November 28, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

The United Nations says that the situation in the southern Ukrainian cities of Mykolaiv and Kherson remains "dire" and "critical." Nearly a quarter of a million people in Mykolaiv alone face a lack of heat, water and power.

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 to "maintain the moment or the response," especially during winter months.

"We continue to be concerned about the plight of civilians in Ukraine especially as winter sets in. We are working to support people with services and supplies to make sure they can be protected and keep warm during these harsh months," Dujarric said.

French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to discuss Russia's war in Ukraine, among other topics, during his upcoming state visit to the United States, according to a French official. 

Macron is slated to arrive in Washington, DC, on Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning, he’ll have a number of working sessions focused on space, biodiversity, climate and nuclear energy.

Political discussions, the official said, will begin at the White House Thursday morning following a welcoming ceremony. The private discussions will be followed by a news conference with Macron and US President Joe Biden. 

Macron will subsequently attend a state lunch at the US State Department hosted by Vice President Kamala Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the official said. He’ll later meet with a bicameral, bipartisan group of US lawmakers at the invitation of the Speaker of the House.

French ministers and parliament members are also expected to be part of Macron’s delegation traveling to the US for the state visit. 

“We want to adapt our support for Ukraine in this moment and France will organize together with Ukraine,” they added, saying it was an important moment to reaffirm and adapt and increase support for Ukraine and face the global challenges which are interconnected and worsened by the war in Ukraine. 

Strategic defense, energy and space are “at the core of the bilateral partnership side" of Macron's state visit in Washington, the official said.

Intense fighting continues around the city of Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region, according to both Russian and Ukrainian accounts.

The city has become an important target for Russian forces, which have had no success in recent months in winning territory in eastern Ukraine and have been forced to withdraw from many areas. Social media video over recent days has illustrated the immense destruction in Bakhmut, where thousands of people still live, without power and piped water.

Denis Pushilin, the Russian-appointed leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, said on Monday that Russian forces were now close to encircling Bakhmut.

“The situation in Bakhmut remains difficult, but our units, in particular the Wagner group unit, are definitely moving forward," Pushilin said on Russian television.

Wagner is a private military contractor whose fighters have played a significant role in the fighting in Donetsk and Luhansk.

"There is also success in the vicinity of Bakhmut. The situation of the operational encirclement is quite close,” Pushilin claimed.

What Ukraine is saying: Ukrainians have acknowledged Russian offensives in the area but deny losing any ground.

The Ukrainian military's General Staff said Monday that "the enemy continues to focus its main efforts on conducting offensive operations," listing about half-a-dozen settlements in the Bakhmut area.

Serhii Cherevatyi, spokesperson for the military in the east, said on Ukrainian television Monday that "Bakhmut remains the epicenter of the main battle for Ukraine. The enemy acts most aggressively in this direction. He conducts attacks and fire strikes. On average, the enemy inflicts about 180-200 artillery strikes per day."

The city of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine suffered another strike to its water supply, according to mayor Oleksandr Sienkievych.

Sienkievych said that a pumping station in neighboring Kherson had been damaged — and the city was now reliant on non-potable water "for an indefinite period of time."

The strike is part of a Russian campaign to attack Ukrainian infrastructure providing water, power and heat as winter sets in.

He said repair work continued on networks that were destroyed by salt water.

"As soon as the security situation allows, we will promptly restore the pumping station and return drinking water to Mykolaiv city," the mayor said.

Civilians continue to leave the recently liberated Ukrainian city of Kherson amid persistent shelling of residential areas by Russian forces stationed on the east bank of the Dnipro river.

Much of the city remains without power and water. 

Yaroslav Yanushevych, head of the Kherson region military administration, said the Kherson district had been hit 30 times Sunday.

He said the town of Beryslav and surrounding settlements further upstream had also been shelled.

One person had been killed, Yanushevych said.

He said trains would take civilians to safer regions.

The Kherson region military administration also said that power supply had been restored to 17% of household consumers in Kherson.

Equipment from Germany for the Kherson hospital's intensive care unit was delivered, while 62 base and 3 portable mobile communication stations had been restored.

At the same time, the Ukrainian security service (SBU) says it arrested three more alleged collaborators in the region, including the acting head of the local detention center and his deputy.

The Biden administration blamed Russia for postponing meetings to discuss the nuclear arms 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 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. The Russian side informed the United States that Russia has unilaterally postponed the meeting and stated that it would propose new dates,” the spokesperson said. 

The US “is ready to reschedule at the earliest possible date as resuming inspections is a priority for sustaining the treaty as an instrument of stability,” the spokesperson added.

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. 

"The session of the Bilateral Consultative Commission on the Russian-American START Treaty, previously scheduled in Cairo (November 29 - December 6), will not take place on the dates indicated. The event has been postponed to a later date," the ministry said.

The date for the rescheduled talks remains unclear.

The New START Treaty puts limits on the number of deployed intercontinental-range nuclear weapons that both the US and Russia can have. Under the treaty, Washington and Moscow conduct inspections of each other’s weapons sites. But due to COVID-19 inspections have been halted since 2020. 

The treaty was last extended in early 2021 for five years. Under the treaty, Washington and Moscow conduct inspections of each other’s weapons sites. However, the inspections had been halted since 2020 due to the pandemic, and complications arose when the US attempted to resume inspections earlier this year

Earlier this month Biden administration officials viewed it as a positive development that the New START talks are happening, particularly as they were set to occur in the wake of Moscow’s nuclear saber-rattling toward Ukraine. 

Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated when the nuclear talks are set to begin. The talks begin Tuesday.

The Ukrainian capital of Kyiv is experiencing yet another spate of emergency power restrictions in addition to already scheduled blackouts.

"We do our best to supply electricity to each customer for 2-3 hours twice a day," DTEK said. "As soon as we manage to balance the situation, we will return to scheduled outages."

The sustained power outages come as Ukraine scrambles to find equipment to repair power infrastructure damaged and destroyed by Russian missile attacks.

Sub-zero temperatures and less daylight are compounding the hardship for people.

Ukraine’s electricity operator Ukrenergo is running at a 27% deficit, the company said on Monday.

Ukrenergo said in a statement on Telegram that it had implemented a series of “emergency shutdowns” across the country at “several power plants”. 

Given deteriorating weather conditions, power usage is on the rise, it added, saying that it hoped the power deficit would reduce as “units return to operation.”

Seven waves of Russian missiles contributed to the recent outages, it claimed. CNN is unable to independently verify the number of missile waves.

Washington and Moscow continue to discuss the release of US prisoners Brittney Griner and Paul Whelan, the US Chargé d'Affaires in Russia told Russian state media Monday.

“As we have already said, the United States has submitted a serious proposal for consideration. We worked on this proposal and offered alternatives. Unfortunately, no serious response has been received from the Russian Federation to this proposal," Elizabeth Rood said in an interview with Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti.

"I mean a response that would help us come to an agreement," she added.

US basketball star Griner is imprisoned in Russia after being convicted of deliberately smuggling drugs into the country in October. There are concerns she is being used as a political pawn in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Whelan is a US citizen who has been wrongfully detained in Russia for nearly four years.

According to Rood, Griner has not complained about the conditions of her detention in a penal colony and the issue of visiting her is now being worked out.

"As far as we understood from talking to her, she is healthy and doing as well as can be expected in her difficult circumstances," said Rood.

She added that the embassy staff would visit her "as soon as the Russian authorities give us permission."