Ukraine Update…Day 1,027…Russia spends Christmas attacking Ukraine….

We had no report on Christmas Day….

We catch up today….

12/26/24…..

Estonia’s government held an extraordinary meeting on as investigators try to find out what disrupted a Baltic Sea power cable bringing electricity from Finland, which went down just after noon on Wednesday.
A Russian drone attack on the central market in the Ukrainian town of Nikopol injured eight on Thursday morning, local authorities said. Seven of those injured were hospitalised after the strike damaged multiple stalls at the market.
The Ukrainian military said that its air force had carried out a strike on a military industrial facility in Russia’s Rostov region over the past few days. The facility in the town of Kamensk-Shakhtinsky was used to produce solid fuel for ballistic missiles used in Russian attacks on Ukraine,
The Ukrainian military said that it shot down 20 drones out of 31 launched by Russia overnight. Of the 31 drones, 11 “imitator-drones” did not reach their targets due to active engagement from the Ukrainian military, it added.
Readiness to support Ukraine “until it wins” has fallen sharply across western Europe at a critical time for the country, a survey has suggested. December polling by YouGov in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Denmark and the UK found support for an alternative resolution to the conflict – a negotiated end to the fighting, even if that left Russia in control of parts of Ukraine – is now the preferred option.
Russia and Kazakhstan have sought to temper speculation about the cause of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash, with the Kremlin urging people to wait for the results of the investigation. Four sources with knowledge of the investigation told Reuters that a Russian air defence downed the plane.
Russia’s top security agency said that it arrested several suspects accused of involvement in an alleged Ukrainian plot to assassinate senior military officers, an announcement that follows the killing of a top Russian general last week.
The Russian defence ministry claimed that Russian forces have captured a village of Hihant in eastern Ukraine, the RIA news agency has reported. Reuters could not independently confirm battlefield reports from either side…..

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12/25/2024…

A ballistic missile struck an apartment building in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih on Tuesday, killing one person and injuring 15, four of them seriously, officials said. Ukrainian officials denounced the Christmas Eve attack on the city, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s home town.
“While other countries of the world are celebrating Christmas, Ukrainians are continuing to suffer from endless Russian attacks,” Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, wrote on Telegram.
A “massive missile attack” pummelled Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv, injuring at least three people, local mayor Igor Terekhov said on Wednesday morning. “Kharkiv is under a massive missile attack. A series of explosions were heard in the city and there are still ballistic missiles heading towards the city,” he wrote on Telegram.
Ukraine’s energy minister said Russia was bombarding the power sector,without specifying which cities were under fire. “The enemy is again massively attacking the energy sector,” Minister of Energy German Galushchenko wrote on social media platform Telegram. “The transmission system operator is taking the necessary measures to limit consumption to minimise the negative consequences for the energy system.” Russia has intensified its attacks on the Ukrainian energy sector, damaging almost half of its generating capacity and causing hours-long blackouts throughout the country.
Nearly three years into the Russian invasion, Christmas celebrations across Ukraine are shrouded in grief. “Not all of us are home, unfortunately. Sadly, not everyone has a home. And tragically, not everyone is still with us,” Zelenskyy said in an address. This will be the first Christmas that Lyubov spends without her son Taras Onyskiv, who died aged 32 in May while fighting off Russian troops on the eastern front. She brought a Christmas tree to her son’s grave in the Lychakiv cemetery in south-eastern Lviv, covered in a dusting of fresh snow. “We’ll come and spend Christmas here,” she said, after wrapping fairy lights over the tombstone. Mariya Lun lost her son Yuri in 2022. “We will bring Christmas porridge here on Christmas Eve,” Lun said. “We will pray that it will be easy for him in heaven without us.” Zelenskyy signed a law in July 2023 to move the official Christmas Day holiday to 25 December, departing from the Russian Orthodox Church tradition of celebrating on 7 January.

The presence of North Korean soldiers alongside Russian troops in the Russian region of Kursk has not yet had a major impact on the course of the fighting, a Ukrainian military intelligence official has said. “The involvement of the North Koreans in the fighting has not had a significant impact on the situation. It is not such a significant number of personnel,” Yevgen Yerin, spokesperson for the Ukrainian military intelligence service (GUR), told AFP. “But they are also learning. And we cannot underestimate the enemy. And we can see that they are already taking some things into account in their activities,” he added.
A Russian court has sentenced a man to 22 years in prison for two acts of sabotage on railway lines in Crimea last year. The court said Pavel Levchenko was recruited and trained by Ukraine’s SBU security service and sent to the annexed Crimea to carry out “acts of terrorism”. The court said Levchenko had carried out two explosions on railway lines while cargo trains were passing and had planned more acts of sabotage. Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014.
Ukraine said Russia attacked it with 60 drones, of which 36 were downed, 23 were jammed by electronic warfare and one was still in the air. The Ukrainian air force said drones had been shot down in eight regions across the country in a statement posted on the Telegram app on Tuesday….

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It’s looking like the Russians shot down a Azerbaijan Commercial jet over Kazakhstan….

As authorities in several countries tried to determine what caused the deadly crash of a passenger airplane in Kazakhstan, investigators and experts on Thursday were focusing on the possibility that a Russian air defense system had struck the plane.

Aviation experts cast doubt on a Russian agency’s contention that the Azerbaijan Airlines jet had hit a flock of birds, saying images of the crash site show holes in the plane’s fuselage that appeared unlikely to have been caused by them.

The jet had been flying on Wednesday morning from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny, in Russia’s Chechnya republic, at a time when drone strikes were taking place around Grozny and Russian air defense systems were responding, according to residents and local news media reports….

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Flightradar24, a flight tracking service, said that the Embraer 190 jet had been subjected to radar jamming and spoofing near Grozny, and for part of its journey did not send radar information. Flightradar24 said the available data indicated the plane had problems with altitude control, and cited images from the crash site that it said showed “puncture damage” to part of the aircraft…

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Finland having trouble with Russian oil tankers that could be also damaging undersea different cables….

The Finnish authorities seized an oil tanker on Thursday on the suspicion that it was involved in cutting vital undersea cables and said the ship might have been part of Russia’s “shadow fleet,” aimed at evading Western sanctions.

In a statement, the police in Finland said the authorities had boarded the Eagle S tanker in Finnish waters. The ship, which is registered in the Cook Islands in the South Pacific, had been sailing from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Port Said, Egypt, when it was detained.

The police said they were investigating whether the vessel was involved in the latest suspected act of sabotage on undersea infrastructure: the cutting on Wednesday of the Estlink 2 submarine cable, which carries electricity between Finland and Estonia. The Finnish authorities said Thursday that four other cables carrying data also had been damaged. The police called the latest cable cuts “aggravated vandalism.”

The Finnish authorities said the tanker might be part of Russia’s shadow fleet, which emerged as a way to circumvent Western-imposed price caps on Russian oil transported by sea. The caps were introduced several months after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022….

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Biden will keep aid to Ukraine flowing….

Trump Ukraine envoy knocks the Russian Christmas Russian Ukraine attck….

In case you missed it, Joe Biden has asked his defence team to continue its surge of weapons deliveries to Ukraine.

After condemning Russia’s Christmas Day attack, Biden said he has already responded by reaffirming Washington’s commitment to Ukraine’s defence.

“The purpose of this outrageous attack was to cut off the Ukrainian people’s access to heat and electricity during winter and to jeopardise the safety of its grid,” he said.

For context: Washington has committed $175bn in aid for Ukraine over the course of the war, but the future of US funding is in some doubt, with president-elect Donald Trump questioning their level of involvement and suggesting Europe should bear more of the burden.

But Keith Kellogg, who is Mr Trump’s pick for special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, criticised the attack on what should be a “time of peace”, adding “the US is more resolved than ever to bring peace to the region”

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Daily Kos grunt report for today….

jamesb on Donald Trump starts out Punching………Open Thread for 1/21/2025: “Right now? Patel looks like he’s got it RFK Jr and Gabbard shaky to thumbs down” Jan 30, 19:03
jamesb on Trump Blames Obama, Biden, DEI for DC Plane Crash….: “The guys a ole fucking racist idiot….” Jan 30, 16:33
jamesb on Trump pardoned Jan. 6 people with Rape, Domestic Violence and other history of crimes: “Update…. Add this to the list…. Woman Pardoned by Trump Sentenced to 10 Years Emily Hernandez, a Missouri woman pardoned…” Jan 30, 16:31
My Name Is Jack on Stupid Republican House member for the day….Wants kids to ‘work’ for School Lunches: “Lock him up! A common crook..” Jan 30, 15:53
My Name Is Jack on Trump Blames Obama, Biden, DEI for DC Plane Crash….: “According to to Trump… He knows this because he has “ common sense.”” Jan 30, 15:50

Ukraine Update…Day 1,027…Russia spends Christmas attacking Ukraine….

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