The Washington Post

Ukraine’s east buckling under improved Russian tactics, superior firepower

Soldiers from several units along the front have described improved Russian tactics this summer that combine their advantages into powerful attacks that Ukrainians have struggled to counteract, even as they achieve local victories. That is apparent in places like Vuhledar, the small Donetsk citadel that fell to Russian forces Tuesday, forcing a Ukrainian withdraw in a hardscrabble town they fiercely defended for two years.

Enemy troops are storming the battlefields in small teams that minimize detection and make return fire difficult, backed by superior quantities of artillery and drones. Russia has also improved its battlefield communication, helping coordinate attacks. While losses are staggering, Ukrainian soldiers have said, the Russians have the numbers to keep up the pressure and Western aid isn’t making up the equipment deficit.

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Zelensky holds meeting with Trump

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he decided to meet with Donald Trump on Friday because it was “very important” to keep the United States informed about next steps in Ukraine.

Zelensky said he hoped the support of the United States would be very strong regardless of who wins the election.

“And that’s why I decided to meet with most candidates, with all of them,” he said.

Trump suggested he would try to broker an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine.

“We’re going to work very much with both parties to try and get this settled,” said Trump, who added that he has “a very good relationship” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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Ukraine’s winter energy woes expected to weigh heavily on a tired people

As Ukraine scrambles to repair the damage that Russian missiles are inflicting on the country’s power stations, the weary population is facing what is shaping up to be one of the worst winters of the war so far.

Power outages are a given — because Ukraine’s energy system is already working at a deficit after receiving heavy blows from Russian strikes this year — but the estimates vary on just how bad it will be. The best-case scenario is just four hours of power cuts a day, but it could also end up being 20 hours of darkness or more a day in the depths of Ukraine’s frigid winter.

In his speech before the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, was trying to break Ukrainians’ spirit by attacking the power infrastructure.

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Zelensky warns U.N. that Russia is preparing to attack nuclear plants

NEW YORK — Russia is making plans to attack Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned fellow world leaders at the United Nations on Wednesday, issuing a stark call for global leadership to help him attain peace as his country stares down a cold, dark winter with most of its energy infrastructure destroyed.

In his highest-platform address during a week of high-stakes diplomacy, Zelensky singled out his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin, and said Ukraine has a right to its territorial integrity. He decried Moscow’s veto on the U.N. Security Council, which has stymied the strongest global repercussions for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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Debate over Ukraine weapons restrictions divides allies, administration

The United States’ lingering refusal to relax restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western missiles for deeper strikes on Russian territory has exacerbated a growing divide between the allies — with Kyiv angry over yet another setback in slowing Russia’s assault across the country while its biggest backer considers the possibility of Moscow’s backlash.

The latest ask by Kyiv — to receive permission to use the U.S.-supplied Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, and other longer-range munitions to reach targets such as strategic airfields deeper inside Russia — will be made by President Volodymyr Zelensky personally during his meeting with President Joe Biden in Washington this week.

But in an example of the widening disconnect between the two sides more than two years into Russia’s invasion, the Ukrainians had expected Biden to have already granted permission by now, according to two officials.

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Satellite footage suggests Russia ICBM launch test was a disaster

According to satellite photos, a Russian Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile probably detonated during a test earlier this month, raising questions about Russia’s military capabilities and putting a dent in the Kremlin’s nuclear saber rattling.

Maxar satellite images from Saturday appear to show a crater roughly 200 feet wide and extensive damage to the surrounding area at the launch silo at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region in northern Russia. Imagery recorded earlier this month does not show any visible damage to the site.

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E.U. to loan Ukraine up to $39 billion backed by frozen Russian assets

BRUSSELS — The European Union will provide a loan of up to 35 billion euros (about $39 billion) to Ukraine backed by the windfall profits from frozen Russian assets, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Friday, after a plan from the Group of Seven nations to use Russian assets to raise funds for Ukraine stalled.

The commission, the E.U.’s executive branch, has adopted proposals to enable the bloc to grant Ukraine the loan backed by the Russian profits as part of the broader G-7 plan, and the money will “flow straight into” Ukraine’s budget, von der Leyen said on a trip to Kyiv.

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Putin wants Russia’s youth to become ultranationalist patriots. Many are all in.

At age 25, Maryana Naumova is one of the freshest faces of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s wartime propaganda machine.

She has a show on the flagship Kremlin-controlled television network Channel One, 85,000 subscribers on Telegram and is a regular speaker at youth forums, universities and talk shows across the country.

Naumova is one of thousands of young Russians who have inserted themselves into their country’s new wartime system, adopting Kremlin spin as their own beliefs and ensuring that Putin’s core ideology, of ultranationalist patriotism and Orthodox Christian values, will be carried forward by a new generation. This includes the idea that the United States wants to destroy Russia and that Russia is a peace-seeking victim rather than an aggressor. Like Naumova, they see themselves as patriotic truth-tellers, not instruments of spin.

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Ukrainian drones hit missile warehouse deep in Russia in massive blast

Ukrainian drones attacked overnight a weapons depot filled with missiles some 300 miles inside Russia, releasing a massive fireball into the nighttime sky — the latest strike on Russian military targets by Ukrainian forces using their own weapons.

An official from Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, said Wednesday that military intelligence and special forces carried out the attack, which “literally wiped off the face of the Earth” the ammunition warehouse. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

The base housed Iskander tactical missiles, Tochka-U missile systems, antiaircraft missiles, artillery ammunition and glide bombs, the official said — among the weapons that have pummeled Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure for much of the year.

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When Russian bombs fall on Kharkiv, this man collects the evidence

In the past 2½ years, Serhii Bolvinov — head of investigations for the national police in the Kharkiv region — has looked into the death of every civilian in this corner of northeastern Ukraine. Killed by missiles and drones. Buried under rubble. Exhumed from mass graves. All 2,678 of them, including 93 children.

He and his team gather the broken bits of bodies. They measure the shrapnel and collect the missiles in a special graveyard. They build their cases. Bolvinov knows the culprit. But how — and whether — Russian officials and troops will ever be held accountable for their war crimes is unclear.

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Zelensky said his victory plan will lead to ‘reliable peace’ in Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that he will present to President Joe Biden a plan to strengthen Ukraine that could “pave the way to a reliable peace” in the country’s ongoing war with Russia.

Speaking in Kyiv, Zelensky said the plan would not end the war outright but that “it would help.” The Ukrainian president will travel to the United States later this month to attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York, and he is expected to meet with Biden.

“I can’t give 100 percent that it will stop [Russian President Vladimir] Putin — no,” Zelensky said after his speech during a question-and-answer session conducted by foreign policy analyst Fareed Zakaria. “But it will make Ukraine stronger. And I think push Putin to think about how to finish the war.”

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Russian state media outlet runs intelligence operations, U.S. says

Russian state media company RT, formerly known as Russia Today, was now being deployed by the Kremlin to conduct cyber intelligence and covert influence operations targeting countries in Europe, Africa and North and South America. It was also being used to procure weapons for Russia’s war against Ukraine, expanding RT’s remit far beyond that of a media outlet, officials said.

The U.S. warned Friday that the exposure of a covert Russian disinformation operation to influence public opinion in the United States represents only a small fraction of Moscow’s efforts to undermine democracies globally through its state propaganda arm RT.

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Kyiv’s bombed children’s hospital rebuilds, and one boy heads home

Dmytro Dorontsov — everyone calls him Dima — had gone into remission and was leaving Ukraine’s premier children’s hospital, Okhmatdyt. This was his goodbye party.

For two years, Dima had been more concerned with the war inside his body than the one outside it — until July, when a long-range Russian missile zipped more than 1,500 precise miles and slammed into the place he called home, threatening the lives of 627 sick children and bringing the war to their hospital doorways.

Two people died, and 300 were injured, including eight children. There was worldwide condemnation of the attack, considered a war crime. But left unreported was how the strike displaced hundreds of vulnerable children with severe medical needs and traumatized hospital staffers, who lost a colleague in the attack.

Dima had twice survived the impossible: cancer, a missile strike.

And now he was going home.

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