Heading towards World War III?

Almost a dozen Russian cities, and at least three regions, have decided to either cancel or limit the upcoming New Year’s Eve celebrations amid the protracted conflict between Moscow and Kiev.

Local officials will instead allocate the intended funds towards supporting people joining the Russian Armed Forces as part of the ongoing partial mobilization.

The mayor of the city of Kaluga, Dmitry Denisov, was one of the first to announce the measure on Wednesday. Kaluga, which is located just around 200 kilometers southwest of Moscow, would cancel all the festivities planned for late December and early January, he said, adding that it would be better to spend money on local draftees.

“The men should be equipped better than it is expected under regular supply standards,” Denisov said, adding that the city would not host concerts and fireworks displays and would instead “spend all the money” on supports for the local draftees.

By Friday, Denisov’s initiative has been supported by the heads of the Siberian city of Tobolsk, the northern city of Cherepovets and the city of Nizhny Novgorod, in the Volga region.

Mayor of St. Petersburg Aleksandr Beglov also said in a Telegram post that the city would cancel its traditional concerts at the Palace Square and Nevsky Avenue in the city center as well as a fireworks display. New Year’s Eve celebration events for children would, however, still go ahead as planned, he added.

The Russian city of Yekaterinburg announced it would not give up on all celebrations completely but would “review” its New Year’s Eve program. Apart from the various cities, at least three Russian regions – Leningrad Oblast surrounding St. Petersburg, the Belgorod Oblast bordering Ukraine and Kurgan Oblast in Siberia also announced transfers of money from the celebration funds to support programs for draftees and their families.

According to Russian media, people in the western Kaliningrad Oblast and in Voronezh Oblast in Central Russia are also calling on the regional authorities to join the initiative.

More than 200,000 draftees had joined the Russian army by October 4 as part of the mobilization effort, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has revealed. On September 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a partial mobilization, looking to recruit some 300,000 reservists to take part in the ongoing military conflict with Ukraine, which began in late February.

The Russian Defense Ministry has since clarified that the mobilization prioritizes those who have served in the military and who’ve had previous combat experience as well as the necessary specializations needed on the front line.

www.rt.com/russia/564262-russian-cities-cancel-new-year

A Ukraine Armed Forces (AFU) Saturday morning attack devastated a logistically-critical bridge connecting the Crimean peninsula to the Russian mainland, potentially putting the southern half of the Moscow’s war effort against Kyiv in jeopardy.

Photographs, video and social media comment from the scene showed a single explosion detonating underneath a four-lane road causeway crossing the Kerch Strait, some 1.5 kilometers south-east of the Crimean shoreline, at six AM.

The explosion demolished the two west-bound lanes, dropping some five meters of roadway into the Azov Sea. Superficial damage was visible to the two east-bound lanes.

On the parallel railroad causeway, a fuel train was halted and set afire. Images showed blast damage to the railroad bridge but it was not clear if its reinforced concrete foundations had been weakened.

Russian Federation official statements Saturday morning confirmed two car lanes of the bridge were completely destroyed, and that seven fuel tanker rail cars were set ablaze. By 10 A.M. local time, according to a statement from Crimea’s Emergency Situations center, the fires were extinguished.

www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/ukrainian-attack-devastates-logistically-critical-kerch-strait-bridge-crimea-cut-off-from-russia.html

Today there has been wave after wave of explosions, not just in Kyiv, but all across Ukraine, from Lviv in the west to Kharkiv in the east and Odesa in the south.
This seems to be Russia's answer to the attack on the Crimean bridge 2 days ago which Russia has declared a terrorist attack by Ukrainian special services. This is a clear escalation of the war.
In this report, I talk to residents of Crimea and see what they think about the attack on the bridge and how they are dealing with Russian control of Crimea and what they think about Ukraine's vows to regain control of Crimea.

Russian president accuses Ukrainian intelligence of orchestrating Kerch bridge attack, targeting Russian energy infrastructure

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday that targets in Ukraine were hit in response to the explosion on the Kerch Bridge and other "terrorist attacks" carried out by Ukraine's intelligence.

Speaking at a meeting with the members of the Russian Security Council, Putin said the evidence gathered by Russian investigators shows that Ukrainian intelligence was behind Saturday's attack on the bridge which connects Russia to Crimea.

"This morning, at the proposal of the Defense Ministry and according to the plan of the Russian General Staff, a massive strike was carried out with high-precision long-range air, sea and land-based weapons on energy, military administration and communications facilities of Ukraine," he said.

Putin said Ukraine's special services carried out attacks on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine and Kursk nuclear power plant in Russia.

A number of other "terrorist attacks" have targeted Russia's energy infrastructure, including an attempt to blast one of the sections of the TurkStream gas pipeline which runs from Russia to Türkiye, he said.

Russia was not included in the investigation on the leaks in the Nord Stream gas pipelines, he said, adding that everyone knows "the final beneficiary."

In the past, Putin said the explosion on the offshore pipelines which carry gas from Russia to Germany will help energy companies in the US reap huge profits by selling gas to Europe.

www.aa.com.tr/en/russia-ukraine-war/putin-says-mass-strikes-launched-on-ukraine-in-response-to-crimean-bridge-attack/2707480#

Russian missiles continue to pound Ukraine. At least 12 missiles were dropped on Zaporizhzhia, destroying a critical energy facility. Meanwhile, Ukraine has reclaimed 29 towns & captured over 1,000 Russian weapons.

In just over one week of Russian airstrikes targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure, 30% of the power plants in the country have been destroyed, President Vladimir Zelensky has claimed.

The devastation has caused “massive blackouts across the country,” he added in a tweet posted on Tuesday morning. He concluded that there is “no space left for negotiations” with the government of his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

Putin announced the shift in the military operation in Ukraine on Monday of last week, just after Russian forces launched massive long-range missile strikes across Ukraine. He accused Kiev of masterminding several “terrorist attacks” targeting key Russian infrastructure over the past several months, including the Crimean Bridge bombing attack.

The Russian president said Kiev’s tactics justified a response in kind, as he confirmed that Moscow now considers Ukrainian energy infrastructure to be a legitimate target for military attacks.

Days earlier, a massive explosion on the bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland claimed three civilian lives and caused significant damage to the road traffic section of the bridge. Moscow claimed that Ukraine was behind it, while some officials in Kiev celebrated the incident.

Russian law enforcement has since claimed that it established how the bomb, which was disguised as construction material, made its way from Odessa, Ukraine, to Russia through a number of transit nations. Investigators claim Ukrainian military intelligence was behind the plot.

In the first two days of Russia’s missile strikes, around 30% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure was destroyed, the country’s energy minister, German Galushchenko, told CNN last week. He noted that it was a major shift in how Russia has used its military force against his country.

www.rt.com/russia/564889-zelensky-power-plants-damaged

Almost eight months on from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, its forces are struggling while Ukraine has advanced and regained territory in the east and south. In the eastern Donbas region, the city of Bakhmut remains a Russian target, however, and its troops are making progress.

The city reverberates to the sound of constant shelling, day and night. It's been going on for weeks.

Most of Bakhmut's 70,000 citizens have already fled. Those who remain are mostly the elderly. They're living without running water or electricity.

A small queue had formed for the latest evacuation, with volunteers still bravely driving a minibus in and out of the city.

Olena, who's nearly 70 years old, was among those waiting to leave.

"People are exhausted," she said, as yet another barrage rocked the city. Everyone reacts differently, she said - some reach for a cigarette, or something to chew on, while others just sit and cry.


Life had become too hard, she said, having to cook food on an open fire and fetch buckets of water.

www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63261600

A commission set up by the UN human rights watchdog, called the OHCHR, has documented at least two war crimes committed by the Ukrainian military amid the conflict between Moscow and Kiev. The preliminary, unedited version of the document, compiled by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, was submitted to the General Assembly on Tuesday.

According to the report, the commission has “documented two cases in which Ukrainian armed forces shot, wounded, and tortured captured Russian armed forces soldiers, which are war crimes.” Both instances, which occurred early in the conflict and came to light after the Ukrainian fighters themselves posted footage of their war crimes online, received wide media coverage at the time.

The first incident acknowledged by the UN’s commission occurred in late March in the village of Malaya Rogan in Kharkov Region. “Ukrainian armed forces soldiers deliberately shot three captured Russian armed forces soldiers in the legs at close range and beat one of them with a rifle butt, while interrogating them,” the report reads. Footage of the incident, however, suggests that over a dozen Russian POWs were subjected to such treatment, with some of them apparently dying during the Ukrainian ‘interrogation.’

Another documented incident occurred in the village of Dmitrovka, outside Kiev “around 29 March,” amid the withdrawal of Russian forces from the area. “A Ukrainian armed forces soldier shot three times at close range, and wounded, an already wounded Russian armed forces soldier. A video shows other motionless Russian armed forces soldiers nearby, including one with hands tied behind his back and an apparent wound to his head, suggesting that he had likely been executed,” the commission noted.

While acknowledging Ukrainian wrongdoings, the report, however, unequivocally states that “Russian armed forces are responsible for the vast majority of the violations identified.” While the instances of mistreatment of Russian POWs at the hands of Ukrainian fighters are backed by hard evidence, such as videos, the alleged violations committed by Russian forces mostly rely on the accounts of witnesses.

Among other things, the report reiterates the allegations of widespread sexual violence by the Russian military, claiming that the purported “victims range from four to over 80 years old.” The claims resemble those made by the ousted Ukrainian human rights commissioner, Lyudmila Denisova, who had extensively disseminated wild stories about alleged widespread sexual violence. The ombudsman was removed in late May over what was deemed a failure to perform her duties. In particular, she was slammed for “inexplicably focusing” on spreading unverified and unsubstantiated information. According to Ukrainian media reports, most of the rape claims made by Denisova turned to be fake, with local prosecutors finding no evidence to back them.

www.rt.com/russia/564912-ukrainian-war-crimes-report

Türkiye has reportedly developed a short-range ballistic missile in secret and conducted a successful test launch of the weapon over the Black Sea on Tuesday, Bloomberg has reported.

Citing two anonymous sources who were not authorized to comment on the matter, the outlet says the missile was fired from a mobile platform stationed at an airport near the northeast port city of Rize. The launch was conducted at around 7am local time.

The missile reportedly traveled 561km in 458 seconds, striking a target off the coast of Sinop – the longest distance ever traveled by a Turkish-made missile, according to Bloomberg’s sources.

Several videos claiming to show the launch of the missile have also been shared by Turkish media, which claim that the rocket – the Tayfun – was developed by Ankara-based weapons manufacturer and defense contractor Roketsan, which also supplies Türkiye’s army with the J600T YILDIRIM and BORA ballistic missiles, which have a range of 150+ and 280+ kilometers respectively.

www.rt.com/news/564924-turkey-rest-fires-ballistic-missile