War in Ukraine: what to remember on the 272nd day of the Russian invasion

Ukraine’s public prosecutor’s office announced on Monday that it had found four “torture sites” used by the Russians in Kherson (south) before their forced retreat from the region ten days ago, kyiv accusing Moscow of war crimes. In kyiv, the regional director of the World Health Organization (WHO) for Europe, Hans Kluge, has also warned that winter will threaten the lives of millions of Ukrainians, after the series of devastating Russian strikes on the country’s energy infrastructure. “This winter will endanger the lives of millions of people in Ukraine,” he said. “To put it simply, this winter will be about survival.”

Crimea hit by ‘drone attack’

Ukraine’s Russian-controlled Crimean peninsula was targeted by a drone attack on Tuesday, with Russian forces there “on high alert”, Kremlin-installed authorities said. “There is an attack with drones,” the governor of the Sevastopol administrative region in Crimea, installed by Moscow, Mikhail Razvojayev, said on Telegram. “Our air defense forces are working right now.”

He said two drones had “already been shot down”. Mikhail Razvozhayev added that no civilian infrastructure had been damaged and called on residents to “stay calm.”

In a later post on the network, he said the air defense forces shot down two drones near the Balaklava power plant, which has come under attack in the past. “Now the city is calm,” said Mikhail Razvozhayev. “But all forces and services are preparing for combat.”

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, based in the Crimean port of Sevastopol, was attacked in late October in what authorities called a “massive” drone attack. This attack, which damaged at least one of its ships, led Moscow to briefly withdraw from the historic grain agreement in Ukraine. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and kyiv aims to reconquer it.

Ukraine warns EU against ‘war fatigue’

The head of Ukrainian diplomacy Dmytro Kouleba warned the European Union on Tuesday against “fatigue” in the face of the war in Ukraine, urging the adoption of a new package of sanctions against Moscow. “I call on my colleagues in the EU” to “dismiss any doubt” and any “fatigue” and to “finalize as soon as possible the ninth sanctions package” which is “long overdue”, he declared during of an online press conference. “If we Ukrainians are not tired, the rest of Europe has no moral or political right to get tired,” insisted the minister.

Gazprom accuses Ukraine of siphoning off gas destined for Moldova

The Russian giant Gazprom threatened Tuesday to reduce its gas deliveries to Moldova by accusing Ukraine of siphoning off the gas pipeline which passes through its territory, a claim denied by the Ukrainian gas operator. “The volume of gas supplied by Gazprom to the Sudja crossing point for transiting to Moldova via the territory of Ukraine (in reality) exceeds the volume” that reaches the border between Ukraine and Moldova, lamented the gas giant, owned by the Russian state.

According to Gazprom, Ukraine illegally accumulated 52.5 million cubic meters of gas in November by “raping” part of the deliveries to use for its own purposes. The Russian giant thus threatened to “reduce the supply of gas at the Soudja crossing (…) from November 28 at 10 a.m.”, if kyiv continued to siphon gas to other countries.

This threat comes as temperatures have dropped in recent days in Europe, increasing the demand for gas to be able to heat in particular. For its part, the Ukrainian gas operator (GTSOU) said in a statement that “all gas volumes” arriving from Russia to Chisinau had “been transferred in their entirety” to the two crossing points entering Moldova.

“This is not the first time that Russia has used gas as an instrument of political pressure,” lamented Olga Bielkova, director of government and international affairs at GTSOU. Russia was the EU’s biggest gas supplier before Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine in February, but the EU27 have since greatly reduced their imports, to less than 10% of all gas imported, according to Brussels.

Ukraine says it arrested official of Russian remand centers in Kherson

Ukrainian investigators said on Tuesday that they had arrested for “treason” a head of Russian remand centers in Kherson (south), a city liberated on November 11 after more than eight months of occupation by Moscow troops.

“From the first days of the occupation of Kherson, this employee of a detention center worked for the invaders … as a manager of remand centers and places of execution of sentences,” he said. said the Ukrainian State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) in a statement. According to the SBI, this employee “enabled the escape of criminals imprisoned just before the liberation of Kherson.”

After the arrival of the Ukrainian army on November 11 following a two-month counter-offensive by kyiv in the Kherson region, “he did not have time to escape and was detained by the employees of the SBU,” the SBI said in its statement. The suspect was thus arrested for “treason”, specifies the press release, a charge which can be worth a life sentence in Ukraine.

Washington denounces “systemic war crimes”

Russia has engaged in “systemic war crimes” wherever it has deployed troops in Ukraine, a senior US official charged on Monday, saying she was confident Russian officials would eventually be brought to justice. “We have mounting evidence that this aggression (the Russian invasion, editor’s note) was accompanied by systemic war crimes committed in all regions where Russian forces were deployed,” Beth told reporters. Van Schaack, diplomat in charge of international criminal justice at the State Department, citing summary executions, cases of torture or inhuman treatment or even the forced displacement of people and children.

“When you see such systemic acts, including the establishment of a vast network of forced displacements, it is very difficult to imagine that these crimes could have been committed without the responsibility being placed at the top of the chain. of command”, namely Russian President Vladimir Putin, she said.

The diplomat’s remarks come shortly after the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office announced on Monday that it had found four “torture sites” used by the Russians in Kherson (south) before their forced retreat from the region ten days ago.

The official, who spoke of a “new Nuremberg”, in reference to the trials of Nazi leaders after the Second World War, said she was confident that the investigations currently being carried out, within the International Criminal Court (ICC) by example, can result in timely indictments.

Macron discusses with Zelensky “the absolute necessity” to secure the Zaporizhia power plant

French President Emmanuel Macron and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky discussed Monday, during a telephone interview, “the absolute need to preserve the security and safety” of the Zaporijjia nuclear power plant, again bombed this weekend. “I was with President Zelensky for an urgent appeal,” said the French head of state during a speech in Paris at the international conference in support of Moldova, a collateral victim of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

He explained this call by “the context which continues to be very difficult”, with “the bombardments which Ukraine has still suffered, the threats which weigh on the Zaporijjia power plant”. According to the presidency, he “said his deep concern” about the “new shots against the plant” in Ukraine, which Moscow and kyiv mutually accuse each other of having bombed.

He had already discussed it on Sunday with the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi. Emmanuel Macron and Volodymyr Zelensky “recalled that it was the illegal occupation of the plant by Russia which was at the root of the current situation” and “agreed on the importance of continuing efforts with the IAEA to reach an agreement that ensures the absence of military forces, regular or mercenary, and of light or heavy weapons in the protection zone”, reported the Elysée.

French President Emmanuel Macron and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky discussed Monday, during a telephone interview, “the absolute need to preserve the security and safety” of the Zaporijjia nuclear power plant, again bombed this weekend.

“I was with President Zelensky for an urgent appeal,” said the French head of state during a speech in Paris at the international conference in support of Moldova, a collateral victim of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

He explained this call by “the context which continues to be very difficult”, with “the bombardments which Ukraine has still suffered, the threats which weigh on the Zaporijjia power plant”. According to the presidency, he “said his deep concern” about the “new shots against the plant” in Ukraine, which Moscow and kyiv mutually accuse each other of having bombed. He had already discussed it on Sunday with the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi.

Emmanuel Macron and Volodymyr Zelensky “recalled that it was the illegal occupation of the plant by Russia which was at the root of the current situation” and “agreed on the importance of continuing efforts with the IAEA to reach an agreement that ensures the absence of military forces, regular or mercenary, and of light or heavy weapons in the protection zone”, reported the Elysée.