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Russia warns of fight for Kherson in ‘very near future’
Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-installed deputy administrator of the Kherson region, has said in a Telegram message posted late on Tuesday that, ‘“In the very near future, the battle for Kherson will begin.”
“The civilian population is advised to leave the area of the forthcoming fierce hostilities, if possible, so as not to expose themselves to unnecessary risk,” Stremousov added.
The new commander of Moscow’s army in Ukraine announced on Tuesday that civilians were being “resettled” from the Russian-occupied southern city of Kherson, describing the military situation as “tense”.
“The enemy continually attempts to attack the positions of Russian troops,” Sergei Surovikin said in his first televised interview since being appointed earlier this month, adding that the situation was particularly difficult around the occupied southern city of Kherson.
Key events
The Belarus defence ministry has said in a statement that it had begun summoning citizens to check their eligibility for military service, but that it was not planning mobilisation.
Reuters quotes the statement saying “The military registration and enlistment activities are strictly routine and are expected to be completed by the end of this year.”
Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) has been quoted by a DPR Telegram source as telling the Soloviev Live channel that “The situation is under control along the entire line of contact in the Donetsk direction.”
Donetsk is one of the four occupied regions of Ukraine which Russia has claimed to “annex”.
Pro-Russian forces claim to have repulsed Ukrainian attempt to retake nuclear plant
An attempt to retake control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) by boats loaded with Ukrainian special forces has been repulsed, according to one of the Russian-installed officials in occupied eastern Ukraine.
The state-owned RIA Novosti news agency quotes Vladimir Rogov, one of the Russian-installed leaders in Zaporizhzhia, saying:
Last night , a large group of landing boats, crowded with militants of special operations forces, left the southern region of the city of Zaporizhzhia and other directions. The attempted landing was repulsed.
Rogov told the news agency that about 30 boats participated in the landing attempt, but that the situation was under control, and there were no plans to evacuate Enerhodar, the settlement attached to the ZNPP. RIA did not publish any evidence to back up the claims other than Rogov’s words.
Russian forces have occupied Europe’s largest nuclear power plant since the earliest days of the war. Both Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of firing on the power plant and risking a nuclear accident. Attempts to have the area declared a demilitarised zone for nuclear safety reasons have floundered. The ZNPP is located in Zaporizhzhia, one of the regions that Russia has claimed to “annex”.
Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk – one of the occupied regions that Russia claims to have annexed – has said that progress to “de-occupy” the region has been slower than the Ukrainian push in Kharkiv, because “it was in our region that all those soldiers who fled from Kharkiv oblast gathered”.
In a message on Telegram, Serhai Haidai also said that Ukrainian forces fighting to regain control of Luhansk face “freshly mobilised Russians, prisoners, and a lot of equipment and air defence [that] have arrived in Luhansk region”.
Haidai said that “the armed forces of Ukraine have developed a clear de-occupation plan and are clearly following it. When our military enter the liberated settlements we will offer the population evacuation for the winter period, and we will also work to provide people with heat, water, and communication.”
He also stated that “the leadership of the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic is gradually being replaced by representatives of Russia”.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Ukrainian forces have shot down 13 “kamikaze” drones over Mykoliav overnight, according to the region’s governor, Vitaliy Kim.
He posted to Telegram to say that “the enemy attacked twice with ‘Shahed-136’ kamikaze drones. 13 of them were shot down on the territory of the region. Thus, 11 drones were shot down by the forces and means of anti-aircraft defence of the ‘Southern’ air command, and two more by soldiers of the national guard of Ukraine and the state border service of Ukraine.”
Kim also identified several areas of the region that had been shelled, but there was no indication of any casualties so far. The claims have not been independently verified.
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. My colleague Martin Belam will take you through the latest for the next few hours.
Wilfred Chan
If you look hard enough, you’ll spot faded yellow signs proclaiming “fallout shelter” around New York City. They are remnants of a cold war programme that signalled spaces within ordinary buildings – from schools to banks to the Brooklyn Bridge – with adequate supplies and walls thick enough for riding out a nuclear blast safely.
Many of these windowless shelters housed little more than rats and sewage before the practice was terminated in 1979. In 2017, the city’s department of education ordered the “misleading” signs removed from its buildings, but many others remain – vestiges of nuclear fears that never materialised.
Those fears feel a little more real again amid Vladimir Putin’s repeated nuclear threats. In July, New York mayor Eric Adams’s office published a public service announcement about what to do in case of a blast. A couple of weeks ago, nuclear preparedness reentered headlines when the Department of Health and Human Services announced it was buying a supply of the anti-radiation drug Nplate, though the agency denied it was in response to any specific threat.
All of this raises the question: are we better prepared today to survive a nuclear blast than we were 60 years ago, when it seemed all we could do was head to the basement and pray?
Zaporizhzhia was also attacked overnight, with Russia firing on “critical infrastructure” in a village, according to the regional governor, Oleksandr Starukh.
“A fire broke out at the facility, which was quickly extinguished by rescuers. There are no casualties,” he said.
The head of Kryvyi Rih’s military administration, Oleksandr Vilkul, has posted an update on Telegram saying that Russia launched rocket fire overnight on an energy facility, causing “serious destruction” and shelling residential buildings.
Here is footage from yesterday’s attack:
Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-installed deputy administrator of the Kherson region, has just posted on Telegram saying that the “situation in Kherson is unchanged” this morning, and reiterating his warning that residents should leave because of the risk of shelling.
UK Ministry of Defence: ‘major elements of Russia’s military leadership dysfunctional’
The UK Ministry of Defence has published its daily update on the situation in Ukraine.
“Eight months into the invasion, major elements of Russia’s military leadership are increasingly dysfunctional. At the tactical level, there is almost certainly a worsening shortage of capable Russian junior officers to organise and lead newly mobilised reservists,” it said on Twitter.
AFP has this report from Bakhmut, one of the last towns where Russian troops are still advancing.
Russia has been falling back in its offensive – but in Bakhmut, unlike across most of the frontline, Ukrainians are on the defensive. They face the “most difficult” challenges, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said this weekend.
Ukrainian troops still control the northern and western parts of the city, AFP journalists saw on Saturday.
Metal crosses and blocks of concrete mark the Ukrainian front line, dubbed “point zero”. No one is allowed past. Around it, in the “grey zone”, Russia is on the offensive.
Pro-Russian separatist forces have pressed ahead east and south of Bakhmut, relying on their base in the city of Donetsk about 100km (62 miles) away.
The retaking of the two villages raised fears that Russian forces, including Wagner paramilitary units, may have infiltrated the eastern part of the city, according to a British intelligence note.
On the ground, Ukrainian soldiers told AFP there was now close combat with members of pro-Russian forces.
Here is more on the power plants destroyed in Ukraine:
Russia warns of fight for Kherson in ‘very near future’
Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-installed deputy administrator of the Kherson region, has said in a Telegram message posted late on Tuesday that, ‘“In the very near future, the battle for Kherson will begin.”
“The civilian population is advised to leave the area of the forthcoming fierce hostilities, if possible, so as not to expose themselves to unnecessary risk,” Stremousov added.
The new commander of Moscow’s army in Ukraine announced on Tuesday that civilians were being “resettled” from the Russian-occupied southern city of Kherson, describing the military situation as “tense”.
“The enemy continually attempts to attack the positions of Russian troops,” Sergei Surovikin said in his first televised interview since being appointed earlier this month, adding that the situation was particularly difficult around the occupied southern city of Kherson.
Hundreds of thousands in Ukraine without water or power
Airstrikes cut power and water supplies to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians on Tuesday, part of what the country’s president called an expanding Russian campaign to drive the nation into the cold and dark and make peace talks impossible.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said nearly one-third of Ukraine’s power stations have been destroyed in the past week, “causing massive blackouts across the country.”
“No space left for negotiations with Putin’s regime,” he said.
Depriving people of water, electricity and heat as winter begins to bite, and the broadening use of so-called suicide drones that nosedive into targets have opened a new phase the war. The bombardments appear aimed at wearing down the notable resilience Ukrainians have shown in the nearly eight months since Moscow invaded.
Summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest for the next while.
If you have questions or see news you think we may have missed, you can get in touch on Twitter here.
Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-installed deputy administrator of the Kherson region, has said in a Telegram message posted late on Tuesday that, ‘“In the very near future, the battle for Kherson will begin.”
“The civilian population is advised to leave the area of the forthcoming fierce hostilities, if possible, so as not to expose themselves to unnecessary risk,” Stremousov added.
Meanwhile, the number of Ukranians without water or power has now reached hundreds of thousands, following targeted airstrikes by Russia.
Here are the other key recent developments:
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The new commander of Moscow’s army in Ukraine announced that civilians were being “resettled” from the Russian-occupied southern city of Kherson, describing the military situation as “tense”. “The enemy continually attempts to attack the positions of Russian troops,” Sergei Surovikin said in his first televised interview since being appointed earlier this month, adding that the situation was particularly difficult around the occupied southern city of Kherson.
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Kyiv has recently introduced a news blackout in the south of the country, leading to speculations that it was preparing a new major offensive on Kherson. “When the Ukrainians have a news blackout it means something is going on. They have always done this before when there is a big offensive push on,” Michael Clarke, a former director general of the Royal United Services Institute, told Sky News.
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People in four towns in the Kherson region were being moved in anticipation of a “large-scale offensive”, the Russian-installed head of Kherson, Vladimir Saldo, said in a video address. Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-installed deputy administrator of the Kherson region, echoed the message on Telegram late on Tuesday: “The battle for Kherson will begin in the very near future. The civilian population is advised, if possible, to leave the area of the upcoming fierce hostilities.”
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Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said on Thursday that Russia no longer sees a need to maintain a diplomatic presence in the west, the Daily Beast reports. “There is neither point nor desire to maintain the previous presence in western states. Our people work there in conditions that can hardly be called human,” Lavrov said, according to the Russian news agency Tass.
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Military advisers from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were on Ukrainian soil at a Russian military base in occupied Crimea, the New York Times reports. The Iranians were reported to have been deployed to help Russian troops deal with problems with the Tehran-supplied fleet of Shahed-136 drones, rebranded as Geran-2 by the attackers.
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Iran has deepened its commitment to supplying arms for Russia’s assault on Ukraine by agreeing to provide a batch of medium-range missiles, as well as large numbers of cheap but effective drones, according to US and Iranian security officials.
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Russian airstrikes have destroyed 30% of Ukraine’s power stations since 10 October, causing massive blackouts across the country, said Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
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Russian strikes hit a power plant in Kyiv, killing three people, as well as energy infrastructure in Kharkiv in the east and Dnipro in the south. A man sheltering in an apartment building in the southern port city Mykolaiv was also killed and the northern Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr was without water or electricity.
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Ukraine’s foreign minister said he was proposing a formal cut in diplomatic ties with Tehran after a wave of Russian attacks using what Kyiv says are Iranian-made drones. Iran has denied supplying drones and Russia has denied using them. Ukrainian intelligence said 1,750 drones, each costing only £20,000 to manufacture, have been delivered. They can be fired from mobile trucks and, despite their slow speeds, are hard to detect until the last minute.
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Nato said Ukraine would receive anti-drone defence systems in coming days. Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s secretary general, said member countries would “step up” and deliver more air defences to help stabilise the situation.
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Russia’s Duma has indefinitely stopped broadcasting live plenary sessions to protect information from “our enemy”, a leading lawmaker said.
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Joe Biden is expected to announce Wednesday that he is releasing more oil from the US strategic reserve as part of a response to recent production cuts announced by nations in OPEC+.
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Zelenskiy urged his troops to take more prisoners, saying this would make it easier to secure the release of soldiers being held by Russia.
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The west should listen carefully when President Vladimir Putin talks about using nuclear weapons but should remember that it is more useful for him to threaten their use than to go ahead, the head of Norway’s armed forces told Reuters.
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Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company accused Russia of “kidnapping” two senior staff at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine. Energoatom said Russian forces on Monday “kidnapped” the head of information technology, Oleg Kostyukov, and the plant’s assistant general director, Oleg Osheka, and “took them to an unknown destination”.
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Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the US House of Representatives, warned on Tuesday that Congress would not “write a blank cheque to Ukraine” if his party wins next month’s midterm elections. Hours later, however, another senior Republican, Michael McCaul, said that he thought the Ukrainians should “get what they need” – including longer-range missiles than those the Biden administration has so far been prepared to supply.
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