November 30, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Russia’s upper house of parliament unanimously voted on Wednesday to toughen a controversial law banning what the bill describes as “LGBT propaganda,” making it apply to Russians of all ages.

The bill has to be signed into law by Russian President Vladimir Putin after being passed by the Federation Council. It passed the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, on November 24.

The law proposes to ban all Russians from promoting or “praising” homosexual relationships or publicly suggesting that they are “normal.” It also prohibits “propaganda” of pedophilia and gender reassignment in advertising, books, films.

The original version of the law adopted in 2013 banned “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations” among minors. Now Russian lawmakers are applying it to adults as well.

The controversial law was met with criticism and ridicule in Western countries, including a ruling in the European Court of Human Rights in 2017 that stated Russia’s “gay propaganda law” is discriminatory, promotes homophobia and violates the European Convention on Human Rights.

RELATED

Russia's upper house of parliament passes tougher ban on 'LGBT propaganda' | CNN

Ukraine's Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko has said that his country's energy situation "is improving every day."

Halushchenko added that without any more waves of air strikes, "in the short term we will be able to stabilize and reduce the duration of the outage."

He said that while there would still be outages, the aim was to make them as planned as possible. 

Speaking on Ukrainian television, Halushchenko outlined his vision for the future of the Ukrainian grid. “We do not want to restore the system as it was before. We will make it modern,” he said. 

He spoke of two paths for Ukraine's energy infrastructure, short term and long term. The short-term aim was to restore as much as possible quickly, while in the long term, the entire grid would have a “completely different look."

Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s state-run energy operator, said Wednesday that the country's energy deficit stood at 27% as of 11 a.m. local time. 

The update, posted on Facebook, said “capacity is gradually increasing, which will slightly reduce the deficit in the power system.”

It added that there are now consumptions limits for each region and that exceeding the consumption “limits leads to the need for emergency outages to avoid grid overload and ensure balance in the power system.”

Ukrenergo urged Ukrainians to continue limiting their electricity consumption so that engineers can focus on repairs. 

The European Union will try to set up a specialized court that would investigate and prosecute alleged crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday.  

"Russia must pay for its horrific crimes, including for its crime of aggression against a sovereign state. And this is why while continuing to support the International Criminal Court (ICC), we are proposing to set up a specialized court, backed by the United Nations, to investigate and prosecute Russia's crime of aggression," von der Leyen said in a video message.  

"We are ready to start working with the international community to get the broadest international support possible for this specialized court," she said.   

"Russia must also pay financially for the devastation it has caused," she said, "and we have the means to make Russia pay."   

The damage suffered by Ukraine is estimated at 600 billion euros, von der Leyen said. "Russia and its oligarchs have to compensate Ukraine for the damage and cover the cost for rebuilding the country," she said. 

The EU has blocked 300 billion euros of the Russian Central Bank reserves and frozen 19 billion euros of Russian oligarchs' money, von der Leyen said.  

"In the short term, we could create with our partners a structure to manage these funds and invest them. We would then use the proceeds for Ukraine. And once the sanctions are lifted, these funds should be used so that Russia pays full compensation for the damages caused to Ukraine," she said.  

"We will work on an international agreement with our partners to make this possible. And together we can find legal ways to get to it," she said.  

"Russia's horrific crimes will not go unpunished," von der Leyen added.  

Later on Wednesday, the European Commission said the video included an inaccurate number of Ukrainian deaths.

"The estimation used, from external sources, should have referred to casualties, i.e. both killed and injured, and was meant to show Russia‘s brutality," according to spokesperson Dana Spinant. 

Spinant said the initial video was replaced with a new version. 

"Many thanks to those who pointed out the inaccuracy regarding the figures in a previous version of this video," Spinant tweeted. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned in his nightly video address Tuesday that the Russians are "planning something in the south."

He said that the situation on the frontline remains difficult and Russian forces are trying to advance into the Donbas region and Kharkiv.

“The situation at the front is difficult. Despite extremely big Russian losses, the occupiers are still trying to advance in the Donetsk region, gain a foothold in the Luhansk region, move in the Kharkiv region, they are planning something in the south,” he said.

"But we are holding out and -- most importantly -- do not allow the enemy to fulfill their intentions," he added.

The warning comes just weeks after the southern city of Kherson was liberated from Russian troops on November 11, after eight months of occupation.

The city has since been rocked by heavy Russian shelling, shattering an initial sense of calm.

Kherson was the only Ukrainian regional capital that Russian forces had captured since February’s invasion.

NATO foreign ministers pledged more support for Ukraine in a meeting in Bucharest Tuesday, including assisting in repairs to its energy infrastructure amid Russian attacks.

They said in a joint statement that they remain steadfast in the "commitment to Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity."

"Russia’s unacceptable actions, including hybrid activities, energy blackmail, and reckless nuclear rhetoric, undermine the rules-based international order," the statement read. 

Ukraine has been experiencing nationwide blackouts as Russia continues to bombard energy infrastructure.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed that generators and spare parts for Ukraine's energy grid had already been delivered.

"We have delivered generators, we have delivered spare parts, and allies are, in different ways, helping to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure. We need to realize that there are enormous effects of the attacks (by Russia)," Stoltenberg said as he arrived for the meeting.

The United States announced it would provide $53 million to buy power grid equipment for Ukraine.

"This equipment will be rapidly delivered to Ukraine on an emergency basis to help Ukrainians persevere through the winter," a State Department statement said, adding that the package would include distribution transformers, circuit breakers and surge arresters among other equipment.

Ukraine urged its Western partners to supply it with both air defense systems and transformers to blunt Russian strikes.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he was discussing with NATO foreign ministers how to speed up the process of weapons deliveries to his country and secure the energy infrastructure.

"We appreciate what has been done, but the war goes on," said Kuleba on the sidelines of the NATO meeting, speaking alongside Stoltenberg. 

"Today I have three other words, three different words, which are: faster, faster and faster," Kuleba said.

Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska has met with Queen Consort Camilla on her visit to the United Kingdom. 

Zelenska wrote on Telegram that it was an “honour” to meet Her Majesty and “tell her what has happened and is happening in our territories temporarily occupied by Russia”. 

They also talked about how the war has "divided families," she said.

In a basement in eastern Ukraine, young men sit at a long table strewn with laptops, their eyes glued to a television screen an arm’s length away.

They watch black figures on a bleak winter hilltop, which appear to panic, then run across the frame. It’s a live video feed from a small Ukrainian drone several miles away — a spotter for artillery teams trying to kill Russian soldiers in their trenches.

Plumes of smoke rise from the near misses of Ukrainian salvos.

All along the eastern frontlines, in basement command centers hidden behind unmarked metal doors, bookish Ukrainian soldiers direct artillery fire in a desperate attempt to hold off a Russian advance.

This is a real-life testing ground for shoestring, innovative 21st century warfare. The men use cheap, commercially available drones and consumer chat programs to identify and communicate targeting for weaponry that in many cases is multiple decades old.

Their fiercest fight is taking place for the city of Bakhmut, besieged for months by Russian forces.

Read more here.

At least five civilians were killed in Russian strikes in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, according to a Ukrainian military official.

In a statement Wednesday, Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional military administration, said two people died in Bakhmut city, two others in Drobysheve and one in neighboring Lyman.

A total of 15 others were injured, he added.

Some of the fiercest fighting in eastern Ukraine is taking place around Bakhmut, which has been besieged for months by Russian forces.

The second winter season of the war "will be very challenging," Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.

He told a government meeting that Russia "will further shell the energy infrastructure; their goal is to freeze Ukraine and commit another genocide of the Ukrainian people."

Shmyhal said that "all regions of Ukraine, except Kherson region, are supplied with power. Currently, electricity production in the country covers 70% of consumption needs."

He said the onus was now on regional power companies not to exceed the limits provided by state electricity provider NPC Ukrenergo and to minimize uneven disconnection of consumers.

There is sufficient energy, he said, to evenly distribute the load of forced outages so that people can turn on lights for at least five to six hours a day, Shmyhal said.

Shmyhal said the situation required a strong air defense and quick repairs of damaged power equipment.

"Regarding air defense, over the past month, there has been significant progress, first of all, thanks to the supply of modern Western systems," he said.

Obtaining additional power equipment was also a priority, he said.

Shmyhal said Ukraine's energy resources are adequate for the winter months: "We are entering the winter with 14 billion cubic meters of gas in our storage facilities and 1.3 million tonnes of coal in storages. This resource will be quite enough to get us through the winter stably."

He also said that the Economy Ministry foresaw no shortages of fuel and diesel, which would be required for the hundreds of generators being imported.