Russia-Ukraine updates: Zelenskyy welcomes MH17 court ruling

• Fresh Russian strikes hit cities across Ukraine as winter kicks in

  Fresh Russian strikes have hit cities across Ukraine, the latest in a wave of attacks that have crippled the country’s energy infrastructure as winter sets in and temperatures drop.

  Repeated barrages have disrupted electricity and water supplies to millions of Ukrainians.

  As Russia pursues the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the head of the central region of Dnipropetrovsk, Valentyn Reznichenko, said strikes had hit the administrative centre of Dnipro.

  In the southern Odessa region, a Russian strike targeted infrastructure and the governor warned residents of the threat of a “massive” missile attack” urging them to seek shelter.

  The eastern region of Kharkiv was also struck, governor Oleg Synegubov announced, adding that Russia hit “critical infrastructure” in strikes that injured at least three people.

  Zelenskyy in response described Russia as a “terrorist state” and said Moscow “wants to bring Ukrainians only more pain and suffering.”

  Government energy adviser Oleksandr Kharchenko told media that 50 percent of Ukrainians were experiencing disruptions and that the west of the country was the worst hit.

  “Unfortunately, the attacks are quite effective, and the losses are accumulating,” he was cited as saying.

  

• IAEA board again urges Moscow to cease actions at Ukrainian nuclear facilities

  The IAEA Board of Governors has passed its third resolution since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, calling on Moscow to end all actions at Ukrainian nuclear facilities, diplomats at the closed-door vote said.

  The text submitted by Canada and Finland for Thursday’s vote and seen by Reuters mentioned the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, as did the previous resolution passed in September.

  Twenty-four countries from the 35-nation UN nuclear watchdog board voted in favour, two voted against, seven abstained and two were absent, the diplomats said.

• Russia rejects court decision over 2014 shooting down of Malaysia Airlines over Ukraine

  Russia has rejected what it called the “scandalous” decision by a Dutch court to convict two of its citizens for downing a Malaysian airliner and said the proceedings had not been impartial.

  Judges convicted three men of murder for their role in the 2014 shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine, killing all 298 passengers and crew, and sentenced them to life in prison in absentia.

  The three were former Russian intelligence agents Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy, and Leonid Kharchenko, a Ukrainian separatist leader.

  The Dutch court also said Russia had “overall control” of separatist forces in eastern Ukraine at the time the plane was shot down.

  Russia’s foreign ministry said the court had been under unprecedented pressure from Dutch politicians, prosecutors and the media to impose a politically motivated outcome.

  “The trial in the Netherlands has every chance of becoming one of the most scandalous in the history of legal proceedings,” it said in a statement. Moscow has repeatedly denied responsibility for the downing of the jet.

  Separately, a top Russian politician told TASS news agency that Moscow would not be extraditing Girkin and Dubinskiy.

  Andrey Klishas, a member of Russia’s upper house of parliament, told TASS that the court’s decision would not have any legal consequences.

  The Russian foreign ministry said prosecutors had ignored all evidence it said indicated that the missile could have been launched by Ukrainian troops from territory controlled by Kyiv.

  “We deeply regret that the district court in The Hague disregarded the principles of impartial justice in favour of the current political situation,” it said.

• Russian dissenter Alexei Navalny says he has been placed in a solitary cell

  Jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny has said he has been transferred to a solitary punishment cell, a development he said was clearly designed to shut him up.

  Navalny, the most prominent domestic critic of President Vladimir Putin and a strong opponent of the war in Ukraine, is already serving prison terms totaling 11-1/2 years for fraud, contempt of court and parole violations, all of which he rejects as trumped-up charges.

  Navalny said that just days before close family members had been due to arrive to see him, prison officials told him he was considered an “egregious offender” and would be transferred to a cramped cell, where long visits were not allowed.

  Last month, Navalny said authorities had opened a new criminal case against him for promoting “terrorism” and “extremism”, potentially more than doubling his sentence.

• ‘Horrific’ scale of torture in liberated Kherson: Ukrainian ombudsman

  The scale of torture discovered in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson taken back from Russian troops this month is “horrific”, a Ukrainian ombudsman has said.

  “I have not seen a scale like this before,” Dmytro Lubynets said. “The scale is just horrific.”

  Authorities have found “torture chambers” in the recently liberated southern Ukrainian city, where dozens of people have been reportedly been tortured, Lubynets said.

  He said Ukrainians were electrocuted and beaten with metal pipes before being killed, AFP reported.

• Ukrainian experts already in Poland to investigate explosion site: Warsaw

  Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has said Ukrainian experts are already in Poland to investigate the site where a missile killed two people on Tuesday.

  Ukraine and Poland “will cooperate constructively and openly” on the investigation, Kuleba said, adding that he expected the investigators to swiftly get access to the site in southeastern Poland.

  I spoke to @RauZbigniew. Ukraine and Poland will cooperate constructively and openly on the incident caused by Russian missile terror against Ukraine. Our experts are already in Poland. We expect them to swiftly get access to the site in cooperation with Polish law enforcement.

  — Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) November 17, 2022

• Half of Ukraine children missing out on education due to blackouts: Save the Children

  One in two caregivers in Ukraine has said their children’s education suffered after reoccurring attacks on power plants in October left more than 4.5 million households without electricity, according to a survey by Save the Children.

  Children’s access to education is set to drastically worsen the longer the fighting continues around urban centres and heavily populated areas such as Kyiv. The continued attacks on energy infrastructure in November have left some 10 million families across the country without electricity.

  Save the Children conducted an online survey of more than 1,600 caregivers across Ukraine to find out whether emergency power cuts had disrupted children’s education. Half of them reported that between October 10-21 their children missed online classes or could not do their homework due to an absence of electricity, an internet connection, or because they needed to take shelter.

  It is estimated that 2.6 million students are learning from home, as of October 22, according to the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. Whilst some schools have been able to reopen since September 1, many lack protective shelters, have been damaged or destroyed, or remain under possible threat of attacks. As a result, online education is essential for children to continue their learning.

  Throughout October, there were five waves of attacks on power plants across Ukraine, that took out an estimated 40 percent of energy infrastructure in the country, according to the Ukrainian government.

  

• US ambassador to Ukraine welcomes Black Sea grain deal extension

  The US ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink has welcomed an agreement to extend the Black Sea grain deal to facilitate Ukraine’s agricultural exports from its southern Black Sea ports.

  A deal aimed at easing global food shortages by facilitating Ukraine’s agricultural exports from its southern Black Sea ports was extended for 120 days on Thursday.

  The agreement, initially reached in July, created a protected sea transit corridor and was designed to alleviate global food shortages by allowing exports to resume from three ports in Ukraine, a major producer of grains and oilseeds.

  Extending the Black Sea Grain Initiative will contribute to reduced prices and ensure desperately-needed food from Ukraine can feed the world. We will continue to support helping grain from Ukraine to reach global markets, particularly countries in facing severe food insecurity.

  — Ambassador Bridget A. Brink (@USAmbKyiv) November 17, 2022

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• Ukraine likely to get access to area where missile killed two: Warsaw

  Ukraine is likely to get the access it has demanded to the site in the border area of southeastern Poland where a missile killed two people on Tuesday, Polish officials have said on Thursday.

  Warsaw and its Western allies say evidence from the scene points to the explosion being caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile that went astray in pursuit of a Russian missile. Kyiv denies this, saying it has evidence of a “Russian trace” in the blast.

  While Warsaw and Kyiv differ on the location the missile was fired from, they and other Western allies are united in the view that ultimately Russia is at fault.

  “The Russian side must be aware of the threat it poses by bombing … at a distance of literally several dozen kilometres from the Polish border, that any of the missiles, whether from the Russian side or those Ukrainian anti-missile systems, can land on the territory of a foreign state, in this case, Poland,” said Adrian Kubicki, Poland’s consul general in New York.

  “So nothing here changes the assessment that the Russian Federation is responsible for what happened.”

  

• Blinken: Russia ‘ultimately responsible’ for Poland missile incident

  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said an investigation into Tuesday’s missile incident in eastern Poland is ongoing but that the US has “seen nothing so far that contradicts” Poland’s preliminary assessment that Ukrainian air defences were to blame for the border blast.

  However, Blinken reiterated: “Whatever its final conclusion, we already know the party ultimately responsible for this tragic incident: Russia.”

  “What we are seeing every single day now is Russia raining missiles down on Ukraine, seeking to destroy its critical infrastructure, targeting the ability that Ukraine has to keep the lights on, to keep the heat going, to allow the country simply to live and move forward,” he told reporters at an Asia-Pacific summit in Bangkok.

  “Ukraine has the right to defend itself, and we are committed to supporting Ukraine.”

Source: News Agencies