Ukraine Update…276 days into the Russian move on the Ukraine…Brittney Griner swapped …..

The WNBA player Brittney Griner was swapped for a Russian Arms dealer….

The handover happened in the U.A.E…..Neutral territory…

President Biden kept this low key to not allow the media to drag him into it…..

Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine remains in Russian custody…He doesn’t have media following …..

Russia gives up on annexing anymore Ukraine territory since the original area’s the Ukraine taken back mostly….

Russian efforts to make the Ukraine capital city Kyiv, unliveable may succeed ….(But I doubt it)

Russian IS worried about Ukraine troops pushing a offence INTO Russian territory ….

WNBA star Brittney Griner has been released from Russian detention and is on her way back to the United States, President Biden announced Thursday.

Moscow released the athlete in a swap for convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, according to two senior administration officials and a separate statement from Russia’s Foreign Ministry. Biden approved the release of Bout, commuting his 25-year prison sentence, of which he had served 10 years, one of the U.S. officials said.

Griner had been in Russian custody since her arrest at an airport near Moscow in February, when she was accused of entering the country with illegal vape cartridges containing less than a gram of cannabis oil. Her lawyers said it was prescribed as part of treatment for chronic pain and other conditions.

Biden stressed he has not forgotten about Paul Whelan, a former Marine imprisoned in Russia on espionage charges — even as some lawmakers criticized Biden for not securing Whelan’s release as well. A senior administration official told The Washington Post the choice was between bringing home Griner or no one….

More….

Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.

1. Key developments

Russia is not seeking to annex more Ukrainian territories, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday, a day after President Putin hailed the absorptions as positive results of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Peskov also described some of the regions illegally annexed by Russia in September as “occupied territories” that needed to be “liberated.”
The conflict in Ukraine has made oligarchs in the country less powerful, The Washington Post reports. The group of fewer than 20 wealthy people have long wielded outsize — and often, anti-corruption activists contend, malign — influence over the country — but experts say vast losses from the war and a newly energized population unwilling to accept the politics of the past could give Ukraine the opportunity to rebuild a postwar society that is more democratic.
Kyiv’s mayor warned that the Ukrainian capital faces an “apocalypse” this winter if Russian airstrikes continue. “Kyiv might lose power, water and heat supply. The apocalypse might happen, like in Hollywood films, when it’s not possible to live in homes considering the low temperature,” Mayor Vitali Klitschko told Reuters. He added that officials are doing “everything we can” to prevent this and said there is currently no need to evacuate residents.

2. Battleground updates

Russia has created an “almost continuous trench system” along a 37-mile strip of land between the Russian border and the occupied city of Svatove, which sits north of Luhansk, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Thursday.Ukraine has begun to make gains at the edges of the occupied Luhansk region, which borders Russia.
Fighting is intensifying in the battered city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, Ukraine’s armed forces said Thursday. “The enemy does not stop trying to go on the offensive,” officials said in a Facebook update. Ukrainian President Zelensky on Wednesday described the area is one of the “hottest spots” of the conflict.
Russian ally Belarus said it was moving military equipment and personnel on Wednesday and Thursday as part of a counterterrorism exercise, according to state media. Kyiv has raised concerns that Russia, facing battlefield setbacks, could attack Ukraine from Belarusian territory. Also Wednesday, Belarusian lawmakers gave their initial backing to a proposal to introduce the death penalty for treasonous officials and soldiers, Reuters reported.
Four Ukrainian policemen were killed and four more seriously injured in the Kherson region after a Russian land mine detonated near their patrol, law enforcement officials said Wednesday. “Police forces … are now on the front line. And together with everyone, they protect Ukrainians,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday night.
Russian shelling killed 10 people in the city of Kurakhove in the eastern Donetsk region, Zelensky saidWednesday. The attack, he said, was “very brutal” and “absolutely deliberate,” hitting a market, gas stations, a bus station and residential buildings….

More…

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Ukraine Update…276 days into the Russian move on the Ukraine…Brittney Griner swapped …..

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