Aftermath of Russian missile strike on Ukraine mail depot that killed six
Russian drones hit civilian targets and triggered a fire near Ukraine‘s second-largest city of Kharkiv, officials said.
The attacks came as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address Moscow was losing control of Black Sea.
Russia launched overnight drone attacks today in Kharkiv with multiple explosions heard and a civilian site was hit, Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synehubov.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said the fire was being brought under control but did not confirm if there were any casualties.
In his address, Mr Zelensky said “Russia is gradually losing control of the Black Sea and retreating to the eastern part of the waters”.
“I am confident that Ukraine will definitely win. Be confident in yourselves,” he said.
This comes a day after Vladimir Putin’s troops bombarded 118 Ukrainian towns and villages over the course of 24 hours, the most intense day of shelling this year, Kyiv said.
Ukraine is trying to build up a new shipping lane without Russian approval to revive its vital seaborne exports. But Russia said it would consider any vessel a potential military target after it quit UN-brokered deal allowing Ukrainian goods to pass through.
Russian forces hit civilian targets near Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials say
Russian drones reportedly struck civilian targets, sparking a fire in and around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Ukrainian officials said.
Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synehubov, in a Telegram message, revealed that the attacks specifically targeted civilian infrastructure in the city’s northeast and also affected a nearby locality.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov indicated that efforts were underway to control the fire but did not provide further details.
Ninety minutes after the initial reports, the air raid alert in Kharkiv and other central regions was lifted, and there have been no subsequent updates on the situation on the ground.
Meanwhile, alerts remain in place in western regions, with the Ukrainian air force reporting the presence of Russian drones in three different areas.
Maksym Kozytskyi, governor of the Lviv region near the Polish border, noted the activation of anti-aircraft units in response to the situation.
The attacks came as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address Moscow was losing control of Black Sea.
He expressed gratitude for efforts to maintain Ukraine’s maritime export corridor, which has yielded positive results following a conference with military, intelligence, security forces, and government officials
He said it suggested that Russia’s influence in the Black Sea is diminishing, with a plan to pursue them further in the eastern waters.
Shweta Sharma3 November 2023 05:46
US senate looking at support deals for Ukraine and Israel
New US Speaker Mike Johnson has told Republican senators a fresh Ukraine aid package will come as soon as lawmakers wrap up the $14.5 billion Israel aid package that is heading for passage later this week.
Johnson, who has been on the job a week, made the trip across the Capitol to speak privately with GOP senators to outline the agenda ahead.
“Look, we all like the new speaker we want him to be successful,” said Senator JD Vance, Republican for Ohio, who opposes more aid to Ukraine.
Johnson was greeted with applause at the start of the lunch meeting, a get-to-know-you session for the new GOP speaker that many senators had never met — or even heard of — until he won a longshot race for House speaker to replace the ousted Kevin McCarthy.
The new speaker told the senators Ukraine needs U.S. aid as it battles Russia, but that there was no way President Joe Biden’s request for a nearly $106 billion supplemental funding request that included Israel could be passed through the House.
Lydia Patrick3 November 2023 05:00
Italy’s premier acknowledges ‘fatigue’ over Ukraine war in call with Russian pranksters
Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni’s office has expressed “regret” that she fell prey to a prank call that induced her to acknowledge “fatigue” over the war in Ukraine.
Meloni, believing she was speaking with officials of the African Union, told a pair of Russian pranksters that “there is a lot of fatigue, I have to say the truth, from all the sides.
We are near the moment in which everybody understands that we need a way out.”
“The problem is to find a way out which can be acceptable for both, without destroying the international law,” she said.
Audio of the call was released Wednesday and replayed by Italian media. The call by Russian comedians Vovan and Lexus was made in September.
The office of Meloni’s diplomatic advisor said it “regrets having been misled by an imposter who posed as the president of the African Union commission.”
The call occurred on Sept. 18, in the run-up to the U.N. General Assembly, where Meloni had meetings with African leaders.
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, a Meloni ally, said Thursday that such episodes cannot be repeated. “There was certainly superficiality by whoever organized the phone call,” Tajani told state RAI radio.
Lydia Patrick3 November 2023 04:00
Trump’s shadow looms large over Congress battle that could define Ukraine war
The timing could not be worse. Just as Ukraine is fighting to repel one of the fiercest Russian onslaughts since the war began, so fears emerge that US support to Kyiv could be severely undermined by Republicans loyal to the former president.
Natalie Crockett3 November 2023 03:00
Polish hauliers to block Ukraine border crossings in protest
Polish truckers will block several border crossings with Ukraine starting next week in protest at what they say is Ukrainian hauliers’ free rein in Poland that is hurting their business, a co-organiser of the protest told Reuters.
The protest, planned to start on Nov. 6, comes amid an economic slowdown in Europe and a relaxation of regulations for Ukrainian transport companies in 2022 by the European Union to ease the transport of goods to and out of the country invaded by Russia.
The protesters plan to stop trucks travelling at three border crossings, letting through one truck per hour, but exempting shipments of equipment for Ukraine‘s army and vehicles transporting livestock, according to a protest notification seen by Reuters.
Protesters’ demands include reimposing restrictions on the number of Ukraine-registered trucks entering Poland and a ban on transport companies with capital from outside the European Union, among others, according to the notification.
“Ukrainian transport companies are … entering without restrictions and carrying out transport operations they have no right to perform,” said Jacek Sokol, protest co-organizer and deputy head of the Committee to Protect Transporters and Transport Employers.
He said the protest measures would affect traffic in both directions at crossings in Dorohusk and Hrebenne-Rawa Ruska, as well as outbound traffic through Korczowa.
Lydia Patrick3 November 2023 02:00
US imposes new sanctions on companies they believe are linked to Russian war
The United States on Thursday imposed a new round of sanctions on 130 firms and people from Turkey, China and the United Arab Emirates in an effort to choke off Russia’s access to tools and equipment that support its invasion of Ukraine.
The sanctions imposed by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control target third-party firms and people alleged to assist Moscow in procuring equipment needed on the battlefield, including suppliers and shippers.
In addition, the State Department imposed diplomatic sanctions targeting Russian energy production and its metals and mining sector.
Thursday’s sanctions targets include Turkish national Berk Turken and his firms, which are alleged to have ties to Russian intelligence.
The Treasury Department said Mr Turken’s network arranged payments and shipping details designed to bypass sanctions and move goods from Turkey to Russia.
A series of United Arab Emirates firms alleged to have shipped aviation equipment, machines for data reception and more also were sanctioned.
And UAE-based ARX Financial Engineering Ltd was sanctioned for allegedly being involved in finding ways for Russian rubles to be sent from sanctioned Russian bank VTB Bank and converted to US dollars.
Mr Turken and a representative from ARX were not available for comment on Thursday.
Lydia Patrick3 November 2023 01:00
Ukraine says more than 260 civilians killed after stepping on mines since beginning of Russian invasion
Around 174,000sq km of Ukraine, making up about a third of its territory, has been potentially strewn with mines or dangerous war detritus, estimates from Kyiv officials showed.
The 571 injuries have occurred in more than 560 incidents that involve mines or explosive objects left behind in the fighting between Russian and Ukrainian troops, the country’s General Staff of the Armed Forces said on its official Telegram channel on Wednesday.
Almost a quarter of these incidents have happened in fields, the military official said.
Sam Rkaina2 November 2023 23:55
Two killed as Russian artillery keeps on battering southern Ukraine’s Kherson region
Russian shelling killed an 81-year-old woman in the yard of her home and a 60-year-old man in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region Thursday, local authorities said. The deaths were the latest civilian casualties in Moscow’s recent ramped-up bombardment of the front-line area.
Kherson is a strategic military region located on the Dnieper River near the mouth of the Black Sea. Unconfirmed reports say attacking Ukrainian troops have gained a foothold on the Russian-held side of the river during Kyiv’s monthslong counteroffensive.
The two civilians died when Russian artillery targeted Kherson region villages, according to Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin. Four others were injured in the strikes, which also damaged residential and public buildings, authorities said.
On Wednesday, one person died in Russian shelling that caused extensive damage in the Kherson region’s capital city of the same name. Prokudin called it “an apocalyptic scene.”
A 91-year-old local woman was killed in her apartment last weekend in what Prokudin described as a “terrifying” nighttime barrage.
The Kherson region is a key gateway to the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014 and is now home to a lot of Moscow’s war logistics operations and rear supply depots.
Sam Rkaina2 November 2023 23:00
Russia says Ukraine ‘playing with fire’ with drone attack near nuclear plant
Russia on Thursday said Ukraine was risking a nuclear disaster after nine Ukrainian drones were shot down by Russian forces near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear station, Europe’s largest atomic power plant.
The Zaporizhzhia plant, which has been under Russian control since early March 2022, has six Soviet-designed VVER-1000 V-320 water-cooled and water-moderated reactors containing Uranium 235.
Four of the reactors are shut down while two of the reactors – No. 4 and No. 5 – are in so-called ‘hot shutdown’ mode, according to the Russian operator of the plant.
Russia’s defence ministry said air defences had shot down nine Ukrainian drones near the Russian-held city of Enerhodar, where many workers for the plant live, in an attempt to disrupt the rotation of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) staff.
“Kyiv is continuing to ‘play with fire’ and is carrying out criminal and irresponsible provocations,” Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for Russia’s foreign ministry, said of the drone attack.
Zakharova said the IAEA should look at a Russian proposal to rotate its staff monitoring the plant only through Russian-held territory. The IAEA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ukraine did not immediately comment.
The IAEA has repeatedly said that the world is fortunate that no nuclear accident has yet happened at the Zaporizhzhia plant where the Agency says nuclear safety remains extremely fragile.
Shortly after sending troops into Ukraine in 2022, Russian forces took control of the Zaporizhzhia station. Both Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of attacking the station.
Sam Rkaina2 November 2023 22:00
US concerned by withdrawal of Russia’s ratification of global nuclear test ban
The withdrawal of Russia’s ratification of the global treaty banning nuclear weapons tests is a step in the wrong direction and will serve to set back confidence in the international arms control regime, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday.
“We are deeply concerned by Russia’s planned action to withdraw its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT),” Blinken said in a statement released by the State Department.
“Unfortunately, it represents a significant step in the wrong direction, taking us further from, not closer to, entry into force,” Blinken said.
Sam Rkaina2 November 2023 21:00