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The UK and Poland will build two major temporary villages in west and east Ukraine to provide vital housing to those forced from their homes by barbaric Russian attacks. The UK has announced up to 10 million in funding to supportthenew UK-Polish partnership,which willdeliver temporary shelters, energy supplies and assistance to those who have lost their homessincetheRussian invasion of Ukraine.

Thetwo accommodation villages in Lviv, in western Ukraine, and Poltava, in the east will offer accommodation formore than700 of the most vulnerableUkrainianswho have fled heavy fighting on the frontlines or lost their homes due to Russian shelling.

More than17.6 million people are thought to be in humanitarian need in Ukraine, with morethan eightmillion having registered as refugees in Europe - the largest movement in Europe since the Second World War. Nearly 50% of Ukraines pre-war population is in needof humanitarian assistance due to the catastrophic impact of President Putins invasion.

Around6 million people are currently displaced within Ukraine, having been forced to leave their homes and facing freezing winter condition due to the brutalRussianwar of aggression against Ukraine,which is a total violation of the UN Charter and international law.

Ongoing Russian targeting of Ukraines energy infrastructure has also left nearly 10 million people without power.Widespread power cuts, some lasting eight to twelve hours a day, have forced families to resort to desperate measures for survival, like melting snow for water and heating bricks for warmth.

The UK-Poland partnership willalsoprovide 2.6 million worth of generators to support up to 450,000 people via schools, hospitals and community centres in re-taken and frontline areas, including Kharkiv, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, Odesa and Kherson. TheUK and Poland are also working with the Ukrainian Red Cross, donating up to 2.5 million to support those living through extreme cold in harsh winter conditions.

UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said:

For the past year, Putin has continued to target civilian homes and infrastructure, with the Ukrainian people paying a heavy price. This new UK-Poland partnership will help bring light, heat and homes to those most in need.

The international community is resolute in our shared determination to support the Ukrainian people and see them prevail with a just peace on Ukrainian terms.

Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau said:

Poland was first to help Ukraine already in the early morning hours of 24 February 2022. The United Kingdom followed shortly after. Today we stand together in our joint endeavours to help Ukraine and its people.

From the pages of the Polish history we know that Ukraine is fighting not only for their freedom but also for our freedom. There is no free Europe without free Ukraine.

Today, together with the United Kingdom, we stand side-by-side in providing shelter, warmth and above all, in providing hope for the Ukrainian IDPs, both in the west and in central-east of the country.

The Russian aggression on Ukraine was the second act of the barbaric Russkij mir tragedy. The first act started nearly a decade ago with the annexation of Crimea by Russia. The third and final act will be the end of hostilities and peace written by Ukrainians.

Mayor of Lviv Andriy Sadovyy said:

I would like to thank our international partners for their support and help.

Together, we have managed to complete this project to a high standard and make the accommodation comfortable for displaced Ukrainians who needed a new and safe home in a short space of time.

Thanks to your support, hundreds of people have got a chance for a new life, because Russia took away their old one.

TheBritish and PolishAmbassadorsto Ukraine, Melinda Simmonsand Bartosz Cichocki,attended the opening of the new accommodation villageat the Lviv site yesterday [Monday],alongside keyUkrainian officials

The UK-Poland shelter project is being delivered by Solidarity Fund Poland. It builds on Polands existing shelter programme in Ukraine, which has already provided housing fortens of thousands of people.

Through our 220m humanitarian assistance, we are prioritising the most vulnerable, including women and children, the elderly and those with disabilities. To date, we have helped reach over 15.8 million people in need during this crisis.

Notes to Editors:

Originally posted here:
UK-Poland partnership to provide homes and power to Ukraine - GOV.UK

Russian President Vladimir is diving headfirst into an unprecedentedand irreversiblepublic image disaster over the war in Ukraine.

Long gone are the days of carefully staged photoshoots of Putin riding a horse bare-chested, or diving into rivers to find ancient Greek urns. Now, images of Volodymyr Zelensky visiting Ukrainian soldiers in combat zones across the country stand in stark contrast with reports of the Russian president holding court in the Kremlin and meeting with ministers and generals at comically long tables.

And when the Russian president did finally travel to the war zone, the image he struck shocked former aides and public relations experts.

A day after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest for war crimes this monththe Kremlin announced that Putin had flown by helicopter to Mariupol and driven a car into the city. Russian officials released a shaky, amateur-style video of the Russian president looking quite miserable, nervously playing with the zipper of his parka with sounds of explosions in the background.

Putins left his comfort zone in the bunker, where he has spent three years, and it is phenomenal to see how his publicity stunts have degraded, long-time Kremlin observer, Olga Bychkova, a former presenter on Echo of Moscow radio station, told The Daily Beast. He is surrounded by security guards. No professional cameramen have access to him any longer.

So, how did the Russian presidents macho publicity stunts take such a nosedive?

When I met with Putin in the Kremlin for the first time, I was 22 years old. He was a total superman, he had all the power there was, one exiled former member of Putins ruling party, Robert Schlegel, told The Daily Beast of his meeting with the Russian president in 2006. Back then, Putin was welcoming young nationalist activists into his sphere of influence, including Schegel, a member of the pro-Kremlin youth movement Nashi at the time.

First as a Kremlin activist, then as parliament member, Schlegel was responsible for filming several pro-Putin propaganda videos that hes now ashamed of.

The promotional videos for United Russia were produced by political analysts and television channels like Channel One and NTV. Those same people, like Ernst, worked on Putins image, Schlegel told The Daily Beast, referring to Konstantin Ernst, the director of Channel One. Putin was half-God for everybody who believed in him. Now he is older, and indeed, a significant amount of his time he spends in some bunker with a limited number of people who have access.

Schlegel ultimately served as a lawmaker in Putins system for 10 yearsuntil, he said, he could no longer stand it. The former parliament member left the United Russia party in 2016 and now lives in Germany.

The video they took of him for the New Year speech was totally unprofessional, it was probably made by somebody from the federal security service, Schlegel said, referring to a bizarre video of Putin commenting on the war during a champagne toast. (There is a lot of noise now about our strikes on the energy infrastructure of the neighboring country. Yes, we are doing that, the Russian president said in the clip.)

Vladimir Putin toasts with servicemen awarded with Gold Star medals of Heroes of Russia during a ceremony on the eve of Heroes of the Fatherland Day, at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia December 8, 2022.

Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel via Reuters

Meanwhile, Moscows clampdown on Putins critics is in full gear. Last week, Russian authorities broke into the offices of Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights group Memorial and confiscated three decades worth of archives documenting the Kremlins human rights abuses.

The image of Putin playing his piano, singing Blueberry Hill on stage with Kevin Costner, Sharon Stone, Monica Bellucci, and other Western idols is a far cry from the current image of the Russian president as a lonely, isolated man.

One of the original masterminds of Putins early publicity stunts is Marat Gelman, the Kremlins former political technologist. In an interview with The Daily Beast, he recalled the summer of 1999, when only about 2 percent of Russians knew who Putin even was.

I regret that time and my role now, of course. The idea was to stage scenes of Putin being active, traveling, doing things, solving problems without saying a word, Gelman, who is now an art collector and gallerist, told The Daily Beast. I wrote texts that were published in newspapers as his, and at some point they put billboards around St. Petersburg with words by Jean Baudrillard, presented as Putins. We all giggled quietly at the campaign headquarters.

Vladimir Putin rides a horse near the Western Sayan Mountains in southern Siberia's Tuva region August 15, 2007.

Ria Novosti/Kremlin via Reuters

Gelman remembers Putin as very quiet, obeying his campaign managers without question, she said.

He was not afraid, it seemed he did not care much if he would lose, but now he is really terrified, because of the real danger he is facing, Gelman told The Daily Beast. He has burnt everything And people around him must also be terrified, because they know much more than all of us about how truly lost he is.

Original post:
Former Kremlin Flacks Dish on Putin's Public Image Crisis Over Ukraine War - The Daily Beast

News

By Victor Nava

March 27, 2023 | 11:42pm

Former President Donald Trump on Monday wildly claimed that he could resolve the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of leading peace negotiations, but he refused to reveal how.

Trump, 76, made the eyebrow-raising comment in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity that aired Monday night. The ex-president said that if the war is not over by the end of the 2024 presidential election, and he were to be reelected to the White House, he would within one day have a peace deal in place.

Trump argued that negotiations between himself, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin would be easy.

If its not solved, I will have it solved in 24 hours with Zelensky and with Putin, and theres a very easy negotiation to take place, but I dont want to tell you what it is because then I cant use that negotiation, Trump vowed, not so much as hinting at what his negotiation strategy would be.

But theres a very easy negotiation to take place. I will have it solved within one day, a peace between them, he reiterated.

Trump said that his purported future negotiations wouldnt take place for another year and a half, saying, thats a long time, and noting that the war could get much worse in the meantime.

If this thing isnt solved by the time we have the election which its possible it wont be, and its also possible well be in World War Three with these idiots that are doing what theyre doing you could end up in a nuclear world war which will make World War I and World War II look like patty cakes, Trump warned.

The former commander-in-chief also claimed, as he has on numerous occasions, that he got along very well with Putin and that the Russian invasion of Ukraine never would have happened if he wouldve been re-elected president in 2020.

Trump told Fox News host Tucker Carlson earlier this month that opposing Russia in Ukraine is not a vital US strategic interest, but is for Europe.

That is why Europe should be paying far more than we are, or equal, Trump argued.

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Original post:
Trump: I will end Ukraine war in 24 hours but I wont tell you how - New York Post

26 March 2023

Russia Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu

A Ukrainian drone has been shot down by Russian air defences, Moscow has said.

The drone came down in the town of Kireyevsk - some 400km (249 miles) from the Ukraine border - on Sunday, the defence ministry announced.

Russian state media is reporting that at least three people were injured in an explosion after it was brought down.

Ukraine has dismissed previous claims that it has attacked Russian civilian targets with explosive drones and has not yet commented on this incident.

Moscow has deployed hundreds of drones against Ukraine.

Russian law enforcement authorities say the drone - said to be a Strizh-type (Tu-141) UAV packed with explosives - was brought down at 15:20 local time (13:20 BST), causing a large crater in the heart of Kireyevsk.

Several apartments have reportedly been damaged in the town - which lies in the Tula region, 220km south of Moscow - but there have not been any serious injuries.

In a statement on its Telegram channel, the Russian Defence Ministry accused Ukraine of attempting to carry out a strike.

"The grouping of Russian air defence systems deployed in the Tula region - S-300 and Pantsir-S1 anti-aircraft missile systems, as well as Pole-21 electronic warfare systems - provide reliable cover from this direction," the defence ministry said.

"In particular, the Pole-21 electronic warfare complex handled the Ukrainian strike drone, which resulted in its navigation system being disabled."

The Engels air base has been repeatedly used by Russia to carry out missile strikes on various targets in Ukraine since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion last February.

More:
Ukraine war: Drone downed over Russia, Moscow says - BBC

Ukrainian "drone hunters" have offered a glimpse into how Kyiv's military is studying the downed remnants of Iranian-made drones, as another wave of drone strikes hit the country overnight.

Taking apart the drones in an undisclosed location, one Ukrainian intelligence officer said the Iranian-made Shahed-136 and -131 drones were "simple but effective" weapons in Russia's arsenal, according to a clip posted by the War Translated project on Twitter.

Shahed-136 and the smaller -131 version have been extensively used by Russian forces in Ukraine. Tehran had denied supplying Moscow with the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), but then said it had sent a "small number of drones months before the Ukraine war."

The "majority" of the components for the Shahed drones are "foreign-made," including from the U.S. and China, the unnamed intelligence officer said.

On Tuesday, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said 15 Shahed-136 drones had been used to strike Ukrainian territory. A total of 14 drones were shot down, the General Staff said in an update posted to Facebook.

Ukraine's Air Command previously said it had shot down 12 of a total of 13 Shahed-131 and -136 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) launched overnight in the north and southeastern regions of Ukraine.

Russian forces also used controlled air bombs over the Kherson region, launched from Su-35 fighter jets, Kyiv said.

On Monday night, the regional administration in Kyiv warned residents of the "threat of attack by enemy drones," before the capital city's mayor, Vitali Klitschko, reported explosions in two districts of Kyiv.

Klitschko later said a fire had broken out at a commercial premises, but that it had been contained. It was the "result of the fall of UAV wreckage," the head of Kyiv's military administration, Serhiy Popko, said in a Telegram statement, adding that all 12 drones used in the "barrage attack" on Kyiv were destroyed.

On Sunday, the British defense ministry said that since the beginning of March, Russia had likely launched at least 71 Shahed attacks in Ukraine.

Moscow had likely started to receive "regular resupplies" of limited numbers of the drones, following a pause in drone activity in late February, the ministry said on Twitter. Western analysts and Ukraine's military had previously suggested Russia was running low of Shahed supplies.

The drones, known to emit a low buzzing sound on approach, carry warheads that explode or shatter as they reach their target. An inexpensive way of stretching Ukraine's air defenses, the UAVs can be difficult to detect before arriving at their targets.

Link:
Ukraine 'Drone Hunters' Show Weaponry as Shaheds Shot Down Over Kyiv - Newsweek