Several Ukrainian cities are subject, this Monday, December 5, to new water and electricity cuts after Russian strikes which also killed at least two people, according to local and regional authorities.
The warning sirens sounded across Ukraine on Monday for this new wave of bombings in the midst of winter temperatures, which comes on the day when the cap on the price of Russian oil wanted by the West comes into force. The deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential administration said on Telegram that the strikes left at least two people dead and three injured, including a child. Ukrainian anti-aircraft defense “shot down most of the missiles” fired by the Russian army on Monday, assured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, although several impacts were recorded.
Ukrainian electricity operator Ukrenergo warned on Monday that emergency power cuts will have to be applied across Ukraine. “Because of the consequences of the bombardments (…), to maintain the balance between the production and the consumption of electricity, a system of emergency cuts will be set up in all the regions of Ukraine. electricity will be supplied as a priority to essential infrastructure,” Ukrenergo announced on Telegram.
Two Russian airbases attacked by Ukrainian drones
Two Russian airbases in the center of the country were targeted by Ukrainian drones on Monday, killing three, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. On Monday morning, “the Kiev regime (…) attempted to carry out strikes with Soviet-designed drones on the air base of Diaguilevo in the Ryazan region and that of Enguels in the Saratov region”, indicates the text.
The ministry accuses the Ukrainian forces of seeking “to decommission the long-range Russian planes”, used for the strikes which have targeted numerous energy infrastructures on Ukrainian territory in recent weeks.
If these “jet drones” were intercepted by Russian air defense systems, their debris fell on the territory of the air bases attacked, causing explosions and “slightly” damaging two planes, according to the press release. Three Russian soldiers “were mortally wounded” in these attacks and four others were hospitalized, according to the same source.
Airstrikes force senior UN official to shelter in Kyiv
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk, visiting Ukraine, took refuge in an underground shelter in Kiev on Monday due to missile strikes, the UN said. “I was about to meet human rights defenders on my second day in Kyiv, and I had to move this meeting here, to this shelter (…) because the sirens sounded” , said Volker Türk, in a short video sent to AFP.
“And while we were having this discussion here in this shelter, there was a wave of missile attacks against Ukraine, some of which landed near Kiev. You can imagine what that means for the population. C has become almost a new normal, but it is having a huge impact on civilians, and it must stop,” he added.
This is the first time that a High Commissioner has visited Ukraine since the Russian invasion, launched on February 24. His predecessor, the Chilean Michelle Bachelet, did not go there.
ICC prosecutor warns against special tribunal
The project of a special tribunal to judge the crimes of Russia in Ukraine could “doom to failure” the ongoing investigation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), warned on Monday the prosecutor of the jurisdiction. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on Wednesday (November 30th) proposed the establishment of a special tribunal supported by the United Nations to prosecute Russia’s crimes of aggression against Ukraine. Karim Khan, the ICC prosecutor, in response urged the international community to focus on supporting – and funding – the ICC, which is currently carrying out its own investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
“We cannot be doomed. We need the tools to do the job. We don’t have those tools,” Karim Khan told reporters as part of an annual meeting of 123 countries. members of the ICC in The Hague. The prosecutor claimed there had been “a lot of promises that any initiative (for a special tribunal) would not undermine the Court”, but that the ICC was already facing a budget shortfall. “We should avoid fragmentation and prefer consolidation instead,” he said.
Putin rolled over the partially destroyed Crimean Bridge in October
Vladimir Putin visited the Crimean bridge which was partially destroyed last October, his first visit to the annexed peninsula since the start of the offensive against Ukraine, the Kremlin announced on Monday. The Russian presidency has published a video showing Vladimir Putin driving a Mercedes brand vehicle driving on this bridge which connects Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula annexed in 2014 by Moscow, to Russian territory.
The viaduct, which spans the Kerch Strait, was damaged in October by a powerful explosion attributed by the Russian authorities to a truck booby-trapped by the Ukrainian secret services. “Vladimir Putin drove on the road to the Crimean Bridge, which was repaired after the explosion in October, and spoke with workers,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
This is Vladimir Putin’s first trip to Crimea and to a site directly affected by the offensive he ordered in Ukraine since the start of the conflict at the end of February. The explosion of the Crimean bridge, which killed three people, caused a shock in Russia: the fact that such a crucial infrastructure and so far from the front could be damaged represents indeed a snub for Moscow.
EU embargo on Russian crude oil enters into force
From this Monday, not a drop of black gold from Russia will be allowed on European soil by sea. OPEC + countries maintained the status quo on Sunday on production quotas decided in October. The activation of a cap coincides with the entry into force of a European Union (EU) embargo on Russian oil transported by sea, several months after the embargo already decided by the United States and the Canada. However, Russia is the world’s second largest exporter of crude and, without this ceiling, it would be easy for it to find new buyers at market prices.
The mechanism adopted therefore provides that only oil sold at a price equal to or lower than 60 dollars per barrel can continue to be delivered, and that beyond that, it will be prohibited for companies based in EU countries, G7 and Australia to provide services enabling maritime transport (trading, freight, insurance, shipowners, etc.). In fact, the G7 countries provide insurance services for 90% of global cargoes and the EU is a major player in maritime freight. Hence their ability to pass this cap on the oil delivered to the majority of Russia’s customers around the world, a credible deterrent. A transition is planned (the cap will not apply to cargoes loaded before December 5) and an additional cap on petroleum products will take place on February 5.
433 Ukrainian children dead since the start of the war
According to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office, 443 children have been killed and 851 seriously injured as a result of the war in Ukraine. “These figures are not definitive, because work is in progress to establish them in places of active hostilities, in the territories temporarily occupied and liberated”, he indicates on the messaging system. Telegram.
The most affected children were in Donetsk Oblast (424), Kharkiv Oblast (267) and Kyiv Oblast (117). In total, according to the Ukrainian authorities, 2719 educational institutions were damaged by shelling and shelling by the Armed Forces of Russia, of which 332 were completely destroyed.
“No diplomatic solution” to the war in Ukraine, according to the NGO Memorial, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2022
“I am absolutely convinced that there is no diplomatic solution with the Putin regime, as long as it is still there”, declared in Hamburg Irina Chtcherbakova, who left Russia after the invasion of the Ukraine by Russian forces and currently resides in Germany. For the co-founder of the Russian human rights NGO Memorial, dissolved by the authorities and winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, “the solution that presents itself now is a military solution”, even if later, the diplomacy can play a role in conflict resolution. “But these decisions, this diplomacy can only be taken when Ukraine feels that it has won the war and can put an end to it,” she said.
According to the Russian activist, premature calls for peace are “childish”. “Nothing will ever be the same again,” she said. She was in Hamburg to receive the Marion Doenhoff Prize, awarded by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Ms. Shcherbakova’s efforts show the way to a “better future for Russia”, even if this prospect “still seems implausible”, declared the chancellor.