November 29, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

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."

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. 

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 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'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.