KYIV, Ukraine: The owner of the Russian Wagner Group private military contractor actively involved in the fighting in Ukraine has predicted that the war could drag on for years.
Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a video interview released late Friday that it could take 18 months to two years for Russia to fully secure control of Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland of Donbas. He added that the war could go on for three years if Moscow decides to capture broader territories east of the Dnieper River.
The statement from Prigozhin, a millionaire who has close links to Russian President Vladimir Putin and was dubbed “Putin’s chef” for his lucrative Kremlin catering contracts, marked a recognition of the difficulties that the Kremlin has faced in the campaign, which it initially expected to wrap up within weeks when Russian troops invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Russia suffered a series of humiliating setbacks in the fall when the Ukrainian military launched successful counteroffensives to reclaim broad swaths of territory in the east and the south. The Kremlin has avoided making forecasts on how long the fighting could continue, saying that what it called the “special military operation” will continue until its goals are fulfilled.
The Russian forces have focused on Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk provinces that make up the Donbas region where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014.
Ukrainian and Western officials have warned that Russia could launch a new broad offensive to try to turn the tide of the conflict as the war approaches the one-year mark. But Ukraine’s military intelligence spokesman, Andriy Chernyak, told Kyiv Post that “Russian command does not have enough resources for large-scale offensive actions.”
“The main goal of Russian troops remains to achieve at least some tactical success in eastern Ukraine,” he said.
Prigozhin said that the Wagner Group mercenaries were continuing fierce battles for control of the Ukrainian stronghold of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region. He acknowledged that the Ukrainian troops were mounting fierce resistance.
As Russian troops have pushed their attacks in the Donbas, Moscow has also sought to demoralize Ukrainians by leaving them without heat and water in the bitter winter.
On Friday, Russia launched the 14th round of massive strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities and other vital infrastructure. High-voltage infrastructure facilities were hit in the eastern, western and southern regions, resulting in power outages in some areas.
Ukraine’s energy company, Ukrenergo, said Saturday that the situation was “difficult but controllable,” adding that involved backups to keep up power supplies but noting that power rationing will continue in some areas. Head of Ukraine’s state nuclear operator Energoatom Petro Kotin said Saturday that more power will come into the country’s energy system after two nuclear reactors have been repaired.
Ukraine’s military chief, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, said that Russian forces launched 71 cruise missiles, 35 S-300 missiles and seven Shahed drones between late Thursday and midday Friday, adding that Ukrainian air defenses downed 61 cruise missiles and five drones.
The Ukrainian authorities reported more attacks by killer drones later on Friday. The Ukrainian air force said the military downed 20 Shahed drones in the evening.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that Friday’s strikes hit all the designated targets, halting the operation of Ukraine’s defense factories and blocking the delivery of supplies of Western weapons and ammunition. The claim couldn’t be independently verified.
Late Friday, Russian military bloggers and some Ukrainian news outlets posted a video showing an attack by a sea drone on a strategic railway bridge in the Odesa region. The grainy video showed a fast-moving object on the surface of the water approaching the bridge in Zatoka, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of Odesa, and exploding in a powerful blast.
The authenticity of the video couldn’t be verified, but the Ukrainian military on Saturday confirmed the use of sea drones by Russian forces.
Ukraine’s military chief Zaluzhnyi said in an online statement that he has expressed concern about the use of such drones in a phone conversation with the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, on Saturday, adding that it “poses a threat to civilian navigation in the Black Sea.”
The attack marks the first combat use of a sea drone by Russia in the conflict. Igor Korotchenko, a retired colonel of the Russian armed forces who frequently comments on the conflict on Russian state TV, noted Saturday that such drones should be equipped with a more powerful load of explosives to inflict more significant damage.
The bridge, which was targeted by Russian missile strikes early in the war, serves the railway link to Romania, which is a key conduit for Western arms supplies.
In other developments, the governor of Russia’s Kursk region along the border with Ukraine said that a group of construction workers was hit by Ukrainian shelling that killed one of them and wounded another.
The governor of another Russian border region, Belgorod, reported the shelling of the town of Shebekino, saying it damaged two buildings but no one was hurt.
Wagner owner says war in Ukraine could drag on for years
https://arab.news/ze9bn
Wagner owner says war in Ukraine could drag on for years
- Prigozhin said that the Wagner Group mercenaries were continuing fierce battles for control of the Ukrainian stronghold of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region
Man accused in UnitedHealthcare CEO killing faces federal charge that’s eligible for death penalty
Luigi Mangione was held without bail following a Manhattan federal court appearance, capping a whirlwind day that began in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested last week in the Dec. 4 attack on Brian Thompson.
The 26-year-old Ivy League graduate had been expected to be arraigned Thursday on a state murder indictment in a killing that at once rattled the business community and galvanized some health insurance critics, but the federal charges preempted that appearance. The cases will now proceed on parallel tracks, prosecutors said, with the state charges expected to go to trial first.
Mangione, shackled at the ankles and wearing dress clothes, said little during the 15-minute proceeding as he sat between his lawyers in a packed federal courtroom.
He nodded as a magistrate judge informed him of his rights and the charges against him, occasionally leaning forward to a microphone to tell her he understood.
After the hearing, a federal marshal handed Mangione’s lawyers a bag containing his belongings, including the orange prison jumpsuit he had worn to court in Pennsylvania.
Mangione had been held in Pennsylvania since his Dec. 9 arrest while eating breakfast at a McDonald’s in Altoona, about 233 miles (37 kilometers) west of Manhattan.
At a hearing there Thursday morning, Mangione agreed to be returned to New York and was immediately turned over to at least a dozen New York Police Department officers who took him to an airport and a plane bound for Long Island.
He then was flown to a Manhattan heliport, where he was walked slowly up a pier by a throng of officers with assault rifles — a contingent that included New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.
The federal complaint filed Thursday charges Mangione with two counts of stalking and one count each of murder through use of a firearm and a firearms offense. Murder by firearm carries the possibility of the death penalty, though federal prosecutors will determine whether to pursue that path in coming months.
In a state court indictment announced earlier this week, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office charged Mangione with murder as an act of terrorism, which carries a possible sentence of life in prison without parole. New York does not have the death penalty.
Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said it’s a “highly unusual situation” for a defendant face simultaneous state and federal cases.
“Frankly I’ve never seen anything like what is happening here,” said Friedman Agnifilo, a former top deputy in the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
She reserved the right to seek bail at a later point and declined to comment as she left the courthouse.
Mangione, of Towson, Maryland, is accused of ambushing the 50-year-old Thompson as the executive arrived to a Manhattan hotel for an investor conference.
Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson from behind. Police say the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were scrawled on the ammunition investigators found at the scene, echoing a phrase commonly used to describe insurer tactics to avoid paying claims.
The gunman then pedaled a bicycle through Central Park, took a taxicab to a bus station and then rode the subway to a train station before fleeing to Pennsylvania, authorities said.
There, a McDonald’s customer noticed that Mangione looked like the person in surveillance photos police were circulating of the gunman, prosecutors said.
When he was arrested, they say, Mangione had the gun used to kill Thompson, a passport, fake IDs and about $10,000.
According to the federal complaint, Mangione also had a spiral notebook that included several handwritten pages expressing hostility toward the health insurance industry and wealthy executives. UnitedHealthcare is the largest health insurer in the US, though the insurer said Mangione was never a client.
An August entry said that “the target is insurance” because “it checks every box,” according to the filing. An entry in October “describes an intent to ‘wack’ the CEO of one of the insurance companies at its investor conference,” the document said.
Mangione initially fought attempts to return him to New York. In addition to waiving extradition Thursday, he waived a preliminary hearing on forgery and firearms charges in Pennsylvania.
The killing unleashed an outpouring of stories about resentment toward US health insurance companies while also shaking corporate America after some social media users called the shooting payback.
Mangione, a computer science graduate from a prominent Maryland family, repeatedly posted on social media about how spinal surgery last year had eased his chronic back pain, encouraging people with similar conditions to speak up for themselves if told they just had to live with it.
In a Reddit post in late April, he advised someone with a back problem to seek additional opinions from surgeons and, if necessary, say the pain made it impossible to work.
“We live in a capitalist society,” Mangione wrote. “I’ve found that the medical industry responds to these key words far more urgently than you describing unbearable pain and how it’s impacting your quality of life.”
He apparently cut himself off from family and close friends in recent months. His family reported him missing in San Francisco in November.
Thompson, who grew up on a farm in Iowa, was trained as an accountant. A married father of two high-schoolers, he had worked at UnitedHealth Group for 20 years and became CEO of its insurance arm in 2021.
Trump backs new GOP plan to fund government and raise debt limit as shutdown nears
Trump’s social media post landed as Republicans said they had narrowed in on a tentative accord after grueling closed-door talks. The new plan would keep government running for three more months, add $100.4 billion in disaster assistance including for hurricane-hit states, and allow more borrowing through Jan. 30, 2027, Republicans said.
“SUCCESS in Washington! Speaker Mike Johnson and the House have come to a very good Deal,” Trump posted.
Next steps were highly uncertain, and it was particularly unclear if enough Democrats, who votes would certainly be needed on any package in the face of hard-line Republican opposition, were on board — or even brought into any negotiations.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Democrats were sticking with the original deal they struck with Johnson and called the new one “laughable.”
“It’s not a serious proposal,” Jeffries said as he walked to Democrats’ own closed-door caucus meeting. Inside, Democrats were chanting, “Hell, no!”
A government shutdown at risk, Johnson has been fighting to figure out how to meet Trump’s sudden demands — and keep his own job — while federal offices are being told to prepare to shutter operations ahead of Friday’s midnight deadline.
The new proposal whittles the 1,500-page bill to 116 pages and drops a number of add-ons — notably the first payraise for lawmakers in more than a decade, which could have allowed as much as a 3.8 percent bump. That drew particular scorn as Trump ally Elon Musk turned his social media army against the bill.
The slimmed-down package does include federal funds to rebuild Baltimore’s collapsed Key Bridge, but dropped a separate land transfer that could have paved the way for a new Washington Commanders football stadium. It drops a long list of other bipartisan bills that had support as lawmakers in both parties try to wrap work for the year. It extends government funds through March 14.
Trump said early Thursday that Johnson will “easily remain speaker” for the next Congress if he “acts decisively and tough” in coming up with a new plan to also raise the debt limit, a stunning request just before the Christmas holidays that has put the beleaguered speaker in a bind.
And if not, the president-elect warned of trouble ahead for Johnson and Republicans in Congress.
“Anybody that supports a bill that doesn’t take care of the Democrat quicksand known as the debt ceiling should be primaried and disposed of as quickly as possible,” Trump told Fox News Digital.
The tumultuous turn of events, coming as lawmakers were preparing to head home for the holidays, sparks a familiar reminder of what it’s like in Trump-run Washington. Trump led Republicans into the longest government shutdown in history during the 2018 Christmas season, and interrupted the holidays in 2020 by tanking a bipartisan COVID-relief bill and forcing a do-over.
For Johnson, who faces his own problems ahead of a Jan. 3 House vote to remain speaker, Trump’s demands kept him working long into the night to broker a new deal. Vice President-elect JD Vance joined the late-night meetings at the Capitol, bringing his young son in pajamas.
Trump’s allies even floated the far-fetched idea of giving billionaire Musk the speaker’s gavel, since the speaker is not required to be a member of the Congress.
But adding an increase in the debt ceiling to what had been a bipartisan package is a show-stopper for Republicans who routinely vote against more borrowing.
While Democrats have floated their own ideas in the past for lifting or even doing away with the debt limit caps that have created some of the toughest debates in Congress — Sen. Elizabeth Warren had suggested as much — they appear to be in no bargaining mood to save Johnson from Trump — even before the president-elect is sworn into office.
“Here we are once again in chaos,” said House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, who detailed the harm a government shutdown would cause Americans. “And what for? Because Elon Musk, an unelected man, said, ‘We’re not doing this deal, and Donald Trump followed along.’”
The current debt limit expires Jan. 1, 2025, and threatens to bog down the start of the new administration with months of negotiations to raise it. Trump wants the problem off the table before he joins the White House.
As senior Republicans broke from a Thursday morning meeting in the House speaker’s office there was no resolution in sight — a preview of what’s to come when Republicans control Congress and Trump is in the White House in the new year.
Rep. Steve Womack, an Arkansas Republican and senior appropriator, said the collapse of a bipartisan stopgap funding deal this week would “probably be a good trailer right now for the 119th Congress.”
Federal funding is scheduled to expire at midnight Friday as a current temporary government funding bill runs out.
The bipartisan compromise brokered between Johnson and the Democrats, whose support will be needed in the deeply split House and Senate to ensure passage, outraged conservatives for its spending and extras.
Musk, in his new foray into politics, led the charge. The wealthiest man in the world used his social media platform X to amplify the unrest, and GOP lawmakers were besieged with phone calls to their offices telling them to oppose the plan.
Trump told Johnson to start over — with the new demand on the debt limit, something that generally takes months to negotiate and that his own party generally opposes.
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget had provided initial communication to agencies about possible shutdown planning last week, according to an official at the agency.
US disagrees with HRW ‘genocide’ accusation against Israel
- US official: ‘When it comes to a determination of something like genocide, the legal standard is just incredibly high, and so the finding in this scenario we just disagree with’
WASHINGTON: The United States said Thursday it disagreed with New York-based Human Rights Watch’s accusation that Israel was carrying out “acts of genocide” in the Gaza Strip by damaging water infrastructure.
“When it comes to a determination of something like genocide, the legal standard is just incredibly high, and so the finding in this scenario we just disagree with,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.
“That does not take away from the fact that there is a dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”
The report released Thursday by the Human Rights Watch follows a similar accusation by London-based Amnesty International.
In a separate report on Thursday, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” in its 14-month war in Gaza launched after a massive Hamas attack.
The medical group said it documented 41 attacks on MSF staff including air strikes on health facilities and direct fire on humanitarian convoys.
Patel distanced the United States from the finding but, in contrast to Israel, stressed the value of non-governmental organizations.
“Even within their report, they make pretty clear that they don’t have the legal authority to determine intentionality” in the strikes on MSF, Patel said.
“But we continue to appreciate the important role that’s played by civil society organizations, including Doctors Without Borders, and we’re deeply concerned about the scale of civilian harm in this conflict,” he said.
Putin ready to meet Trump to talk Ukraine deal
- Asked if he would do anything differently if he could go back to February 2022, when he launched the Ukraine offensive, Putin said he only regretted not having done it sooner
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he was ready for talks with US President-elect Donald Trump at “any time” while regretting that he did not launch Moscow’s full-scale offensive earlier.
Trump, who will return to the White House in January, has called for negotiations to begin, stoking fears in Kyiv that he could force Ukraine to accept peace on terms favorable to Moscow.
At his annual end-of-year news conference, the 72-year-old said his troops held the upper hand across the battlefield.
He spoke as Kyiv said Russian attacks on northeastern Ukraine had killed three people and as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held talks with EU leaders in Brussels.
Putin spoke in a confident tone but was forced to admit he did not know when Russia would take back the parts of Russia’s Kursk region held by Kyiv since August.
The traditional annual question-and-answer sessions are largely a televised show while also being a rare setting in which Putin is put on the spot with some uncomfortable questions.
Putin spoke for just under four and a half hours.
Asked about Trump’s overtures regarding a possible peace deal, Putin said he would welcome a meeting with the incoming Republican.
“I don’t know when I’m going to see him. He isn’t saying anything about it. I haven’t talked to him in more than four years. I am ready for it, of course. Any time,” Putin said.
“If we ever have a meeting with President-elect Trump, I am sure we’ll have a lot to talk about,” he said, adding that Russia was ready for “negotiations and compromises.”
Russia’s troops have been advancing in eastern Ukraine for months, with Putin repeatedly touting their prowess on the battlefield.
But asked by a woman from the Kursk region when residents would be able to return to their homes there, after thousands were evacuated from frontline areas during the Ukrainian assault, Putin said he could not name a date.
“We will absolutely kick them out. Absolutely. It can’t be any other way. But the question of a specific date, I’m sorry, I cannot say right now,” he said.
Putin was also pressed on the economic headwinds Russia faced — the fallout from a huge ramp-up in military spending and deep labor shortages caused by the conflict.
He insisted that the situation was “stable, despite external threats,” citing low unemployment and industrial growth.
Asked about soaring inflation, Putin said that “inflation is a worrying signal.” Price rises for foods such as butter and meat were “unpleasant,” he conceded.
He acknowledged, too, that Western sanctions were a factor — while not of “key significance.” He hoped the central bank, expected to raise interest rates again Friday to cool inflation, would take a “balanced” decision, he added.
Putin appeared to repeat his threat to strike Kyiv with Russia’s new hypersonic ballistic missile, dubbed Oreshnik.
Asked by a military journalist if the weapon had any flaws, Putin suggested a “hi-tech duel” between the West and Russia to test his claims that it is impervious to air defenses.
“Let them set some target to be hit, let’s say in Kyiv,” he said.
“They will concentrate there all their air defenses. And we will launch an Oreshnik strike there and see what happens.”
Zelensky hit back by saying: “People are dying and he thinks it’s ‘interesting’.. Dumbass.”
Putin condemned as “terrorism” the killing in Moscow of a senior Russian army general, claimed by Kyiv.
The former KGB agent also made a rare criticism of the security services.
“Our special services are missing these hits,” he said, listing other recent killings.
“We must not allow such very serious blunders to happen.”
Asked if he would do anything differently if he could go back to February 2022, when he launched the Ukraine offensive, Putin said he only regretted not having done it sooner.
“Knowing what is happening now, I would think that such a decision... should have been taken earlier,” he said.
And Russia “should have started preparing for these events, including the special military operation,” he said, using Moscow’s official term for the conflict.
In his first public comments since the fall of ex-Syrian President Bashar Assad, Putin rejected claims his toppling was a “defeat” for Russia.
“You want to present what is happening in Syria as a defeat for Russia. I assure you it is not,” Putin said.
“We came to Syria 10 years ago so that a terrorist enclave would not be created there like in Afghanistan. On the whole, we have achieved our goal,” Putin said.
Putin said he had not yet met Assad, who fled to Moscow as rebels closed in on Damascus, but planned to soon.
Zelensky says Trump and EU must work together to secure peace
BRUSSELS: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday he needed both Europe and the United States on board to secure a durable peace, as he huddled with EU leaders at their final summit before Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Trump returns to the White House next month having pledged to bring a swift end to a conflict that NATO says has left more than one million dead and wounded since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion.
Talk has increasingly turned to ways Europe could help guarantee any ceasefire, with embryonic discussions over a possible deployment of peacekeepers one day.
But there are few specifics and Zelensky insisted that any steps to secure peace would have to involve the might of the United States.
“I believe that the European guarantees won’t be sufficient for Ukraine,” he said after talks with his EU counterparts.
Zelensky said he was supportive of an initiative mooted by French President Emmanuel Macron to potentially deploy Western troops — but it needed to be fleshed out.
“If we are talking about a contingent, we need to be specific — how many, what they will do if there is aggression from Russia,” he said.
“The main thing is that this is not some artificial story, we need effective mechanisms.”
Kyiv and its European allies fear that Trump’s return means the volatile Republican could cut support for Ukraine’s military and force Zelensky to make painful concessions to Moscow.
Ukraine’s EU backers — fearful of being left on the sidelines — insist they want to step up support to put Kyiv in a position of strength for any potential negotiations.
As the change of guard approaches in the US, Zelensky has appeared to soften his stance on any potential peace push.
He has said that if Ukraine is given firm security guarantees by NATO and enough weaponry it could agree to a ceasefire along current lines and look to regain the rest of its territory through diplomatic means.
But NATO members have rebuffed Kyiv’s calls for an invitation to join their alliance right away, sparking speculation that sending peacekeepers could be an alternative.
In the near term, Kyiv is desperate for more air defenses and weapons as its flagging forces lose ground across the frontline to Russia.
“We have to do everything that is in our hands to support Ukraine,” said Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda.
Zelensky said it would be “very difficult” for Europe alone to support Ukraine without US involvement and pleaded for both sides to work together.
“I think only together the United States and Europe can really stop Putin and save Ukraine,” he said.
European officials warned against trying to impose a deal on Ukraine — and said only Kyiv can decide when it’s time to negotiate.
“The European Union stands united in its support to Ukraine to win a comprehensive, just and lasting peace, not any peace, not capitulation,” said European Council chief Antonio Costa.
“Now is not the time to speculate about different scenarios. Now is the time to strengthen Ukraine for all scenarios.”
While the conflict in Ukraine was top of the agenda for EU leaders, the collapse of Assad’s brutal rule in Syria also presented major opportunities — and uncertainty.
European nations — along with other international players — are jostling for influence in the war-torn country after the end of the Assad family’s five-decade domination.
But they are wary of the new authorities who are spearheaded by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which has its roots in Al-Qaeda and is listed as a “terrorist” organization by some Western governments.
Leaders discussed how quickly they are willing to embrace the nascent authorities in Damascus.
HTS is under EU sanctions, though some including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said they were willing to reconsider these measures.
The bloc has laid out a raft of conditions the new authorities must respect.
Those include protecting minorities, overseeing an inclusive transition and shunning extremism.
“Europe will do its part to support Syria at this critical juncture, because we care about Syria’s future,” said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.
“These efforts will have to be matched by real deeds by the new leadership in Damascus, so it’s a step for step approach.”
