Ukraine reports drone attacks – including rocket strikes near Kiev

Saturday, November 11th, 9:48 a.m.: According to the air defense in Kiev, Russia has again attacked Ukraine en masse with drones and missiles of various types. Air defense officials said in Kiev on Saturday that 19 of 31 drones had been destroyed. The air force did not provide any information about the drones that were not shot down. Some regions of Ukraine reported impacts. In the Dnipropetrovsk region, for example, according to authorities, two drones hit a building, causing a fire and destruction, it was said. The capital Kiev also reported drone attacks that were repelled.

In the morning, Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced that explosions had been heard near the capital. The anti-aircraft defense was active, he said in his Telegram channel. He called on people to seek shelter in bunkers. According to initial findings, there were no injuries. The media had reported that the air alarm only went off after the sounds of explosions.

Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuri Ihnat later explained that they were ballistic missiles, which were more difficult to detect by radar because of their speed. According to initial findings, two Iskander-type rockets hit a field. The authorities said that five houses were damaged by the blast wave. It was the first attack of its kind in more than 50 days, they said.

Ukraine reports attacks on Russian landing ships with maritime drones

7.40 p.m.: The Ukrainian military says it attacked and damaged two landing ships with sea drones on the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed by Russia. The Ukrainian General Staff released video footage on Friday that is said to show the new attack on the west coast. In addition, a Russian soldier’s accommodation in a nearby settlement is said to have been hit by a Ukrainian rocket.

According to Ukrainian information, the two Serna-class landing ships that were hit were carrying armored vehicles, among other things. Ukrainian intelligence announced on Friday evening that the two ships had sunk. The pro-Ukrainian Telegram channel “Krymskyj weter” (in German: “The Wind of Crimea”) reported, citing residents, about the rocket strike in the Russian barracks early in the morning. The information could not be independently verified.

The Russian Ministry of Defense reported in the morning about the alleged shooting down of two drones over Crimea. However, the Moscow authorities did not comment on the sea attacks on the ships and the alleged impact on the barracks until midday.

Stoltenberg: We have to be prepared for the long haul in Ukraine

Friday, November 10th, 4:26 a.m.: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg continues to support an advance by the Ukrainian armed forces against the Russian attackers. “We have to be prepared for the long haul. Wars are by their nature unpredictable,” Stoltenberg told the German Press Agency in Berlin. “What we do know is that what happens around a negotiating table is inextricably linked to the situation on the battlefield,” he said. Only military support can ensure that Ukraine remains a sovereign and democratic state; only this will convince Russian President Vladimir Putin that he cannot win on the battlefield.

The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, General Valeriy Zalushny, said last week that the ground war in Ukraine had become deadlocked. He also warned in an article for the British magazine “The Economist”: “A trench war lasts a long time and poses enormous risks for the armed forces of Ukraine and for the state.”

Stoltenberg said it was always clear that it wasn’t easy. “We knew that Russia had been building up defense lines for months – with mines, anti-tank barriers, with many defensive positions.” Nevertheless, the Ukrainians managed to retake areas.

Dead and injured reported in southern Ukrainian region of Kherson

11.30 p.m.: Several people were killed and injured in the embattled southern Ukrainian region of Kherson on Thursday. In the Ukrainian-controlled part, according to military governor Olexander Prokudin, a 72-year-old man died as a result of Russian shelling of residential areas in the regional capital of the same name, Kherson. Two other people were injured. The Russian occupiers on the other side of the front also reported several deaths and at least eleven injuries in the port city of Skadowsk. This could not be independently verified.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister rejects negotiations with Russia

12.30 p.m.: Given the course of the war, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba has rejected all calls for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. “Those who claim that Ukraine should now negotiate with Russia are either ill-informed or misled,” Kuleba said on Thursday on the online network X, formerly Twitter. Ukraine cannot and will not “fall into this trap,” he added.

With his statement, the Ukrainian foreign minister responded to reports in Western media that some of Kiev’s allies were increasingly raising the question of peace talks with Russia in view of the stalemate on the front.

More than 22 months after the start of Russia’s war of aggression, the more than a thousand-kilometer-long front line between the two warring sides has barely moved for almost a year, although Ukraine launched a counteroffensive in June to retake Russian-occupied territories.

According to Kuleba, Kiev held hundreds of talks with Moscow between 2014 and the start of Russia’s war of aggression. None of these negotiations stopped Russian President Vladimir Putin from “launching a brutal invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022,” he emphasized.

In 2014, Russian-backed separatists violently took control of parts of eastern Ukraine, and Moscow also annexed the Crimean peninsula. Germany and France subsequently brokered several talks that led to a meeting between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019, but did not bring lasting peace.

Zelensky said on US television last week that Ukraine would not be willing to talk to Russia until Russian troops withdrew from his country.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that it was “high time for everyone in Kiev and Washington to realize that it is impossible to defeat Russia on the battlefield.” A dialogue is “urgently needed” and Moscow is “certainly ready to start it,” he said.

London: War in Ukraine weakens Russian national defense

Thursday, November 9th, 11:08 a.m.: The war in Ukraine is weakening Russia’s ability to protect its vast territory, according to British military experts. This emerges from the daily intelligence report on the war in Ukraine from the Ministry of Defense in London on Thursday.

Moscow will most likely move SA-21 anti-aircraft missile systems (SAM) from remote areas to compensate for losses in Ukraine. The missiles are capable of engaging targets at a distance of up to 400 kilometers. Removing them from strategically important locations will almost certainly weaken Russia’s anti-aircraft defense capability on the country’s edges, the British statement said.

The British Ministry of Defense has been publishing daily information on the progress of the war since the war against Ukraine began in February 2022. Moscow accuses London of disinformation.

Ukrainian military: Russia fires on African cargo ship

7:39 p.m.: According to the Ukrainian army, Russia fired on a cargo ship from the West African Republic of Liberia in one of the Black Sea ports in the Odessa region. A report from the Ukrainian Southern Military Command said the ship’s pilot was killed in the attack on Wednesday. Three Filipino crew members and a Ukrainian port employee were injured. A Russian fighter jet used a Ch-31P missile against the civilian freighter as it was entering one of the ports.

Exterior and interior photos of the ship released by the military showed debris and other effects of the impact. The military did not say exactly which ship it was or in which port it happened. At the time of the attack, according to the shipping platform vesselfinder.com, several Liberian freighters were heading to the Ukrainian Black Sea ports in the Odessa region. The information could not be independently verified.

Ukraine sets up second prisoner of war camp for Russians

Wednesday, November 8th, 7:09 p.m.: Because of a large number of Russian prisoners of war, Ukraine has begun setting up a second camp for them. “In parallel, work is underway to prepare another camp,” said the government organization “I want to live” via Telegram on Tuesday. This is justified by the poor motivation of Russian soldiers who would voluntarily surrender and go into captivity. In addition, there has been no exchange of prisoners with the Russian side since August.

According to media reports, the new prison will be set up in the western Ukrainian region of Vinnytsia on the border with the neighboring Republic of Moldova for 300 inmates under the name “West 2”. According to older reports, the “West 1” camp in the neighboring Lviv region not far from the Polish border offered space for around 600. Exact figures for prisoners of war are not known. It is estimated that Russia still has several thousand Ukrainians in captivity. Of the defenders of the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol alone, around 1,900 soldiers are said to still be in Russian hands.