UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham and other European leaders have reiterated their solidarity with the Ukrainian president and agreed that the suspension of elections in Ukraine is permissible due to wartime conditions. On Sunday, Mr Zelenskyy offered to hold elections if Russia agreed to a 60-day ceasefire, something Russia promptly refused.
UKRAINE HAS DEALT REAL DAMAGE
After more than four years of its full-scale invasion, Russia’s leadership may be sensing its best chance to coerce Ukraine into concessions is coming in the next few months.
As Ukraine heads closer into yet another bitter winter, Russia is focusing its coercive military strategy on plunging Ukrainian cities into darkness, forcing rolling power cuts, and making life harrowing for citizens who face regular air strikes.
Ukraine officially continues to reject a deal to end the war on Mr Putin’s terms. There is some credence to this optimism, based on its ability to successfully defend its front line in the Donbas while continuing to launch strikes against targets in Russia.
This week, Ukraine launched drone attacks against Russian tech giant Yandex’s data centres, mirroring Kremlin’s own target choices in its prior attacks. The strikes on Yandex have caused some data outages and digital service disruptions in Russia. Kyiv has suggested this hampered Russia’s online propaganda efforts, though disinformation experts don’t believe there has been much impact.
But by far the biggest damage caused by Ukraine have been in its attacks on Russian refineries. In a rare admission, Mr Putin admitted that Russia has lost about 1 per cent of GDP because of these Ukrainian attacks.
