Weekly megathread for news/updates/discussion of Russian invasion of Ukraine - December 1

One guess as to who's finally in Brussels.

Germany declares Ukraine's Holodomor famine a genocide (DW)

German lawmakers on Wednesday passed a resolution declaring the starvation of millions of Ukrainians under Soviet leader Josef Stalin a genocide.

The resolution said Holodomor, as it is known in Ukraine, constitutes a "crime against humanity."

"The political leadership of the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin was responsible for them," said the text.

The three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's governing coalition, the Social Democrats, Greens and the Free Democrats as well as the main opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) and allied conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) all voted in favor of the resolution in the Bundestag.

Green Party lawmaker Robin Wagener told parliament, "the killing by hunger also had as its aim the political repression of Ukrainian national identity, Ukrainian culture and language." He said that "the parallels with today are unmissable,'' a point echoed by other speakers nine months into Russia's war in Ukraine.

"Russia's current war of aggression against Ukraine stands in this historical tradition,'' said conservative lawmaker Volker Ullrich.

According to the Holodomor Museum in Kyiv, 16 states in addition to Ukraine so far have recognized the famine as genocide: Australia, Ecuador, Estonia, Canada, Colombia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, the United States and the Vatican.

Russian mercenary videos 'top 1bn views' on TikTok

TikTok is hosting dozens of videos that glorify violence by Russia's Wagner Group of mercenaries and they have been viewed more than a billion times, according to a new report.

Responding to the report, a TikTok spokesperson said there was "no place for hateful or violent content on our platform". Many of the videos identified by NewsGuard were no longer available on the platform by Thursday.

BBC News – Alexandra Fouché – 1st December 2022

Explosions hit two bases in Russia as Moscow fires new missile barrage (Washington Post)

Astra, a Telegram news channel, reported that the two damaged planes were Tupolev Tu-95 strategic nuclear bombers. The Tu-95s can carry the type of cruise missiles used to attack Ukraine’s infrastructure but normally play an important part in Russia’s strategic forces and nuclear deterrence capabilities.

The second explosion occurred at the Dyagilevo military air base in the Ryazan region, about 130 miles southeast of Moscow. Three people were killed, according to Russian state media reports. Tu-95 and Tu-22M nuclear-capable long-range bombers are stationed at the Dyagilevo base.

Kyiv’s unwillingness to claim credit for the attacks is in keeping with a pattern of Ukrainian officials being deliberately cryptic in their commentary following explosions in recent months at strategically important Russian military sites.

[...]

Many of the Russian missiles were destroyed by Ukrainian air defenses, but at least some of the missiles appeared to hit infrastructure targets and there were new reports of power outages, including in neighboring Moldova.

Bloody packages containing ‘animal eyes’ sent to Ukrainian embassies across Europe
https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/02/europe/ukraine-embassies-suspicious-mail-intl/index.html

Suspicious packages, including blood-soaked envelopes containing “animal eyes,” have been sent to Ukrainian embassies and consulates in several European cities, the country’s foreign ministry has said.

...

Friday’s statement came after an explosion occurred on Wednesday at Ukraine’s embassy in Madrid, injuring one Ukrainian employee who was handling a letter addressed to the country’s ambassador to Spain. Spanish officials said Thursday a letter bomb was also sent to the country’s prime minister last week and another to the US embassy.

The Ukrainian Consulate in Brno, a city in the southeast of the Czech Republic, was briefly evacuated on Friday after receiving a suspicious package containing animal tissue, Czech police added in a tweet on Friday.

Ukraine has put all of its overseas diplomatic stations under heightened security following the slew of suspicious mail.

“We have reason to believe that there is a well-planned campaign of terror and intimidation of Ukrainian embassies and consulates,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. “Unable to stop Ukraine on the diplomatic front, they are trying to intimidate us.”

Russia and Ukraine are fighting the first full-scale drone war (Washington Post)

The use of Mavics is so widespread by each army that Ukrainian soldiers said they often don’t know if the drone they spot is friend or foe. If one hovers for too long rather than just passing by, that’s suspicious enough to warrant shooting it down.

DJI, the largest commercial drone producer in the world, doesn’t formally supply either Ukraine or Russia with Mavics or other UAVs. To distance itself from the war, DJI has suspended sales in Ukraine and Russia. But that doesn’t stop volunteers and charity funds from purchasing in bulk from retailers. The Ukrainians use the drones for reconnaissance but have also rigged them to drop small munitions.

[...]

Senior Ukrainian and Russian commanders, many of whom trained together in Soviet times, used to be skeptical of drones. Now, they are rushing to train thousands of pilots.

Ukraine’s state crowdfunder, United24, has an “Army of Drones” initiative with contracts to buy nearly 1,000 UAVs, said Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s digital transformation minister. But that’s still not enough.

The goal, Fedorov said, is 10,000 drones flying along the vast front line, to broadcast the fighting without interruption.

[...]

Every Ukrainian soldier has had a scary encounter with a Russian Orlan-10 — Russia’s premier reconnaissance drone, which also has electronic-warfare capabilities.

For Lt. Oleksandr Sosovskyy, a deputy battalion commander in Ukraine’s 93rd Mechanized Brigade, his occurred in late April, while traveling with four soldiers to a village near the front line in the Kharkiv region. After parking their car between two houses, he heard an eerie buzzing overhead. They couldn’t see their enemy, but the enemy could see them.

For the next several hours, shelling followed wherever they went. The soldiers tried to split up, moving around the village and ducking for cover. But the Orlan helped the Russians correct their fire. It was relentless and accurate. “They were trying to destroy the car and obviously destroy us,” Sosovskyy said.

In recent months, however, Sosovskyy has noticed there are fewer Orlans to fear. Before, the Russians would often have two flying at once — one for reconnaissance and one to correct artillery strikes. By summertime, hearing or seeing one, much less two, became rarer.

[...]

Alternatives are hard to come by. Russian military systems — especially drones — depend on microelectronic components produced in the United States, Europe and Asia, which Moscow now has difficulty procuring because of sanctions.

Russia’s Defense Ministry has acknowledged the shortfall.

“The Defense Ministry has developed appropriate tactical and technical requirements for unmanned aerial vehicles,” Col. Igor Ischuk told a government panel in September. “Most manufacturers, unfortunately, are not able to fulfill them.”

That gives Ukraine an edge, ramping up production in factories that tend to look like hip offices. Their locations have been wiped from Google Maps — for fear of airstrikes.

Homegrown drones range from miniature planes that can fly nearly 30 miles and drop a five-pound missile — such as the Punisher drone preferred by Ukraine’s special forces — to reconnaissance gliders. The goal is to produce 2,000 small combat drones in Ukraine per month by year’s end, said Fedorov, the digital minister.

In Ukraine today is Days of:

• Saint Nicholas (in New Julian or Gregorian calendar),
• Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Time Magazine 2022 Person of the Year: Volodymyr Zelensky
https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2022-volodymyr-zelensky/

On east front with Ukrainian troops: Constant shelling, no heat or coffee

Washington Post journalists visited with Ukrainian troops somewhere near Kreminna:

The Ukrainians are fighting to hold off a mass of enemy forces, including mercenaries, in the Donetsk region city of Bakhmut, currently the site of the bloodiest battle in the war. Their goal is to keep Russia from attempting to encroach on the cities of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has started to make gains at the edges of the occupied Luhansk region, which directly borders mainland Russia. Multiple brigades are attacking on two fronts — from the north, toward the occupied city of Svatove, and here from the east, toward Kreminna.

Taking both would threaten Russia’s hold on the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, which Moscow’s forces captured in much-hyped victories in late June and early July, following fierce battles.

[...]

At that point, Oleksandr complained that the main thing hindering the Ukrainian advance was the mild, wet weather. Troops — and their tanks and armored personnel carriers — were literally stuck in the mud. But just a week later, a drop in temperature has made the battle ground firmer and more favorable.

The freeze also has its drawbacks. Soldiers in Tor’s unit posted in the forest near Kreminna are so close to Russian forces that they won’t dare to heat their outdoor living quarters, which could reveal their location to Russian drones flying overhead. They sleep in their coats, under light sleeping bags in the cold open air.

A week ago, they were some five miles farther back in this same forest.

One day’s events feel like a month’s worth here. There is just one narrow dirt road that winds into the forest. The Russians know it is a lifeline for the Ukrainians — used to bring in reinforcements and to evacuate any wounded — so they hit it constantly with artillery. At its edges are destroyed vehicles that in the past few days veered off just slightly to make room for oncoming traffic — and unluckily hit a mine.

Details of the two Russian military airbases hit by explosions (Guardian)

The explosions at the Engels-2 and Dyagilevo airbases, if confirmed as Ukraine’s, would mark its deepest attack so far into Russia and against key military facilities used in the Kremlin’s war.