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Morning Headlines
Reuters: Russian troops are intensifying their attacks on the key eastern town of Avdiivka, a senior Ukraine officer said on Thursday, while the country's general staff reported its military repelled many Russian assaults in widely separated sectors of the front.
CNN: With limited Ukrainian air defenses in operation last year, Russia was able to target and hit the energy grid easily. This time around, the attacks will be harder for Russia to pull off, according to the deputy chief of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence, Vadym Skibitsky.
ISW: The Russian military command will likely struggle to redeploy combat-effective reinforcements to respond to ongoing Ukrainian operations in eastern Kherson Oblast while conducting defensive operations in western Zaporizhzhia Oblast and sustaining other offensive efforts in eastern Ukraine.
Reuters: The number of rail wagons heading to the ports of Ukraine's Odesa region continued to rise over the past week thanks to the successful operation of the alternative Black Sea exports corridor, a senior railways official said late on Thursday.
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Ukrainska Pravda: 17-year-old Bohdan Yermokhin, who was illegally deported from Mariupol and was served with a military summons in Russia, has asked the President of Ukraine to bring him home.
France 24: The French foreign ministry accused Russian online networks of attempting to "exploit international crises to sow confusion" in France and in Europe by sharing photos of the Stars of David appearing around Paris, graffiti that has been widely suspected of being an anti-Semitic statement.
Reuters: A global peace summit for Ukraine may now take place in February 2024, a top Kyiv official said on Thursday amid concerns in the West that the war in Gaza is making it harder to win over diplomatic support for Kyiv’s blueprint for peace.
AFP: Germany's military must become the "backbone of deterrence" in Europe, the defence minister said Thursday, presenting new guidelines to overhaul the Bundeswehr after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The Kyiv Independent: Pressure is mounting on Russian forces across the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast. Ukrainian forces aren’t quite there yet, but assaults on the eastern bank could mean Ukraine is getting closer to opening a new front in the south.
Bloomberg: A hacking group linked to Russia claimed responsibility for attacks that periodically forced OpenAI’s ChatGPT offline this week, saying it targeted the company due to its support of Israel.
The Moscow Times: EU lawmakers on Thursday urged the bloc to ban imports of Russian liquefied natural gas and to close loopholes present in existing sanctions against Moscow.
AP News: Russian-installed health officials in Crimea said Thursday that private clinics on the Moscow-annexed peninsula have “voluntarily” stopped providing abortions, which means that the procedure is now only available there in state-run medical facilities.
Euronews: Moldova will limit the "toxic influence" of Russia-backed oligarchs who use hybrid warfare to undermine the country’s democracy in its push for EU membership, foreign minister Nicu Popescu has told Euronews.
European Parliament: The existing sanctions against Russia simultaneously do not go far enough and are under-enforced.
AFP: Russian domestic airlines are seeking to extend the lifespan of their fleets in an effort to overcome problems posed by Western sanctions triggered by the Ukraine war.
Reuters: The soldiers piloting Ukraine's fleet of small, cheap assault drones are voicing concerns that, despite pioneering their use, they are now being leapfrogged by their adversary as Moscow pumps money and resources into its drone sector.
The Guardian: The Kremlin is moving to absorb former Wagner soldiers into Russia’s military structures as it seeks to take control of battle-tested fighters for its war in Ukraine more than two months after the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary group’s founder.
Reuters: Ukraine's alternative Black Sea export corridor is working despite a recent Russian attack on a civilian vessel, Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said on Thursday.
UK Ministry of Defence: The reallocation of Russian strategic air defence assets would further demonstrate how the Ukraine war continues to overextend Russia’s military and strains its ability to retain baseline defences across its vast area.
POLITICO: The Kremlin raked in an extra €1 billion for its war effort this year after Russia’s largest private oil firm exploited loopholes in EU sanctions rules — with help from Bulgaria.
Reuters: Putin called for the development of wheat and fertiliser cargo transport routes in Asia during a visit to Kazakhstan on Thursday, as Moscow seeks to forge new export routes due to Western sanctions.
Mandiant: Russian cyber spies were behind a hack which disrupted part of Ukraine's power grid in late 2022, U.S. cybersecurity firm Mandiant, part of Google, said in a report on Thursday, in a rare and advanced form of cyberwarfare.
worth mentioning
How Chechnya’s boss Ramzan Kadyrov became such a feared figure in Russia
Russian fuel export ban to be lifted next week
Ukraine approves 2024 wartime budget, aims to strengthen army
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