American fighter receives Ukrainian honor from Zelensky

Suspicious packages continue to be sent to Ukrainian diplomatic missions abroad, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a Facebook post on Wednesday. 

“Over the past two days, suspicious packages have been received at the embassies in Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Denmark, as well as the consulate in Gdansk,” said Kuleba. 

According to Kuleba, this brings the total number of threats to 31 cases across 15 countries: Austria (1), Croatia (1), Czech Republic (2), Denmark (1), France (1), Hungary (2), Italy (4), Kazakhstan (1), Netherlands (1), Poland (6), Portugal (2), Romania (2), Spain (5), Vatican (1), and the United States (1).

Some of the packages have included the eyes of animals and others crude explosive charges, he noted.

Kuleba went on to say that all the suspicious packages display the same alleged “sender’s address,” which is a “car dealership in the German town of Sindelfingen.” There is no evidence that the address had anything to do with the packages.

The packages were usually sent from post offices that weren’t equipped with video surveillance systems, and the “attackers” had also avoided leaving traces of DNA, according to Kuleba’s Facebook post.

“This, in particular, indicates the professional level of this action,” he said. “For a week now, Ukrainian embassies and consulates have been operating in the mode of enhanced security measures, police cordons… and forensic experts.”

“The ongoing campaign of terror against Ukrainian diplomats is unprecedented in its scale not only in the context of Ukraine but also at the global level,” said Kuleba. “I do not recall cases in history when so many embassies and consulates of one country were subjected to such massive attacks in such a short period of time. But no matter how hard the enemies try to intimidate the Ukrainian diplomacy, they will fail. We continue to work for victory.”

Belarus, Russia’s closest ally, announced that it is moving troops and military equipment, citing “counter-terrorism threats,” according to state news agency BelTA. 

The announcement comes amid heightened tension along Ukraine’s northern border with Belarus, which was used as a platform by Russian troops during the invasion in February. 

“During this period, it is planned to move military equipment and personnel of the national security forces, temporarily restrict the movement of citizens (transport) along certain public roads and areas of the terrain, and use imitation weapons for training purposes,” BelTA reported, citing Belarus’ Security Council. 

Belarus has also announced the beginning of military drills in line with “the autumn conscription campaign for new recruits to receive basic military training.”

Over the weekend, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Belarus and met with President Alexander Lukashenko — which Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the Office of President of Ukraine, said “will be added to the indictment’s materials as a distribution of criminal roles.”

Belarusian troops have not taken part in the conflict, a position reiterated by Lukashenko in October.

A Moscow court has postponed a sentencing hearing for the jailed Kremlin critic Ilya Yashin, who is accused of spreading fake news about the Russian army, until Friday, according to a post on Yashin’s official Telegram account.

“The announcement of the verdict was postponed to Friday, December 9, at 12:00 PM Moscow time in the Meshchansky court,” the post said.

Yashin, a prominent opposition leader and former municipal deputy, has been accused of spreading fake information about the Russian army and faces up to nine years in prison. 

Russian investigators say his statements about the killings of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha by Russian forces are a criminal offense under recently introduced Russian legislation, which considers discrediting the Russian armed forces as illegal. 

In a closing statement on Monday, also posted on his Telegram account, Yashin made a statement addressing the judge, President Vladimir Putin and the Russian public:

Yashin, also a close ally of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, came to prominence during the protests between 2011 and 2012, which he helped organize against Putin’s re-election for the third term and unfair elections.

Yashin remained a fierce Putin critic for years and served as a municipal deputy in small Moscow municipality before being barred from running for a public office again.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that he had discussed Ukrainian shelling of settlements in the eastern Donbas region with the Russian-appointed head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin.

“Denis Pushilin called me. Indeed, the strikes are directly hitting the residential areas, no one can be unaware of this, but everyone is silent. As if nothing is happening,” said Putin at a meeting with members of the Council on the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights.

Putin also said that not all students chose to demobilize after authorities announced the demobilization of students in the region, which encompasses the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

“But I must say that not all students of Donbas took advantage of this right to demobilization,” he added.

In late September, Moscow declared it was annexing the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as Russian territory — which is illegal under international law — after holding so-called referendums in the regions that were universally dismissed as “shams” by Ukraine and Western nations.

Local authorities in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region have reported frequent shelling of the city this week, in which several people have been killed and injured.

Russia is looking to temporarily “freeze” the conflict in Ukraine in order to “regroup and then launch a bigger offensive,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday.

Speaking at an event hosted by the Financial Times, Stoltenberg said it was Russia’s intention “to try to have a kind of short break or a short freeze of the conflict so Russia can recover their troops, regroup and then launch a bigger offensive later on, because now Ukraine has the momentum.” 

Stoltenberg said last week that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “failing in Ukraine,” pointing to Ukraine’s success in pushing Russian forces out of territories around Kyiv and Kharkiv, as well as the liberation of Kherson city, which he said was a sign of Russia’s “weakness.”

In an undisclosed location near the Russian border, many newly released Ukrainian prisoners of war were able to speak with their families for the first time in months.

Most of the group is from Mariupol, the southern port city that Ukrainian and Russian troops fiercely fought over — and the soldiers bear both physical and emotional scars, CNN’s Will Ripley reported.

One of two rescued women, a radio intelligence operator, became emotional when she told Ripley that she was subjected to lies from the Russians and forced to pledge loyalty to Russia. Another woman’s 6-year-old child and husband are still in occupied Mariupol, and she has no way of contacting them, she said.

Watch his report here:

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia will continue the “fight for its national interests” by “all means available” if necessary.

“We will proceed from what we have. There can be only one answer from our side — a consistent fight for our national interests. We will continue to do so and let no one count on anything else … First of all, of course, we will focus on peaceful means. But if nothing else remains, then we will defend ourselves with all available means at our disposal,” he said at the Kremlin.

Out of the 300,000 men called up for the partial mobilization, 150,000 are currently in Ukraine, he told a meeting of Russia’s Human Rights Council. “Among them only 77,000 are in combat units, while the rest are in the territorial defense forces or receive additional training,” Putin said.

An additional mobilization does “not make sense” currently, he added, saying there is no need for it from the state of the defense ministry.

Putin also promised to resolve the issue of the equipment shortages for Russian troops in Ukraine.

According to Putin, the so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine is a “long process,” but he described the emergence of new territories and the Sea of Azov as part of the Russian Federation as a “significant result.”

The White House sought to distance the US Wednesday from recent reported Ukrainian attacks on Russia, saying that the US will “respect” Ukraine’s decisions on the battlefield but has not encouraged escalation.

National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby deferred to Ukraine for confirmation of who was responsible for recent reported strikes on Russia, but said the US has neither “encouraged” nor “enabled” any such attacks.

“We are providing them information to help them defend themselves. We certainly are providing them resources and material weapons to defend themselves. But they make their own decisions. And the whole idea, the whole principle behind this war is one of sovereignty and unlike the Russians, we respect Ukrainian sovereignty. When we give them a weapons system, it belongs to them, where they use it, how they use it, how much ammunition they use, to use in that system, those are, those are Ukrainian decisions and we respect that,” he added.

But any escalation outside of Ukraine’s borders, he said, is “not good” for US national security interests.

“We have clearly had conversations with [Ukraine] about accountability on weapons systems. We certainly have made it very clear our concerns about escalation. But in the end, these are Ukrainian decisions that they have to make and that they have to speak to one way or the other,” he told CNN.

A priest accused of leaking information about the positions of Ukrainian troops to Russia has been sentenced to 12 years in prison, according to the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU).

The SBU said the rector of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the city of Lysychansk “passed to the occupiers information about the combat positions of Ukrainian troops in the city, as well as in the area of Severodonetsk” in the Luhansk region. 

The SBU said the priest had also “informed” the Russians about locals who could potentially resist the occupation.

The priest was detained in April, two months before Lysychansk fell to Russian forces.

The SBU said the priest had been recruited by Russia during a visit there in 2014 and had since been in constant contact with a leader of the separatist self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic.

The SBU also said it had collected evidence against two other Russian informants in the same region, including a second priest in Luhansk.

It alleged that two Ukrainians had been kidnapped after he provided the Russians with information. The SBU said the priest was currently in occupied territory.

Some background: The Ukrainian government has begun taking action against some Orthodox Church premises and priests and proposed a new law that would ban the operation of religious organizations “affiliated with centers of influence” in Russia.

The SBU raided a historic Orthodox Christian monastery in Kyiv, the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, on Nov.r 22 as part of an effort to counter suspected “subversive activities” of Russia’s special services.

“All bodies responsible for ensuring national security must intensify measures to identify and counter the subversive activities of Russian special services in the religious environment of Ukraine. And apply personal sanctions — the surnames will be made public soon,” Zelensky said.

In May, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church officially broke allegiance with the Russian Orthodox Church and its leader Patriarch Kirill over the war.