Russian invasion of Ukraine: Day 624

Summary for Thursday, 9th November 2023 - DAY 624

• Russian forces reinforced by reserves continue to attempt to encircle Avdiivka, Ukrainian military officials have said. Anton Kotsukon, spokesperson for the 110th separate mechanised brigade, said a Russian force of 40,000 was massed on three sides of the town. General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, head of Ukraine’s southern group of forces, said troops around Avdiivka were “stoutly holding their defences”.
  
  
• A Russian missile damaged a civilian vessel under a Liberian flag entering the Black Sea port of Odesa, killing one and injuring four people, the Ukrainian military said.
  
  
• Russia is sending Ukrainian prisoners of war to fight against their own side, the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti has reported. It was unclear whether they were coerced, the Associated Press said. Yulia Gorbunova from Human Rights Watch said: “Russian authorities might claim they are recruiting them on a voluntary basis but it’s hard to imagine a scenario where a prisoner of war’s decision could be taken truly voluntarily, given the situation of coercive custody.”
  
  
• A deadly missile attack on Donetsk city struck a Russian training centre for military drone operators, reports said. It was portrayed by Russian occupation authorities on Tuesday as a Ukrainian attack on civilian government offices, but analysis identified the target as the “Zhoga Republican Centre for Unmanned Systems”, Newsweek and other outlets said.
  
  
• Ukraine’s military spy agency claimed responsibility for the assassination of a Russia-backed lawmaker with a car bomb in the occupied eastern city of Luhansk, an operation it said it conducted with local resistance forces.
  
  
• Research by Russian media outlet Mediazona suggested 76 cases of railway sabotage within Russia had reached court since the invasion, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in its latest intelligence update. The alleged saboteurs were “anti-war activists” mostly aged under 24 and their work “continues to represent a significant challenge for the Russian authorities”, the MoD said.
  
  
• The US has gone through 96% of the funds that it allocated for Ukraine, the national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, has told reporters.
  
  
• Slovakia’s new government has rejected a previously drafted plan to donate rockets and ammunition to Ukraine, following through on a pledge by the incoming prime minister Robert Fico to halt military aid to Kyiv as it fights a Russian invasion.
  
  
• Leaders of the G7 group of countries have insisted that their support for Ukraine will “never waver”.
  
  
• Military cooperation between Russia and China is becoming increasingly important, but the two countries do not intend to build a cold war-style military alliance, Vladimir Putin said as he hosted a top Chinese general.
  
  
• The EU’s executive recommended that the bloc starts membership negotiations with Ukraine once it fulfils outstanding conditions. “The Commission recommends that the [EU] council opens accession negotiations with Ukraine,” the Brussels-based European Commission said.
  
  
• Ukraine’s energy ministry said that Russia had attacked Ukrainian energy infrastructure with different weapons 60 times in recent weeks.
  

Reuters reports that Russian cyber spies were behind a hack which disrupted part of Ukraine’s power grid in late 2022

Five people were killed on Thursday in a missile strike by Ukraine’s armed forces on the town of Skadovsk in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s Kherson region

Ukrainian Armed Forces destroyed the base of the Russian military in Skadovsk

Everything is blocked, and no one is allowed to get close. We already know about at least 15 wounded and five “good Russians” who will never return home, Petro Andriushchenko, Advisor to the Mayor of Mariupol, reported.

• Colonel Vadim Dobryakov, Deputy Head of the Command Center of the Airborne Forces Command;
  
  
• Colonel Alexey Koblov, Head of the Department (planning of enemy fire) of the operational department of the Airborne Forces Headquarters;
  
  
• Colonel Alexander Galkin, Deputy Head of the Airborne Forces Command Control Center.
  

Avdiivka is important to Ukrainian defenders as a gateway for recapturing territory in the east.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, called for the development of wheat and fertiliser cargo transport routes in Asia during a visit to Kazakhstan on Thursday, as Russia seeks to forge new export routes due to western sanctions

Summary so far ...

• The UK Ministry of Defence said Russia’s military is being overextended by the war in Ukraine. In its latest daily intelligence update, the MoD said that the likely need for Russia to reallocate surface-to-air missile (Sam) systems from distant parts of its territory to maintain coverage over Ukraine showed the conflict is straining its military.
  
  
• Hungary said the EU should not start membership talks with Ukraine. EU leaders are expected to decide next month whether to accept the European Commission’s recommendation to invite Kyiv to begin membership talks with the bloc, but Hungary prefers a form of “privileged partnership” for Ukraine, rather than full membership.
  
  
• But Ukraine will be able to overcome Hungary’s political opposition to its progress on EU membership, according to Kyiv’s minister for European integration, Olga Stefanishyna. “Today, Hungary has made such a statement,” she said. “We understand that there is a such a statement, but we also understand there is a dialogue with Budapest.”
  
  
• Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia does not believe the European Union’s promises to admit Ukraine are “real”. “Most likely we are talking about a carrot that is tied in front of the cart,” Peskov said in comments to the Kremlin reporter Pavel Zarubin.
  
  
• Ukraine’s parliament voted to approve its 2024 state budget. Reuters reports that more than half of all Ukrainian budget spending is planned for the defence sector to fund its war effort against Russia.
  
  
• Ukraine’s security service (SBU) confirmed in a statement to Reuters that Russian hackers were behind a cyber-attack that disrupted part of Ukraine’s power grid in late 2022. The attack was likely to have been carried out to maximise the impact of Russian missile strikes, Illia Vitiuk, the head of the SBU’s cybersecurity department, said.
  

Explosion rocks Sevastopol, occupiers claim they shot down Neptune missile above sea

Russian occupiers in Crimea claim they had shot down a Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship missile above the sea in the city of Sevastopol.

• On 4 November, Ukrainian Air Force pilots launched successful strikes on Kerch, likely sinking one of the most modern ships of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation, capable of carrying Kalibr cruise missiles.
  
  
• Later the photos of a Russian Askold missile carrier that was destroyed in the Zalyv shipyard in temporarily occupied Crimea have appeared online.
  

Ukraine said queues were growing at its border with Poland as Polish truckers continued to block crossings for a fourth day over what they see as unfair competition from Ukrainian firms

How Russia is recruiting Wagner fighters to continue war in Ukraine

The Kremlin is moving to absorb former Wagner soldiers into Russia’s military structures.
Russia is seeking to recruit battle-tested Wagner fighters for its war in Ukraine more than two months after the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary group’s founder.
Putin has cast the Wagner chief as a traitor but struck a much milder tone with regular Wagner soldiers, urging them to sign contracts with the military and swear an oath of allegiance to Russia.
Weeks after Prigozhin’s death, Putin met Andrei Troshev, a former senior Wagner commander, to discuss how its fighting force could be used in Ukraine. After the meeting, the Kremlin said that Troshev had signed a contract with the defence ministry.
But the regular army is only one of many pathways open to former Wagner soldiers, with Russia’s national guard, known as Rosgvardia, and several state-linked private military groups also poaching Wagner veterans.


Russia’s national guard, known as Rosgvardia (pictured), are poaching Wagner veterans as well as several state-linked private military groups. Photograph: Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images

Six fighters, who stormed AFU positions near Avdiyivka and Bakhmut, sentenced to real prison terms

Closing summary

• The UK Ministry of Defence said Russia’s military is being overextended by the war in Ukraine. In its latest daily intelligence update, the MoD said that the likely need for Russia to reallocate surface-to-air missile (Sam) systems from distant parts of its territory to maintain coverage over Ukraine showed the conflict is straining its military.
  
  
• A Ukrainian diplomat said a global peace summit for Ukraine may take place next year. The Ukrainian president’s top diplomatic adviser, Ihor Zhovkva, said the summit might take place in February 2024.
  
  
• Ukraine said queues were growing at its border with Poland as Polish lorry drivers continued to block crossings for a fourth day. The protests, which started on Monday, involved the drivers blocking three border crossings with Ukraine. They are protesting against competition from Ukrainian drivers.
  
  
• Ukraine told its western allies that giving it the interest accrued from frozen Russian assets would not be enough to compensate for damage sustained by the war and that it hoped to receive the assets in full. Ukraine’s deputy justice minister, Iryna Mudra, said Kyiv’s partners were considering introducing a tax on income or investment of frozen Russian assets, an idea she said Kyiv welcomed but saw as insufficient.
  
  
• Germany issued new defence policy guidelines for the first time in over a decade. The 19-page document details what the Zeitenwende, the major shift of policy German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, means for the workings of Germany’s military.
  
  
• Hungary said the EU should not start membership talks with Ukraine. EU leaders are expected to decide next month whether to accept the European Commission’s recommendation to invite Kyiv to begin membership talks with the bloc, but Hungary prefers a form of “privileged partnership” for Ukraine, rather than full membership.
  
  
• But Ukraine will be able to overcome Hungary’s political opposition to its progress on EU membership, according to Kyiv’s minister for European integration, Olga Stefanishyna. “We understand that there is a such a statement, but we also understand there is a dialogue with Budapest,” she said.