November 27, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine has moved here.

Russian attacks in Ukraine have damaged about 32,000 civilian targets and more than 700 critical infrastructure facilities?since?the?Russian invasion began in February, a Ukrainian government official said Sunday.

“As one would expect of the terrorists, Russians target civilian targets. To date, about 32,000 such targets have been damaged by Russian missiles and shells. These are primarily private houses or?civilian?apartment buildings,” Yevhenii Yenin, a?Ukrainian diplomat, said in an interview with Ukrainian media Sunday.??

“Only 3% of recorded attacks have been on military facilities,” he added.?

“As of now, more than 700 critical infrastructure facilities — airfields, bridges, oil depots, electricity substations, etc — all of these got hit,” Yenin said.?

Russia has repeatedly targeted civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, causing widespread power outages ahead of winter. CNN has not independently verified the specific numbers cited by Yenin.

Ukraine can get by for the next two years with its existing nuclear fuel reserves, the president of?Ukraine’s state nuclear company said Sunday.

Petro Kotin, who heads Energoatom, made the comment in an interview with Ukrainian media.

Since the start of the war, Ukraine has not bought Russian nuclear fuel, relying on its own reserves. Energoatom says it is transitioning any units from its nuclear power plants that relied on Russian fuel to Westinghouse Electric, a?Pennsylvania-based,?nuclear-focused technology?company?in the United States.?

“We are working with Westinghouse to create our own fuel production line, based on their technologies. We already produce heads and tails of fuel cartridges that have been licensed by this American company. So, we will produce half of it ourselves, and the other half will be supplied by Westinghouse,” Kotin said.?

Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is seen on November 24.

The head of Ukraine’s nuclear energy provider says the company has received information that Russian forces may be leaving the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

“We are now observing signs that the Russian invaders may be preparing to leave,” Petro?Kotin,?the head of Energoatom, said in a statement Sunday.

“First of all, a lot of publications began to appear in the Russian media that the Zaporizhzhia NPP should perhaps be left alone, perhaps it should be handed over to the (International Atomic Energy Agency) for control,” Kotin said in an interview with Ukrainian media Sunday. “It’s like, you know, they’re packing and they’re stealing whatever they can find.”?

The IAEA has not released any information supporting Kotin’s statement, and CNN has reached out to the UN nuclear watchdog for comment.

The head of Energoatom emphasized that “it is still too early to say that the Russian military is leaving the plant,” but that they are “preparing.”?

Kotin also claimed that Russians “crammed everything they could into the Zaporizhzhia NPP site — both military equipment and personnel, trucks, probably with weapons and explosives,” and that they mined the territory of the plant.?

Remember: Zaporizhzhia is home to?Europe’s largest nuclear power facility, which provided up to 20% of the country’s electricity before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It has been under Russian control since March.

The plant and the area around it, including the nearby city of Enerhodar, have endured persistent shelling that has raised fears of a nuclear accident through the interruption of the power supply to the plant. Russia and Ukraine continue to?blame each other for the shelling.

Russian shelling killed two?people?and injured?another in Kurakhove, a city in the Donetsk region,?a Ukrainian official said Sunday.

“The Russians shelled Kurakhove with artillery,” Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk region military administration, said via Telegram. He reported that, in addition to the three victims, four homes were damaged.

The official urged?the remaining civilians to leave?the?Donetsk region in order?for their safety.

Rep. Michael McCaul walks up the House steps of the Capitol in April.

Top House Republicans vowed continued bipartisan support for Ukraine once the GOP takes control of the House in January.

But they also stood by Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s pledge for more accountability, and his position that there will be no “blank check” for Ukraine funding.

“We’re not going to write a blank check,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs committee, in a joint interview on ABC’s “This Week.” He was joined by Rep. Mike Turner, the top Republican on House Intelligence.

McCaul said the most recent aid package for Ukraine “was given to us the day of the vote, and members only had a matter of hours to go through all these pages.”

Turner echoed McCaul’s confidence that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “will have bipartisan support. The issue obviously is, we don’t need to pass $40 billion large Democrat bills that have been being passed to send $8 billion to Ukraine.”

Both Republicans expressed their support for sending long-range missiles to Ukraine, and Turner stressed the importance of providing air defense systems that are easy to use. They stressed the potential global consequences of a theoretical Russian victory.

Turner also pushed back on the narrative that the opposition to Ukraine aid comes only from within the GOP conference. He cited a since-withdrawn letter from House Democrats that called for President Joe Biden to pursue a “diplomatic push” as well as continued aid, noting “that certainly isn’t helpful to the White House.”

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko attends a meeting on October 11.

Belarus?President Alexander Lukashenko said Sunday that Kyiv is making a “mistake” by putting forward preconditions for negotiations with Russia, arguing that such preconditions do not allow negotiations to start.

“The mistake of the Ukrainians, of (President) Volodymyr Zelensky, is that he violates the classic principles of the negotiation process. Especially when talking with giant Russia. Well, you can’t put forward conditions in advance,” said Lukashenko during an interview with Russia state TV.?

Some background: Moscow uses Minsk as a satellite base for its unprovoked war on Ukraine. At the start of the conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops into Ukraine through the Russian and Belarusian borders.

Belarus has been used as a springboard for many of Russia’s air operations in Ukraine, according to intelligence collected by NATO surveillance planes. And the two militaries have coordinated on joint exercises.

What Ukraine and its allies are saying: Zelensky?signed a decree in early October ruling out any negotiations with Putin.

“We are ready for a dialogue with Russia, but with another president of Russia,” Zelensky said last month.

Senior US officials have in recent weeks been urging Ukraine to signal that it is still open to diplomatic discussions with?Russia.

But the US will not push Ukraine unwillingly to the negotiating table, according to sources familiar with the discussions, especially because it is clear that Russia has not shown it would negotiate in good faith.

Ambassador Jim O’Brien speaks with CNN in Odesa, Ukraine.

American?sanctions?on Russia?have?made?a “real difference” on the war in Ukraine, the top U.S. diplomat on?sanctions?policy told CNN Sunday in an exclusive interview.

“Russia is unable to run a war in any modern terms,” Ambassador Jim O’Brien, head of the State Department’s Office of?Sanctions?Coordination, told CNN at Odesa’s port. “You see the communications are lacking. Precision weapons. Rapid movement of troops. So it’s fighting a different kind of war.”

Russia has been forced to abandon what O’Brien called its “imperial project” of quickly conquering Ukraine.?Sanctions, together with Ukrainian “courage and ingenuity” on the battlefield,?have?changed Russia’s stated aims.

He said that America’s commitment to Ukraine would continue “from now until the end of this war until Ukraine succeeds.”

O’Brien visited Odesa’s main port on Sunday to highlight Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s “Grain from Ukraine” initiative, to help ensure that food products from the country reach the world’s most needy nations. Ukrainian grain has for some time been able to leave ports under a deal brokered between the UN, Turkey and Russia, but many poorer nations?have?been priced out of buying it.

“Just yesterday there were announcements of grain going to Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, South Sudan eventually, and a variety of other countries eventually that are most in need,” O’Brien said.?

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Ukrainian firefighters work at a damaged hospital maternity ward in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on Wednesday, November 23.

A group of mothers of Russian soldiers joined an activist group to demand the withdrawal of Moscow’s troops from Ukraine, launching a petition online Sunday.

The drive, organized by the Russian Feminist Anti-War Resistance group, coincides with Mother’s Day in Russia.

The petition is published on Change.org and addressed to parliamentarians on relevant committees of the State Duma and the Federation Council. The petition had over 1,500 signatures by 5:45 p.m. Moscow time (9:45 a.m. ET) Sunday, and the number was climbing.

“In many regions, the families of the mobilized had to independently collect gear for their men to be sent to die, buying everything at their own expense, even bulletproof vests. Who will provide for families that have lost their breadwinners? We know the answer — all these hardships will be an additional burden on the already overloaded shoulders of mothers!” the petition continues.

“We are against the participation of our sons, brothers, husbands, fathers in this. Your duty is to protect the rights and freedoms of mothers and children, you should not turn a blind eye to all this,” the petition reads.

Pedestrians cross a street in Kyiv, Ukraine, on November 27.

Power,?water, heat, internet and network coverage have “been almost completely restored” in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv as of 9 a.m. local time (2 a.m. ET) Sunday, the city military administration wrote on Telegram.?

Authorities said crews have entered the final stage of repair work on the?power?grid system.

Officials also said that most of the city’s residents are no longer experiencing emergency blackouts — imposed last month to limit the consumption of energy — as a result of the restored and stable?power?supply and low consumption by citizens.?

Russian missiles hit railroad infrastructure in the central Ukrainian region of Dnipro on Sunday morning,?a local official said.

“There is considerable destruction. It is not possible to travel by rail now,”?said Yevhen Sytnychenko, head of Kryvyi Rih district military administration, in a live broadcast.

He said restoration will be “significant, big and long work” and that the tracks will not work “for some time.”

Two missiles hit the rail line, according to the official, and the military is still identifying the specific type of weapons used.

Sytnychenko said the blast also damaged residential buildings, but that no one was wounded.

Russian forces shelled the Ukrainian region of Kherson 54 times on Saturday, a local official said.

Some residents have evacuated the recently liberated Kherson city and surrounding villages over the past week. More may follow, as authorities urge Ukrainians to heed warnings about Russian shelling and inconsistent power supply ahead of a harsh winter.

The latest round of shelling killed one person and left two other people, including a child, wounded, said Yaroslav Yanushevych, head of the Kherson region military administration.

The attacks hit residential buildings, a garage and a school building, Yanushevych said on Telegram.

Shelling was reported in at least eight other areas in the broader Kherson region, he added.

Ukraine’s national power supply company?Ukrenergo said 80% of electricity needs nationwide had been restored by 11 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET) Sunday, after Russian attacks caused widespread blackouts last week.

The company said critical infrastructure consumes only about 10% of the 80% capacity restored. The rest is used to supply electricity to ordinary consumers, like homes and businesses.

Grid operators are still imposing restrictions on how much energy Ukrainians can consume, as a result of the remaining 20% power deficit.

Meanwhile, a local leader in the Kherson region?said power grids damaged by Russian shelling Saturday had been restored.

High-voltage power lines in Kherson on November 17.

Crews are restoring electricity to the recently liberated city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, where concerns about power supply and ongoing Russian shelling have forced some residents to evacuate.

An official in the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram Saturday that repair work was going “around the clock” to restore electricity.

“First of all, we supply power to the city’s critical infrastructure and then immediately to household consumers,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko said, thanking crews for their efforts.

Ukraine’s deputy minister for energy, Farid Safarov, added Saturday that more than 30 settlements in the Kherson region “have finally received light.”

Six million consumers across the country were without power as of Friday evening, but that the number “is decreasing thanks to the quick work of our energy workers,” Safarov said.

Earlier today, national power supply company Ukrenergo said that 75% of electricity demand is being met across Ukraine.

Millions of Ukrainians have been suffering power cuts across the country in recent weeks amid intensified Russian shelling. Last week saw some of the most devastating attacks yet on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, leaving millions in the dark.

Rescue crews work on a site heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike in?Dnipro on Saturday.

An attack left at least 13 people wounded in Dnipro on Saturday, according to a local official.

Valentyn Reznichenko, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, described the assault as a “rocket attack” on Telegram.

Four of the injured remain at the hospital, including a 17-year-old boy and a woman who was pulled out from under the rubble and is in serious condition, he said.

He added that seven homes were partially destroyed and that search and rescue operations are underway.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz joined global leaders in marking the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor famine in Ukraine.

“Hunger must never again be used as a weapon,” Scholz said Saturday, speaking on the memorial day for victims of the Soviet-era famine that killed millions of people during the winter of 1932-33.

In a speech in Berlin, Scholz drew comparisons between the Holodomor, or Terror Famine — which was engineered by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin by removing food stocks from Ukrainian peasants — and Russia’s current actions in Ukraine.

“We know that by targeting agricultural infrastructure in Ukraine and blocking Black Sea ports for months, Russia has exacerbated this situation,” Scholz added.?

Scholz said that Germany would provide another $15.62 million for grain shipments from Ukraine in coordination with the World Food Programme.?

“You can count on our support. Each ship that sails under this initiative doesn’t just carry grain. It carries hope for the world’s hungry. And it carries an important message. The message that we are united, that we will overcome this war. And that our joint humanity will prevail,” Scholz added.