Moscow’s new army commander in Ukraine announced that civilians were being “relocated” from the Russian-occupied southern city of Kherson and described the military situation as “tense”. “The enemy is continuously trying 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.
Kyiv recently introduced a news blackout in the south of the country, prompting speculation that it was preparing a major new offensive on Kherson. “When the Ukrainians have a news blackout it means something is going on. They’ve always done it before when there’s a big offensive push,” Michael Clarke, a former director general of the Royal United Services Institute, told Sky News.
People from four cities in the Kherson region were being evacuated in anticipation of a “large-scale offensive,” the head of Kherson based in Russia, Vladimir Saldo, said in a video address. Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-installed deputy administrator of the Kherson region, echoed the message on Telegram late 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 next fierce hostilities.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday that Russia no longer sees the need to maintain a diplomatic presence in the West, the Daily Beast reports. “There is no sense or desire to maintain the previous presence in the Western states. Our people work there in conditions that can hardly be called humane,” Lavrov said, according to Russian news agency Tass.
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, renamed Geran-2 by the attackers.
Iran has deepened its commitment to supply weapons for Russia’s assault on Ukraine by agreeing to provide a batch of medium-range missiles as well as a large number of cheap but effective drones, US security officials say and Iran.
Russian airstrikes have destroyed 30 percent of Ukraine’s power plants since Oct. 10, causing massive blackouts across the country, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.
Russian strikes hit a power plant in Kyiv, killing three people, as well as energy infrastructure in Kharkiv to the east and Dnipro to the south. A man sheltering in an apartment building in the southern port city of Mykolaiv also died, and the northern Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr was without water and electricity.
Ukraine’s foreign minister said he was proposing a formal cut in diplomatic ties with Tehran after a spate 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 have been delivered, each costing just £20,000 to manufacture. They can be fired from mobile trucks and, despite their low speeds, are difficult to spot until the last minute.
NATO said Ukraine will receive anti-drone defense systems in the coming days. Jens Stoltenberg, NATO’s secretary general, said member countries would “step up” and provide more air defenses to help stabilize the situation.
Russia’s Duma has indefinitely stopped broadcasting live plenary sessions to protect information from “our enemy”, a top lawmaker said.
Joe Biden is expected to announce on Wednesday that he will release more oil from the US strategic reserve as part of a response to recent production cuts announced by OPEC+ nations.
Zelenskiy urged his troops to take more prisoners, saying it would facilitate the release of soldiers held by Russia.
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 not, the head of the armed forces of Norway.
Ukraine’s state nuclear power company accused Russia of “kidnapping” two senior employees at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. Energoatom said on Monday that Russian forces “abducted” the head of information technology, Oleg Kostyukov, and the plant’s deputy general manager, Oleg Osheka, and “took them to an unknown destination.”
Kevin McCarthy, the Republican leader in the US House of Representatives, warned on Tuesday that Congress would not “write a blank check to Ukraine” if his party wins next month’s midterm elections. Hours later, however, another senior Republican, Michael McCaul, said he thought the Ukrainians should “get what they need,” including longer-range missiles than those the Biden administration has been preparing so far to supply.