The Centre for Information Resilience, an independent non-profit group that exposes and tracks human rights abuses and war crimes, detailed in its report the extent to which civilian infrastructure across the city has been flattened. Russian strikes have hit 17 of Avdiivka’s educational institutions, nine of its 11 medical clinics, all five of its churches and its three major supermarkets, as well as extensive strikes on residential tower blocks.
“Avdiivka has been a central battleground in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine,” Belen Carrasco Rodriguez, who spearheaded the project, wrote in the report.
“The bombardment of the city has been relentless – almost no building in the city centre has been left unscathed, with nearly all critical civilian infrastructure like schools, hospitals and supermarkets largely destroyed or damaged.”
“He submitted them,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said of Putin and the documents, confirming the news to Russian state media. The president was nominated by a group of prominent members of the ruling United Russia party as well as famous actors, athletes and other Russian celebrities.
Putin has been either prime minister or president of Russiacontinuously since 1999, and is Russia’s longest-serving leader since Joseph Stalin. He is widely expected to win the election as he faces no significant competition and his government has jailed his most serious political rivals, opposition politicians Alexei Navalny and Ilya Yashin.
Putin consistently saw landslide wins in previous elections, but independent observers say the votes were neither free nor far and were rife with fraud.
In an interview with state TV network Rossiya 24, Putin dismissed comments by U.S. President Joe Biden, who said earlier this month that Russia would attack a NATO country if it won the war in Ukraine, according to Tass news agency.
European Union leaders said Friday that they were confident that they would also pass a large package of aid for the war-torn country in early 2024, despite pushback from Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Meantime, the EU on Monday adopted a long-delayed 12th package of sanctions against Russia after Austria removed its objections.
The package includes a ban on Russian diamonds and aluminum, as well as a tightening of the price cap on Russian oil.
On Monday, the EU agreed its 12th package of sanctions against Moscow for its war in Ukraine, imposing a ban on the direct or indirect import, purchase or transfer of diamonds that originate in Russia, are exported by the country or transit the nation. The prohibition applies to both natural and synthetic diamonds, alongside diamond jewelry.
An indirect import ban on Russian diamonds processed in third countries will be phased in between March 1 and Sep. 1 next year.
Under the pact, the Helsinki grants the U.S. military access across Finnish territory down to its border with Russia. Finland is the latest country that adhered to the NATO alliance earlier this year, abandoning a long-held position of political neutrality in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The ambassador of Finland to Moscow was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry and told that Moscow will “take the necessary measures to counter aggressive decisions Finland and its NATO allies,” Zakharova added in Google-translated comments on Telegram.
Russia has historically attributed its war in Ukraine to a perceived threat against Moscow’s own interests and sovereignty, as a result of Kyiv’s aspirations to join the NATO military coalition.
The role of the nuclear triad has grown significantly, Putin said during a meeting of the board of the Russia’s defense ministry, according to a Google-translated Telegram update from state news agency Tass.
A nuclear triad refers to three-pronged military structure that combines land-based ballistic missiles, submarine-launched projectiles and strategic bombers. Only five countries possess a nuclear triad.
While praising his country’s military capabilities, Putin nevertheless said that Russian forces must also increase the number of their drones and satellites and improve their air defense, acknowledging that Moscow’s troops have experienced challenges in combat against small drones.
He went on to accuse that Western forces pledged not to expand the NATO coalition eastward but “lie shamelessly, at every step” and wage a “hybrid” war against Russia.
First inked in July 2022, the U.N.-brokered Black Sea Grain Initiative sought to allow the circulation of exports of Ukrainian and Russian agricultural and fertilizer goods, in a bid to abate a global food shortage after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The deal was repeatedly renewed in short increments, before Russia allowed it to lapse, citing discontent with perceived restrictions on the dispatch of its own exports. Turkey played a significant part in mediation.
Since the collapse of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Kyiv has set up what it calls a temporary humanitarian corridor, attempting to resuscitate its export flows without Russian approval. The U.N. has said that efforts to achieve a new agreement over a broader Black Sea corridor should continue despite this temporary Ukraine-led arrangement, according to Reuters.
Speaking at a meeting of the board of the ministry of defense, Putin once more struck a tone of vehement criticism against the U.S., whom it accused of concern over Moscow’s increasing rapprochement with Europe, according to Google-translated comments reported by state news outlet Tass.
Putin has repeatedly put the blame for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine at the feet of the West broadly and the U.S. specifically, painting Kyiv’s NATO membership bid as a threat to Russia.
The Russian head of state went on to stress the positive outcomes of Moscow’s previous appropriation of Ukrainian land in the grander scheme of European politics.
Referencing the events of 2014, Putin said that a “bloodbath” would have taken place if Russia had not annexed the peninsula of Crimea, then part of Ukraine, saying Moscow was the only guarantor of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.
Cameron said the conflict had so far seen three “acts” — the first, Russia’s full-scale invasion and failure to take Kyiv; and the second, the efforts of Ukrainians to take back half the land Russia had captured.
“I accept that act three has been more of a stalemate on land, but it has been a huge success on the Black Sea where Russia has been pushed back. Act four is still to be written, and it’s up to us to write it,” he said.
The U.K. has been the second largest provider of military assistance to Ukraine during the war, pledging around £4.6 billion ($5.85 billion), government-provided figures show. The United States has provided some $46.3 billion, according to the Council of Foreign Relations.
Cameron added that Ukraine’s allies, including the U.K., Italy, Germany, France and the U.S., outranked Russia 25 to one. “We just need to make that economic strength pay and we can make sure Putin loses, and it’s essential that he does,” he said.
Italy’s cabinet on Tuesday passed a decree allowing the continued supply of “means, materials and equipment” to Ukraine in its war effort, Reuters reported. The decision now goes to parliament.
While U.S. aid now hangs in the balance, Ukraine also received a blow last week when Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban blocked the approval of a 50 billion-euro ($54 billion) EU package in financial aid for the country.
“We see that Russia has switched to a war economy. I think we would be right to be worried. The language used by the Kremlin and by President Vladimir Putin is always ambiguous,” Hofman said, in comments published in English.“It is by no means out of the question that they might open a second front at some time in the future. Either in the south, in Moldova or the Baltic States,” he said.The Baltics consist of NATO and European Union members Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three have a border with Russia.Moldova borders Ukraine to the south, along the conflict-hit Odesa region. It is not a member of NATO or the EU, but last week formally began accession talks with the latter. Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean said on Monday that the country needed an upgraded anti-aircraft defense system to counter threats from Russia.“They have already shown that they have the will to attack a neighbor. We have to see that we have the capacity to prevent this happening again and show the will that we are prepared to counterattack if necessary,” Hofman said, as reported by VRT.— Jenni Reid
