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LAST UPDATE | 14 Dec 2022
UKRAINE HAS SAID it shot down multiple Iranian-made drones launched at the capital by Russian troops in their latest attack on Kyiv.
The Kremlin meanwhile said there no would be no let up in fighting over Christmas and the New Year while Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged European leaders to back a court to try Russian officials.
Explosions rang out over a central neighbourhood in Kyiv in the early hours and AFP journalists later saw law enforcement and emergency service workers inspecting metal fragments at a snow-covered impact site.
“The terrorists started this morning with 13 Shaheds,” Zelenskyy said, referring to the Iran-made weapons.
“All 13 were shot down” he added, urging residents to heed air raid sirens.
Kyiv has been subjected to nearly ten months of air raid sirens and frequent aerial attacks since Russia invaded Ukraine in February and tried to capture the capital.
But the attacks have increased up since October when Russia began systematically targeting critical infrastructure in Ukraine in attacks that have disrupted electricity, water and heat to millions in Ukraine.
Kyiv’s Western allies have been supplying Ukraine with more advanced air defence systems in response.
Ukrenergo, the national energy provider, said no energy infrastructure facilities were damaged in today’s drone attack, crediting Ukrainian air defences for their “brilliant” work.
Civilian ‘suffering’
US ambassador in Ukraine Bridget Brink said on social media that Kyiv could continue to rely on Washington’s backing and that “more support is on the way”.
“It’s obvious that these attacks have just one aim: to increase the suffering of civilian population,” said Peter Stano, a spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced that explosions were heard in the central district of Shevchenkivsky and city officials said debris from the downed drones had damaged residential homes and an local administrative building.
No one was reported injured or killed.
Since a series of key battlefield setbacks this summer and autumn, Russia has been pummelling critical infrastructure across Ukraine with missiles and drones.
Moscow most recently targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure last week piling pressure on the country’s power grid, whose operators have for weeks been forced to implement rolling blackouts.
Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said this week that between 40% and 50% of the country’s grid was out of action because of Russia’s strikes.
The latest round of attacks today came one day after Zelenskyy issued urgent appeals to around 70 countries and international organisations at a Paris conference to help Ukraine withstand Russian attacks this winter.
In a video message from Kyiv, Zelenskyy said Tuesday that Ukraine needed assistance worth around 800 million euros in the short term for its battered energy sector.
‘Fight through winter’
He also said that his country needs spare parts for repairs, high-capacity generators, extra gas and increased electricity imports.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on Ukraine’s allies to provide his country with more weapons to help it “fight through the winter” and sustain Kyiv’s military advances.
The Kremlin meanwhile said it had not received any proposals from Kyiv to pause fighting in Ukraine during the upcoming holiday period and that a ceasefire was not on Moscow’s agenda.
“No, no proposals have been received from anyone and no topic of this kind is on the agenda,” the Kremlin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
In nearly 10 months of fighting, Russia has yet to fulfil any of its stated key goals in what it refers to as its “special military operation” in Ukraine, including seizing the capital or the eastern Donbas region.
The Moscow-installed leader of Ukraine’s Donetsk region today however called for Russia to widen its goals and annex two more areas of Ukraine, the Black Sea region of Odessa and Chernigiv in the north.
Separately, Ukraine’s SBU security service said it was carrying out raids at churches and monasteries across the country in its most recent searches on religious sites of the Russia-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
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You can make tea and take long breaks when at home. It’s a good fit right enough
@v39e84kK: You can make tea in the office aswell. Whats your point?
@v39e84kK: I’ll try again. You last reply to me was deleted by The Jouranal. Don’t attempt anything like that again, unless you want to end up in court.
@v39e84kK: You can make tea and take long breaks in the office environment too. Have seen many examples of this over the years in private and public sector jobs.
@Belebopz: That’s the joke.
@David A. Murray: Sound.
@v39e84kK: It’s not a joke, more a backhanded aside about public and civil servants. Go make me a cup of tea will you seeing as you have time on your hands there.
@v39e84kK: I trust me understand each other. What’s typed on the Internet is permanently there (even if deleted, it’s still on record). I want no public association (either visible or not) with that person. I can understand that we can all react on the Internet and type something we would wish to take back (or have worded differently), but I cannot afford any connection to be made, even if it was indirect.
@v39e84kK: Do not question authority.
If there’s any inefficiency or increased agro for tax payers then they should have to go back in person. I don’t trust civil service or state sector to ensure people are actually working from home.
@Damon16: maybe you should talk to someone about you’re trust issues ?
@Damon16: This implies you trust them currently!
Policy documents like this are all well and good but it will never be implemented as it’s written down, as it always comes down to the managers to do things right. I’ve a friend in the civil service who was being forced into the office, to do virtual meetings. Absolutely no rhyme or reason, other than micromanagement. In another Dept, all stats have gone up since wfh and backlogs greatly decreased.
Of course there will be people who will do nothing when at home … but they are the same people who do nothing when they’re in work either
Any chance the Motor Tax office can open ?
I know the folks in there will be filled with dread at the thought of risking their lives returning to work during a , eh , pandemic. The rest of seemed to fair ok returning to work long ago , with a low enough body count .
An anomaly on the online platform has been preventing me from donating to the tax fund for 9 months with no help on line .
@Keith Flood: Motor Tax Office in my local authority has been open to the public for months now
Let’s pretend there was no pandemic. Get up off your a*r*s*e*s & get to the office. Like retail staff, like doctors & nurses. Like every other hard working employee around the country.
@John Barry: Working from home does not make you less hard working or less effective. Some tasks I can do from home and some require me to be on site. Depends on the task. Just because hard-working shop workers, doctors and nurses jobs need to be on-site, doesn’t mean every hard-working worker should be on site. The pandemic has meant that thinking on working from home has changed. We can’t unknow what we learned, so going back to all pre-pandemic work practices makes no sense.
@Mickey Finn: very true. In general I have been more productive since working from home as I don’t get those constant interruptions from small talk or general office noise. Also, I am more likely to finish off a task in the evening, as I am not worried about missing a train/bus, and not shattered from the commute.
Hope that some private companies will follow this example, as the Right to Request Remote Work Bill as not been enacted yet, and it is already facing some serious opposition from Employers’ groups.
@Dr. Emmett Lathrop: It’s so Ireland that we are making a bill on allowing people to ASK for things. Amazing. Truly is a microcosm of everything wrong with Irish politics.
@Dr. Emmett Lathrop:
We only have to go in one day a month now for team meetings.
They’re after pulling out most of the desks & converting the office space to blocks of meeting rooms with all the latest tech in them.
100” Microsoft surface screens in the larger ones and 50” ones in the smaller. Full digital conference facilities. Really quite impressive.
@Dr. Emmett Lathrop: You already have the right to request wfh from your employer. As long as your employer has the right to refuse said request then I’d be more than happy for the bill to proceed. He who pays the piper calls the tune as the saying goes.
Or to put it another way they will work from the office 80 percent of the time (4 days a week).
What a crock of nonsense.
We were allowed to WFH one day a week before covid. So they are just reverting back to what was there before. Very progressive.
the kind of article to stir up envy…
It doesn’t effect me one way or the other but this government is bizarre with its reversals, it depends which way the wind is blowing
40,000 civil servants, huh, I live off Fishamble street, next to the Dublin City Council building, the street has missive pot holes and graffiti on the street bins. What do they do again? Their a joke, privatize it all.
have your say