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Russian forces launched a barrage of fatal bombardments across Ukraine early on Monday and President Vladimir Putin vowed even more “severe” retaliation against Kyiv.

The biggest wave of strikes across Ukraine in months killed at least 11 people nationwide, and was apparent retaliation for an explosion this weekend that damaged a key bridge linking Russia to the Moscow-annexed Crimean peninsula.

The Ukrainian military said Russian forces had fired more than 80 missiles on cities across the country and that Russia had also used Iranian drones launched from neighbouring Belarus.

“Let there be no doubt,” Putin said in televised comments addressed to his security council, “if attempts at terrorist attacks continue, the response from Russia will be severe.”

Putin’s predecessor, Dmitry Medvedev, warned on social media that the strikes — which disrupted water and electricity services across Ukraine — were only “the first episode”.

“We were sleeping when we heard the first explosion. We woke up, went to check and then the second explosion came,” Ksenia Ryazantseva, a 39-year-old language teacher, told AFP.

“We saw the smoke, then the cars, and then we realised we didn’t have a window anymore,” she added.

“There’s no military target or anything like that here. They’re just killing civilians”.

– ‘Demonstration of weakness’ –

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russian strikes had aimed to take down Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Regional officials across the country confirmed widespread disruptions to services.

Russia’s defence ministry meanwhile confirmed it had targeted Ukrainian energy, military command and communications facilities, claiming the strikes had been a success and “achieved their aims”.

Ukraine’s foreign minister said the attacks had not been “provoked” and the onslaught was Moscow’s response to a series of embarrassing military losses in eastern Ukraine.

“Putin is desperate because of battlefield defeats and uses missile terror to try to change the pace of war in his favour,” minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on social media. 

UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said the Russian missile strikes on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and other cities were “unacceptable”.

“This is a demonstration of weakness by Putin, not strength,” he tweeted, adding that he had contacted Kuleba.

Zelensky said on social media meanwhile that he had spoken with the leaders of France and Germany and urged them to “increase pressure” on Russia.

– Dozens injured –

In Kyiv, the national police service said that at least 11 people had been killed and at least another 64 wounded.

Ukrainian officials said the central Shevkenko district of the city was hit and that a university, museums and the philharmonic building had been damaged.

An AFP journalist in Kyiv saw a projectile land near a playground and smoke rising from a large crater at the impact site.

Several trees and benches nearby were charred by the blast and a number of ambulances were at the scene.

“If there is no urgent need, it’s better not to go to the city today,” Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

In the western city of Lviv, mayor Andriy Sadovyi said there were disruptions to electricity and hot water services after bombardments that targeted critical infrastructure, including energy facilities.

AFP photographers there said plumes of black smoke could be seen rising above the town’s skyline.

Moldova, a pro-democracy former Soviet republic, said several Russian cruise missiles targeting Ukraine had crossed its airspace, and it had summoned Moscow’s envoy to demand an explanation.

“Our thoughts are with the victims of the brutal strikes,” Moldovan Foreign Minister Nicu Popescu said on Twitter.

Moldova, which is a candidate to join the European Union, has a small breakaway region, Transnistria, which is armed and supported by Russia.

– Crimean bridge attack –

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin’s, meanwhile claimed on Monday that Ukraine was preparing an attack on his country’s territory.

He said Russia and Belarus would “deploy” troops together, without specifying where.

The autocratic leader also accused Ukraine, alongside neighbouring Poland and Lithuania, of training Belarusian militants to carrying out attacks at home.

The strikes across Ukraine came a day after Moscow blamed Kyiv for the blast that damaged a bridge linking Crimea to Russia, leaving three people dead.

“The authors, perpetrators and sponsors are the Ukrainian secret services,” Putin said of Saturday’s bridge bombing, which he described as a “terrorist act”.

The blast that hit the bridge sparked celebrations by Ukrainians and others on social media.

But Zelensky, in his nightly address on Saturday, did not directly mention the incident, and officials in Kyiv have made no direct claim of responsibility.

On Saturday, Russia said some road and rail traffic had resumed over the strategic link, a symbol of the Kremlin’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

The 19-kilometre (12-mile) bridge is also a vital supply link between Russia and the annexed Crimean peninsula.

Some military analysts argue that the explosion could have a major impact if Moscow sees the need to shift already hard-pressed troops to Crimea from other regions — or if it prompts a rush by residents to leave.

A French trial of Air France and Airbus began Monday on charges of involuntary manslaughter over the fatal 2009 crash of a jet heading to Paris from Brazil, killing all 228 people aboard.

Victims’ families and some aviation experts say the pilots were insufficiently trained to handle a loss of speed readings caused by crucial equipment freezing over in a storm.

Around 50 relatives of the victims sat on the benches in the packed Paris criminal court, while Airbus’s chief executive Guillaume Faury and Air France boss Anne Rigail also attended.

Judges read out the charges before listing aloud the names of every person killed in the crash.

Flight AF 447 from Rio de Janeiro plunged into the Atlantic Ocean in the early hours of June 1, 2009, after entering a zone near the Equator known for strong turbulence.

The Airbus A330 was carrying 12 crew members and 216 passengers. It was the carrier’s deadliest crash.

It took nearly two years to locate the bulk of the fuselage and recover the “black box” flight recorders.

French flagship carrier Air France and aircraft maker Airbus were charged as the inquiry progressed. 

Experts determined the crash resulted from mistakes made by pilots disorientated by so-called Pitot speed-monitoring tubes that had frozen over in thick cloud.

But investigating magistrates overseeing the case dropped the charges in 2019, a decision that infuriated victims’ families.

Prosecutors appealed against the decision and in 2021 a Paris court ruled there was sufficient evidence for a trial to go ahead. 

Ophelie Toulliou, who lost her brother on the flight, said it was essential “the truth come out, and that the sentences, if deserved, are handed down”.

“But the message is also to make companies that think they’re untouchable understand ‘You’re like everyone else and if you make mistakes, they will be punished,'” she told AFP.

– ‘Lost our speeds’ –

The court will hear testimony from dozens of aviation experts and pilots over two months of hearings, and each company faces a maximum fine of 225,000 euros ($220,000).

There will also be analysis of the final minutes in the cockpit before the plane went into free-fall after entering a so-called “intertropical convergence zone” that often produces volatile storms with heavy precipitation.

In the cold, the Pitot tubes froze, a problem that had already been reported by other pilots. The tubes were quickly replaced on planes worldwide in the months after the accident.

“We’ve lost our speeds,” one pilot is heard saying in the flight recordings, before other indicators mistakenly show a loss of altitude and a series of alarm messages appear on the cockpit screens. 

The pilots start climbing and even though a “STALL” alert sounds, reach 11,600 metres (38,060 feet).

“I don’t know what’s happening,” one of the pilots is heard saying as the stall begins.

– Training overhaul –

Air France pilots’ union SPAF said it was now “indispensable for a court to hear all the parties and decide where responsibility lies in a public hearing”.

The crash prompted an overhaul of training protocols across the industry, in particular to prepare pilots to handle the intense stress of unforeseen circumstances.

Pilots are also now required to continually practise stall responses on simulators.

“That was the big change after this accident for all civil airline companies. Before, it was something pilots learned in basic training and then they were never trained again,” one airline executive told AFP, on condition of anonymity.

Testimony will also be heard from some of the 476 members of victims’ families who are civil plaintiffs in the case.

But Nelson Faria Marinho, president of the Brazilian association of victims’ relatives, said: “I’m not expecting anything from this trial.”

“Even if there is a conviction, who will be punished? The CEOs? They were changed at Airbus and Air France a long time ago,” he told AFP during an interview at his Rio home.

He will be represented by former French pilot Gerard Arnoux, who has advised several of the victims’ families and wrote a book titled “Rio-Paris Is Not Responding: AF447, the Crash that Should Not Have Happened”.

A US trio including ex-Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke, who played a key role battling the 2008 financial crisis, won the economics Nobel on Monday for research on banks in times of turmoil.

Bernanke, together with Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig, were honoured for having “significantly improved our understanding of the role of banks in the economy, particularly during financial crises, as well as how to regulate financial markets”, the jury said.

Bernanke, 68, has been both credited for spurring recovery after the 2008 recession and pilloried by critics for doing little to avert it, allowing investment bank Lehman Brothers to collapse.

He received the award for his analysis, conducted in the early 1980s, of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the worst economic crisis in modern history.

In particular, Bernanke showed “how failing banks played a decisive role in the global depression,” making the downturn “not only deep, but also long-lasting,” the Nobel jury noted.

In his role as chief of the central bank, Bernanke “was able to put knowledge from research into policy,” during the financial crisis of 2008-2009, the Nobel Committee said.

Bernanke has been hailed for the Fed’s unorthodox response of slashing interest rates and flooding the financial system with liquidity.

– Bank runs –

Diamond, a professor at the University of Chicago born in 1953, and Dybvig, 67, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, were honoured for showing how “banks offer an optimal solution” for channelling savings to investments by acting as an intermediary.

The pair also showed how these institutions were vulnerable to so called banks runs.

“If a large number of savers simultaneously run to the bank to withdraw their money, the rumour may become a self-fulfilling prophecy –- a bank run occurs and the bank collapses,” the Nobel Committee said.

The committee added that this dangerous dynamic can be avoided by governments providing deposit insurance and giving banks a life-line by becoming a lender of last resort.

“The laureates’ insights have improved our ability to avoid both serious crises and expensive bailouts,” Tore Ellingsen, chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences, said.

“In a nutshell, the theory says that banks can be tremendously useful but they are only guaranteed to be stable if they are properly regulated”, he added.

Diamond, speaking to reporters after the announcement, reflected Monday on the decision by US authorities not to bailout US investment bank Lehman Brothers, as they later did other financial institutions.

The bank’s collapse sent shockwaves through financial markets when it filed for bankrupcy in September 2008.

“It would have been better to find a more accommodating way, a less unstable way and unexpected way to resolve Lehman Brothers,” Diamond said, stressing there were questions about what regulators were legally able to do at the time.

“Had they found a way, I think the world would have had less of a severe crisis than it did,” Diamond said.

– ‘False Nobel’ –

Of all the Nobels, the economics prize has the fewest number of female winners, just two since it was first awarded in 1969 — Elinor Ostrom in 2009 and Esther Duflo in 2019.

The economics prize, set up by the Swedish central bank, was the only award absent from the original five created by scientist Alfred Nobel, sometimes earning it the moniker of “false Nobel”.

But like the other prizes it comes with a medal and an award sum of 10 million Swedish kronor (around $900,000).

The winners will receive the prize from King Carl XVI Gustaf at a formal ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of the 1896 death of scientist Alfred Nobel who created the prizes in his last will and testament. 

Last year, the honour went jointly to Canada’s David Card, Israeli-American Joshua Angrist and Dutch-American Guido Imbens for research that “revolutionised” empirical work in their field and brought better understanding of how labour markets work.

The Economics Prize closes this year’s Nobel season. 

Ben Bernanke, who shared the Nobel Economics Prize on Monday, is a scholar of the Great Depression who helped to steer the United States through another major financial crisis as Federal Reserve chief.

Bernanke took over as Fed chair in February 2006, just before the collapse of the US housing market that triggered a global crisis of epic proportions.

Many analysts say Bernanke’s aggressive and unorthodox moves allowed the central bank to prop up the financial system and keep credit flowing, therefore avoiding a repeat of a 1930s-style calamity.

His critics, though, argue that he did little to avert the crisis and may have helped fuel the problems when he was a Fed governor in 2002-2005 under then-chairman Alan Greenspan and subsequently headed the Council of Economic Advisers under former president George W. Bush.

The Nobel jury awarded the prize to Bernanke, 68, along with fellow US economists Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig for having “significantly improved our understanding of the role of banks in the economy, particularly during financial crises, as well as how to regulate financial markets.”

Bernanke was singled out for his analysis of “the worst economic crisis in modern history” — the Great Depression in the 1930s. He published a book on his essays about the topic and co-authored another about the 2008 financial crisis.

He is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington and a senior adviser to the asset management firms Pimco and Citadel — appointments that raised concerns about the “revolving door” between Washington and Wall Street.

– ‘Creative leadership’ –

In recognition for his actions during the global financial crisis, he was named TIME magazine’s “Person of the Year” for 2009.

TIME honored the former Princeton University professor as “the most important player guiding the world’s most important economy.”

“His creative leadership helped ensure that 2009 was a period of weak recovery rather than catastrophic depression,” TIME senior writer Michael Grunwald wrote.

Grunwald said at the time that Bernanke still wielded “unrivaled power over our money, our jobs, our savings and our national future.”

Bernanke served as central bank chief under Bush and was kept on the job by the Republican leader’s Democratic successor, Barack Obama.

The former central banker has stressed the importance of transparency in the Fed’s communications, stepping away from Greenspan’s turgid, jargon-laden statements.

And unlike his predecessor, Bernanke talked often to reporters.

Joseph Brusuelas, a director at Moody’s Analytics, once said that the Fed’s unorthodox response to the global financial crisis was “without precedent” as it slashed its policy rate to zero and “flooded the financial system with liquidity.”

The Fed’s moves, Brusuelas said, “slowly rebuilt confidence in the banking system.”

Jeffrey Sachs, economist at Columbia University, said “a depression seemed possible” at the time of the Lehman Brothers collapse in September 2008, but action by central banks “prevented financial markets from crashing.”

– Lehman ‘blunder’ –

But others criticized him for failing to better predict the severity of the economic crisis: in 2007, when the first signs of the subprime mortgage crisis emerged, Bernanke assured Congress that the fallout would be limited.

Others accuse Bernanke of failing to act quickly to cut interest rates once the scale of the crisis emerged. The Fed instead adopted a go-slow posture on cutting rates, before making an emergency cut in January 2008.

Among Bernanke critics, the late economist Allan Meltzer at Carnegie Mellon University said the Lehman collapse represented a mistake of historic proportions.

“Allowing Lehman to fail without warning is one of the worst blunders in Federal Reserve history,” he wrote in a Wall Street Journal essay.

Bernanke was born on December 13, 1953 in Augusta, Georgia, to a pharmacist father and a schoolteacher mother. He grew up in a Jewish household, a minority in the heavily Christian community.

He spent his childhood in Dillon, South Carolina — a farm town with a population of 7,500 — and was a star scholar, achieving a near-perfect score in the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), a university entrance exam.

He studied economics at Harvard and graduated with top honors in 1975, then went on to obtain a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

He worked at Princeton for 17 years before joining the Federal Reserve Board in 2002.