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Ukraine’s security services said on Tuesday that they had foiled a Russian plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelensky and other top military and political figures. Two Ukrainian colonels accused of participating in the plot have been arrested on suspicion of treason. According to the Ukrainian agency, the agents working at Russia’s direction were tasked with identifying people close to Mr. Zelensky’s security detail who could take him hostage and later kill him. It is not the first time that Ukraine has reported a potential assassination attempt aimed at its top leaders. Mr. Zelensky himself said in an interview with an Italian television channel earlier this year that his security services had told him of more than 10 such attempts.
Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, , Vasyl Malyuk, Kyrylo Budanov, Zelensky Organizations: Russia’s Federal Security Service Locations: Ukrainian, Ukraine, Italian
The United States has accused Russia of using chemical weapons, including poison gas, “as a method of warfare” against Ukrainian forces, in violation of a global ban on the use of such weapons. The State Department said in a statement on Wednesday that Russia had used chloropicrin, a “choking agent” widely used during World War I, as well as tear gas, against Ukrainian troops. The use of these gases in warfare is banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention, an arms control treaty ratified by more than 150 countries, including Russia. Russia this year has been slowly but steadily pushing through Ukrainian defenses in the east, capturing several towns and villages. The State Department also said that the United States would impose sanctions on three state entities linked to Russia’s chemical and biological weapons programs and four companies that support them.
Organizations: Ukrainian, State Department, Chemical Weapons Convention Locations: States, Russia, United States
Ukrainian officials said a Russian airstrike on Monday evening killed five people and wounded about 30 others in Odesa, a southern Ukrainian city that has been a regular target of Russian missiles and drones trying to destroy its port infrastructure. Videos and photos showed lifeless and bloodied bodies of civilians lying on a seafront promenade not known to be close to any strategic site like military buildings or grain storehouses. Ukrainian authorities on Tuesday accused Russia of using cluster munitions — a controversial and widely banned weapon that can often cause indiscriminate harm to civilians — in the attack. Andriy Kostin, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, said in a statement that Russia had fired an Iskander ballistic missile with a cluster warhead. “The investigators have a reason to believe that the decision to use such a weapon was taken by the Russian military officers deliberately to kill as many Ukrainian civilians as possible,” Mr. Kostin said.
Persons: Andriy Kostin, Mr, Kostin Organizations: Russian Locations: Russian, Odesa, Ukrainian, Russia
Russian troops have captured or entered around a half-dozen villages on Ukraine’s eastern front over the past week, highlighting the deteriorating situation in the region for outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian forces as they wait for long-needed American military aid. “The situation at the front has worsened,” Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s top commander, said in a statement on Sunday in which he announced that his troops had retreated from two villages west of Avdiivka, a Ukrainian stronghold in the east that Russia seized earlier this year, and another village further south. Military experts say Moscow’s recent advances reflect its desire to exploit a window of opportunity to press ahead with attacks before the first batch of a new American military aid package arrives in Ukraine to help relieve its troops. Congress recently approved $60 billion in military aid for Ukraine, and President Biden signed it last week, vowing to expedite the shipment of arms.
Persons: ” Gen, Oleksandr Syrsky, Biden Organizations: Ukrainian, Military, Ukraine Locations: Avdiivka, Ukrainian, Russia, Ukraine
When Russian tanks first rolled into Ukraine more than two years ago, Artem Vradii was sure his business was bound to suffer. “Who would think about coffee in this situation?” thought Mr. Vradii, the co-founder of a Kyiv coffee roastery named Mad Heads. One asked for bags of ground coffee because he could not stand the energy drinks supplied by the army. “I was really shocked,” Mr. Vradii said in a recent interview at his roastery, a 40-foot-high brick building buzzing with the sound of grinding coffee and filled with the smell of freshly ground beans. “Despite the war, people were still thinking about coffee.
Persons: Artem Vradii, Vradii, ” Mr Organizations: Russian Locations: Ukraine
In the photograph, Anna Haidarzhy and her 4-month-old son, Tymofii, are barely visible under the bloodstained blanket. Just two arms, one from the mother, 31, one from her son, can be seen sticking out of the blanket. “It looked like they were saying goodbye,” one of the rescuers, Serhii Mudrenko, said of the image. Throughout the search, Serhii Haidarzhy, 32, Anna’s husband and Tymofii’s father, had stayed with the rescuers as they combed the debris. “I was hoping that Anichka would survive under the rubble,” Mr. Haidarzhy said, using her nickname.
Persons: Anna Haidarzhy, Tymofii, Serhii Mudrenko, Serhii Haidarzhy, Anna’s, Tymofii’s, Lizi, Mr, Haidarzhy Locations: Ukrainian, Odesa, Ukraine
Skyscraper-sized billboards show assault troops in battle gear emerging from a ball of flames. Slick recruiting campaigns brimming with nationalist fervor have become ubiquitous in Kyiv, the capital, and other Ukrainian cities in recent months. They are perhaps the most visible sign of a push to replenish Ukrainian troops depleted by more than two years of a brutal war — an effort that experts and officials say is crucial for fending off relentless Russian attacks. But most of the campaigns are not the work of the country’s political and military leadership. They are the initiatives of troop-starved brigades that have taken matters into their own hands, shunning an official mobilization system that they say is dysfunctional, often drafting people who are unfit and unwilling to fight.
Persons: , Dmytro Koziatynskyi Organizations: Da Vinci Wolves Locations: Kyiv, Crimea
Ukrainians have reacted with a mixture of concern and mockery to the narrative pushed by the Kremlin and Russian state media that Ukraine was behind the terrorist attack Friday on a Moscow concert hall, a claim made despite the Islamic State’s claim of responsibility. “This is a typical provocation,” Iryna Blakyta, 24, a resident of Kyiv, said on Monday. “It’s typical for Russia.” She said President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia would use the attack to create a rally-around-the flag effect directed against Ukraine, after more than two years of war have worn down the Russian population. “He needs to mobilize people,” Ms. Blakyta said, “he needs to show who the enemy is.”That worry was palpable Monday morning in Kyiv, which was targeted by two ballistic missiles in broad daylight, the third air assault against the Ukrainian capital in five days. A university building in a central part of the city was reduced to rubble in the attack, and officials said at least 10 people were injured.
Persons: Iryna, , , Vladimir V, Putin, Ms, Blakyta Organizations: Kremlin, Ukraine Locations: Ukraine, Moscow, Kyiv, Russia
The terrorist attack outside Moscow a few days later was a blow to his aura as a leader for whom national security is paramount. Just days later came a searing counterpoint: His vaunted security apparatus failed to prevent Russia’s deadliest terrorist attack in 20 years. Inside Russia, the election — and its predetermined outcome — underscored Mr. Putin’s dominance over the nation’s politics. The area is closed as part of increased security measures after the terrorist attack on Friday. Before Friday, the most recent mass-casualty terrorist attack in the capital region was a suicide bombing at an airport in Moscow in 2011 that killed 37 people.
Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, , ” Aleksandr Kynev, ” Mr, Mr, , Nanna Heitmann, Aleksei A, ” Ruslan Leviev, Olga Skabeyeva, Margarita Simonyan, Russia’s, Aleksandr Dugin, Dugin, Dugin’s, Andriy Yusov, Putin’s, Shamil Zhumatov, Kynev, Vladimir Putin’s, Constant Méheut Organizations: Kremlin, Islamic State, Passengers, The New York Times, Terrorism, Islamic, ., Reuters Locations: Russia, Moscow, Ukraine, Russian, Beslan, United States
The warning was related to the attack on Friday, according to people briefed on the matter. Pro-Kremlin voices immediately seized on the U.S. Embassy’s warning to paint America as trying to scare Russians. And he has been quick to accuse Ukraine of acts of terrorism to justify his invasion of the country. But I would disabuse you at this early hour of any connection to Ukraine.”“Our thoughts obviously are going to be with the victims of this terrible, terrible shooting attack,” he also said. Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukraine’s presidential office, said in a video statement that “Ukraine has absolutely nothing to do” with the attack.
Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Mr, , John Kirby, Maria Zakharova, Washington, Mykhailo Podolyak, Aishvarya Kavi Organizations: U.S, Embassy, State Department, Kyiv, Biden’s National Security Council, White, Reuters, Locations: Moscow, America, Russia, Ukraine, Russian, U.S, Washington
“All of us decent people are hostages here.” Like other voters interviewed, she declined to provide her last name, for fear of reprisal. “It is so important to see people who think like you, who don’t agree with what is happening,” she said. More broadly, the muted, purely symbolic form of civil disobedience envisioned by the initiative underscores just how little the Russian opposition can do to influence events in the country amid the pervasive repression. Noon Against Putin has been expected to be particularly large-scale abroad, because dissident voters faced lower risks outside Russia. Ms. Navalnaya was seen standing in a long line outside the Russian Embassy in Berlin on Sunday afternoon.
Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Aleksei A, Navalny, Mr, Navalny’s, , Lena, Noon, Yulia Navalnaya, , ” Leonid Volkov, Nanna Heitmann, Volkov, Kristina, Navalnaya, Valerie Hopkins, Tomas Dapkus, Anton Troianovski Organizations: Sunday, The New York Times, YouTube, Russian Embassy Locations: Russian, Ukraine, Moscow, Russia, Lithuania, Lane, Berlin, Riga, Latvia
A Russian missile attack on Odesa killed at least 16 people and injured 55 others, Ukrainian authorities said on Friday, the latest in a series of deadly air assaults on the southern Ukrainian port city. Ukraine’s state emergency services said a first missile hit several houses late in the morning, prompting rescuers to rush to the scene. A second missile then landed on the same site, causing many fatalities, including at least one paramedic and a rescue worker. Oleh Kiper, the governor of the Odesa region, posted photos on social media showing rescue workers evacuating one of their colleagues on a stretcher and trying to put out a fire near a destroyed building. Ukrainian authorities said the attacks destroyed a three-story building, damaged 10 houses and a gas pipeline, and started a fire that spread to an area of about 1,300 square feet.
Persons: Odesa, Kiper Locations: Russian, Ukrainian, Ukraine’s, Odesa
With its army short of ammunition and troops to break the deadlock on the battlefield, Ukraine has increasingly taken the fight behind Russian lines, attacking warships, railways and airfields in an attempt to diminish Moscow’s military operations. Most recently, that campaign has focused on oil infrastructure, hitting refineries deep in Russian territory and driving home the country’s vulnerability to such attacks. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Ukrainian drones hit four Russian refineries, officials on both sides said, adding to a series of recent attacks that have set fire to depots, fuel tanks and other oil infrastructure across Russia. Since the beginning of the year, Ukraine has claimed responsibility for nearly a dozen such assaults, and local Russian authorities have reported five more. Experts and Ukrainian officials say Ukraine hopes to disrupt the Russian military’s logistical routes and combat operations by targeting refineries, which supply gasoline, diesel and fuel for tanks, fighter jets and other critical military equipment.
Locations: Ukraine, Ukrainian, Russia
The $300 million in new weaponry that the United States is sending to Ukraine, the first American military aid package in months, will help the Ukrainian military hold off Russian troops for a few weeks, analysts say, but it will not change the overall situation on the battlefield, where Moscow currently has the advantage. Ukraine has long said that it would lose more ground to Russia unless it received more weapons and ammunition, but a robust $60 billion aid package has been bottled up in the House for months by conservative Republican lawmakers. That has left frontline Ukrainian troops vulnerable to long-distance glide bombs dropped from Russian aircraft and intense artillery attacks. Here’s a look at the current situation.
Organizations: Republican Locations: United States, Ukraine, Moscow, Russia
When the eastern city of Avdiivka, a Ukrainian stronghold, fell to Russian forces three weeks ago, Kyiv and its allies feared that Moscow’s troops could build on their momentum and quickly press ahead toward strategic military hubs and population centers. But after making rapid gains in the subsequent days, Russian assaults have stalled around three contested nearby villages. Military experts cite several factors, including terrain that does not favor offensive operations, Russian troops exhausted by months of fighting and a Ukrainian army that has committed significant forces to defending the area. Russia seems to be maintaining its initiative on the battlefield, and military analysts say its forces could still break through Ukrainian lines in the near future, especially since Kyiv’s defensive efforts are increasingly curtailed by the absence of further American military aid. Yet for now, they say the fighting appears to have reverted to the kind of inconclusive back-and-forth battles that have characterized much of the war’s front line combat this past year.
Locations: Avdiivka, Ukrainian, Russia
Knowing she might not make it out, Ms. Semenik, an art historian, mulled over the Ukrainian artworks she had long wanted to write about — and which were now in danger of disappearing. “They’re destroying artworks. They’re destroying museums. They’re destroying architecture,” Ms. Semenik recalled thinking in the basement. She vowed that if she escaped from Bucha, she would not allow Ukrainian art to fall into oblivion.
Persons: Oksana Semenik, Semenik, mulled, Maria Primachenko, Ms Locations: Bucha, Kyiv, Moscow
Earlier this year, Daria Chervona, a photo retoucher from Kyiv, was busy trying to raise 78 million Ukrainian hryvnia, about $2 million, for Ukraine’s army, posting daily on social media to urge friends and acquaintances to chip in. That was a high bar, but after a few weeks she announced she had cleared it, reaching her target. Each fund-raiser is then highlighted in a social media post with their picture, tapping into civilians’ desire to be recognized as active participants in the war effort. “They need to be able to tell themselves, ‘I’m doing something, I’m helping,’” Ms. Chervona, 28, said in a recent interview. “I simply understood that any reasonably active person on Instagram could pull in 50K,” she added, referring to 50,000 Ukrainian hryvnias, about $1,300.
Persons: Daria Chervona, , Instagram, Chervona, , , Locations: Kyiv
The Ukraine war has been fought largely on the ground in the past two years, with troops often locked in back-and-forth battles with heavy artillery and drone support. The countries’ air forces have played second fiddle because of Ukraine’s limited fleet of planes and Russia’s inability to gain the air supremacy it once expected. But as the Russian military presses on with attacks in the east, its air force has taken on a greater role. “It’s a costly but quite effective tool that Russia is now using in the war,” said Serhiy Hrabskyi, a retired Ukrainian army colonel. It was, according to Ukrainian officials, part of a series of successful strikes against the Russian Air Force, in which Ukraine claimed to have shot down 15 planes in as many days.
Persons: , , Serhiy Hrabskyi Organizations: Military, Russian, Ukrainian Army, Russian Air Force Locations: Ukraine, Russian, Russia, Avdiivka, Ukrainian
Surprisingly Weak Ukrainian Defenses Help Russian AdvanceUkrainian trenches Ukrainian trenches Rudimentary Ukrainian trench lines outside Avdiivka, in an area claimed by Russia. But there’s another reason the Kremlin’s troops are advancing in the area: poor Ukrainian defenses. These trench lines lack many of the additional fortifications that could help slow Russian tanks and help defend major roads and important terrain. 2 miles Pavlivs’ke Novofedorivka Robotyne Russian fortifications Russian-claimed control Verbove Russian defenses shown below Held by Russia Novoprokopivka Romanivs’ke 2 miles Pavlivs’ke Novofedorivka Russian-claimed control Russian fortifications Verbove Russian defenses shown below Held by Russia Romanivs’ke Russian-claimed control Pavlivs’ke Novofedorivka Russian fortifications Verbove Russian defenses shown below Held by Russia Romanivs’ke 2 miles Sources: Satellite image from Planet Labs; Russian-controlled territory (as of Feb. 29, 2024) from the Institute for the Study of War with American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project; Russian fortifications based on data from Brady Africk. Satellite imagery from February shows the multilayered Russian defenses to the west of Verbove, with thousands of shell craters visible in the surrounding fields.
Persons: Avdiivka, Soloviove, Berdychi Stepove, Krasnohorivka, Russia Berdychi, Kyiv’s, Russia Novoprokopivka, Pavlivs’ke, Brady Africk, Verbove, , , Serhiy Hrabskyi, They’d, Denys Shmyhal, Volodymyr Zelensky, Zelensky’s, Paroinen, Mr, Hrabskyi, ” Mr, Oleksandra Mykolyshyn Organizations: Planet Labs, The New York Times Russian, Ukrainian Army, Russia Berdychi Stepove, Institute for, American, The New York Times, Black Bird Group, Russian Army Locations: Avdiivka, Russia, Ukrainian, Ukraine, Russia Russian, Verbove, Russian, U.S, Moscow, Donetsk, Ivano, Frankivsk, shoring
European leaders were set to gather in Paris on Monday in an attempt to showcase unity and resolve in their support for Ukraine as the embattled country confronts a dire situation on the battlefield against Russia and in Washington, where Republicans in Congress are blocking badly needed financial aid. The meeting, convened by President Emmanuel Macron of France, is scheduled to include about 20 or so heads of state and top officials, including from Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine is to attend the evening meeting by videoconference. “We are at a critical moment,” Mr. Macron said on Saturday during a visit to a major agricultural fair in Paris, adding that the meeting would “bolster our position” and give Ukraine more “visibility” for the coming months. “Russia cannot win in Ukraine,” he added.
Persons: Emmanuel Macron, Volodymyr Zelensky, videoconference, Mr, Macron Organizations: Locations: Paris, Ukraine, Russia, Washington, France, Britain, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Spain
Some 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion began two years ago, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday, acknowledging for the first time in the war a concrete figure for Ukraine’s toll. “This is a big loss for us,” Mr. Zelensky said at a news conference in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital. But he declined to disclose the number of wounded or missing, saying that Russia could use the information to gauge the number of Ukraine’s active forces. It differs sharply from estimates by U.S. officials, who, this past summer, put the losses much higher, saying that close to 70,000 Ukrainians had been killed and 100,000 to 120,000 had been wounded. Russia’s military casualties, the officials said, were about twice as high.
Persons: Volodymyr Zelensky, ” Mr, Zelensky, Zelensky’s Organizations: U.S Locations: Kyiv, Ukrainian, Russia, Ukraine’s
Russian forces in recent days have launched multiple attacks around the southern Ukrainian village of Robotyne, military officials and experts said, targeting land hard-won by Ukraine in a rare success of its counteroffensive last summer. Open-source maps of the battlefield compiled by independent groups analyzing combat footage suggest that Russia has made marginal gains to the west and south of Robotyne. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research group, said on Monday that Russian forces had advanced to the western outskirts of the village. “Pay attention to the village of Robotyne,” Dmytro Lykhovii, a spokesman for Ukrainian forces fighting in the area, said on national television last week. “It seems that the Russians have set a goal of achieving some success there” and planned to try to seize the village, he said.
Persons: Dmytro Lykhovii Organizations: Ukraine, Ukrainian Army Locations: Ukrainian, Robotyne, Russia, Washington
Maksim Kuzminov pulled off a daring escape last summer when he defected to Ukraine and handed his military helicopter over to Ukrainian commandos in exchange for half a million dollars. Ukrainian intelligence officials warned Mr. Kuzminov that his life was in danger and urged him not to leave the country. But he ignored them, and was believed to have moved with his money to a small resort town of pastel houses on Spain’s Mediterranean coast. Now Mr. Kuzminov, 28 at the time of his defection, appears to have met the harsh fate Ukrainian officials warned of. Two Spanish police officials with knowledge of the case said the body of a man found riddled with bullets last week in the coastal town of Villajoyosa belonged to Mr. Kuzminov.
Persons: Maksim Kuzminov, Vladimir V, Kuzminov Locations: Ukraine, Russia, Villajoyosa
Ukraine ordered the complete withdrawal from the ruined city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine before dawn on Saturday, surrendering a city that had been a military stronghold for the better part of a decade, in the face of withering Russian bombardment and relentless assault. “Based on the operational situation around Avdiivka, in order to avoid encirclement and preserve the lives and health of servicemen, I decided to withdraw our units from the city and move to defense on more favorable lines,” Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s top military commander, said in a statement issued overnight. The fall of Avdiivka, a city that used to be home to some 30,000 people but is now a smoking ruin, is the first major gain Russian forces have achieved since May of last year. In recent weeks, Russian forces have been pressing the attack across nearly the entire length of the 600-mile long front.
Persons: Gen, Oleksandr Syrsky Organizations: Russian Locations: Ukraine, Avdiivka
What to Know About the Fall of Avdiivka
  + stars: | 2024-02-17 | by ( Constant Méheut | ) www.nytimes.com   time to read: +1 min
In recent months, they had been slowly advancing through relentless assaults, in a pincer movement. “The ability to save our people is the most important task for us,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said Saturday at the Munich Security Conference. He added that Ukrainian troops had been hindered by a shortage of ammunition because of declining Western military assistance. Here’s what to know about the fall of Avdiivka. Avdiivka is a suburb of the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk, which has been on a front line since a Russian military intervention in eastern Ukraine in 2014.
Persons: Oleksandr Syrsky, General Syrsky, ” Avdiivka —, , Volodymyr Zelensky Organizations: Munich Security, Russian Army Locations: Avdiivka, Moscow, Ukraine, Russian, Donetsk
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