Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Berlin, October 11, 2024
Saturday’s Coverage: Russia Kills 4, Injures 3+ in Kyiv
Map: Institute for the Study of War
UPDATE 1642 GMT:
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a decree imposing sanctions on pro-Russian politicians and propagandists.
“We are blocking propagandists working for Russia, people who have gone over to the enemy’s side, and those who help Russia continue the war,” Zelensky said in a video address on Facebook.
Eighteen people were listed by Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, including prominent politicians Yuriy Boyko, Nestor Shufrych, and Yevhen Muraiev.
Boyko led the pro-Russian political party Opposition Platform — For Life, banned by the Supreme Court following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. He has repeated Russian propaganda talking points on social media such as “radicals” controlling the streets in Ukraine.
Shufrych was arrested last year on charges of subversive activities against Ukraine and financing of Russia’s National Guard in occupied Crimea, including to guard his real estate holding in the peninsula.
Muraiev, former leader of the now-banned pro-Russian Nashi party, was charged with treason in 2023. The Security Service said used his media empire, including the Nash TV channel, to disseminate pro-Russian narratives.
Just before the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the UK Foreign Office warned that the Kremlin intended to install Muraiev as the head of a Russian puppet regime in Kyiv. The politician reportedly left Ukraine in 2022.
UPDATE 1158 GMT:
Air defenses downed 43 Russian attack drones overnight. Another 15 decoy drones were lost to electronic counter-measures.
The drones were intercepted over the Poltava, Sumy, Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Dnipropetrovsk, and Mykolaiv regions.
UPDATE 0753 GMT:
Belarusian activist Maria Zaytsava has been killed working as a medic on the frontline in Ukraine.
Zaytsava was slain on January 17 — a day after her 24th birthday — near Bakhmut, the city in eastern Ukraine overrun by Russia in May 2023.
Belarusian volunteer Maria Zaitseva was killed defending Ukraine. She just turned 24.
She joined the Ukrainian army after Russia's full-scale war & was KIA near Bakhmut, where she fought as part of 2nd Int'l Legion
She left Belarus after 2020 anti-Lukashenka protests after… pic.twitter.com/lX4RTP23Oc
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) January 18, 2025
In August 2020, Zaytsava was beaten and her face and head bloodied by Belarusian security forces cracking down on tens of thousands of protesters. The demonstrators were challenging the “re-election” of leader Alexander Lukashenko, in a vote condemned by international observers as neither free nor fair.
“We stood peacefully, shouting,” Zaytsava recalled. “I remember they were [using water cannons] on us, and then there was an explosion and I was lying on the ground. After that I don’t remember anything….I was blinded.”
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Zaytsava volunteered to help Ukrainian refugees in the Czech Republic. In spring 2023, she joined the Ukrainian Foreign Legion.
“She was so small, she didn’t have a weapon, so where should she go?” said Ales Petrouski, a senior medic in the Legion and Zaytsava’s commander.
Joining the medical unit, Zaytsava also took on responsibilities as a translator.
Injured in the hand, she went to the Czech Republic but returned to the frontline in January 2024.
Members of Zaytsava’s unit said that, under Russian artillery fire, fellow soldiers managed to evacuate her body.
“Gravely injured during the 2020 Belarus protests, she gave her life for freedom,” said Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya. She was “an icon of our revolution”.
ORIGINAL ENTRY: Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius says Berlin may consider deploying troops in any peacekeeping mission monitoring a ceasefire in Ukraine,.
The initiative, first proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron, is gaining momentum. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, during a visit to Kyiv last week, said British forces might be deployed.
Asked if Germany would do the same, Pistorius said in an interview with Suddeutsche Zeitung, “We’re the largest NATO partner in Europe. We’ll obviously have a role to play.”
The Defense Minister emphasized the creation of security for Ukraine to prevent another Russian invasion. He said he hoped to visit the incoming Trump Administration in Washington in early February.
Friedrich Merz, the opposition CDU/CSU alliance’s candidate for Chancellor in Parliamentary elections on February 23, said on December 28 that Germany could join a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine; however, it could only be with Russia’s consent.
The German Government is embroiled in a dispute over the Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s blocking of an additional €3 billion in military aid to Ukraine.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who along with Pistorisu has backed the provision, said, “Even now, during the election campaign, some prioritize a national perspective — or how to quickly gain a few votes in the parliamentary election — rather than taking real responsibility for securing Europe’s peace and freedom.”
Pistorius did not comment on the division, instead saying that Germany should aim to spend around 3% of GDP on defense.