WAR IN UKRAINE: December 31, 2023
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 311
It’s New Years Eve day in Ukraine. But in the midst of war and with the threat of further Russian missile and drone attacks it is expected to be a low key event. In some cities the curfew starts at 11pm and in others midnight. It was hoped that no power outages would occur today however fresh Russian attacks earlier this week had placed additional strain on the national power grid. Just after 13:00 local time, air raid sirens were triggered in all oblasts of Ukraine
Due to the threat of additional Russian missile strikes, Ukrenergo is taking measures to temporarily limit electricity supply. This is necessary to reduce the load on the power system in the event of a hit on infrastructure. Therefore, unscheduled power outages are now possible until the situation normalizes - officials
Since the start of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine there’s been 693 hours of air raid sirens. That’s 29 days of air raids, member of Parliament Lesia Vasylenko says in a Twitter post
Vladimir Putin's government has been battling dissent for years, a crackdown that intensified in the months before Russia launched a massive unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Since then, new legislation has criminalized spreading information that supposedly "discredits the armed forces of the Russian Federation." More than 300 criminal cases have been opened under this law, along with more than 5,000 administrative charges punished by short jail sentences or onerous fines, according to OVD-Info, which monitors repression in Russia. The group reported that at least 19,443 people have been detained by the authorities in Russia for actions or statements against the war since the February invasion - RFE/RL
A total of 363 reporters were deprived of their freedom as of December 1, 2022 – a new global high that overtakes last year’s record by 20% and marks another grim milestone in a deteriorating media landscape, says the Committee to Protect Journalists. This year’s top five jailers of journalists are Iran, China, Myanmar, Turkey, and Belarus, respectively. A key driver behind authoritarian governments’ increasingly oppressive efforts to stifle the media: trying to keep the lid on broiling discontent in a world disrupted by COVID-19 and theeconomic fallout from Russia’s war on Ukraine, writes CPJ Editorial Director Arlene Getz. “The record number of journalists in jail is a crisis that mirrors an erosion of democracy globally,” says CPJ President Jodie Ginsberg. “This year’s prison census brings into sharp relief the lengths governments will go to silence reporting that seeks to hold power to account. Criminalizing journalism has impacts far beyond the individual in jail: it stifles vital reporting that helps keep the public safe, informed, and empowered.”
Required reading…
Did Russian President Vladimir Putin manage to hoodwink the Trudeau government?
It sure seems that way. Earlier this month, after a loud outcry from the Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian-Canadian community, Ottawa announced it would cancel an exemption to sanctions that would have allowed six natural-gas turbines to be returned to Germany. One of the units had been repaired by a Montreal company and was destined for the Nord Stream pipeline, which carries natural gas from Russia to Germany and is operated by Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom, currently under sanctions.
Read my full Globe and Mail opinion piece here