November 30, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

An explosion has occurred at the Ukrainian Embassy in Madrid, according to a Spanish Ministry of Interior statement. One person is slightly injured after handling a letter and is being treated at hospital, the ministry said. 

The Spanish National Police said an explosive device has gone off at the embassy and they are investigating. 

Police said it is too early to know if the explosion took place when an embassy worker tried to open an envelope or simply move the envelope.

“Minister Dmytro Kuleba (Ukrainian Foreign minister) has issued an urgent instruction to step up security at all Ukrainian embassies abroad,” said the Ukrainian foreign minister’s spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko.

“Whoever is behind this explosion they will not succeed in intimidating Ukrainian diplomats or stopping their daily work to strengthen Ukraine and to counter Russian aggression,” Nikolenko quotes Kuleba as saying.

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.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken strongly condemned the targeting of Ukrainian civilians by Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling it “barbaric.” He also promised that the United States and NATO allies would continue to support Kyiv in the face of Russian efforts to “splinter our coalition.”

“As Ukraine continues to seize momentum on the battlefield, President Putin has focused his ire and his fire on Ukraine's civilian population,” Blinken said at a news conference Wednesday at the NATO foreign ministers meeting in Bucharest. “Over the past several weeks, Russia has bombed out more than a third of Ukraine's energy system, plunging millions into cold, into darkness, as frigid temperatures set in.”

On Tuesday, the United States government pledged more than $50 million dollars in equipment to support Ukraine’s electrical system. Blinken said Wednesday that the equipment – generators, transformers, spare parts – would be arriving in Ukraine “not in a matter of months, but in a matter of days, or weeks.”

Blinken said the attacks on civilian infrastructure were part of Putin’s “playbook” to “freeze and starve Ukrainians, force them from their homes,” drive up costs for energy and food around the world, “and then try to splinter our coalition.”

Allies are aware that “standing up for Ukraine means accepting difficult costs,” Blinken said, “but the cost of inaction would be far higher.”

Blinken said that diplomacy would be necessary to fully end Russia’s war in Ukraine, but noted that “Russia's savage attacks on Ukrainian civilians are the latest demonstration that President Putin currently has no interest in meaningful diplomacy.”

“The best way to actually hasten the prospects for real diplomacy is to sustain our support to Ukraine and continue to tilt the battlefield in its favor,” Blinken said. “That will also help ensure that Ukraine has the strongest possible negotiating position and hand to play when a negotiating table emerges.”

“Short of Russia ending the aggression had started that is the only path to a peace that is both just and durable,” Blinken said.

The Ministry of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories has said that 2,500 civilians have left Kherson to other safe regions around Ukraine.

People are moved through “proven routes” to Lviv and Khmelnytskyi, a statement said.

The Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Iryna Vereshchuk, added that people leaving will receive “cash payments” when they arrive at train station: 2,000 UAH ($53) per adult and 3,000 UAH ($80) per child or person with disabilities. 

“People count on cash support. Therefore, they receive it immediately upon arrival. This gives confidence that the state will take care of them in the new place,” Vereshchuk said.

Those leaving are also issued IDP certificates and humanitarian aid. 

Ukraine's energy minister has said that his country's power situation "is improving every day." Read the latest developments below:

Energy situation: Ukraine's Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said 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. 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.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that while the second winter season of the war "will be very challenging," 70% of power needs have been met.

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

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

Zelensky warning: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky cautioned in his nightly video address Tuesday that the Russians are "planning something in the south." The warning comes just weeks after the southern city of Kherson was liberated from Russian troops on Nov. 11, after eight months of occupation. The city has since been rocked by heavy Russian shelling, shattering an initial sense of calm.

Deaths in Donetsk: At least five civilians were killed in Russian strikes in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, according to a Ukrainian military official. Some of the fiercest fighting in eastern Ukraine is taking place around Bakhmut, which has been besieged for months by Russian forces.

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.

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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.