Russian state TV host claims Ukraine's allies are reduced to eating squirrels because they are spending all their money on military aid
Mia Jankowicz - Business Insider
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A Russian state TV host suggested this week that people in the UK are being forced to eat squirrels because their country is spending so much money on military aid to Ukraine.
"Today it was revealed that some restaurants in once-Great Britain will be serving squirrels," Olga Skabayeva said on Russian news show "60 Minutes," per a translation by Ukrainian interior ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko.
"In view of the fact that there are plenty of animals in the parks, so why not eat them, bearing in mind the food shortage [in the UK]," Skabayeva said in the video.
She added: "They [the UK] are not backing down from the decision to help [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, to supply weapons. That is, they will eat squirrels, but still supply howitzers."
Skabayeva is one of Russia's most prominent propagandists, as Insider's Michell Mark previously reported, and frequently advocates extreme positions on the war in Ukraine.
The UK has been one of Ukraine's earliest and most prominent backers since Russia's invasion in February 2022, supplying training and military and humanitarian aid. It has committed $2.7 billion worth of military aid as of February 2023.
The UK is also experiencing shortages of some imported fresh fruit and vegetables, which has been variously attributed to global weather patterns, electricity prices and Brexit red tape.
But Skabayeva's comments appear to stem from reports of nature conservation efforts that have no stated relationship to Ukraine or, indeed, the UK's food supplies.
Skabayeva seized on a completely unrelated UK news cycle, which focused on efforts of a small nature conservation group in south-west England. The Exmoor Squirrel Project hit the headlines in early March with a proposal to put grey squirrel on the menu of some local restaurants.
The group campaigns to preserve the country's native red squirrels, which are endangered due to competition by grey squirrels, considered a non-native invasive species.
The group's remarks were reported in numerous news outlets — all in relation to efforts to cull grey squirrels without waste.
"There's no waste there. They'll be put to some good use instead of being put in a hole in the ground," the group's acting manager, Kerry Hosegood, told the BBC in late February.
Russian forces suffer radiation sickness after digging trenches and fishing in Chernobyl
Emily Atkinson - The Independent
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Russian troops who dug trenches in Chernobyl forest during their occupation of the area have been struck down with radiation sickness, authorities have confirmed.
Ukrainians living near the nuclear power station that exploded 37 years ago, and choked the surrounding area in radioactive contaminants, warned the Russians when they arrived against setting up camp in the forest.
But the occupiers who, as one resident put it to The Times, “understood the risks” but were “just thick”, installed themselves in the forest, reportedly carved out trenches, fished in the reactor’s cooling channel – flush with catfish – and shot animals, leaving them dead on the roads.
Reactor No 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded on 26 April 1986. It is commonly referred to the world’s worst civil nuclear incident. Scores died as a result and the USSR collapsed less than six years later.
The city of Pripyat and the 30km exclusion zone surrounding it were emptied of their citizens, with the clean-up scheduled to end in 2065.
In the years after the incident, teams of men were sent to dig up the contaminated topsoil and bury it below ground in the Red Forest – named after the colour the trees turned as a result of the catastrophe.
On 24 February 2022, Russian forces crossed into Chernobyl from Belarus, where they remained for five weeks.
“I started yelling at them,” Chernobyl resident Baba Hana, 90, told The Times, recounting a confrontation with the invading forces.
“I tried to give them political information, explaining what was happening in their country... I am a Russian speaker, I asked what they were doing there, who they thought they were liberating.”
Vladimir Putin’s men reportedly set up camp within a six-mile radius of reactor No 4, and dug defensive positions into the poisonous ground below the surface.
On 1 April, as Ukrainian troops mounted counterattacks from Kyiv, the last of the occupiers withdrew, leaving behind piles of rubbish.
Russian soldiers stationed in the forest have since been struck down with radiation sickness, diplomats have confirmed. Symptoms can start within an hour of exposure and can last for several months, often resulting in death.
“Don’t try to find logic, it’s stupid,” said Oksana Pyshna, 30, a tour guide turned employee of the state ministry responsible for the exclusion zone, told the newspaper.
Russia claims it foiled Putin assassination attempt by Ukrainian drone: report
By Isabel Keane - New York Post
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Russia accused Ukraine on Wednesday of launching a drone strike overnight in a failed attempt to kill President Vladimir Putin.
The two drones were disabled by state security services and Putin, who was not in the Kremlin at the time of the incident, was uninjured, according to his spokesperson Dmitri S. Peskov.
There were no casualties.
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A senior Ukrainian presidential official said Kyiv was not involved in the purported incident and had “no information about the so-called night attacks on the Kremlin.”
Spokesperson Serhiy Nykyforov called the claim “an attempt to escalate the situation before May 9,” referring to the World War II Victory Day holiday that Russia celebrates.
The drone strike on Putin’s residence was foiled by Russian forces, the New York Times reported.
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In a statement, the Kremlin said it “regards these actions as a planned terrorist attack and an attempt on the president” and that the country has the right to retaliate.
Russia evacuates Ukraine region that holds Europe's largest nuclear plant
By Danielle Wallace | Fox News
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The Russian-backed governor of the Ukrainian region where Europe's largest nuclear plant is located reportedly ordered civilian evacuations, including from the city where most plant workers live.
Yegeny Balitsky, the Moscow-installed governor of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia province, on Friday ordered civilians to leave 18 Russian-occupied communities, including Enerhodar, home to most of the staff at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. The move suggested that fighting in the area would intensify.
Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov, meanwhile, said Russia prompted a "mad panic" from the city near the contested plant, thousands of cars departed causing five-hour traffic delays, the BBC reported.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi has spent months trying to persuade Russian and Ukrainian officials to establish a security zone around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to prevent the war from causing a radiation leak. Grossi said the evacuation of civilians suggested a further escalation.
"The general situation in the area near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is becoming increasingly unpredictable and potentially dangerous," Grossi warned Saturday. "We must act now to prevent the threat of a severe nuclear accident and its associated consequences for the population and the environment. This major nuclear facility must be protected."
More than 1,500 people had been evacuated from two unspecified cities in the region as of Sunday, Balitsky said. The Ukrainian General Staff confirmed the evacuation of Enerhodar was underway, the Associated Press reported.
Moscow's troops seized the plant soon after invading Ukraine last year, but Ukrainian employees have continued to run it during the occupation, at times under extreme duress.
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Ukraine has regularly fired at the Russian side of the lines, while Russia has repeatedly shelled Ukrainian-held communities across the Dnieper River. The fighting has intensified as Ukraine prepares to launch a long-promised counteroffensive to reclaim ground taken by Russia.
In a Sunday morning update, the Ukrainian military said Russian forces were also evacuating local Russian passport-holders to the port city of Berdyansk and the town Prymorsk, both on the coast of the Sea of Azov, Reuters reported.
"The first to be evacuated are those who accepted Russian citizenship in the first months of the occupation," the statement from Ukraine's General staff said.
Although none of the plant's six reactors are operating because of the war, the station needs a reliable power supply for cooling systems essential to preventing a potentially catastrophic radiation disaster.
Analysts have for months pointed to the southern Zaporizhzhia region as one of the possible targets of Ukraine’s expected spring counteroffensive, speculating that Kyiv’s forces might try to choke off Russia’s "land corridor" to the Crimean Peninsula and split Russian forces in two by pressing on to the Azov Sea coast.
Balitsky said Ukraine's forces had intensified attacks on the area in the past several days.
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Some of the fiercest ongoing fighting is in the eastern city of Bakhmut, where Ukrainian forces are still clinging to a position on the western outskirts despite Russia trying to take the city for more than nine months.
Russian paramilitary group Wagner’s boss, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said Sunday that his fighters would continue their efforts in Bakhmut, reversing course from his earlier threat made in a viral video with dead bodies in the background that he and his men would withdraw from the region if Moscow did not send more ammunition, Politico reported.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said Sunday that Moscow's forces had captured two more districts in the city's west and northwest, but provided no further details.
On Saturday, the Ukrainian military shared drone footage in alleging that Russia used phosphorus munitions in its attack against the besieged city of Bakhmut. The BBC reported that while white phosphorus weapons are not banned, "their use in civilian areas is considered a war crime."
In a statement on its website Sunday, Russia's Federal Security Service said it obstructed Ukrainian intelligence's attempt to attack a military airfield in central Russia with drones filled with explosives.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Major drone strike hits residential area of Moscow in apparent 1st
By Kevin Shalvey and Morgan Winsor - ABC News
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LONDON -- Several drones struck Moscow early on Tuesday, damaging residential buildings in the Russian capital, the mayor said.
The pre-dawn attack "caused minor damage to several buildings" in a residential area, according to Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin. Some residents were evacuated from their apartments due to "safety reasons" as first responders surveyed the damage, Sobyanin said.
"All municipal emergency services are currently at the scene of the incident," the mayor wrote on his official Telegram channel. "They will find out the circumstances of what happened."
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It's believed to be the first major drone strike on a residential area of Moscow.
No one was seriously injured in the attack, according to Sobyanin. Two people sought and received medical attention on site for unspecified injures but did not require hospitalization, the mayor said.
Russian emergency services told state news agency TASS that drone-like fragments were found around at least one of the buildings and that apartment windows were shattered on several floors.
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Eight drones targeted Moscow, five of which were shot down while the other three were jammed, causing them to veer off course, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
The rare attack came as Russia continues to wage war in neighboring Ukraine. The Russian defense ministry called Tuesday's drone strike a "terrorist attack" by the "Kyiv regime" and said Moscow will react "as harshly as possible to the actions of Ukrainian militants."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday's drone attack on Moscow was Kyiv's retaliation against the effective Russian strikes "on a decision-making center" on Sunday.
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On May 3, Russia accused Ukraine of attacking the Kremlin with drones. Russia later blamed the United States for the attack, a claim rejected by Washington.
Meanwhile, in recent days, Russia has launched a series of drone and missile attacks on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. At around 2 a.m. local time on Tuesday, Kyiv residents once again awoke to the sound of air raid sirens as dozens of Russian drones targeted the city for a third straight day.
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Most of the drones were intercepted and shot down, but the fallen debris sparked fires that engulfed several cars, houses and residential buildings, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko. At least one person was killed and 33 others were injured.
"If the Russians can make Kyiv a nightmare, why do the people of Moscow rest?" Klitschko said in a televised address on Tuesday.