WAR IN UKRAINE: November 27, 2022
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 277
Shelling by Russian forces struck several areas in eastern and southern Ukraine overnight as authorities continued to work to restore power, water, and heating after weeks of Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure and as temperatures plunge with the beginning of winter - RFE/RL
Ukraine launches ‘Grain from Ukraine’ program to support Africa's struggling countries. The program was symbolically launched on the anniversary of the Holodomor, the articifical famine organized by the Soviet authorities, which killed millions of Ukrainians in 1932-1933. Ukraine considers Holodomor an act of genocide of Ukrainians, and has been fighting for it to be recognized as such globally.
President’s Office: Electricity restored in liberated Kherson. President Volodymyr Zelensky's Deputy Chief of Staff Kyrylo Tymoshenko said on Nov. 26 that the power will be supplied to the city's critical infrastructure first and then to the residents' houses. Meanwhile, 130,000 Kyiv residents remain without electricity. Kyiv administration said that as of 9:30 a.m., water supply had been fully restored in all areas of the capital while works to resume electricity and heat supply are ongoing following Russia's Nov. 23 large-scale strike that caused massive blackouts in all Ukrainian regions. Power cuts in Kyiv to be limited to 5 hours at a time. Ukraine's biggest private energy company DTEK announced that, starting Nov. 26, power outages in Kyiv will not last longer than 5 hours for any consumer - Kyiv Indpendent
Russia's attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure amount to genocide, a top Ukrainian official says. Strikes on key facilities targeted "the full Ukrainian nation" and were an effort to force Kyiv to surrender, the prosecutor-general told the BBC. In his BBC interview, Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Andriy Kostin said that, as well as the attacks on the energy grid, 11,000 Ukrainian children had been forcibly deported to Russia
Petro Kotin, the head of Ukraine's state-run nuclear energy firm, said there were signs that Russian forces might be preparing to leave the vast Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant.
Top House Republicans vowed continued bipartisan support for Ukraine once the GOP takes control of the House in January. But they also stood by Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy’s pledge for more accountability, and his position that there will be no “blank check” for Ukraine funding. “We're not going to write a blank check,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs committee, in a joint interview on ABC’s “This Week." He was joined by Rep. Mike Turner, the top Republican on House Intelligence. McCaul said the most recent aid package for Ukraine “was given to us the day of the vote, and members only had a matter of hours to go through all these pages…“Republicans are not going to rule like that. We have a voice now, and we're going to do this in an accountable way and with transparency to the American people," McCaul said. "These are American taxpayer dollars going in. Does that diminish our will to help the Ukrainian people fight? No, though, we're going to do it in a responsible way” - CNN
Kyiv Soloists performed Bach, Dvořák and Shcherbakov in Kyiv Philarmonic Hall during a blackout. No heat or electricity in the building but a wonderful atmosphere, according to those who were there.
From my keynote speech yesterday at City Hall in Edmonton, Canada, commemorating the start of the 90th anniversary observation of the Ukrainian Holodomor
I’d like to take a moment to pay tribute to Serhii - a two-day-old infant who just passed away in the maternity hospital in Vilnyansk, a town in Zaporizhzhia. His mother, Maria, had just nursing him when a Russian missile crashed into the facility, The hospital walls collapsed, trapping Maria and her baby boy. Serhii was among more than 440 Ukrainian children killed and hundreds more wounded so far as a result of Russia's invasion.