Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 11-17-2024

Biden finally agrees to Ukraine’s urgent pleas to allow Ukraine’s military to use US weapons to hit Russian military targets far from its border.

Western media, quoting unidentified but reliable US sources, reported Sunday evening that there has been a major shift in the Biden administration’s policy on allowing Ukraine to strike into Russian territory with US-made long-range missiles.

The change is reportedly in response to North Korea deploying troops to help Moscow’s war effort.

Why India is not a fence sitter and has plainly chosen to side with Russia for pragmatic reasons.

While US President Elect Donald Trump claims that his administration will end the Russia-Ukraine war in short order, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hope that India can influence Russia and reduce its capacity to wage war against Ukraine by stopping its huge purchases of cheap Russian oil is either a case of wishful thinking or diplomatic rhetoric.

Zelensky has qualified that hope by voicing displeasure and disappointment with India’s abstention from UN General Assembly resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, asserting that India cannot be neutral between aggressor and victim. Apparently, he realizes that his hope is at odds with India’s national interest because India intends to continue buying large quantities of Russian oil which he says have helped Russia to shore up its war economy.

Policies that put pressure on Putin’s authoritarian regime are key to hastening prisoner exchanges, not least providing captured enemy solders with exposure to a pro-freedom, pro-democracy education.

Free Azovstal protests are a common sight in Kyiv. It is easy to feel for the marchers and sign wavers seeking the return of family and friends from captivity in Russia. The credible reports of torture, sexual assault, and privation make for a mix of anger toward Russia and fear for the safety, health, and lives of loved ones. The long time waiting for their return brings a feeling of helplessness that can be temporarily quelled by protesting.

Unfortunately, the protests put political and emotional pressure on President Volodymyr Zelensky while likely hardening Russian President Vladimir Putin’s resolve to continue holding Azovstal and other Ukrainian Prisoners of War (POWs). President Zelensky must be attentive to public sentiment to a much greater degree than an autocrat like Putin. Ironically, protests in Ukraine probably serve to slow the pace of POW exchanges rather than hasten returns.

A prolonged war in Ukraine is in the national interests of neither Ukraine nor the US. And yet, a quick end along the current lines will only benefit Russia and hurt the US.

US President-elect Trump has promised a swift end to Russia’s war against Ukraine. However, addressing the arguably mishandled war will prove a daunting task. The current United States’ strategy of giving Ukraine “just enough” to stay in the game but not enough to win the war has also put the US in a weak position.

For nearly three years, the US has tip-toed around defining the end-goal in Ukraine. Biden pledged to help Ukraine “as long as it takes,” without specifying if this means until Ukraine’s complete territorial restoration, until negotiations, or until the clock runs out on his presidency. This strategy has backfired.

Yulia Navalnaya, who took the helm of the Russian opposition movement after the death of her late husband Alexei Navalny, would be one of the main organizers of the march.

The Russian opposition, forced into exile and weakened by internal conflicts, will organize its first major demonstration against Moscow’s Ukraine invasion in Berlin on Sunday, testing its political credibility in the third year of the war.

The Kremlin has in recent years eradicated any political competition at home and waged a massive crackdown on dissent, with hundreds – possibly thousands – of Russians in prison for their political views. 

Kyiv Post Chief Editor Bohdan Nahaylo discussed what US President-elect Donald Trump’s victory and his latest aide picks could mean for Ukraine’s future on Poland’s TVP World.

The world in focus, as seen by a Canadian leading global affairs analyst, writer and speaker, in his review of international media.

This morning’s massive Russian attack on Ukraine was one of biggest to date with close to 120 rockets and 90 drones, President Volodymyr Zelensky said. Air defense systems destroyed about 140 targets. A DTEK thermal power plant was badly damage as widespread emergency blackouts occur nationwide. Rockets struck as far west as Rivne, closer to Poland. In response, the operational command of Nato-member Poland’s armed forces posted that Polish and allied jets had been scrambled “due to the massive attack by the Russian Federation using cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles on objects located, among others, in western Ukraine”. Odesa contacts say there’s no power and, in some cases, no water. Damage to residential infrastructure in Kyiv, and deaths and injured were reported in Mykolaiv. With night time temperatures set to drop to near freezing tonight in some oblasts, the impact will be felt much more. The last major attack on power infrastructure was in late August. Ukraine is currently running on somewhere between a third and a half of its pre-2022 energy generating capacity, BBC reported.

Military cooperation between Russia and North Korea amid Russia’s aggression in Ukraine is feared to have a serious impact on security conditions in East Asia, including Japan. There is a possibility that North Korea will learn techniques of modern-day warfare and Russia could provide technologies related to nuclear weapons and missiles to the country. The North Korean troops who have entered Russia are believed to be elite soldiers of special operation units. It is assumed that they will engage in urban warfare in Seoul or other large cities should a military contingency occur in the Koran Peninsula. According to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, the North Korean troops are now learning how to control unmanned aircraft in Russia, among other things. South Korea and North Korea are only in a truce. Thus, South Korea is wary that the North’s troop deployment to Russia may help strengthen North Korea’s military capabilities - The Japan News

The battle to preserve the “polyphonic cosmopolitanism” of Ukrainian Odesa Intensifies.

An open letter to UNESCO, signed by almost 150 (mostly Ukrainian) artists and intellectuals, seeking help in deferring decisions about Odesa’s World Heritage until the end of the war, has sparked controversy in Ukrainian social and mass media. Signatories have been accused of opposing decolonization and upholding Russian narratives. 

The letter, sent on Oct. 21, appeals to Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, which recognized Odesa’s historic center as a World Heritage Site last year, to ask President Volodymyr Zelensky to halt decisions about almost 100 street names and 19 historic monuments that have been earmarked for removal.

Locals in the Odesa region have filmed multiple Russian missiles piercing through the sky as they whistled by en route to their targets.

Five of what appear to be Russia’s Kablir ship-launched cruise missiles could be seen piercing through the sky, one after another, in a video circulating on social media. 

The video, shared by a local journalist, was posted at around 11 a.m. It was presumably taken in the Odesa region on Sunday morning, when Russia launched a total of 120 missiles from multiple directions, including the Black Sea near Odesa, against Ukraine. 

With winter already approaching, the latest attack renewed discussions about a potentially unforgiving winter for Ukrainians and what the future might hold under the upcoming US administration.

Russia on Sunday pummelled Ukraine with one of the largest barrages of the grinding near-three-year war, Ukrainian officials said, forcing power cuts with fears of a precarious winter to come.

Hundreds of missiles and drones streaked across Kyiv’s skies as Russia's invasion dragged past its thousandth day, killing at least two people, leaving a dozen more injured and damaging the country's already beleaguered energy grid.

After the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine agreed to the withdrawal of Soviet nuclear weapons when it signed the Budapest Memorandum. In return, it received security guarantees that now prove worthless.

After the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine agreed to the withdrawal of Soviet nuclear weapons when it signed the Budapest Memorandum. In return, it received security guarantees that now prove worthless. According to reports in the British newspaper The Times, an investigation commissioned by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence has come to the conclusion that Ukraine could develop nuclear bombs within months. The press is divided.

Threat could work to Kyiv's advantage

The Ukrainian president said in his Sunday morning address that Ukraine managed to down more than 140 aerial targets thanks to air defense groups and jets, including the F-16s.

Russia launched 120 missiles and 90 drones against Ukraine on Sunday, where Ukrainian troops downed more than 140 of them, said President Volodymyr Zelensky. 

In a statement at around 10 a.m., Zelensky also thanked various forces for countering the attack – including pilots of the F-16 fighters that Ukraine received from its Western partners this year. 

DTEK, one of Ukraine’s major energy operators, said its power plants were targeted by Russian drones and missiles, and they sustained “significant damage” in the attack.

Russian attacks on Sunday morning have damaged Ukraine’s thermal power plants, said one of the country’s major energy operators DTEK. 

In a social media update, DTEK said its thermal power plants were targeted by Russia, and that its “energy equipment” received “significant damage” before adding that the company is “currently assessing the extent of the damage and information about casualties.”

As Ukraine prepares for another winter under Russian attack, it is shoring up its energy capacity by making a “strategic shift” toward distributed energy resources.

Editor’s note: This story was originally published by Latitude Media, a media company covering the new frontiers of the energy transition.

In the two and a half years since Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine’s energy system has been a regular target, with attacks on thermal and hydro assets, substations, and solar units. A recent United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission’s report estimates that the country has lost at least 18 gigawatts of electricity capacity, half of which was destroyed in summer 2024 alone.

The drone strikes persisted intermittently for multiple hours on Sunday morning, followed by dozens of missiles, including the Kinzhal hypersonic missiles.

Russia launched a massive drone and missile attack against Ukraine on Sunday morning, which persisted intermittently over multiple hours. 

Ukraine’s Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said energy generation and transmission facilities were targeted. 

These measures were "aimed at [ensuring] security in the areas adjacent to the threatened zones," said Poland’s Operational Command.

Poland said it had scrambled fighter jets and mobilized all available forces on Sunday in response to a "massive" Russian missile and drone attack on Ukraine. 

"Due to a massive attack by Russia, which is carrying out strikes using cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and drones against sites located, among other places, in western Ukraine, operations by Polish and allied aircraft have begun," Poland’s Operational Command posted on social media platform X. 

Biden expressed "deep concern" over Beijing’s support of Russia’s defense industry as Moscow invades Ukraine, and condemned the deployment of thousands of troops to Russia by China’s ally North Korea.

Chinese President Xi Jinping said Saturday he was ready to work with Donald Trump’s new administration for a "smooth transition" in bilateral ties, as he met outgoing President Joe Biden for the last time.

The leaders of the world’s two largest economies met on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Lima overshadowed by concerns of new trade wars and diplomatic tensions when Trump returns to the White House in January.