Last weekend, an explosion ripped through railway tracks near Warsaw, Poland, tearing open a NATO-linked supply route feeding Ukraine’s war effort. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the explosion an “unprecedented act of sabotage,” as early reports from the scene confirmed that military aid shipments moved along the same corridor.
Hungary will challenge the European Union’s plan to end Russian energy imports and take the case to an EU court, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said Friday.
Speaking on state radio, Orbán accused the bloc of trying to sidestep his veto power over sanctions on Russian energy by instead using trade rules in its plan to phase out all imports of Russian oil and gas by the end of 2027.
“We are turning to the European Court of Justice in this matter,” Orbán said.
“This is a flagrant violation of European law, the rule of law and European cooperation … They will pay a very high price for this.”
The same Department of Justice partisans who played key roles in the launch and cover of the FBI’s politically driven Arctic Frost investigation killed a criminal probe into the driver of the Russia collusion hoax, according to new emails released Thursday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley.
The emails, dating back to 2019 at the height of the hoax, expose DOJ players freezing investigative efforts to look into campaign finance violations committed by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee. As became clear over time (no thanks to the accomplice media), the failed 2016 Democrat presidential candidate’s campaign and the DNC pushed opposition research to fuel a deep state soft coup aimed at toppling President Donald Trump’s first term in office.
In 2022, the Federal Election Commission fined the Clinton campaign and the DNC for “misreporting” (disguising) campaign funds paid to Fusion GPS to deliver the infamous Steele dossier that falsely and maliciously accused the Trump campaign of colluding with the Kremlin.
A massive volley of Russian missiles and drones killed at least 25 people — including two children — across Ukraine overnight in one of the biggest aerial attacks since Moscow launched its full-scale war in February 2022.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia launched 476 drones and 48 cruise and ballistic missiles at his country. Ukraine’s military said six or seven missiles and nearly three dozen drones made it past Ukraine’s air defenses.
Explosions and fires were reported close to the front lines around the eastern city of Kharkiv, but also far from the front, in the western city of Lviv, which is close to Ukraine’s border with NATO-member Poland.
Most of the deaths were in the western city of Ternopil, where the Interior Ministry said two high-rise apartment blocks and energy facilities were hit. Many of Ukraine’s regions reported some loss of power, as temperatures plunge and the need for heat becomes a matter of life and death.
NATO on alert as Poland accuses Russia of ‘state terrorism’ in rail blast The Washington Post
from news.google.com
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is under heavy domestic and international pressure to fire his right-hand man, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Andriy Yermak, after a massive corruption scandal.
Zelensky’s government is embroiled in one of its worst domestic crises since the Russian invasion in February 2022, following accusations by Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, that Timur Mindich, a close ally of Zelensky, is involved in large-scale corruption. Mindich and his associates were accused of siphoning $100 million in revenue from Energoatom, the state nuclear energy company. The affair, now dubbed “Mindichgate,” is threatening a man so powerful that analysts have drawn historical parallels with Cardinal Richelieu, a figure from the French King Louis XIII’s era.
The air forces of several NATO states were scrambled overnight to protect the airspace of the alliance along its eastern border as Russia launched one of its deadliest air strikes against Ukraine’s western regions of the war so far.
Polish, Romanian, German, Spanish, Norwegian, and Dutch fighter jets were scrambled in two deployments in airspace bordering Ukraine over Poland and Romania and the Russian armed forces hammered western Ukraine. According to Kyiv, Russia launched 476 drones, 47 cruise missiles and one ballistic missiles in strikes across the country, but particularly on Western cities Ternopil and Lviv.
At least 20 people have been found dead in Ternopil, which is approximately 225 miles west of Ukrainian capital Kyiv and 110 miles short of the Polish border. Of the killed, at least two are children, and a further 66 were wounded including 16 children in the strikes which badly damaged two apartment blocks.
Russia has launched a “wicked” attack on Ukraine overnight with 430 drones and 18 missiles, with the country’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying was “deliberately calculated” and “aimed at causing maximum harm to people and civilian infrastructure.”
At least four people were killed, with “dozens” wounded, including children, he said.
The attack largely targeted Kyiv, hitting “almost every district” of the capital, the head of the city’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, said on social media.
Russia will issue government bonds denominated in Chinese yuan for the first time next month, the Finance Ministry announced Wednesday.
The ministry said it would offer two series of OFZ bonds, each worth 10,000 yuan ($1,400), with maturities ranging from three to seven years and interest payments every six months.
Investors will be able to buy and receive payments either in yuan or rubles, it said in a statement.
Order placements are scheduled for Dec. 2, with the sale itself planned for Dec. 8.
The Finance Ministry did not specify the total amount of its yuan bonds, saying it would be determined after assessing investor demand. Reuters reported last month that the ministry was preparing to issue up to 400 billion rubles ($4.9 billion) worth of yuan bonds.
Vladyslav Voloshyn, spokesperson for Ukraine’s Southern Defense Forces, told public broadcaster Suspilne that troops had “completely withdrawn” from the villages of Uspenivka and Novomykolaivka.
“Very fierce fighting continues for Yablukove and several other locations,” he said. “The defensive operation is ongoing, and the contact line remains dynamic.”
Russia is taking advantage of the weather to advance in small groups, moving on foot or motorcycles, with the adverse weather preventing Ukrainian forces from deploying drones against them.
It comes as Ukraine’s government suspended its justice minister on Wednesday, amid an investigation into corruption in the energy sector.
THE BATTLE FOR POKROVSK: For a year and a half, Russia has committed an inordinate number of forces and suffered horrific casualties (over 1,500 dead last month) trying to take the city of Pokrovsk, located on the front lines of Donetsk province in eastern Ukraine.
The latest battlefield reports suggest Ukrainian defenders of the city — which once had 60,000 inhabitants but is now mostly deserted — may soon be overwhelmed by Russian forces who have taken about 90% of Pokrovsk and are slowly advancing in house-to-house battles.
“Russian forces are just a few km away from closing their pincer movement around Pokrovsk and neighbouring Myrnohrad and are also closing in on Ukrainian forces in Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region,” Reuters reported from Moscow.
“Moscow’s forces are now close to cutting off the main roads into Pokrovsk, with its two key supply routes already under fire from Russian drones, making it dangerous and difficult to bring in supplies and also threatening Ukrainian forces ability to withdraw,” ABC news reported.
Dubbed “the gateway to Donetsk” by Russian media, the fall of Pokrovsk would give Russian President Vladimir Putin a psychological victory and buttress his effort to seize more territory before seriously considering ending the war. It would give Putin his biggest win since the fall of Bakhmut in May 2023, and would put the last two major cities in Donetsk, Kramatorsk, and Sloviansk, in peril.
PUTIN ORDERS ‘POSSIBLE FIRST STEPS’ FOR NUKE TESTS: At a meeting of his security council at the Kremlin on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin quizzed his ministers about what to make of President Donald Trump’s recent pronouncement that the U.S. would resume testing of nuclear weapons after a three-decade moratorium.
“I would like to note that Russia has always strictly adhered to its obligations under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, and we do not plan to abandon these obligations,” Putin said, according to the official Kremlin transcript of the meeting. “At the same time, indeed, in my 2023 Address to the Federal Assembly, I said that if the United States or any other state party to the Treaty was to conduct such tests, Russia would be under obligation to take reciprocal measures.”
Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu said Russian analysts have scrutinized the public statements of Trump, Vice President JD Vance, War Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright, and they still can’t figure out what the U.S. actually plans to do. “We analyzed these statements, but we are not entirely clear about the United States’ future plans and steps regarding nuclear weapons testing.”
Over the weekend, unidentified drones were detected hovering above Belgium’s Kleine Brogel air base, which his the location of a U.S. nuclear weapons storage facility, prompting investigations into a possible espionage operation.
Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken said Sunday that a jammer was unsuccessfully used during the overnight drone sightings over Belgium’s Kleine Brogel airbase, which is used by NATO forces.
“Last night, we received 3 reports of drones above Kleine Brogel, of a larger type and flying at higher altitude,” Francken wrote on X. “It was not a simple overflight, but a clear command targeting Kleine Brogel. A drone jammer was used, but without success.
“A helicopter and police vehicles pursued the drone, but lost it after several kilometers,” he added.
…Francken said on Saturday that he would meet police next week to assess the threat and take the necessary steps to find and arrest the drone pilots.
A spokesperson for Francken’s office told Reuters news agency police were investigating the incident. Government ministers will discuss the sightings this week.
🇧🇪 – A Monday and a Saturday, drones spotted over the Marche-en-Famenne military base in Belgium, Belgian Defense Minister Theo Francken told VRT NWS. “It are not amateurs, but skilled drone pilots.” Barracks guard noticed drones over crucial parts of the army brigade… pic.twitter.com/wUwUa0Fc7y
Moscow has repeatedly accused Kiev of attacking civilian infrastructure with Western-made weapons
The UK has supplied Ukraine with additional long-range ‘Storm Shadow’ cruise missiles to enable deeper strikes into Russia, Bloomberg reported.
London first announced the delivery of the air-launched rockets – which have a range of more than 250 kilometers (155 miles) – to Kiev in May 2023.
The latest shipment of an unspecified number of Storm Shadows is meant to help Ukraine maintain its campaign of long-range attacks against Russia during the coming winter months, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing unnamed sources.
During a meeting with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte last month, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that London was “accelerating our UK program to provide Ukraine with more than 5,000 lightweight missiles” in a bid to put “military pressure” on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russia says it is ready to enshrine pledge not to attack NATO, EU in future security guarantees Anadolu Ajansı
from news.google.com
Ukraine’s long-range strikes on refineries inside Russia have reduced Moscow’s oil refining capacity by 20%, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, citing intelligence from Western governments.
Over 90% of those deep strikes on Russian soil were carried out by long-range weapons made in Ukraine, according to Zelenskyy.
He said Ukraine needs additional foreign financial help to produce more of them.
“We just need to work on this every day,” he said in comments to the media on Monday that were embargoed until Tuesday.
Oil exports play a key role in funding Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and new sanctions from the European Union and the United States are aiming to cut into Moscow’s oil and gas export earnings.
Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump warns Putin ‘we have a nuclear submarine off your shore’ after cruise missile test The Independent
from news.google.com
SINGAPORE: Chinese state oil majors have suspended purchases of seaborne Russian oil after the United States imposed sanctions on Rosneft and Lukoil, Moscow’s two biggest oil companies, multiple trade sources said on Thursday (Oct 23).
The move comes as refiners in India, the largest buyer of seaborne Russian oil, are set to sharply cut their crude imports from Moscow to comply with the US sanctions imposed over the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.
A sharp drop in oil demand from Russia’s two largest customers will put a strain on Moscow’s oil revenues and force the world’s top importers to seek alternative supplies and push up global prices.
TRUMP: ‘I JUST FELT IT WAS TIME’: His peace overtures rebuffed by Russian President Vladimir Putin yet again, President Donald Trump reluctantly ordered what he called “massive sanctions,” on Russia’s two biggest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, in the hope that targeting Putin’s primary source of income will force him to agree to freeze the Ukraine war at the current battle lines.
“These are tremendous sanctions. These are very big against their two big oil companies,” Trump said in a social media post by the White House. “And we hope that they won’t be on for long. We hope that the war will be settled.”
“They’re massive sanctions,” Trump said during an Oval Office sit-down with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. “They do a lot of oil. And hopefully it will push, hopefully he’ll [Putin] become reasonable, and hopefully Zelensky will be reasonable too.”
On the eve of the EU summit, Ukraine and Sweden signed a deal Wednesday for up to 150 Gripen E fighter jets for Kyiv over the next decade, with the first deliveries expected in 2026.
from www.euronews.com
President Donald Trump has called off plans to meet with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, just days after he floated another round of Ukraine peace talks.
A White House official confirmed that Trump is not meeting his Russian counterpart “in the immediate future,” ABC News reported.
It comes after Trump suggested a summit in Hungary.
Trump’s reversal comes after a phone call on Monday between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
EU’s New Sanctions Boost Allies’ Push to Target Russian Energy Bloomberg.com
from news.google.com
Russia said Thursday that new U.S. sanctions on its oil industry risked hurting diplomatic efforts to end the Ukraine war, and that it had developed a “strong immunity” to them.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced new sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies on Wednesday, complaining that his peace talks with Russia’s Vladimir Putin were not going “anywhere.”
Trump held off introducing new restrictions against Russia for months, but his patience snapped after plans for a fresh summit with Putin in Budapest collapsed.
Russia has been subjected to a blistering assault from a new type of Ukrainian missile, affectionately named the Flamingo.
This formidable cruise missile can carry a payload of 1,150kg, making it one of the largest missiles of its kind globally, and boasts a range of 3,000km, nearly double that of the fearsome Tomahawk missiles. This development comes as Trump seems hesitant to supply any US missiles.
Ukrainian weapons manufacturer Fire Point, the brains behind this creation, claim it can land within a mere 14 metres of its intended target.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting with a bipartisan group of senators on Capitol Hill, the Nato secretary general Mark Rutte said that he had “complete confidence” in Donald Trump’s ability to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia. He evaded a question about whether he was concerned that the president has persuaded Volodymyr Zelenskyy to “go softer” on Russia.
“He is the only one that can get this done,” Rutte said. “You have a president with a lot of experience because of his first term in office, and who has a clear vision on bringing this war to a durable and lasting end.”
Rutte will meet with Trump in a few hours. “We will discuss further how we from Nato can be helpful in delivering his vision of getting a full-scale peace in Ukraine, which, of course, we all pray for after his enormous success in Gaza,” Rutte said earlier.
But Zelenskyy, who is visiting Nordic countries, said he doubted that Russian president Vladimir Putin would support it. According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Zelenskyy told reporters:
[Trump] proposed ‘Stay where we stay and begin conversation’. I think that was a good compromise, but I’m not sure that Putin will support it, and I said it to the [US] president.
Plans are on hold for U.S. President Donald Trump to sit down with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to talk about resolving the war in Ukraine, a U.S. official said Tuesday.
The meeting had been announced last week. It was supposed to take place in Budapest, although a date had not been set.
The decision was made following a call between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
“Secretary Rubio and Foreign Minister Lavrov had a productive call,” the official said in a statement to Global News.
“Preparations for the summit are continuing,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying. “I don’t see any major obstacles.”
He added: “It’s a difficult process, I admit – but that’s precisely what diplomats are for.”
Russia and Ukraine pounded each other with heavy overnight missile attacks as renewed uncertainty surrounded the US-led peace effort.
Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday that Russian attacks had killed six people, including two children, in Kyiv and the nearby region, and forced power outages nationwide.
