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Aftermath of Russian missile strike on Ukraine mail depot that killed six
Vladimir Putin’s warplanes have dropped “explosive objects” into the paths of civilian shipping lanes in the Black Sea, the region’s military command said.
“The occupiers are continuing to terrorise the paths of civilian shipping in the Black Sea with tactical aviation, dropping explosive objects into the likely paths of civilian vessel traffic,” it said.
“There were three such drops registered in the last 24 hours. However, the navigation corridor continues to function under the watch of the defence forces.”
Ukraine is trying to build up a new shipping lane without Russian approval to revive its vital seaborne exports. But Russia said it would consider any vessel a potential military target after it quit UN-brokered deal allowing Ukrainian goods to pass through.
It comes as Ukrainian troops have made confirmed advances against Russia on two fronts, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
“Geolocated footage posted on 30 October shows that Ukrainian forces have advanced northeast of Kurdyumivka (10km southwest of Bakhmut),” it said.
Ukrainian forces have also “marginally advanced” west of Robotyne, Zaporizhzhia, according to geolocated footage seen by the think tank.
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Bulgaria expels Russian journalist
Bulgaria has expelled a Russian journalist for allegedly engaging in activities that pose a threat to the country’s national security, authorities said.
The State Agency for National Security said Alexander Gatsak, a correspondent for Russian state-run newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, was stripped of his residency rights and barred from entering Bulgaria and other European Union member nation.
The agency said Gatsak was summoned Sept. 29 to receive the expulsion order at the Interior Ministry migration office, but he did not show up and instead took refuge inside the Russian Embassy in Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia.
Lydia Patrick2 November 2023 05:00
ICYMI – South Korea’s spy agency says North Korea shipped more than a million artillery shells to Russia
South Korea’s top spy agency believes North Korea sent more than a million artillery shells to Russia since August to help fuel Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine, according to a lawmaker who attended a closed-door briefing Wednesday with intelligence officials.
North Korea and Russia have been actively boosting the visibility of their partnership in the face of separate, deepening confrontations with the United States.
Lydia Patrick2 November 2023 04:00
Kyiv – ‘Ukraine suffers most intense bombardment of Russian shelling in single day this year’
Ukraine has suffered its most intense bombardment of Russian shelling so far this year as Putin’s troops hit 118 settlements in just 24 hours, Ukraine’s interior minister has said.
Moscow fired millions of shells on cities, towns and villages on Wednesday – more than in any single day so far this year, reducing several to rubble across the east and southern parts of the country, Ihor Klymenko said in a post on social media.
Lydia Patrick2 November 2023 03:00
ICYMI – Russian soldiers accused of killing family of nine as they slept in Russia-occupied Ukrainian town
Russian forces allegedly gunned down an entire family of nine, including two young children, as they slept in their beds in the Russia-occupied town of Volnovakha in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk, officials in Kyiv said.
Ukrainian ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said Russian soldiers killed all members of the Kapkanets family on 27 October after the civilians refused to give them control of their house.
According to the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office in Donetsk, the attackers were in army uniforms and had demanded the family house be vacated, leading to an argument.
“According to preliminary information, the occupiers have killed the whole of the Kapkanets family, who were celebrating a birthday and who had refused to hand their own house over to occupiers from Chechnya,” he said on his official Telegram channel.
Lydia Patrick2 November 2023 02:00
Moldovan president accuses Russia of ‘buying’ voters in local election
Moldova’s pro-European president, Maia Sandu, accused Russia on Wednesday of “buying” voters in this weekend’s local elections by funnelling money to pro-Moscow political parties.
Sandu, who has denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and accused Russia of trying to oust her in a coup, said Moscow had channelled 90 million Moldovan lei (about $4.9 million) in two months in financing for “criminal groups”. These include a banned party led by fugitive businessman Ilan Shor.
“Russia previously bought those people who were running Moldova,” Sandu said in an interview with Jurnal TV, referring to corruption scandals in the ex-Soviet state before her 2020 landslide election.
“It no longer has that possibility. Now it is buying Moldovan citizens. The Kremlin uses various categories of people … There are people who work for the Kremlin and they are going to Moscow to fetch money.”
Russian officials could not immediately be reached for comment on Sandu’s allegations.
Hungary Moldova Diplomacy
(MTVA – Media Service Support and Asset Management Fund)
Lydia Patrick2 November 2023 01:00
Soros university in Vienna declared ‘undesirable’ in Russia
Russian has designated the Central European University (CEU) in Vienna, founded by billionaire financier and civil society activist George Soros, as an “undesirable organisation”, according to a list on its website.
Prosecutors had accused the CEU of discrediting Russia’s political leadership and the Russian forces that have invaded Ukraine in what Moscow calls a “special military operation”, and of recruiting staff to formulate a global anti-Russian agenda in the media, the Russian daily Vedomosti reported.
Since its foundation in 1991, CEU has been a gateway to the West for thousands of students from eastern Europe, offering U.S.-accredited graduate degree programs in an academic climate that celebrates free thought.
The university, which does not have a branch in Russia, rejected the accusations and said it was committed to academic excellence and critical independent inquiry.
It said the move would restrict its freedom to cooperate with Russian institutions and individuals, prevent Russian citizens from cooperating with it, and put its Russian students and employees at risk of political persecution.
It has therefore ceased cooperating with Russian partners and promoting its degree programmes in Russia.
CEU in 2019 moved the bulk of its courses from Budapest, Soros’s birthplace, to Austria after a long struggle with Hungary’s right-wing leader Viktor Orban, who accused it of encouraging mass immigration to Europe.
George Soros, founder and chairman of the Open Society Foundations
(AP)
Lydia Patrick2 November 2023 00:00
Russia’s Kuzmichev put under formal investigation in France
French investigative judges on Wednesday put Russian tycoon Alexey Kuzmichev under formal investigation, a source at the financial prosecutor’s office said.
Kuzmichev has been held for questioning since Monday and was put under formal investigation over allegations of laundering of tax evasion proceeds, money laundering and concealed work, the source said.
A lawyer for Kuzmichev declined to comment.
Lydia Patrick1 November 2023 23:00
Ukraine needs new military capabilities as war moves to attritional fighting says army chief
Ukraine‘s commander-in-chief said on Wednesday the war with Russia was moving to a new stage of positional warfare involving static and attritional fighting, a phase he warned could benefit Moscow and allow it to rebuild its military power.
In an article for The Economist, top general Valery Zaluzhnyi said the Ukrainian army needed key new military capabilities and technology, including air power, to break out of that kind of war.
He also called for Ukraine to build up its army reserves and expand the categories of Ukrainian citizens who can be called up for training or to be mobilised.
Firefighters work at an oil refinery which was hit during Russia’s drone attacks in Kremenchuk
(via REUTERS)
Lydia Patrick1 November 2023 22:00
More than 260 civilians have been killed in Ukraine after stepping on landmines or other explosives during the 20-month-old war with Russia, Ukraine‘s military said.
Kyiv estimates that 174,000 sq km of the country – about a third of its territory – is potentially strewn with mines or dangerous war detritus.
At least 571 people have received injuries during more than 560 incidents involving mines or explosive objects left behind by the fighting, the General Staff said on Telegram messenger.
Almost a quarter of the incidents occurred in fields, it added.
Some farmers take risks trying to work in areas thought to be contaminated with mines. On Wednesday, a tractor hit an unidentified explosive in southern Mykolaiv region, leaving two men wounded, the Interior Ministry said.
“One of them had two legs amputated, the other refused to be taken to hospital after being examined,” it added on Telegram.
Ukraine is in critical need of sappers. It now has about 3,000 specialists operating, but it needs 7,000 more to fully clear all the mines, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal was quoted as saying by Suspilne media.
That process would require around $37 billion in funding, a sum Kyiv is seeking to raise with the help of international partners.
Ukrainian deminers arrive at a minefield for a training in Preytotoeung village, Battambang province, Cambodia,
(Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)
Lydia Patrick1 November 2023 21:00
ICYMI – Zelensky says Ukraine’s Black Sea assault ‘will go down in history’
Mr Zelensky also warned against expecting instant success in Ukraine’s counter-offensive campaign as Russian forces showed signs of amping up fresh attacks on different sections of the frontline.
“We live in a world that gets used to success too quickly. When the full-scale invasion began, many people around the world did not believe that Ukraine would survive,” the war-time president said in his nightly video address.
He added: “Glory to all those who do not retreat, who do not burn out, who believe in Ukraine just as they did on February 24, and who have been fighting unwaveringly.”
Read the full report by Arpan Rai here…
Lydia Patrick1 November 2023 20:00
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