Russian invasion of Ukraine: Day 630

Summary for Wednesday, 15th November 2023 - DAY 630

• Greater losses inflicted on Russian forces near Avdiivka will make Russia’s overall position worse in its conduct of the war, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said. Russian forces were losing men and equipment faster around Avdiivka than they did during months of battles near Bakhmut, he said.
  
  
• The Russian army has “eliminated” almost all Ukrainian literature in the territories of Donetsk and Luhansk, Gyunduz Mamedov, a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine, wrote on X.
  
  
• The EU will miss its target of supplying Ukraine with 1m artillery shells and missiles by next March, the German defence minister has said. Boris Pistorius’s comments, the first public admission by a senior European minister that the target would not be met, were made before a summit of EU defence ministers in Brussels on Wednesday.
  
  
• The German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall will supply Ukraine with 25 Leopard 1A5 main battle tanks as part of an order paid for by the German government, the company has said, according to the Kyiv Independent.
  
  
• Ukraine and Britain have agreed to discounts on insurance against military risks for Ukrainian exports, including through the Black Sea corridor, the Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has said. “This will make the Black Sea corridor more accessible to a wider range of exporters.”
  
  
• Russia has sentenced a man to six years in prison for vandalising posters of Russian soldiers decorated as “heroes” for fighting in Ukraine, AFP reported.
  
  
• Ukrainian forces have secured a foothold on the east bank of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff was quoted as saying. Andriy Yermak’s remarks were the first official acknowledgment that Ukrainian troops were established on the Dnipro’s east bank in Kherson region.
  
  
• A top Ukrainian military official said Russian troops were increasing the use of kamikaze drones. The head of Ukraine’s ground forces, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, said that Russia, despite high losses, has been attacking Ukrainian positions near Kupiansk.
  
  
• Serhiy Lysak, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, said Russia hit the Nikopol region 11 times on Tuesday, using kamikaze drones and artillery. He wrote on Telegram that the district centre was most heavily targeted and that a 26-year-old man died.
  
  
• The former detective Sergei Khadzhikurbanov, convicted for his role in the 2006 killing of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, has been pardoned after fighting in Ukraine, his lawyer has said.
  

At least one person was killed in an overnight Russian missile strike that hit an apartment building in eastern Ukraine

Ukrainian state railway restricts deliveries to Odesa 'due to repairs'

The Russian military has pinned down Ukrainian forces who crossed on to the eastern bank of the River Dnipro in southern Ukraine

Russia says Ukrainian forces have crossed the River Dnipro but face 'hell fire' and death

Russia fired three missiles at Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region on Wednesday morning, killing one person and injuring at least seven others, the governor said.

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A Russian missile killed two emergency workers in southern Ukraine on Wednesday as they put out a fire from an attack only minutes earlier, Ukrainian officials said.

Russia and Israel lead global surge in attacks on civilian water supplies

Exclusive: at least 228 water conflicts were recorded in 2022 – an 87% rise on the year before, Pacific Institute database shows

Water-related violence surged to an all-time high in 2022 – driven in large part by Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israeli attacks against Palestinian water resources in the West Bank.
At least 228 water conflicts were documented in 2022 – an 87% rise since 2021, according to research by the Pacific Institute shared exclusively with the Guardian.

Summary of the day so far...

• A Russian missile killed two emergency workers in southern Ukraine as they put out a fire from an attack only minutes earlier, Ukrainian officials said. At least seven other people were injured in the strikes in the Zaporizhzhia region, in which Russian forces fired three missiles in about half an hour, according to the regional governor, Yuriy Malashko.
  
  
• Nato has announced it will buy six Boeing aircraft to replace its ageing fleet of AWACS surveillance planes, bolstering the alliance’s capabilities to track the threat from Russia, AFP reported.
  
  
• Hungary has sought a review of the EU’s policy towards Ukraine, disagreeing with Germany, Lithuania, Finland and Ireland that backed bringing Kyiv closer to the bloc more quickly and granting it more aid.
  
  
• Russia said for the first time that some Ukrainian troops had established positions on the Russian-held side of the Dnipro river. Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed governor of the part of Kherson region which Moscow controls, acknowledged in a statement that Ukrainian forces had managed to cross the river, but said they were taking heavy losses.
  
  
• Ukraine’s state railways said it had restricted grain deliveries to Odesa, one of the country’s key Black Sea ports, due to repairs.
  
  
• Vladimir Putin is likely to announce presidential candidacy before the end of 2023, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said.
  

EXPLAINED: ‘Disgusting’ German journalist exposed for Kremlin-linked payments

Hubert Seipel has written books portraying Putin in a favourable light. We now know he received 600,000 euros from a close ally of the Russian president.

An Arabic translation of German writer Hubert Seipel's 2015 book "Putin" (C) is on display at the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair 2022 (ADIBF) in the Emirati capital on May 25, 2022. (Photo by Karim SAHIB / AFP)

A German journalist who wrote extensively about Russia and President Vladimir Putin received hundreds of thousands of euros from a Kremlin-linked oligarch, a new investigation has revealed.

Who’s the journalist?
Hubert Seipel, a journalist for the German TV and radio companies ARD and NDR and one of the few western writers who has, over the years, had repeated and direct contact with Putin and has met him, in his own words, “hundreds of times.”

What has he written?
Among Seipel’s works are books including the 2015 Putin: Inside Views of Power and the 2021 Putin's Power: Why Europe Needs Russia.
Both portray the Russian president in a favourable light.
He also produced a documentary about Putin in 2012, which was broadcast on NDR, and had an exclusive interview with the Russian head of state two years later.

Who was he paid by?
According to broadcaster ZDF, Der Spiegel and the German investigative outlet Paper Trailer Media, he received a total of 600,000 euros ($650,000) for two books via a Cyprus-based company linked to Alexei Mordashov, an oligarch who is close to Putin.
Mordashov, who owns the Russian steel group Severstal, has been hit with sanctions by the United States, the European Union and Britain since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, AFP reports.
The accusations are among revelations published late Tuesday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) based on confidential files from financial services companies based in Cyprus.

What has Seipel said?
When questioned by the ICIJ consortium, he rejected the idea that he was “some sort of agent of Putin.”
But he did admit receiving money from Mordashov, saying “his support relates exclusively to the book projects.”
He did not confirm the amounts he’d received but said that despite being given 600,000 euros, it had not affected his impartiality.
“I always set clear legal boundaries that guaranteed my independence,” he said.
Previously, he had denied taking money from Russia.

https://twitter.com/BadBalticTakes/status/1724537004694573228?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1724537004694573228%7Ctwgr%5Efd872d70242357d5219d1dbc9e4fda4f6e700552%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kyivpost.com%2Fpost%2F24130

What have fellow journalists said about it?
Those not on the payroll of the Kremlin are understandably outraged.
Deputy Chief Editor of the German newspaper BILD, Paul Ronzheimer, said in a post on social media: “As a journalist and a person, I feel nothing but contempt for this behavior on the part of Hubert Seipel.
“Seipel allowed himself to be bought by a war criminal and told reporters like me and others on talk shows, especially since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, that we were all naive and that Putin was right in many ways in his criticism of NATO etc.
“This is so disgusting that you hardly know what to say about it.”

https://twitter.com/ronzheimer/status/1724464946245763508?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1724464946245763508%7Ctwgr%5Efd872d70242357d5219d1dbc9e4fda4f6e700552%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kyivpost.com%2Fpost%2F24130

What about his employers?
They’re not very happy at all.
Joachim Knuth, chairman of public broadcaster NDR, part of the German national network ARD, said: “We suspect that we – and therefore our audience – have been deliberately misled.
“We are now going to look further into the matter and are considering legal action.”
According to the chairman of NDR, Seipel admitted to the channel that he had received money from the Russian oligarch, in two instalments in 2013 and 2018, for books as part of "sponsorship contracts".

But the NDR channel said it “sees in this a significant conflict of interest that casts doubt on Mr. Seipel's journalistic independence.”

Closing summary

• The Czech Republic has frozen property owned by Russia on Czech soil, it was announced. Jan Lipavský, the Czech foreign minister, said: “At my suggestion, the government today approved the freezing of Russian state assets in the Czech Republic. The commercial activities from which Russia finances the murder of Ukrainians ends here.”
  
  
• Russia said that Ukrainian accession to the US-led Nato military alliance would be unacceptable, according to Reuters. “Whether in parts or in any form, Ukraine’s accession to Nato is unacceptable for Russia,” Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry, told reporters.
  
  
• A Russian missile killed two emergency workers in southern Ukraine as they put out a fire from an attack only minutes earlier, Ukrainian officials said. At least seven other people were injured in the strikes in the Zaporizhzhia region, in which Russian forces fired three missiles in about half an hour, according to the regional governor, Yuriy Malashko.
  
  
• Nato has announced it will buy six Boeing aircraft to replace its ageing fleet of Awacs surveillance planes, bolstering the alliance’s capabilities to track the threat from Russia, AFP reported.
  
  
• Hungary has sought a review of the EU’s policy towards Ukraine, disagreeing with Germany, Lithuania, Finland and Ireland, who backed bringing Kyiv closer to the bloc more quickly and granting it more aid.
  
  
• Russia said for the first time that some Ukrainian troops had established positions on the Russian-held side of the Dnipro River. Vladimir Saldo, the Russia-installed governor of the part of Kherson region that Moscow controls, acknowledged in a statement that Ukrainian forces had managed to cross the river, but said they were taking heavy losses.
  
  
• Ukraine’s state railway said it had restricted grain deliveries to Odesa, one of the country’s key Black Sea ports, because of repairs.
  
  
• Vladimir Putin is likely to announce his presidential candidacy before the end of 2023, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said.