Important Takeaways:
- Ukraine is apparently heightening attacks inside Russia and on targets in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
- In its Sunday assessment of the war, the ISW wrote about reports of Kyiv’s increased attacks, which includes the frequent strikes on Crimea as well as other Moscow-occupied territories in eastern Ukraine.
- According to the ISW report, Ukrainian partisans attacked a Russian military headquarters in the occupied city of Melitopol in the Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine on Saturday. The ISW said the Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) reported at least three Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and Rosgvardia officers were killed in the Melitopol attack.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that the war with Russia will not end until all occupied land is returned to Kyiv’s control.
- Kyiv’s targeting of Crimea has relied on cruise missile and drone attacks, and has wounded a significant part of Russia’s naval fleet stationed near the peninsula
- Since February 2022, Ukraine has hit at least 17 Russian vessels in its quest to neutralize Moscow’s naval fleet
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Russia captures US weaponry handed to Ukraine in nightmare blow for Joe Biden
- Russia has released images of US and German-made heavy artillery seized on the frontline in Ukraine – describing the vehicles as “trophies”.
- In a taunt to Kyiv’s allies in the West, the Russian defense ministry detailed how the equipment – Leopard 2 tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles – was captured during a battle in the Zaporizhzhia region.
- Alongside a short clip, the ministry said in a statement: “Leopard tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. These are our trophies.
- “Equipment of the Ukrainian armed forces in the Zaporizhzhia region.”
- It comes less than a fortnight after President Biden announced a new $300m military aid package to Ukraine, which includes sophisticated weaponry such as drones to allow strikes from range.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- One key question about the Russo-Ukraine War is: how long can the Russian economy keep it up? After all, the intention of Western economic and financial sanctions against Russia was to cripple Russian growth and render its war machine incapable of maintaining the fight.
- Russia’s heavily-oil-dependent economy is estimated to have lost over $100 billion as a consequence of oil sanctions.
- Yet economies at war often find a way to keep going for longer than one might think, provided that domestic citizens retain faith in their leaders
- The current violent attacks by Hamas on Israel may even have had, as one of their goals, a rise in oil prices – after all, Russia is a significant Hamas backer.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Facing a likely roadblock from House Republicans on aid for Ukraine, President Joe Biden said Wednesday he’s planning to give a major speech on the issue and suggested there may be “another means” to provide support for Kyiv if Congress continues to balk.
- “There is another means by which we may be able to find funding, but I’m not going to get into that right now,” he said.
- Last week’s deal to keep the government open through mid-November excluded the $13 billion in supplemental aid that the Biden administration sought last month, raising questions about just how long the U.S. could continue to send money to Ukraine.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Zelensky asks Marina Abramovic to be ambassador for Ukraine
- Volodymyr Zelensky has asked Marina Abramović, the performance artist, to be an ambassador for Ukraine.
- Abramović, a fierce critic of Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion, said the Ukrainian president had asked for her help in rebuilding schools.
- “I was the first artist to support the Ukraine war against Russia and to give my voice. It is definitely a repetition of history,” she said in an interview with the Modern Art Museum in Shanghai.
- “I have been invited by Zelensky to be an ambassador of Ukraine, to help the children affected by rebuilding schools and such.”
- She added: “I have also been invited to be a board member of the Babyn Yar organization to continue to protect the memorial.”
- The Holocaust memorial center to Jews murdered by Nazis in Ukraine was damaged by Russian missile attacks in March last year.
- The artist posted a video online days after Putin launched his unprovoked war. In it she spoke about being born in the former Yugoslavia, which was once invaded by the Soviet Union, and called Ukrainians “proud, strong and dignified”.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Ukraine endured a deadly nationwide Russian missile barrage targeting energy facilities in Kyiv and other cities on Thursday, just hours before President Volodymyr Zelensky was set to meet US President Joe Biden at the White House
- Officials called it “a terrible night for Kherson city,” with at least three people killed and six injured, noting that apartment buildings and cars were also damaged in Russian shelling on residential areas.
- Just as the country gears up for colder seasons that will require more energy use for heating
- The air raid alarms, which frequently blare on loudspeakers throughout the city and on residents’ cell phones, are so commonplace that government officials have had to appeal to residents to continue to use bomb shelters.
- The latest round of missile strikes comes after a contentious United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday, where Zelensky argued that removing Russia’s veto power “will be the first necessary step.”
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- The United States’ warnings about the summit in Russia illustrated concerns that North Korea may agree to supply artillery shells that Russia’s war effort seems to need
- Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has left him short not only of friends, but also munitions to sustain his frustrated military.
- Kim’s trip is significant, with Ukraine pushing to break through Russian lines before winter in a counteroffensive loaded with Western weapons
- Russia already sources drones — a cheap but effective weapon designed to wear down Ukraine’s air defenses — from Iran, another Western adversary.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Ukraine is set to receive longer-range US missiles armed with cluster bombs, granting Kyiv the ability to cause significant damage deep within Russian-held territory
- The Biden administration is close to approving the shipment, according to the officials, after seeing the success of cluster munitions delivered in 155 mm artillery rounds in recent months.
- Washington is now considering shipping either or both Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) that can fly up to 190 miles (306 km), or Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) missiles with a 45-mile range packed with cluster bombs, three officials said.
- Made by Lockheed Martin, ATACMS come in several versions some of which can fly four times GMLRS’ range, and their use could reset battlefield calculus.
- Cluster munitions are prohibited by more than 100 countries. Russia, Ukraine and the United States have not signed onto the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which bans production, stockpiling, use and transfer of the weapons.
- Both sides in the war have used the weapons, usually with devastating consequences.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- Poland embraces neighborly role in war against Russia; small airport grows into logistics hub
- Rows of U.S. surface-to-air missiles line the damp earth along the road leading to the regional airport — a stark reminder of how sensitive and strategic this once-quiet corner of NATO’s eastern flank has become to the multinational scramble to help Ukraine turn back Russian invaders.
- The Polish backwater, about 60 miles from the Ukraine border, has been transformed into a buzzing international logistics hub for all kinds of aid flowing into Ukraine. The once-modest Rzeszow-Jasionka Airport became the center of a major international crisis overnight.
- “No one expected that this place would play such a vital role in the whole situation of the war,” Michal Tabisz, the airport’s vice president, said on a drizzly afternoon shortly after the Russian war against its neighbor passed the 18-month mark.
Read the original article by clicking here.
Important Takeaways:
- ‘The war is coming home to Russia’: Ukraine turns the tables on Moscow as drone warfare intensifies
- A dramatic uptick in drone attacks targeting Russian territory is likely to continue and could be a game changer in the next phase of the war, analysts say.
- Russia has seen a sharp rise in unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, targeting western, central and southern Russian regions as well as the capital Moscow.
- Mostly Ukrainian-made drones have provided a way for Kyiv to strike back at Russia itself with military bases, airfields and fuel depots among the recent targets.
Read the original article by clicking here.
