Russia Ukraine war latest: Putin’s troops preparing defences to stop more Kyiv breakthroughs

The Vatican is yet again ready to do anything possible to mediate and put an end to the war in Ukraine, Pope Francis said in an interview with Italian daily La Stampa.

He also called on everyone not to give up, on being asked whether he believed reconciliation between Moscow and Kyiv was possible.

“But everyone must commit to demilitarising hearts, starting with their own, and then defusing, disarming violence. We must all be pacifists. Wanting peace, not just a truce that may only serve to rearm. Real peace, which is the fruit of dialogue,” the pontiff told the paper.

After losing Kherson, Russia’s forces are reorganising and preparing defences in the event of more major Ukrainian breakthroughs, the British defence ministry said today.

“Following the withdrawal of its forces from west of the Dnipro River, Russian forces continue to prioritise refitting, reorganisation and the preparation of defences across most sectors in Ukraine,” the ministry said today.

It added that these Russian units have constructed new trench systems near the border of Crimea, as well as near the Siversky-Donetsk River between Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

“Some of these locations are up to 60km behind the current front line, suggesting that Russian planners are making preparations in case of further major Ukrainian breakthroughs,” the British MoD said.

Now it is likely that Russia will attempt to eventually redeploy some of the forces recovered from Kherson to reinforce and expand its offensive operations near the town of Bakhmut in Donetsk oblast, the update said.

Ukrainian forces are slowly reviving Kherson city after taking control of it last week, as well as swathes of its surrounding region. In a major setback for Moscow, Russia pulled its forces back to the other side of the Dnipro river.

Kherson was the only regional capital to be captured by Russia following its invasion on 24 February.

Ten million people are without power in Ukraine after Russian airstrikes inflicted more damage on Thursday with the latest barrage smashing into energy infrastructure, apartment buildings and an industrial site.

In his nightly video address, Volodymyr Zelensky said the widespread outages were affecting people in the Kyiv, Odesa, Sumy and Vinnytsia regions.

At least four people were killed and more than a dozen wounded in drone and missile strikes around the country, authorities said.

Read the full story here:

Extra care was taken and two F16 planes can be seen flying alongside the squad, given the nation shares a border with war-torn Ukraine.

The footage was posted by the official Twitter account of the Polish team and has already been viewed over 1.6 million times.

Poland begin their World Cup campaign against Mexico on Tuesday 22 November.

Intense fighting and Russian missile attacks continue to rain on Ukrainian positions in several regions with no visible let up in heavy fighting in Donetsk in the east, the Ukrainian military said last night as Moscow’s occupying forces appeared more active.

Elsewhere, Russian attacks struck gas production facilities and a major missile factory in new missile strikes on critical infrastructure in the country, Ukrainian officials said.

A top Ukrainian human rights official shared a video of a room allegedly used by Russian forces for torturing people in Kherson region, stating that the place could keep 25 people at a time who were not allowed to use the toilet.

The Ukrainian parliament’s human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets showed a series of bare underground rooms with grimy walls and floors that he said were used for detentions, interrogations and torture.

Russian forces used electric shocks to secure confessions, the top official said.

“They asked the questions they wanted and obtained the answers they wanted,” a man who said he had been kept in one of the rooms for 24 days said.

The man said he was tied to a chair and subjected to recurring electric shocks “until losing consciousness” and, after a break, the process resumed.

“One after the other. They prepared a bunch of questions and wrote down everything they wanted,” he said in the video.