Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky replaced the head of the country’s forces in the east, faced with Russian troops that were advancing in the region.
The European Union placed sanctions on more than two dozen vessels, including 17 that hauled oil for Moscow.
A deadly attack by gunmen in the majority Muslim region of Dagestan just months after the assault on a Moscow concert hall has raised the spectre that Russia may be facing a wave of violence by religious extremists.
Zelensky replaces head of Ukraine’s troops in east amid Russia’s advances
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky replaced the head of the country’s forces in the east, faced with Russian troops that were advancing in the region.
Brigadier General Andrii Hnatov will take over from Lieutenant General Yurii Sodol, who led the so-called Joint Forces, Zelensky said on Telegram late on Monday evening. He didn’t elaborate on the reasons for the move.
Sodol was the commander of Ukraine’s land forces in the east and south that have been struggling to push back Russia’s offensive, which has gained momentum in recent months. Among Russia’s stated goals for the invasion of Ukraine is the takeover of the whole of the Donbas region, comprising Donetsk and Luhansk.
EU sanctions 27 ships it says are helping Russian war machine
The European Union placed sanctions on more than two dozen vessels, including 17 that hauled oil for Moscow.
The sanctions follow similar steps taken by the UK, which included so-called dark fleet ships on a list of entities it sanctioned earlier this month.
Among the vessels to be sanctioned are the Robon, which last year was filmed transferring Russian oil miles away from the location it was signalling, and the Andromeda Star, which suffered a crash near Denmark earlier this year. The Robon has been stationed in the Baltic Sea ever since it was named by UK authorities.
Since it invaded Ukraine, a fleet of several hundred ships has built up to service Russia’s oil exports. Those vessels often operate outside the oversight of industry-standard service providers, calling into question how safe they are.
The International Maritime Organization last year called on member states to prevent illegal operations by the shadow fleet through resolution A.1192(33). The EU cited that resolution for 11 of the vessels it sanctioned.
The sanctions prevent access to ports in Europe as well as the ability to sell, charter, operate or crew such a vessel. The measure also prohibits European operators from providing supplies and services such as insurance, brokering, financing and bunkering, as well as engaging in ship-to-ship transfers or any other transfer of cargo with the vessels or getting services from them.
A total of 27 ships were sanctioned, including two ships that store liquefied natural gas and general cargo vessels that carry restricted goods or are linked to sanctioned entities. The list grew from an original proposal of a dozen ships and more vessels could be added in future sanctions packages.
Deadly attack in Russia stirs fears of extremist violence
A deadly attack by gunmen in the majority Muslim region of Dagestan just months after the assault on a Moscow concert hall has raised the spectre that Russia may be facing a wave of violence by religious extremists.
Security services said terrorists were behind Sunday’s attacks that targeted two churches and a synagogue in the often violence-wracked region in southern Russia. At least 15 police officers and four civilians, including a priest, were killed, Russia’s Investigative Committee said on Monday on Telegram.
Among six militants who were killed, three were sons and a nephew of a local official that the ruling United Russia party later expelled, according to the Interfax news service. Investigators were trying to establish who was responsible for organising the attacks.
A close ally of President Vladimir Putin, the speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament, Valentina Matviyenko, alleged Russia had information of “confirmed foreign funding” for the attack. Law enforcement agencies “will clear out extremist cells in the shortest possible time, complete investigative actions and reliably establish” where and to whom threads lead, she said.
The assault came three months after gunmen carried out the worst atrocity in Moscow for two decades, killing more than 140 people in an attack on the Crocus City Hall concert venue on 22 March. Russia initially pointed the finger at Ukraine for the assault that was claimed by Islamic State. Security services eventually acknowledged that Islamic State’s branch in Afghanistan was behind the Moscow attack, the biggest single loss of life in the capital since Chechen separatists took hostages in 2002 at the Nord-Ost theatre.
The Islamic State’s Afghan subsidiary issued a statement on its Russian-language Al-Azaim channel praising the militant assault in Dagestan, which it said was carried out “by our brothers from the Caucasus”, according to the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.
The latest attacks stood out for their coordination and scale. Russian Telegram channels posted several videos of men wearing black T-shirts shooting at police cars. Another video depicted a fire destroying a synagogue.
“There’s a huge problem with Islamic extremism in Russia, which is spreading,” said Sergei Markov, a political consultant close to the Kremlin. “Islamic State and other groups are active.”
That a local official’s relatives were among the militants “shows that radical Islam has gone deep into society and penetrated the elite”, Markov said.
Islamist groups have targeted Russia in the past, citing what they call anti-Muslim policies by the Kremlin.
In October, a mob encircled a flight from Israel at the airport in Dagestan’s regional capital of Makhachkala in protest at Israel’s war against the militant group Hamas in Gaza. It took hours to restore order.
A Dagestani legislator from the ruling pro-Kremlin party, Abdulkhakim Gadzhiev, accused the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) states and Ukraine of plotting the latest attack.
Dmitry Rogozin, a senator in Russia’s upper house of parliament who has served as deputy prime minister, warned that ascribing every homegrown terrorist act to Nato and Ukraine “will cause big problems for us”, in a post on his Telegram account.
Russia’s insistence on blaming radical Islamic violence on Ukraine and its allies was making it impossible to counter it effectively, said Gregory Shvedov, an expert on southern Russia’s mainly Muslim regions.
Denmark to end F-16 pilot training for Ukraine at year-end
Denmark will end its training programme for Ukrainian pilots of F-16 warplanes at the end of the year to focus on its new fighter jets, the Nordic country’s defence minister said.
Once the programme was complete, Denmark would have trained “about” 20 pilots from Ukraine, Troels Lund Poulsen said at a news briefing on Monday. The Scandinavian nation last year pledged to send 19 F-16s to Kyiv once it had trained pilots to fly them.
The F-16 coalition led by countries including the US, Netherlands and Denmark will have to look at alternative locations, in addition to an already established training facility in Romania, to continue the activities, Lund Poulsen said.
Read more: Ukraine to get F-16s from Nato allies, with Denmark pledging 19
“We will be transitioning to flying the F-35, so we need to spend our energy on that, and so we cannot continue training Ukrainian pilots after 2024,” the defence minister said. Denmark has ordered 27 new F-35 planes, though delivery has been hit by several delays.
EU backs Russian asset profits for Ukraine by dodging Orbán veto
European Union member states agreed on a plan to send Ukraine €1.4-billion in military aid from the windfall profits of frozen Russian assets after finding a way to circumvent a Hungarian veto.
The decision was approved as EU foreign ministers met in Luxembourg on Monday, according to diplomats.
The move came after Josep Borrell, the EU’s top diplomat, suggested that Viktor Orbán’s government could be essentially stripped of a vote on the issue, given that Hungary has abstained from a previous EU decision authorising the use of the funds.
“The treaty provides legal ways to advance even if some member state doesn’t want to participate,” Borrell said. “Since Hungary didn’t participate in the decision, it shouldn’t participate in the implementation.”
Borrell’s proposal to circumvent Hungary “breaks European rules”, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in a social media post ahead of the meeting.
Hungary, the EU’s most pro-Russia nation, has blocked some €6.5-billion of urgently needed military aid for Kyiv as Ukraine’s military seeks to fend off Russian assaults. That’s after Orbán dropped his veto in February over a broader €50-billion financial aid package for Ukraine.
Budapest’s blocks have prompted anxiety about the use of the profits from frozen Russian assets. That money would be used directly for weapons purchases for Ukraine, rather than to reimburse member states that provide such aid for Kyiv.
About $280-billion in assets have been immobilised by the Group of Seven nations since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with more than two-thirds of those held in the EU. The vast majority of the funds has been held through the Belgium-based settlement giant Euroclear
The €1.4-billion tranche, due to be sent in the coming weeks, is part of more than €2.5-billion earmarked for Ukraine from such funds for this year.
Russia summons US envoy over Ukraine missile strike in Crimea
The Russian Foreign Ministry summoned US Ambassador Lynne Tracy over an attack by Ukraine on the occupied Crimean peninsula.
The US “bears equal responsibility” with Ukraine for the attack and Russia would retaliate, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said in a statement on Monday.
Read more: Crimea attacked after Ukraine shot down missiles Near Kyiv
Russian officials said four people were killed, including two children, and more than 150 people were injured in what Russia said was an Atacms missile attack in Sevastopol, Crimea’s largest city, on Sunday. Russia’s Defence Ministry said its air defences downed four missiles while a fifth was struck and diverted from its trajectory before exploding over the city.
The US began supplying Kyiv with Atacms missiles earlier this year.
Russia, which began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, seized Crimea in 2014. DM