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Morning Headlines
AP News: A former National Security Agency employee from Colorado pleaded guilty Monday to trying to sell classified national security information to Russia.
POLITICO: Amid sustained war at home and boiling conflict in the Middle East, Kyiv doesn’t just want to keep gobbling up arms from Western allies. It wants defense contractors to invest locally and help build out a modern arms industry.
ISW: Russia's domestic production of artillery shells, supplemented by increased ammunition imports from North Korea, will likely allow Russian forces to sustain sufficient rates of artillery fire in Ukraine in 2024, albeit at a relatively lower level than during 2022.
UK Ministry of Defence: Since at least spring 2023, Russian Shtorm-Z have effectively become penal battalions, manned with convicts and regular troops on disciplinary charges. Multiple accounts suggest the units are given the lowest priority for logistical and medical support, while repeatedly being ordered to attack.
Bloomberg: Bulgaria’s surprise decision to impose a tax on Russian gas transiting the country was reverberating a week on as leaders in Hungary and Serbia scrambled to avert an energy crisis ahead of the European winter.
EUobserver: Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the 27 EU countries have adopted 11 sanction packages, targeting all kinds of raw materials such as oil, coal, steel and timber. But raw materials that the EU considers "critical" or "strategic" — 34 in total — still flow freely from Russia to Europe in vast quantities, providing crucial funds to state enterprises and oligarch-owned businesses.
More News
Reuters: Russian forces on Monday pressed their attacks on two frontline areas of eastern Ukraine, seeking to sever the sole supply route into the devastated city of Avdiivka and advance on the key town of Kupiansk farther north.
The Kyiv Independent: The Borz Batallion of the Russian Defense Ministry-controlled "Private Military Company Redut" had begun recruiting women into its ranks as combat specialists, according to an investigation by the IStories outlet.
Mail Online: The most senior Kremlin official who quit over Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine has accused the dictator of making 'big mistakes'. Anatoly Chubais - a former Kremlin chief of staff, and ex-Russian deputy prime minister - accused him of plunging his country into an 'impossible' war.
The Moscow Times: Ukraine’s CIA-trained intelligence agencies have assassinated “dozens” of Russians and Ukrainian collaborators since the start of Moscow’s invasion, The Washington Post reported Monday, citing more than two dozen anonymous current and former Ukrainian, U.S. and Western intelligence and security officials.
The Guardian: Russian torture. As prosecutors prepare war crimes case, victims reveal how they were beaten and made to dig own graves in Balakliia.
Reuters: The United States on Monday sought the forfeiture of a $300 million superyacht it says is controlled by billionaire Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov, who is under U.S. sanctions.
Euromaidan Press: Hungary continues to block a military aid tranche from the European Peace Facility to Ukraine, despite Ukraine’s recent removal of the Hungarian OTP Bank from its list of war sponsors.
The Kyiv Independent: The population of Russia is predicted to decline from the previous census count of 146.45 million in 2021 to 138.77 million in 2046, Russia's Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) reported.
The Moscow Times: Russian police were present but did not intervene in the fight that ended with the fatal stabbing of a Gabonese graduate student this summer, according to a video published by local media on Monday.
Irish Examiner: Ireland is considering limiting the length of time Ukrainian refugees arriving in the country can stay in state housing to three months before they must find their own accommodation.
The Telegraph: French intelligence is “taking seriously” the idea that Russia has fanned panic over its bed bug outbreak. Reported outbreaks of bed bugs infesting homes and migrating to metros and cinemas has caused hysteria in France.
BBC News: The Spanish authorities have seized Scythian jewellery worth €60m they say was stolen from Ukraine.
Reuters: Ukraine, reliant on foreign aid since Russia's invasion last year, hopes to receive 18 billion euros of assistance from the European Union next year, the same amount it secured for 2023, officials said on Monday.
Finland and the EU have continued their active support for the Ukrainian authorities to mitigate the effects of the Russian attacks.
Reuters: China will have to negotiate with Russia on the price and volumes of next year's power supplies following Moscow's decision to hike prices to match an increase in export fees, a senior manager said on Monday.
ERR: Ukrainian troops could take advantage of Russia's focus on the ongoing battles around Avdiivka, by attempting something bigger to the south of Kherson, on the southern bank of the Dnipro River, Col. Toomas Väli, deputy chief of operations at the Estonian Defense Forces General Staff, said.
Reuters: The number of Russians who say their salary does not cover basic spending has jumped by 20 percentage points in two years to almost half, a survey by recruiter Headhunter showed, as Moscow diverts record fiscal resources to funding its war in Ukraine.
AP News: Prices for Russian oil have risen well above a price cap imposed by Western allies as part of sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine. That is putting the price cap to its most serious test so far and underlining its weaknesses.
Reuters: Ukraine shot down 14 attack drones and a cruise missile fired by Russia at its south and east overnight, but debris from a downed drone damaged a warehouse at the Black Sea port of Odesa, officials said on Monday.
worth mentioning
Turkey's president submits protocol for Sweden's admission into NATO to parliament for ratification
Russian court extends detention of U.S. journalist to Dec. 5
14‑year‑old schoolboy with tuberculosis charged with terrorism in the Russian Far East
1,000+ fearless flamingos land in Ukraine war zone
Belarus expects Russia to pay $640 mln in compensation for refineries
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