Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 03-11-2024

Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia has ramped up its capabilities in the region where melting ice due to global warming looks set to open up vital shipping routes and resources.

Finnish conscript Atte Ohman readied himself aboard a US landing ship to storm a snow-swept Norwegian beach as part of a rapid response unit pushing out an invading enemy. 

“There is a saying that ‘if you want to keep the peace, you need to prepare for war,’” the 19-year-old corporal told AFP, clutching his automatic rifle.

A Ukrainian official said passengers on a bus to Poland have been detained by local protestors and police, but details remain scarce and Kyiv Post could not independently verify the incident.

Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for reconstruction, announced on social media that Polish protestors and police stopped a passenger bus from Ukraine and detained the passengers onboard.

The city of Mariupol was almost completely destroyed by Russian attacks and Kyiv says tens of thousands of civilians were killed.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday hailed Ukraine's first Oscar, awarded to a documentary about Russia's assault on the city of Mariupol, saying it showed “the truth about Russian terrorism.”

The film – “20 Days in Mariupol” – won the Best Documentary Oscar at a ceremony in Los Angeles on Sunday night, March 10.

Kubrakov's spokeswoman, Yulia Vernyhor, confirmed the statement with Kyiv Post without specifying the timeframes for flights’ resumption.

Ukraine has initiated official talks with air transportation regulators from the United States and the European Union to discuss the revival of passenger air travel in Ukraine.

Alexander Kubrakov, Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for Reconstruction and Minister for Community, Territory, and Infrastructure Development, disclosed the negotiations’ outset in an interview with RBC-Ukraine.

The world in focus, as seen by a Canadian leading global affairs analyst, writer and speaker, in his review of international media.

Portugal's centre right has claimed a narrow election victory, but has little chance of forming a majority government. Democratic Alliance leader Luís Montenegro told supporters that the Portuguese had voted for change, although the margin of victory was less than convincing. Both main parties polled about 29% of the vote. Only the far-right Chega could claim a clear-cut success. Five years after it broke into Portuguese politics, the party led by former football pundit André Ventura has secured 18% of the vote and 48 seats in the 230-seat parliament - BBC

The Associated Press, Reuters, and other top news agencies have pulled a photo of Catherine, Princess of Wales and her children from distribution after they have determined the photo has been manipulated. The source of the photo was her husband William, Prince of Wales. Kensington Palace has declined to comment - SKY News

Only a few thousand Russians paid their respects to martyred Alexei Navalny, and his family had difficulty getting a hearse, church, or cemetery to lay him to rest, the author writes.

In February 1992, I interviewed in Moscow a Canadian of Russian-Georgian descent who had opened several computer stores to cash in on Russia’s newly democratic, free, and capitalist incarnation. Instead of opportunity, he found chaos and calamity and left. “My workers lie and steal from me. A manager was murdered for her wallet,” he told me. “This country doesn’t need free enterprise. It needs a psychiatrist on every corner. For generations, these people were ordered to turn in relatives or friends who opposed the government.

They are like abused children and have the same symptoms: They don’t trust anyone and are not trustworthy themselves.” Tragically, little has changed. Russians are controlled by the Kremlin and lack enough trust to create a civil society of non-governmental organizations and institutions that can advance their collective interests independent of the State. By contrast, Ukraine had a powerful civil society.

Ukraine has scored two confirmed kills against the high value A-50U “Mainstay” airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft and may have damaged more in a recent drone raid.

An ambitious Ukrainian multiple drone strike against Russia’s military-industrial complex on Saturday penetrated Kremlin air defenses and struck an aircraft repair facility in the western Russian city of Taganrog.

The site is believed to be the location for the repair of the Beriev A-50U AEW&C (airborne early warning and control) aircraft, although it is not clear whether any were there at the time of the attack.

Sweden's accession officially happened last Thursday in Washington, where Kristersson handed over the relevant documents at the US State Department.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Monday that Sweden's accession to the US-led alliance showed Russian President Vladimir Putin had "failed" in his Ukrainian war strategy of weakening it.

The Kremlin's invasion not only prompted formerly non-aligned nations Sweden and Finland to come under NATO's defence umbrella, but now "Ukraine is closer to NATO membership than ever before," Stoltenberg said.

CNN is the latest Western media outlet to focus on how Russia’s defense industry is outstripping the ability of Ukraine and its allies to produce the weaponry needed to resist Moscow’s aggression.

CNN in its Monday “exclusive” report focuses on the numbers, saying that Russia is producing almost three times as much artillery ammunition as the combined efforts of the US and Europe in support of Kyiv.

According to an unnamed NATO intelligence official, the Kremlin is running its artillery manufacture plants “24/7.” The article suggests that the imbalance will be decisive ahead of an anticipated Russian offensive in the coming months.

The downed drone, valued at 3 million rubles, has become a trophy of the Special Operation Forces and will be further studied by Ukrainian specialists.

A sniper from the Ukrainian Special Operation Forces (SSO) successfully downed a Russian ZALA-type drone valued at 3 million rubles (approximately $33,000), according to an SSO report via Telegram.

"On one of the operational fronts, SSO operators detected an enemy UAV conducting reconnaissance in the area," the message stated.

Polish farmers have legitimate reasons for protesting. But the source of prices remaining low is largely Russia, which tries to ensure Kyiv and Brussels get blamed.

Recently there have been voices saying that support for pro-Russian powers is increasing in the EU – especially in Poland. We have all seen disturbing incidents as well as disgraceful pro-Russian banners at the farmer protests on Poland’s border with Ukraine.

But as soon as one scratches the surface, a completely different picture emerges. What we are seeing is a mass movement of Polish farmers dissatisfied with the grain price drop that occurred during the previous Polish government.

Microsoft said it is investigating ongoing hacking attempts by Midnight Blizzard, a Moscow-sponsored group also known as Nobelium, which is using compromised data to further its attempts.

Microsoft said a Moscow-sponsored hacker group “exfiltrated some emails and attached documents” and “access to some of the company’s source code repositories and internal systems” since November 2023, and it is now continuing to use that compromised information to further its hacking attempts.

The company detected the attempts in January and identified the group as Midnight Blizzard, a Russian state-sponsored actor also known as Nobelium and Cozy Bear, who is known to be associated with Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) according to a Microsft cybersecurity report on Ukraine from June 2022.

Kyiv Post sources within military intelligence said the removal of Admiral Yevmenov had been planned for a long time – “the last straw was the destruction of the Sergey Kotov.”

Kyiv Post sources in Ukraine's military intelligence service (HUR) have confirmed the that Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, has been forced to resign, an outcome that had been planned for a long time.

“The final straw was the destruction of the Sergey Kotov,” the source told the Kyiv Post when asked about the reasons for the Kremlin's decision.

This ruling marks the first instance in Ukraine where property has been confiscated due to support for Russia.

In a landmark decision in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, a court has rendered a verdict of four years in prison in absentia for 80-year-old pensioner Alla Stadnitskaya, who openly expressed support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

As reported by TSN on March 9, the court additionally ordered the confiscation of all her assets, including her apartment.

Doctors from Italy left their safe homes and hospitals to give combat medicine courses in Odesa. While there, the city was hit by drones and a missile that just missed Zelensky.

Among the many aspects of Russia’s war against Ukraine, one that receives scant attention is the world of international medical volunteers who leave their homes to come help in a war zone.

In the first week of March, four young Italian doctors from the San Matteo Hospital in Pavia came to Odesa as volunteers. The city has been continually attacked by Russian missiles and drones.

The world in focus, as seen by a Canadian leading global affairs analyst, writer and speaker, in his review of international media.

A US military ship is sailing towards the Middle East, carrying equipment to build a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza, the army says. The support ship, General Frank S Besson, set sail from a military base in the state of Virginia on Saturday. It comes after President Joe Biden said the US would build the floating harbour to help get aid into Gaza by sea. The UN has warned that famine in the Gaza Strip is "almost inevitable" and children are starving to death. The Pentagon has said it could take up to 60 days to build the pier with the help of 1,000 troops - none of whom would go ashore.

Meanwhile, an aid ship laden with some 200 tonnes of food was still waiting for clearance to set sail from a port in Cyprus on Sunday morning. It is hoped the vessel, Open Arms, will be able to depart before Monday, following an EU announcement that a new sea route would be opened over the weekend to allow aid to sail directly from Cyprus - the closest EU country to Gaza. The ship belongs to the Spanish charity of the same name, Open Arms, and the food on board has been provided by US charity World Central Kitchen - BBC

Latest from the British Defence Intelligence.

• Ukraine has almost certainly accelerated the construction of defensive positions on several areas of the front line. This includes anti-tank dragon's teeth and ditches, infantry trenches, minefields, and fortified defensive positions.

• It is highly likely the expansion of defensive lines will reduce Russia's ability to advance or exploit tactical gains as part of its ongoing offensive operations. The establishment of major defensive positions is indicative of the attritional character of the conflict and means that any attempt to conduct breaching operations will highly likely be accompanied with high losses

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The pope sparked a furore at the weekend after saying in an interview on Swiss television that one should "have the courage to raise the white flag and negotiate."

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has sharply criticised Pope Francis's call for Ukraine to negotiate with Moscow, saying she didn't "understand" his stance.

The pope sparked a furore at the weekend after saying in an interview on Swiss television that one should "have the courage to raise the white flag and negotiate", two years into Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

According to Pavel, there must be a clear distinction between deploying combat troops and possibly involving troops in some “support” activities with which NATO already has experience.

NATO troops could carry out support activities directly on Ukrainian territory as this would not violate any international rules, Czech President Petr Pavel said in an interview for Czech Television.

Pavel’s comments about further support for Ukraine during his interview on Friday came just days after he met with French President Emmanuel Macron, who recently broached the subject of sending Western troops to Ukraine.

How many Ukrainian refugees are there still in the EU.

On Jan. 31 2024, 4.3 million non-EU citizens, who fled Ukraine as a consequence of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24 2022, had temporary protection status in the EU.

The main EU countries hosting beneficiaries of temporary protection from Ukraine were Germany (1 270 150 people; 29.5% of total EU), Poland (951 560; 22.1%) and Czechia (381 190; 8.9%).

The statement comes amidst growing discussions following French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent remarks regarding the potential deployment of Western troops in Ukraine.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski stirred diplomatic waters on Friday, March 8, by saying that "NATO military personnel are already present in Ukraine."

Speaking during a conference commemorating Poland's 25th anniversary of joining the NATO alliance, Sikorski refrained from disclosing the specific countries involved but expressed gratitude to those nations for their participation.

Ukraine vows never to surrender after Pope Francis called on Kyiv to negotiate with the Kremlin, ceding territory to Moscow after Putin escalated Russia’s war in Ukraine with a full-scale invasion.

Ukraine on Sunday slammed Pope Francis’s call to negotiate with Russia two years into its full-scale invasion, vowing “never” to surrender after the pontiff said Kyiv should “have the courage to raise the white flag.”

The 87-year-old Catholic leader fueled anger in Kyiv this weekend after he said in an interview that Ukraine should negotiate with Russia, which has seized large swathes of its territory in the offensive.

A powerful documentary film chronicling the first month of the Mariupol siege wins the Oscar for best documentary. Kyiv Post spoke to its director, Mstyslav Chernov.

The Ukrainian documentary “20 Days in Mariupol” won an Oscar for best documentary film on Sunday night in Los Angeles, California.  

The documentary was shot during the Russian siege of Mariupol in the first weeks after Russia launched its full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. An estimated 50,000 Ukrainians died as a result of the siege, which lasted for months until May 2022.