November 29, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

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

A view of damaged electrical wires after Ukrainian army retaken control from the Russian forces in Lyman, Ukraine on November 27.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the second winter season of the war “will be very challenging.”

He told a government meeting that Russia “will further shell the energy infrastructure; their goal is to freeze Ukraine and commit another genocide of the Ukrainian people.”

Shmyhal said that “all regions of Ukraine, except Kherson region, are supplied with power. Currently, electricity production in the country covers 70% of consumption needs.”

He said the onus was now on regional power companies not to exceed the limits provided by state electricity provider NPC Ukrenergo and to minimize uneven disconnection of consumers.

There is sufficient energy, he said, to evenly distribute the load of forced outages so that people can turn on lights for at least five to six hours a day, Shmyhal said.

Shmyhal said the situation required a strong air defense and quick repairs of damaged power equipment.

“Regarding air defense, over the past month, there has been significant progress, first of all, thanks to the supply of modern Western systems,” he said.

Obtaining additional power equipment was also a priority, he said.

Shmyhal said Ukraine’s energy resources are adequate for the winter months: “We are entering the winter with 14 billion cubic meters of gas in our storage facilities and 1.3 million tonnes of coal in storages. This resource will be quite enough to get us through the winter stably.”

He also said that the Economy Ministry foresaw no shortages of fuel and diesel, which would be required for the hundreds of generators being imported.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz attends a press conference after a meeting of the representatives of international finance- and economy organizations at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, November 29.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday pledged the delivery of more Gepard anti-aircraft tanks to Ukraine.?

“We will continue to work to provide that very efficient system,“ Scholz said during a joint news conference with world financial and economic organizations.?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Scholz in a phone call on Tuesday about Russian airstrikes on civilian infrastructure, water and electricity supplies, according to a government news release. The chancellor condemned the ongoing shelling and assured Ukraine of further short-term assistance, government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said in a news release.?

To date, the German government has provided short-term financial assistance to repair energy infrastructure in the amount of approximately 56 million euros (about $58 million), Hebestreit said in the news release. Germany is also providing over 350 generators as Ukraine suffers power outages due to the Russian shelling.

The chancellor reiterated Germany’s continued support to Ukraine, including air defense and long-term reconstruction.

Scholz said that the German offer of its Patriot air defense system to Poland was not off the table, after stray missiles hit the country on Nov. 15.

An antenna of the Starlink satellite-based broadband system donated by Elon Musk is seen in Izyum, Kharkiv region on September 25.

After a sometimes difficult relationship, the Ukrainian government has praised US company SpaceX, which is owned by billionaire Elon Musk, for helping it to maximize the use of the Starlink high-speed mobile satellite terminals.

Ukraine’s Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said in an interview with Interfax that the ministry had brought in more than 22,000 Starlink terminals in Ukraine with the help of international donors and SpaceX.

Musk had public disagreements with the Ukrainian government over who should finance the cost of providing bandwidth and other support for the Starlink terminals, and over his ideas for negotiating an end to the conflict.?

In October, CNN exclusively reported that SpaceX asked the US Defense Department to help pay for the service, saying that the “operation has cost SpaceX $80 million and will exceed $100 million by the end of the year.”?

SpaceX warned the Pentagon that it might stop funding the service in Ukraine unless the US military kicked in tens of millions of dollars per month. But subsequently, Musk tweeted:?“The hell with it … even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.”

Fedorov indicated the relationship was now on a much better footing.

“If there is a connectivity problem at the frontline, SpaceX helps us to solve it very fast for Starlinks to work. There have been some public discussions as to financial issues, but Musk has both publicly and privately assured that Starlink will keep working no matter what financial issues will arise,” he said.

“We are now discussing purchasing another big shipment of thousands of Starlinks for Ukraine. I get very fast feedback. I see that they want to help us and they are helping,” he added.

The US is considering sending the Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine to support their air defense capabilities against incoming Russian attacks, a senior US defense official told reporters Tuesday.

The?Patriot air defense missile system?– Patriot stands for “Phased Array Tracking Radar to Intercept of Target” – is designed to counter and destroy incoming short-range ballistic missiles, advanced aircraft and cruise missiles.

Air defense of Ukraine is the US’s “top priority,” the official added.

“We’re looking at all the possible capabilities that could help the Ukrainians withstand Russian attacks, so all the capabilities are on the table, and we are looking at what the United States can do, we’re looking at what our allies and partners can do, and looking at combinations of capabilities that would be useful,” the official added.?

However, later on Tuesday, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters during a briefing that the US has “no plans to provide Patriot batteries to Ukraine” right now.

Part of the challenge with sending Patriot batteries or other advanced weaponry to Ukraine is those systems require a “pretty significant maintenance and sustainment tail as well as a training tail on those things,” Ryder said.?

“None of these systems are plug and play, you can’t just show up on the battlefield and start using them, so those are the kinds of things that are taken into account when it comes to more advanced systems,” Ryder said.

Ukraine’s air defense remains a “priority” to the US, Ryder added.

“We’ll continue to look at working with allies and partners in terms of what we can get to Ukraine as quickly as possible so they can start employing those capabilities immediately,” Ryder said.?

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during the NATO Foreign Ministers Meeting held at Parliament Palace in Bucharest, Romania, on November 29.

NATO foreign ministers said Tuesday in a joint statement they?remain steadfast in the?“commitment to Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity” and pledged allies will?assist Ukraine as it repairs its energy infrastructure?amid Russian attacks.

“Russia’s unacceptable actions, including hybrid activities, energy blackmail, and reckless nuclear rhetoric, undermine the rules-based international order,”?according to the statement.?

“We also remain resolute in supporting Ukraine’s long-term efforts on its path of post-war reconstruction and reforms, so that Ukraine can secure its free and democratic future, modernize its defense sector, strengthen long-term interoperability and deter future aggression,” according to the statement.?

Ukraine has been experiencing blackouts as Russia continues to bombard energy infrastructure.

“We will continue to strengthen our partnership with Ukraine as it advances its Euro-Atlantic aspirations,” the ministers said.

Damage seen to the Antonivsky Bridge in Kherson, Ukraine, Sunday, November 2. The bridge, the main crossing point over the Dnipro river in Kherson, was destroyed by Russian troops in earlier November, after Kremlin's forces withdrew from the southern city.

Ukrainian officials said that Russian forces are shelling “all settlements” along the west bank of the Dnipro River in the southern Kherson region, including recently liberated territory.

Serhii Khlan, a member of the Kherson regional council, told a news conference that “the occupiers continue shelling both the city of Kherson and the west-bank part of Kherson region.”

He said there had been no casualties Tuesday, but Russian forces continue to strike at vital infrastructure.

“Power company crews are working to fully restore power supply to Kherson city. Critical infrastructure is supplied, but not all of it. Hospitals have received electricity supply,” he said.

Khlan said that only a quarter of Kherson city’s pre-war population of 320,000 remains — and more were leaving every day because of the shelling and lack of utilities. Additional carriages were being added to a daily evacuation train, and evacuation by bus routes continued, he added.

“People are gradually leaving. So far, people are not returning to the city en masse. There are cases when people come to check their homes and return back to the regions where they are now.?So far, a small number of people have left … but there are many people who want to leave,” Khlan said.

He also asserted that the bulk of Russian forces were positioned some 15 to 20 kilometers (about 9 to 12 miles) from the east bank of the river, but that personnel of the Russian security service (FSB) occupied observation posts close to the river in towns like Kakhovka and Nova Kakhovka. They were exerting pressure on the remaining civilian population to leave, he claimed.

Khlan said that he expected people already in temporary accommodation would be forced to leave for Russia.?He also claimed that pro-Russian administrators had left the east bank towns and set up an administration in the city of Henichesk, closer to Crimea. “They defined it as the center of the occupation region, and now all supporters and collaborators are there,” he said.

Workers dismantle an autotransformer in central Ukraine which stands completely destroyed after the Ukrenergo high voltage power substation was hit by a missile strike on October 17.

The United States will provide $53 million to support Ukraine’s electrical system as it faces a barrage of attacks from Russia.

The funding will go toward “the acquisition of critical electricity grid equipment,” which “will be rapidly delivered to Ukraine on an emergency basis to help Ukrainians persevere through the winter,” according to a media note from the US State Department.

“This supply package will include distribution transformers, circuit breakers, surge arresters, disconnectors, vehicles and other key equipment,” the note said.

The funding adds to the United States’ existing $55 million in emergency energy sector support. It was announced by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a meeting of the G7+ Tuesday, which took place on the margins of the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting in Bucharest, according to the media note.

US and European officials have strongly condemned Russia’s strikes on Ukrainian civilian populations and infrastructure, accusing Moscow of deliberately targeting Ukraine’s energy grid in an effort to leave people without electricity and heat – an act that they say would amount to a war crime.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov has said?Russia and the United States do not hold dialogue on Ukraine because of what he called “different approaches,” according to Russian state media RIA Novosti.

“I am not aware about any de-escalating channel in relation to what is happening in Ukraine. I don’t know about it at all. We don’t have a dialogue with the United States on the Ukrainian topic, because our approaches are radically different,” said Ryabkov, as quoted by TASS.

Ryabkov also said that there is a “chance” to resume a strategic dialogue with the United States, but only if Washington realizes that “there should be no?one-sided imposition of certain positions.”

According to Ryabkov, the situation in Ukraine does not affect Russia’s approach on nuclear deterrence, despite “continuous speculation” from the US?” on Russia’s “irresponsible nuclear rhetoric.”

Marco Buschmann, German Minister of Justice, speaks to the media during the G7 Meeting of Ministers of Justice on November 29, in Berlin, Germany.

The G7 ministers of justice condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s use of “winter as a weapon,” the German justice minister said Tuesday at a meeting with his counterparts in Berlin.?

Minister Marco Buschmann told a news conference that Ukrainian civilians had been living in freezing temperatures as a result of Russia’s strikes on civilian infrastructure, adding the ministers had agreed this was “a terrible war crime that is aimed at ensuring that many people fall victim to winter.”

The group vowed to coordinate criminal investigations into war crimes, which they agreed was “of the highest priority,” Buschmann said, adding Ukrainian authorities had so far documented nearly 50,000 instances of war crimes and listed around 600 suspected war criminals.?

It is a shared goal of the G7 countries “to achieve maximum accountability and to deliver justice for victims and survivors,” according to a statement published after the meeting. “There can be no impunity for war crimes and other atrocities.”

The “entire Russian leadership” should be investigated in the International Criminal Court for “crimes against humanity” Buschmann told the press conference.?

CNN’s Allegra Goodwin contributed to this post.

Brittney Griner arrives to a hearing at the Khimki Court, outside Moscow, on August 4.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Tuesday that there is “always a chance” for an exchange of prisoners with the United States, and he did not rule out the possibility of a prisoner swap before the end of the year, according to state media RIA Novosti.

“There is always a chance. Unfortunately, there were several situations before when it seemed that a decision in favor of this was about to take place. This did not happen. But I’m just talking about previous experiences — we, as a department, do not conduct such dialogue, so we do not fully feel the dynamics,” Ryabkov said, as quoted by RIA.

Ryabkov said an agreement on the exchange of prisoners with the United States “would show that quiet diplomacy is bearing fruit.”?He added that recent methods of “megaphone diplomacy” from the United States “did not help the case.”

Some background: In July, CNN reported that the Biden administration offered to exchange a convicted arms trafficker Viktor Bout as part of a potential deal to secure the release of two Americans held by Russia, basketball star Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan. But Russian officials have requested that Vadim Krasikov, a former colonel from the country’s domestic spy agency, be included in the US’ proposed swap of Bout for Griner and Whelan, multiple sources familiar with the discussions have previously told CNN.

Earlier this month, Ryabkov said that Russia hoped for a “positive outcome” on the issue of exchanging?Bout, according to state media TASS.The possibility of a prisoner swap is not only possible but is getting stronger, he said, adding that “and the time will come when the prospect will become a concrete agreement,” according to TASS.

However, the US State Department has cautioned against optimism based on Ryabkov’s comments, noting that Russia still has yet to engage in good faith. “Ultimately here, actions speak louder than words,” said State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov looks on during a press conference following talks with his US counterpart on soaring tensions over Ukraine, in Geneva, on Jan. 10.

Moscow had “no choice” but to postpone the meeting on the START nuclear arms reduction treaty in Cairo, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian journalists on Tuesday, according to state media TASS.

“The situation developed in such a way that we had no other choice. The decision was made at the political level,” Ryabkov told journalists, as quoted by TASS.

“We were faced with a situation where our American colleagues in a number of areas demonstrated not just an unwillingness to perceive our signals and take into account our priorities but acted in the opposite direction,”?Ryabkov said. “Of course, there is an effect of what is happening in Ukraine and around it.”

US President Joe Biden’s administration is blaming Russia for postponing the meetings that were scheduled to begin on Tuesday, with a State Department spokesperson saying the decision was made “unilaterally” by Russia. Russia did not provide a reason to the US for postponing the talks, a senior State Department official told CNN.

According to Ryabkov, the United States tried to concentrate on the topic of inspections, while for Moscow, “the priority was and remains the solution of other issues.” Ryabkov said?Moscow will offer Washington new dates for a meeting on the START treaty, but it is “unlikely” that it will take place before the end of the year.?

“The major issues that dominate our agenda with the United States today are more important than some technique and mechanics of work under the new START,” Ryabkov added.

NATO is “not running out” of tanks, Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said, refuting claims that the alliance is low on stock.??

Speaking to reporters ahead of a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Bucharest, Romania, on Tuesday, Landsbergis said Ukraine needs “air defense, missile defense.”

“Everything that we have needs to be shipped right away,” he said.?

Acknowledging that there may be “difficulties” with the supply of other ammunition, Landsbergis said that NATO countries “basically have almost unlimited amount of ammunition for main battle tanks.”?

Relentless Russian airstrikes have sapped much of Ukraine’s heat and power supply, with freezing temperatures and less daylight compounding the hardship for people.

Meanwhile, Moscow has said it will start installing federal courts in four regions of Ukraine that it annexed in violation of international law.

Here are the latest developments:

Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, left, and Governor of the Volgograd Region Andrey Bocharov attend a farewell ceremony for Wagner PMC soldier Alexei Nagin in Volgograd, Russia, on September 24.

The head of the notorious private military company Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, confirmed that a Zambian national killed on Sept. 22 died fighting for Wagner in Ukraine. Prigozhin also confirmed that the Zambian was recruited out of a Russian prison.

Prigozhin, known by the moniker “Putin’s chef,” confirmed the name of the Zambian was Nathan Lemekhani Nyirenda.?

Via a Telegram account where his responses to journalists are posted, Prigozhin said that he met Nyirenda on his recruitment drive across Russia’s prisons. The two allegedly met in a prison in Tver, Russia.

Prigozhin said he recalled an alleged exchange that he had with Nyirenda in which he asked about his motivation for fighting in the war.

CNN has previously reported about the death, age, prison and circumstances of Nyirenda in November.?

A statement from the Zambian Foreign Ministry said that he was a 23-year-old student who was studying in Russia at the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute and that he had been arrested in April 2020 and sentenced to 9 years and 6 months in prison in Tver.?

At the end of Prigozhin’s statement on Telegram, he described Nyirenda as “showing courage, bravery and he died as a hero.”

France has dispatched 100 generators to Romania for onward transport to Ukraine, the French embassy in Romania tweeted on Tuesday.

The 100 units will be handed over to Ukraine “very soon,” the embassy tweeted.

The European Union has sent 500 generators to Ukraine, from 17 EU countries, EU Civil Protection & Humanitarian Aid — the bloc’s humanitarian arm — said on Twitter. These range from small generators suitable for running small households to much more powerful ones with higher capacities.

France’s delivery is part of these 500 units, the ministry confirmed to CNN and follows 85 such generators that France has already sent to Ukraine and Moldova.

“Given the immense energy needs in Ukraine, much more equipment is needed,” EU Civil Protection & Humanitarian Aid said on Twitter.

Millions of Ukrainians have been left with reduced access to heat and power this winter, following a recent barrage of Russian strikes targeting critical energy infrastructure.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that “political will” is required to resume negotiations with Kyiv, but that in the current climate, negotiations with Ukraine are “impossible because the Ukrainian side denies them.”?

Asked what is required to resume them, he said, “it has to be political will and readiness to discuss those demands of Russia that are well known [in Kyiv].”

Peskov made the comments during a regular call with journalists.

Some context: Moscow has been consistently accusing Kyiv of withdrawing from negotiations. When asked Monday about the possibility the Vatican could mediate in Russia-Ukraine negotiations — which the Vatican has repeatedly offered — Peskov said they welcomed such initiatives, but added that platforms for negotiations are “not currently in demand” from the Ukrainian side.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree in early October formally ruling out the possibility of negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin in response to Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions, which is illegal under international law.

But speaking to CNN in mid-November, Zelensky said he did not rule out peace negotiations with the Russian president in Moscow. Zelensky had previously offered numerous times to sit down to talk with Putin and Russian officials during the beginning of the war.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg delivers his speech as he arrives for the first day of the meeting of NATO Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Bucharest, Romania, on November 29.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is “failing in Ukraine” amid Kyiv’s successes on the battlefield, according to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

Stoltenberg said?Putin was “trying to use winter as a weapon of war,” as Russia’s spate of strikes on Ukrainian critical infrastructure have?left millions of civilians without electricity, water and central heating.

NATO allies have delivered generators to help Ukraine restore its collapsed energy infrastructure, Stoltenberg said ahead of a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Bucharest, Romania, on Tuesday.

He added that he expected the message from the foreign ministers to be that allies “need to do more,” including providing Ukraine with more air defense systems and ammunition.?

Asked whether Ukraine could expect to see further attacks from Russia, Stoltenberg said more attacks could be expected because: “Russia is failing on the battlefield.”?

Ukraine’s success in pushing Russian forces out of territories around Kyiv and Kharkiv, as well as the liberation of Kherson city, was “a sign of weakness,” he added.?

Stoltenberg said Russia was running out of ammunition, evidenced by its reaching out to Iran for more.

“Iran and no other country should provide Russia with missiles, drones or anything else,” he warned.

When asked about the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO, Stoltenberg said he anticipated the foreign ministers’ meeting would “reiterate that NATO’s door is open.”

?A woman looks at one of the works in the exhibition 'In the Eye of the Storm', at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, on November 28, in Madrid, Spain.

Some 51 Ukrainian paintings that secretly left Kyiv earlier this month, just hours before a massive Russian missile attack on the capital, began an exhibition at a leading museum in Spain on Tuesday.?

“The exhibition ‘In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900–1930s,’ presents?ground-breaking art produced in Ukraine in the first decades of the 20th century,” the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid said in a statement.?

The works, on loan from the National Art Museum of Ukraine and other museums in the country, “were packed in secrecy” onto trucks and left Kyiv on November 15, said a statement from Museums for Ukraine, a group of museums which collaborate to help protect Ukraine’s cultural heritage.?

The trucks “faced a treacherous journey as they passed through areas of unexpected heavy missile fire” heading west, past the city of Lviv and finally across the Polish border, the statement added.

The convoy carrying the art reached Madrid on November 20 and went to the Thyssen museum, whose board member, Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza, founded Museums for Ukraine in March, shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.?

“It is becoming clearer day by day that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s war against Ukraine is not only about stealing territory, but it is also about controlling the nation’s narrative and its cultural heritage,” Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza said.?

“This exhibition is the most comprehensive survey of Ukrainian avant-garde art in a?major European museum to date,” the Museums for Ukraine added.

In addition to the 51 paintings that left Ukraine in the convoy, the exhibition includes about 18 other Ukrainian works, from sketches and collages to theater designs, including from private collectors, museum organizers said.?

The exhibit will be shown in Madrid through to April 30, before heading to the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany. Further venues are to be decided after that.

Federal courts will be instated in the four Ukrainian regions annexed by Russia and the courts of the territories will be integrated into the Russian judicial system “as soon as possible,” according to Vladimir Putin.

“Four new subjects have become part of Russia – the DPR (Donetsk People’s Republic), the LPR (Luhansk People’s Republic), Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. In these territories, it is planned to create federal courts,” Russian President Putin said Tuesday while speaking at the 10th All-Russian Congress of Judges in the Kremlin.

“The Supreme Court, together with other bodies, has a lot of work to do on the formation of new compositions of courts and the speedy integration of courts into the Russian judicial system. And this needs to be done as soon as possible,” he said.

Some context: Through the annexation process, which is illegal under international law, Moscow has recognized four Ukrainian regions as Russian territory.

This includes Luhansk and Donetsk – home to two Russian-backed breakaway republics where fighting has been ongoing since 2014 – as well as Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, two areas in southern Ukraine that have been occupied by Russian forces since shortly after the invasion began.

The power deficit in Ukraine was running at 30% as of 11 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET), according to the country’s state-run electricity company.

The deficit on Monday was 27%, Ukrenergo said.

The deficit has been caused by the emergency shutdown of “several power plants” on Monday morning, as well as the increase in consumption given weather conditions, the company said in a statement.

It urged Ukrainians to be “economical” with consumption to “allow less application of restrictions aimed at preventing accidents” and also to enable urgent repairs to take place.

A recent barrage of Russian strikes devastated energy supplies in Ukraine, leaving millions of people across the country without access to heat and power amid plummeting temperatures this winter.

Sirens have been heard in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and CNN teams are currently taking shelter.?

Ukraine's first lady?Olena?Zelenska?walks outside Downing Street in London, England, on November 28.

Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska appealed to the British public not to forget the “tragedy” facing her country this Christmas, days after it marked nine months since the first day of Russia’s invasion.?

“I realize that nine months is a very long time, and Ukrainians are very tired of this war, but we have no choice in the matter. We are fighting for our lives. The British public do have a choice: They can get used to our tragedy and concentrate on their own important things in life,” she said in a BBC radio interview on Tuesday.

But she added: “It’s not just a war for our freedom and our lives. This is the war of opposing worldviews: A war of values. It’s important that these are preserved.”

The first lady’s words come amid relentless Russian attacks on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, which have left millions of civilians without power and bracing themselves for a freezing winter with no central heating.??

Zelenska said Russia was aiming “to terrorize people in Ukraine this coming winter, to scare us that we might not survive the cold, the darkness, without internet.”

“The winter is treacherous, and that’s what Russia leaders are counting on.

“Luckily, we are resilient. It would probably be wrong to say that these things do not scare us, they do, but we understand why we can and we should endure this, and we will fight for the world, for electricity and for the light,” Zelenska said.

Asked how often she is able to see her husband, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the first lady said: “I can’t complain, I’m just like everybody else. I can see my husband a couple of times a week at work because I visit the president’s office often, but he rarely sees our children unfortunately.”

Zelenska is due to address the British Parliament on Tuesday afternoon.

Pope Francis delivers his speech after his traditional Wednesday General Audience at St. Peter's Square in Vatican City on November 23.

Pope Francis has described two of Russia’s ethnic minority groups, the Chechens and Buryats, as some of the “cruelest” troops fighting in Ukraine.

“The cruelest are perhaps those who are of Russia but are not of the Russian tradition, such as the Chechens, the Buryats and so on,” the Pope said in an interview published Monday.

“I speak of a people who are martyred. If you have a martyred people, you have someone who martyrs them,” he added in the interview with Jesuit magazine America, which took place on November 22, according to the outlet.

Chechens are an ethnic group originating from Chechnya in southern Russia. The leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, has largely been supportive of the war in Ukraine — including, allegedly, sending his sons to fight there.

Buryats are an ethnic group from eastern-Siberia which borders Mongolia.

Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova defended Russia’s ethnic make-up on her official Telegram channel.

“We are one family with Buryats, Chechens and other representatives of our multinational and multi-confessional country. And together we will definitely pray for the Holy See, each in his own way.”

The leader of the Catholic Church also addressed the anniversary of the Holodomor, which usually takes place on the fourth Saturday of November.

The Holodomor was a man-made famine that is widely attributed to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. It led to millions of Ukrainians dying of starvation between 1932 and 1933.

“The genocide that Stalin committed against the Ukrainians [in 1932-33]. I believe it is appropriate to mention it as a historical antecedent of the [present] conflict,” Pope Francis said in the interview.

Some background: Since the beginning of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the two figure heads of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis, and Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill have been at loggerheads. In June, Pope Francis described the war as Russian “expansionism and imperialism,” after urging Patriarch Kirill not to “become Putin’s altar boy.”

Two meetings have also been cancelled between the two churches. One in April was due to be in Jerusalem, with the second scheduled to take place in Kazakhstan in September. The two leaders of the church have only ever met once, in Cuba in 2016, since the Great Schism in the 9th?century.

Christmas trees will be erected across Kyiv in celebration of the festive season, the mayor of the Ukrainian capital has said.

Though mass events will be prohibited under martial law, “no one is going to cancel the New Year and Christmas, and there should be an atmosphere of the New Year,” he added.

The trees will be installed but without their lights on, according to Ukrainian energy company YASNO.

Millions of Ukrainians are in the throes of an energy crisis following Russian airstrikes targeting power infrastructure.

The Christmas trees will be set up at different sites across the city, including the iconic St. Sophia Square.

Klitschko said that the trees will be installed “to remind our children of the New Year mood. You know, we do not want to take away St. Nicholas from children.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks at a press conference at the end of a meeting with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis at Cotroceni Presidential Palace in Bucharest, Romania, on November 28.

NATO’s “critical” and unprecedented support in Ukraine remains ongoing, the head of the alliance said Tuesday.

“Our relationship is a very close partnership — it is a relationship, where NATO allies have proven their willingness to support Ukraine in an unprecedented way,” NATO Secretary General?Jens Stoltenberg?said.

“When the invasion happened, NATO was not taken by surprise. Actually, we have been preparing, we have been ready to face situations like this since we started the big adaptation of NATO in 2014,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Bucharest, Romania.?

Stoltenberg reiterated that the war began in 2014, referring to Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, with Canadian troops, British troops, and US troops from NATO helping to train Ukrainian forces that year.

“So the reality was that when the invasion happened in February this year — compared to 2014 — the Ukrainian troops and armed forces were much better trained, much bigger, much better equipped, and much better led,” Stoltenberg said. “That’s one of the main reasons why they were able to fight back.”

“The main focus now is on supporting Ukraine, ensuring that President Putin doesn’t win, but that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation in Europe.

“It is a mixture of partly more presence in the east, we have already doubled the number of groups, but also working on how to scale those battle groups up from battalions to brigade size levels quickly.”?

“So the combination of more presence, earmarked troops, higher readiness, prepositioned equipment, all of that will strengthen our ability to react and act.

“The purpose of all this, is every day, 24/7, to deliver credible deterrence and defense. And by doing that, we are not provoking conflict, but we are preserving peace, preventing a conflict.”

Stoltenberg added that the alliance is working to build on the agreement made at the NATO summit in Madrid earlier this year.?

The site of a Russian shelling in Kherson where four were killed, according to the local administration.

A pool of blood-stained water and the charred wreckage of a car mark the spot?in Kherson?where Russian shells tore into this city Thursday, killing four, according to local officials, and shattering any sense of calm.

Russian President Vladimir Putin claims he’s annexed this region, and that the people here are now Russians. But?his troops have left, and now they’re killing the civilians they once vowed to protect.

Amid acute power and water shortages, the?people of Kherson?are suffering and, with winter fast approaching, it’s only set to get worse.

Soon after the invasion of Ukraine began, Kherson was taken over by Russian forces, only emerging from months of occupation on November 11 when the Kremlin’s troops withdrew. Now residents are suffering the kind of violence familiar to so many across this country.

In a small grocery store also destroyed by the recent shelling, a desperate local man searches in the rubble for scraps of food and rolls of toilet paper, scavenging for what little he can to survive.

Read the full story here.

The Ukrainian city of Dnipro was the target of a Russian rocket attack Monday night, according to Valentyn Reznichenko, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration.

He did not disclose the identity of the enterprise.?

Some background:?Dnipro is frequently targeted by Russian missiles and other longer-range weapons. On Saturday,?Reznichenko said?at least 13 people were wounded in a Russian rocket attack.

People walk past damaged buildings in Borodyanka, Ukraine, on November 9.

More than half of the damaged heating facilities in Ukraine have been restored, according to the YASNO energy company, which supplies electricity and natural gas.?

The company’s CEO said “316 heat supply facilities have already been restored, which is 53.3% of the total number of affected facilities.”

“Special efforts are now being made to restore the operation of heat generating enterprises in the liberated territories of Kharkiv and Kherson regions, where the situation with access to communications remains difficult,” he added.

The situation remains “dire” and “critical” in the southern Ukrainian cities of Kherson and Mykolaiv — with nearly a quarter of a million people in Mykolaiv alone facing a lack of heat, water and power, the United Nations says.

UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said that Humanitarian Coordinator Denise Brown visited the two southern cities over the weekend. Brown reported that people fleeing Kherson are going to Mykolaiv, according to Dujarric.

“Some heating points have already been established in Mykolaiv to help people who cannot heat their homes. Aid workers are providing supplies and generators to make these places functional,” Dujarric said.

In Kherson, “We expect that, with support of the authorities, we will be able to cover the basic needs of people who have stayed in the city, if we are able to sustain the same level of aid sent over the past two weeks.”??

Donors have provided $3.1 billion in humanitarian aid through the UN this year, but Dujarric said continued funding is important, especially during winter months.

Russian Yars intercontinental ballistic missile launchers parade through Red Square during the Victory Day military parade in central Moscow, Russia, on May 9.

The Biden administration is blaming Russia for postponing meetings to?discuss a key nuclear arms control agreement?between the two countries that were scheduled to begin in Egypt on Tuesday, with a State Department spokesperson saying the decision was made “unilaterally” by Russia.

The meetings on the New START Treaty — the only agreement left regulating the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals — were scheduled to be held in the wake of Moscow’s nuclear saber-rattling toward Ukraine and following complications around inspections related to the treaty. US officials have repeatedly stressed the need for dialogue on nuclear matters in order to reduce risk.

In a statement Monday, the State Department spokesperson said that “the United States and the Russian Federation were set to convene a meeting of the New START Treaty’s Bilateral Consultative Commission (BCC) in Cairo, Egypt, to discuss New START Treaty implementation on Tuesday, November 29.”

Russia did not provide a reason to the US for postponing the talks, a senior State Department official told CNN. Moscow informed the US of its decision in “recent days,” the official said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry told Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti that the talks had been postponed, but did not give a reason for the delay.

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