EU designates Russia as ‘state sponsor of terrorism’
The bloc condemned the invasion in the harshest terms even as Russia rained down missiles on cities across Ukraine
The European Parliament on Wednesday recognised Russia as a “state sponsor of terrorism”, accusing its forces of carrying out atrocities during its war on Ukraine. The move by the European legislators is a symbolic political step with no legal consequences, but ministers urged the governments of the 27-nation EU to follow their lead. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the decision, saying that “Russia must be isolated at all levels”. However, hours later, the European Union Parliament website was allegedly hit by a cyber attack, news agency AFP reported.
The European Parliament website was hit by a cyber attack claimed by proRussian hackers shortly after lawmakers on Wednesday approved a resolution calling Moscow a “state sponsor of terrorism”.
“The European Parliament is under a sophisticated cyberattack. A pro-Kremlin group has claimed responsibility,” the parliament’s president, Roberta Metsola, posted on Twitter.
Spokesman Jaume Duch said the parliament website had been targeted by a “DDOS attack” designed to force high levels of outside traffic onto the site’s server, disrupting the network.
Another source at the parliament, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attack was the “most sophisticated in recent history” to target the institution.
The parliament’s website went down shortly after EU lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to recognise Russia as a
“state sponsor of terrorism” over its attacks on Ukraine.
In a lopsided 494-58 vote with 48 abstentions, the European Union legislature sought to increase pressure on Moscow to bring anyone responsible for war crimes committed from the Feb. 24 start of the invasion before an international
court.
The 27-nation EU has condemned in the harshest terms the invasion and repeatedly said that several Russian actions over the past 10 months have amounted to war crimes.
Blackouts in Moldova
Russia rained down missiles
across Ukraine on Wednesday, forcing shutdowns of nuclear power plants and killing civilians in Kyiv as Moscow pursued a campaign to plunge Ukrainian cities into darkness and cold with winter setting in.
All of the capital region was without power, Kyiv’s governor said. Officials across the border
in Moldova said electricity was also lost to more than half of their country, the first time a neighbouring state has reported such extensive damage from the war in Ukraine triggered by Russia’s invasion nine months ago.
Blackouts forced the shutdown of reactors at Ukraine’s
Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant in the south and the Rivne and Khmelnitskyi plants in the west, all in government-held territory, the state-run nuclear energy firm Energoatom said.
Ukraine’s largest nuclear complex, at Zaporizhzhia near the front lines in the south, is Russian-controlled and was previously switched off because of shelling that both sides blame on each other.
Air raid sirens blared across Ukraine in a nationwide alert.
Earlier, Russian missiles hit a maternity hospital in the Zaporizhzhia region overnight, killing a baby, the regional governor said on the Telegram messaging service.
G7 looks at oil price cap
The Group of Seen nations is looking at a price cap on Russian sea-borne oil in the range of $65-70 per barrel, a European Union diplomat said on Wednesday. Ambassadors from the 27 EU countries were discussing the proposal with the aim of reaching a common position by the end of the day.
The G7, including the United States, the EU and Australia, are slated to implement the price cap on sea-borne exports of Russian oil on December 5, as part of sanctions intended to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine. China’s crude buyers paused purchases of some Russian oil as they wait for details of the cap to see if it presents a better price.