Ukraine war: Putin’s air strikes target power grid and home for elderly

Oleksandr Kamyshin spent more than a year as minister of strategic industries, overseeing Ukraine’s defence industry. He tells Askold Krushelnycky about his latest challenge:

Despite earlier reports that Berlin would not approve more aid for Ukraine in 2023, a German finance ministry document revealed an additional €400m in support for Ukraine, according to AFP.

The funds are intended to provide military assistance, including drones and air defence systems, to bolster Ukraine’s defences for the rest of 2024. While Germany has already pledged around €8bn this year, aid is expected to drop to €4bn in 2025, as per a Reuters report in July.

According to the German finance ministry document — a letter to the parliamentary budget committee — additional funds are needed to “fulfil the German government’s support commitments to the Ukrainian armed forces”.

The Kyiv Independent reported that Germany’s political challenges, including gains by “anti-war” parties in regional elections, and budgetary concerns have complicated its ongoing support for Ukraine.

As of June 2024, Germany has allocated €14.7bn in aid to Ukraine, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the lower house of parliament and a member of Mr Putin’s Security Council, was responding to a vote in the European Parliament urging EU countries to give such approval to Kyiv.

“What the European Parliament is calling for leads to a world war using nuclear weapons,” Mr Volodin wrote on Telegram.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow is prepared to defend its interests in the Arctic through diplomatic, military, and technical means.

His comments come in response to increasing US and Nato military exercises in the region, which Mr Lavrov sees as a potential threat. In comments quoted in Russian media, he emphasised that Russia is fully equipped to protect its interests amid rising tensions.

“We see how Nato is intensifying exercises in connection with possible crises in the Arctic,” Mr Lavrov was quoted as saying in a documentary series titled “Soviet Breakthrough”.

“Our country is fully ready to defend its interests in military, political and military-technical terms.”

His remarks follow a US Pentagon report highlighting intensified Russian activity in the Arctic, including the reopening of Soviet-era military sites and cooperation with China on shipping routes and minerals, which the US believes could affect polar stability.

A proposed corridor through Armenia would effectively sever the country’s connection to Iran and slice through its sovereign territory, with the support of Moscow, writes former MP Lord Alton:

The United States has imposed sanctions on a network of five groups and one person for enabling payments between Russia and North Korea to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine and Pyongyang’s weapons programmes, the Treasury Department has said.

“The growing financial cooperation between Russia and (North Korea) directly threatens international security and the global financial system,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.

The new sanctions expose how Russian president Vladimir Putin’s government uses illegal financial schemes to help North Korea access the international banking system, in violation of UN Security Council sanctions, the Treasury said.

The US and Ukraine, as well as independent analysts, say North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is helping Russia by supplying rockets and missiles in return for economic and other military assistance.

Russian forces targeted Ukraine’s energy sector and hit an old people’s centre in the city of Sumy in a new wave of airstrikes on Thursday, killing at least one civilian, Ukrainian officials said.

A UN monitoring body said attacks on the power grid probably violated humanitarian law while the International Energy Agency said in a report that Ukraine‘s electricity supply shortfall in the critical winter months could reach about a third of expected peak demand.

During a daytime strike on the northern city of Sumy, a Russian guided bomb hit a five-storey building, regional and military officials said.

One person was killed and 12 wounded, the interior ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.

Women have been disproportionately hit by power cuts caused by Russian air strikes on vital infrastruture, a new UN report says.

Attacks on electricity infrastructure facilities this year have led to the deaths of 18 civilians and 84 being injured, according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

Drivers, older people and those with limited mobility are also among those to have suffered from blackouts, it says.

“From the onset of the electricity shortage, living conditions in Ukraine deteriorated, as cooking, cleaning, and food storage dependent on electricity became more difficult,” the report says.

“Since women in Ukraine spend substantially more time per week on unpaid domestic work, they have been disproportionately affected, with half of women reporting that electricity cuts have had a major impact on food preparation and storage.

“Individuals with low mobility, older persons and families with small children struggled to safely leave or reach apartments in high-rise buildings with elevator service cuts.

“Widespread traffic-light outages created road hazards for drivers and pedestrians, while commuters faced challenges reaching their employment due to public transport disruptions.”