Continuing our report on Russia’s “dirty bomb” accusations, Moscow repeated its statement to the UN Security Council.
The claim that Ukraine is contemplating this type of weapon has been categorically rejected by Western and Ukrainian officials.
Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, stated this, saying, “I wouldn’t mind other people saying that Russia is screaming wolf if this doesn’t happen, because this is a terrible, terrible disaster that potentially threatens the whole Earth. “
He claimed to have shared with his Western counterparts.
However, analysts said there is no explanation as to why Ukraine uses a grimy bomb on its own soil.
Ukraine has invited nuclear inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to its facilities to refute this claim.
Russia’s RIA news firm said there were two sites: the Eastern Mineral Enrichment Plant in the central Dnipropetrovsk region and the Kyiv Nuclear Research Institute.
In recent days, we have talked a lot about the “dirty bomb”.
As we reported, Russia claimed that Ukraine planned to use such a weapon, which it categorically rejected through Western leaders.
Here, our correspondent in Europe, Adam Parsons, explains what is happening.
As we reported this week, Western leaders have rejected Russian claims that Ukraine will use a “dirty bomb” containing radioactive materials.
France, the United Kingdom and the USA The U. S. issued a joint rejection of the request and supported Ukraine.
Now, US President Joe Biden has chimed in, Russia would be “making an incredibly serious mistake” if it used a tactical nuclear weapon.
The United States has raised considerations that Russia’s claims are of a false flag operation, designed to deflect blame if Moscow itself uses a dirty bomb.
But other Western analysts have warned that Russia has no plans to use such a weapon and seeks to spread disinformation to scare off Western supporters of Ukraine.
The approach to Kherson will be fiercely fought and Russian forces are already digging, a senior Ukrainian official said.
Moscow is preparing to protect Ukraine’s largest city as Kyiv prepares a full-blown counteroffensive.
In recent weeks, Russian forces have been forced back and may find themselves trapped off the western bank of the Dnipro River, where the town of Kherson is located.
The Russian-installed government in the city evacuated the civilians, though they asked the men to stay to form a local militia.
But Ukraine said there is no sign Russia is making plans to leave the city.
“With Kherson, everything is clear. The Russians are reconstituting, strengthening their there,” Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said last night.
“This means that no one should retire. On the contrary, the toughest of battles will take position for Kherson. “
Yuri Sobolevsky, a member of the ousted pro-Ukrainian regional council in Kherson, said the Russian-installed government was increasing pressure on Kherson’s citizens to leave.
“Search and detection procedures are intensifying, as are searches and homes,” he wrote on Telegram.
Kherson is strategically vital to Russia and Ukraine, basically because of its position on the Dnipro River, where it is used as a gateway to annexed Crimea.
Before we bring you the latest updates, here’s a reminder of what happened in the last 24 hours.
Russia continues to claim that Ukraine is a “dirty bomb,” which has been categorically rejected by Western leaders, while Ukraine has invited nuclear officials to its facilities to refute this claim.
There also appears to be fear within the Kremlin, with reports that some officials have contacted their Western counterparts to push the negotiations forward.
Meanwhile, an intelligence leader said a Kremlin official, the founder of the mercenary organization Wagner Yevgeniy Prigozhin, was seeking to update Vladimir Putin as Russian president.
And in the Kherson region, Russia claimed it had pushed back Ukrainian forces as they conducted a counteroffensive in the occupied region.
Stay for more updates.
Thank you for following today’s updates.
We will be back in the morning, but keep an eye out for the Sky News online page as you wait for the latest news on the conflict.
Refugees who fled Ukraine following the Russian invasion are expected to remain this winter because of force cuts created by Moscow’s bombing of critical force infrastructure, a Ukrainian minister said.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk told Ukrainians who stayed recently that they deserve to wait until spring before returning.
“I tried to ask them (them) not to come back. We have to go to winter,” he said in a television interview.
Russia has introduced waves of missiles and drones moving Ukraine’s military infrastructure over the past fortnight, which Kyiv says has broken up to 40 percent of the military system.
A local official in the capital warned last week that citizens deserve to be prepared for imaginable disconnections that can last only days or even weeks.
The movements in Ukraine’s infrastructure come amid a dizzying surge in energy, food and others in Europe, where most of the millions of refugees have sought refuge.
This poses a challenge for Ukrainians, many of whom struggle to secure permanent high-paying jobs in their new country of residence.
Vereshchuk said the network “will not survive” the return of refugees and that the scenario “will only get worse. “
“To come back now is to threaten yourself and your children, your relatives,” he said.
Reports of behind-the-scenes machinations in the Kremlin, which add conspiracy advice through some figures who see Putin’s position as increasingly vulnerable, are increasingly common since the annexation of 4 regions of Ukraine.
Returning for a moment to the new assessment published by the Institute for the Study of War (see Article 16. 43), this resolution is through the head of intelligence of the Ukrainian army Kyrylo Budanov of having “provoked a schism within the Kremlin, which will probably accentuate as Ukraine liberates more territory. “
Budanov said Kremlin elites largely failed to annex the Kherson, Zaporizhia, Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts before securing those territories, prompting many officials to convince their Western counterparts to express their disinterest in continuing the war in Ukraine.
According to the Ukrainian, some Kremlin officials began to advocate negotiations with Ukraine with their Western counterparts, while the Russian military-political command planned missile movements to scare Ukrainians into negotiations.
ISW said this claim is “consistent with the influx of Western reports about Putin’s direct complaint within the Kremlin less than a week after the annexations” and that Wagner Group-affiliated Telegram channels also noted the emergence of pro-war and factional negotiations. within the Kremlin within the same period of time.
“These remarks raise the option that internal allusions to the Kremlin’s willingness to engage in serious negotiations do not reflect Putin’s own perspectives or the decisions he has made, but are possibly part of the efforts of those who have lost the internal discussion to convince the West and Ukraine to make concessions in the hope of making him share his views. “Concludes.
We talked today about the pivotal role Wagner’s mercenary organization, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, was playing in the reported war of forces around Vladimir Putin (see the 11 a. m. post).
The Institute of War Studies think tank released its most recent assessment of the major disorders of war, and its reading is intriguing.
Citing the same comments reported in our previous article, through Ukrainian army intelligence leader Kyrylo Budanov, one segment of the investigation focuses on Mr. Prigozhin.
“Prigozhin continues to gain strength and is setting up an army parallel to the Russian armed forces, which may pose a risk to the Putin regime, at least in the data space,” the organization said.
“Russian milbloggers [military bloggers] reported that Prigozhin forming a battalion of Wagner-based volunteers recruited through Russian war thief and former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer Igor Girkin. . . a passionate critic of the Russian Higher Army Command and a prominent figure among the Russian ultranationalists who participated in the annexation of Crimea or the illegal Russian seizures of Ukrainian territory in Donbass in 2014. “
He continues: “Prigozhin occupies an advantageous position within the design of the Russian state and the data area that allows him to expand his constituency in Russia more easily than the disgraced high command of the Russian army.
“Prigozhin can freely publicize himself and his forces while criticizing Kremlin officials or the Russian armed forces’ concern about being shunned.
“Putin trusts Wagner’s forces in Bakhmut and is probably looking to appease Prigozhin even though Prigozhin undermines the traditional Russian army. “
Prigozhin, he adds, “also benefits from holding any formal position of responsibility. “
“He is at the head of any axis in Ukraine or is guilty of any primary bureaucratic effort,” the assessment said.
“You can freely criticize those in positions of authority without worrying that someone will point out something they’re particularly guilty of and haven’t succeeded. “
Another component of the investigation indicates that Russia is plotting an imminent false flag bombing.
We will tell you more about this evaluation in a long article.