November

Russia is waging a “staggeringly reckless campaign” of sabotage in Europe while also stepping up its nuclear sabre-rattling to scare other countries off from backing Ukraine, the head of the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service known as MI6, said on Friday.

Richard Moore said in a speech in Paris on Friday that were Vladimir Putin to succeed in reducing Ukraine to a vassal state, he would not stop there, reports Reuters.  “Our security – British, French, European and transatlantic- will be jeopardized,” he said, adding:

We have recently uncovered a staggeringly reckless campaign of Russian sabotage in Europe, even as Putin and his acolytes resort to nuclear sabre-rattling to sow fear about the consequences of aiding Ukraine.”

He said the cost of supporting Ukraine was well known, but added:

The cost of not doing so would be infinitely higher. If Putin succeeds China would weigh the implications, North Korea would be emboldened and Iran would become still more dangerous.”

Reuters reports that Moore’s speech seemed aimed at rallying wavering European allies and any sceptics in the incoming US administration of Donald Trump about the importance of Ukraine. He joins other western intelligence officials in warning about increasing Russian sabotage actions.

Nato and western intelligence services have said that Russia is behind a growing number of hostile activities across the Euro-Atlantic area, ranging from repeated cyber-attacks to Moscow-linked arson – all of which Russia denies.

The UK’s domestic spy chief said last month that Russia’s GRU military intelligence service was seeking to cause “mayhem” across the UK and Europe. And sources familiar with US intelligence told Reuters this week that Russia was likely to expand its campaign of sabotage against European targets to increase pressure on the west over its support for Kyiv.

— earlier n November

The Kremlin has said it is preparing retaliatory measures after Ukraine twice fired US-made Atacms missiles into Russia in the last three days.

Moscow said both strikes targeted air defence positions in the Kursk region and claimed on both occasions either one or two missiles reached their targets, while most were shot down.

Nato secretary general Mark Rutte has underscored the need “to go further to change the trajectory of the conflict” in Ukraine.

Stopping over in Athens as he conducted his first regional tour of the eastern Mediterranean, the Nato leader said it was vital alliance members delivered on commitments made at Nato’s July Summit in the US.

“Our support for Ukraine has kept them in the fight, but we need to go further to change the trajectory of the conflict,” he said before holding a working lunch with the Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. “We need to provide critical air defences and deliver on the commitments made at the Nato summit in Washington. The new command, the Nato command to coordinate security assistance and training [NSATU], the financial pledge of 40 billion euros in 2024, and further measures to bring Ukraine closer to Nato.”

UPDATE – Vladimir Putin is reported to be open to discussing a Ukraine ceasefire deal with Donald Trump, but has already ruled out making any major territorial withdrawal concessions, while insisting Kyiv abandon all ambitions to join NATO, sources close to Putin told Reuters (11-20-24).

Putin’s idea for a ceasefire and eventual settlement of Russia’s brutal  invasion of Ukraine appears to have only one solution in his world view: Ukraine surrenders to Russia. President-elect Trump has already publicly indicated he support any solution proposed by Putin, so long as it results in an end the to conflict and US withdrawal of support for Ukraine.

Russian Invasion of Ukraine eclipse its 1,000th day of war

Ukraine took advantage of its newly granted long-range missile capabilities to strike a military base on Russian territory. Moscow, which has warned against such action, stepped up its threat of a nuclear response to conventional attacks.

Under the new approach, Ukraine can use these weapons against targets that relate to its operations in the Kursk region, a chunk of Russian territory that it occupied over the summer and is fighting to hold onto in the face of assaults by Russian and North Korean forces. The US reversal is a response to North Korea’s decision to send more than 10,000 troops to Kursk as part of a deepening alliance with Moscow, as well as stepped-up Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure

Vladimir Putin also signed a decree allowing Russia to launch nuclear weapons in the event of a massive conventional attack on its soil. The warning comes as Ukrainian forces carried out their first strike within Russian territory with a Western-supplied ATACMS missile

The twin developments early on Tuesday rattled investors who have long tuned out of the war’s daily grind, prompting a rush into haven assets.

In reality, the recent arrival of North Korean troops to support Russian forces on the battlefield had already upped the ante.

The prospect of Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January and his pledge to end the war in short order has created a new sense of urgency for Ukraine and its allies.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been pleading for more weapons to strengthen his hand, the Biden administration is sending Kyiv as much aid as possible before they leave office, and Germany’s Olaf Scholz called Putin last week to sound him out on talks. The Russian leader showed no interest in compromise, Scholz reported.

“The current situation offers Putin a significant temptation to escalate,” Tatyana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center said. Such a move would allow both Putin and Trump to blame Joe Biden for the spiraling conflict and serve as a premise for direct talks.   “This marks an extraordinarily dangerous juncture,” she added, since Putin may be trying to convince western leaders they have to choose between a nuclear conflict or a settlement on Russia’s terms.

Ukraine’s air force has said today (11-21-24) that Russia fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at the city of Dnipro, which if confirmed would be the first time the long-range weapon has been used in any armed conflict.

Russia responds to Ukraine missile attack with an over-the-top reply. Russian ICBMs, designed to carry nuclear warheads, have ranges of more than 6,200 miles, enough to reach the US east coast from Astrakhan, and are capable of being nuclear armed, suggesting that if the use of the weapon is confirmed, it was a signal from Moscow.

The claim was not immediately accepted by others, however. ABC News reported, citing western officials, that this was an exaggeration and that the weapon was in fact a shorter-range ballistic missile, similar to the types used repeatedly by Russia against Ukraine during the war.

Depending on whom you ask, the addition of North Korean troops to booster Russian forces now needed to make a significant breakthrough in Ukraine may prove, like so many dead Russians on the battlefield, to be simple cannon fodder, destined for repatriation in body bags.

After weeks of speculation, Nato and the Pentagon have confirmed that about 10,000 North Korean troops are in Russia, with most massing near Ukraine’s border in Kursk, where the Kremlin’s forces have struggled to repel a Ukrainian incursion.

The North Koreans came under Ukrainian artillery fire during “small-scale” fighting on Tuesday, said Ukraine’s defence minister, Rustem Umerov, in the first official confirmation of contact between the two forces.

It is too early to say how the Russian-North Korean “blood alliance” will change the dynamics of the conflict. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said Russia had been training them to use artillery, drones and “basic infantry operations, including trench clearing, indicating that they fully intend to use these forces in frontline operations”.

But not one of the young men drafted from Kim Jong-un’s regular army of approximately 1 million – the “strongest in the world”, according to Kim – has seen combat. And they will be fighting on unfamiliar territory, with new weapons and in uniforms bearing the flag of a country – Russia – they know little about.

While their arrival relieves pressure on Russia to draft more of its own citizens, with the US estimating that more than 500,000 Russians have been killed or wounded since the war started in February 2022 – experts believe the military dividends for the Kremlin will be limited.

Ukraine believes 11,000 North Korean troops have reached the Kursk border region in Russia, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday. That was echoed by the US as Pentagon spokesman Maj Gen Pat Ryder said: “We think that the total number of DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] forces in Russia … could be closer to around 11 to 12,000,” with “at least 10,000 right now in the Kursk oblast”.

Andriy Sybiga, Zelenskyy’s Ukraine’s foreign minister, said: “We call on Europe to realize that North Korean troops are now waging an aggressive war in Europe against a sovereign European state. This proves once again that while the West is afraid of and hesitates, Russia is acting and going for escalation.”

October

North Korean troops join Russia’s war in Ukraine: what we know so far

In a statement on its website, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) said Russian navy ships have already transferred 1,500 North Korean special operation forces to the port city of Vladivostok (between 8 and 13 October) now now undergoing training.

Earlier this week, the Kyiv Post quoted Ukrainian military sources as saying that as many as 3,000 North Korean troops were being supplied with small arms and ammunition in advance of their deployment in “high-risk operations aimed at reducing the strain on Russian forces”.  Russian navy ships have already reportedly transferred 1,500 forces to Vladivostok, where they are being trained for the war against Ukraine.

“The North Korean soldiers … are expected to be deployed to the frontlines as soon as they complete their adaptation training,” the agency said, adding that more North Korean troops were expected to be sent to Russia soon.

NIS said North Korean soldiers were given Russian military uniforms and Russian-made weapons and were issued with fake ID cards of residents of Yakutia and Buryatia, two regions in Siberia.  “It appears that they disguised themselves as Russian soldiers to hide the fact that they were deployed to the battlefield,” the agency said.

North Korea is known to have supplied ammunition and missiles to help Russia prosecute its war against Ukraine, but recent reports claim the secretive state is also sending large numbers of troops.  The reports were confirmed this week by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said ties between Moscow and Pyongyang were entering a new and even more dangerous phase.

Vladimir Putin, and his North Korean counterpart, Kim Jong-un, signed a secret “mutual aid agreement” in June that calls for the transfer of ammunition and missiles – and now personnel.

Last week,the New York Times reported that September was the “bloodiest” month yet for Russian troops fighting in the war, with 115,000 Russians killed since the start of the war and 500,000 wounded. The counterbalance to Russia’s manpower loses appears to come in the form of North Korean troops joining the fight fighting alongside Russians in the fight against Ukrainian defenders.  The transfer of large numbers of North Korean troops comes amid reports in the Ukrainian media that Putin is struggling to mobilise more Russians amid growing unease at home about the length and cost of the war, both financially and in terms of casualties.

NIS said North Korean soldiers were given Russian military uniforms and Russian-made weapons and were issued with fake ID cards of residents of Yakutia and Buryatia, two regions in Siberia.  Intelligence reports further indicate that several thousand North Korean soldiers were being trained in Russia and could be deployed on the frontline before the end of the year.  That manpower additions also include dozens of North Korean technicians sent to Ukraine to assist in the deployment of N Korean weapons supplied to Russia including the KN-23 ballistic missile with a range over 400 miles.

September

More than 600,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded since the war began in 2022.

It is a style of warfare that Russians have likened to being put into a meat grinder, with commanding officers seemingly willing to send many thousands of infantry soldiers to die. “It’s kind of the Russian way of war in that they continue to throw mass into the problem,” a senior U.S. military official said this week, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal assessments, in announcing the Pentagon’s latest Russian casualty estimate. “And I think we’ll continue to also see high losses on the Ukrainian side.”

Despite its losses, Russia is recruiting 25,000 to 30,000 new soldiers a month — roughly as many as are exiting the battlefield, U.S. officials said. That has allowed its army to keep sending wave after wave of troops at Ukrainian defenses, hoping to overwhelm them and break through the trench lines.  Russia’s use of infantry in waves of small unit attacks reflects one of its advantages in the war: Its population, roughly 146 million, is three times as large as Ukraine’s, giving it a larger pool of potential recruits.

A month and a half into its offensive into Russia’s western Kursk region, the Ukrainian Army faces difficult decisions over where best to commit its limited forces.

Moscow’s troops have begun counterattacking in the area, reclaiming a few villages and threatening Ukraine’s ability to hold onto the territory it has seized. At the same time, Russian soldiers in Ukraine have continued advancing on other parts of the front there, which Kyiv had hoped to stabilize by prompting a diversion of Russian units back home to defend Kursk.

Ukraine and Russia are also engaged in air assaults, targeting each other’s military bases and energy infrastructure as each side tries to degrade the other’s capacity to sustain the war effort. In addition, Russia continues to regularly hit civilian areas in devastating attacks that cause frequent casualties.

—

Vladimir Putin has said that a western move to let Kyiv use longer-range weapons against targets inside Russia would mean Nato would be “at war” with Moscow.

Putin spoke as US and UK top diplomats discussed easing rules on firing western weapons into Russia, which Kyiv has been pressing for, more than two and a half years into Moscow’s offensive.

“This would in a significant way change the very nature of the conflict,” Putin told a state television reporter.

“It would mean that Nato countries, the US, European countries, are at war with Russia,” he added. “If that’s the case, then taking into account the change of nature of the conflict, we will take the appropriate decisions based on the threats that we will face.”

Clearing Kyiv to strike deep into Russia “is a decision on whether Nato countries are directly involved in the military conflict or not”.

Putin’s comments came a day after the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, gave his strongest hint yet that the White House is about to lift its restrictions on Ukraine using long-range weapons supplied by the west on key military targets inside Russia.

Speaking in Kyiv alongside the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, Blinken said the US had “from day one” been willing to adapt its policy as the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine changed. “We will continue to do this,” he emphasised.

President Biden appears on the verge of clearing the way for Ukraine to launch long-range Western weapons deep inside Russian territory, as long as it doesn’t use arms provided by the United States, European officials say.

The issue, which has long been debated in the White House, is coming to a head on Friday with the first visit to Washington by Britain’s new prime minister, Keir Starmer.

Britain has already signaled to the United States that it is eager to let Ukraine use its “Storm Shadow” long-range missiles to strike at Russian military targets far from the Ukrainian border. But it wants explicit permission from Mr. Biden in order to demonstrate a coordinated strategy with the United States and France, which makes a similar missile. American officials say Mr. Biden has not made a decision, but will hear from Mr. Starmer on Friday.

If the president approves, the move could help Ukraine hold the line after it seizes Russian territory, as it did during its surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. But Mr. Biden has hesitated to allow Ukraine to use American weapons in the same way, particularly after warnings from American intelligence agencies that Russia could respond by aiding Iran in targeting American forces in the Middle East.

Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the UN security council on Friday that if western countries allow Ukraine to conduct long-range strikes in Russia then Nato countries would be “conducting direct war with Russia.”

U.S. Position

On Thursday, White House officials insisted there was no imminent decision on the use of the American-made surface-to-surface Army Tactical Missile Systems — known as ATACMS. But Mr. Biden himself has signaled that a loosening of restrictions is coming. He was asked on Tuesday whether he was ready to grant the increasingly insistent requests from President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.

“We are working that out right now,” he said.

If Mr. Biden permits the British and French to go ahead, and if he follows in coming weeks by allowing the use of the ATACMS, it could well be his final acceleration of the military aid to Ukraine.

Quietly, Republican leaders in the Senate, especially Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, have been urging an aggressive response — a sharp split with former President Donald J. Trump, who refused in Tuesday night’s presidential debate to declare that he wants Ukraine to win, or to say that Russia should get out of the 20 percent or so of Ukraine it has taken since war began.

—

Ukraine accused Russia on Thursday (9-12-24) of using strategic bombers to strike a civilian grain vessel in Black Sea waters near Nato member Romania, escalating tensions between Moscow and the military alliance. It was the first time a missile has struck a civilian vessel transporting grains at sea since the start of Moscow’s invasion in February 2022.

Some vessels have been damaged during Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports where they were moored. Zelenskiy said the vessel carrying Ukrainian grain to Egypt was hit overnight by a Russian missile just after it left Ukrainian territorial waters. There were no casualties, he said. Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said the strike was “a brazen attack on freedom of navigation and global food security”.

Ukraine’s navy said Russian Tupolev Tu-22 bombers had fired a number of cruise missiles at the vessel at 11.02pm local time on Wednesday.

August

On the Ground and in the Air …

A Ukrainian F-16 advanced fighter jet, recently supplied by NATO countries, was destroyed this week while defending against a sweeping Russian aerial assault and the pilot was killed, Ukraine’s military said on Thursday.

A Western official said the advanced fighter crashed while defending against a Russian aerial assault. It was not clear how it was destroyed, but the loss is a blow to Ukraine, given the planes’ prominence.

The plane was lost after Ukraine scrambled its air defenses while trying to intercept more than 200 missiles and drones fired by Russia on Monday, in what President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine called one of the largest attacks of its kind since the war began 30 months ago.  The loss is a blow to the government in Kyiv, partly because only about half a dozen of the planes have been delivered and only a few pilots have been trained to fly them.

Ukraine Says It Struck at 2 Oil Depots Inside Russia – August 29th:

Kyiv is pressing its drone campaign while lobbying allies for permission to use weapons supplied by NATO countries for strikes deep inside Russia.

Ukraine’s military said on Thursday that it had struck two more Russian oil depots, pressing ahead with a campaign of attacks against a sector vital to Moscow’s war effort.

The strikes coincided with accelerated lobbying by Ukraine’s political leaders for permission to use weapons supplied by allies in NATO to strike targets deep inside Russia, as Kyiv seeks to bring the pain and hardship of war home to Russia.

The Ukrainian military said it launched an attack that caused a fire on Wednesday at the Atlas oil depot in the Rostov region, which borders eastern Ukraine.

Russia Pounds Ukraine With ‘One of the Largest Strikes’ of the War – August 26th:

President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned a Russian assault of more than 200 missiles and drones that ranged from Kyiv to Odesa to Ukraine’s West. Energy infrastructure was again a target.

Moscow launched more than 200 missiles and drones across a wide swath of Ukraine on Monday, damaging energy facilities and sending residents of Kyiv into basements and subways to seek shelter. President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the assault as “one of the largest strikes” of the 30-month-old war.

The strikes occurred at a volatile time in the conflict, coming against the backdrop of Ukraine’s cross-border incursion into southern Russia — the first invasion on Russian soil since World War II. On Monday, Ukraine’s forces continued to try to advance in the region.

—

More than two weeks into its surprise offensive in western Russia, Ukraine’s advance has slowed, with its troops making only marginal gains around territory they already control.

But more than 200 miles to the southeast, another offensive is gaining momentum: Russia’s drive toward Pokrovsk, a stronghold in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. In recent days, Moscow’s troops have seized at least three settlements and reached the outskirts of a town along a railroad to Pokrovsk, a logistics hub for the Ukrainian Army in the region.

The Russian advance has put the Ukrainians in the precarious position of defending one critical front while attempting to press forward on another, all with limited troop numbers and weaponry.

—

Ukraine Steps Up Strikes Into Russia as Moscow Pushes Ahead in the East.

US president Biden pledges $125m in new military aid for Kyiv, while PM Narendra Modi (India) tells President Zelenskiy he is ready to help secure peace deal.  The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said on social media the aid package was worth $125m. It included air-defence missiles, counter-drone equipment, anti-armour missiles and ammunition, the White House said. Austin also spoke on Friday with his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerovm.  Zelenskiy said after the call: “Ukraine critically needs the supply of weapons from the announced packages, particularly additional air defence systems for the reliable protection of cities, communities and critical infrastructure.”

—

Peace Envoy

India’s Narendra Modi arrived in Kyiv on Friday on a closely watched visit, the first by an Indian prime minister since Ukraine gained independence in 1991. He told Zelenskiy he was “personally” ready to play a role “as a friend” to bring peace to Ukraine. “The road to resolution can only be found through dialogue and diplomacy,” Modi said. “And we should move in that direction without wasting any time. Both sides should sit together to find a way out of this crisis.” Zelenskiy said “history was made” and that “India supports Ukraine’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity”. An adviser in the Ukrainian president’s office, Mykhailo Podolyak, said Modi’s visit to Kyiv was significant because Delhi “really has a certain influence” over Moscow.

Earlier Yesterday (8-23-24) Ukraine struck a port across from Crimea and damaged a cargo ferry. But Kyiv’s forces continued to struggle in eastern areas under a relentless Russian assault.

—

Gains on the ground

Ukrainian forces isolated a large group of Russian soldiers caught between a river in Russia’s Kursk Province and the Ukrainian border, Kyiv has launched a series of strikes at airfields, ports and oil depots in other regions of Russia aimed at degrading the Kremlin’s war effort.

A Ukrainian missile strike on the Black Sea port of Kavkaz hit a large cargo ferry laden with fuel on Thursday, triggering a towering blaze at the facility, according to Russian and Ukrainian officials as well as video posted to social media channels. Kavkaz is one of the country’s largest passenger ports and the main ferry terminal connecting Russia with Crimea.

“This ferry is one of the key links in the Russian military logistics chain, primarily for supplying the occupying forces with fuel and lubricants, but it also transported weapons,” a Ukrainian Navy spokesman, Dmytro Pletenchuk, said in a statement.

The strike on the port is the latest in Ukraine’s effort to step up its attacks inside Russia as the two countries pound each other with a series of punches and counterpunches, using both direct assaults and more precision-guided drone and artillery attacks.

As Russia presses on in eastern Ukraine, threatening to take a strategic city, Ukraine holds more than 490 square miles in southern Russia — an area about the size of Los Angeles — and is launching attacks into other areas of Russia to bring the fight to its adversary.

—

Ukraine invades Russia – Kursk region penetration – says it has seized 1,000 sq km of Russia

Earlier, Ukraine pounded two Russian regions with drones as its ground forces tried to smash through defensive lines in a bid to carve out even more territory in its biggest attack on Russian territory since the war began. Russian President Vladimir Putin said the attack was aimed at improving Kyiv’s negotiating position.   Ukraine explains the incursion into Russia as …defensive.  Ukraine’s President Zelenskiy said on Monday that Russia had used the Kursk region to launch many strikes against his country.

Separately, Ukraine’s military says it used high-precision US glide bombs to strike Russia’s Kursk region and that is has recaptured some territory in the eastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv that has been under a Russian offensive since spring. Ukraine’s air force commander, Lt Gen Mykola Oleschuk, issued a video purporting to show a Russian platoon base being hit in Kursk. He said the attack with US-supplied GBU-39 bombs resulted in Russian casualties and the destruction of equipment. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s 3rd separate assault brigade said its forces advanced nearly 2 sq km (about three-quarters of a square mile) in the Kharkiv region.

Kursk Analysis

While Russian civilians have previously been killed by Ukrainian shelling near the border, this is the first time that Ukrainian forces have seized a foothold in Russian territory. According to reliable sources, 21,000 people had fled the border area, and that Russian authorities were working to evacuate another 59,000.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia lashed out at the West over Ukraine’s weeklong incursion into Russian territory, in a tense televised meeting with his top officials on Monday, a sign of how the surprise attack has unsettled the Kremlin.

Ukraine’s move has had two main goals, analysts said: to draw Russian forces from the front lines in eastern Ukraine and to seize territory that could serve as a bargaining chip in future peace negotiations.

Mr. Putin, speaking with security chiefs and regional governors at his residence outside Moscow, insisted that the attack would not soften his negotiating position.

Ukraine ambushes Russian convoy in Kursk as Kremlin declares emergency

Ukrainian forces staged an overnight ambush on a Russian convoy 25 miles inside the international border in Russia’s Kursk province, as the Kremlin declared a federal emergency and said it was transferring extra forces to try to snuff out a four-day incursion that has badly damaged its credibility.

Commentators said the attack, reminiscent of Ukrainian attacks on Russian troops besieging Kyiv in the first weeks of the war, demonstrated an effective hit-and-run strategy, but the incursion appeared likely to draw an escalating response from the Kremlin, and its overall outcome remains profoundly uncertain.  Russia’s defence ministry said at lunchtime that it was transferring military reserves to the Kursk region, according to the Interfax news agency, including Grad rockets, artillery and tanks.

Russia has declared a state of emergency in Kursk and local officials told the Tass news agency that 3,000 civilians had been evacuated following an attack that has clearly caught Moscow off guard.

Ukrainian forces, numbering several hundred according to Russia, burst across the border on the morning of Tuesday, reaching Sudzha on the first day, and since then appear to have pushed up roads to the north-west and north of the town.

July

10 US-NATO F-16 fighter jets delivered to Ukraine, designed to carry advanced US weapons supporting Ukraine’s air war

The US will arm F-16 fighter jets supplied by other allies to Ukraine with advanced American weapons including air-to-ground missiles, extended range guided bomb packs and air-to-air missiles including the AMRAAM and AIM-9X.

The first of dozens of donated F-16s are due in Ukraine this summer, flown by Ukrainian pilots trained in European countries and the US.

Ukraine energy situation Improving

Ukraine’s energy situation is improving, officials have said, as it contends with waves of Russian attacks targeting power stations. State-run electricity operator Ukrenergo said 30 July was the first day of the month with no power cuts. “If there is no more shelling, it will be possible to manage with minimal restrictions or no power outages at all in the next three months,” said Yuriy Boyko, an adviser to Shmygal who sits on Ukrenergo’s supervisory board. Ukraine has been importing electricity from the EU to fill the gap in generation.

Russian oil depot

The Ukrainian military said on Tuesday it had successfully hit a Russian oil depot in the Vozy settlement of the Kursk region. The depot was targeted in a joint operation of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and other forces, said the military general staff. The Kursk region’s acting governor said there had been a missile attack. On Sunday, Ukraine’s military struck the Polevaya oil depot in the Kursk region

June

Ukrainians are having to cope with widespread emergency blackouts as Russia continues to pound critical infrastructure.

In recent months, Moscow has intensified its attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid. On Friday night, energy facilities came under a “massive attack”, Ukraine’s energy ministry said. Several workers were injured as a result of shelling at one of the facilities.  “The situation in the energy sector remains difficult,” the ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

Volodomyr Zelenksiy said this month that Russia had damaged or destroyed more than half of Ukraine’s power generation, causing the worst rolling blackouts since the full-scale invasion in 2022.

Ukraine began implementing rolling blackouts on 15 May, disconnecting entire districts of the capital from the power grid to save energy.

• June 7, 2024

Ukrainian forces had destroyed Russian missile launchers with a strike in the Belgorod region, about 20 miles into Russia. Ukraine used the US High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS.Officials.  The attack came just days after the Biden administration granted permission for Ukraine to fire American weapons into Russia. Kyiv took advantage of its new latitude, striking a military facility over the border using a U.S.-made artillery system, according to a member of Ukraine’s Parliament.

A video from a Russian Telegram channel showed burning Russian military equipment and a swirling plume of gray smoke after a strike last Sunday. The video, which was verified by The New York Times, was recorded just outside of Belgorod, and satellite imagery shows smoke rising from what appears to be destroyed vehicles. At least one of the launchers was in an elevated position at the time of the attack.

Military analysts say the Ukrainians’ new ability to strike in Russia will help slow Moscow’s attacks across the border.

“Now we can hit the Russian troops at the stage of formation, which reduces the probability of preparing new offensives” at other sites on the border, said Mykhailo Samus, director of the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, a military research organization in Kyiv.

May

Recent decisions by President Biden and others give Ukrainian forces several new options. But they’re still restricted in the use of Western missiles that could strike far inside Russia.

The decision by the Biden administration to allow Ukraine to strike inside Russia with American-made weapons fulfills a long-held wish by officials in Kyiv that they claimed was essential to level the playing field.

The shift in policy followed declarations from nearly a dozen European governments and Canada that their weapons could be used to fire into Russia.

Freed from those constraints, Ukraine can strike into Russia with SCALP missiles from France and, potentially soon, the identical Storm Shadow missiles supplied by Britain. Although the British foreign minister, David Cameron, said on May 3 that Ukraine should be able to attack Russia with Western weapons, London has not yet given its full permission.

• May 16, 2024

Russia’s attack across the border north and north-west of Kharkiv was telegraphed by Moscow, predicted by western intelligence and anticipated by Ukraine. The fact that Russian forces have been able to advance about 4 miles at multiple points in five days raises serious questions about Kyiv’s ability to defend itself.

An intention to create “a sanitary zone” along the border inside Ukraine was signalled by Vladimir Putin in March. A month later Sergei Lavrov, the foreign minister, highlighted that Kharkiv had an “important role” in such a strategy as the region was reeling from bombing that had knocked out two power stations on 22 March.

At the same time, Moscow’s military had been building up its new Northern Group of forces, estimated by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) at 30,000 strong, in Russia’s Belgorod region. Last week, two days before the dawn assault, Kharkiv’s regional governor said a massing of forces had been spotted.

A warning was also passed, one source added, from UK defence intelligence to Ukraine’s leadership. So when on 5am last Friday, somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 Russian soldiers crossed the border at two key points, it might have been expected that the attack would be swiftly repulsed.

In fact, Ukraine’s defensive lines were thin to absent. At Vovchansk, less than 40 miles north-west of Kharkiv, “the first line of fortifications and mines just didn’t exist”, wrote Ukrainian commander Denys Yaroslavsky on Sunday, while a Ukrainian veteran with contacts in region said “units were simply not prepared to fight” and defences “not properly positioned”.

By the middle of the week fighting had reached Vovchansk and villages north of Lyptsi, about 20 miles away from Ukraine’s second city, home to 1.3 million people.

• May 13, 2024

Military experts say the Russian advance has put Ukraine in a very dangerous spot

In the past three days, Russian troops, backed by fighter jets, artillery and lethal drones, have poured across Ukraine’s northeastern border and seized at least nine villages and settlements, ­and more square miles per day than at almost any other point in the war, save the very beginning.

In the meantime, Ukraine says it is pushing back against assaults and battling for control of territory as fierce fighting has continued for a second day on the fringes of the Kharkiv region in north-east Ukraine. Moscow said it had captured five villages, while Kyiv said it was pushing back against the attacks and battling for control of the territory.

Russia launched the armoured incursion early on Friday, in an attack that may presage a broader push into the Kharkiv region, or aim to draw away overstretched Ukrainian forces in the east where Moscow’s offensive is focused.

Kyiv has been on the back foot for months as Russian troops have slowly advanced, mainly in the Donetsk region to the south, taking advantage of Ukraine’s shortages of troops and artillery shells.

• May 6, 2024

Russia nuclear drills over the West’s deepening role in Ukraine

Russia on Monday threatened to strike British military facilities and said it would hold drills simulating the use of battlefield nuclear weapons amid sharply rising tensions over comments by senior Western officials about possibly deeper involvement in the war in Ukraine.

After summoning the British ambassador to the Foreign Ministry, Moscow warned that Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory with U.K.-supplied weapons could bring retaliatory strikes on British military facilities and equipment on Ukrainian soil or elsewhere.

It was the first time Russia has publicly announced drills involving tactical nuclear weapons, although its strategic nuclear forces regularly hold exercises. Tactical nuclear weapons include air bombs, warheads for short-range missiles and artillery munitions and are meant for use on a battlefield. They are less powerful than the strategic weapons — massive warheads that arm intercontinental ballistic missiles and are intended to obliterate entire cities.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric expressed concern that various parties have been talking about issues regarding nuclear weapons more and more recently.

“Current nuclear risks are at an alarmingly high level,” Dujarric said. “All actions that could lead to miscalculation, escalation with catastrophic consequences, must be avoided.”

French President Emmanuel Macron repeated last week that he doesn’t exclude sending troops to Ukraine, and U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron said Kyiv’s forces will be able to use British long-range weapons to strike targets inside Russia.

Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billström said the nuclear exercises “contribute to increasing instability.”

“In the current security situation, Russia’s actions may be considered particularly irresponsible and reckless,” Billström told Swedish news agency TT.

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council that’s chaired by Putin, said in his typically hawkish fashion that the comments by Macron and Cameron risked pushing the nuclear-armed world toward a “global catastrophe.”

April

Ukraine pulls back from three villages in east, Zelenskiy pleads for weapons

Ukraine’s top commander said Kyiv’s outnumbered troops had fallen back to new positions west of three villages on the eastern front where Russia has concentrated significant forces in several locations.

Military communications restored

• April 27, 2024

Washington says Kyiv must address critical manpower shortages, shore up its defenses to enable

A long-awaited influx of U.S. weapons will help Ukraine to blunt Russia’s advance in the coming months, Biden administration officials said after Congress passed a major aid package, but an acute troop shortage and Moscow’s firepower advantage mean that Kyiv won’t likely regain major offensive momentum until 2025 at the earliest.

• April 24, 2024

The New Long Reach of Ukrainian Missiles

Atacms long-ranges missiles capable of hitting targets 300km away had already arrived in Ukraine this month at the president’s direction, before the US security package was passed by Congress on Wednesday, the state department has said. Vedant Patel, a state department spokesperson, explained that the weapons were part of a March aid package for Ukraine – not the one just approved by Congress and signed by Joe Biden. “We did not announce this at the onset in order to maintain operational security for Ukraine at their request.”

Ukraine has begun using the long-range Atacms, bombing a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and Russian forces in another occupied area in recent days, two US officials have told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. One of them said the Biden administration previously warned Russia that if it used long-range ballistic missiles in Ukraine, Washington would provide the same capability to the Ukrainians. Russia has since done so.

Separately, Adm Christopher Grady, vice-chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, told the Associated Press that long-range weapons would help Ukraine take out Russian logistics and troop concentrations behind the frontlines. He explained how the decision to supply them was considered carefully and at length. “I think the time is right, and the boss [President Biden] made the decision the time is right to provide these based on where the fight is right now.”

• April 20, 2024

Breaking News: House Passes $60 Billion Ukraine Aid package 

The House on Saturday passed a multi-country aid bill in the sum of $95 billion in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson put his job on the line, with full democratic party support, to advance the long-stalled Ukraine aid package and in defiance of far-right hard-liners within his own party who up until today have successfully delayed and obstructed Ukraine aid designed to rescue the Country’s flagging war effort.  Other Country funding for the past four months including passage of strategic and aid-essential three-country funding package are also are part of the funding packages.  The bills now go back to Senate for a final vote and approval.

• April 19, 2024

• April 18, 2024

Calls to support Ukraine’s defence against Russian air strikes have grown after at least 17 people died when three missiles hit the centre of Chernihiv, a city in northern Ukraine near the border with Russia.

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, on Wednesday urged his fellow EU leaders to follow Germany’s lead and send Ukraine more Patriot air defence systems. Germany on Saturday announced it was sending an additional Patriot battery. “This is immediately useful, we want to encourage others to do the same,” said Scholz as he arrived for an EU summit in Brussels. “Now it is about doing it quickly and not at some point in the future.”

Nato’s chief, Jens Stoltenberg, told member countries that they should further strain their stockpiles to help support Ukraine. “If allies face a choice between meeting Nato capability targets and providing more aid to Ukraine, my message is clear: send more to Ukraine,” he said on Wednesday.

The Republican House Speaker, Mike Johnson, is pushing ahead with his plan to hold votes on four separate foreign aid bills this week, despite two radical right Republicans threat to oust him if he advances a Ukraine funding proposal.

Shortly after noon on Wednesday, the rules committee posted text for three bills that would provide funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. The separation of the Senate-passed combined funding package, Johnson created three discreet country funding proposals. Passed in the Republican controlled House, the surviving bills would be forced to return to Senate (once again) for a confirmation vote.  This newly added process extra step will add time and political risk in the process to pass an overdue and sorely needed Ukraine military funding package for 2024.

• April 16, 2024

The shortages add up to a dire situation for Ukraine in the third year of the war, presenting commanders with near impossible choices on how to deploy limited resources.

Ukraine’s top military commander has issued a bleak assessment of the army’s positions on the eastern front, saying they have “worsened significantly in recent days.”

Russian forces were pushing hard to exploit their growing advantage in manpower and ammunition to break through Ukrainian lines, the commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, said in a statement over the weekend.

“Despite significant losses, the enemy is increasing his efforts by using new units on armored vehicles, thanks to which he periodically achieves tactical gains,” the general said.

At the same time, Ukraine’s energy ministry told millions of civilians to charge their power banks, get their generators out of storage and “be ready for any scenario” as Ukrainian power plants are damaged or destroyed in devastating Russian airstrikes.

House Republicans continue to hold Ukraine rescue funding and military support hostage for an incoherent political agenda.

• April 12, 2024

Russia’s missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy system, the bombardment of its second-largest city and advances along the front are stoking worries that Kyiv’s military effort is nearing breaking point.

A dire shortage of ammunition due to a dysfunctional Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives failing in their legislative responsibilities to pass a Ukraine funding package, passed by the bi-partian Senate last month.  Hanging above it all is the stalled $60 billion US aid package, a victim of infighting among House Republicans benefiting Putin. Should US funds not come through, there is no alternative for Ukraine at its darkest moment, the officials said.  An unprecedented series of foreign officials have visited Washington recently and appealed to congressional Republicans to approve more aid for Ukraine.

In the meantime, Russian forces are benefiting from a widening gap in ammunition supplies, with Moscow set to secure 6 million shells this year with ramped-up production and supplies from North Korea and Iran, according to one official.

Manpower shortages are another problem for Ukraine along a 930 mile front and and with gaps in air defenses, altogether have placed Ukraine at its most fragile moment in over two years of war, according to Western officials.

The risk is a collapse of Ukrainian defenses, an event that would give Kremlin an opening to make a major advance for the first time since the initial stages of the conflict, at least one official said.

The next few months will amount to Ukraine’s toughest test, with a public growing exhausted of war, especially in the city of Kharkiv in the country’s east, which has been particularly targeted.

Krystyna Malieieva, who fled the city after Russia invaded and then returned, said the unpredictability of the attacks have struck fear into city residents, even if most don’t believe the Kremlin can take a metropolis whose prewar population was 1.5 million.

“There is very depressive mood in Kharkiv now,” Malieieva, the owner of a family center who returned in 2023 after a year in Croatia and the UK, said in an interview. “People started to return last year, new restaurants opened — and now I see people are fleeing again.”

• April 5th, 2024

Russian forces were advancing, and pushing back against them was “difficult”, said Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s armed forces.

Syrskyi said the situation in the Bakhmut area in the partially occupied eastern Donetsk region was particularly challenging, Reuters reported.

He said Russian forces are carrying out offensive operations day and night, using assault groups with the support of armoured vehicles, as well as assaults on foot.

Fierce battles are taking place east of the town of Chasiv Yar, which Ukraine still controls and which is located near the occupied city of Bakhmut.

Russian forces are trying to break through defensive lines there, Syrskyi said on the messaging app Telegram, adding that “Chasiv Yar remains under our control, all enemy attempts to break through to the settlement have failed”.

Near Avdiivka, another city in the Donetsk region held by the Russians, the fiercest battles were occurring in Pervomaiskyi and Vodyanyi, according to the official.  He also said the situation is tense on the southern and north-eastern parts of the front line.

Meantime,  US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned of “significant consequences” for China if its companies provide material support for Russia in its war against Ukraine. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron is expected to visit the United States next week in order to persuade Republican politicians to approve a $60bn package of aid for Ukraine that they have delayed in the US Congress for months.

Ukraine is a country clinging to independence in the face of a broad and bloody assault intent on toppling Ukraine’s democratic government and scramble the post-cold war world order.  Vladimir Putin is determined to overthrow Ukraine’s government and replace it with a regime of his own.  

The invasion represents Putin’s boldest effort yet to redraw the map of Europe and revive Moscow’s cold war-era influence. It has triggered an international response including an uncharacteristically unified NATO response and direct sanctions on Putin. Military and economic aid from the United States, and direct support from Ukraine’s neighboring NATO countries further threatened by Russia’s invasion are proving essential to Ukraine’s self-defense. 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has also abruptly transformed the world. Millions of people have already fled. Global food and grain exports have been disrupted, and a revived Iron Curtain is grinding into place. As economic warfare deepens in step with the military conflict, Ukrainian civilian casualties rise along with evidence of horrific war crimes by committed by Russian military forces.   

As the war enters its third painful year (2024), Ukraine’s leadership is fighting along a 930-mile front with the Russians, fighting to win crucial supplies from allies and fighting among itself. It wants to avoid being forced to negotiate unpalatable peace terms, even though the pressure to do so is building.

The Ukraine war is far from Hawaii’s shores, but the implications of this war are global, including an embargo on importing Russian oil which Hawaiian Electric combustion power plants depend. Ukraine’s war-disrupted grain exports (the breadbasket of the world) drive up global food prices and inflation.  

It’s been two years since Russia invaded Ukraine, with tens of thousands having perished in a war that’s ushered in the most geopolitically dangerous era in decades. More violence has erupted, including the disastrous conflict between Israel and Hamas. Tensions everywhere seem to be rising. The Kremlin could deploy a nuclear weapon into space as early as this year, the US told allies, just before the Biden administration unveiled a far-reaching sanctions package against Russia.

One the second anniversary of the Russian invasion Ukraine, President Joe Biden told the world:

The brave people of Ukraine fight on, unbowed in their determination to defend their freedom and future. Nato is stronger, larger, and more united than ever. And the unprecedented 50-nation global coalition in support of Ukraine, led by the United States, remains committed to providing critical assistance to Ukraine and holding Russia accountable for its aggression. The American people and people around the world understand that the stakes of this fight extend far beyond Ukraine.

Ukraine on Saturday (Feb. 24,2024) marked two years since Russia’s invasion, entering a new year of war weakened by a lack of western aid and ammunition while Russia is emboldened by fresh gains. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that decisions on arms supplies had to be “the priority”. The anniversary of the invasion on 24 February 2022 will see visits by western leaders including the European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen.

At the beginning of the War,  Ukraine defied expectations by repelling a much larger invading Russian army, and preventing outright defeat, but international aid and military-supply deliveries have slowed, and soldiers under heavy artillery fire are dying in the thousands, sometimes for a few miles of land.

Overall, war aid remains uncertain for Kyiv due to far-right Republicans in Congress blocking a vital $60bn aid package, compounded by arms delivery delays promised by European allies.Meantwhile, grinding Russian advances and faltering Western backing for Kyiv has been a gift to Putin (the Russian leader) who’s recent lookout on the war has shifted from depressed to  confident, convinced he now has the numbers to win the war and completed his conquer of Ukraine.

Two years of war have remade Russia.

Isolated from the West, it is now more dependent on China. Political repression is reminiscent of the grim days of the Soviet Union.

But Russia is not the economic shambles many in the West predicted when they imposed punishing sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine. Many Russians are pulling down their highest incomes in years.

Russian society has been refashioned in ways that have devastated some and lifted others. While government critics languish in jail and young men die in trenches at the front, other Russians — especially those willing to spout the official line — are feeling more optimistic than ever.

In the early months of the war, Putin’s military made grave mistakes, but it has regrouped. Russia fended off a Western-backed Ukrainian counteroffensive and has taken the initiative on the front, buoyed by frozen American aid for Ukraine.   Still, Russia has sustained huge costs to get this far. It is far from controlling the four regions it claims to have annexed, let alone the rest of Ukraine, and Mr. Putin may need to carry out another draft.  Putlin publically claims he would like to negotiate an end to the war, but skeptics see that as a ploy to undercut Western aid to Ukraine.

— UPDATE (Oct. 18th 2024, originally published Oct 3rd) —

Officials called Hurricane Helene’s deadly rainfall and floods “biblical” and “generational.” But weather forecasters used another term: “once in 1,000 years.”

It is striking Hurricane Helene was actually the second of three back-to-back once-in-a-millennium storm systems striking North Carolina in a matter of days, and shortly thereafter to be followed by Hurricane Milton which made landfall in Florida on October 9, 2024, following Helene, which made landfall in Florida on September 26, 2024.

Hurricane Milton devastated communities that were still recovering from Hurricane Helene. But the precursor of a set of three super storms was an unnamed tropical storm which was labeled once-in-1,000-year storm with rains swamping communities on the opposite side of the state, and inundating homes along the coast.

It’s a mistake to believe we’ll only see one of these storms within a lifetime and in a given place. That’s because of the supercharging effects of climate change on weather, contributing to the likelihood of catastrophic rains increases, said Daniel Swain, a climatologist at the University of California Los Angeles.

—

After Hurricane Helene’s super heated energy ripped through the US Southeast this past week, the Harris and Trump campaigns saw things very differently as to the cause and effects of this unprecedented and climate-heated storm systems most recently demonstrated in the form of hurricane Helene; the latest example of the new climate-fueled weather reality facing the United States and the world.

Helene has left millions still without power in states including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee and Virginia.  And days after Helene struck, the outside world still has only a rough idea as to the wholesale storm damage, harrowing escapes and still fully unaccounted loss of lives with homes, businesses and infrastructure fully destroyed.

It was a storm of unparalleled scale, ravaging the south-eastern end of the United States (a total of seven states). So far Helene has killed over 200 people with a death toll continuing to rise. The storm’s cost measured in damage and destruction has been estimated in the billions of dollars impacting public and private properties, and disrupting of commerce.

Politics vs. Climate Reality

It is has been a long road to belief and the need for an overdue public awakening since Al Gore’s book “Earth in the Balance” was first published in 1992.

Since that time, America has struggled between the polar opposites..of strong and compounding scientific climate evidence versus wishful thinking and outright denial. Based on scientific findings of the past 50 years a common climate cause & effect message has evolved and become somewhat finalized. This forward energy moved the needle of public opinion from the obscure to front page news. A meaningful climate response was (is) developing as policy – right now..

Over the past four years the Biden – Harris Administration has led on climate policies in synch with a national awakening that our planet is in trouble, and we’re directly responsible.

Directing US government agencies, President Biden’s one-term presidency took up the fight against global heating denial and previous executive inaction.

In the world today,  fully obscured in media-politics are information outlets often commingling facts (news) with fiction and myth.

Overcoming partisan warfare, President Biden and his VP co-pilot Kamala Harris found a way forward with meaningful climate policies directed at the United States and the world.

The Biden-Harris administration’s climate work was translated into a signature moment for President Biden back August 2022. The president signed into law the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). This achievement capped nearly two years of administration effort to pass sweeping bipartisan legislation addressing a growing climate crisis mostly ignored up that point by both political parties and previous administrations.

With passage of the IRA plan, the Biden-Harris team unleashed hundreds of billions of dollars directed at US clean energy projects which are advancing national technology development and innovation and creating with it a 21st century American economic renaissance.

Newly enacted regulations supporting the IRA climate legislation goals were also enacted and primarily directed at throttling planet-warming pollution from cars, methane blenching oil wells, and dirty-energy power plants.  Together, represented well over half of all greenhouse gas emissions released by the United States.

Some of the resulting IRA policies were explicitly designed to be popular — winning over hearts and minds as tax breaks turned homeowners into solar enthusiasts and dollars flowed into US factories, and creating new 21st century jobs. However, historically and politically uncharacterized, a sizable portion of IRA funds are directed towards deeply red districts where voters are more likely than not to be skeptical of climate connected changes and disbelievers of bonafide climate science.

“We’ve been able to get an incredible thing done (IRA becoming law), and it’s just the beginning,” said Andrew Reagan, executive director of Clean Energy for America, a group that advocates on behalf of America’s growing ranks of clean energy workers. “All of the hard work over the next 10 years by folks in the government and folks in the private sector is going to be what makes this an essential and successful economic transformation .”

Trump 2.0: no science or common sense, just politics

If elected in 2024, Donald Trump has promised a repeat performance of his first disastrous term in which he will yank the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord for a second time — if he wins the presidency again in November.  Trump’s statement last Friday comes after years of Big Oil and their Republican minions preparing for this election moment going about updating their pro-pollution playbook while laying the groundwork for Trump the candidate to withdraw from the global agreement if elected.

On June 1, 2017, newly elected President Trump announced from the Rose Garden that the United states will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, fulfilling a then 2016 campaign promise.  Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris global Climate Agreement effectively provided a significant blocking of meaningful actions to lowering and eliminating global greenhouse gas emissions, especially with the United States among the top three climate polluters and agreement signatories. It was no less than a major four year global set-back towards the social-economic clean energy progress already in motion within the United States, and certainly a roadblock to a global transition into clean energy economy … just as Big Oil planned it.

The Paris Accord signatories are a recognition of the serious threat Global Heating represents to everyone on the planet, as well as the unified response and roadmap to progress for the 195 member nations to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in addressing what has become global threat — it was also an agreement which took more than over 10 years to finalize, and was (and is) based on the most credible scientific climate findings and political compromise among a diverse group of member nations creating the agreement.

The Paris Climate Accord also blurs the distinction between developed and developing countries, requiring all nations to submit plans for emission reductions in context to a global problem requiring a global solution.  The United States is typically ranked as the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases globally, about 6 billion tons of CO2 per year, behind only China.

REPAIRING A PLANET IN DISTRESS

In addressing climate impacts as a national, as well as global problem, the Biden-Harris administration set-forth on day one of it’s administration to repair the national and global damage of Trump administration climate policies and actions in targeting previous climate reforms and withdrawing from the Paris Accord, which was followed by four years of chaotic swings in policy and national direction.

The day one priority for the then 2021 newly elected President Biden was for the United States to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord as soon as possible in it role previous leadership role as a full partner to the Accord. Following the restoration of the US leadership and participation in the global climate actions, the Biden-Harris administration focused their attention on transforming and restoring American leadership as a global clean energy leader and technology competitor.

The bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act was the crowning jewel in President Biden national accomplishments on climate, which placed national needs ahead of party politics, including an emphasis on deeply red southern states and districts — where voters are more likely to be skeptical of climate science and the connection to global heating changes now underway, as Hurricane Helene recently demonstrated.

• Trump 2.0 vows to abandon the Paris Climate Agreement, and plans also plans to pull-out of the 32-year-old UN Framework Convention on Climate Change that underpins the entire structure of international cooperation against warming temperatures. There would be far-reaching and enduring impacts, and potentially sidelining US leadership and interests on climate talks for years to come, as was the case when Trump first took office in 2016.

IRA CLIMATE FUNDING IN JEOPARDY

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is a significant piece of legislation signed into law by President Biden on August 16, 2022, and another climate target by Trump 2.0.

The legislation allocates $369 billion for energy security and climate change programs over ten years.   Key aspects of the IRA include:

1. Reduce the federal deficit to fight inflation
2. Invest in domestic (clean) energy production and manufacturing
3. Lower carbon emissions by approximately 40% by 2030
4. Reduce healthcare costs (also a driver of inflation)

The IRA provisions include tax incentives for clean energy projects, bonuses for investments in low-income communities and energy communities and extends and expands credits for energy-efficient home improvements and residential clean energy installations (many Hawaii business and residents are benefitting from the IRA).

Healthcare, like energy transformation, is a growing 21st century challenge

The Biden-Harris IRA bill also addresses key issues within Medicare by enabling the system to lower taxpayer and patient costs by allowing the system to negotiate drug prices with manufacturers for the first time – a most helpful action in light of aging population.The IRA also caps out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries at $2,000 annually, and extends Affordable Care Act premium subsidies through 2025.  But the real ground breaking aspects of the IRA legislation are its climate-weighted national economic benefits of an emerging US clean energy sector.

The legislation has already spurred over $500 billion in private sector manufacturing and efficiency investments since its 2022 enactment, including approximately $240 billion in clean energy manufacturing.

The underlying economic and social goals, beyond the health benefits to society from a clean energy economy, is the IRA creating good-paying 21st century jobs in the emerging global green energy economy.

The 2024 Candidate Trump version has promised to redirect IRA away from climate-crisis focused funding, and to scrap IRA funding for clean energy — such a move will put at risk billions of dollars in grants and other support already earmarked — but not yet delivered — to clean energy ventures.

Trump 2.0 has pledged to “claw-back” IRA funding from national Climate programs and incentives already in progress.

Billions of dollars for climate and transitional clean energy funding dollars are at stake if Trump is elected in 2024.  The Biden administration, aware of this risk, have been working to swiftly distribute climate money, putting much of it out of a new president’s reach.  The Biden administration has further tried to pare back oil industry emissions of methane (a most potent greenhouse gas) and key by-product component of natural gas production and consumption through the IRA program.

The Trump camp has already stated they will “remake the EPA” and its environmental regulations and policies which get in their way of their big oil pro-pollution and fossil-fuel growth agenda, further placing air, water, and climate protections at risk.

The outcome of November’s election will go a long way to deciding what happens next — but not all the way.  Investors, analysts and developers whose decisions shape the American energy transition are resolute: A victorious Trump can’t fully halt the country’s green shift.

Putting campaign rhetoric aside, it’s clear that the sweeping 2022 climate law known as the Inflation Reduction Act has been built to withstand political attacks. Some IRA grant money has already gone out the door.  IRA tax credits are now seeding factories in Republican strongholds, but reversals on climate change mitigation efforts and clean energy progress as foreseen in Trump’s vision and agenda – and if elected, Trump will return to a familiar theme of climate denialism as national policy.

Going backwards is not a an option for humanity or the United States. As Gore’s book pointed out, life on Earth is increasingly out-of-balance.