Tag: Ukraine

Ukraine reclaims more territory in region captured by Russia

Ukraine said its forces have retaken more settlements in Kherson, one of four partially Russian-occupied regions that President Vladimir Putin formally incorporated into Russia in Europe’s biggest annexation since World War II.

With Russian forces retreating from front lines in the south and east, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a late Wednesday address that Novovoskresenske, Novohryhorivka and Petropavlivka to the northeast of Kherson city had been “liberated”.

At the United Nations, Russia is lobbying for a secret ballot instead of a public vote next week when the 193-member UN General Assembly considers whether to condemn its annexation of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south after staging referendums there.

Putin signed a law on Wednesday to incorporate the regions into Russia.

Ukraine says it will never accept an illegal seizure of its territory by force. Kyiv and the West said the referendums were rigged votes held at gunpoint.

The new law would incorporate about 18 per cent of Ukraine’s territory into Russia.

Putin says he wants to ensure Russia’s security and protect Russian-speakers in Ukraine. Kyiv accuses Moscow of a land grab.

Russia’s move to annex the regions raises the possibility of an escalation in the war, as Putin and other officials have said they could use nuclear weapons to protect Russian territory including the annexed provinces.

Ukraine has said it will not be cowed by any nuclear threats and Zelenskiy said in his address he and his senior military officials met to discuss recovering all lands occupied by Russia.

Switching from Ukrainian to Russian, Zelenskiy addressed pro-Moscow forces, telling them they had already lost.

“Ukrainians know what they are fighting for. And more and more citizens of Russia are realising that they must die simply because one person does not want to end the war,” he said in a reference to Putin.

Moscow’s map of Ukraine appears to show shrinking areas it controls.

A map of “new regions” published by state news agency RIA included the full territory of the Ukrainian provinces, but some parts were labelled as being under Ukrainian military control.

Ukraine’s military in the south said its forces had killed at least 58 Russian fighters, destroyed nine tanks, 17 armoured vehicles and four howitzers.

Overnight, seven Russian missiles hit the city of Zaporizhzhia, damaging or destroying several buildings and causing fires and injuries, regional governor Oleksandr Starukh said.

“Rescuers are already pulling people out from under the rubble,” he added.

October 6, 2022
Vladimir Putin: A nuclear-armed incarnate of Adolf Hitler – By Dennis Onakinor
Summary

Dennis Onakinor draws parallels between Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Nazi German leader – Adolf Hitler, observing that while Hitler committed suicide amidst humiliating defeat in the 2nd World War, Putin is more likely to resort to the use of nuclear weapons if faced with defeat in the ongoing war in Ukraine. He highlights the dangers of nuclear weapons, and warns against their use under any circumstance, noting that a nuclear exchange between Russia and the US can only end in a nuclear Armageddon.

Full Article

As the Nazi German leader, who sought to impose on the world his totalitarian ideology rooted in Aryan racial superiority dogma, the story of the meteoric rise and ignominious fall of Adolf Hitler between 1933 – 1945 is well-known. What is not well-known is whether Hitler, who went by the title of “Der Further” (The Leader), would have chosen the path of suicide when faced with humiliating defeat, had nuclear weapons been part of his war machine that effortlessly conquered eight European countries between 1939 – 1941, before the beleaguered Soviet Union and Britain rallied to turn the tables, with the help of America.

With benefit of hindsight, historians posit that if Nazi Germany, instead of America, had won the race for the development of nuclear weapons during the 2nd World War, Hitler and the Axis powers of Italy and Japan might not have succumbed to defeat. For, being the unscrupulous tyrant that he was, Hitler would certainly have subjected the opposing Allied powers to a nuclear blackmail, threatening to vaporize them in a hail of nuclear bombs, just as President Harry Truman threatened to unleash “a rain of ruin from the air” upon a recalcitrant Japan that was still reeling from the devastations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Apparently, President Vladimir Putin of Russia has studied the life and times of Hitler, with whom he shares the leadership traits of ultra-nationalism, irredentism, and militarism. And, he must have arrived at the conclusion that the only reason the Allied powers dared to call Hitler’s bluff was the realization that his overstretched and exhausted military machine had no backup strategy. Hence, they launched unrelenting counterattacks that saw the once-invincible German war machine beat humiliating retreats until they laid siege to its doorstep, prompting Hitler to take the easy way out via a double-suicide involving long-time lover, Eva Braun, on April 30, 1945.

Unlike Hitler, whose awesome military might was tactically vanquished by the Allied forces as the 2nd World War progressed, Putin has an ace up his sleeve in the ongoing war in Ukraine: nuclear deterrence. To boot, he rams this fact down the throat of his Ukrainian and NATO adversaries at every opportunity, reminding them that Russia would not hesitate to deploy its nuclear weapons if they pose an existential threat to the “Motherland.”

On September 21, 2022, while announcing the referendums that were designed to legitimize Russian annexation of occupied Ukrainian regions of Donesk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye, Putin once again hinted at Russia’s readiness to use nuclear weapons in the ongoing war in Ukraine: “Washington, London and Brussels are openly encouraging Kiev to move the hostilities to our territory. They openly say that Russia must be defeated on the battlefield by any means … I would like to remind those who make such statements regarding Russia that our country has different types of weapons as well, and some of them are more modern than the weapons NATO countries have. In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country, and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.”

Nine days later, on September 30, 2022, in course of announcing the annexation of the aforesaid Ukrainian regions, based on the stage-managed referendums, Putin again directed a similar nuclear threat to his Ukrainian and NATO adversaries: “I want the Kiev authorities and their true handlers in the West to hear me now, and I want everyone to remember this: the people living in Lugansk and Donetsk, in Kherson and Zaporozhye have become our citizens, forever … The decision has been made, and Russia will not betray it … We will defend our land with all the forces and resources we have, and we will do everything we can to ensure the safety of our people.”

For an untainted understanding of Putin’s nuclear threats, cognizance must be taken of the fact that the ongoing war in Ukraine is akin to a fight between two opponents, with one having his two hands tied behind his back. For, Russian forces are at liberty to attack Ukrainian targets with all types of lethal weapons stationed within and outside the war theatre of Ukraine, while Ukraine’s forces cannot attack Russian targets outside that theatre. This lopsided war situation is reinforced by the cautionary refusal of the US and its NATO allies to arm Ukraine with sophisticated long-range weapons capable of targeting Russian territory – a situation informed by their desire to avoid a direct military confrontation with Russia, thus averting a major conflagration in Europe.

Relatedly, Putin’s annexation of the aforesaid Ukrainian territories chimes with his calculation that Ukrainian forces would not dare to attack Russian targets within the annexed regions for fear of his retaliation with nuclear strikes, as he had been threatening of late. In this gamble, he might have miscalculated, for if Ukraine cowers away from reclaiming its annexed regions, he would certainly be emboldened to seize more territories, just as his 2014 annexation of the Crimea Region apparently served as an impetus for his latest course of action.

Historical lessons, such as Europe’s failed effort towards pacifying Hitler following his annexation of the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia in 1938, have shown that a swaggering militarist leader like Putin, cannot be appeased in his quest to conquer and annex the territories of a weak neighbouring country such as Ukraine. Like Hitler, Putin must be made to taste the bitter pills of defeat in order to realize his folly, although unlike Hitler, he is nuclear-armed and might irrationally resort to the weapons if humiliating defeat steers him in the face.

Retrospectively, Putin’s nuclear sabre-rattling did not begin with his ongoing senseless war in Ukraine. Back in March 2018, he gloated over Russia’s development of an advanced Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICMB) known as “Sarmat” that could attack targets across the globe from both the North and South poles. On that same occasion, he revealed that Russia had exclusive possession of nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles, one of which could travel at 20 times the speed of sound or Mach-20. Brimming with confidence, he issued a scarcely-disguised warning to the US and its NATO allies: “I hope that everything that was said today would make any potential aggressor think twice … Now we have to be aware of this reality and be sure that everything I have said today is not a bluff ‒ and it is not a bluff, believe me.”

And, to show that he was not “bluffing,” Putin re-echoed Russia’s nuclear policy as contained in its military doctrine: “Any use of nuclear weapons against Russia or its allies, weapons of short, medium or any range at all, will be considered as a nuclear attack on this country. Retaliation will be immediate, with all the attendant consequences.” Suffice to say that such nuclear threats have since become emblematic of his military posturing on the world’s stage.

In what could be likened to an ominous sign in his escalating nuclear threats, Putin alluded to America’s use of nuclear weapons against Japan during the 2nd World War, in course of his aforesaid September 30, 2022 national address: “The United States is the only country in the world that has used nuclear weapons twice, destroying the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. And they created a precedent.”

A nagging question arises from this statement. Since America “created a precedent” in the use of nuclear weapons, would Russia be compelled to follow that “precedent” in its ongoing war in Ukraine?

The answer to this question lies solely with Putin, since it is difficult to predict what course of action the former KGB spymaster, versed in the art of simulation and dissimulation, would take at any point in time. Although, it is predictable that his use of any nuclear weapon in Ukraine would certainly attract a counter-response from the US and its NATO allies. And, since Russia does not enjoy a “Nuclear First Strike Capability,” a tit-for-tat nuclear exchange is bound to ensue, with the end-result being an apocalyptic nuclear conflagration.

Atomic or hydrogen or neutron, a nuclear bomb is the ultimate weapon of mass destruction (WMD). Apart from the immediate mass-casualty, destruction, and misery arising from its heat and blast effects upon detonation, its radioactive fallouts can affect generations yet unborn in the form of cancerous ailments. Therefore, its use should never be entertained under any circumstance, contrary to Putin’s contemplation.

It would be recalled that the two atomic bombs, which devasted Hiroshima and Nagasaki – killing more than 200,000 inhabitants, had energy yields of 15-kilotons and 22-kilotons respectively. Those two bombs pale into insignificance when compared to the energy yields of the nuclear warheads currently maintained by some nuclear-armed countries like the US, Russia, Britain, and France, many of which are in the range of 50-megatons (3,300 times more powerful than the 15-kiloton bomb dropped on Hiroshima). With Russia and the US maintaining estimates of 5977 and 5428 warheads in their respective stockpiles, a nuclear confrontation between both global geopolitical rivals can only end in a nuclear Armageddon.

Nevertheless, as the war in Ukraine grinds on, with Putin continually threatening to unleash Russia’s nuclear capabilities, the international community is learning an important lesson: that irrespective of the danger posed to humanity by nuclear weapons, they are vital in deterring aggression. Among others, North Korea’s totalitarian regime exemplifies the deterrence role of nuclear weapons in contemporary world geopolitics.

Perhaps, Russia would not have dared to invade Ukraine had the latter not given up the nuclear weapons it inherited from the Soviet Union under the “1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances.” Alas, Ukraine is now learning the vital lesson of nuclear deterrence the hard way. And, in this wise, nuclear weapon-hungry states, like Iran, must be watching the ongoing events closely, in order to see how Putin plays his ace.
- Dennis Onakinor, a global affairs analyst, writes from Lagos – Nigeria. He can be reached via e-mail at dennisonakinor@yahoo.com
October 5, 2022
Putin declares Ukrainian provinces as part of Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared four Ukrainian provinces to be part of the Russian Federation as he signed a document to formally annex the regions occupied by Moscow’s troops.

The Russian president urged Kiev to recognize the annexation of the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson, conducted after referendums a week ago that Moscow said showed an overwhelming majority in favour of leaving Ukraine and joining Russia.

Kiev and Western powers denounced the five-day vote, which ended on Tuesday, saying the results were a foregone conclusion that would never be recognised internationally. There were reports of residents being coerced into voting, sometimes at gunpoint.

As expected, Russia vetoed a resolution in the UN Security Council condemning the Russian annexation as a violation of international law.

Ten countries voted in favour of the US-Albania-sponsored document in New York on Friday which also called on Russia to immediately withdraw from Ukraine.

Four countries in the most powerful UN body with a total of 15 members abstained. These were China, India, Brazil, and Gabon.

Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia criticised the vote on the draft resolution as a provocation and an openly hostile act.

Putin urged Ukraine to come to the negotiating table, in a bid to end the fighting that began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, however, ruled out negotiations with Putin. He said Ukraine is ready for dialogue with Russia, but only under a different Russian president. He also said his country is applying for an “accelerated” accession to NATO.

“De facto, we have already started our path to NATO. Today, Ukraine is applying to make it de jure (legal),” Zelensky said in a video published on Telegram.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said a membership “remains open” to the country and that the alliance supports “Ukraine’s rights to choose its own path to decide what kind of security arrangements it wants to be part of.”

However, he stressed the unanimity required among members for new applicants to join the alliance.

As the terms of NATO’s founding treaty considers an attack on one NATO ally an attack against all members – it is viewed as unlikely that the Western military alliance would allow a country at war like Ukraine to join the alliance.

After Putin’s speech, the European Union has vowed to never recognize the “illegal annexation” of the Ukrainian provinces.

“Russia is putting global security at risk,” read a joint statement from the 27 EU member states, calling on states and international organisations to reject the annexation.

“These decisions are null and void and cannot produce any legal effect whatsoever. Crimea, Kherson, Zaporizhzhya, Donetsk and Luhansk are Ukraine,” the statement read.

Top representatives of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) have condemned Moscow’s moves to annex Ukrainian territories as “illegal” and “unacceptable.”

The organization, of which Russia is a member, once again called on Moscow “to withdraw all its forces from across Ukraine.”

Stoltenberg, meanwhile, said this is “the largest attempted annexation of European territory by force since World War II” and that the alliance and its allies “will not, recognise any of this territory as part of Russia.”
Stoltenberg stressed that the move “represents the most serious escalation since the start of the war.”

The U.S. announced it is imposing further sanctions on Russia, with measures targeting among others, further Russian government representatives, their family members and members of the military.

Networks for the procurement of defence equipment, including international suppliers, are also affected.

“The United States condemns Russia’s fraudulent attempt today to annex sovereign Ukrainian territory,” U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday.

“The United States will always honor Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders.”

The areas annexed by Moscow have been occupied since soon after the start of Russian invasion.

Putin said last week that Moscow would see Ukrainian attacks on the annexed regions as attacks on Russia itself and would use all means to defend them – a thinly veiled reference to nuclear weapons.

Together with Crimea, nearly 20 per cent of Ukraine’s territory is under Russian control, although Kiev has reclaimed some of the occupied territory in recent weeks.

But the Kremlin said on Friday that speculation it would resort to nuclear weapons are only designed to spread fear.

“People who talk about nuclear escalation are acting very irresponsibly,” said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.

Despite the annexation, Kiev’s forces are making gains, with some of the recent fighting focused on Lyman, a small, strategically important town in Donetsk. But the fighting also meant more fatalities.

At least 23 people were dead after a rocket attack on a convoy of civilian vehicles near the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhya, with another 28 injured, according to the regional governor.

Zelensky lashed out at the attack, calling it Russian retribution for the unbroken Ukrainian resistance to its failed invasion.

“Only absolute terrorists operate this way, the kind of people for whom there is no place in the civilised world,” he wrote in the wake of the attack.

“Peaceful Ukrainians are being wiped out cynically because he long ago lost all of his humanity.”

However, the head of the Russian occupation authorities, Vladimir Rogov, wrote on Telegram that Ukrainian troops had fired the shot.

He also put the death toll at 23, but said there were 34 injured.

October 1, 2022
War: Russia begins formal annexation of four Ukrainian regions

Russian President, Vladimir Putin proclaimed an annexation of four Ukraine cities and has also vowed to protect them as properties of Russia.

This annexation has been considered the biggest in the world’s history after the end of World War 11 in 1945.

Putin’s attitude towards the annexation is seen as a defiance of international law and in spite of his forces facing another significant battlefield setback.

The cities Putin plans to annex are Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.

Recall that Kremlin initially belonged to Ukraine and was annexed by Russia in 2014.

According to a report emanating from Russia, it’s making correction of history “Russia is talking about this as a correction of history – saying that those regions and Russia have been wronged,” he added.

At a grand ceremony in the Kremlin, the Russian leader vowed to use “all available means” to defend the four regions he was coopting, repeating a renewed nuclear threat that has escalated the seven-month war alongside his call-up of military reservists.

“This is the will of millions of people,” Putin said Friday, words that few outside Russia see as credible for a move condemned in the West as a land-grab in brazen violation of international law.

His speech was followed by the pro-Russia leaders of the four areas of southern and eastern Ukraine signing documents proclaiming them part of Russia, before joining hands with Putin and singing the national anthem.

The United States, Ukraine and others have promised to retaliate with sanctions while Kyiv has vowed to keep fighting to retake its occupied land. The annexation was also overshadowed by a deadly attack on a civilian convoy in the country’s south.

However, in its reaction, Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has hit out at the move, saying that Putin wanted a war more than life.

UN chief Antonio Guterres also called it a dangerous escalation and a violation of the United Nations charter.

It comes as Ukrainian forces partially surround a strategic city in eastern Ukraine.

Meanwhile, a Russian rocket attack killed at least 25 in Zaporizhzhia, while another 50 were wounded.

September 30, 2022
U.S. warns Putin of ‘catastrophic’ consequences over nuclear weapons

United States National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the U.S. would respond decisively to any Russian use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine.

Sullivan said the United States has spelled out to Moscow the “catastrophic consequences” it would face.

His remarks represented the latest American warning following the thinly veiled nuclear threat made by Vladimir Putin last Wednesday in a speech in which the Russian president also announced his country’s first wartime military mobilization since World War Two.

Sullivan told NBC’s meet the press programme that “if Russia crosses this line, there will be catastrophic consequences for Russia. United States will respond decisively.

Sullivan did not describe the nature of the planned U.S. response in his comments on Sunday but said the United States has privately to Moscow “spelled out in greater detail exactly what that would mean.

According to him, the United States has been in frequent, direct contact with Russia, including during the last few days to discuss the situation in Ukraine and Putin’s actions and threats.

U.S. President Joe Biden in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday accused Putin of making “overt nuclear threats against Europe” in reckless disregard for nuclear nonproliferation responsibilities.

Russia also was staging a referendum in four eastern Ukrainian regions with the goal of annexing territory that Russian forces have taken during their invasion of Ukraine launched in February.

Ukraine and its allies have called the referendums a sham designed to justify an escalation of the war and Putin’s mobilization drive after recent battlefield losses.

Experts said by incorporating the areas of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia into Russia, Moscow could portray attacks to retake them as an attack on Russia itself, a warning to Ukraine and its Western allies.

However, after suffering setbacks on the battlefield, Putin was mobilizing 300,000 troops while also threatening to use “all available means” to protect Russia.

“This is not a bluff,” Putin said in the remarks viewed on the world stage as a threat on the potential use of nuclear weapons.

Sullivan added that “Putin remains intent on wiping out the Ukraine people that he does not believe have a right to exist.

“So he’s going to keep coming and we have to keep coming with weapons, ammunition, intelligence and all the support we can provide.”

September 26, 2022
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky Involved In Car crash

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was involved in a car accident on Thursday in Ukraine amid the ongoing war with Russia.

A motorist collided with a vehicle carrying Zelensky as his motorcade passed through Kyiv, though the president was not seriously injured in the accident, his spokesman said early Thursday morning.

This statement reads in part “In Kyiv, a passenger car collided with the car of the President of Ukraine and escort vehicles,” spokesman Sergiy Nikiforov said in a statement posted on Facebook at 1:22 am local time (22:22 GMT).

“Medics accompanying the President provided the driver of the passenger car with emergency aid and transferred him to an ambulance,” he continued.

“The president was examined by a doctor, no serious injuries were detected. The law enforcement officers will investigate all the circumstances of the accident.”

In his nightly televised address, video of which was posted shortly after the accident, Zelensky said he had just returned from the area around Kharkiv, adding that “almost the entire region is de-occupied” after a lightning counteroffensive to dislodge Russian troops.

“It was an unprecedented movement of our soldiers — the Ukrainians once again managed to do what many thought was impossible,” Zelensky said.

The war in Ukraine is entering a decisive phase, with Kyiv’s forces expelling Russian troops from swathes of the east, appearing to seriously challenge the Kremlin’s ambition to capture the entire Donbas region

The Russia and Ukraine war started on February 24th over Zelenky’s decision to link Ukraine with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

September 15, 2022
Russia gaining from conflict in Ukraine – Putin

President Vladimir Putin said Russia had gained, not lost, from the conflict in Ukraine because it was embarking on a new sovereign path that would restore its global clout.

Putin increasingly casts the conflict in Ukraine, which he calls a “special military operation”, as a turning point in history when Russia finally threw off the humiliations which accompanied the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.

In an attempt to underscore Russia’s tilt towards Asia, Putin, speaking to the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian Pacific city of Vladivostok, said that the West was failing while Asia was the future.

In his main speech, Putin hardly mentioned Ukraine beyond a reference to grain exports.

But when asked by a moderator if anything had been lost from the conflict, Putin said Russia had gained and would emerge renewed.

“We have not lost anything and will not lose anything,” said Putin, Russia’s paramount leader since 1999.

“Everything that is unnecessary, harmful and everything that prevents us from moving forward will be rejected.”

“In terms of what we have gained, I can say that the main gain has been the strengthening of our sovereignty, and this is the inevitable result of what is happening now,” Putin said.

He added: “This will ultimately strengthen our country from within.”

He did, though, acknowledge that the conflict had unleashed “a certain polarization” in both the world and in Russia.

Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 in what it called a special operation to degrade its southern neighbour’s military capabilities and root out people it called dangerous nationalists.

Ukrainian forces have mounted stiff resistance. Neither side has disclosed how many soldiers have been killed.

Putin’s assessment of Russian gains did not take account of NATO’s huge build-up of forces in eastern Europe and its planned admission of Sweden and Finland as members. Preventing NATO expansion was one of his stated objectives for intervening in Ukraine.

He also brushed aside the impact of sanctions that have starved Russian industry of key components like microchips, cut Russians off from international payment systems and led to the departure of thousands of Western companies.

The economy would contract by “around 2 per cent or a little more” this year and the budget would be in surplus, he said.

Putin, who turns 70 in October, told the West in July he was just getting started in Ukraine and dared the United States – which enjoys economic and conventional military superiority over Russia – to try to defeat Moscow.

It would, he said, fail.

The confrontation with the West over Ukraine has prompted Russia to accelerate a pivot towards Asia and particularly China, once a junior partner of the Soviet Union and now the world’s second largest economy.

For much of the past 300 years, Russia has looked to the West as the crucible of economic growth, technology and revolutionary ideas. In that period it has also twice been invaded from the West, by Napoleon and Hitler.

Putin, though, said that the West was failing because a futile and aggressive attempt to isolate Russia with sanctions was destroying the global economy just as Asia was rising to claim the future.

The United States and its allies imposed the most severe sanctions in modern history on Russia for its actions in Ukraine. Putin says the sanctions are akin to a declaration of economic war.

“I am speaking of the West’s sanctions fever, with its brazen, aggressive attempt to impose models of behaviour on other countries, to deprive them of their sovereignty and subordinate them to their will,” Putin said.

“In an attempt to resist the course of history, Western countries are undermining the key pillars of the world economic system built over centuries,” he said, adding that confidence in the dollar, euro and sterling was falling.

Among the guests at the forum was China’s top legislator Li Zhanshu, currently ranked No.3 in the Chinese Communist Party. Putin will meet China’s Xi Jinping next week in Uzbekistan.

Putin said that China would pay Gazprom for its gas in national currencies, based on a 50-50 split between the Russian rouble and Chinese yuan.

The West’s attempt to economically isolate Russia – one of the world’s biggest producers of natural resources – has propelled the global economy into uncharted waters with soaring prices for food and energy.

It has hurt Russia too.

Putin said Russia’s economy was coping with what he termed the financial and technological aggression of the West, but acknowledged some difficulties in some industries and regions.

He warned of a looming global food crisis and said he would discuss amending a landmark grain deal with Ukraine to limit the countries that can receive cargo shipments.

September 7, 2022
Russia admits it was behind Ukrainian train station strike

Russia’s Defence Ministry has confirmed that its forces were behind Wednesday’s missile strike on a railway station in central Ukraine that Kiev said left at least 25 people dead, including civilians.

However, Russian Defence Ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov claimed that more than 200 Ukrainian soldiers on their way to fight in the Donbass region had been killed in the attack in the central Dnipropetrovsk region town of Chaplyne.

No evidence was produced to support the claim that so many soldiers died, however. Konashenkov added that the rocket hit a part of the station used by the Ukrainian military and that military equipment had also been destroyed.

The Ukrainian authorities said that 25 people, including two children, had died in the attack, while at least 30 others were injured.

The deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said that both residential areas and railway infrastructure in Chaplyne had been targeted by Russian forces.

Tymoshenko said that an 11-year-old who was crushed under rubble and a 6-year-old killed in a car fire near the train station had been among the victims.

Neither the Russian nor the Ukrainian claims could be independently verified.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the attack, which was carried out on Ukraine’s Independence Day, which fell six months to the day after the Russian invasion began.

US President Joe Biden called Zelensky on Thursday to offer him his moral support and to promise Washington’s continuing backing for Kiev as the war entered its seventh month.

Ukrainian train stations and rail infrastructure have repeatedly been targeted during the war.

In April, at least 57 people died in an attack on a train station in the city of Kramatorsk in the eastern Donbass region.

Another recurring feature has been Russian efforts to take control of Ukrainian nuclear plants, which has led to worries that a miscalculation could result in a nuclear catastrophe.

Kiev said on Thursday that Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, which is occupied by Russian forces, had been disconnected from the Ukrainian electricity grid, though Ukrainian nuclear agency Enerhoatom stressed that the plant’s power supply, which is vital for its safetly, was being maintained.

In his Thursday night video address, Zelensky called on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to act with greater urgency over the contested plant:

“Every minute that the Russian military remains at the nuclear power plant means the risk of a global radiation disaster,” he stressed.

Moscow said that the last two last operational reactors at the plant had been forced to temporarily shut down due to Ukrainian shelling, though the Russian-installed governor of the Zaporizhzhya region, Yevgeny Balitsky, said on Telegram that one of the reactors had subsequently been restarted.

Kiev and Moscow have repeatedly blamed each other for the shelling of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.

According to Enerhoatom, all four of the power plant’s supply lines have now been damaged by Russian shelling.

Washington blasted Russia’s attempts to claim the plant and the energy it produced on Thursday.

“No country should turn a nuclear power plant into an active war zone,” said deputy State Department spokesperson Verdant Patel, adding that it was very clear that the energy produced at Zaporizhzhya belonged to Ukraine.

Also on Thursday, the Cluster Munitions Coalition (CMC) cited observers as saying that internationally-banned cluster munitions have been used in by Russian forces in Ukraine.

Calling the reports “shocking,” the CMC said that the munitions had caused hundreds of casualties since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine began in February.

“Preliminary data indicates at least 689 casualties reported during cluster munition attacks in Ukraine for the first half of 2022.

Many casualties may have gone unrecorded,” it added.

An 2008 international treaty bans cluster munitions, though many key countries, including the United States and Russia, are not signatories to the agreement.

In another hint that the war could still escalate, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday ordered a 137,000-person expansion of the Russian army, growing its entire personnel to over 2 million, including some 1.15 million troops.

No official reason was given for the increase.

August 26, 2022
WAR: Russia missile hit Ukraine train station, kills 22 persons

About 22 persons were feared killed when a Russian missile hit a train station in Eastern Ukraine, in an attack that brought home the harsh reality of the six-month-old war.

Zelensky said in an evening video address that “five of the dead were recovered from a car on the railway track, and search and rescue operations are ongoing.”

“Charlene is our pain today,” he added.

Over 50 people were injured in the shelling, according to earlier information. It’s not possible to independently verify the details.

“Rescuers are working,” President Zelensky said during a remote address to the U.N. Security Council via video. “But, unfortunately, the number of dead may still increase.”

“There is no such war crime that the Russian occupiers have not yet committed on the territory of Ukraine,” he said.

Ukrainian officials said that by Thursday morning about 25 had died while 31 persons are still injured.

meanwhile, hours before the strike, a rocket slammed into a house in the same area, killing an 11-year-old child, according to the official in the president’s office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko. Two children narrowly escaped with their lives, officials said. They had been buried under the rubble but were rescued by emergency crews.

The hostility between Russia and Ukraine started on the 24th of February after Russia claimed Ukraine had perfected plans to join NATO a body considered anti-Russia.

August 25, 2022
U.S. Embassy issues new security alert for Ukraine

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv has warned of an increased possibility of Russian military strikes on Ukraine in the coming days around Ukrainian independence day.

The embassy, again urged U.S. citizens to leave if they could.

“The Department of State has information that Russia is stepping up efforts to launch strikes against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and government facilities in the coming days,” the embassy said in an alert on its website.

“The U.S. Embassy urges U.S. citizens to depart Ukraine now using privately available ground transportation options if it is safe to do so,” the alert said, repeating the advice of previous security warnings.

Kyiv has banned public celebrations in the capital on the anniversary of independence from Soviet rule on Wednesday, citing a heightened threat of attack.

Near frontlines in the south of the country, Ukraine said Russia fired rockets into several towns north and west of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, captured by Russian forces shortly after they invaded Ukraine in February.

Artillery and rocket fire near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear reactor complex, on the south bank of the Dnipro River, led to calls for the area to be demilitarised.

Ukrainians living near the plant voiced fears that shells could hit one of the plant’s six reactors, with potentially disastrous consequences.

“Of course, we are worried. … It’s like sitting on a powder keg,” said Alexander Lifirenko, a resident of the nearby town of Enerhodar, now under control of pro-Moscow forces.

August 23, 2022