A Ukraine official’s wife’s poisoning….
Winter storms and power outages….
The fight for Avdiivka continues….
US future Aid for Ukraine and Israel is up in the air in the US Congress….
Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania aren’t showing up for a European Security get together because the Russian Foreign Minister will be there…
The EU will increase spending to train Ukraine troops times 4……
The German Chancellor pushes the need for military and money support for the Ukraine as a self interest for ALL of Europe against Russian aggression …
Russian President Putin fronts his view that the Ukraine and Belarus ARE STILL part of Russia…..
That is simply NOT the REALITY of things….
And should be a worry for ALL of the former Soviet Union countries….
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Marianna Budanova, the wife of Ukraine’s intelligence head, Kyrylo Budanov, was poisoned and received treatment in hospital, a Ukrainian military intelligence official confirmed. She fell ill reportedly after eating food laced with “heavy metals”.
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Russian shells struck homes on Tuesday, killing four people and injuring at least five, Ukrainian officials said. A five-storey building was hit in the southern town of Nikopol, said the Dnipropetrovsk region governor, Serhiy Lysak.
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Tornadoes were forecast for the Black Sea region after a storm that killed at least 14 people and left more than 2 million people without electricity in Russia and Ukraine including occupied Crimea.
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The Institute for the Study of War said the storm forced Russia to return all of its naval vessels and missile carriers to their bases, and suggested that the threat of mines drifting in the Black Sea would increase because the storm dispersed minefields.
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There were also reports that the storm damaged railways in coastal areas, which could have an impact on the Russian military’s logistics capabilities in occupied Crimea and southern Ukraine, the ISW said. The damage affected “the tempo of military operations along the frontline in Ukraine” but had not stopped them entirely.
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In an intelligence update, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said Russia had made small advances on the northern axis of a pincer movement as part of an attempt to surround Avdiivka. “Although Avdiivka has become a salient or bulge in the Ukrainian frontline, Ukraine remains in control of a corridor of territory approximately 7km wide, through which it continues to supply the town.”
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The US Senate will begin considering legislation that includes aid for Israel and Ukraine as soon as next week, the leader of the Democratic majority, Chuck Schumer, said on Tuesday, adding that an aid bill is needed even if there is no agreement with Republicans, who demand linked funding for US border security.
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Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania said their foreign ministers would boycott a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in North Macedonia on Thursday and Friday because the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, intends to take part.
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Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, urged members of the alliance to “stay the course” in supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia’s invasion. “It’s our obligation to ensure that we provide Ukraine with the weapons they need,” Stoltenberg said after arriving for a gathering of foreign ministers from Nato countries at its headquarters in Brussels.
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The EU has agreed to more than quadruple its spending on training Ukrainian soldiers, investing close to an extra €200m (£173m), AFP reported.
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Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has said military and financial support for Ukraine is of “existential importance” to Europe. In a speech to parliament, he was quoted by AFP as saying: “We will continue with this support as long as it is necessary. This support is of existential importance. For Ukraine … but also for us in Europe. None of us want to imagine what even more serious consequences it would have for us if Putin won this war.”…..
Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated a two-part conception of Russian identity in a speech on November 28: a “Russian nation” – claimed to include Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians – at the center of Russian identity; and a wider “Russian world” including other non-East Slavic ethnicities in both modern Russia and the former territory of the Soviet Union and Russian Empire.
Putin’s articulation of a Russian nation (including Ukrainians and dominated by Moscow) reiterates longstanding Kremlin justifications for its invasion of Ukraine and aggression toward its neighbors, and Putin’s claim that “western Russophobia” affects all the ethnicities in the Russian state is likely intended to rally support among Russian citizens who are not ethnically Russian for Putin’s war.