December 1, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

The recently liberated city of Kherson in southern Ukraine is without power in the wake of heavy Russian shelling, according to a local official.

Energy company Khersonoblenergo is "already working to fix the problem," Yanushevych added.

Some context: Ukraine's liberation of Kherson last month delivered a major victory to Kyiv and marked one of the biggest setbacks for Russian President Vladimir Putin since his invasion began. But with winter fast approaching, residents face a dire situation in the face of continued Russian shelling and power and water shortages.

Paul Whelan, an American wrongfully detained in Russia, has reportedly been moved to a prison hospital and has been unable to contact his family for a week, according to his brother.

The lack of communication has raised serious concerns for the family, said David Whelan, who questioned the penal colony’s claim that his brother was transferred to the hospital. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday the United States is “working every day to make sure that we have contact with him, that we understand what the exact situation is.”

Whelan, who is serving a 16-year prison sentence in a remote penal colony, has “repeatedly” told his family that “if he doesn’t call home for more than 3 days, to alert the US Embassy,” his brother said in an email Monday.

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The Biden administration is considering a dramatic expansion in the training the US military provides to Ukrainian forces, including instructing as many as 2,500 Ukrainian soldiers a month at a US base in Germany, according to multiple US officials.

If adopted, the proposal would mark a significant increase not just in the number of Ukrainians the US trains but also in the type of training they receive. Since the start of the conflict in February, the US has trained only a few thousand Ukrainian soldiers, mostly in small groups, on specific weapons systems.

Under the new program, the US would begin training much larger groups of Ukrainian soldiers in more sophisticated battlefield tactics, including how to coordinate infantry maneuvers with artillery support — “much more intense and comprehensive” training than Ukraine has been receiving in Poland or the UK, according to one source briefed on the proposal.

The proposal, which was made at the behest of Ukraine, is still under interagency review by the administration. News of its existence comes more than nine months into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and as the onset of winter is expected to slow military operations.

Read the full story here.

The recently liberated southern Ukrainian city of Kherson and the surrounding towns continue to be shelled, according to the city’s regional military administration.

The administration and its head, Yarsolav Yanushevych named the towns struck — Beryslav, Naftohavan, Kizomys, Antonivka, Dariivka, Sadove and Zelenivka – which are all along the western bank of the Dnipro River. 

The Ukrainians said Russian forces are targeting Naftohavan in particular to “hit power lines and gas distribution station.” The town has an oil loading terminal that can clearly be seen on maps.

Yanushevych added that three residents were injured and a 70-year-old woman was killed.

Despite the continuing hardships for residents, some basic services are coming back online more regularly, including water. The administration described the power supply as “intermittent.” Mobile communications are available with “interruptions,” but the internet is working. 

Water is also appearing around the city “due to the supply of power to pumping stations” but is being supplied with a reduced pressure. 

The envelope that exploded at the Ukrainian Embassy in Madrid Wednesday was addressed to Ambassador Serhii Pohoreltsev, according to a statement released by Spain’s Foreign Ministry. 

Spain’s Foreign Affairs Minister Jose Manuel Albares spoke to Pohoreltsev after the incident. The person injured was a Ukrainian worker, according to the same statement. 

Albares, who is visiting Spanish troops at a NATO mission in Romania, extended his support and solidarity after the incident. 

The Biden administration is considering designating the Wagner Group, a Russian private military group, as a foreign terrorist organization amid ongoing efforts to impose costs on Russia for the Ukraine war, a US official said.

No final decision has been made, and it is unclear how far out the administration is from potentially making this designation given the laborious legal process in making this determination, the official explained.

The Wagner Group is a mercenary firm that has been heavily involved in the fighting in Ukraine. The group is often described as President Vladimir Putin’s off-the-books troops. It has expanded its footprint globally since its creation in 2014. The group has been accused of war crimes in Africa, Syria and Ukraine.

Read more here.

The United States is “very focused” on providing air defense systems to Ukraine, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN on Wednesday.

“We’re now very focused on air defense systems and not just us, many other countries,” Blinken told CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

Blinken was speaking from Bucharest, Romania, where he is attending a meeting of NATO foreign ministers.

While Blinken would not elaborate on whether the Pentagon would provide the Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine, he told Amanpour that the United States had been working on making sure that “at any given time, [the Ukrainians] have the most effective systems possible to deal with the threat they are facing.”

“We just recently, for example, provided them with a very effective system called NASAMS that they are using very effectively. Before that of course, we had the HIMARS, which they used to great effect both in southern and eastern Ukraine,” Blinken said.