Chechen chief calls overseas help to Ukraine a ‘cash laundering scheme’
Western help to Ukraine is a “scheme for laundering money”, the chief of Russia’s Chechen Republic stated on Sunday.
“I see that some are worried about the foreign aid to Ukraine. Do not worry! This is a working money laundering scheme. Western and Ukrainian officials will embezzle these funds, and no more than 15% of the entire aid will reach the trenches,” Ramzan Kadyrov wrote on Telegram.
There is not any proof for this declare from the staunch Putin best friend.
Military and monetary help from the west has been vastly instrumental in serving to Ukraine flip the tide at the battlefield, in addition to protecting its state afloat. There were no documented instances of it going lacking.
Kadyrov claimed there used to be no wish to fear about hostilities on Russian territory, with Ukrainian drones hitting objectives inside of Russia in contemporary days.
“These are our regions, which opted to join our state for the sake of protection of their people from Satanist actions of Ukrainian and NATO nationalists,” he used to be quoted as pronouncing via TASS, a Russian state information company.
On Friday, the USA introduced a new 2.85 billion buck package deal of army help for Ukraine, which can come with tank-killing armoured cars.
The help used to be praised via Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “exactly” what Ukraine wanted.
In a separate message, Kadyrov wrote on Telegram that some 300 combatants from Chechen were deployed to Ukraine.
He claimed that because the get started of the preventing in February, combatants from Chechnya in southern Russia have displayed prime battle functions and potency, in step with TASS.
No signal of casualties regardless of Russian declare it has killed masses of Ukrainian soliders
A Russian rocket strike at the Ukrainian town of Kramatorsk brought about injury however didn’t ruin constructions and there have been no glaring indicators of casualties, Reuters reported on Sunday.
Russia claims the assault killed 600 Ukrainian infantrymen.
Reporters from the scoop company visited two constructions Russia says had been housing Ukrainian servicemen close to the entrance line on the time of the in a single day strike.
Neither perceived to were without delay hit via missiles or badly broken. There had been no glaring indicators that infantrymen were residing there and no signal of our bodies or lines of blood.
The different construction named via Russia’s defence ministry used to be solely intact. A crater lay about 50 metres away nearer to a couple garages.
Authorities in Kyiv didn’t in an instant remark at the strike or on Russia’s casualty determine.
Kramatorsk’s mayor previous stated there were no casualties.
In a remark, Russia’s defence ministry stated the strike used to be a revenge operation for a perilous Ukrainian assault final week on a Russian barracks within the Donetsk area, which killed a minimum of 89 conscripts.
“As a result of a massive missile strike on these temporary deployment points of Ukrainian army units, more than 600 Ukrainian servicemen were destroyed,” the defence ministry stated.
If true, it will be the unmarried greatest lack of Ukrainian troops since Russia invaded final 12 months.
Euronews can not independently test those claims, whilst neither aspect within the grinding battle in most cases discloses their losses.
The observe of housing huge numbers of infantrymen in combination got here into sharp focal point after the Ukrainian strike final week, which precipitated fierce criticisms of Russian army commanders within the nation.
Ukraine is assumed to have stopped housing troops shut in combination in unmarried constructions following a perilous Russian assault in March.
Power crops in Russian-controlled spaces broken via rockets: Local officers
Two energy crops within the Donetsk area managed via Russian forces had been broken in a rocket assault via the Ukrainian military, Moscow-installed officers stated on Sunday.
Initial knowledge advised that the crops in Zuhres and Novyi Svit were hit and that some other folks operating there have been injured, the officers stated on Telegram.
One individual used to be killed because of the assault at the Starobesheve energy plant in Novyi Svit, TASS reported.
“The body of one dead woman was extracted from under the rubble at the plant,” the state-owned information company stated, bringing up an emergency products and services consultant.
TASS had previous stated the strike used to be performed the use of a more than one rocket launcher device.
There used to be no fast remark from Ukraine. Kyiv usually does now not publically declare duty for assaults inside of Russia or on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine.
Since October, Russia has battered Ukraine’s power infrastructure with Iranian-mode drones, knocking off energy and water provides for extended sessions, throughout bleak iciness prerequisites.
‘It’s a heavy loss’: Ukrainians pay tribute to useless fighter
Ukrainian infantrymen, circle of relatives and mourners amassed in Kyiv on Sunday to honour a soldier killed preventing towards Russian forces in Bakhmut, a strategic town underneath siege at the japanese entrance.
An outside provider used to be held within the Ukrainian capital’s Independence Square for Major Oleh Yurchenko who used to be killed in Bakhmut on 2 Jan.
Fellow infantrymen carried the coffin whilst others knelt at the floor. A bugle performed and a male quartet later sang solemn hymns as an Orthodox priest carried out the provider attended via about 200 other folks.
Yurchenko, 45, nicknamed “Happy,” volunteered for the military after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started in February.
He were head of safety for TIU Canada, an power corporate working in Ukraine, in step with a Facebook put up.
Yurchenko used to be well known as a Ukrainian patriot, having participated in pro-democracy demonstrations in 2004-2005 and later in 2014 which ousted Viktor Yanukovych as president.
Kyiv’s Independence Square used to be the centre of each demonstrations, making it a becoming web site for his funeral.
“He used to be the most productive Ukrainian, a sort father, an excessively accountable individual,” said Yurii Zhukovskyi, a Ukrainian soldier. “It is an excessively heavy loss, as a result of those are the most productive other folks in Ukraine, and they’re demise.”
“It is a smart pity,” he added.
Christmas truce between Russia and Ukraine ineffective
Ukrainians celebrated Orthodox Christmas on Saturday under the shadow of war, with a proposed Russian ceasefire almost non-existent.
Many Ukrainians spent the celebration crouched in underground shelters, as the 36-hour truce announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin passed by without hostilities letting up.
“The international used to be in a position to peer as soon as once more these days how untruthful all of the phrases spoken on the best stage in Moscow are,” Zelenskyy said in a video message released on Saturday evening.
“They mentioned an alleged ceasefire… however the fact is that the Russian shells persisted to hit Bakhmout and the opposite Ukrainian positions”, he added.
The Ukrainian leader continued to hammer home his message that the only solution to the war was “the expulsion of the Russian occupiers from Ukrainian lands”.
The ceasefire, ordered by Moscow at midday on Friday, ended at midnight Saturday (21:00 GMT).
Ukraine accused the Russian army of not respecting the pause, while Russia claimed that Ukraine forced it to retaliate by not accepting the ceasefire.
Kyiv immediately rejected the Kremlin’s announcement, describing it as “faux”.
On Saturday, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaïlo Podoliak said the ceasefire was a ruse to gain time so that Russian forces could re-group.
Washington, Paris, London, Berlin and the EU all denounced Moscow’s “hypocrisy”.
