Ukraine Russia war: Ukraine destroys major Russian ship in Crimea

Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced his army had destroyed a major Russian ship in annexed Crimea as the war with Moscow rages on.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that his army had destroyed the Askold, a major Russian ship at the Kerch shipyard in annexed Crimea.
“I thank everyone who ensured the successful destruction of the Russian ship at the Kerch shipyard,” he said in his evening address on Monday, speaking two days after Kyiv said it had “successfully” carried out strikes in that area.
Footage shared online purports to show the moment the ship is bombed.

BREAKING: UKRAINE DESTROY A MAJOR RUSSIAN SHIP IN CRIMEA

The Ukrainian President declared that his nation's military had effectively eliminated the Russian vessel Askold at the Kerch shipyard in Crimea. pic.twitter.com/BgNSLX0HF5

— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) November 6, 2023

It comes after he said he was “not ready” for talks with Russia unless its troops withdraw from his country, denying Western officials had suggested holding peace negotiations.

He was commenting on reports that US and European officials had spoken with his government about negotiations to end the war, and after a senior Ukrainian commander said the conflict was deadlocked.

“(The United States) know that I am not ready to speak with the terrorists, because their word is nothing,” Mr Zelenskyy said in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.

Joe Biden with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said he is not ready to talk to Russia. Picture: Getty Images

“For today, I don’t have any relations with the Russians, and they know my position,” he said, adding: “They have to go out from our territory, only after that, the world can switch on diplomacy.”
He said the conflict had reached a “difficult situation”, but again denied that it was deadlocked.

“On the frontline, it is not a secret, we don’t have air defence. That’s why Russia controls the sky. If they control all the sky, until the moment when we get air defence, we can’t move quickly forward,” he said.

The sprawling frontline between the two warring sides has barely moved in almost a year, despite Ukraine launching a counteroffensive in June to claw back Russian-occupied territory.

Mr Zelenskyy has regularly met Western leaders to try to secure more air defences and stave off fatigue with the conflict, which has now lasted for more that 600 days.

Valeriy Shatilovich, a Ukrainian clairvoyant in Kyiv. Picture: AFP

‘WHEN WILL PUTIN DIE?’ UKRAINIANS TURN TO PSYCHICS

Ukrainians turn to psychics as the war drags on and on. But how much do clairvoyants really know?
Flanked by candles and a crystal ball, Ukrainian clairvoyant Roman Zavydovskyi tells his viewers: “I want to assure you, the end of the full-scale war will be in 2024.”
With Kyiv and independent military analysts unable to predict where the 20-month war will head next, some Ukrainians are turning to the predictive powers of astrologers, tarot readers, witches and magicians.

“Most of all people ask ‘When will the war end?’ The second most popular question is ‘When will Putin die?’,” Zavydovskyi told AFP.

Military forecasts by Ukraine’s most popular soothsayers rack up hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube and TikTok, and are reported on by mainstream media outlets.

“Victory is already on the way, but you have to understand it won’t be in one day,” magician Sergiy Kobzar told his viewers in one video.

Ukraine, a largely Orthodox Christian country where religion was suppressed during the Soviet Union, has recently seen a proliferation of beliefs, including in the occult.

The war feeds such interest, said psychologist and politics expert Lidiya Smola.

People are turning to clairvoyants like Valeriy Shatilovich for answers on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Picture: AFP

“People don’t know whether the Russians will fly Shahed (drones) again tomorrow, whether there will be shelling … No one can give them an answer when the war will be over,” she told AFP.

“And this uncertainty, which is very unbearable for people, pushes them to look for support. And for some people, horoscopes and predictions become this support.”

Russians have taken an interest in Bulgarian mystic Baba Vanga — a blind woman who decades ago predicted a Russian named “Vladimir” would become “Lord of the World” — and Britain also saw a growth in the occult during World War II, Smola noted.

Psychics offer “simple answers to very difficult questions,” she said, adding that some “want to be deceived.” But false hope “leads to deeper depression for a person when it doesn’t come true,” she warned.

“I think I help people in these days,” said clairvoyant Zavydovskyi, who offers “Roma and eastern magic,” based on tarot cards and “intuition”.

“These predictions make them comfortable. They want to know about the future because they don’t know what will happen the next day,” said Zavydovskyi, who is from Ternopil in western Ukraine.

As the Russia-Ukraine war drags on, there is renewed interest in blind mystic Baba Vanga. Picture: Supplied

Officials have sounded the alarm over psychic fraudsters targeting desperate families with offers to find relatives lost in combat.

A 29-year-old woman whose husband was missing was contacted by a psychic who persuaded her to hand over $US1100 ($A1734) and gold jewellery, police in western Ukraine reported in September.

In Kyiv, small ads posted on city walls advertise “searches” by a clairvoyant and a black magic practitioner.

Kobzar, the magician, said he no longer accepts such requests, since the missing person is usually dead.

“I’m a proponent of leaving hope,” he said. Kobzar said the kinds of questions people have about the war are constantly changing.

“At first it was ‘when will there be talks?’, then ‘when will the war end?’ and now ‘when will it all end?’”

RUSSIA BLAMES KYIV FOR ASSASSINATION PLOT

Russia said it had arrested a man involved in a Ukrainian-led assassination attempt on a prominent pro-Moscow separatist leader.
Oleg Tsaryov, an ex-Ukrainian MP and Moscow-backed separatist, was shot at his home in Crimea – the southern Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014.

Tsaryov was reportedly being lined up to lead a pro-Moscow puppet government in Kyiv, should Russia’s offensive on the Ukrainian capital have succeeded last February.

Russia’s security agency the FSB said it had arrested a 46-year old Russian citizen who “on the instructions of Ukraine’s security service” had co-ordinated the attack.

It said the man confessed to his role in the plot and claimed he was working on orders from Kyiv during an interrogation, Russian state media reported.

The FSB also said he got a job at the sanatorium where Tsaryov lived in order to scope him out ahead of the attack.

It published a video of what it said were homemade explosive devices unearthed in a search of his home.

Ukrainian forces continue to fight to retake Bakhmut, which was captured by Russian forces in May, following a year-long war battle. Picture: Getty Images

Citing unnamed sources, Ukrainian media reported that Kyiv’s security services were responsible for the attempted assassination.

Several high-profile backers of Russia’s assault on Ukraine have been assassinated in Russia or Russian-controlled territory since the start of the conflict.

Tsaryov, 53, was a pro-Russia politician in Ukraine’s parliament before a 2013-2014 revolution swept a pro-European government to power in Kyiv.

After Russia responded by seizing Crimea and civil war broke out, he became a separatist leader in eastern Ukraine.

According to several reports, United States intelligence agencies believe the Kremlin was considering Tsaryov as a possible choice to lead a government in Kyiv if it had succeeded in removing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The FSB said Tsaryov’s condition was stable following the shooting.

US OFFICIAL: ‘CLEAR LINKS’ BETWEEN UKRAINE, MIDDLE EAST WARS

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has emphasised that there are “clear links” between the conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine in his opening remarks to a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing.

In making the case for billions of dollars in supplemental funding to support Israel and Ukraine, Blinken argued that “allowing Russia to prevail with Iran’s support will embolden both Moscow and Tehran.”

“Since we cut off Russia’s traditional means of supplying its military, it’s turned more and more to Iran for assistance. In return, Moscow has supplied Iran with increasingly advanced military technology, which poses a threat to Israel’s security,” he said, according to CNN.

RUSSIA BLAMES UKRAINE FOR ANTI-SEMITIC RIOT

Russia has accused Ukraine of playing a “key role” in an anti-Israel riot at an airport in the Muslim-majority republic of Dagestan, which is part of Russia.

Dozens of protesters, many of them chanting “Allahu Akbar” (God is greatest), broke through doors and barriers at Makhachkala airport, charging onto the runway and seeking to attack Jewish passengers coming from Israel.

“The criminal Kyiv regime played a direct and key role in carrying out the latest destructive act,” Russia’s foreign affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement.

Russia has blamed the West and Ukraine for allegedly orchestrating a riot in its Muslim-majority Dagestan region, which saw a mob storm an airport in search of Israeli and Jewish passengers. pic.twitter.com/f9z0phbG0f

— DW News (@dwnews) October 30, 2023

The Kremlin said on Monday the riot was the result of “external interference” and President Vladimir Putin convened a meeting of Russia’s security officials to discuss “Western attempts to divide Russian society.”

Zakharova said the “promptness” and “content” of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s reaction to the riot “are direct evidence of the information-sabotage being carried out by Kyiv’s special forces.”

A local man waves a Palestinian flag during a pro-Palestinian rally at the Makhachkala Airport after the arrival of a scheduled flight from Tel Aviv. Picture: TASS/Sipa USA

Mr Zelenskyy said the riot was not an “isolated incident in Makhachkala, but part of Russia’s widespread culture of hatred toward other nations, propagated by state television, pundits, and the authorities.”

Zakharova said Kyiv had used a former Russian politician, Ilya Ponomarev, to orchestrate plans for the unrest.

Ponomarev, who fled to Ukraine and was granted Ukrainian citizenship in 2019, is a vehement critic of the Kremlin and has claimed to be behind a number of anti-Moscow sabotage groups and partisan acts since the start of the conflict in Ukraine.

The governor of Dagestan, Sergei Melikov, said the riots were instigated by social media posts from Utro Dagestan, run by “traitors” working from Ukraine.

He called the riot a “stab in the back” of Dagestani soldiers fighting in Ukraine.

According to independent reports, Dagestan has sent proportionately more men to fight in Ukraine than many ethnic Russian regions.

Local people are seen during a pro-Palestinian rally at the Makhachkala Airport after the arrival of a scheduled flight from Tel Aviv. Picture: Ramazan Rashidov/TASS/Sipa USA

Ukraine on Monday rejected Russian accusations that it orchestrated the anti-Israeli riot, saying Moscow was trying to “shift responsibility” and that anti-Semitism in Russia was “deep-rooted.”

“Accusing Ukraine of involvement in the events in Dagestan by the Russian foreign ministry is an attempt to shift responsibility from a sick person to a healthy one,” Kyiv’s foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said on Facebook.

“The events in Makhachkala reflect deep-rooted anti-Semitism of Russian elites and society.”

– with AFP