According to a media report, many Russian refugees initially end up in custody in the United States. The Ukrainian first lady speaks about sexual violence in the war. US announces $323 million missile sale to Finland All current voices and developments on the Ukraine war can be found in the ticker.
More on the course of the war in Ukraine.
7:00 a.m.: They fled Russia to build a new life in safety and freedom in the United States. Instead, many war refugees in Russia initially end up in detention, as the New York Times reports. After arriving in the United States, refugees from Russia first go to reception centers – where, in many cases, an arrest warrant is issued. The reason for this: the refugees must first prove that they are entitled to asylum.
Official statistics are not released by the responsible authorities. According to the newspaper’s research, Russians in particular should only be released on bail of $30,000 in order to go through their asylum process in freedom. “Compared to people from other countries, a relatively large number of Russians end up in prison,” says lawyer Svetlana Kaff of the newspaper. The conditions in the reception centers are said to be tough. In many cases, the detention lasts six months, lawyers report.
Many refugees thought they would be welcomed into the US as pro-democracy fighters. Instead, “they treated us like garbage,” one victim told the New York Times. In addition, many reception centers in the US are run by private companies. Russian asylum seekers were at the mercy of the supervisors there. The search for lawyers and evidence to go through the asylum procedure is made even more difficult.
2:07 a.m .: The US Department of Defense has announced the planned sale of missiles worth 323 million dollars (around 319 million euros) to NATO candidate Finland. The sale will improve Finland’s “air-to-air and air-to-ground capabilities and have a positive impact on US relations with countries in the Nordic region,” the Pentagon said on Monday. A sales license for tactical missiles of the types AIM 9X and AGM-154 has been granted to Finland.
The sale will “support U.S. foreign policy and national security by enhancing the security of a trusted partner who is an important force for political stability and economic progress in Europe,” it said.
The arms sale announcement comes more than nine months after Russia invaded Ukraine. The Russian war of aggression had prompted both Finland and Sweden to break with their decades-long tradition of military alliance neutrality and to apply for NATO membership.
Tuesday, 2 a.m.: With a view to the meeting of the G7 justice ministers in Berlin, the Ukrainian head of department Denys Maljuska reiterated his country’s demand to ask Russia to pay for war damage. He relies on the support of the group of seven economically strong democracies.
“Russia must pay the Ukrainian people for the damage they caused in this war,” Maljuska told Funke media group newspapers. “Russia has to pay reparations, as we have seen in other regions in past wars.” Damage of 150 billion dollars is assumed, “which does not include the economic damage and the costs for the injured and war victims and their families does not include,” said the Minister of Justice of Ukraine.
He called for a “compensation mechanism” whereby Russian funds that are in European accounts and frozen as part of the sanctions are to be transferred to Ukraine. “This would put pressure on the Russian elite in this war. And this would help Ukraine to rebuild the country after the Russian invasion,” Malyuska argued.
7:20 p.m .: The Ukrainian first lady Olena Selenska has called for a “global response” to the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. “Everyone knows about the large number of rapes” by Russian soldiers in the Ukraine war, she told a British government-sponsored conference on sexual violence in conflict in London on Monday. The Russian soldiers “are very open about it”.
Sexual violence and sex crimes are now part of the Russian troops’ “arsenal” to “humiliate the Ukrainians,” Zelenska added. The Ukrainian public prosecutor’s office is investigating more than a hundred such alleged crimes, but the actual number is significantly higher. However, those affected often shy away from making the crimes public, said the President’s wife. They are afraid of being stigmatized or that the perpetrators will return.
“Therefore, it is extremely important to recognize this as a war crime and to hold all perpetrators accountable,” she said. “There has to be a global answer to this. Unfortunately, as long as soldiers believe they can go unpunished, war crimes like this will continue to happen.”
Representatives from around 70 countries took part in the conference “Initiative to Prevent Sexual Violence in Conflicts”. In a message to the conference participants, Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie also called for “a decisive global response” to such attacks. Otherwise, “it will send a signal to both the victims and the perpetrators that we don’t really see this as a significant crime that needs to be punished and prevented,” she said.
9:55 a.m .: The US is considering whether to supply Ukraine. At least that’s what insiders from industry circles say. Accordingly, Boeing could provide the small, cheap precision bombs from next spring. The range of the GLSDB system is 150 kilometers and could help the Ukrainians hit targets far into Russian-held territory. The GLSDB combine the GBU-39 bomb with M26 missiles.
However, the insiders also state that this delivery schedule is only one of six possibilities. So far, the United States has been supplying the Ukrainians with the Himar missile system, which is hitting the Russians hard.
6:29 a.m .: Former Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) has again defended her policy towards Russia and Ukraine in a large “Spiegel” interview. She “no longer had the strength to assert myself, because everyone knew: It will be gone in the fall,” she explained to the news magazine. In terms of power politics, she was through, Putin mediated her, said Merkel. The statement is bitter for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s adviser. “Why do people say today that at the end of the chancellorship they realized that Putin only understands power?” Mykhailo Podolyak told the “Bild”. “Wasn’t that clear?”
For him, Merkel’s statements are just excuses, after all, she was chancellor for a long time. She should have recognized Putin’s will to go to war years ago. Merkel is trying to “pray away her sins, but that won’t work,” said Podolyak. History will “show exactly” who helped make the “existence of Putin’s regime” possible.
05:10: From the recently liberated regional capital Kherson in the south, further progress was reported in the power supply, which was almost completely destroyed under Russian occupation. In the meantime, around 17 percent of households have been connected to the electricity grid again, said regional governor Yaroslav Yanuschevych. The deputy head of the presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, published a photo taken in the dark on Telegram, which shows individual illuminated house windows.
After several months under Russian occupation, the Ukrainian army recaptured the city of Cherson and other places in the region of the same name in mid-November. Since then, the city, which once had a population of 300,000, has not only been exposed to fierce Russian attacks, but has also been struggling with massive energy supply problems. In view of the difficult situation, the Ukrainian government started driving civilians to other parts of the country to spend the winter a few days ago.
Monday, November 28, 05:05: The Ukrainian army is preparing to repel further shelling, Zelenskyy said. “Russia is trying to use the cold against people this winter,” he said, referring to Moscow’s targeted attacks on Ukrainian power and thermal power plants. The head of state called on the Ukrainians to give special support to those in need during the cold season. Now cohesion is required. “Together we will get through anything.”
More than nine months after the start of the Russian war of aggression, particularly fierce fighting is raging in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk. In freezing temperatures, many Ukrainian households are temporarily or even completely without heating, electricity and water.
1:50 p.m .: After the unexplained death of the Belarusian Foreign Minister, the suspicion arises that there is more to Makej’s death than just a tragic accident. According to Anton Gerashenko, adviser to the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Gerashenko, there are already some rumors that he has been poisoned. Background: Vladimir Makej was considered a possible successor to Lukashenko – and was not under Russian influence. But one sentence suggests something else behind the rumors. According to Gerashenko, the alleged murder of Makej was a “pointer” to Lukashenko.
Even before Makej’s death, the US think tank Robert Lansing Institute for Global Threats reported on the Kremlin’s possible plan. Citing sources close to the Russian military leadership, it was said that Putin had had enough of Belarusian President Lukashenko and had decided to take a radical step to force Belarus into the war against Ukraine.
Accordingly, in the coming days, the Russian military intelligence service (GRU) could try to either kill Lukashenko in an assassination attempt or imitate an assassination attempt to intimidate the Belarusian president. That should encourage him to order his troops to join the Russian army, according to US think tank sources.
If Lukashenko survived and gave in to Putin’s will to go to war, he would be de facto disempowered and part of the Kremlin’s puppet show, according to the analysis by the US factory. Should he die in the assassination, the pro-Russian OKVS Secretary General Stanislav Zas would immediately take his place. It doesn’t matter whether Lukashenko dies in the scenario or not – the USA and NATO should be held responsible.
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