ukraine war safari

Analysis: Russians Likely to Encounter Growing Guerrilla Warfare in Ukraine

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Russians Likely to Encounter Growing Guerrilla Warfare in Ukraine

Kyiv says it plans to launch a coordinated campaign., russia’s war in ukraine.

Understanding the conflict two years on .

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If it’s not obvious by now: The Ukrainian Armed Forces aren’t following the expected playbook. They were supposed to be have been defeated within days of the Feb. 24 invasion, as an accidentally published Russian victory declaration suggests. On the day of the invasion, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner even told the Ukrainian ambassador begging for help that it would all to be over in a few hours. Instead, the war is well into its second month, and a Russian victory seems more remote than ever.

Once their country was occupied and a puppet regime established, the Ukrainians were then supposed to turn to partisan warfare that would transform the war into a long and bitter quagmire for Russia. Yet again, the Ukrainians didn’t listen. Instead of waiting for their defeat, they say they’re planning to launch a coordinated guerrilla campaign within the next few weeks—parallel to the regular war and just as spring turns forests green to provide cover. “The season of a total Ukrainian guerrilla safari will soon begin,” the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, announced in late March . “Then there will be one relevant scenario left for the Russians: how to survive.”

Judging from reports, irregular civilian resistance has already taken place, so the guerrilla campaign announced by Budanov will not be starting from scratch. In the northern part of Poltava province, according to a March 18 report, wild game hunters captured over 10 tanks and other vehicles and pursued retreating Russian troops. Earlier in March, guerrillas reportedly destroyed a convoy of trucks near Kharkiv. Elsewhere, on March 11, villagers reportedly helped police take 29 Russian soldiers prisoner.

Civilians are also playing a role in confiscating weapons, equipment, and supplies from the enemy and handing them over to the Ukrainian forces. On March 23, the Ukrainian General Staff released video footage of a supply truck captured at an undisclosed location by what looked like Ukrainian civilians. In another incident, a group of civilians apparently seized a Russian T-80 tank abandoned in a muddy field. According to one of the civilians in the video, he was learning to drive the T-80 with instructions found via Google .

In addition, peaceful resistance in the form of demonstrations and marches is taking place almost every day in Russian-controlled cities such as Kherson, Melitopol, and Enerhodar. Residents of Kyiv and other unoccupied cities, in turn, have gotten busy preparing Molotov cocktails in case invading Russians come their way.

We know from history—including Russia’s wars in Chechnya—that reprisals against partisans can be especially gruesome.

So far, the most important civilian participation in the fighting has been in the Territorial Defense Forces, a tightly structured volunteer militia subordinated to Ukrainian Armed Forces command. Ukrainian civilians began preparing for irregular warfare in the weeks before the invasion, but additional Territorial Defense Forces units are reportedly being raised to increase Ukrainian fighting power as the war goes on. The tasks of this civilian militia include defending critical infrastructure, supporting the regular armed forces, and combating saboteurs and spies. In the runup to and first few days of the war, some 100,000 volunteers and 37,000 reservists had already signed up.

Civilians who only recently joined the militia already appear to be active as snipers defending the outskirts of Kyiv. A Canadian Ukrainian resident outside Kyiv described one of the activities his unit was involved in: “We’ve organized nightly patrols after several lost Russian soldiers were arrested last week in the area. Their [armored personnel carrier] was blown up by the Ukrainian forces, and after three to four days hiding in the woods, the Russians came out begging for food and water.”

The Territorial Defense Forces are formally separate from a partisan or guerrilla resistance movement, which may still be nascent and in the process of formation. Details are murky, but Ukrainian military doctrine sees the country’s Special Operations Forces , whose members are highly trained in irregular warfare, playing a “leading role in organizing, preparing, supporting and conducting the resistance movement.” They have established a virtual Center of National Resistance , which provides detailed instructions for partisan actions, including how to set up ambushes, respond to chemical attacks, and organize peaceful resistance. According to the center’s website: “In order to become an invisible avenger whom the occupiers will fear, it is necessary to know tactics, medicine, internet security, homemade weapons, and nonviolent actions.”

The center has also published a civil resistance handbook with advice on lowering the occupiers’ morale and other forms of passive resistance, as well as active resistance involving various forms of sabotage. The handbook also gives tips on how regular citizens can help the resistance movement by providing food, shelter, and medicine. A video warns potential saboteurs they will need to live double lives among friends and relatives, pretending to be loyal to the Russians while simultaneously undermining their rule. While the internet is no substitute for hands-on training, this is little different from historical examples of partisan warfare, where goals and methods were passed on by leaflets, pamphlets, and word of mouth. Today, websites can easily and more effectively do the trick.

Guerrillas and partisans the world over have consisted overwhelmingly of peasants and other villagers who know the terrain intimately, can engage in hit-and-run tactics, and can keep an invader off balance at unexpected locations. That will be similar in Ukraine—especially as the Russians have proved unable to take any major Ukrainian cities, where urban guerrillas would play a role. Ukrainian hunters may form an especially large component, as hunting is a popular sport in Ukraine’s west and north, where the terrain is a mix of forest, steppe, and mountains. Although there are a comparably low 9.9 civilian firearms per 100 citizens in Ukraine, those guns are mainly owned in rural regions. At this point, the number of weapons has clearly risen: Immediately after the invasion, nearly 20,000 guns were distributed to reservists in Kyiv in preparation for a possible assault on the capital, and weapons have been distributed in other regions as well.

Most elements of an effective guerrilla struggle are thus in place. The only missing piece is friendly terrain, but once the forests and hedges turn green, as they will in April, they will provide guerrillas with better cover. At that point, the fighters will be able to systematically infiltrate Russian-occupied territory—especially in the forested north—and strike the Russian military from the rear while regular Ukrainian forces attack from the front.

Ukraine’s east and south, however, consist largely of flat, treeless steppe, which are ill-suited for traditional rural guerrilla warfare. But Russian-occupied towns and villages could be infiltrated by saboteurs and urban guerrillas from the Territorial Defense Forces to target soldiers, Rosgvardia occupation police, and local collaborators.

The center has also published a civil resistance handbook with advice on lowering the occupiers’ morale and  various forms of sabotage.

It’s the forested north where Russian soldiers, supply trucks, weaponry, and logistics are likely to make especially attractive targets. There, Russian forces and supplies move along the main roads, avoiding unmarked, hard-to-navigate rural terrain, and are often poorly guarded and overstretched. Such tactics are an open invitation to guerrilla attacks, as the history of partisan warfare shows well. Many Ukrainians will remember their country’s history in World War II, when nationalists and Soviet Ukrainian partisans controlled the forests, swamps, and mountains of western and northern Ukraine, while urban guerrillas harassed the occupying German forces in the cities. Even after the Soviets displaced the Germans as masters of Ukraine in 1944, nationalist partisans managed to continue their struggle for another decade, killing more than 30,000 Soviet functionaries and secret police, according to the Ukrainian historian Ivan Patryliak.

This history matters, because western Ukrainians have lionized the nationalist guerrillas and their struggle for independence. Similarly, eastern Ukrainians venerated the anti-German partisans, thanks to the Soviet cult of World War II. Joining the guerrillas today is thus a time-honored undertaking, allowing participants to consciously step into a long tradition of resistance to totalitarianism. Guerrillas take enormous risks, so they need to be absolutely dedicated to the cause they’re fighting for. Being able to place one’s own sacrifices within a longer historical or even family tradition can therefore sustain the motivation and courage that has proved so effective thus far against largely unmotivated Russian troops.

Russia will, of course, take brutal countermeasures. We know from history—including Russia’s wars in Chechnya—that reprisals against partisans can be especially gruesome, affecting local populations far beyond any real or suspected insurgents. Between 1945 and 1955 in Ukraine, the Soviets killed more than 150,000 alleged guerrillas and sympathizers, according to Patryliak. Hundreds of thousands of western Ukrainians were deported to Siberia or Central Asia, and almost 90,000 were jailed. Today, however, guerrillas won’t be alone in the woods but acting in conjunction with Ukraine’s armed forces, which have proved to be highly effective in withstanding the Russians and which enjoy material support from a number of countries. They won’t be fighting for an idealistic cause but defending an existing country.

So even as the regular war goes on, Ukrainian guerrillas could very well help turn the tide. Many of the Russian replacement troops being rushed to the Ukrainian front are poorly trained recruits with no combat experience. Facing a battle-hardened Ukrainian army will be hard enough for them. Resisting guerrilla attacks in their rear may be, as Budanov promises , “real hell.”

Alexander J. Motyl is a professor of political science at Rutgers University-Newark.

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Database of 305 videos exposes the horrors of war in Ukraine

On Feb. 24, as Russian forces rolled into Ukraine and missiles began to strike Kyiv, civilians picked up their phones and pressed record. For eight months, they have documented the war, allowing the world to witness the conflict in Ukraine through the eyes of its people.

New videos emerge each day, taken by local residents, soldiers and public officials. They show the trails of rockets streaming through the sky and the smoldering ruins of towns. Footage has shown slain civilians, some bearing signs of torture, lying in neighborhood streets or unearthed from mass graves.

A growing body of visual evidence has become instrumental for war crimes prosecutors, while also propelling global outrage against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war.

Video location

The Washington Post’s visual forensics team has been verifying and cataloguing videos since the start of the invasion. This work is searchable in a database that continues to be updated, though at a slower pace than in the first months of the war, with the emphasis more recently on key events. The videos have been uploaded in raw format; graphic content is clearly marked.

Amid the onslaught of death and rubble in this database, certain trends are apparent:

• Little has been spared. Houses, apartment buildings and playgrounds have been destroyed across Ukraine. See videos of residential areas
• Patients seeking care became victims of war. A maternity hospital, a cancer ward and a children’s dental clinic are among hundreds of health facilities that have been struck. See videos of medical facilities
• Bombardments are routine. Security cameras and citizens filming from their windows have captured moments when strikes reduce structures to rubble. See videos of military strikes
• Russia has targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, and officials in Kyiv warn of a difficult winter ahead. See infrastructure attacks
• Ukrainian soldiers have recorded their successes — from the battles that saved the capital in the spring to the recent counteroffensive that has forced Russia to retreat in parts of the east and south. See counteroffensives

If you’re in Ukraine and have footage you recorded of what is going on, please send it to us on Telegram at 202-580-1002 . The Post will continue to verify videos of the Russian invasion.

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January 2023

Filter videos by tag, filter videos by location, methodology.

A team of reporters at The Washington Post has been monitoring and verifying videos of the war since Feb. 24. To do that, reporters geolocate the video by cross-referencing distinctive landmarks in the footage with reliable source material such as satellite imagery or Google Earth street view. Next, reporters investigate when the video was recorded, checking for metadata and time stamps. Other visuals, official statements, eyewitness testimony and spoken audio provide context that can help corroborate videos. Reporters also review the uploader’s account and try to find the original source for the video. The source links in this database are where reporters discovered the video online, but are not always the original source. Weapons and military equipment can be clues as to what transpired; reporters consult with military experts on that. Some videos in this database were also corroborated by news verification groups such as Storyful or open-source researchers, but all have been independently confirmed by The Post.

Post reporters also screen for fake videos by examining whether there are jump cuts, interrupted audio, or visuals and audio that don’t match. We also run a reverse-image search and look for other posts on the same topic to make sure it is not an old video — perhaps even from a different conflict — that is recirculating.

Verification takes rigorous reporting, fact-checking and collaboration across the newsroom. The Post publishes only verified videos.

Visual forensics reporting by Sarah Cahlan, Joyce Sohyun Lee, Meg Kelly, Atthar Mirza, Elyse Samuels, Samuel Oakford, Jon Swaine, Razzan Nakhlawi, Jonathan Baran, Joy Sharon Yi, JM Rieger, Jason Aldag, Karly Domb Sadof, Dalton Bennett, Louisa Loveluck, Monica Rodman and Adriana Usero. Design and development by Shikha Subramaniam, Leo Dominguez, Gabriel Florit, Atthar Mirza, Joe Fox and Jason Bernert. Graphics by Dylan Moriarty. Writing by Elyse Samuels, Ruby Mellen, Samuel Oakford, Sarah Cahlan and Meg Kelly.

Editing by Matt Callahan, Reem Akkad, Nadine Ajaka and Ann Gerhart. Copy editing by Vanessa Larson.

• International

Russia's war in Ukraine

By Aditi Sangal , Rhea Mogul , Lianne Kolirin and Ed Upright, CNN

Follow the latest news on Russia's war in Ukraine  here  and read more about today's developments in the posts below.

How Mila Kunis raised millions to support Ukrainians in need

From CNN's Gabriel Kinder,

In 1991, when actor Mila Kunis moved to the United States, her family left their home in what was then the Soviet Union. She was seven and a half; she spoke Russian and says she thought of herself as Russian.

"If I said the word Ukraine, no one would know where that country was on the map, and so I was like, 'that's exhausting.' Let's just stick to the big red dot over there, and so I would say I'm from Russia for many, many years," Kunis told CNN's Erin Burnett.

Last February, when Russian forces invaded Ukraine, Kunis said she found a new sense of pride in the country where she was born. She made it clear: "I am Ukrainian who speaks Russian, and I found myself correcting myself and my friends who are also from Ukraine."

Since the invasion, roughly one-third of Ukraine's citizens have been forced to abandon their homes and more than five million have sought refuge in other countries.

Watching news of the war impacted Kunis deeply. She told Burnett, "As a mother, any time you see children in any facet of harm, it is indescribable pain because all you want to do is help a child. That's all; that's literally all I want to do."

So, Kunis and her husband Ashton Kutcher decided to "reverse engineer that desire and try to figure out the most productive way of helping," she said.

Together, they looked for ways to have an immediate impact on the people who are suffering. They decided to raise money and help provide housing and supplies for refugees.

They partnered with GoFundMe.org, which set up the technical structure to accept donations within hours

According to their fundraiser, donations directly benefit  Flexport.org  and  Airbnb.org , two organizations actively on the ground providing immediate help to those who need it most. Flexport.org is organizing shipments of relief supplies to refugee sites, and Airbnb.org is providing free, short-term housing.

Kunis and Kutcher named their campaign  Stand With Ukraine  and launched it in early March with the goal of raising $30 million. The couple donated $3 million in matching funds. Just two weeks later, they exceeded their goal, and in a video said 65,000 people contributed.

To date, Stand with Ukraine has raised more than $36 million, and more than 75,000 people have donated. Kunis says the campaign not only helps the people of Ukraine but allows supporters around the world to be involved.

You can read more about Kunis' fundraising efforts here.

Programming Note:   Mila Kunis, Sean Penn, Chef José Andrés and Glenn Close will be among the celebrities recognized during "CNN Heroes Salutes," hosted by Erin Burnett Saturday, June 25th at 10 p.m. ET.

Ukrainian mayor of Mariupol says there is no water and thousands of tons of garbage in the streets

From CNN's Sebastian Shukla

Vadym Boichenko, the exiled mayor of Mariupol, gave a brief update on the situation inside the city now under Russian control. 

Speaking on Friday, Boichenko said that 120,000 residents of the city are trapped, unable to escape. He added that the sanitary situation in the city is becoming critical.

“Garbage has not been taken out since February. Thousands of tons of garbage lie on the street, rotting. The sewer does not work. There is no water,” he said.

Boichenko is no longer physically in the city, but he provides updates on the conditions inside the city from sources and information he receives. 

According to those sources, Russian forces have “distanced themselves from the locals because they are afraid of getting infected." 

Boichenko added that he is unsure if diseases may be spreading around the city.

US secretary of state says it "makes no sense" for Russia to demand inspecting Ukrainian ships

From CNN's Kylie Atwood and Michael Conte

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it doesn't make sense for Russia to demand that it be able to inspect every Ukrainian ship leaving Ukrainian ports.

“By what right or by what logic does Russia insist on inspecting Ukrainian sovereign ships leaving Ukrainian ports going to other countries? That makes no sense,” Blinken said to CNN’s Fred Pleitgen at a press conference in Germany on Friday.

Blinken is in Berlin for a ministerial conference on food security. He also said that Ukraine needs assurances that its ports will be safe from potential Russian ships, when asked about Russian demands that Ukraine clears the passages of mines. 

“When Russia says that it might be prepared to let ships out, that potentially creates the risk of Russian ships going in and attacking Odesa directly. So the Ukrainians have to have confidence that in doing anything that would allow their ships to get out of port that the Russians won’t take advantage of that and allow Russian ships to go in and attack Odesa,” Blinken said. 

Blinken did not say there has been any definitive progress on getting Ukrainian grain out of the country despite high-profile attention — both by the Biden administration and its allies — on the problem for over a month now. 

Blinken also expressed support for the United Nations, which has been trying to work with both the Russians and the Ukrainians to develop a solution. 

“The United Nations, the secretary general, have been working very persistently to see if some kind of agreement can be reached that would allow a channel out of Odesa for Ukrainian ships and so food and grain. We very much support that effort,” Blinken said. 

Mykolaiv mayor urges "everyone who wants to stay alive to leave the city"

The mayor of the southern Ukraine city of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Sienkevych, has urged residents of the city to leave.

"I suggest everyone who wants to stay alive to leave the city. About 230,000 people remain in Mykolayiv city now," the mayor said.

Evacuation routes out of the city are in the directions of Odesa, Kryvyi Rih and Kyiv.

He described the situation as “generally very bad. The city is shelled every day.”

The mayor said 111 people have been killed and 502 people have been injured, including six children.

IAEA "increasingly concerned" for staff at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant

From CNN's Sharon Braithwaite in London

The International Atomic Energy Agency is "increasingly concerned about the difficult conditions facing staff" at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant , IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said Friday in a statement.

Grossi also stressed that IAEA must go there "as soon as possible" and that the situation at the site, under the control of Russian armed forces, is "clearly untenable."

"The IAEA is aware of recent reports in the media and elsewhere indicating a deteriorating situation for Ukrainian staff at the country’s largest nuclear power plant," Grossi said.

“The situation at this major nuclear power plant is clearly untenable. We are informed that Ukrainian staff are operating the facility under extremely stressful conditions while the site is under the control of Russian armed forces," he said, adding the recent reports are "very troubling and further deepen my concern about the well-being of personnel there.”

Ukrainian forces are withdrawing from Severodonetsk to "better defend themselves," senior US official says

From CNN's Michael Conte, Barbara Starr and Sonnet Swire

Ukrainian forces moving back from Severodonetsk are “putting themselves in a position where they can better defend themselves,” according to a senior US defense official.

“The Ukrainian armed forces are performing a professional, tactical retrograde in order to consolidate their forces in positions that they can better defend themselves,” said the official in a background call with reporters.

The official also said Russian forces are still “just eking out inch by inch of territory” in Donbas and characterized the Russian move on Severodonetsk as a “very small, very incremental gain.” 

However, the official said they did not want to minimize the “significant” percentage of territory Russia does control in Ukraine or the loss of Ukrainian lives.

Settlements south of Lysychansk are under increased fire, Ukraine's defense ministry says

From CNN's Olga Voitovych

Several settlements south and southeast of the city of Lysychansk are currently under increased fire by Russian forces, Ukrainian Ministry of Defense spokesperson Oleksandr Motuzianyk said at a briefing Friday. 

“The hottest sectors of the front are the settlements in the southern and southeastern directions from Severodonetsk. The enemy has significantly increased the number of air strikes,” Motuzianyk told journalists. “As a result of the strikes on Lysychansk, a large number of buildings were destroyed in the surrounding settlements.”

“The settlements of Borivske, Verkhniokamenka, Mykolaivka and Bila Hora are under fire,” Motuzianyk added.

The remarks highlight the ground Russian forces have gained in the past few days, with all the settlements in close distance to the strategic axis of Lysychansk-Severodonetsk. 

“[Russia] is trying to establish full control over Severodonetsk, conducts offensive operations to try to surround our troops in the area of ​​Lysychansk and to block the main logistics routes,” Motuzianyk said. “Heavy fighting continues; the enemy is trying to entrench in the areas of Loskutivka and Rai-Oleksandrivka.”

Motuzianyk also said Ukrainian forces had been able to repel a Russian offensive in Borivske.

Ukrainian forces will have to withdraw from Severodonetsk, the head of the Luhansk regional military administration said earlier.

All pledged rocket systems will be in Ukraine by mid-July, US defense official says

From CNN's Michael Conte and Barbara Starr

The first batch of four High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems that the US pledged to Ukraine are now in the country, and the newly announced batch of four HIMARS will be delivered by “mid-July,” according to a senior US defense official.

Another platoon of Ukrainians is in training to operate the systems, the official told reporters on a background call.

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As the war in Ukraine moves into its second month, fears grow of Mariupol’s fall to Russia.

Ukraine’s top military intelligence officer suggested that Russia was changing its military focus to the south and east and might be trying to divide the country.

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By Carlotta Gall

• March 27, 2022

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces redoubled attacks on strategic targets across Ukraine on Sunday, with fierce fighting reported around the capital, Kyiv, amid signs that the besieged city of Mariupol was close to falling.

As the conflict moved into its second month, Russian forces have largely failed in their first aim to take the largest cities and have narrowed immediate targets to the sieges of the southern port city of Mariupol and the strategically placed city of Chernihiv in the north.

Air raid sirens rang out in Kyiv during the day, but otherwise the city remained calm, lending some credence to the Russian Defense Ministry’s recent assertion that it was turning its focus away from Kyiv to concentrate on the eastern front. Some Russian units were withdrawing to Belarus in the north to regroup and re-equip, according to the Ukrainian military, but heavy Russian artillery attacks continued around Chernihiv, northeast of Kyiv.

Seven people, including two children, died in artillery fire in Kharkiv, in northeast Ukraine, as Russian forces tried to subdue the city near the border, the Ukrainian news media reported. And missiles hit a fuel depot in western Ukraine as Russia continued to use airstrikes to disrupt supply lines to Ukrainian forces.

Ukraine’s top military intelligence officer suggested that Russia was changing its military focus to the south and east and might be trying to divide Ukraine between occupied and nonoccupied territories.

“In fact, this is an attempt to create North and South Korea in Ukraine,” said Brig. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the intelligence division of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense.

Fighting across the country showed Russian forces were working to consolidate their positions in key spots north of Kyiv and resisting Ukrainian attempts to break their grip there while focusing fully on seizing control of Mariupol. After weeks of siege in the port city, Ukrainian soldiers and civilians trapped there were facing increasingly dire conditions, without food and water, forcing people to use untreated sewage water to survive.

Western military analysts and Ukrainian officials have repeatedly emphasized that Russian forces have suffered heavy losses and have been thwarted in their primary objectives: to wrest control of the country’s main cities, including Kyiv. Struggling with difficulties in their supply lines, Russian forces are having to move slowly and focus on one target at a time, said Jack Watling, a research fellow and specialist in land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute in Britain.

Still, Ukrainian forces, despite their successes in ambushing and stalling Russian units around the country, have not been able to reverse Russian gains in any significant way, he added.

In an interview with Russian journalists on Sunday, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said that Russian forces had entered parts of Mariupol and that he had told Ukrainian soldiers still holding out there that they could abandon the city to save their own lives.

“I talk to them twice a day,” he said. “I told them, ‘If you feel that you need to get out and that it is right, that you can survive, then do it. I understand.’”

He added that the officers refused to go because they did not want to leave dead and wounded comrades and civilians behind. He made the remarks in an interview with several independent journalists that was published on the YouTube channel Zygar.

Mr. Watling said he did not expect Ukrainian forces to hold Mariupol any longer than a few days more.

“They ran out of water, they ran out of food a while ago,” he said. “Exhausted troops on sewage water — you cannot fight long on that.”

He added that he expected an insurgency to continue in the city after it falls.

As the war ground on, its physical toll on Ukraine was becoming more apparent. An estimated $63 billion in Ukrainian infrastructure had been damaged or destroyed as of last Thursday, Ukraine’s Parliament said in a Twitter post on Sunday.

The losses include more than 4,400 residential buildings, 138 health care facilities, eight civilian airports and 378 educational institutions. The cost was calculated by the Kyiv School of Economics.

After a month of intense fighting near Kyiv, some Russian military units were withdrawing to Belarus to regroup, traveling through the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the Ukrainian military said.

“These measures are taken to rotate units that have suffered significant losses, strengthen existing groups, replenish food, fuel and ammunition and evacuate wounded and sick soldiers,” the military said in a statement.

It also said that the Russian Army was using the site of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor for logistics. Russian troops have blockaded the town of Slavutich, which is close to the Chernobyl station, and have escalated attacks on Chernihiv in an apparent attempt to consolidate a band of control north of the capital.

Ukraine’s chief negotiator at peace talks with Russia said a new round of negotiations would take place this week, starting Monday in Turkey, a NATO member that has used President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s good relations with both Russia and Ukraine to try to mediate a solution to the conflict. But Turkish officials have conceded that any agreement between the two parties remains distant.

Mr. Budanov, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, predicted the Ukrainian Army would repel Russian forces as the fighting descended into an all-out guerrilla war.

“The season of a total Ukrainian guerrilla safari will soon begin,” he said. “Then there will be one relevant scenario left for the Russians: how to survive.”

More than 1,100 civilians have been killed since the war in Ukraine began, including at least 99 children, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in a report released Sunday that cautioned that the actual figures might be “considerably higher.” An additional 1,790 civilians have been wounded, including 126 children, the report added.

With many areas of Ukraine still bogged down by the conflict, many of the dead and wounded cannot be counted, the United Nations said. Left out of the U.N. report was the besieged city of Mariupol, where Russian forces hit a theater this month that hundreds of civilians were using as a bomb shelter, killing some 300 people, according to local officials.

As President Biden returned home from a visit with NATO allies in Europe and with Ukrainian refugees in Poland, President Zelensky urged him and other Western leaders to give Ukraine tanks, planes and missiles to help fend off Russian forces.

“Ukraine cannot shoot down Russian missiles with shotguns, with machine guns,” he said. “And it is impossible to break the blockade in Mariupol without a sufficient number of tanks, other armored vehicles and, of course, aircraft.”

“Thousands of people — citizens, civilians who are dying there in the blockade — know that,” he added. “The United States knows it. All European politicians know it. We have told everyone.”

Mr. Zelensky’s remarks came as American officials scrambled Sunday to clarify that the United States does not have a policy of regime change in Russia, after Mr. Biden said at the end of a speech in Poland on Saturday that Russia’s leader, Vladimir V. Putin “cannot remain in power.”

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said the president had simply meant Mr. Putin could not be “empowered to wage war” against Ukraine or anywhere else.

French and British officials distanced themselves from Mr. Biden’s remarks. When asked about them in an interview on Sunday, France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, said he would not use such language, adding that there should be no escalation — in words or actions.

Reporting was contributed by Ivan Nechepurenko from Istanbul, Maria Varenikova from Kyiv, Marc Santora from Krakow, Poland, Austin Ramzy from Hong Kong and Valerie Hopkins from Lviv, Ukraine. Maria Abi-Habib also contributed reporting.

Carlotta Gall is the Istanbul bureau chief, covering Turkey. She previously covered the aftershocks of the Arab Spring from Tunisia, reported from the Balkans during the war in Kosovo and Serbia, and covered Afghanistan and Pakistan. More about Carlotta Gall

Our Coverage of the War in Ukraine

News and Analysis

The top American military commander in Europe warned that Ukraine could lose the war with Russia  if the United States did not send more ammunition to Ukrainian forces, and fast.

Ukrainian lawmakers passed a mobilization law aimed at replenishing the nation’s exhausted and depleted fighting forces .

China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, met in Beijing . The visit came days after the United States threatened new sanctions against Chinese companies if they aided Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Hollowing Out a Generation:  Ukraine desperately needs new recruits, but it is running up against a critical demographic constraint long in the making: It has very few young men .

Conditional Support: Ukraine wants a formal invitation to join NATO, but the alliance has no appetite for taking on a new member  that would draw it into the biggest land war in Europe since 1945.

‘Shell Hunger’: A desperate shortage of munitions in Ukraine  is warping tactics and the types of weapons employed, and what few munitions remain are often mismatched with battlefield needs.

How We Verify Our Reporting

Our team of visual journalists analyzes satellite images, photographs , videos and radio transmissions  to independently confirm troop movements and other details.

We monitor and authenticate reports on social media, corroborating these with eyewitness accounts and interviews. Read more about our reporting efforts .

Russia-Ukraine war in maps and charts: Live Tracker

The Russian offensive enters its 112th week, we track where battles are taking place and the human cost of war.

The Russian offensive enters its 112th week, we track where the fighting is happening and how we got here.

Read on for an overview of the situation in infographics and maps.

Where are people fleeing to?

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there have been 32.1 million border crossings out of Ukraine since the Russian invasion began in February 2022. Many people have sought refuge in neighbouring countries.

Keep reading

The human toll of the russia-ukraine war external link this article will be opened in a new browser window, infographic: how much of your country’s oil comes from russia, infographic: which countries buy the most russian weapons, infographic: military capabilities of russia and ukraine.

The latest data show 17,293,665 border crossings into Poland, 4,225,040 to Romania, 2,852,395 to Russia, 4,555,760 to Hungary, 2,160,500 to Slovakia, 1,050,430 to Moldova and 16,705 into Belarus. Most of those displaced have been women and children. Men aged 18 to 60 have been asked to remain in Ukraine to fight.

Ukraine and Russia explained in ten maps and charts

Below are ten infographics that break down the history, politics and economics of the Ukraine-Russia crisis.

1. Conflict at a glance

After months of tensions and intense diplomacy, Russian forces invaded Ukraine. Explosions were heard across the country. Kyiv declared martial law, saying Ukraine will defend itself. Below is a summary of the conflict at a glance.

2. History of the USSR

Russia and Ukraine were part of the 15 Soviet republics that made up the Soviet Union. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine declared independence on August 24. The map below shows when each of these countries declared independence.

3. Political leadership

After independence, Ukraine moved to shed its Russian imperial legacy and forge increasingly close ties with the West.

Over the past 30 years, Ukraine has been led by seven presidents. The country has had a rocky path towards democracy with two revolutions, first in 2005 and then in 2014. Both times, protesters rejected Russia’s supremacy and sought a path to join the European Union and NATO.

By comparison, Russia has been led by three presidents, with Putin having been in office for 17 years. In 2021, Putin, the former agent of the Soviet Union’s KGB security services, signed a law that essentially enables him to stay in power until 2036.

Putin has repeatedly claimed that Russians and Ukrainians belong to “one people” and are part of the historical “Russian civilisation” that also includes neighbouring Belarus. Ukrainians reject his claims.

4. How big are Ukraine and Russia?

Ukraine has an estimated population of 44 million – the seventh-largest in Europe. The country comprises 24 regions, known as oblasts. The country’s population has declined since the 1990s with fertility rates among the lowest in the world. As of 2020, Ukraine’s fertility rate was just 1.2. For context, in order for a population to remain stable, an overall total fertility rate of 2.1 is required.

Ukraine is the second-largest country in Europe, after Russia. At 603,550sq km (233,031sq miles), Ukraine is a bit smaller than the US state of Texas, about three times smaller than India, half the size of South Africa and about two and a half times the size of the United Kingdom.

5. NATO in Europe

NATO is the world’s most powerful military alliance. Comprising 30 nations, its primary role is to protect its member states by political and military means.

Russia opposes NATO bases near its borders and has asked for written guarantees that NATO will not expand eastwards. One of the Kremlin’s central demands is that Ukraine never be allowed to join NATO – a move it considers a red line. The United States has refused to concede to this demand.

Read more about NATO history and expansion here .

6. Military head to head

Russia has one of the most powerful militaries in the world and ranks among the top five defence spenders.

In 2020, Russia spent $61.7bn on its military, which accounted for 11.4 percent of government spending. In comparison, Ukraine spent $5.9bn on its armed forces, or 8.8 percent of government spending, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Since tensions began, NATO allies, fearful of a potential ground invasion by Russia, have stepped up support for Kyiv by sending military equipment to Ukraine.

Read more about the military capabilities of Russia and Ukraine here .

7. Oil and gas resources

Russia and Ukraine are both rich in oil and gas. Russia has the world’s highest proven gas reserves at 48,938 billion cubic metres. More than 70 percent of the country’s gas reserves are held by Gazprom, a state-owned energy giant.

Russia supplies about one-third of Europe’s natural gas. US sanctions over the conflict could disrupt that supply, exacerbating Europe’s energy crisis. On February 22, Germany halted the certification of Nord Stream 2, an $11.6bn Russian gas pipeline project that was designed to move 151 million cubic metres of gas a day into Europe.

Russia also has some of the largest proven oil reserves, at 80 billion barrels, or 5 percent of the world’s total.

Ukraine, too, has a sizeable reserve of oil and gas at 395 million barrels and 349 billion cubic metres, respectively. The country sits at the crossroads between the West and Russia, and plays a key role in delivering Russian gas to European markets.

Read more about the world’s oil and gas pipelines here .

8. Russia and Ukraine’s main exports

More than one-quarter of the world’s wheat exports come from Russia and Ukraine. Economic sanctions or military action may have a significant effect on the cost of food as importers seek to find alternatives. Russia exported $407bn in products and Ukraine $49bn in 2019.

Read more about Russia, Ukraine and the global wheat supply here .

9. Which countries rely most on Russian oil?

In 2019, the world’s top exporters of crude oil were Saudi Arabia ($145bn), Russia ($123bn), Iraq ($73.8bn), Canada ($67.8bn), and the US ($61.9bn).

China bought about one-quarter (27 percent) of Russia’s total oil exports worth $34bn. However, given China’s massive energy needs, this made up only 16 percent of the country’s oil imports.

At least 48 countries imported Russian crude oil in 2019. The countries that rely most on Russian oil include: Belarus, Cuba, Curacao, Kazakhstan, Latvia – each importing more than 99 percent of their crude oil from Russia.

The graphic below shows how much of each country’s total crude oil imports come from Russia.

Read more about what a ban on Russian oil means here .

10. Which countries buy the most Russian weapons?

Russia is the world’s second-largest arms exporter, behind the United States, accounting for roughly 20 percent of global weapons sales. Between 2016 and 2020, Moscow sold $28bn of weapons to 45 countries.

Russia exports nearly 90 percent of its arms to 10 countries. Its biggest customer, India, bought 23 percent of Russia’s weapons for some $6.5bn over the past five years. Half of India’s total arms imports, 49.3 percent, come from Russia.

China is the second-largest buyer of Russian weaponry at $5.1bn over the same period followed by Algeria ($4.2bn), Egypt ($3.3bn), and Vietnam ($1.7bn), according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute ( SIPRI ).

Read more about Russian weapons here .

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Ukraine war briefing: Three killed in second day of Russian attacks on Zaporizhzhia region, says governor

At least nine injured in strikes on region, with industrial facility among targets, official says; Russia has attacked up to 80% of Ukraine’s conventional power plants, says energy minister. What we know on day 776

• See all our Ukraine war coverage

Russian missile attacks killed three people and injured at least eight more in Ukraine’s southern city of Zaporizhzhia in a second day of deadly attacks on the region, its governor, Ivan Fedorov, said. Seven apartment blocks and an industrial building as well as medical and educational facilities were damaged, authorities said. Prosecutors released images showing a car buried under rubble and concrete and iron pillars that had collapsed. Another three people in the Pologivskyi district were wounded, Federov said on social media.

Four guided bombs hit the town of Bilopillia in Ukraine’s northern region of Sumy, killing a woman , authorities said. At least three more people were wounded in the attack that damaged shops and a city council building.

The Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station said a drone had been shot down over reactor number six . The drone fell on the roof, it said on Monday, releasing a picture of the reactor, which has been shut down. Moscow said Ukraine struck the station three times on Sunday, calling the attacks “very dangerous”, but Kyiv denied responsibility. The Guardian is unable to independently verify either account. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief earlier condemned an earlier strike on the Zaporizhzhia reactor. “This cannot happen,” Rafael Grossi said on social media, adding: “No one can conceivably benefit or get any military or political advantage from attacks against nuclear facilities. This is a no-go.”

Russia has called an emergency meeting of the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors over the attacks on the nuclear plant, Moscow’s ambassador to the watchdog, Mikhail Ulyanov, said.

Russia has hit up to 80% of Ukraine’s conventional power plants and more than half its hydroelectric plants in recent weeks , Ukraine’s energy minister said. “This is the largest attack on Ukraine’s energy sector” since the war began, German Galushchenko said, adding that he suspected Russia had modified its weapons to now use Iranian-style explosive drones and missiles that cause more damage per attack.

The UK foreign minister, David Cameron, will meet the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken , on Tuesday on a trip to Washington involving pressing lawmakers in Congress to pass a military aid package for Ukraine. Cameron has said he will urge the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, to pass the $60bn package, which he has held up for months. Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo added his voice on Monday to growing calls from prominent Republicans to pass the package, after some party members accused aid opponents of succumbing to Russian propaganda.

Russia and China will continue their cooperation in the fight against terrorism , including through multilateral mechanisms, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said in Beijing after holding talks with China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi. “I thank the Chinese side for their condolences in connection with the terrorist attack in the Moscow region on March 22 of this year, for supporting Russia’s fight against terrorism,” Russian news agencies cited Lavrov as saying.

France’s foreign minister said it was no longer in Paris’s “interest” to talk to Russia after differing accounts emerged from a rare phone call about last month’s deadly attack on a Moscow concert hall. Stéphane Séjourné told broadcasters France24 and RFI that the Russian officials’ accounts were “lies”.

The US treasury secretary threatened sanctions on Chinese banks that support Russia’s military capacity. Janet Yellen said as she wrapped up four days of talks with China that “any banks that facilitate significant transactions that channel military or dual-use goods to Russia’s defence industrial base expose themselves to the risk of US sanctions”.

The Kremlin warned that a planned German military presence in Lithuania would escalate tensions. The Nato military alliance and EU member Lithuania, which borders Russia and its ally Belarus, said earlier it would partly finance the permanent hosting of 5,000 German troops from 2027.

• Russia-Ukraine war at a glance

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Live Updates: Russia-Ukraine War

FILE - This handout photo taken from video and released by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Aug. 7, 2022, shows a general view of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in territory under Russian military control, southeastern Ukraine. Ukraine’s nuclear power provider says Russian forces blindfolded and detained the head of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant hours after Moscow illegally annexed a swath of Ukrainian territory. In a possible attempt to secure Moscow’s hold on the newly annexed territory, Russian forces seized the director-general of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Ihor Murashov, around 4 p.m. Friday. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

A Ukrainian serviceman holds his body armour on the top of Ukrainian Soviet-made T-64 tank in Bakhmut, Ukraine, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Inna Varenytsia)

Ukrainian servicemen stand on Ukrainian Soviet-made T-64 tank, in Bakhmut, Ukraine, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Inna Varenytsia)

Ukrainian servicemen speak on a T-80 tank that they claimed had been captured from the Russian army, in Bakhmut, Ukraine, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Inna Varenytsia)

Ukrainian soldiers remove metal structure pieces as they work on a bridge damaged during fighting with Russian troops in Izium, Ukraine, Monday, Oct. 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Ukrainian soldiers remove metal pieces as they work on a bridge damaged during fighting with Russian troops in Izium, Ukraine, Monday, Oct. 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Locals and army vehicles cross a temporary bridge that replaces a destroyed one nearby, in Izium, Ukraine, Monday, Oct. 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Nikolai, 62, a resident of Izium, Ukraine, attaches a door on a wheelbarrow, to repair his home, Monday, Oct. 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Ukrainian servicemen drive a T-80 tank that they claimed had been captured from the Russian army, in Bakhmut, Ukraine, Sunday, Oct. 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Inna Varenytsia)

The cargo ship Laodicea sails through the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, Turkey, on July 7, 2022. An Associated Press investigation shows the ship, owned by the Syrian government, is part of an extensive Russian-run smuggling operation that has been hauling stolen Ukrainian grain from ports in occupied Crimea to customers in the Middle East. (AP Photo/Yoruk Isik)

Protesters attend a demonstration against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in Istanbul, Turkey, Friday, Sept. 30, 2022. Vladimir Putin’s military draft “changed everything” for the tens of thousands of Russians who have fled their country since the Russian leader’s mobilization was announced last month, according to recent arrivals in Istanbul. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

The cargo ship Mikhail Nenashev sails past Istanbul, Turkey, on July 4, 2022. An Associated Press investigation shows the ship, owned by a sanctioned Russian state-owned defense contractor, is part of an extensive Russian-run smuggling operation that has been hauling stolen Ukrainian grain from ports in occupied Crimea to customers in the Middle East. (AP Photo/Yoruk Isik)

Boys play soccer next to a destroyed school, background, in Izium, Ukraine, Monday, Oct. 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

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The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, said the director general of Ukraine’s and Europe’s largest power plant, Ihor Murashov, has been released from Russian custody after his detention last week.

“I welcome the release,” IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi tweeted. “I have received confirmation that Mr. Murashov has returned to his family safely.”

Murashov was blindfolded and detained after leaving the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant on Friday.

KEY DEVELOPMENTS:

— Ukrainian troops continue offensive , claim new gains

— AP Investigation: Russia smuggling Ukrainian grain to help pay for Putin’s war

— Europe faces ‘unprecedented risk’ of gas shortage, IEA says

— Fleeing Russians follow path of 1917 refugees to Istanbul

— 10 torture sites in 1 town: Russia sowed pain, fear in Izium

OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:

MOSCOW — The Russian military on Monday acknowledged that Kyiv’s forces have broken through Moscow’s defenses in the Kherson region.

Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in his daily briefing that “With numerically superior tank units in the direction of Zolota Balka and Oleksandrivka, the enemy managed to forge deep into our defenses.”

Konashenkov added that “Russian troops have occupied a pre-prepared defensive line and continue to inflict massive fire damage” on Kyiv’s forces.

MOSCOW — The lower house of the Russian parliament voted Monday to endorse the treaties for four regions of Ukraine to join Russia.

The unanimous vote by the State Duma followed the signing of the treaties by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leaders of the four regions on Friday after the Kremlin-orchestrated referendums that were rejected by Ukraine and the West as having no legal validity.

The vote was unanimous on each of the four treaties, but the number of yes votes ranged from 409 to 413, apparently because some lawmakers were slow to push the voting buttons.

WASHINGTON — White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby says Ukraine has made gains in the northeast of the country where they are pushing up against the Luhansk region, and he said they are making gains in the south, too.

“They’re absolutely on the move here,” Kirby said on ABC’s “Good Morning America” program. “And like you’ve heard President Biden saying, we’re going to continue to make sure we can give them the weapons and capabilities so they can continue that sign of progress.”

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian shelling of eight Ukrainian regions over the past 24 hours has killed two civilians and injured 14 more, Ukraine’s presidential office reported Monday.

A missile strike was carried out on the city of Zaporizhzhia, capital of the Zaporizhzhia region, parts of which are under Russian control and which has been illegally annexed by Moscow.

Russian forces fired some 10 S-300 anti-aircraft missiles at the city and two nearby villages, according to the presidential office. The strike destroyed a rehabilitation center for children with special needs; one person was injured.

Cities across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant were also shelled. In Nikopol, a frequent target of Russian shelling, power lines were damaged, as were a dozen residential buildings and private houses.

MOSCOW — The Kremlin says no final decision has been made on the territory of two of the four regions it plans to incorporate into Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Donetsk and Luhansk regions would join Russia as defined by administrative borders that existed before a conflict erupted there in 2014. He noted that the issue of the borders of the two other regions – Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – remains open.

“We will continue to discuss that with residents of those regions,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties on Friday to make the four regions part of Russia in a move rejected by Ukraine and its Western allies. The lower house of Kremlin-controlled parliament is set to ratify the treaties Monday and the upper house will follow Tuesday.

Russia controls virtually all of the Luhansk region and about 60% of the Donetsk region that together makes Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland of Donbas. In the south, Russia controls most of the Kherson region and a significant part of the Zaporizhzhia region.

WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Russian ambassador on Monday to protest to protest Russia’s illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions last week. The Polish Foreign Ministry said it’s a coordinated action across Europe Union countries.

Russian Ambassador Sergey Andreev defended Russia’s annexation of the territories. Speaking to reporters after the meeting Andreev said the four former territories of Ukraine “will forever remain Russian territories. This is by no means a breach of international law, it is an act of self-determination.”

He was also asked about the large numbers of Russian men fleeing the country. He replied: “Yes, there are people who are fleeing, but this is how our society cleanses itself of those who are not part of our nation.”

___ LONDON -- The Joint Expeditionary Force group of northern European nations will meet Monday to discuss the safety of undersea pipelines and cables after blasts ruptured two natural gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said.

Wallace said the virtual meeting has been called by the U.K. and the Netherlands. The force brings together troops from 10 countries, including the Baltic and Nordic nations, and has seen its importance increase since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

Wallace also said Britain will acquire two specialist ships to protect undersea cables and pipes, with the first “multi-role survey ship for seabed warfare” operational by the end of next year.

BELGOROD, Russia — Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of Russia’s Belgorod region on the border with Ukraine, reported Monday that Ukrainian shelling of a village near the border killed a 48-year-old woman.

The shells, Gladkov said in a statement posted on Telegram, hit the center of the village of Golovchino, damaging several buildings. It wasn’t immediately clear if there were other casualties, according to the statement. ___

MOSCOW — Russia’s top diplomat Monday compared Western military support for Ukraine to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II.

Addressing the lower house of the Russian parliament before it voted to ratify the treaties for four regions of Ukraine to join Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the United States of rallying allies to counter Russia in Ukraine just as Nazi Germany relied on European resources when it invaded the Soviet Union.

“The U.S. has mobilized practically all of the collective West to turn Ukraine into an instrument of war against Russia, just as Hitler mobilized military resources of most European nations to attack the Soviet Union,” Lavrov said.

Presenting the treaties with the four regions to lawmakers before the vote, Lavrov said they marked “the logical continuation of the process of reunification of Russian lands.”

___ MOSCOW -- Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says criticism of Russia’s military leadership by Chechnya’s regional leader was driven by emotions.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed leader of Chechnya, scathingly criticized the Russian military command over the weekend, saying that the Russian retreat from the city of Lyman in eastern Ukraine was a result of incompetence and nepotism.

Kadyrov also called for the use of low-yield nuclear weapons in Ukraine to reverse the tide of the conflict in Russia’s favor.

Asked about Kadyrov’s statements, Peskov said they were driven by emotions.

“Even in difficult moments, emotions must be excluded while making assessments,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters Monday. “We prefer to stick to well-balanced, objective assessments.”

Responding to Kadyrov’s comments on nuclear weapons, Peskov said conditions for their use are outlined in Russia’s security doctrine, adding that “there could be no other reasons” for their deployment.

___ Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

The Ukraine Safari

Western leftists argue that Russia needs an “off-ramp” that will allow it to “save face” in Ukraine. But that logic cuts both ways: After Russian leaders’ latest nuclear threats, it is Ukraine and the West that can no longer compromise and still save face.

LJUBLJANA – I don’t usually write about cultural products from my own country, but I must make an exception for Slovenian filmmaker Miran Zupanič’s new documentary Sarajevo Safari , which details one of the most bizarre and pathological episodes of the 1992-96 siege of the Bosnian capital.

It is well known that Serb snipers in the hills surrounding the city would arbitrarily shoot residents on the streets below, and that select Serb allies (mostly Russians) were invited to fire some shots of their own. Yet now we learn that this opportunity was provided not only as a gesture of appreciation but also as a kind of tourist activity for paying customers. Through “safaris” organized by the Bosnian Serb Army, dozens of rich foreigners – mostly from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Italy, but also from Russia – paid top dollar for the chance to shoot at helpless civilians.

Consider the special form of subjectivity that such a safari would confer on the “hunter.” Though the victims were anonymous, this was no video game; the perverse thrill lay in the fact that it was real. And yet, by playing the “hunter,” these rich tourists, occupying a safe perch above the city, effectively excluded themselves from ordinary reality. For their targets, the stakes were life or death.

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Watch CBS News

Massive Ukrainian effort underway to clear millions of landmines spread across country

By Scott Pelley

April 7, 2024 / 7:00 PM EDT / CBS News

No matter how Russia's war in Ukraine ends, Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov will be battling Vladimir Putin's madness for years. Kuznetzov is a Ukrainian surgeon and a national hero who stayed beside his patients as they were attacked. Now, heroism is a virtue that must endure. His city was liberated, but Dr. Kuznetzov sees victims every week or so -- civilians who step on one of the millions of Russian landmines across about a third of Ukraine. There's a massive effort to clear the mines but that will take a generation or more. Until then, there will be Dr. Kuznetzov with healing hands and eyes that have seen too much.

Half his life he's devoted to Central Hospital and here in its basement, with Putin's bombs overhead, all he'd become in 52 years was laid down in service to his home. 

Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): We didn't imagine, until the end, that Russia would attack our country. When you're sitting in a basement at night and a plane is flying over you, it was impossible to predict whether you would wake up to see another day.

In 2022, the basement became Dr. Kuznetzov's operating room. That's him dressed in white. The wounded were endless—a close friend's wife he could not save and this man, who was shot, and lived. 

Scott Pelley: Did you save more patients than you lost?

Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): We saved significantly more people, definitely.

Scott Pelley: Many of your colleagues evacuated and you did not. I wonder why you stayed. 

Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): When you have patients and you're the only doctor or the only person who can treat them, I didn't understand how you could leave.

He could not leave Izium. His city of 40,000 was occupied for six months. The Russians laid landmines here as they ran from Ukraine's counterattack. Putin's unprovoked war on an innocent people destroyed 80% of Izium and killed 1,000, leaving apartment buildings cleaved in two and this school, built in 1882, a hollow corpse.  

The people of Izium clothe themselves in liberation and yet, they are not entirely free. 

Demining teams are still fighting Russia here. Izium, 20 miles from the front, is one of the worst areas for mines and unexploded ordnance. Throughout Ukraine, more than 1,000 civilians have been wounded by mines. Lidia Borova, a 70-year-old widow, was picking mushrooms in a forest. 

Lidia Borova (translation): I turned by the tree and then there was an explosion. I looked [down] at myself and I was bleeding, my arm was injured, my leg was injured. I was losing strength.

Her right foot and ankle were ripped away.

Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): First of all, the most difficult thing, is to persuade a patient that their leg needs to be amputated. It's very difficult to explain to them that the leg is no good, no good to use 

He told us a prosthetic is ultimately easier to live with.  

Lidia Borova (translation): Dr. Kuznetzov saved me. I didn't realize how much blood I lost. I don't know how I managed to survive.

Ihor Bogoraz was with his wife in their garden. They found 12 mines. But there were 13. 

Ihor Bogoraz (translation): I decided to mow the weeds. And one [mine] was under my foot. I stepped on it and it exploded instantly. And that's it – no leg. 

Serhii Nikolaiv was walking in leaves from the autumn while uncovering grapevines for the spring. 

Serhii Nikolaiv (translation): If it had been green, I would have noticed it. But it was brown – I didn't see it. It blended in with the leaves. I stepped on it. And I knew right away.

Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): The majority are those who stepped on "Petal" [mines] or anti-personnel mines - the person who invented them was an evil genius because they only weigh [two ounces] but what they can do when triggered is terrifying.

Petal mines, 5 inches long, flutter from aircraft by the thousands, like flower petals. Eleven pounds of pressure will set them off. 

Vasyl Solyanik found them on his roof and in his garden. 

Vasyl Solyanik (translation): There's 18 here,  but in all, there were over 50. 

He showed us his video. That's a petal mine right there. They are so common that we were told the story of a 70-year-old woman who gathered them in a basket and took them to a police station. 

Vasyl Solyanik (translation): There's some left in the bushes over here, so don't walk around there.

He dialed 101 and emergency services sent deminers Ivan Shepelev and Ihor Ovcharuk.

Ihor Ovcharuk (translation): We encounter every type of munition – anti-infantry and anti-tank mines, mortars, artillery shells, [rockets]. It's all here.

At Solyanik's home, a sweep revealed an unexploded cluster bomb. Those are tricky. So they blew it in place.

Ivan Shepelev told us, as the Russians fled, they also left boobytraps. 

Ivan Shepelev (translation): We have seen cases, unfortunately, where explosives were found in civilian homes. 

Ihor Ovcharuk (translation): My [team] also had to work on removing our dead Ukrainian soldiers whose bodies had been mined. 

In 2022, Ihor Ovcharuk's kneecap was shattered when a fellow deminer stepped on a mine and lost his foot.  

Ivan Shepelev (translation): We know every explosive we remove means that someone's life is saved. 

A few weeks after our visit, a Russian missile wrecked the fire station where they're based. Some were injured but not Shepelev or Ovcharuk.

Scott Pelley: What is the scope of the mine threat in Ukraine?

Pete Smith: I think the scope is unrecognizable in modern times.

Pete Smith heads demining here for the HALO Trust , a charity founded in 1988 to demine warzones. Smith was 33 years in the British army and awarded by Queen Elizabeth for disarming an IRA timebomb in a train station. Today, he says, Ukraine is the most heavily mined country.

Pete Smith: In some areas, the minefields are three or four mines deep, in areas, maybe a dozen mines deep. But that's just the first line of defense. Then, several kilometers behind that, there are other layers of-- of minefields, as well.

Smith took us to a farm sown with Russian anti-tank mines. You have to step carefully. Right there, in the center, is a mine packed with 17 pounds of high explosive. With three weeks of training behind her, Yulia Yaroshchuk was probing for any tripwire that would detonate a mine near her. She threaded the grass… feeling for the slightest resistance. Only the day before, a HALO deminer was killed and two were wounded in another part of Ukraine. 

Scott Pelley: Doing this by hand with that wand, it seems to me that you have an awfully big field to cover. 

Yulia Yaroshchuk (translation): Well, of course. It will be a very long process.  As far as I know, it will take many, many years. Each day [of war] means years of de-mining.   

Scott Pelley: Why do you do this work?

Yulia Yaroshchuk (translation): I didn't have to do it. I wanted to do it. this is my contribution to victory. 

Scott Pelley: Will Ukraine ever be without mines?

Pete Smith: I think what I have seen in my time in Ukraine is the innovation, the patriotism, and just the sheer will of the people, that I'm confident that they will be able to remove the last mine from Ukraine.

Scott Pelley: Does this war make any sense to you?

Serhii Nikolaiv (translation): Not to a single person here, or anywhere. What kind of mind? What kind of moron or idiot do you have to be to even wish something like this on your enemies? You can't. Even now, someone could drop a fork or a spoon and it makes a loud noise. And in your soul, you feel pain, and bitterness, and fear. It's a real horror. [my sister-in-law] was ripped apart by a mine in front of her children. In front of their eyes. 

Of all of Vladimir Putin's war crimes in Ukraine, one was the bombing of Izium's Central Hospital. 

Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): After this part of the hospital was damaged, a lot of medical services simply became unavailable. Here we had both intensive care and three operating rooms.  

When Yuriy Kuznetzov was 14 years old, his grandmother died in his arms. He told us that's why he became a doctor. And we suspect that's why he stayed through the bombardment and occupation and the battle of the mines. 

Scott Pelley: When a town loses its hospital, it doesn't just lose the medical care - it loses hope. 

Dr. Yuriy Kuznetzov (translation): The best praise for me was when a woman told me in April of 2022 that "when we heard the hospital was still open, we realized that our town had hope, it could withstand, survive, and [have a] future."

The future of Ukraine will demand devotion and heroic patience. On this day, Yulia Yaroshchuk slowly teased out one Russian mine, with millions more receding from its edge. 

Produced by Maria Gavrilovic. Associate producer, Alex Ortiz. Broadcast associate, Michelle Karim. Edited by Sean Kelly.

Scott Pelley, one of the most experienced and awarded journalists today, has been reporting stories for "60 Minutes" since 2004. The 2023-24 season is his 20th on the broadcast. Scott has won half of all major awards earned by "60 Minutes" during his tenure at the venerable CBS newsmagazine.

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The Ukraine Safari

I don't usually write about cultural products from my own country, but I must make an exception for Slovenian film-maker Miran Zupanič's new documentary  Sarajevo Safari , which details one of the most bizarre and pathological episodes of the 1992-96 siege of the Bosnian capital.

It is well-known that Serb snipers in the hills surrounding the city would arbitrarily shoot residents on the streets below, and that select Serb allies (mostly Russians) were invited to fire some shots of their own. Yet, now we learn that this opportunity was provided not only as a gesture of appreciation, but also as a kind of tourist activity for paying customers. Through "safaris" organised by the Bosnian Serb Army, dozens of rich foreigners – mostly from the US, the UK and Italy, but also from Russia – paid top dollar for the chance to shoot at helpless civilians.

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Consider the special form of subjectivity that such a safari would confer on the "hunter." Though the victims were anonymous, this was no video game; the perverse thrill lay in the fact that it was real. And yet, by playing the "hunter," these rich tourists, occupying a safe perch above the city, effectively excluded themselves from ordinary reality. For their targets, the stakes were life or death.

Ukraine’s Tale of Two Colonisations

There is something perversely honest in this melding of reality and spectacle. After all, aren't top politicians and corporate managers also engaged in a kind of safari? From their safe perch in the C-suite, executives often ruin many lives.

Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president who now serves as deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, recently imputed a similar logic to Western political leaders. Dismissing warnings by the US and Nato about the consequences of a Russian tactical nuclear strike, Medvedev argued, "[T]he security of Washington, London, Brussels is much more important for the North Atlantic Alliance than the fate of a dying Ukraine that no one needs. The supply of modern weapons is just a business for Western countries. Overseas and European demagogues are not going to perish in a nuclear apocalypse. Therefore, they will swallow the use of any weapon in the current conflict."

Medvedev has also said that the Kremlin will "do everything" to prevent "hostile neighbours" like "Nazi Ukraine" from acquiring or hosting nuclear weapons, as this supposedly would pose an existential threat to the Russian state. But since it is Russia that is threatening Ukraine's existence as a state, Medvedev's logic dictates that Ukraine, too, should have arms – and even nuclear weapons – to achieve military parity.

Recall Putin's own words this past June, "… there is no in-between, no intermediate state: either a country is sovereign, or it is a colony, no matter what the colonies are called." Since he obviously views Ukraine as a Russian colony, the West should not treat Ukraine as though it agreed with him. That means rejecting the idea that Western powers should bypass Ukraine and broker a settlement with Russia.

Unfortunately, many Western leftists have been playing directly into Putin's hands on this issue. Consider Harlan Ullman of the Atlantic Council, who writes, "Clemenceau observed that 'war is too important to be left to the generals.' In this case, is Ukraine too important to be left to Zelensky? The US needs a strategy with an off-ramp to seek an end to the violence and the war."

Leftists from Noam Chomsky to Jeffrey Sachs (not to mention the many Russia apologists on the right) have adopted similar positions. After first insisting that Ukraine cannot win a war against Russia, they now imply that it should not win, because that would leave Putin cornered and therefore dangerous.

But if we had followed the peaceniks' advice and not sent arms to Ukraine, that country would now be fully occupied, its subjugation accompanied by far greater atrocities than those found in Bucha, Izium, and many other places.

A far better stance has been adopted by the German Greens, who advocate not only full support for Ukraine, but also structural reforms to accelerate the transition away from oil and gas, which in turn will steer humanity away from the catastrophic climate change. The rest of the Western left has been on safari, refusing an intervention that will not challenge its established way of life.

Peaceniks argue that Russia needs a victory or concession that will allow it to "save face." But that logic cuts both ways. Following Medvedev and Putin's nuclear threats, it is Ukraine and the West that can no longer compromise and still save face. Recall that Medvedev predicted that the West would refuse to respond militarily to a Russian nuclear strike because it is too cowardly and greedy to do so.

Here, we enter the domain of philosophy, because Putin and Medvedev's words clearly echo Hegel's master-slave dialectic. If two self-consciousnesses are engaged in a life-or-death struggle, there can be no winner, because one will die, and the victor will no longer have another self-consciousness around who can recognise its own self-consciousness. The entire history of human culture rests on the original compromise by which someone becomes the servant that "averts its eyes" to prevent mutual, assured destruction.

Medvedev and Putin presume that the decadent, hedonist West will avert its eyes. And that brings us back to the dynamic captured in  Sarajevo Safari . Privileged elites feel as though they can intervene in the real world in strategic ways that entail no personal danger. But reality catches up with everyone eventually. When it does, we must not heed the advice of those concerned only with not provoking the beast in the valley.

Dr Slavoj Žižek, professor of philosophy at the European Graduate School, is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London.  

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2022 www.project-syndicate.org (Exclusive to The Daily Star )

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বৈশাখের শুরুতে তীব্র তাপপ্রবাহের সম্ভাবনা

আজ দেশের সর্বোচ্চ তাপমাত্রা রেকর্ড করা হয়েছে রাঙ্গামাটিতে ৪০ ডিগ্রি সেলসিয়াস।

কেএনএফ প্রতিষ্ঠাতা নাথান বমের স্ত্রীসহ দুজনকে রুমা থেকে বদলি 

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Mon, Oct 17, 2022 page9

The ‘ukraine safari’ shows the cowardice of privileged elites.

• By Slavoj ZiZek

I do not usually write about cultural products from my own country, but I must make an exception for Slovenian filmmaker Miran Zupanic’s new documentary Sarajevo Safari, which details one of the most bizarre and pathological episodes of the 1992 to 1996 siege of the Bosnian capital.

It is well known that Serb snipers in the hills surrounding the city would arbitrarily shoot residents on the streets below, and that select Serb allies — mostly Russians — were invited to fire some shots of their own.

Yet we learn that this opportunity was provided not only as a gesture of appreciation, but as a kind of tourist activity for paying customers. Through “safaris” organized by the Bosnian Serb army, dozens of rich foreigners — mostly from the US, the UK and Italy, but also from Russia — paid top dollar for the chance to shoot at helpless civilians.

Consider the special form of subjectivity that such a safari would confer on the “hunter.” Though the victims were anonymous, this was no video game. The perverse thrill lay in the fact that it was real. Yet, by playing the “hunter,” these rich tourists, occupying a safe perch above the city, effectively excluded themselves from ordinary reality. For their targets, the stakes were life or death.

There is something perversely honest in this melding of reality and spectacle. After all, are not top politicians and corporate managers also engaged in a kind of safari? From their safe perch in the C-suite, executives often ruin many lives.

NUCLEAR THREAT

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, recently imputed a similar logic to Western political leaders. Dismissing warnings by the US and NATO about the consequences of a Russian tactical nuclear strike, Medvedev said:

“[T]he security of Washington, London, Brussels is much more important for the North Atlantic Alliance than the fate of a dying Ukraine that no one needs. The supply of modern weapons is just a business for Western countries. Overseas and European demagogues are not going to perish in a nuclear apocalypse. Therefore, they will swallow the use of any weapon in the current conflict.”

Medvedev also said that the Kremlin would “do everything” to prevent “hostile neighbors” such as “Nazi Ukraine” from acquiring or hosting nuclear weapons, as this supposedly would pose an existential threat to the Russian state.

However, since it is Russia that is threatening Ukraine’s existence as a state, Medvedev’s logic dictates that Ukraine should also have arms — and even nuclear weapons — to achieve military parity.

Recall Russian President Vladimir Putin’s words in June: “there is no in-between, no intermediate state: either a country is sovereign, or it is a colony, no matter what the colonies are called.”

As he views Ukraine as a Russian colony, the West should not treat Ukraine as though it agreed with him. That means rejecting the idea that Western powers should bypass Ukraine and broker a settlement with Russia.

Unfortunately, many Western leftists have been playing directly into Putin’s hands on this issue. Consider Atlantic Council senior adviser Harlan Ullman, who wrote: “Clemenceau observed that ‘war is too important to be left to the generals.’ In this case, is Ukraine too important to be left to [Ukranian President Volodymyr] Zelensky? The US needs a strategy with an off-ramp to seek an end to the violence and the war.”

Leftists from Noam Chomsky to Jeffrey Sachs — not to mention the many Russia apologists on the right — have adopted similar positions.

After first insisting that Ukraine cannot win a war against Russia, they now imply that it should not win, because that would leave Putin cornered and therefore dangerous.

However, if the West had followed the peaceniks’ advice and not sent arms to Ukraine, that country would now be fully occupied, its subjugation accompanied by far greater atrocities than those found in Bucha, Izium and many other places.

A far better stance has been adopted by the German Green Party, which advocates full support for Ukraine, and also structural reforms to accelerate the transition away from oil and gas, which in turn would steer humanity away from catastrophic climate change.

The rest of the Western left has been on safari, refusing an intervention that would not challenge its established way of life.

Peaceniks argue that Russia needs a victory or concession that could allow it to “save face.”

However, that logic cuts both ways. Following Medvedev and Putin’s nuclear threats, it is Ukraine and the West that can no longer compromise and still save face.

Averted eyes

Recall that Medvedev predicted that the West would refuse to respond militarily to a Russian nuclear strike because it is too cowardly and greedy to do so.

Here, we enter the domain of philosophy, because Putin and Medvedev’s words clearly echo Hegel’s master-slave dialectic. If two self-consciousnesses are engaged in a life-or-death struggle, there can be no winner, because one will die and the victor will no longer have another self-consciousness around who can recognize its own self-consciousness.

The entire history of human culture rests on the original compromise by which someone becomes the servant that “averts its eyes” to prevent mutual assured destruction.

Medvedev and Putin presume that the decadent, hedonist West would avert its eyes.

That brings us back to the dynamic captured in Sarajevo Safari. Privileged elites feel as though they can intervene in the real world in strategic ways that entail no personal danger.

However, reality catches up with everyone eventually. When it does, the advice of those concerned only with not provoking the beast in the valley must not be heeded.

Slavoj Zizek, professor of philosophy at the European Graduate School, is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London.

Copyright: Project Syndicate

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Breaking news, american tourist killed after elephant rammed truck on african safari seen smiling in photos before attack.

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The American tourist killed by a  charging bull elephant that flipped over their safari vehicle  in Zambia over the weekend has been identified as an adventurous 79-year-old woman who wanted the trip to be her “last big adventure.”

Mattson, who was visiting from Minnesota, was pictured the day she was killed on the safari vehicle holding a flower, her grieving family told KSTP .

She was one of six tourists with the group Wilderness Zambia who were out on a game drive Saturday in Kafue National Park when they came under attack by the incensed animal .

Terrifying video footage shows the elephant chasing after the safari vehicle moments before it charged the group, tipping the truck over as the guide repeatedly yelled at the creature. 

The passenger continues to record as the elephant flips the vehicle over. 

Family told the outlet that the US Embassy contacted them about her death.

Loved ones described the 79-year-old as kind, adventurous and very active in her community.

“She had told us that this safari was going to be her last big adventure,” said  her friend  John Longabauth. “Because her birthday is in the summer — I think she was going to be 80, and she felt like she would start slowing down. To be honest, I don’t know if she’d slow down or not. But at least you wouldn’t be traveling as far, probably.”

Mattson split time between living in Minnesota and Arizona, her family said.

Her friends in Arizona held a memorial for her following her sudden death. 

According to the Safari company, one other guest was hurt and taken to a private medical facility.

The four other tourists on the trip were treated for minor injuries after the violent outburst.

The horrifying incident unfolded at about 9:30 a.m. Saturday during a game drive through Kafue National Park, Wilderness Zambia CEO Keith Vincent said in a statement. 

Kafue National Park’s management sent a helicopter to evacuate the victims. 

“This is a tragic event and we extend our deepest condolences to the family of the guest who died. We are also, naturally, supporting those guests and the guide involved in this distressing incident,” Vincent said.

The group of tourists had been staying at the luxurious Lufupa Camp in the Kafue National Park, the largest game reserve in Africa. 

The tour group is making arrangements for Mattson’s body to be returned to the US. 

Police and other authorities are investigating the incident. 

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