SUMMARY OF THE UKRAINE SITUATION TODAY

[Michael Grove]

     Live coverage of the all the latest developments
     in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine ...

[Michael Grove]

A major general and up to a dozen Russian senior officers have been killed in the latest wave of strikes by Western precision weapons that have crippled Russian logistics. Major General Artyom Nasbulin, the chief of staff of the 22nd Army Corps, was killed in a Himars rocket strike on a command post near Kherson, said Sergei Bratchuk, a spokesman for the Odesa region.

If confirmed, he would be the 12th Russian general killed in Ukraine since the war began. Another strike on an arms depot in Nova Khakova on Monday night sent a huge mushroom cloud towering into the air, and exposed Moscow's reliance on railways to deliver weapons. Videos showed ignited munitions flying out of the explosion that shattered windows in nearby houses. Monday’s blast was the largest of a series of devastating explosions to hit Russian munitions supplies over the past two weeks.

[Michael Grove]

In Kharkiv, two people were wounded by a Russian strike in the morning. One was wounded while waiting for a bus at a stop, and another was hurt when a Russian shell exploded near an apartment building.

The southern city of Mykolaiv also faced repeated shelling, which triggered fires near a medical facility, destroying a shipment of humanitarian aid containing medicines and food.

Analysts warned that the continuing fighting could threaten the grain deal, making clients nervous.

“The danger remains: The Odesa region has faced constant shelling and only regular supplies could prove the viability of the agreements signed,” said Volodymyr Sidenko, an expert with the Kyiv-based Razumkov Center think-tank.

“The departure of the first vessel doesn’t solve the food crisis, it’s just the first step that could also be the last if Russia decides to continue attacks in the south.”

[Michael Grove]

Russia-Ukraine war live: International Atomic Energy Agency raises grave concerns over shelling at nuclear plant – as it happened

Caroline Davies - THE GUARDIAN 

Here is a summary of events today:

• Ukraine and Russia have blamed each other for renewed shelling on Saturday night of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, the Zaporizhzhia.
• Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy called for new international sanctions on Moscow for “nuclear terror”, including sanctions to be imposed on the Russian nuclear industry and nuclear fuel.
• Ukraine’s state nuclear power company, Energoatom, said a worker was wounded when Russian forces reportedly shelled the plant, the biggest in Europe, on Saturday evening.
• The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has raised grave concerns about shelling at the plant.

[Michael Grove]

   The lightning push by Ukrainian forces, in which

   they recaptured in a matter of days nearly all of the

   Kharkiv region occupied since the early days of

   the war last winter....

   Despite the setback, the Kremlin and its proxies  

   insisted that the war would go on until President  

   Vladimir Putin’s goals are achieved, and they

   blamed NATO and the United States for Ukraine’s

   refusal to surrender.

[Michael Grove]

  Any deliberate disruption to the EU's energy

  infrastructure would meet a "robust and united

  response", its top diplomat said, after several states

  said two Russian pipelines to Europe that have been

  churning gas into the Baltic had been attacked.

  It remained far from clear who might be behind the

  leaks or any foul play, if proven, on the Nord Stream

  pipelines that Russia and European partners spent

  billions of dollars building.

[Michael Grove]

  The Russian military might yet finish Putin off
 

Putin’s latest nuclear threats signify above all that he is in grave danger at home. It was intended not just to cow the West but also to show strength to his henchmen who think he’s not been tough enough in Ukraine and to warn the plotters in Moscow that he will stop at nothing to hold onto power, no matter how many must die in the process.

His intended annexation of the areas of Ukraine now occupied by Russia means he could lawfully use nuclear weapons to defend them as they will formally be part of the Russian Federation. The fact that no other country will recognise Moscow’s sovereignty is beside the point – seen from the Kremlin, an attack on these areas with Nato munitions will be an attack on Russia itself.

[Michael Grove]

Russia-Ukraine war live: Kyiv hit by missiles     as several Ukrainian cities come under Russian attack. 

[Michael Grove]

A Russian soldier ran up to a nun. Out of breath he asked, “Please, may I hide under your skirt, I'll explain later.” The nun agreed. A moment later two military police ran up and asked: “Sister, have you seen a soldier?” The nun replied, “He went that way.”

After the military police ran off, the soldier crawled out from under her skirt and said, “I can't thank you enough, Sister. You see, I don't want to go to Ukraine.” The nun said, “I understand completely.”

The soldier added, “I hope I'm not rude, but you have a great pair of legs!” The nun replied, “If you had looked a little higher, you would've seen a great pair of balls too. I don't want to go to Ukraine either."

[Michael Grove]

Russia’s war on Ukraine is going badly: The Russian army is in retreat, and the Kremlin is looking for help from Iran and North Korea. But we must not forget that the Russian military is murdering Ukrainian civilians as the price of Moscow’s self-induced humiliation—and that Russia must pay a price for these atrocities.

Yaakov Kedmi is not some squishy peacenik who was pulled off Tverskaya Street to be a designated talk-show punching bag. He was born in Russia, emigrated to Israel, and returned several years ago as a supporter of the Putin regime on Russian television. He’s said some nice things about that great “statesman” Joseph Stalin, and he warned last spring that Russia could bomb the United Kingdom “back to the stone age” if the British didn’t mind their own business with regard to Ukraine.

Why Solovyov and Kedmi were at all having this conversation? [IS] because the Russian war in Ukraine is no longer a “war” in the sense that most people would conceive of a military contest between two states over some discrete or tangible issue. It is not, in any sense, the kind of conflict that academic “realists” would understand as some kind of Russian exercise in power balancing against an external threat. Instead, Russia’s invasion is now an ongoing operation of mass murder.

[Michael Grove]

Bakhmut is a scribble in smoking rubble that says Vladimir Putin’s fascist dictatorship is teetering towards its death spiral. The freezing air is split in two by the percussion of artillery. A moment of silence, then the machine-guns start up, far too close for comfort. The Russian killing machine is in ear-shot but they keep on not taking the city.  

Hiding in holes in the rubble are a handful of civilians clinging to a half-life. There is no power, light, running water. The stay-behinds are in the large part old, poor, some a little mad and steeped in the Soviet half-myth of its great single-handed victory against the Nazis. They are generally pro-Russian, not for Ukraine. That’s kind of ironic because Bakhmut is Stalingrad 2.0. Adolf Hitler became obsessed with his army capturing the city on the River Volga. That was the start of the end of it and him. Vladimir Putin is obsessed with his army capturing the city on the River Bakhmutovka.