Russia-Ukraine updates: Kyiv says found Kherson torture sites

There are no immediate nuclear safety or security concerns at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine despite shelling over the weekend that caused widespread damage, the UN atomic watchdog said after its experts toured the site.

“They were able to confirm that despite the severity of the shelling, key equipment remained intact and there were no immediate nuclear safety or security concerns,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement.

A Polish court has overturned a decision by Poland’s anti-monopoly watchdog to impose a 6.2 billion-euro fine ($6.3bn) against Russian gas giant Gazprom, the watchdog said.

The fine imposed in 2020 against Gazprom and five other companies, including British-Dutch giant Shell, was over the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

The anti-monopoly watchdog, UOKiK, had launched an antitrust procedure against the companies building the pipeline, saying that its construction would hamper competition.

UOKiK said in a statement that it was “surprised” by the finding from Poland’s Court of Competition and Consumer Protection overruling its decision.

“The threats we talked about when presenting the decision are clearly visible today, not just in Poland, but throughout Europe,” UOKiK president Tomasz Chrostny said in the statement. “We will appeal against the judgement.”

Washington’s envoy for war crimes has said the United States was monitoring allegations of Ukrainian forces summarily executing Russian troops and said all parties should face consequences if they commit abuses in the conflict.

Russia’s defence ministry on Friday cited videos circulating on social media that allegedly showed Ukrainian soldiers executing Russian prisoners of war.

“We are obviously tracking that quite closely,” Beth Van Schaack, the US ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice, told reporters during a telephone briefing.

“It’s really important to emphasise that the laws of war apply to all parties equally: both the aggressor state and the defender state, and this is in equal measure,” she said, adding that “all parties to the conflict must abide by international law or face the consequences”.

LUKOIL Neftochim Burgas, Bulgaria’s only oil refinery, may have to shut down if the government does not follow through on plans to allow the Russian-owned business to continue exporting, Chief Executive Ilshat Sharafutdinov has said.

The European Union has agreed to a ban on Russian crude oil imports as part of its sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine in February. The ban takes effect next month, but Bulgaria has been given an exemption and is allowed to import Russian crude until the end of 2024.

The Bulgarian caretaker government plans to allow the LUKOIL Neftochim refinery to continue importing Russian crude once the ban takes effect and permit it to export its output.

LUKOIL Neftochim, which has switched to only Russian crude since the spring, expects to process a record high 7.1 million tonnes of crude oil this year, Sharafutdinov said. He said the refinery exports about 50 percent of its fuels and other end-products.

German gas trader VNG is nearing a deal under which it will receive several billion euros in state aid to shoulder the huge costs of replacing Russian gas with higher-priced alternatives, two people familiar with the matter have said.

An agreement could be reached as soon as this week and cover a mid-single-digit billion euro sum for VNG, which it would receive in loans or guarantees, the people said.

The talks are ongoing and details of the final agreement could still change, they added.

The World Health Organization has warned that the upcoming winter would be “life-threatening” for millions of Ukrainians after a series of devastating Russian attacks on the country’s energy grid.

“Put simply – this winter will be about survival,” Hans Kluge, regional director for Europe at the United Nations health body, told reporters during his visit to Kyiv.

“This winter will be life-threatening for millions of people in Ukraine,” he said.

Damage to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure caused by numerous missile strikes “is already having knock-out effects on the health system and on the people’s health,” Kluge said.

“Continued attacks on health and energy infrastructure mean hundreds of hospitals and healthcare facilities are no longer fully operational,” Kluge said.

“We expect two to three million more people to leave their homes in search of warmth and safety,” he warned.

Ukrainian police and prosecutors have identified four places in Kherson where they suspect Russian forces tortured people before abandoning the city, the prosecutor general’s office has said.

In a statement on the Telegram messaging app, it said the Russian forces had set up “pseudo-law enforcement agencies” in detention centres and a police building in the southern Ukrainian city.

The police, prosecutors and experts based their findings on documents signed by the Russian forces that occupied Kherson soon after invading Ukraine in February until pulling out this month, the statement said.

They also discovered objects in the buildings including parts of rubber batons, a wooden bat, handcuffs and an incandescent lamp, as well as bullets that were found in walls, it said.

“Various methods of torture, physical and psychological violence, were applied to people in cells and basements,” the prosecutor’s office said.

Romania currently provides Moldova with a huge portion of electricity, Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu said.

“We have started to provide electricity to the Republic of Moldova and now, as we speak, between 80 percent and 90 percent of the electricity needs of the Republic of Moldova are provided from Romania,” Aurescu said after representatives from about 50 countries and institutions met in Paris to pledge millions of euros in aid for Moldova.

“I think this is a very important effort to support our friends and partners.”

Romanian power producers started selling electricity to Moldova at a capped price in October.

Click here for a roundup of the war’s key events from day 271.

KEEP READING

• Russia’s IT sector goes on the defensive
• Ukraine to begin voluntary evacuation from Kherson: Deputy PM
• UN calls for end to ‘madness’ of attacks near Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

French President Emmanuel Macron has announced an additional international aid package worth more than 100 million euros ($103m) for the eastern European nation.

He said much of that aid would have to be focused on helping Moldova deal with an energy crisis resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Around 45 countries and institutions met in Paris to pledge millions of euros of aid for Moldova after increasing fears mount that it could be further destabilised by the war.

Moldova, which is largely dependent on Russia’s energy supplies, is facing more difficulties with winter arriving and Moscow cutting natural gas supplies by about 40 percent, hurting its ability to supply enough electricity to its population.

A French diplomat told reporters at a briefing, “Moldova is directly impacted because it is dependent on Russian energy supplies and is a country which has a part of its territory controlled by Russian soldiers, so it’s especially vulnerable.”

Moldova has felt the effects of rising food and energy prices and thousands of refugees arriving in the country of about 2.5 million people, which has taken more refugees per head than any other country.

Ukrainian authorities have started evacuating civilians from the recently-liberated southern Kherson and Mykolaiv, fearing that damage to the infrastructure and the lack of heat is too severe for people to endure in the upcoming winter.

The evacuations come as rolling blackouts plague most of the country after targeted attacks on Ukraine’s vital infrastructure.

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said the government will provide “transportation, accommodation, medical care”.

NATO allies may decide to aim to spend more on defence than their current target of two percent of national output when they meet for their next summit in Vilnius in July 2023.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February this year, many NATO members have increased their military spending.

“I cannot tell you exactly what our allies will agree when it comes to formulating the pledge for defence spending for the next decade or so … but I expect that it’ll be an even stronger commitment to increasing defence spending,” NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said.

A new training centre for Ukrainian troops in the central Spanish city of Toledo will start operating at the end of November, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told the NATO parliamentary assembly.

Sanchez added that Spanish police would also be deployed to Ukraine over the coming weeks to help investigate alleged Russian war crimes.

As international sanctions continue to be placed on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, for the IT sector, it is causing pressure on its future.

With most companies having Western clients, the closed-off market has impacted their value, but some experts have argued that Russian tech companies can take back the domestic market.

However, the Russian Association of Electronic Commerce estimates that 50,000 to 70,000 IT specialists left the country in the first several weeks of the war.

Read more on the future of Russia’s tech companies here.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urges NATO members to guarantee the protection of Ukraine’s nuclear plants from Russian sabotage.

“All our nations are interested in not having any dangerous incidents at our nuclear facilities,” Zelenskyy said in a video address to NATO’s parliamentary assembly in Madrid.

“We all need guaranteed protection from Russian sabotage at nuclear facilities.”

The German defence minister said that Germany offers to deploy anti-aircraft missile systems in Poland after an explosion in a village bordering Ukraine.

“We have offered to support Poland with [the] securing of its airspace with our Eurofighter [jets] and Patriot air-defence systems,” Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht said in an interview with the Rheinische Post daily.

While Warsaw and NATO have said the blast was likely caused by Ukraine’s air defence system, they said that Moscow was ultimately to blame because it started the conflict.

Polish Defence Minister Mariusz Blaszczak said on Twitter, “I accepted with satisfaction the proposal of the German Minister of Defence regarding the deployment of additional Patriot missile launchers in our country.

“During today’s telephone conversation with the German side, I will propose that the system be stationed at the border with Ukraine.”

Z satysfakcją przyjąłem propozycję niemieckiej minister obrony dot. rozmieszczenia w naszym kraju dodatkowych wyrzutni rakiet Patriot. Podczas dzisiejszej rozmowy telefonicznej ze stroną niemiecką, zaproponuję by system stacjonował przy granicy z Ukrainą.

— Mariusz Błaszczak (@mblaszczak) November 21, 2022

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says any negotiations to end the war in Ukraine must consider the country’s strength on the battlefield.

For this reason, he said, NATO allies should provide Ukraine with more military support.

“We need to realise that this war most likely will end at some stage at the negotiating table. But we also know that the outcome of those negotiations is totally dependent on the strength on the battlefield,” Stoltenberg told NATO’s parliamentary assembly meeting in Madrid.

He added that to ensure the best outcome for Ukraine as “a sovereign, independent, democratic nation in Europe” is to continue military support.

Western countries must be careful not to create new dependencies on China as they are weaning off Russian energy supplies amid Moscow’s war on Kyiv, NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg warns.

“We see growing Chinese efforts to control our critical infrastructure, supply chains and key industrial sectors,” he said during a visit to Spain.

“We cannot give authoritarian regimes any chance to exploit our vulnerabilities and undermine us.”

The head of Russia’s state-run atomic energy agency, Rosatom, warns there is a risk of a nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhia atomic power plant.

“The plant is at risk of a nuclear accident. We were in negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) all night,” Interfax quoted Rosatom CEO Alexei Likhachev as saying.

Rosatom has controlled the facility through a subsidiary since President Vladimir Putin ordered Russia to formally seize the plant and transfer Ukrainian staff to a Russian entity in October.

Kyiv says the transfer of assets amounts to theft.

“I think the large distance between Washington and Zaporizhzhia should not be an argument for the United States to delay the decision on a security zone,” Interfax quoted him as saying.

The Rosatom head also said Kyiv was willing to “accept” a “small nuclear accident” at the nuclear power station.

“This will be a precedent that will forever change the course of history. Therefore, everything must be done so that no one has in their minds to violate the security of the nuclear power plant,” TASS quoted Likhachev as saying.