. When pressed on what might be left for later, he cited “non-essential budgetary items,” such as most entitlements, infrastructure — “because it was a Democrat idea” — and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and other so-called health agencies. “Anthony Fauci should be put in jail,” he muttered with some heat, “along with Joe and Hunter Biden.”
As the news conference wound down, Johnson was asked by Steve Bannon, representing Breitbart News: “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be and why?” reprising Barbara Walter’s famous query of actress Katherine Hepburn decades ago. Johnson stared thoughtfully into space for a moment, thanked Bannon for the “important but difficult question,” then replied, “Naturally, a White Birch or a White Popular, and I think the reasons are obvious.”
Bill Tope is a retired (caseworker, cook, construction worker, nude model for art classes, and so on) who lives with his mean little cat Baby.
