As Russian missile strikes have decimated Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Monday that Kyiv needs $1 billion to restore its power grid and heating systems.
“The approximate cost of urgent help for the power sector stands at $500 million,” Shmyahl told the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, according to Reuters. “The approximate cost of urgent help for the centralized heating sector stands at a further $500 million.”
Shmyhal said that Russian strikes have damaged half of Ukraine’s infrastructure facilities. On Saturday, Russia took out energy facilities in Odesa, and Ukrainian officials said the strikes left over 1.5 million people without electricity.
The US has been trying to rally its allies to give Ukraine more aid to help repair its energy infrastructure but has raised nothing near what Shmyhal is asking for. Even if Ukraine did acquire the $1 billion, it would likely still take months to repair the power grid, and Russian strikes will likely persist as Ukraine is increasing attacks inside Russian territory.
Russia didn’t start launching large-scale attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure until after the truck bombing of the Crimean bridge in October. Last week, drone attacks hit several air bases inside Russian territory, including targets hundreds of miles away from the Ukrainian border.
The Russian strikes have left Ukrainian civilians in a dire situation, as many are without power and heat amid freezing temperatures, and there’s no relief in sight as there’s little hope for peace talks. Ukrainian officials maintain their conditions for talks are for Russia to withdraw from the territory it has captured, which is a non-starter for Moscow.
The US and NATO continue to pledge support for Ukraine for “as long as it takes,” and the Pentagon reportedly now supports Ukrainian attacks inside Russia, which will lead to further escalation.
Utter cruelty, calousness “for as long as it takes…” as bureaucrats in US and elsewhere sit back in their ergonomic chairs, lift a mouse, send off an email of regret.
Nah, they’re scrolling through their defense stock values.
Whenever someone says that population centers in Ukraine have been left without power or heat, there ought to be mention of the duration. It’s a crisis to be entirely without power for the winter months. But people can get by without power for a few days, or several hours every day.
Something else I’ve been seeing from various media are reports of “below zero” temperatures that don’t mention that “zero” over there is 32 degrees over here.
Repair (partially) time is from fairly short to 3 weeks, but that is if there are spare parts and people to do the job. This is at least part of the reason behind the ‘low’ frequency of the Russian strikes.
If I have understood it correctly it is the spare parts situation which is the worst. Meaning that some of these ‘things’ are only being produced very slowly and ramping up production is not easily done.
So for a while the Ukrainians may cope somewhat with the deliveries of compatible units from western countries but that is as I understand it a very shallow pool of ‘spares’ – after that they will have to rely on alternate power sources or population relocation.
The US making piles of dough ruining a country it destroyed is not anything.new.What follows is more money being made in reconstruction.Win win.for.the US but.misery for the peoples whose land and culture we destroy See Iraq and.Afganistan.Rince and repeat.
somebody is making piles of dough, (Bomb-Mart) but uncle sam is writing the checks which US tax-payers will ultimately pay. i am sure that the bills for invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan are still unpaid and overdue.
freezing is freezing whether you call it zero or 32
Is there anyway to negotiate a Peace?…
Unfortunately Donna…there doesn’t seem to be anytime soon.
I fear that “peace” negotiations won’t happen until one side or the other uses the N- option.
Perhaps not even then.
It’s a little early for cartoons, particularly as it articulates to radiological effects on humans.
Between the impending global financial collapse and a mutual nuclear exchange, there’s no better time for a reality check.
Well , heck, just ask senile Uncle Joe for an extra billion or so! He’s already got pen in hand ready to write another check.
Not that he knows what he’s doing. The Blinkin’ Idiot is guiding that hand every step of the way.
The Neocon truism is, the war isn’t lost if our proxies are still fighting and the money is still flowing to Kiev.
After the US’ Afghanistan defeat and withdrawal, I never heard Joe Biden admit defeat. Various US intelligence agencies operate there as they do in 190-plus countries.
That’s nice. Remember how Puerto Rico was without power for 18 months?
I got your point but to be accurate, certain areas of Puerto Rico were without power for 18 months, not the entire Island. Most areas restored power within first 2-6 months post Hurricane.
Not all of Ukraine is without power, but these demands will be shipped.
We are muscling this along in order to make mucho dinero for the MIC. Another casualty are the seven clerics in Ukraine. There have been raids on the churches, sanctions against the clerics, and now Z has ordered the seizing of the assets of the clerics. This, according to The American Conservative. Let’s see, no opposition, shutting down of media sources, sanction against a church that a vast majority of Ukraine citizens belong to, raids on churches, sanctions against clerics, taking of assets of clerics. Next may be the destruction of the church buildings. Smells like fascism to me.
“sanction against a church that a vast majority of Ukraine citizens belong to”
15% isn’t a majority at all, let alone a “vast” one.
Just picked up that term from an article in The American Conservative. Whether 15%, or 1%, do you think it is right?
My guess is that most in the US would have no problems with sanctions and raids on ‘churches’ of the Wahhabism/Salafism variant – especially not if they would find material preaching attacking or subverting the US society.
Oh yes! You may add to your argument that ADL has now absolved Ukrainian Nazi battalions from “Nazi” label. Just patriots, like the ordinary Germans in WWII.
“Churches” you are refering to in Ukraine go back to 900s when Russian Prince Vladimir accepted Christianity on Crimea, and ruled from his capital Kiev.
Of course Zelenski has to obliteate traces of anything Russian. He has been and remains hater of anything Russian, so has no problem banding up with West Ukrainnian Catholics in the common goal.
What is your evidence that Ukraine has Nazi battalions – I mean we know that there are individuals in the Azov battalion who think they are Nazi’s like there are in the Wagner group – but in both cases I have my doubts that they are actually Nazi as opposed to white supremacists or ultra nationalists.
Like do they believe that they are supposed to be serfs to the Aryan master race of Germanic/Nordic people? Do they believe that people of the Abrahamic faith are conspiring to ruin their countries?
I know that, but only in the last years did the Russian orthodox church begin to preach what sounds an awful lot like approval of the holy war against Ukraine that we hear the Russians debate in state tv.
Again -what is your evidence? He speaks Russian and he is of Russian ethnicity so…
“My guess is that most in the US would have no problems with sanctions and raids on ‘churches’ of the Wahhabism/Salafism variant – especially not if they would find material preaching attacking or subverting the US society.”
That might be the case, but it’s not an equivalent situation.
An equivalent situation would be if the United Kingdom declared war on the US, the Archbishop of Canterbury went all-in supporting the war, and the Church of England (as opposed to other churches of the Anglican Communion) maintained personnel/facilities in the US who/that were plausibly suspected of supporting the British war effort with e.g. intelligence.
The Ukrainian regime is suppressing one particular organization (the church affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate), not a religion (there are Orthodox Christians and churches not affiliated with the organization being suppressed, which is in fact the minority organization of its kind in Ukraine).
Of course, one could still argue that that’s a bad or evil thing, but it’s a very specific thing.
Yes that would be a better parallel.
Again you put it much better here than I did.
My guess is that kind of rationale is used prior to genocides in the past.
You could be right but likely from the side you seem to be ‘defending’:
and:
Whether or not it’s a crime, I think it’s a blunder.
Let’s suppose, just for the sake of argument, that the official apparatus of the Orthodox churches aligned with the Moscow Patriarchate are in fact acting as an arm of the Russian state — providing intelligence to Moscow, perhaps, or even harboring infiltrating saboteurs and such.
If I was the Ukrainian military, intelligence, or police official in charge of doing something about that, that thing would be “keep a VERY close eye on key personnel and known facilities, set up Stingray fake cell towers, etc. to intercept transmissions, look for people within the apparatus who might be fed disinformation or even turned to knowingly feed disinformation up their chains of command, and generally turn their efforts against us into ways of gathering good intel ourselves and feeding bad intel to them. If there has to be a raid — for example, if a Russian commando team is known to be hiding at a monastery and preparing for an attack — get it done but keep it as quiet as possible.”
For whatever reason, the Ukrainian regime has chosen instead to turn the whole thing into a PR exercise with Russian Orthodoxy (Moscow Patriarchate) as a scapegoat. I’m not sure who all that will play well with, but my impression is that it is playing badly not just with various Orthodox Christians, but with Christians in general and with supporters of freedom of religion regardless of their personal religions.
Here’s an interesting podcast in which an American adherent of Orthodox Christianity lays out why the whole thing is pretty explosive.
Also, seizing the property of several churches doesn’t make sense if the goal is to discipline a few clerics.
That was “democracy” at work or so some would claim. Remember, it’s “democracy” vs. “autocracy”, per the warmongers.
And you know it how? I see your math. 15% Russians means 15% attending Rusdian Orthodox Church. Really?
In spite of Ukraine creating its own Ukrainian Orthodox Church by simply stealing Churches and monasteries from Russian Orthidox Church — the attendance if this new state created religion is not great. The people attending are those that are afraid for their jobs and must show loyalty to the state. The rest of the populace attended traditional Orthodox Church. I would generously estimate the attendance of new religion at 15%. The rest of Orthodox attended by far more wide spread hundreds of years old traditional churches. Zelenski is just appropriating more churches into his Ukrainian version and scare people into abandoning their old Church.
Total Orthodox population is 75%. This includes all Russian speaking Ukrainians, ethnic Russians, Bulgarians, Romanians, Greeks and Georgians.
The targeted Churches are all in Ukrainian majority areas, not in the 15% area that is mistly outside Kiev control. It is simply a continuation of exterminating any trace of Russian culture, religion as well as population.
Zelenski friendly death squads are doing a good job in the fog of war. Now we have ADL redefining Ukrainian Nazi battalions incorporated into Ukrainian army as “not Nazis.”. Patriots they are, indeed!
Our definition of good and evil is — depending. At present, Russian people in Ukrain are an obstacle to happy NATO family. To that end we can overlook the inconvenient, be deaf to cries of innocents, be blind to state organized oppression.
Even our cherished freedom of religion has to go. For the greater good, no doubt.
Agreed. “The majority” is often in the eye of the beholder on the day the statement is made. Unless there is a definition of the areas or groups are being measured, the term “majority” means nothing at all in Ukraine.
They need to be told to “go take a hike”.
Yet another excuse to approve money for “Ukraine”. Who knows where is it really going. Fog of war is a gold mine for some. Especially politicians whose coffers will swell with contributions from the grateful MIC.
Wow. I guess Soviet gear is really expensive.
https://russian.rt.com/ussr/news/1085483-pushilin-kiev-porazhenie
Pushilin: strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities bring Kyiv’s defeat closer
I believe Zelensky is intentionally underestimating Ukraine’s energy capacity at 50 percent. I suggest it’s closer to 30 percent viability.
Nevermind the Ukrainian and Donbass civilians’ suffering, let’s all continue this nonsense and shed more blood over stupid lines on maps.
Quickly rebuild – and quickly get blown up again.
“For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”
Between doing the bidding of US, UK, and NATO, plus Ukrainian’s recent attacks inside of Russia, the phrase seems appropriate.
A whirlwind is about to grind Ukraine into dust and sweep it into the dustbin of history.
Temperatures in most of Ukraine are below freezing and General Winter is knocking on the door along with General Sergei Surovikin, nicknamed “General Armageddon”.
If you want first hand weather information on weather conditions in Ukraine it is available on Windy.com. Airport code UKBB will give current weather and forecast for the Kiev airport. https://www.windy.com/UKBB?temp,2022121315,48.706,27.378,6
General winter works for the better prepared of the fighting parties – do you really think that is the Russians?
The American army troops in Iraq and Afghanistan had to invent “hillbilly armor” for their Humvees. Knee pads are a recent addition to a soldiers kit. American military issued kit is also substandard and that is why after market boots, jackets and knives are sold in quantity.
The Russian army is learning and adapting as all armies do to a changing battlefield.
Very soon the Russian army will sweep through Ukraine. The Zelensky fascists are losing 10,000 to 15,000 troops a month KIA. Ukraine is on it’s last legs unless NATO escalates into World War 3.
I’m not saying that they cannot learn, but that they have issues supplying their troops – this is not a thing they should have to learn – but if you think they are well prepared and more importantly supplied in spite of the wealth of evidence that they are not – I guess we will have to wait a bit more to see.
Aftermarket boots and knives aren’t some new development in US “kit.” I spent more than $100 (pretty big money at the time) on a pair of aftermarket combat boots in the early 1990s, and most Marines bought themselves the previous version of the Ka-Bar fighting knife in preference to the inferior 1980s/1990s issue version.