NATO seeks to strengthen Russia’s neighbours as Moscow attacks Ukraine on multiple fronts

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KIEV (Reuters) November, 30 Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian forces were advancing in the northeast and east and were trying to “plan something” in the south. Meanwhile, NATO on Wednesday tried to reassure other countries facing destabilization that Moscow fears.


Winter weather has hampered fighting on the ground, and Zelensky told the Ukrainian public that this week the Russians have been bombing the battered Ukrainian power infrastructure, which they have been bombing almost every week since early October. He told me to expect a large-scale barrage.

He said Russian forces were attacking the Donbass regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east and Kharkov in the northeast, where Ukraine pushed Russian forces back in September.

“The situation on the front lines is difficult,” he said in his nightly video address. In Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkov, “the occupiers are still trying to advance despite very heavy losses”. And “they’re planning something down south,” he said without elaborating.

Reuters has not been able to independently verify the latest battlefield reports.

Allied foreign ministers, including Secretary of State Antony Brinken, should focus on helping fragile states that are concerned about their stability in the face of the energy crisis caused by the Ukraine war.

 

 

The Ukrainian General Staff said Ukrainian forces had repelled his six Russian attacks in the eastern Donbass region in the past 24 hours, but Russian artillery pardoned the right bank of the Dnieper and the city of Kherson to the south. fired without a hitch.

Moldova, Georgia and Bosnia are all “under pressure from Russia,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday. Snow was expected in Kyiv and temperatures were expected to stay below freezing. Millions of people in and around the capital struggle to heat their homes despite attacks on infrastructure aimed at harming civilians, a war crime, according to Kyiv and its allies. ing.

Workers have tried to repair the damage, but expect more. After Russia’s worst-ever barrage left millions shivering in cold and darkness, power was restored to three-quarters of its demand on Wednesday, said Ukrenergo, the state-owned power grid operator. rice field.

Moscow has acknowledged the attack on infrastructure but said it was aimed at demoting the Ukrainian military and said accepting the failed demands could end the suffering of Ukrainians.

DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private power company, said there would be more emergency blackouts on Wednesday in Kyiv, where about 1 million people were without power on Tuesday.

“We are trying to get back to rolling blackouts as soon as possible, but information may change several times a day, depending on grid conditions,” he said. The European Union said it intends to use the proceeds from its investments in frozen Russian assets to compensate for the damage Ukraine has done to Russia, citing “Russian crimes of aggression” for negotiations. proposed the establishment of a court to hear.


Kyiv welcomed the move, saying Moscow had no legitimate targets. “In violation of international law, they invaded other countries, deliberately destroyed infrastructure and committed mass murder,” Presidential Adviser Mihailo Podoljak wrote on Twitter.

Russia says the asset freeze is illegal and denies aggression called “military special operations” to disarm its neighbours, amounting to illegal aggression.

In the south, overnight Russian missile attacks damaged a gas supply plant in the Zaporizhzhya region, while artillery shells and heavy artillery hit Nikopol and Nikopol, the towns across the Dnipro from the Russian-held Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant. Attacked Marganets. Said. Ukrainian forces attacked a power plant in Russia’s Kursk region on Tuesday, causing some power outages, the region’s governor said. In Russia’s Bryansk region, which borders northeastern Ukraine, the local governor said