Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reinforced a call for air defence systems after Russian missiles killed more than 50 people in one of the deadliest strikes since the Kremlin’s invasion began in February 2022.
Three Ukrainian Cabinet ministers submitted their resignations on Tuesday amid speculation of a broader government reshuffle as the war-battered nation confronts a growing barrage of Russian missile strikes.
Russia and Mongolia agreed to strengthen economic ties at the end of a controversial visit by President Vladimir Putin in defiance of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
Zelensky renews plea after 51 killed in Russian missile strike
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reinforced a call for air defence systems after Russian missiles killed more than 50 people in one of the deadliest strikes since the Kremlin’s invasion began in February 2022.
Fifty-one people died and more than 200 were injured in the attack in Poltava early on Tuesday, Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General said, after two Russian ballistic missiles hit a military educational facility and a neighbouring hospital in the central Ukrainian city.
The strike partially destroyed the building of the communications institute, with many people trapped in the debris, Zelensky said on Tuesday in a post on Telegram.
Russia has stepped up aerial assaults against Ukraine, last week unleashing the largest barrage since the war started, with more than 100 missiles launched against energy infrastructure across the country. That attack came after Kyiv made an incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, which prompted tens of thousands of residents to flee their homes.
“We continue to urge everyone in the world who has the power to stop this terror: Ukraine needs air defence systems and missiles now, not sitting in storage,” said Zelensky. “Long-range strikes that can protect us from Russian terror are needed now, not later. Every day of delay, unfortunately, means more lost lives.”
The strike against Poltava, more than 300km to the southeast of Kyiv, highlights the dangers from ballistic missiles, which are difficult to intercept due to their high speed and steep trajectory. The time between the air raid alarm and the missile strike was too short to issue a warning for people to take cover in the bomb shelter, said the Ukrainian Defence Ministry.
The attack took place during classes after explosions followed air raid alarms within minutes as cadets were taking shelter, military spokesperson Dmytro Lazutkin said on local television. He said no public gathering or ceremony had been taking place at the site of the attack, pushing back on social media speculation.
Three Ukrainian ministers offer to resign in broad reshuffle
Three Ukrainian Cabinet ministers submitted their resignations on Tuesday amid speculation of a broader government reshuffle as the war-battered nation confronts a growing barrage of Russian missile strikes.
As Ukraine approaches its third winter since the war began, Zelensky signalled in July that he was preparing a government overhaul. The ministerial shakeup takes place as the country is facing mounting challenges across the board, with the looming heating season exposing vulnerabilities of the energy system increasingly targeted by Russian attacks.
Justice Minister Denys Malyuska, Environment Protection Minister Ruslan Strilets and Strategic Industries Minister Oleksandr Kamyshyn, who oversees domestic weapons production, submitted their resignations to parliament, the assembly’s speaker, Ruslan Stefanchuk, said in a post on Facebook. The head of the State Property Fund, Vitaliy Koval, also submitted his resignation. The legislature needs to vote to approve the resignations.
The need to replenish frontline units with new troops conflicts with the shortage of workforce, while the success of Kyiv’s surprise offensive in Russia’s Kursk region is being offset by the crawling advances of Moscow’s troops in the east.
Earlier this week, state-owned company Urkenergo, which operates Ukraine’s power grid, dismissed its chief, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi. He lost his post amid increasing outcry over regular blackouts and allegations of failing to provide effective protection to energy infrastructure against Russian aerial strikes.
Putin boosts Russia-Mongolia economic ties in contentious visit
Russia and Mongolia agreed to strengthen economic ties at the end of a controversial visit by President Vladimir Putin in defiance of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
Putin held talks with Mongolian President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa in Ulaanbaatar on Tuesday, where the two sides oversaw the signing of cooperation agreements covering energy, trade and transport as well as projects to expand an economic corridor between Russia, Mongolia and China.
“Mongolia stands for the development and expansion of cooperation with its eternal neighbour, the Russian Federation,” Khurelsukh said during statements to the media after the talks. Putin’s visit “is of great importance for enriching friendly relations”, he said.
Mongolia rolled out the red carpet for Putin even as it faced international criticism for failing to meet its obligation as an ICC member state to enforce the warrant. Putin’s visit to the country sandwiched between Russia and China was his first to an ICC member state since the court last year called for his arrest over the alleged abduction of children from occupied areas of Ukraine.
The trip was formally linked to the 85th-anniversary commemorations of the 1939 Soviet and Mongolian battles at Khalkh Gol against Japanese forces. While ties have long been close, they’ve gained added importance as Moscow grows increasingly dependent on China for trade in the face of sanctions imposed by the US and its allies over Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
“Much attention was paid to the expansion of mutually beneficial trade and investment,” Putin said in his statement after the meeting. Modernisation of the Ulaanbaatar Railway would “make it possible to increase the volume of cargo transportation, both bilateral and transit, between Russia and China”, he said.
The two sides planned to “intensify” projects aimed at boosting trade and cooperation through the Mongolia-Russia-China Economic Corridor, Khurelsukh said. Mongolia also expected a boost to agricultural exports in particular when a free trade agreement is reached with the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union this year, he said.
Mongolia said they agreed upon the “smooth and stable supply” of oil products from Russia, which provides 95% of the East Asian nation’s oil imports. They also drew up plans to expand and renovate an ageing Soviet-era thermal power plant that provides a third of the capital’s heat supply.
Police detained six people when a group of protesters with a Ukrainian flag tried to gather at the square during Putin’s arrival, local news website ikon.mn reported.
Putin received assurances ahead of the trip to Mongolia that he wouldn’t be arrested, according to two people familiar with the Kremlin’s preparations for his travels.
He hasn’t risked similar travel before. He skipped last year’s summit in South Africa of leaders from the BRICS grouping after the host made clear it would have to comply with the ICC warrant as a member state.
Sanctioned aide to Bank of Russia head nominated for IMF board seat
An adviser to the governor of the Bank of Russia has been nominated to represent her country on the International Monetary Fund’s executive board, even as she is under US sanctions.
Ksenia Yudaeva, former first deputy governor at Russia’s central bank and a current adviser to Governor Elvira Nabiullina, was nominated to be an executive director at the Washington-based fund, according to two people close to the Russian government. Her candidacy was put forward by Russia’s Finance Ministry and supported by the government, the Interfax news service reported earlier.
The US sanctioned Yudaeva in April 2022, two months after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As a result, she may perform her role from Russia, one of the people familiar said.
Yudaeva joined the central bank with Nabiullina in 2013. For more than a year before that, she headed the Russian Presidential Experts’ Directorate and also served as a so-called sherpa to the Group of 20 nations.
Ukraine’s anti-graft office dismisses first deputy head
The Ukrainian National Anti-Corruption Bureau said on Tuesday that it has dismissed its first deputy director as a result of a disciplinary misstep.
According to a statement on the investigation bureau’s website, Gizo Uglava broke ethical professional norms. Nabu, as the bureau is known, said Uglava’s actions discredited a colleague who raised the issue of possible leaks of classified information by the bureau.
Putin spends big to shape Russia’s youth in his own image
Nobody under 25 in Russia has known any other ruler than Putin. The Kremlin is determined to ensure the new generation continues to be formed in the president’s image.
It’s committing hundreds of millions of dollars annually to promote Putin’s values and mould the minds of Russia’s young. Some of the changes are already visible. Children returning to schools on Monday at the start of the academic year in Russia were greeted by the national anthem and a ceremonial flag-raising, a ceremony the Education Ministry has been encouraging all schools to hold every week after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The government last month approved a youth policy through 2030 that targets the formation of “a patriotic, highly moral and responsible generation of Russian citizens, capable of ensuring the sovereignty, competitiveness and further development” of the country, according to the strategy document.
Teenagers will have a new course this year in the “basic principles of security and defence of the Motherland”, replacing lessons that were more focused on safety and emergencies. They’ll be taught about weaponry, the basics of military preparedness and life in the army, including in some cases by soldiers who have fought in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The classes “will put a lot of things on a systematic basis” in schools, Putin said on Monday during a televised discussion with a group of children in Kyzyl in Russia’s Tuva region, bordering Mongolia. Russians fighting in Ukraine were an “example of both patriotism and our centuries-old traditions with a special attitude to our Fatherland”, he said.
The Education Ministry is rewriting history books to drive home a message that the war Putin began isn’t only against Ukraine but also against a decadent West bent on destroying Russia and its traditional Orthodox way of life. Proposals drawn up by academic advisers to the government encourage history teachers to add figures involved in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine as the country’s modern heroes.
Another programme urges teachers to promote the importance to students of having large families to reverse Russia’s deepening demographic crisis.
At some universities, students attend compulsory courses in the “fundamentals of Russian statehood” that were introduced by the Kremlin last year to promote patriotism and “ideological doctrines that have developed within Russian civilisation”, according to the Education Ministry.
The Kremlin has a lot at stake: Russia last year had nearly 38 million people aged 14-35, about a quarter of the total population, according to Federal Statistics Service data.
“A new generation of Putinists is being formed, prolonging the existence of the regime itself,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, an independent researcher from Moscow, who previously worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “They are preparing a generation in the spirit of totalitarian obedience.”
Russia is far from alone in seeking to foster a sense of national pride in its young. Children in many US schools start their day by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, while most European countries have citizenship programmes on the curriculum that aim to instil civic values and national identity.
The increasingly personalised nature of 71-year-old Putin’s rule during his quarter-century in power makes Russia’s effort distinctive, however. The former KGB agent has tightened his grip on the country by removing or jailing potential rivals and crushing pro-democracy protests. With his war in Ukraine grinding on at the cost of huge casualties, the Kremlin is waging an ideological battle to rally Russians behind Putin and cast even mild critics as traitors. That’s as he extended his presidency for another six years at March elections, and can potentially rule to 2036.
Sanctioned Russian LNG plant prepares to export another shipment
A liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier is returning to the Arctic LNG 2 facility in Russia to load more of the super-chilled fuel, as Moscow presses ahead with exports despite tighter US sanctions.
The Everest Energy is on a course for the plant after delivering fuel to the Saam floating storage unit in the Murmansk region, according to ship-tracking data and satellite images. The US slapped restrictions on the tanker last month for being part of Russia’s suspected dark fleet, and the Saam unit was also sanctioned by the US last year.
The US imposed penalties on Arctic LNG 2 late last year to prevent the start of exports and upend Moscow’s plans to expand deliveries of LNG. While the restrictions kept foreign companies away and stopped the delivery of ice-ready carriers, Russia began using vessels that were masking their location to begin some exports last month. DM