Explosions rock Kyiv after Putin accuses Ukraine of attack on bridge

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Written by northsouth

Category: Europe

Published: 10 October 2022

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KYIV -Explosions shook the Ukrainian capital on Monday after Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Ukraine of a terrorist attack on a bridge linking Russia and Crimea, sparking calls for reprisals from top officials in Moscow.

Thick smoke rose from central Kyiv after the city was rocked by several loud blasts, witnesses said. It was not immediately clear what caused the explosions and there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Putin said on Sunday that the blast a day earlier on the bridge over the Kerch Strait, a major supply route for Moscow's forces in southern Ukraine, was "an act of terrorism aimed at destroying critically important civilian infrastructure".

"This was devised, carried out and ordered by the Ukrainian special services," he said in a video on the Kremlin's Telegram channel.

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the blast but senior Russian officials demanded a swift response from the Kremlin ahead of a meeting of Putin's security council on Monday.

Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said ahead of the meeting that Russia should kill the "terrorists" responsible for the attack.

"Russia can only respond to this crime by directly killing terrorists, as is the custom elsewhere in the world. This is what Russian citizens expect," he was quoted as saying by state news agency Tass.

The Kerch bridge is a vital artery for the port of Sevastopol, where the Russian Black Sea fleet is based, and an imposing symbol of Russia's 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula.

Putin opened the 19-km (12-mile) road and rail span linking Crimea to Russia with great fanfare in 2018.

The damage to the bridge came amid battlefield defeats for Russia and initial reports from Ukrainian officials of a mass burial site discovered in the recently liberated eastern town of Lyman.

Putin's anger over the suspected attack also coincided with growing concerns that Moscow could resort to nuclear weapons, after Putin repeatedly cautioned the West that any attack on Russia could provoke a nuclear response.

Alexander Bastrykin, the head of Russia's Investigative Committee, said on Sunday a vehicle had exploded on the bridge causing a fire.

The vehicle had travelled through Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, North Ossetia and Russia's Krasnodar region before reaching the bridge, he said. Among those who helped Ukrainian special services prepare the attack were "citizens of Russia and foreign countries," Bastrykin added in the video on the Kremlin's Telegram channel.

Oleksandr Kovalenko, a military analyst and head of the website Information Resistance, told Espreso TV website, a digital broadcaster well known in Ukraine, that Russia may intensify attacks on civilian targets after the explosion on the Crimea bridge.

"This probably means missile attacks on border areas - Sumy and Chernihiv regions. It could also mean using missiles and (Iranian-made) Shahed-136 drones to hit even deeper into Ukrainian territory," he said.

Images showed part of the bridge's road blown away, although rail services and partial road traffic resumed.

The Russian transport ministry, quoted by RIA news agency, said nearly 1,500 people and 162 heavy cargoes had travelled by ferry across the Kerch Strait since the explosion.

Russia's defence ministry said on Saturday its forces in southern Ukraine could be "fully supplied" through existing land and sea routes.

FRESH ATTACK ON ZAPORIZHZHIA

In southeastern Ukraine, Russian shelling overnight destroyed an apartment building in the city of Zaporizhzhia, regional Governor Oleksandr Starukh said early on Monday. At least one person died and five where injured in the attack, a city official said.

The pre-dawn strikes were the third such attack against the region in four days. A strike on an apartment in the city on Sunday killed at least 13 people and injured 87 others, including 10 children, according to Ukrainian officials.

Ukraine's general staff said seven anti-aircraft guided missiles were used in the latest attack.

Russian aircraft launched at least 12 missiles in Sunday's attack, partially destroying a nine-storey apartment block, levelling five other residential buildings and damaging many more, Starukh said on state-run television.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy condemned Sunday's attack as "absolute evil".

"This was a deliberate hit. Whoever gave the order and whoever carried it out knew what they were targeting," he said in a video address.

Zaporizhzhia city, about 52 km (30 miles) from a Russian-held nuclear power plant, has been under frequent shelling in recent weeks, with 19 people killed on Thursday.

Russia denies targeting civilians and Vladimir Rogov, an official in the Russian-installed administration in Zaporizhzhia, said Ukrainian forces had shelled the city for "propaganda purposes".

Most of the Zaporizhzhia region, including the nuclear plant, have been under Russian control since the early days of Russia's invasion in February. The capital of the region, Zaporizhzhia city, remains under Ukrainian control.

Russian troops were continuing to focus their efforts on the strategically important eastern town of Bakhmut, having advanced up to 2 km (1.2 miles) towards the town over the last week, a British intelligence update said on Monday. Bakhmut sits on a main road in the industrial Donbas region, which Moscow says it intends to capture.

U.S. TO CONTINUE ARMING UKRAINE

The White House on Sunday declined to comment on the bridge blast but said the United States would continue to arm Ukraine.

Kyiv demands that Russian forces leave the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, as well as Ukrainian territory they have seized in the invasion Putin launched in February.

Ukraine has recaptured more than 1,170 square kilometres (450 square miles) of land in its southern Kherson region since launching its counterattack in late August, a military spokesperson said on Sunday.

Truss calls Macron a ‘friend’

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Written by northsouth

Category: Europe

Published: 07 October 2022

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PRAGUE - British Prime Miniter Liz Truss has described French President Emmanuel Macron a “friend” as they unveiled plans to work together at the first meeting of a new political grouping of nations.

During her campaign for the Tory leadership, Truss had refused to say whether the French President was a “friend or foe”.

But now the PM appears to seek a thaw in relations and was in the Czech capital of Prague for the first meeting of the European Political Community, a new group dedicated to advancing security and energy cooperation across the continent.

What is the European Political Community?

Liz Truss is in Prague for the inaugural summit of the European Political Community (EPC), a new forum proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron to bring together EU nations and those outside the bloc.Image removed.

The meeting is a 44 nation-strong “smorgasbord of speeches, one-to-one meetings and roundtables in the Czech capital”, said Politico’s London Playbook, “with the Russian war in Ukraine and the resulting fuel crisis dominating the agenda”.

The prime minister will make her second speech in as many days, seeking this time “to convince the gathering that the UK has continued to play a leading role in Europe despite Brexit”, said Sky News.

Truss will tell her fellow European premiers: “Europe is facing its biggest crisis since the Second World War and we have faced it together with unity and resolve. We must continue to stand firm - to ensure that Ukraine wins this war, but also to deal with the strategic challenges that it has exposed.”

Described by The Guardian’s Jennifer Rankin as an “ardent convert to Brexit”, Truss has remained sceptical about the EPC and she set out some of these reservations in an op-ed for The Times.

“I welcome the opportunity to work with leaders from across the continent in this new forum,” she wrote. “But this must not cut across the G7 and Nato, and it must not be a talking shop. I want to see concrete action.”

Part of the reason Truss is attending is because “British diplomats have been reassured that the EU is not going to dominate the body”, said The Guardian’s Rankin. But while her attendance will be viewed as a “mark of unity”, there is nobody who “expects the gathering to resolve deep and lingering post-Brexit conflicts”, she added.

What is the EPC?

The summit is the brainchild of Macron, who hopes it can bring together European nations from within and outside the EU.

The French president announced it in May, in a speech to mark Europe Day. He said that leaders had a “historic obligation” to form a “new European organisation” that “would allow democratic European nations to find a new space for political cooperation, security, cooperation in energy, transport, investment, infrastructure [and] the movement of people”.

The EPC includes the leaders of the EU, as well as candidate countries such as Ukraine, the western Balkans and Turkey, and neighbours that explicitly do not want to be in the union, such as Norway, Switzerland and the UK.

Why is Truss attending?

Truss’s new-found enthusiasm for the group will “raise eyebrows”, said The Independent, given she was explicitly critical of the project just a few months ago when she was foreign secretary.

In June, she said she did not “buy into” a Europe-wide political community. But in a significant volte-face, the prime minister has now even expressed willingness to host the next summit of the EPC in London.

Truss is said to believe that the new group offers an opportunity to rebuild the UK’s relationship with the EU in the wake of Brexit. “It’s good that the EU is thinking about their relationship with us after Brexit and vice-versa,” said one Truss supporter.

The UK’s participation in the summit could also help to ease tensions over the Northern Ireland Protocol, the part of Britain’s Brexit deal with the EU that has proven most controversial.

Many within the EU have welcomed the UK’s participation in the group. They see Truss’s decision to attend as a “positive signal” after the UK’s relationship with Europe turned “sour” under Boris Johnson, particularly over the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Russia’s military woes mount amid Ukraine attacks

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Written by northsouth

Category: Europe

Published: 06 October 2022

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MOSCOW - Even as the Kremlin moved to absorb parts of Ukraine in a sharp escalation of the conflict, the Russian military suffered new defeats that highlighted its deep problems on the battlefield and opened rifts at the top of the Russian government.

The setbacks have badly dented the image of a powerful Russian military and added to the tensions surrounding an ill-planned mobilization. They have also fueled fighting among Kremlin insiders and left Russian President Vladimir Putin increasingly cornered.

Here is a look at the latest Russian losses, some of the reasons behind them and the potential consequences.

STRING OF DEFEATS IN THE NORTHEAST, SOUTH

Relying on Western-supplied weapons, Ukraine has followed up on last month’s gains in the northeastern Kharkiv region by pressing deeper into occupied areas and forcing Russian troops to withdraw from the city of Lyman, a key logistical hub.

The Ukrainian army has also unleashed a broad counteroffensive in the south, capturing a string of villages on the western bank of the Dnieper River and advancing toward the city of Kherson.

The Ukrainian gains in the Kherson region followed relentless strikes on the two main crossings over the Dnieper that made them unusable and forced Russian troops on the western bank of the Dnieper to rely exclusively on pontoon crossings, which also have been repeatedly hit by the Ukrainians.

Phillips P. O’Brien, professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, predicted more Russian failures in Kherson, noting that it’s “hard to stabilize a line when your logistics are stretched, your troops are exhausted and your opponent is much, much smarter.”

Pressed against the wide river and suffering severe supply shortages, Russian troops face a looming defeat that could set the stage for a potential Ukrainian push to reclaim control of the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014.

MILITARY SHORTAGES AND COMMAND WOES

Military reporters and bloggers embedded with Russian troops in Ukraine have painted a bleak picture of an ill-equipped and poorly organized force under incompetent command.

With the war in its eighth month, the Russian military suffers from an acute shortage of personnel, lack of coordination between units and unstable supply lines.

Many Russian units also have low morale, a depressed mood that contrasts sharply with Ukraine’s well-motivated forces.

Unlike the Ukrainian military, which has relied on intelligence data provided by the U.S. and its NATO allies to select and strike targets, the Russian army has been plagued by poor intelligence.

When Russian intelligence spots a Ukrainian target, the military engages in a long process of securing clearance to strike it, which often drags on until the target disappears.

Russian war correspondents particularly bemoaned the shortage of drones and noted that Iranian-supplied drones have not been used for maximum effectiveness due to the poor selection of targets.

KREMLIN CALLS UP MORE TROOPS, ANNEXES TERRITORY

Russian President Vladimir Putin responded to the Ukrainian counteroffensive by ordering a partial military mobilization, which aims to round up at least 300,000 reservists to beef up forces along the 1,000-kilometer front line in Ukraine.

At the start of the invasion, Ukraine declared a sweeping mobilization, with a goal of forming a 1 million-member military. Russia until that moment had tried to win the war with a shrinking contingent of volunteer soldiers. The U.S. put the initial invading force at up to 200,000, and some Western estimates put Russian casualties as high as 80,000 dead, wounded and captured.

While the hawkish circles in Moscow welcomed the mobilization as long overdue, hundreds of thousands of Russian men fled abroad to avoid being recruited, and protests flared up across the country, raising new challenges to the Kremlin.

Fresh recruits posted images showing them being forced to sleep on the floor or even in the open air. Some reported being handed rusty weapons and told to buy medical kits and other basic supplies themselves. In a tacit recognition of supply problems, Putin dismissed a deputy defense minister in charge of military logistics.

The mobilization offers no quick fix for Russia’s military woes. It will take months for the new recruits to train and form battle-ready units.

Putin then upped the ante by abruptly annexing the occupied regions of Ukraine and voicing readiness to use “all means available” to protect them, a blunt reference to Russia’s nuclear arsenal.

RIFTS OPEN UP AT THE TOP

In an unprecedented sign of infighting in the higher echelons of the government, the Kremlin-backed regional leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, has scathingly criticized the top military brass, accusing them of incompetence and nepotism.

Kadyrov blamed Col. Gen. Alexander Lapin for failing to secure supplies and reinforcements for his troops that led to their retreat from Lyman. He declared that the general deserves to be stripped of his rank and sent to the front line as a private to “wash off his shame with his blood.”

Kadyrov also directly accused Russia’s top military officer, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, of covering up Lapin’s blunders — a pointed attack that fueled speculation that the Chechen leader might have forged an alliance with other hawkish members of the Russian elite against the top military leadership.

In a blunt statement, Kadyrov also urged the Kremlin to consider using low-yield nuclear weapons against Ukraine to reverse the course of the war, a call that appeared to reflect the growing popularity of the idea among the Kremlin hawks.

In a show of continuing support for Kadyrov, Putin promoted him to colonel general to mark his birthday, a move certain to anger the top brass. And while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described Kadyrov’s statement as overly emotional, he strongly praised the Chechen leader’s role in the fighting and his troops’ valor.

In another sign of intensifying dissent at the top, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a millionaire businessman dubbed “Putin’s chef,” lashed out at the governor of St. Petersburg, charging that his failure to provide assistance for Prigozhin’s Wagner private security company amounts to supporting Ukraine.

Some other members of the Russian elite offered quick support for Kadyrov and Prigozhin, who have increasingly served as frontmen for the hawkish circles in Moscow.

Retired Lt. Gen. Andrei Gurulev, a senior member of the lower house of Russian parliament, strongly backed the Chechen leader, saying that the Russian defeat in Lyman was rooted in the top brass’ desire to report only good news to Putin.

“It’s a problem of total lies and positive reports from top to bottom,” he said.