Russian invasioin of Ukraine: Day 627

Summary for Sunday, 12th November 2023 - DAY 627

Good morning

• A 64-year-old man was killed and his wife hospitalised this morning following the Russian shelling of Dnipro district of the city of Kherson, according to regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin.
  
  
• A senior Ukrainian military official played a key role in the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea last year, according to a joint investigation by the Washington Post and Der Spiegel published Saturday. Roman Chervinsky, a colonel in Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, was the “coordinator” of the Nord Stream operation, people familiar with his role told the US and German newspapers.
  
  
• German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition has agreed to double German military aid for Ukraine next year to 8 billion euros ($8.54 billion), Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Lawmakers from Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Free Democrats and the Green party agreed on the increase in negotiations over the proposed 2024 federal budget this week, Bloomberg said.
  
  
• Latvia’s president said Russia is planning for a long war in Ukraine and urged wavering allies to continue supplying military support to Kyiv or risk Moscow threatening other countries. In an interview with Associated Press, Edgars Rinkēvičs said it was “important to actually fight for international peace, and peace in Europe, because if we stop Russia in Ukraine, then Russia is not going to be able to challenge other countries.”
  
  
• Russia on Saturday launched a missile attack on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and the surrounding region for the first time in more than seven weeks, Ukrainian officials said. Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv city military administration, said a Russian ballistic missile was launched toward the capital at about 8 am local time. “The missile failed to reach Kyiv, air defenders shot it down as it was approaching the capital,” he said, adding that there were no casualties or major damage.
  
  
• Ukrainian border guards said they had retaken a village in the country’s northeast adjacent to the Russian border. Online video from Kharkiv region showed border guards raising the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag in Topoli village alongside the Russian border, without further explanation.
  
  
• Russian authorities said Saturday they had launched a “terrorism” probe after the derailment of a goods train southwest of Moscow. An “improvised explosive device” caused the derailment of 19 of the train’s wagons in the Riazan region on Saturday, the state investigation committee said in a social media announcement. Russian authorities have yet to blame Ukraine for Saturday’s incident but several sabotage attempts have been made on Russian railways since the country started its offensive against Ukraine in February 2022 and Moscow has repeatedly accused Kyiv of responsibility.
  
  
• In the east, military spokesperson Oleskandr Shtupun said Ukrainian troops had repelled 35 Russian assaults in and near Avdiivka, which has been under intense fire since mid-October. Shtupun told national television that 70% of air strikes in the east and south targeted Avdiivka. Officials in Avdiivka say they anticipate a new Russian push on the city once the ground dries up from days of heavy rain.
  

Russian forces launched one missile, 63 airstrikes, 64 multiple launch rocket system attacks yesterday, and engaged Ukrainian troops in 80 combat engagements

Russian forces launched 87 strikes on 18 communities in the Zaporizhzhia oblast over the past day

Russian forces launched two mortar attacks overnight on the border areas and settlements of the Sumy oblast

UK defence ministry: Wagner mercenaries likely serving in Russian national guard

Some of the latest images coming in from Ukraine via news agency wires:

Several buildings and electicity lines in Russia’s Belgorod oblast were damaged in Ukrainian attacks yesterday

Three killed in Russian attacks on Donetsk oblast

Report: Russian train derailment caused by explosive device

Parts of city of Donetsk have lost power following two projectile strikes in the northwestern part of the city.

Russian headquarters bombed in occupied Melitopol, Russian officers killed

Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU) has reported that Russian officers have been killed in the temporarily occupied city of Melitopol (Zaporizhzhia Oblast) in an explosion at their headquarters on 11 November.

Syrskyy: Russia activated its offensive near Bakhmut

The Commander of the Land Forces of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said Ukraine’s Forces are repelling the attacks of the Russian occupiers.

“I checked the progress of military units’ training. We also identified specific tasks to improve the quality of the training,” Commander of the Land Forces of Ukraine’s Armed Forces added.

Ukraine's forces make sure Russians do not gain foothold in Topoli

Spokesman for the State Border Service of Ukraine Andrii Demchenko has said that the Ukrainian forces are keeping a watchful eye on the grey-zone village of Topoli, where a Ukrainian flag was recently raised, but the Ukrainian units themselves are not constantly there.

ISW: Equipment losses forcing Russia’s hand in infantry tactics

Russian forces likely rely on infantry-led frontal assaults to compensate for a lack of adequately trained personnel and due to widespread equipment losses.

• Russian forces launched a large-scale missile and drone strike series against Ukraine on the night of November 10 to 11, targeting Kyiv Oblast for the first time in 52 days.
  
  
• Ukraine’s Main Military Intelligence Directorate (GUR) was reportedly involved in at least one of three strikes on
  Russian territory on November 10-11.
  
  
• Continued Russian milblogger discussion of widespread Russian infantry-led frontal assaults highlights the challenges Russia will face in using massed infantry assaults to offset the problems contributing to the current positional warfare identified by Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi.
  
  
• Chechen Republic Head Ramzan Kadyrov appears to be increasingly sidelining his eldest son, 18-year-old Akhmat Kadyrov, in favor of his younger son Adam Kadyrov.
  
  
• Russian authorities continue efforts to fill out the workforce and artificially alter the demographics of occupied Ukraine.
  

Ukrainian truck driver died while waiting at blockaded Polish border

EU condemns Lukashenko's repressive regime and calls for immediate release of political prisoners in Belarus

On the International Day of Solidarity with Belarus, the European Union once again condemned the repressions carried out under the regime of Alexander Lukashenko and the deterioration of the human rights situation in the country.

Summary of the day so far

• Large elements of the Wagner mercenary group have likely been assimilated into the command structure of Russian national guard (Rosgvardiya), the UK defence ministry said in its daily intelligence briefing. The Wagner arm in the Rosgvardiya is likely being led by Pavel Prigozhin, son of the late Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a plane crash shortly after Wagner fighters captured the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and marched on Moscow – acts that Vladimir Putin declared “treason”.
  
  
• Russian investigators have determined that the freight train that was derailed yesterday in Russia’s Ryazan oblast was caused by a homemade bomb on the railway line. Authorities have opened a terrorism investigation into the derailment. While Kyiv has not yet commented on the incident, but Russian officials have previously blamed pro-Ukrainian saboteurs for several attacks on the country’s railway system.
  
  
• Former Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen put forward a proposal for Ukraine to join the military alliance – but without the territories occupied by Russia. Rasmussen, who led Nato between 2009 and 2014, insisted that this partial membership plan would not represent a freezing of the conflict, but would instead mark a determination to warn Russia that it cannot prevent Ukraine joining the western defensive alliance.
  
  
• A senior Ukrainian military official played a key role in the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea last year, according to a joint investigation by the Washington Post and Der Spiegel published Saturday. Roman Chervinsky, a colonel in Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, was the “coordinator” of the Nord Stream operation, people familiar with his role told the US and German newspapers.
  
  
• Three people were killed in Russian attacks on the Donetsk oblast overnight, acting regional governor Ihor Moroz said on Telegram. Two people were killed in Toretsk, wehre 30 houses, an infrastructure facility and an administrative building were damaged in Russian attacks. One person was killed in Minkivka.
  
  
• A 64-year-old man was killed and his wife hospitalised this morning following the Russian shelling of Dnipro district of the city of Kherson, according to regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin.
  
  
• Parts of city of Donetsk have lost power following two projectile strikes in the northwestern part of the city. It’s unclear if the strikes came from Ukrainian or Russian forces.
  

Russian forces attacked the Kherson Oblast Regional Library overnight, causing significant damage to both the interior and exterior

Local resistance kills three Russian guard officers in Melitopol

Ukrainian refugees returning from Israel, have spoken of their struggle, saying they had left “one war for another”.

Tetiana Kocheva fled her home in Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv after Russia invaded last year, taking refuge in Israel’s coastal town of Ashkelon, near Gaza.
Her husband had worked in Israel in the past, and she thought taking their three children there - away from Russian attacks - would guarantee living in peace.
But then came 7 October, when Hamas attacked Israel, leading to a war that has since killed thousands.
Like several thousand other Ukrainian refugees, Kocheva fled war for a second time. “If I am killed then at least it’s on my native land,” the 39-year-old said.
In the capital Kyiv, Anna Lyashko and her eight-year-old daughter Diana were also back from Israel. They had fled to Israel in the first weeks of Russia’s invasion in March last year.
They had been living close to areas of the Kyiv region that fell to Russian forces early in their attack, living without “electricity, water or communication”, the 28-year-old mother said. “My daughter was very scared and I decided to leave,” she said.
Lyashko decided to take her daughter to Israel, where she had a relative. But when hostilities started in Israel last month, it brought her back to the day Russia invaded Ukraine. “My first feelings were the same as 24th of February (2022) in Ukraine,” she said.
“Someone called me in the morning and said ‘Anna, war has started’, it was exactly the same feeling I had in Ukraine.” She said her daughter had “fear in her eyes” and that she “understood that I could not stay”.
They flew out of Tel Aviv a week later, with the help of the Ukrainian embassy.

Russia has accused Kyiv of attacks on border regions. On Sunday, Russia said there had been a series of attacks in the border regions of Bryansk and Belgorod, damaging five train carriages and causing one injury.

Russian forces have ramped up attacks in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to gain ground near two key front line cities

'Now he's protected by a candle': Amid war and uncertainty, Russians turn to clairvoyants and mystics

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- Alya is a 27-year-old woman from the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk whose boyfriend is a mobilized soldier participating in Russia's massive invasion of neighboring Ukraine. His long absence and frequent lapses in communication prompted her to study tarot cards, a medieval system supposedly capable of supernatural divination.
"I had wanted to study tarot for a long time, but never got around to it," Alya, who like several of the people interviewed for this story asked that her last name be withheld, said. "But when my boyfriend went off to fight, I began doing readings. It calms me down."
Alya is far from the only one who feels that way, with the Ukraine war approaching its second anniversary and no clear resolution in sight.

According to a Kommersant report in March that cited industry analysts, the number of people enrolling in online courses for "mystic technologies" like tarot cards was 20 times greater in March 2023 than one year earlier.

The Padma online occult school, for instance, purports to offer "magic studies from the beginning," "online courses to develop magical capabilities," and "practical esoterica for beginners and the advanced" in the form of "live lessons and master classes." Four-day online seminars cost about 8,500 rubles ($92). The Elara online mysticism "academy" offers courses in tarot reading, "candle magic," and defenses against "the evil eye and curses."

"Fortune telling and tarot reading is becoming a form of magical calming in these troubling times, a magic pill for resolving problems," said St. Petersburg psychologist Yelena Oster. "One reason that people are so strongly drawn to magic in such times is a desire to find stability in a changing world. Magic creates the sensation of control over the outside world."
Oster added that the absence of reliable independent information channels in Russia has led many people to turn to misleading Internet sources, including those trading in mysticism.
"In this digital age, when the boundary between reality and illusion is being erased, our capacity for critical thinking has been significantly reduced," she said. "In times of crisis, people lose confidence in the future and magic creates the illusion of power over one's fate."

The market for books on religious and occult themes has grown substantially in 2023, while sales of tarot cards on the Ozon online retailer have increased 36 percent over 2022, Izvestia reported last month. More and more fortune tellers and card readers are advertising their services online.


Online advertisements for fortune-telling services in St. Petersburg

In July, Kommersant reported that demand for "mystical programs" on Russian television was also on the rise. "Television channels have begun rebroadcasting old projects and introducing new ones," the daily reported, quoting experts who connected the trend with a growing public desire to understand "the reasons for everything that is happening."

'I Think I'll Go Again'

Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Yekaterina Bykanova's boyfriend volunteered to fight. He later signed a contract with the notorious Wagner mercenary group.
"I was doing readings constantly," Bykanova, a 23-year-old from Kursk, told RFE/RL. "Thanks to them, I learned everything that was happening to him. Once I read in the cards about some sort of leg wound. At that moment, I hadn't heard from him for a while. About 10 days after that reading, he wrote to me and said everything was OK. A month later he told me that a friend of his had been wounded in the leg."
"He is home now," she added, "but he plans to sign another contract. I don't know how I am going to get through that -- I can't imagine. This is something unfamiliar and terrifying for me. But I have to believe in the best."


In turbulent and uncertain times, a belief in magic can "create the illusion of control," says psychologist Yelena Oster. (file photo)

Tatyana, a 27-year-old woman from Krasnoyarsk, used tarot cards in a bid to learn whether her mobilized boyfriend was being faithful.
"My boyfriend -- rather, former boyfriend -- is serving in the Kherson area," she said. "I suspected he was being unfaithful after he became secretive and belligerent. A month ago, I decided to go to a mystic to check on him. In the end, my fears were confirmed. I found out what I needed to know. It was awful that I was sitting and waiting for him while he was betraying me -- and not just once."
She said that her boyfriend later confessed -- "apparently he was tired of covering up."
"In the end, we broke up," she said. "The mystic did this, with her knowledge of the magic cards. That helped me find out about the betrayal and about the third party in our relationship. I'm glad I went to the mystic. I think I'll go again and see what awaits me in the future."

Anna, a 31-year-old from St. Petersburg, consulted a psychic from Moscow to learn that her husband was cheating on her with a female soldier.
"I suspected that my husband was cheating on me while he was away at the war and she confirmed it for me," Anna said. "She saw the deception in the cards and described the woman. In the end, my husband confessed. So why shouldn't I believe in magic? But it is OK. He'll come back and we'll get past it."
Margarita Yesenina is a 20-year-old from Pskov. Her husband is a mobilized soldier in Ukraine, and she pays a psychic in Moscow to burn candles for his well-being.
"Two times I paid 1,000 rubles ($11) for a health ritual after a comrade of my husband's was killed," she said. "My husband survived but had a concussion. Now he's protected by a candle. I ordered the same ritual for our children. I believe in this mystic and now I know that all will be well with my family."

'The Circle Of Power'

Russia and other former Soviet countries experienced a similar surge in mysticism during and after the collapse of the Soviet Union. State television carried faith-healing broadcasts featuring psychics such as Anatoly Kashpirovsky, who was one of the most well-known people in Russia during the 1990s and was even elected to the State Duma. Kashpirovsky made an unexpected return to the limelight in Russia in 2009, during the global financial crisis.

As recently as 2017, the Russian Academy of Sciences reported there were about 800,000 faith healers and occult workers in Russia, compared to just 640,000 medical doctors.

In February 2019, a group of self-proclaimed witches conducted a "magic ritual" called "the circle of power" aimed at transferring "mystical energy" to President Vladimir Putin.

"The roots of magical thinking go back deep into the centuries," psychologist Oster told RFE/RL. "In a world full of unexpected events that cannot be managed, rituals, spells, a belief in magical amulets, etc., create the illusion of control."

"We demand demobilisation deadlines": around 100 people protest at Kyiv's central square

Ukrainians deprived of humanitarian aid in occupied areas of Zaporizhzhia region - mayor

In the temporarily occupied areas of Zaporizhzhia region, the occupiers continue to abuse the local population. It is almost impossible for people to get humanitarian grocery kits.

Melitopol Mayor in exile Ivan Fedorov reported this on Telegram, Ukrinform saw.

"The Ruscists continue to abuse people living under occupation. The invaders deprived the vulnerable of what they need most – now they also took away humanitarian aid. It is almost impossible for people to get food sets comprised of the cheapest groceries," Fedorov assures.

According to the reports from the ground, at first the humanitarian aid was issued to everyone but eventually it became available only to certain categories of beneficiaries.

"Recently, the humanitarian sets are now issued as an incentive – on the eve of sham elections. In Berdiansk, they are now forcing people to file a statement and explain why they require assistance. And to do so, people still need to stand in a long line," Fedorov noted.

Earlier, Mayor Fedorov reported that in the temporarily occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia region, the invaders are reported to be increasingly fleeing from their positions, looting homes and raping women and even minors.

Russia ramps up attacks on key eastern Ukraine cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces have ramped up attacks in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to gain ground near two key front line cities, Ukrainian military officials said Sunday.

Moscow’s troops have begun a push to regain territory near Bakhmut, the eastern mining city that was the site of the war’s bloodiest battle before falling into Russian hands in May, the head of Ukraine’s ground forces wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukrainian troops had recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and made some advances west, north and south of the city since Kyiv launched its summer counteroffensive.
“Toward Bakhmut, the Russians have become more active and are trying to recapture previously lost positions. … Enemy attacks are being repelled,” Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote in a Telegram update on Sunday afternoon.
A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said Sunday that Russian forces over the previous day repelled five Ukrainian attacks near Klischiivka and Kurdyumivka, two small settlements lying south of Bakhmut. Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov made the claim at the latest of regular press briefings.

Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive has so far resulted in only incremental gains and heavy losses, with Ukrainian troops struggling to punch through Russian lines in the south. Meanwhile, Moscow’s forces have attempted to press forward in the northeast, likely with a view to distract Kyiv and minimize the number of troops Ukraine is able to send to key southern and eastern battles.

Ukraine’s General Staff said that Russian troops were also continuing their weekslong push to encircle Avdiivka, a Ukrainian stronghold south of Bakhmut and a key target since the beginning of the war. It’s considered the gateway to parts of the eastern Donetsk region under Kyiv’s control. The General Staff said Russia’s air force was playing a key part in the latest assault.

Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who leads Ukrainian troops fighting in and near Avdiivka, said Sunday that the attacking Russian forces were ramping up airstrikes, particularly those using guided bombs. He wrote on Telegram that Russian troops had launched 30 airstrikes and 712 artillery barrages at the city and surrounding areas over the previous day, and clashed almost 50 times with Ukrainian units.

Also on Sunday, Ukraine’s intelligence agency claimed responsibility for a powerful blast in the country’s occupied south the day before that they said killed “at least three” officers serving with Russia’s internal military force.
In an online statement, the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense called the explosion, which rocked the headquarters of the Russian occupation authorities in the city of Melitopol on Saturday, “an act of revenge (…) carried out by representatives of the local resistance movement.”
“At least three officers of the Russian (National) Guard were eliminated,” the statement said, referring to Russia’s internal military agency that reports directly to the Kremlin.
It added that the strike was carried out “during a meeting of the occupiers” attended by National Guard officers as well as operatives from Russia’s main security agency, the FSB.

Melitopol, a city in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region that had a pre-war population of over 150,000, was captured by Russian troops just days into the war. It now lies well behind its southern front line, even as a Ukrainian counteroffensive continues to grind on in Zaporizhzhia.

Russian authorities did not immediately respond to the Ukrainian claims, which could not be independently verified. The announcement came just over a day after more than a dozen freight cars carrying cargo in Russia’s western Ryazan region were derailed by an improvised explosive device, according to Russian law enforcement.

Nineteen carriages traveling from the town of Rybnoye were thrown from the tracks and 15 were damaged, investigators wrote in a statement on social media. They said they would be opening a criminal investigation on terrorism charges.

A regional branch of Ukraine’s public broadcaster, Suspilne, on Saturday cited anonymous sources from Ukraine’s GUR as claiming that the intelligence agency was behind the blast. A spokesman for the GUR, Andriy Yusov, that same day refused to confirm or deny the agency’s involvement, but said that similar strikes within Russia “will continue.” Yusov made the remarks in an interview with the Ukrainian armed forces’ official news service, ArmyInform.

Russian officials have previously blamed pro-Ukrainian saboteurs for several attacks on the country’s railway system since Moscow invaded the country in February 2022, although no group has claimed responsibility for the damage.
In the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, a 64-year-old man was killed when Russian shells slammed into his yard, Ukrainian regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said. Prokudin added that the man’s wife was hospitalized with a skull injury, concussion and shrapnel wounds to her legs.

Prokudin said that Russian forces shelled Kherson and the surrounding region 62 times over the previous 24 hours, wounding four civilians and damaging one of the city’s libraries. The city has come under near-daily attacks since Ukraine recaptured it a year ago.