WASHINGTON/KHERSON, Ukraine, Dec 2 – The presidents of the United States, France, and the European Union pledged to hold Russia accountable for its actions in Ukraine, and the EU reached a provisional agreement on a cap on oil prices to reduce Moscow’s export revenues.
As winter has arrived nine months into Russia’s invasion, Western powers are attempting to mobilize support for Ukraine, which is suffering from missile and drone attacks that target the city’s power, water, and heating systems.
In the meantime, Russia claimed that NATO and the United States had a direct hand in the conflict and that Kyiv had become an existential threat to Moscow that it could not ignore. According to diplomats, the European Union tentatively agreed on a $60 per barrel price cap on Russian seaborne oil on Thursday to cut down on the funds available for Moscow’s war effort.
In a joint statement following talks in the Oval Office on Thursday, U.S. President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron expressed their commitment to holding Russia accountable for widely documented atrocities and war crimes committed by its regular armed forces and by its proxies in Ukraine.
According to Biden, Washington and Paris are defending democratic values and universal human rights as they “face down Vladimir Putin’s grasping ambition for conquest.”
Putin hasn’t done that yet, Biden added, adding that he was ready to speak with Putin if there is an interest in him deciding he’s looking for a way to end the war. Macron declared that he would keep speaking with Putin to avert escalation and obtain specific outcomes, such as the security of nuclear power plants.
UKRAINE’S CASUALTIES
There are no active political negotiations to end the conflict, which Russia declared as a special military operation on February 24 with the stated objectives of disarming its neighbor and eliminating nationalist leaders.
Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have been killed in what the West and
Ukraine refer to as an imperialist land grab.
According to presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian television network, the military of Ukraine has already lost between 10,000 and 13,000 soldiers.
Because the Ukrainian people are so brave, we will never press them to reach a compromise that will be unacceptable to them, Macron said in Washington.
In a video posted on Thursday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy noted that December 1 marked the anniversary of a referendum that took place 31 years ago when Ukraine was still a part of the Soviet Union and overwhelmingly favored independence.
We won’t let go of our desire to live without restrictions. According to Zelenskiy, Ukrainians will never again be a minor cog in an emperor’s wheel.
ATTACKS ON INFRASTRUCTURE
The stakes have risen in weeks as Russia stepped up its campaign to disrupt the supply of heat, water, and electricity to Ukrainian cities. According to the West and Ukraine, the tactic is intended to harm civilians, which is a war crime.
Vitaliy Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, advised citizens to prepare water, food, and warm clothing in case of a total blackout and suggested, if possible, that people stay with friends outside the city.
According to IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva, the attacks on infrastructure are likely to cost up to 1 billion $ more per month to keep Ukraine’s economy running in the coming year, necessitating “front-loading” of aid.
According to a statement released by the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on Thursday night, Russian artillery shelled Kherson, the regional capital of southern Ukraine.
After leaving Kherson in November, Russian forces are attempting to set up defensive positions and are shelling several towns to the north of Kherson, according to the statement.
During a yearly news conference in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov defended recent missile strikes, claiming they were directed at Ukraine’s civil infrastructure to stop Kyiv from importing Western weapons. He made no mention of how such assaults might succeed in their goal.
According to Lavrov, we shut down the energy facilities in Ukraine that the West uses to send deadly weapons into the country to kill Russians.
Therefore, stop saying that NATO and the United States are not involved in this war because you are.
PRISONER SWAP
Russia’s Defense Ministry and the head of the Ukrainian presidential administration announced on Thursday that 50 service members were exchanged between the two nations, showing that some channels of communication are still open.
Russia has concentrated its firepower on a portion of the front line in the east close to the city of Bakhmut after retreating in the south in November. According to a military statement from Ukraine on Thursday night, Russian forces shelled about a dozen nearby towns, including Bakhmut and Soledar close by, and further north near Sporniy and Bilohorivka.
