KYIV, UKRAINE — The EU’s new top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, and head of the European Council, Antonio Costa, arrived in Kyiv on Sunday in a symbolic show of support for Ukraine on their first day in office.

“We came to give a clear message that we stand with Ukraine, and we continue to give our full support,” Costa told media outlets including AFP accompanying them on the trip.

The European Union’s new leadership team is keen to demonstrate it remains firm on backing Kyiv at a perilous moment for Ukraine nearly three years into its fight against Russia’s all-out invasion.

Questions are swirling around the future of U.S. support once Donald Trump assumes office in January and there are fears he could force Kyiv to make painful concessions in pursuit of a quick peace deal.

Meanwhile, tensions have escalated as Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to strike government buildings in Kyiv with his new Oreshnik missile after firing it at Ukraine for the first time last month.

The Kremlin leader said the move is a response to Kyiv getting the green light to strike inside Russia with American and British missiles, and he has threatened to hit back against the countries supplying the weaponry.

As winter begins, Russia has also unleashed devastating barrages against Ukraine’s power grid and on the frontline Kyiv’s fatigued forces are losing ground to Moscow’s grinding offensive.

“The situation in Ukraine is very, very grave,” Kallas, a former prime minister of Estonia, said. “But it’s clear that it comes at a very high cost for Russia as well.”

Ceasefire?

The new EU leaders — the bloc’s top officials along with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen — were set to hold talks with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Zelenskyy on Friday appeared to begin staking out his position ahead of any potential peace talks.

He called on NATO to offer guaranteed protections to parts of Ukraine controlled by Kyiv in order to “stop the hot stage of the war,” and implied he would then be willing to wait to regain other territory seized by Russia.

“If we speak ceasefire, [we need] guarantees that Putin will not come back,” Zelenskyy told Britain’s Sky News.

Kallas said that “the strongest security guarantee is NATO membership.”

“We need to definitely discuss this — if Ukraine decides to draw the line somewhere then how can we secure peace so that Putin doesn’t go any further,” she said.

Diplomats at NATO say there appears little prospect of the alliance granting Ukraine membership soon given opposition from a raft of members cautious of getting dragged into war with Russia.

Kallas said the EU “shouldn’t really rule out anything” in terms of the question of sending European troops to help enforce any ceasefire.

“We should have this strategic ambiguity around this,” she said.

‘Transactional language’

Trump has cast doubt on continuing Washington’s vast aid for Ukraine and called on EU countries to do more.

Europe together has spent around $125 billion on supporting Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion, while the United States alone has coughed up over $90 billion, according to a tracker from the Kiel Institute.

Kallas said the EU would use a “transactional language” to try to convince Trump that backing Kyiv was in the interest of the U.S.

“Aid for Ukraine is not charity,” she said. “A victory for Russia definitely emboldens China, Iran, North Korea.”

The new EU foreign policy chief said the bloc would continue seeking to put Ukraine in the “strongest” position — if and when Kyiv chose it was time to negotiate with Moscow.

But she conceded that it was becoming “increasingly difficult” for the 27-nation bloc to agree on new ways to ramp up support for Ukraine.

“This war has been going on for quite some time and it is harder and harder to explain it to our own people,” she said. “But I don’t see any option.”
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PRISTINA, KOSOVO — Kosovo’s Interior minister Xhelal Svecla said Saturday that police had arrested eight people after an explosion hit a canal that sends water to its two main power plants, an incident Pristina labeled a “terrorist act” by neighboring Serbia. 

“Somehow we managed to fix the damage, arrest the suspects and confiscate a huge arsenal of weapons,” Svecla said during a live-streamed news conference.

Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic denied what he said were “baseless accusations” about Belgrade’s involvement in the incident, which occurred Friday around 7 p.m. (1800 GMT).  

Police commander Gazmend Hoxha said those arrested “are suspected of inciting, organizing and even executing these recent terrorist acts and in particular the one in the canal of Iber Lepenc.” 

Hoxha said an initial investigation had shown that between 15 and 20 kilos of explosives were used in the attack. 

Police raided 10 locations, confiscating more than 200 military uniforms, six shoulder-fired rocket launchers, long weapons, pistols and ammunition, he said. 

Police said most of the people arrested belong to the local Serb organization Civilna Zastita (Civil Protection), which the government in Kosovo has declared as a terrorist organization. 

Reuters was unable to contact the group. 

Tensions with Serbia 

The explosion has increased tensions between the two Balkan countries. Ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 almost a decade after a guerrilla uprising against its rule, but Serbia has not recognized Kosovo as an independent state. 

Relations remain especially frayed in the north of the country where the blast occurred, and where the Serb minority refuses to recognize Kosovo’s statehood and still sees Belgrade as their capital. 

Kosovo’s Security Council, which held emergency talks early Saturday, said it had activated armed forces to prevent similar attacks.  

Security was already heightened after two recent attacks where hand grenades were hurled at a police station and municipality building in northern Kosovo where ethnic Serbians live.  

“The Security Council has approved additional measures to strengthen security around critical facilities and services such as bridges, transformer stations, antennas, lakes, canals,” the council said in a statement Saturday.  

NATO, which has maintained a peacekeeping force in Kosovo since 1999, condemned the attack in a statement Saturday. Its personnel have provided security to the canal and the surrounding area since the blast, it said.  

A Reuters reporter visited the site Saturday, where silt had poured through a hole in the canal’s concrete wall. Workers had installed a series of large tubes to bypass the leak.  

Power supplies appeared to be largely intact, but the drinking water supply was disrupted in some areas.  

Energy minister Artane Rizvanolli said Kosovo was coordinating with Albania’s power company to provide more electricity. She said water will be trucked to affected areas. 
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TBILISI, GEORGIA — Georgia on Saturday said authorities arrested 107 people during a second day of protests sparked by the government’s decision to delay European Union membership talks.

The Black Sea nation has been rocked by turmoil since the ruling Georgian Dream party claimed victory in an October 26 parliamentary election that the pro-EU opposition said was fraudulent.

The Interior Ministry said 107 people were detained for “disobedience to lawful police orders and petty hooliganism.”

“Throughout the night … protesters threw various objects, including stones, pyrotechnics, glass bottles and metal items, at law enforcement officers,” it said, adding that “10 employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs were injured.”

The ministry earlier said 32 police officers were wounded and 43 protestors detained on Thursday.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze’s statement Thursday that Georgia will not seek to open accession talks with the European Union until 2028 ignited a furious reaction from the opposition and two days of protests.

He later accused the opposition and the EU ambassador to Georgia of distorting his words. He insisted membership in the bloc “by 2030” remains his “top priority.”

‘Resistance movement’

On Friday, AFP reporters saw riot police fire water cannons and tear gas at pro-EU protesters gathered outside the parliament in Tbilisi, who tossed eggs and fireworks.

Clashes broke out later between protesters and police, who moved in to clear the area outside parliament, beating demonstrators, some of whom threw objects.

Independent TV station Pirveli said one of its journalists was hospitalized with serious injuries.

Protests were also held in other cities across Georgia on Friday, independent TV station Mtavari reported.

Pro-Western opposition parties are boycotting the new parliament, while President Salome Zurabishvili has sought to annul the election results through the country’s constitutional court.

In a televised address to the nation on Friday evening, the pro-Western president — who is at loggerheads with the ruling party — said: “The resistance movement has begun. … I stand in solidarity with it. We will remain united until Georgia achieves its goals: to return to its European path, secure new elections.”

‘Brutal repression’

After the October vote, a group of Georgia’s leading election monitors said they had evidence of a complex scheme of large-scale electoral fraud.

Brussels has demanded an investigation into what it said were “serious irregularities” reported by election monitors.

Georgian Dream MPs voted unanimously Thursday for Kobakhidze to continue as prime minister, even as the opposition boycotted parliament, which faces a serious legitimacy crisis.

“Police actions in Tbilisi mark another punitive attack on the right to peaceful assembly,” said Amnesty International.

France, Britain, Ukraine, Poland, Sweden and Lithuania were among the countries to voice concern.

The Council of Europe condemned what it described as “brutal repression,” urging Georgia to remain “faithful to European values.”

In recent years, critics accused Georgian Dream — in power for more than a decade — of moving the country away from Europe and closer to Russia.
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REYKJAVIK, ICELAND — Icelanders will elect a new parliament Saturday after disagreements over immigration, energy policy and the economy forced Prime Minister Bjarni Benediktsson to pull the plug on his coalition government and call early elections.

This is Iceland’s sixth general election since the 2008 financial crisis devastated the economy of the North Atlantic island nation and ushered in a new era of political instability.

Opinion polls suggest the country may be in for another upheaval, with support for the three governing parties plunging. Benediktsson, who was named prime minister in April following the resignation of his predecessor, struggled to hold together the unlikely coalition of his conservative Independence Party with the centrist Progressive Party and the Left-Green Movement.

Iceland, a nation of about 400,000 people, is proud of its democratic traditions, describing itself as arguably the world’s oldest parliamentary democracy. The island’s parliament, the Althingi, was founded in 930 by the Norsemen who settled the country.

Here’s what to look for in the contest.

How does the election work?

Voters will choose 63 members of the Althingi in an election that will allocate seats both by regional constituencies and proportional representation. Parties need at least 5% of the vote to win seats in parliament. Eight parties were represented in the outgoing parliament, and 10 parties are contesting this election.

Turnout is traditionally high by international standards, with 80% of registered voters casting ballots in the 2021 parliamentary election.

Why now?

A windswept island near the Arctic Circle, Iceland normally holds elections during the warmer months of the year. But on Oct. 13 Benediktsson decided his coalition couldn’t last any longer, and he asked President Halla Tómasdóttir to dissolve the Althingi.

“The weakness of this society is that we have no very strong party and we have no very strong leader of any party,’” said Vilhjálmur Bjarnson, a former member of parliament. “We have no charming person with a vision … That is very difficult for us.”

Why is Iceland’s politics so fractured?

The splintering of Iceland’s political landscape came after the 2008 financial crisis, which prompted years of economic upheaval after its debt-swollen banks collapsed.

The crisis led to anger and distrust of the parties that had traditionally traded power back and forth, and prompted the creation of new parties ranging from the environment focused Left-Green Alliance to the Pirate Party, which advocates direct democracy and individual freedoms.

“This is one of the consequences of the economic crash,” said Eva H. Önnudóttir, a professor of political science at the University of Iceland. “It’s just the changed landscape. Parties, especially the old parties, have maybe kind of been hoping that we would go back to how things were before, but that’s not going to happen.”

What are the issues?

Like many Western countries, Iceland has been buffeted by the rising cost of living and immigration pressures.

Inflation peaked at an annual rate of 10.2% in February 2023, fueled by the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While inflation slowed to 5.1% in October, that is still high compared with neighboring countries. The U.S. inflation rate stood at 2.6% last month, while the European Union’s rate was 2.3%.

Iceland is also struggling to accommodate a rising number of asylum-seekers, creating tensions within the small, traditionally homogenous country. The number of immigrants seeking protection in Iceland jumped to more than 4,000 in each of the past three years, compared with a previous average of less than 1,000.

What about the volcano?

Repeated eruptions of a volcano in the southwestern part of the country have displaced thousands of people and strained public finances. One year after the first eruption forced the evacuation of the town of Grindavik, many residents still don’t have secure housing, leading to complaints that the government has been slow to respond.

But it also added to a shortage of affordable housing exacerbated by Iceland’s tourism boom. Young people are struggling to get a foot on the housing ladder at a time when short-term vacation rentals have reduced the housing stock available for locals, Önnudóttir said.

“The housing issue is becoming a big issue in Iceland,” she said.
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PRISTINA, KOSOVO — An explosion Friday evening damaged a canal in northern Kosovo supplying water to two coal-fired power plants that generate nearly all of the country’s electricity, Prime Minister Albin Kurti said, blaming what he called “a terrorist act” by neighboring Serbia.

There were no immediate reports of injuries and the cause of the blast, which also impacted drinking water supplies, was not clear. Serbian officials did not respond to requests for comment, and Reuters found no immediate evidence of Belgrade’s involvement.

“This is a criminal and terrorist attack with the aim to destroy our critical infrastructure,” Kurti said in a televised address. He said that some of the country could be without power if the problem is not fixed by morning.

In a sign of ethnic tensions between the two Balkan countries, Kurti echoed Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani by blaming Serbian criminal gangs without providing proof.

Earlier on Friday, Kosovo police announced increased security measures after two recent attacks where hand grenades were hurled at a police station and municipality building in northern Kosovo where ethnic Serbians live. It was not clear if the incidents were linked.

Local media showed pictures of part of the canal destroyed and leaking water and a heavy police presence at the site.

Faruk Mujka, the head of water company Ibar-Lepenci, told local news portal Kallxo that an explosive device was thrown into the canal and damaged the wall of a bridge.

He said the water supply, which also feeds drinking water to the capital, Pristina, must be halted to fix the problem as soon as possible since it was the main channel for supplying Kosovo Energy Corporation, the country’s main power provider.

Independence for ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo came in 2008, almost a decade after a guerrilla uprising against Serbian rule. However, tensions persist, mainly in the north where the Serb minority refuses to recognize Kosovo’s statehood and still sees Belgrade as their capital.

The EU’s Kosovo ambassador, Aivo Orav, condemned the attack that he said was already “depriving considerable parts of Kosovo from water supply.”  
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TBILISI, GEORGIA — Thousands of demonstrators protesting the Georgian government’s decision to suspend negotiations to join the European Union rallied outside the parliament and clashed with police for a second straight night Friday.

The night before, police used water cannons, pepper spray and tear gas to disperse protesters who took to the streets of Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, after Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze of the ruling Georgian Dream party announced the suspension. The interior ministry said it detained 43 people during the protests.

On Friday evening, protesters again swarmed the parliament, with some trying to break the metal gates to the building. Riot police used water cannons to push them away from the building and later moved to force them farther back along Rustaveli Avenue, the city’s main boulevard.

Some of the protesters used garbage bins and benches to try to build barricades.

Clashes between police and protesters also erupted late Friday in the Black Sea port of Batumi.

Georgian Dream’s disputed victory in the October 26 election, which was widely seen as a referendum on the country’s aspirations to join the European Union, has sparked massive demonstrations and led to an opposition boycott of the parliament. The opposition said the vote was rigged under the influence of Russia, which seeks to keep Georgia in its orbit.

President Salome Zourabichvili joined protesters Thursday after accusing the government of declaring “war” on its own people. In Friday’s address to the nation, Zourabichvili urged police not to use force against protesters.

The Georgian president, who has a largely ceremonial role, has declared that the ruling party rigged the election with the help of Russia, Georgia’s former imperial master.

The government’s announcement that it was suspending negotiations to join the EU came hours after the European Parliament adopted a resolution that condemned last month’s vote as neither free nor fair, representing yet another manifestation of the continued democratic backsliding “for which the ruling Georgian Dream party is fully responsible.”

European election observers said October’s vote took place in a divisive atmosphere marked by instances of bribery, double voting and physical violence.

The EU granted Georgia candidate status in December 2023 on the condition that it meet the bloc’s recommendations but put its accession on hold and cut financial support earlier this year after the passage of a “foreign influence” law widely seen as a blow to democratic freedoms.

EU lawmakers urged for a rerun of the parliamentary vote within a year under thorough international supervision and by an independent election administration. They also called on the EU to impose sanctions and limit formal contacts with the Georgian government.

The Georgian prime minister fired back, denouncing what he described as a “cascade of insults” from the EU politicians and declaring that “the ill-wishers of our country have turned the European Parliament into a blunt weapon of blackmail against Georgia, which is a great disgrace for the European Union.”

“We will continue on our path toward the European Union; however, we will not allow anyone to keep us in a constant state of blackmail and manipulation, which is utterly disrespectful to our country and society,” Kobakhidze said. “We must clearly show certain European politicians and bureaucrats, who are completely devoid of European values, that they must speak to Georgia with dignity, not through blackmail and insults.”

Kobakhidze also said Georgia would reject any budgetary grants from the EU until the end of 2028.

Critics have accused Georgian Dream — established by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a shadowy billionaire who made his fortune in Russia — of becoming increasingly authoritarian and tilted toward Moscow. The party recently pushed through laws like those used by the Kremlin to crack down on freedom of speech and LGBTQ+ rights.

The EU suspended Georgia’s membership application process indefinitely in June, after parliament passed a law requiring organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “pursuing the interest of a foreign power,” similar to a Russian law used to discredit organizations critical of the government.
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Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has urged his NATO counterparts to issue an invitation at a meeting in Brussels next week to Kyiv to join the Western military alliance, according to the text of a letter seen by Reuters on Friday.

The letter reflects Ukraine’s renewed push to secure an invitation to join NATO, which is part of a “victory plan” outlined last month by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to end the war triggered by Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Ukraine says it accepts that it cannot join the alliance until the war is over but extending an invitation now would show Russian President Vladimir Putin that he could not achieve one of his main goals — preventing Kyiv from becoming a NATO member.

“The invitation should not be seen as an escalation,” Sybiha wrote in the letter.

“On the contrary, with a clear understanding that Ukraine’s membership in NATO is inevitable, Russia will lose one of its main arguments for continuing this unjustified war,” he wrote. “I urge you to endorse the decision to invite Ukraine to join the Alliance as one of the outcomes of the NATO Foreign Ministerial Meeting on 3-4 December 2024.”

NATO diplomats say there is no consensus among alliance members to invite Ukraine at this stage. Any such decision would require the consent of all NATO’s 32 member countries.

NATO has declared that Ukraine will join the alliance and that it is on an “irreversible” path to membership. But it has not issued a formal invitation or set out a timeline.

Olga Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister in charge of NATO affairs, said Kyiv understood that the consensus for an invitation to join NATO “is not yet there” but the letter was meant to send a strong political signal.

“We have sent a message to the allies that invitation is not off of the table, regardless of different manipulations and speculations around that,” she told Reuters.

In his letter, Sybiha argued an invitation would be the right response “to Russia’s constant escalation of the war it has unleashed, the latest demonstration of which is the involvement of tens of thousands of North Korean troops and the use of Ukraine as a testing ground for new weapons.”

In recent days, however, diplomats have said they do not see any changes of stance among NATO countries, particularly as they await the Ukraine policy of the United States — the alliance’s dominant power — under the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump.
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PRAGUE — Lola Tagaeva has no problem acknowledging that she is not an easy boss. But when you’re running a startup news outlet from exile while your home country is at war, a steely demeanor can be an asset.

“I think it’s incredibly tough to work with me,” Tagaeva said with pride, when we met at a Prague cafe on a rainy October morning. Tagaeva asks her reporters “to travel to the future,” she said, and to figure out what stories haven’t been told yet.

“We have to be two steps ahead,” she said.

That outlook is what helped put the outlet she founded — Verstka — on the map in such a short period of time.

Tagaeva founded the news website from exile shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. The outlet now reaches millions of people each month and has grown into a major player in the independent Russian media landscape.

Originally from the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, Tagaeva left Russia for Prague in 2019 — not because of safety concerns over her work, but because of her daughter.

“I never wanted to move, actually, but when I gave birth to her, I understood that I wanted her to grow up in a free place,” Tagaeva said.

Tagaeva had worked at top Russian independent outlets, including Novaya Gazeta and TV Rain. But after years of hoping that her work would bring change to Russia, only to see the country become more authoritarian, she was burned out.

“Every day was news from [an] apocalypse,” Tagaeva said.

Tagaeva’s break from journalism lasted about three years. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the journalist knew that many more stories would need to be told and that the Kremlin would embark on a harsher crackdown on independent media.

“I started to feel some kind of responsibility,” she said. So, she founded Verstka.

Verstka is Russian for “layout,” like the layout of a newspaper’s front page. The outlet started in April 2022 and now reaches millions of people each month, about 70% of whom are inside Russia, according to Tagaeva.

Verstka’s success is at least partly a product of the time in which it was founded, when Russian journalists were figuring out how to reinvent themselves during war and as a media crackdown forced them into exile, according to Karol Luczka, who covers eastern Europe at the International Press Institute in Vienna.

“They [Verstka’s staff] were able to enter the mainstream of big, Russian independent media without being big and while being very new,” Luczka told VOA.

Tagaeva points to Verstka’s commitment to distribution as a main driver behind the outlet’s early success. She had key staff on board even before the outlet was officially founded, Tagaeva said.

“We didn’t have money. We didn’t have staff. But I already had a director of marketing,” Tagaeva said.

Like many Russian news outlets, the social media platform Telegram is Verstka’s primary hub.

“I don’t believe in media without good distribution, because it’s not a private blog,” Tagaeva said. “If I’m not able to distribute what you wrote, we don’t need it.”

Perhaps more important than distribution is Tagaeva’s commitment to covering underreported issues.

Instead of daily news, Verstka focuses on deeply reported features and investigations — the kinds of stories that readers can’t easily get anywhere else.

The outlet was one of the first to report on Russia abducting Ukrainian children.

Kyiv estimates that 20,000 Ukrainian children have been taken since the invasion. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and children’s commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova on war crimes charges related to the practice. Moscow says that it has protected vulnerable children from the war zone and that it does not recognize the ICC.

The opportunity to produce stories of that weight is what convinced journalist Anna Ryzhkova to work at Verstka.

“I have zero questions about the importance of the work we do,” Ryzhkova told VOA. The priority is stories that are “impossible not to pay attention to,” she said.

Ryzhkova reported for various outlets in Russia before leaving for Georgia shortly after the war began. She has worked at Verstka since it was founded and moved to Prague in 2023.

Ryzhkova acknowledges that Tagaeva’s standards are high. But Ryzhkova said she knows that is why Verstka has succeeded in a generally difficult media landscape.

“It’s like an illness. At first, you might not feel really comfortable with the pace of work, but then you just become a part of it,” Ryzhkova said. “What Lola demands from us is something that we actually demand from ourselves now.”

Tagaeva believes that when outlets feel too comfortable, they don’t push themselves, saying, “There is always space to develop yourself.”

In just a couple years, her outlet has expanded from three to about 50 employees — some of whom are still reporting anonymously from inside Russia.

But as the third anniversary of the invasion approaches, Tagaeva is concerned that the repressive environment in Russia will hamper the next generation of journalists.

“This, I’m afraid, will be the most dangerous issue for us,” Tagaeva said.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Moscow has imposed harsh laws and punishments on journalists who don’t follow the Kremlin’s narrative. For journalists still in the country, “you have to shut up, or you have to go to prison,” Tagaeva said.

Although Tagaeva didn’t leave her home because of her work, it’s the main reason that she can’t return anytime soon. She and Verstka have been labeled foreign agents by the Russian government.

Tagaeva expects Verstka to eventually be labeled an undesirable organization, like many other independent Russian news outlets. That designation would ban Verstka’s operations in Russia and open up Verstka staffers and sources to fines, criminal charges and jail time.

But she remains committed to reporting. And her experience running an outlet has reframed for Tagaeva what it means to have impact.

“We’re not changing the world, but we’re helping people to see the reality,” she said. “And I think it’s enough for us.”
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Russian President Vladimir Putin Thursday threatened to strike “decision-making centers in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, with Russia’s new Oreshnik hypersonic cruise missiles, after pounding Ukrainian energy infrastructure and cutting off power to more than one million people across the country.

“We do not rule out the use of Oreshnik against the military, military-industrial or decision-making centers, including in Kyiv,” Putin told a news conference in the Kasakh capital, Astana.

He said he launched Thursday’s drone and missile attack against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory with U.S. medium-range ATACMS missiles.

The attack marked Russia’s second big attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure this month. Officials said it was the 11th major strike on Ukraine’s energy system since March.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Moscow of a “despicable escalation,” saying it had used cruise missiles with cluster munitions.

The attack marks Russia’s second big attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure this month. Officials said it was the 11th major strike on Ukraine’s energy system since March.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow launched the attack in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory with U.S. medium-range ATACMS missiles. Putin also said Russia’s future targets could include “decision-making centers” in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv.

Ukraine called on the international community to respond to Putin’s threats to target government centers in Kyiv.

“We expect those countries that have urged everyone to avert the expansion of the war to react to the statements voiced by Putin today,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said.

In addition to the more than 1 million people who lost power in the aftermath of the strikes, millions more had their existing schedule of rolling power cuts escalated.

The Ukrainian air force said Russia used 91 missiles and 97 drones in the assault. The air force said 12 of those hit their targets, the majority of which were energy and fuel facilities. All missiles or drones aimed at Kyiv were brought down, officials said.

“The enemy is using a large number of missiles and drones. Their massive use in certain areas often exceeds the number of means of [air defense] cover,” the air force said in a statement.

In the Lviv region, 523,000 subscribers lost electricity, regional head Maksym Kozytsky said on social media. The region, in the western part of the country, borders Poland.

Directly north of the Lviv region, 215,000 customers lost power in the region of Volyn, and 280,000 lost power in the neighboring Rivne region, their governors said.

“Energy infrastructure is once again targeted by the enemy’s massive strike,” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko wrote on Facebook.

Ukrenergo, the national electrical grid operator, introduced emergency power cuts amid the attack, Galushchenko said.

Officials told Reuters that several nuclear power units were disconnected from the network during the attacks.

Private power company DTEK said the power cuts impacted Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions.

Some regional officials said water service was also affected by the airstrikes.

The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andrii Yermak, said in a Telegram post that Russia had stockpiled missiles to strike Ukrainian infrastructure and wage war against civilians during the cold season, The Associated Press reported.

The three-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is looming, and Russian ground forces are advancing at their fastest pace in two years.

On Thursday, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry urged its partners to accelerate the delivery of military aid, saying that was more important than drafting more men.

“We are now in the situation when we need more equipment to arm all the people that have already been mobilized, and we think the first priority is to send quicker, faster military aid,” Tykhyi, the spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, told reporters in Kyiv.

The statement comes one day after a senior U.S. official said Wednesday that Ukraine should consider lowering the age of military service for its soldiers from 25 years old to 18 in order to replace those lost on the battlefield.

On Thursday, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak said Ukraine is ready to host a second global summit aimed at ending Russia’s invasion in the “nearest future,” according to local media.

Kyiv hosted its first “peace summit” in June in Switzerland. Russia was not invited.

Speaking in Kazakhstan on Thursday, Putin said there were no preconditions to start talks with Ukraine on a possible peace deal, but that terms he set out in June for the deal remained the same.

In June, Putin said Russia would end the war only if Kyiv agreed to drop its NATO ambitions and hand over four entire Ukrainian provinces claimed by Moscow. Kyiv rejected those demands as amounting to surrender.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

GABORONE, BOTSWANA — Botswana has been added as a second center, in addition to Belgium, to verify the origin of rough diamonds meant for export to the Group of Seven leading industrialized countries, the nation’s presidency announced Thursday.

African producers had complained that making Belgium the sole verification center led to disruptions in the global diamond supply chain, as the G7 moved to stop the flow of gems mined in Russia.

A statement by the office of the president said Botswana was granted permission to set up a verification center following “intensive” discussions with the G7 Diamond Technical Team.

The announcement comes as President Duma Boko and Minister of Minerals Bogolo Kenewendo returned Thursday from a diamond conference in Brussels.

Kenewendo told state television it is logical to grant Botswana, the world’s second-largest producer of diamonds, the right to certify rough stones.

She said that Botswana has a track record in verification and certification, together with other countries under the Kimberley Process.

The Kimberley Process is a trade regime that certifies rough diamond exports entering the global market, but it has been criticized for failing to do enough to keep out diamonds from conflict zones.

Diamond-producing countries such as Angola and Namibia should be recognized verifiers because they have prepared through the Kimberley Process, Kenewendo said.

To sanction Russian diamonds, the G7, at the start of the year, proposed that all stones destined for export to their member countries be routed through Antwerp, Belgium, to verify their origin.

African producers, led by Botswana, protested, saying the move caused disruptions to the global supply chain due to delays and added costs.

Belgian-based diamond industry researcher Hans Merket said the addition of Botswana as a verification center will allow more flexibility.

“Botswana appears to be something of a test case with the G7 Diamond Technical Team already explicitly referencing Namibia and Angola as potential future certification nodes,” Merket said.

“By diversifying the certification points, this approach could establish a more balanced and inclusive framework for the G7 certification scheme aligning more closely with the global dynamics of the global supply chain,” he said.

“Moreover, it can also help pave the way for stricter controls and higher ethical standards in the diamond sector, particularly as the Kimberley Process certification scheme faces increasing criticism for its declining credibility and leniency,” Merket said.

Jaff Bamenjo, coordinator of the Kimberley Process Civil Society Coalition, said more African diamond producers should be added as verification centers because the addition of only Botswana will not resolve supply chain disruptions.

“African diamond producing countries are suffering from a problem they did not create,” Bamenjo said.

Botswana’s export certification center is expected to be operational early next year.
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TBILISI, GEORGIA — Georgia’s ruling party said on Thursday that the country would suspend talks on European Union accession until 2028, while also refusing budgetary grants from Brussels, effectively halting its application to join the bloc, a long-standing national goal.

In response, thousands of pro-EU protesters blocked streets in the capital, while the country’s figurehead president accused the government of declaring war on its own people with the move.

The Georgian Dream governing bloc accused the EU of “a cascade of insults,” saying in a statement it was using the prospect of accession talks to blackmail the country and to “organize a revolution in the country.”

As a result, it said, “We have decided not to put the issue of opening negotiations with the European Union on the agenda until the end of 2028. Also, we refuse any budgetary grant from the European Union until the end of 2028.”

The South Caucasus country of 3.7 million has the aim of EU accession written into its constitution and has traditionally been among the most pro-Western of the Soviet Union’s successor states.

Georgia’s relations with Brussels have deteriorated sharply in recent months amid EU allegations of authoritarianism and pro-Russian tendencies. The EU had already said that Georgia’s application is frozen.

Georgian Dream says that it is not pro-Russian and that it is committed to democracy and integration with the West.

It says it wants to join the EU eventually but has repeatedly engaged in diplomatic feuds with Brussels in recent years while deepening ties with neighboring Russia.

There was no immediate formal comment from the EU on Georgian Dream’s statement. But an EU official said the impact of Thursday’s move was huge, adding that the government was doing what the EU had feared and had hoped it would not.

Opinion polls show that around 80% of Georgians support EU membership, and the bloc’s flag flies alongside the national flag outside virtually all government buildings in the country.

Georgia’s pro-Western opposition reacted to Georgian Dream’s announcement with fury, while several thousand protesters massed outside parliament and the ruling party’s headquarters, blocking roads. Local media reported that protests erupted in several provincial cities.

Giorgi Vashadze, a prominent opposition leader, wrote on Facebook: “the self-proclaimed, illegitimate government has already legally signed the betrayal of Georgia and the Georgian people.”

President Salome Zourabichvili, a pro-EU critic of Georgian Dream whose powers are mostly ceremonial, said the ruling party had “declared not peace, but war against its own people, its past and future.”

Zourabichvili’s term ends in December, and Georgian Dream has nominated a former lawmaker with hard-line anti-Western views to replace her.

The opposition says that an October election, in which official results gave the Georgian Dream bloc almost 54% of the vote, was fraudulent and have refused to take their seats. Western countries have called for a probe into alleged violations.

Georgian Dream and the country’s election commission say the election was free and fair.

Earlier on Thursday, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze told journalists that EU membership might harm Georgia’s economy, as it would require Tbilisi to cancel visa-free agreements and trade deals with other countries.

The EU gave Georgia candidate status in December 2023 but has said that a raft of laws passed by Georgian Dream since, including curbs on “foreign agents” and LGBTQ rights, are authoritarian, Russian-inspired and obstacles to EU membership.

Foreign and domestic critics of Georgian Dream say the party, which is seen as dominated by its billionaire founder, ex-Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, is steering Georgia back toward Moscow, from which it gained independence in 1991.

Russia and Georgia have had no formal diplomatic relations since a five-day war in 2008 but have had a limited rapprochement recently, with Moscow lifting a ban on flights to Georgia and scrapping a stringent visa regime for Georgians working in Russia.

Opinion polls show most Georgians dislike Russia, which continues to back two breakaway Georgian regions and defeated Tbilisi in the 2008 war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking on Thursday on a visit to Kazakhstan, praised the “courage and character” he said Georgian authorities had shown in passing the law on foreign agents, which domestic critics have likened to Russian legislation.
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Russian drones and missiles pounded Ukrainian energy infrastructure Thursday, cutting off power to more than 1 million people across the country, Ukrainian authorities said.

“As of now, 523,000 subscribers in the Lviv region are without electricity,” regional head Maksym Kozytsky said on social media. The region, in the western part of the country, borders Poland.

Directly north of the Lviv region, 215,000 customers lost power in the region of Volyn, and in the neighboring Rivne region, governor Oleksandr Koval said 280,000 consumers were without power.

“Energy infrastructure is once again targeted by the enemy’s massive strike,” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko wrote on Facebook.

Ukrenergo, the national electrical grid operator, introduced emergency power cuts amid the attack, Galushchenko said.

Officials told Reuters that several nuclear power units were disconnected from the network during the attacks.

Private power company DTEK said the power cuts impacted Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions.

Some regional officials said water service also was affected by the airstrikes.

The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andrii Yermak, said in a Telegram post that Russia had stockpiled missiles to strike Ukrainian infrastructure and wage war against civilians during the cold season, The Associated Press reported.

Information from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters was used in the report. 
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