Cephalotrocity

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/23429977

A court in Russia’s second city St. Petersburg has placed a military cadet in pretrial detention after he allegedly murdered a hearing-impaired woman whose hearing aid he mistook for espionage equipment, local news outlet 78.Ru reported on Tuesday.

Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20240925122516/https://novayagazeta.eu/articles/2024/09/25/hearing-impaired-russian-woman-killed-after-hearing-aid-mistaken-for-espionage-device-en-news

SpinScore: https://spinscore.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnovayagazeta.eu%2Farticles%2F2024%2F09%2F25%2Fhearing-impaired-russian-woman-killed-after-hearing-aid-mistaken-for-espionage-device-en-news

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20190003

Russia destroyed all thermal power plants and almost all hydroelectric capacity in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sept. 25 during his speech at the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

Russia launched nine coordinated attacks against Ukraine's electricity infrastructure between March and August, striking facilities in 20 oblasts.

According to an International Energy Agency (IEA) report, Ukraine's electricity shortage could reach 6 gigawatts this winter as a result of the attacks, which is about one-third of the expected peak demand. This summer, the power shortage was 2.5 GW when Kyiv was already experiencing long blackouts.

"This is how Putin is preparing for winter — hoping to torment millions, millions of Ukrainians… Ordinary families — women, children… Ordinary towns, ordinary villages," Zelensky said.

"Putin wants to leave them in the dark and cold this winter, forcing Ukraine to suffer and surrender. Just imagine, please, your country with 80 percent of its energy system gone — with such a destroyed part of the system. What kind of life would that be?" the president added.

From October 2022 to September 2024, Ukraine's energy infrastructure facilities suffered 1024 Russian attacks, according to the Energy Ministry.

Zelensky told the U.N. Security Council on Sept. 24 that Russia was preparing to target three Ukrainian nuclear power plants.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/3153962

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he believes the war with Russia is “closer to the end” than many believe and called on allies to strengthen Ukraine’s army. In excerpts of an interview with ABC News’ Good Morning America, set to be broadcast in full on Tuesday, the president said “I think that we are closer to the peace than we think … We are closer to the end of the war.” He added: “That’s why we’re asking our friends, our allies, to strengthen us. It’s very important.”

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/25686666

(sound on for awesomeness)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/29511054

The last time I met Evgenia Kara-Murza, it was a grim day in early March. The timing couldn’t have been worse. As we spoke, Alexei Navalny’s coffin was being lowered into the frozen ground in a Moscow cemetery. Meanwhile Evgenia’s husband, Vladimir Kara-Murza, was still incarcerated in a Siberian prison cell almost identical to the one in the Arctic Circle in which Navalny had been found dead, presumed murdered.

The prospects were so grim and the news from Russia and Ukraine so unrelentingly depressing, it feels almost unimaginably miraculous six months later to see Evgenia walk into the lobby of a London hotel, this time with Vladimir right next to her. Six weeks ago, he was in a Siberian gulag. Today, he’s a free man on a trip to London with his wife and their youngest son, nine-year-old Daniel, the result of the largest prisoner exchange between Russian and the west since the cold war.

Most people he met in the Russian prison system, “the police officers, prison officials, judges, prosecutors, they don’t believe in anything”. Most are not pathological sadists, he says, they were just doing a job. “But the Alpha Group, the FSB special unit that was escorting us, I saw ideological hatred. They believe in this stuff and that’s even scarier.”

Kara-Murza’s grasp of history underpins his certainty that Putin’s regime will collapse – quickly and without warning. “That’s how things happen in Russia. Both the Romanov empire in the early 20th century, and the Soviet regime at the end of the 20th century collapsed in three days. That’s not a metaphor, it was literally three days in both cases.” He believes passionately that the best chance of a free and democratic Russia and peace in Europe rests on Russia’s defeat in Ukraine.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/25481991

"The decision to end the cooperation agreement was taken in December 2023 when CERN's Council passed a resolution "to terminate the International Cooperation Agreement between CERN and the Russian Federation, together with all related protocols and addenda, with effect from 30 November 2024; To terminate ... all other agreements and experiment memoranda of understanding allowing the participation of the Russian Federation and its national institutes in the CERN scientific programme, with effect from 30 November 2024; AFFIRMS That these measures concern the relationship between CERN and Russian and Belarusian institutes and do not affect the relationship with scientists of Russian nationality affiliated with other institutes." The cooperation agreement with Belarus will come to an end on 27 June, before the Russian one ends."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/29098510

Ukraine said on Monday it had asked the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to join humanitarian efforts in Russia's Kursk region following a cross-border incursion by Ukrainian forces.

Ukraine's army remains in the Kursk region more than a month after launching the assault, in which President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says Kyiv has taken control of about 100 settlements. Russia's Defence Ministry said on Monday its forces had regained control of two more villages.

"Ukraine is ready to facilitate their work and prove its adherence to international humanitarian law," (Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii) Sybiha said on X after visiting the Sumy region, from where Ukrainian forces launched the cross-borer attack.

We've spent a lot of time in the past talking about systems that have been called 'game changers' or arguably overperformed in Ukraine, relative to either expectations, costs, or both.

Today, we look at some of the opposite - systems that may not be having the expected impact, and which might prompt some thinking in planners observing the Ukrainian experience.