In an intelligence update on Saturday, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said that on Wednesday Russia conducted the “biggest single-day debt issue ever”.
According to the ministry, the issue “is a key mechanism for maintaining defense spending, which has increased significantly since the invasion of Ukraine.”
According to information published on Twitter, the issue raised $13.6 billion.
Russia has announced a 2023 defense budget of around $84 billion, more than 40% more than the original 2023 budget announced in 2021.
The latest events in Ukraine: November 19
“The size of this auction,” the Defense Ministry said, “highly suggests that the Russian Ministry of Finance considers current conditions relatively favorable, but expects an increasingly uncertain financial situation next year.”
The Ukrainian authorities in the capital, Kyiv, are warning of a “complete blackout” as the country has reached sub-zero temperatures.
In an interview with the Associated Press agency, the mayor of the city, Vitaliy Klitschko, said that the authorities are trying to restore the city’s power grid.
Russian airstrikes have caused serious damage to the energy system of the Ukrainian capital, while they continue to hit Ukraine in different parts of the country – from Kyiv in the north to Odessa in the south – destroying almost half of Ukraine’s energy system, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis said. Shmygal.
“Unfortunately, Russia continues to launch missile strikes against Ukraine’s civilian critical infrastructure, targeting the civilian population and depriving them of light, water, heat and communications during the winter.” He spoke during negotiations with the vice-president of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, in Kyiv.
The Prime Minister of Ukraine added that “on November 15, Russia fired about 100 rockets at the cities of Ukraine. Almost half of our power systems have failed.”
In conditions of frost, difficulties with energy supply persist in 17 regions of Ukraine, as well as in the capital, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday in his nightly video address.
He said power companies were working throughout the day on Friday to restore power, and said emergency outages were already far fewer. According to him, “stabilization hourly schedules were in effect” in the areas where blackouts continue.
Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Volga Stefanyshyn said on Friday that Russia’s tactics of cutting off electricity, water and gas supplies are “massively demoralizing the civilian population.”
The executive director of the state utility operator “Ukrenergo” Uladzimir Kudrytskyi said on Ukrainian state television: “We need to prepare for possible long-term outages, but at the moment we are introducing planned schedules and will do everything to ensure that there are no outages. for a very long time.”
The United Nations agency has said it fears a humanitarian crisis this winter if the blackouts continue.
People walk in the snow in the center of Kyiv, Ukraine, on November 18, 2022.
On Friday, Zelenskiy also met Dombrovskis in Kyiv and thanked him for the planned EU financial aid program of more than $18.5 billion in 2023.
Zelensky also spoke in a recorded message on Friday at the annual Halifax International Security Forum, which brings together defense and security officials from Western democracies.
“Russia is now looking for a short truce, a respite to regain strength… such a respite will only worsen the situation,” he said.
“Truly real and long-lasting peace can only come as a result of the complete destruction of Russian aggression,” Zelensky added.
Hundreds of detainees, missing in Kherson
A report by Yale University, supported by the US State Department, shows that 226 people were detained or disappeared between March and October during the Russian occupation of Kherson.
The Conflict Observatory, a research program at Yale University supported by the US State Department, released an independent report on Friday. It describes numerous cases of unjust detentions and disappearances in Kherson. “Russia must halt these operations and withdraw its forces to end an unnecessary war it cannot and will not win — no matter how vile and desperate the tactics,” the State Department said in a statement Friday.
In the liberated areas of the Kherson region, investigators found 63 bodies with traces of torture, said the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Denis Monastyrskyi.
The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Ukrainian Parliament, Dmitrii Lubinets, published a video of the torture chamber used by Russian troops in the Kherson region.
Lubinets said that the Russians tortured Ukrainians with electric current, broke their bones, beat them with metal pipes and killed them. He noted that the captors filmed all their crimes.
Reuters was unable to verify the claims made by Lubintz and others in the video. Russia denies that its troops deliberately attacked civilians or committed atrocities.
Meanwhile, Russia said on Friday that Ukrainian soldiers executed more than 10 Russian prisoners of war, accusing Kyiv of war crimes and the West of ignoring them.
The Ministry of Defense of Russia referred to a video circulated on Russian social networks, which allegedly showed the execution of Russian prisoners of war. Reuters could not immediately verify the video or the defense ministry’s claims.
Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse, Reuters and The Associated Press.
