AFP

Ukraine suffered sweeping blackouts and water supplies were cut to large parts of Kyiv on Monday after another wave of Russian missile strikes on key infrastructure.

The Ukrainian army’s commander in chief, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, said on Telegram that Russia had launched 55 cruise missiles and dozens of other munitions at “civilian targets” across the country, days after Russia blamed Ukraine for drone attacks on its fleet in the Black Sea.

Presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich early Tuesday called the bombardment “one of the most massive shellings of our territory by the army of the Russian Federation”. 

But he noted on the same platform that thanks to improved air defences, “the destruction is not as critical as it could be”.

Though the army said many of the missiles had been shot down, Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said the strikes had still caused power cuts in “hundreds” of areas across seven Ukrainian regions.

Several blasts were heard in the capital Kyiv.

The city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said later on Monday that 40 percent of consumers had been left without water, while 270,000 homes had no electricity.

In the west of Kyiv, an AFP journalist saw more than 100 people with empty plastic bottles and containers waiting to collect water from a park fountain.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter: “Instead of fighting on the battlefield, Russia fights civilians.”

Ukraine’s battered energy infrastructure would be repaired with equipment from 12 countries, Kuleba said in a separate statement. 

The Russian army confirmed it had carried out cruise missile strikes and said they had all reached their intended targets.

In Moldova, the government said a Russian missile shot down by Ukrainian air defences fell on the village of Naslavcea in the north of the country, but without causing any injuries.

– ‘Cold winter ahead’ –

Three missiles struck a site to the north of Kyiv, a soldier close to the target told AFP.

In a nearby town, Mila Ryabova, 39, told AFP she was woken by between eight and 10 “powerful explosions”.

“We were together with my family, preparing my daughter for school, but now there is no electricity in our house and at school,” said Ryabova, a translator.

“But we are worrying and talking about opportunities to move abroad, because there is a cold winter ahead. We may not have electricity, heat supply.”

Previous strikes this month have already destroyed about a third of Ukraine’s power stations.

Meanwhile, UN nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) again raised concerns about the situation around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant, saying in a statement that a landmine explosion had cut power to one of its reactors.

“In a further sign of the precarious situation in the area of the ZNPP, the IAEA team said there had been shelling in the vicinity of the plant in recent days, following a period of reduced military activity,” the watchdog said.

The IAEA also confirmed it had begun independent “verification activities” at two locations in Ukraine to determine whether any “undeclared nuclear activities” were taking place after Russia accused Kyiv of producing a so-called “dirty bomb”.

Kyiv, which invited the IAEA inspectors, has counter-alleged that Moscow might itself use a dirty bomb in a “false flag” attack.

– Grain deal –

Monday’s strikes came after Russia pulled out of a landmark agreement that allowed vital grain shipments via a maritime safety corridor. 

The July deal to unlock grain exports signed between warring nations Russia and Ukraine — and brokered by Turkey and the United Nations — is critical to easing the global food crisis caused by the conflict.

But Russia announced Saturday it would suspend its participation in the deal after accusing Kyiv of a “massive” drone attack on its Black Sea fleet, which Ukraine labelled a “false pretext”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that continuing grain exports without Russian participation was “hardly feasible”.

The Russian defence ministry said Monday that it wanted “additional commitments” from Ukraine not to use the grain exports corridor for military purposes.

In his evening address Monday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said the grain deal breakdown was “clear evidence that Russia will continue to oppose itself to the entire international community”, adding it was “very important now to prevent this global destabilisation”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, repeated the accusation that Ukraine used the grain corridor for the attack, saying Kyiv had put civilian ships in danger, and calling on it to guarantee “that there will be no threat to the safety of civilian vessels”.

Despite Russia’s decision to suspend its participation, at least 10 cargo ships loaded with grain and other agricultural products left Ukrainian ports Monday, according to a marine traffic website.

“Civilian cargo ships can never be a military target or held hostage. The food must flow,” Amir Abdulla, UN coordinator for the Black Sea Grain Initiative, said on Twitter.

burs/gw/wd/sst/smw/cwl

An international team of astronomers on Monday announced the discovery of a large asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Earth, creating a small chance far in the future of a catastrophic collision.

The 1.5 kilometer- (0.9 mile-) wide asteroid, named 2022 AP7, was discovered in area notoriously difficult to spot objects due to the glare from the Sun.

It was found along with two other near-Earth asteroids using a high-tech instrument on the Victor M. Blanco telescope in Chile that was originally developed to study dark matter.

“2022 AP7 crosses Earth’s orbit, which makes it a potentially hazardous asteroid, but it currently does not now or anytime in the future have a trajectory that will have it collide with the Earth,” said lead author of the findings, astronomer Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science.

The potential threat comes from the fact that like any orbiting object, its trajectory will be slowly modified due to myriad gravitational forces, notably by planets. Forecasts are therefore difficult on the very long term.

The newly-discovered asteroid is “the largest object that is potentially hazardous to Earth to be discovered in the last eight years,” said NOIRLab, a US-funded research group that operates multiple observatories.

2022 AP7 takes five years to circle the Sun under its current orbit, which at its closest point to Earth remain several million kilometers away.

The risk is therefore very small, but in case of a collision, an asteroid of that size “would have a devastating impact on life as we know it,” said Sheppard. He explained that dust launched into the air would have a major cooling effect, provoking an “extinction event like hasn’t been seen on Earth in millions of years.”

His team’s results were published in the scientific journal The Astronomical Journal. The two other asteroids pose no risk to Earth, but one is the closest asteroid to the Sun ever found.

Some 30,000 asteroids of all sizes — including more than 850 larger than a kilometer wide — have been catalogued in the vicinity of the Earth, earning them the label “Near Earth Objects” (NEOs). None of them threaten Earth for the next 100 years.

According to Sheppard, there are “likely 20 to 50 large NEOs left to find,” but most are on orbits that put them in the Sun’s glare.

In preparation for a future discovery of a more threatening object, NASA conducted a test mission in late September in which it collided a spacecraft with an asteroid, proving that it was possible to change its trajectory.

Candidates were making closing pitches Tuesday in the US midterm elections that decide control of Congress for the remainder of President Joe Biden’s term, with Republicans smelling blood in the water.

Polling is pointing to a re-emerging “red wave” that will likely see the party of Biden’s political foe Donald Trump dismantling the Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the House and possibly retaking the Senate.

Republicans are confident they can flip the one state they need for the upper chamber and are expecting gains in the House of 12 to 25 seats, easily enough to overcome the Democrats’ eight-member advantage.

“I think the Democrats are going to get a rude awakening on November 8 that high inflation, high crime, open borders is not what the American public wants,” National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman Rick Scott told ABC on Sunday.

With all 435 seats in the House of Representatives up for grabs alongside a third of the 100-member Senate and a slew of state posts, the economy is proving the biggest liability for Biden’s Democrats.

Inflation — up 8.2 percent in a year — is easily outranking abortion rights in voters’ priorities, forcing Democrats to recast their closing message to tout legislative wins they say will save Americans money.

They are also warning that Republicans want to curb entitlements, and have doubled down on threats to democracy they say extremist right-wingers pose, as well as Trump’s role in the 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

– ‘Reality is setting in’ –

Republicans meanwhile have zeroed in on urban violence, an issue that has helped the party make notable inroads in key swing states, portraying their colleagues across the aisle as soft on crime.

The story of the final days of the campaign has been Republican incursion into the Democrats’ back yard, with candidates eyeing opportunities for House seats that were once out of reach. 

Strategists from both parties are seeing districts across New York, Oregon and Connecticut that went for Biden by double digits in 2020 coming back into play. 

“We thought for a little bit that we could defy gravity, but the reality is setting in,” Sean McElwee, executive director of Data for Progress, a left-leaning polling firm, told The New York Times.   

The Republicans are also showing most of the late momentum in the Senate — where the Democrats currently rely for their majority on a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Kamala Harris.

Democrats are a nose in front but see their margins narrowing in Pennsylvania, Arizona and New Hampshire.

Republicans have taken the lead in Nevada, the country’s closest contest, and Wisconsin, while Georgia has edged back into the red column despite a tumultuous campaign by scandal-hit challenger Herschel Walker.

More than 21 million people across 46 states have already voted but the public is being warned that patience may be required on election night, with vote counting in some states expected to take days.

If Republicans win back either chamber, they have vowed to launch investigations into the Biden administration, with the targets ranging from the president himself to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

– ‘Across the aisle’ –

For Biden, who turns 80 two weeks after the election, a comprehensive defeat could be a double-blow, threatening his agenda and chipping away at support for his bid to seek a second term.

The president — who voted early in Wilmington, Delaware on Saturday — heads this week to Florida, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Mexico and California to make the case for Democratic government.

Former president Barack Obama, still comfortably the party’s biggest star, has been on a tour to reinvigorate support in tightening races that takes him to Nevada, Arizona and Pennsylvania this week.

“I understand why you might be worried about the course of the country. Sometimes it’s tempting just to tune out, watch football, watch ‘Dancing With The Stars,'” Obama said during a weekend blitz of swing states. 

“I’m here to tell you tuning out is not an option.”

Trump kicks off a series of rallies in Iowa, Florida and Pennsylvania on Thursday, shrugging off an array of legal investigations against him as he throws himself behind some of the dozens of candidates he has endorsed.

Some Republicans worry that their winning margins could be narrowed by the defeat of fringe Trump-backed hopefuls in moderate races, although most remain four-square behind the 76-year-old tycoon.

“Joe Biden has always talked about how he wants to be unified and work across the aisle,” Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told Fox News on Sunday.

“Well, this is his chance, because this is going to be repudiation of the Democratic Party.”

US President Joe Biden said Monday he plans to seek tax penalties for oil companies unless they invest their record profits in lowering consumer costs and boosting production, criticizing their “war profiteering.”

His comments came days after oil giants ExxonMobil and Chevron reported bumper earnings, reflecting how a surge in crude prices after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has boosted the industry.

Natural gas costs have also risen, due to Europe’s mobilization to offset lost imports from Russia.

“Their profits are a windfall of war,” Biden told reporters on Monday, referring to energy businesses’ earnings.

Biden said companies have a “responsibility to act” beyond the narrow self-interest of executive shareholders, and to help consumers by raising production and their refining capacity.

If businesses do not act to lower prices, “they’re going to pay a higher tax on their excess profits and face other restrictions,” Biden said, adding that officials will work with Congress to look into the issue.

While oil and gas prices have recently cooled, they are still much higher than before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February.

Hefty profits reported earlier by TotalEnergies and Shell have also reignited a European debate on windfall profits taxes.

“It’s time for these companies to stop war profiteering… give the American people a break and still do very well,” Biden said.

Beyond international developments, the energy sector has seen heightened refining margins, in part due to operational issues at some plants.

The strong margins have translated into higher gasoline prices, a sensitive issue for American voters as the November 8 midterm elections draw close.

– ‘Unacceptable’ –

On Saturday, Biden tweeted that oil companies made billions in profits this quarter and were “using these record profits to pay out their wealthy shareholders instead of investing in production and lowering costs for Americans.”

“It’s unacceptable,” he wrote, adding that it was time for oil giants to help lower prices for consumers.

American families have been squeezed by persistently high inflation, propelling the issue to the top among voter concerns.

In the third quarter, ExxonMobil scored a near tripling of profits to $19.7 billion, a company record, while Chevron profits surged 84 percent to $11.2 billion.

ExxonMobil Chief Executive Daren Woods, in response to criticism that the industry should return profits to Americans, said on Friday that this was what it was doing in the form of its quarterly dividend.

But this drew a response from the president, who said in another tweet that “giving profits to shareholders is not the same as bringing prices down for American families.”

Frustration and anger with negative economic issues like rising inflation is often directed at the president and the party in power.

Average prices at US pumps topped $5 per gallon in June, hitting an all-time high.