Day: November 27, 2022
Russian troops are attempting to progress in the way of the cities of Pavlivka and Vuhledar in the Donetsk region, but they will not likely be in a position to concentrate adequate quality forces to make an operational breakthrough and seize the remainder of Ukrainian-held Donetsk area.
The United kingdom Ministry of Protection mentioned this in its newest intelligence update posted on Twitter on Sunday, Ukrinform reports.
The ministry claimed that the spot close to the cities of Pavlivka and Vuhledar in south-central Donetsk location has been the scene of extreme combat more than the very last two weeks, nevertheless minimal territory has transformed arms.
According to the update, both Russia and Ukraine have important forces committed to this sector, with Russian Naval Infantry obtaining suffered major casualties.
“This space remains intensely contested, possible partly mainly because Russia assesses the spot has likely as a start place for a upcoming important advance north to capture the remainder of Ukrainian-held Donetsk Oblast. Nevertheless, Russia is not likely to be equipped to focus adequate good quality forces to reach an operational breakthrough,” the ministry stated.
The post Russia will unlikely be able to capture entire Donetsk region appeared first on Ukraine Intelligence.
LUSAIL, Qatar (AP) — As Lionel Messi struggled to hold back his tears, Pablo Aimar let them flow on the bench.
Covering his hands with his face, Argentina’s assistant coach, the former player who Messi idolized as a child, was almost hyperventilating with emotion after the goal that kept alive the Albiceleste’s World Cup journey.
A sobbing Aimar even had to be calmed down by Argentina coach Lionel Scaloni as the final minutes were being played in the team’s 2-0 win over Mexico on Saturday.
This is how much it means to Argentina — the nation, the fans, the coaching staff and the players.
And, for Scaloni, it’s a real concern.
“We should have a little more common sense, and think that it is just a football game,” Scaloni said. “The truth is, I don’t share the feeling that you are playing something more than a game. And that’s what the players feel when they go out on the pitch.
“We have to correct it and we will try to continue on the path of them feeling that it is a football game. Otherwise, every time you have to play for a match, for the knockout phase …. it will always be like that.”
Unfortunately for Scaloni, it seems as if this is one message which is unlikely to get through at this World Cup.
One of his favorite sayings over the past week in Qatar and going back further is: “Win or lose, the sun will rise tomorrow.”
For Argentines, however, this journey to a third World Cup title has the feeling of life or death.
They’ve gone from the unexpected low of losing to Saudi Arabia in one of the World Cup’s biggest upsets to the high of beating Mexico to ignite their hopes of going all the way.
Teary-eyed fans embraced each other in the stands at Lusail Stadium. Argentine journalists did the same.
And the players were getting carried away in the locker room after the final whistle, singing songs — one chorus says that Diego Maradona and his mother are cheering on Messi from heaven— while jumping up and down on their seats and banging their fists against the walls. Argentina goalkeeper Emi Martinez stood on a table in the middle of the room, swinging a towel above his head.
So much for the need to “maintain balance,” as Scaloni suggested after the game.
“People will think I’m crazy but fine, we won, we’re celebrating, it happens,” Scaloni said.
“But tomorrow we have to prepare the (next) game. It’s like when we won the Copa (America) final and we had to think about what came next. The joy doesn’t last long.”
Whether Argentina’s players can get off this emotional rollercoaster ahead of the make-or-break match against Poland on Wednesday remains to be seen.
A draw might not be enough so Argentina will have to play to win at Stadium 974 in Doha in a match held concurrently with Mexico-Saudi Arabia in Group C.
Calm heads may be needed, though that doesn’t seem the Argentina way.
Indeed, Messi thought that was his team’s problem as Argentina struggled to find a way through Mexico’s obdurate defense in the first hour of the match. Messi could be seen imploring his teammates to relax.
“We knew we were going too fast at times and therefore we made mistakes,” he said.
Messi said Argentina was anxious in the game against Saudi Arabia, also played in front of tens of thousands of Albiceleste fans in a Lusail Stadium that can hold nearly 89,000. The attendance of 88,966 spectators for the Mexico match was the largest at a World Cup match since 1994.
There will be around half that number in the stadium for the game against Poland.
That may prove be a blessing for Argentina.
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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/world-cup and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80
2022-11-27T08:36:33Z
People protest against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) curbs, at the site of a candlelight vigil for victims of the Urumqi fire, in Shanghai, China, in this screengrab from a video realeased on November 27, 2022. Video obtained by Reuters/via REUTERS
Chinese protesters have turned to blank sheets of paper to express their anger over COVID-19 restrictions in a rare, widespread outpouring of public dissent that has gone beyond social media to some of China’s streets and top universities.
Images and videos circulated online showed students at universities in cities including Nanjing and Beijing holding up blank sheets of paper in silent protest, a tactic used in part to evade censorship or arrest.
China is adhering to its tough zero-COVID policy even while much of the world tries to coexist with the coronavirus.
The latest wave of anger was triggered by an apartment fire that killed 10 people on Thursday in Urumqi, a far western city where some people had been locked down for as long as 100 days, fueling speculation that COVID lockdown measures may have impeded residents’ escape.
In Shanghai, a crowd that started gathering late on Saturday to hold a candlelight vigil for the Urumqi victims held up blank sheets of paper, according to witnesses and videos.
One widely shared video said to be from Saturday, which could not be independently verified, showed a lone woman standing on the steps of the Communication University of China in the eastern city of Nanjing with a piece of paper before an unidentified man walks into the scene and snatches it away.
Other images showed dozens of other people subsequently taking to the university’s steps with blank sheets of paper，illuminated against the night sky by flashlights from their mobile phones.
A man could later be seen chiding the crowd for their protest.
“One day you’ll pay for everything you did today,” he said, in videos seen by Reuters.
“The state will also have to pay the price for what it has done,” people in the crowd shouted back.
Widespread in-person protests are rare in China, where room for dissent has been all-but eliminated under President Xi Jinping, forcing citizens mostly to vent on social media where they play cat-and-mouse games with censors.
Similar sheets of paper could be seen held by people gathering on the grounds of Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University to sing the Chinese national anthem on Sunday.
Protesters were advised to bring a sheet of white paper to at least one planned demonstration, according to tips being shared in chat groups seen by Reuters.
At the height of the Hong Kong protests in 2020, activists there also raised blank sheets of white paper to protest to avoid slogans banned under the national security law. Demonstrators in Moscow have also used them this year to protest Russia’s war with Ukraine.
One Beijing resident surnamed Wang, who joined his neighbours on Saturday in pressuring local authorities to release his apartment from lockdown, described his sadness at hearing about “secondary disasters” involving the COVID policy.
Wang was referring to incidents in China which provoked anger on social media, including a pregnant woman who miscarried after being refused entry to a Xian hospital in January, the deadly crash of a bus in Guizhou ferrying people being quarantined, and a young boy in Lanzhou who died from gas poisoning while under lockdown.
“Any of that could have happened to me or my wife,” he told Reuters.
Several Internet users showed solidarity by posting blank white squares or photos of themselves holding blank sheets of paper on their WeChat timelines or on Weibo. By Sunday morning, the hashtag “white paper exercise” was blocked on Weibo, prompting users to lament the censorship.
“If you fear a blank sheet of paper, you are weak inside,” one Weibo user posted.
Ukraine can fire thousands of artillery rounds daily, defending itself against Russian invaders. At the same time, NATO forces in Afghanistan might have fired 300 rounds a day.
That’s according to The New York Times, Ukrinform reports.
According to NATO officials, the amount of artillery being used is staggering. In Afghanistan, NATO forces might have fired even 300 artillery rounds a day and had no real worries about air defense.
But Ukraine can fire thousands of rounds daily and remains desperate for air defense against Russian missiles and Iranian-made drones.
“A day in Ukraine is a month or more in Afghanistan,” said Camille Grand, a defense expert at the European Council on Foreign Relations, who until recently was NATO’s assistant secretary general for defense investment.
A senior NATO official said that last summer in the Donbas region, the Ukrainians were firing 6,000 to 7,000 artillery rounds each day, whereas the Russians were firing 40,000 to 50,000 rounds per day. By comparison, the United States produces only 15,000 rounds each month.
The West is scrambling to find increasingly scarce Soviet-era equipment and ammunition that Ukraine can use now, including S-300 air defense missiles, T-72 tanks and especially Soviet-caliber artillery shells.
The West is also trying to come up with alternative systems, even if they are older, to substitute for shrinking stocks of expensive air-defense missiles and anti-tank Javelins.
There are even discussions about NATO investing in old factories in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria to restart the manufacturing of Soviet-caliber 152-mm and 122-mm shells for Ukraine’s still largely Soviet-era artillery armory, the report said.
According to Mark F. Cancian, a former White House weapons strategist who is now a senior adviser at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Ukrainians want at least four systems that the West has not provided and is unlikely to: long-range surface-to-surface missiles known as ATACMS that could hit Russia and Crimea; Western fighter jets; Western tanks; and a lot more advanced air defense.
The ATACMS, with a range of some 190 kilometers, or about 118 miles, will not be given for fear they could hit Russia; the tanks and fighter jets are just too complicated, requiring a year or more to train in how to use and maintain.
As for air defense, Cancian said, NATO and the United States deactivated most of their short-range air defense after the Cold War, and there is little to go around. Producing more can take up to two years.
Washington is also looking at older, cheaper alternatives like giving Ukraine anti-tank TOW missiles, which are in plentiful supply, instead of Javelins, and Hawk surface-to-air missiles instead of newer versions.
“But officials are increasingly pushing Ukraine to be more efficient and not, for example, fire a missile that costs $150,000 at a drone that costs $20,000,” the article says.
According to Cancian, it may take four to five years to increase production capability of 155-mm shells.
The post NYT: Ukraine Firing Thousands of Artillery Rounds a Day appeared first on Kyiv Post.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Luciana Medina was so nervous that she could barely sleep the night before Saturday’s match between Argentina and Mexico which could have all but knocked the soccer-mad South American country from the World Cup.
After the game, she couldn’t stop smiling.
“I’m so proud. I truly loved the match,” Medina, a 23-year-old communications student, said while wearing an Argentina jersey. “I’m so happy.”
Argentines breathed a collective sigh of relief Saturday afternoon as the country obtained a decisive 2-0 victory over Mexico dissipating doubts that had emerged about Lionel Messi’s team after the shock loss against Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. That loss had sent the country almost into a state of national mourning.
“The whole week was very sad, everyone was very aggressive as well, as if they were lost, without knowing what to do,” Medina said. “We were all very nervous.”
María del Carmen Martínez, 60, said she was “very tense” when she arrived at a plaza in Buenos Aires to watch the match on giant screens.
“I’m happy now,” the retail worker said with a smile. “It’s as if the players finally woke up.”
Manuel Gauto, 21, agreed he saw a different team on the field than the one that fell before Saudi Arabia.
“They rose to the occasion and put their hearts into it,” Gauto said. “They have another attitude now.”
The mood was completely different in Mexico City, where thousands had gathered in bars and plazas to follow the match only to be left disappointed by their team’s performance.
The coach “gave away the game,” complained Daniel Martínez minutes after the match ended. “We’re completely destroyed, but this doesn’t end here.”
There were long periods of silence in Mexico City’s Revolution Square as fans found few moments to celebrate.
“I’m crying out of emotion but also sadness,” Lupita Díaz said. “I love soccer but Mexico is failing us now.”
In Buenos Aires, the tension was almost palpable as thousands gathered on a hot summer day to watch the decisive game, and an eerie silence fell over the crowd throughout the first half as neither side obtained a goal and doubts once again crept in about the team long thought to be one of the favorites to win the World Cup.
“I went through a lot of emotions, first I was very nervous and anxious for the game to start and in the first half I saw that something was missing,” Valeria Benítez, 24, said.
All that pent up energy made the crowd explode in jubilation when Messi scored the first goal.
“The planets aligned in the second half, I thought they played well, there was a strategy that was well thought out,” Benítez said.
Karen Veliz, a 36-year-old accountant, went to watch the match with her family and friends, but found it hard to have fun at first.
“I was super, super nervous. It was only after they got the first goal that I could finally relax,” she said.
For Ariel Rivera, a 37-year-old, software developer, said that Saturday’s victory showed “there is still hope.”
“Argentina has everything that it needs to be able to win,” Rivera said. “I think we’re going to go far.”
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Associated Press writer Maria Verza contributed from Mexico City.
В России готовят новую волну “скрытой мобилизации” с 10 декабря, сообщает Генштаб ВСУ. Ранее в РФ уже были мобилизованы несколько сотен тысяч россиян dw.com/a-63904870?mac…
Published Nov. 27 at 10:14 am
Photo credit: Presidential Office.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has announced the launch of the Grain from Ukraine program, under which food will be delivered from Ukraine to the poor countries of Asia and Africa.
He announced this in Kyiv, opening the Global Food Security Summit. It is attended online and offline by President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, UN Secretary-General António Guterres, the prime ministers of Poland, Lithuania, Romania, Belgium, as well as the president of Hungary.
Zelensky said that “as part of the initiative, by the beginning of next spring, it is planned to send at least 60 ships from the ports of Ukraine to countries that are under the threat of famine and drought, all of which are in dire need of help.”
As of today, he said, “almost 50 ships have left our ports, this is 12 million tonnes of agricultural products for 40 countries of the world.” Zelensky noted that Russia is trying to “drag out the way of ships – their queue in the Bosphorus is 80 ships. We are in favor of an increase in the number of ports and the indefinite continuation of this initiative.”
International Summit on Food Security. Photo credit: Presidential Office.
Following the summit, Zelensky said a joint statement will be issued.
“We will welcome any format of participation in this program,” he said.
Zelensky also proposed the creation of “a new international institution to respond to all global threats – humanitarian, in the field of security, headquartered in Kyiv or Odesa, from where a ship will soon depart as part of the program.”
The post Zelensky Announces Launch of Grain From Ukraine Program – Kyiv Post appeared first on Ukraine Intelligence.
