Russian invasion of Ukraine: Day 633

Summary for Saturday, 18th November 2023 - DAY 633

• Ukraine’s air defence has said it shot down 29 out of 38 drones in a Russian overnight strike.
  The air force said in a statement the Russian forces launched Iranian-made Shahed drones from Russian territory in several waves. The attacks Ukrainian regions lasted from 8pm.
  
  
• Ukraine and the US will hold a military industry conference in Washington on 6-7 December, officials from both countries have said. Ukraine is ramping up production of its own weapons and seeking joint ventures with international armament producers. Ukraine has set up a joint venture with Rheinmetall of Germany to service and repair western weapons, and in September hosted a forum with more than 250 western arms producers.
  
  
• Ukraine has said it has carried out “successful actions” on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. It comes after Ukraine and Russia acknowledged earlier this week that Ukraine had established positions on the eastern side of the river, which marks part of the frontline in south-east Ukraine.
  
  
• Celebrating the development, Volodymyr Zelenskiy published pictures showing Ukrainian soldiers on the eastern bank of the river. “Left bank of Kherson. Our warriors. Thank you for your strength and for moving forward!” Ukraine’s president said. “Glory to each and everyone who is returning freedom and justice to Ukraine!”
  
  
• A total of 4.4m tonnes of cargo, including 3.2m tonnes of grain, has been shipped via Ukraine’s new Black Sea shipping corridor since it was established in August, according to a report by the Interfax-Ukraine agency. A UN-brokered deal that had allowed Ukrainian exports to pass through the Black Sea fell through in July after Russia withdrew, prompting Ukraine to announce a “humanitarian corridor” hugging the sea’s western coast.
  
  
• Thousands of people living near the frontlines in southern and eastern Ukraine were left without power after Russian strikes on energy facilities, the Ukrainian government said. Last winter, systematic targeting of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure by Russia left millions without light or heating. Zelenskiy said this week that western support had allowed Ukraine to improve its air defences ahead of the coming winter months.
  
  
• At least nine people were killed in Russian shelling of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, according to local officials. Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson regional military administration, said shelling on Thursday had targeted residential areas, shopping districts and administrative buildings. Another two people were killed in the eastern region of Donetsk, according to the acting head of its military administration.
  
  
• Russian casualties since the start of the war now stand at 316,760, according to the Ukrainian military.
  
  
• Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said he has “no doubt” Vladimir Putin will still be Russian president after the election in March. Putin has not yet announced his intention to run but is widely expected to stand for another six-year term. Asked in an interview with student journalists what the next president should be like, Peskov said: “The same.”
  
  
• The British foreign secretary, David Cameron, followed his trip to Ukraine on Thursday with a visit to neighbouring Moldova. The Moldovan president, Maia Sandu, posted a photo of her and Cameron together to social media and said the two had met on Thursday night to discuss “Black Sea security, bilateral cooperation and our united stance against corruption”.
  
  
• The Dutch government has announced it has earmarked an additional €2bn in military aid for Ukraine in 2024. It is part of a wider package that includes an initial €102m (£89m/$111m) for reconstruction and humanitarian aid that will be increased during the year if needed.
  

Ukraine’s armed forces have claimed it killed another 620 Russian soldiers on Friday during its operations.

Russia suffering 'heavy casualties' but neither side making progress, says UK

 Over the last week, the most intense ground combat has been taking place in three areas: on the Kupiansk axis, in Luhansk Oblast; around Avdiivka in Donetsk Oblast; and on the left bank of the Dnipro river in Kherson Oblast, where Ukrainian forces have established a bridgehead.
Neither side has achieved substantial progress in any of these areas. Russia continues to suffer particularly heavy casualties around Avdiivka.
Eyewitness reports suggest small uncrewed aerial vehicles and artillery (especially cluster rounds) continue to play a major role in disrupting the attacks of both sides.
As colder winter weather sets in earnest in eastern Ukraine, there are few immediate prospects of major changes in the frontline.

Three civilians have been injured in Russia’s shelling of Donetsk over the last 24 hours.

Russia’s interior ministry has placed the war critic Sergei Aleksashenko, formerly a deputy governor of the Bank of Russia and a deputy finance minister, on its wanted list

One person was killed and three were injured in Russian attacks on the south-west Ukrainian region of Kherson on Friday

Ukraine has been the target of nearly 4,000 cyber-attacks since the war in Ukraine, three times higher than before Russia’s invasion.

Russia claims to have bombed Ukrainian forces near River Dnipro - killing 75

Overnight drone attack on Ukraine caused powercuts, energy ministry says

The air force said in a statement the attack on several Ukrainian regions lasted from 8pm on Friday to 4am on Saturday

Summary

• Ukraine was subject to an overnight drone attack by Russia, as the Ukrainian armed forces claimed it shot down 29 of the 38 drones that were sent on a raid.
  
  
• More than 400 towns and villages in the south, southeast and north of the country were affected by the drone attacks.
  
  
• An oil refinery was hit in Odesa as part of the attack.
  
  
• Meanwhile, Ukraine has said it had carried out “successful actions” on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. It comes after Ukraine and Russia acknowledged earlier this week that Ukraine had established positions on the eastern side of the river, which marks part of the frontline in south-east Ukraine.
  
  
• Ukraine’s armed forces have claimed it killed another 620 Russian soldiers on Friday during its operations.
  
  
• In response, Russia has said it had heavily bombed Ukrainian forces near the river, and killed about 75 soldiers.
  
  
• In its daily intelligence briefing, the UK’s Ministry of Defence notes Russian forces are suffering “particularly heavy casualties” in fighting around Avdiivka, which is one of three areas seeing heavy ground fighting.
  
  
• Despite the heavy fighting, however, the MoD said neither side was making any significant progress.
  
  
• The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has called on Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to take the first step towards a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Ukraine.
  
  
• Ukraine has been the target of nearly 4,000 cyber-attacks since the invasion began, three times higher than before.
  

Russian forces hit oil depot in Odesa Oblast – Ukraine's Energy Ministry

A Russian strike has damaged an oil depot in Odesa Oblast on the night of 17-18 November. In addition, Russian attacks and technological disruptions have affected power transmission systems in a range of oblasts.

Source: Ukraine’s Energy Ministry

Details: The report noted that the power transmission systems in Zaporizhzhia and Odesa oblasts suffered damage during Russian strikes, and 416 settlements lost power due to hostilities and technological disruptions.

An energy facility – an oil depot – was damaged by a Russian attack in Odesa Oblast. An overhead power line went down in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, but consumers suffered no power cuts. A total of 63 settlements in the oblast remain without power due to the Russian bombardments.
Besides, a gas pipeline was affected in one of the districts of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast during the hostilities, leading to power outages.
"A total of 12 settlements lost power due to the attacks, leaving almost 21,000 customers cut off from the grid. Power engineers have reconnected 21 settlements to the power grid, including those that had been blacked out earlier, and resumed power to 24,700 customers. A total of 113 settlements in the oblast remain without power," the ministry reported on the situation in Donetsk Oblast.
Furthermore, 6 settlements in Chernihiv Oblast lost power completely, and one partially due to technical reasons, with 2,266 consumers cut off from the power supply.

Background: The Russian forces hit a power infrastructure facility in Odesa Oblast, leaving 2,000 customers blacked out.

Russia increasingly frees convicted killers to fight against Ukraine

Russia is recruiting as many as 100,000 convicts, including violent criminals, to fight in Ukraine, with some pardoned individuals, such as Vladislav Kanyus, participating in the war after serving minimal sentences for heinous crimes.

Russia is increasingly relying on prisoner recruitment to bolster its ranks in Ukraine, offering commutations to some of the country’s most violent criminals. According to a recent Washington Post report, as many as 100,000 convicts may have enlisted this year.

Among those freed is Vladislav Kanyus, who was sentenced in July 2022 to 17 years for torturing and brutally murdering his ex-girlfriend Vera Pekhteleva. Kanyus was secretly pardoned in April and is now fighting in Ukraine after serving less than a year of his sentence.

Vladislav Kanyus, a resident of Kemerovo in southwestern Siberia, mercilessly murdered his ex-girlfriend, subjecting her to hours of torture, suffocation, and stabbing. In July 2022, he was sentenced to 17 years. Oksana, the mother of Pekhteleva, was shocked to receive a photo of Kanyus not in prison but in military attire, alongside other Russian soldiers.

The Kremlin expressed no regret over the decision to release murderers, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov stating, “Convicts, including those convicted of serious crimes, atone for crimes with blood on the battlefield.”
“These people are coming back from the war with post-traumatic stress disorders — their hands had blood on them before and then they went to Ukraine and killed more people there — and they see that the entire system is backing them so they feel an absolute sense of impunity,” WP cites Alena Popova.

UK intelligence reports reveal that Russia is increasingly depending on Shtorm-Z units, initially envisioned as elite organizations for offensive operations in Ukraine. However, these units have transitioned into penal battalions, manned with convicts and troops on disciplinary charges, facing logistical challenges and low support priority, emphasizing Russia’s struggle to generate effective combat infantry for offensive operations.

Two killed in Russian rocket attacks on Zaporizhzhia

More Than 100 Russian doctors urge Putin to release woman imprisoned for price tag anti-war protest

More than 100 Russian doctors signed an open letter to President Vladimir Putin calling for the release of a 33-year-old Russian woman who was sentenced to seven years in prison for using price tags in a supermarket to distribute information about Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The doctors, in appealing to Putin as the "guarantor of rights and freedoms of Russian citizens" -- expressed "serious concerns” about the health of artist Aleksandra (Sasha) Skochilenko and insisted her actions did not violate Russian law.
"For disagreement with the war and a pacifist action that did not violate the law, the artist Sasha Skochilenko was sentenced to seven years in prison," the letter stated.
"In addition to indignation at the obvious injustice of the sentence, we, as the medical community, have serious concerns about Sasha's state of health. She has been diagnosed with a number of serious chronic diseases that require proper medical supervision and a special regimen," it added.

On November 16, a court in Russia's second-largest city, St. Petersburg, sentenced Skochilenko to prison after finding her guilty of "distributing false information about Russian armed forces," under Article 207.3 of the Criminal Code, which was bulldozed through both chambers of parliament and signed by Putin in a single day last year.
Dozens of journalists and people who came to support Skochilenko chanted: "Shame! Shame! Shame!" after Judge Oksana Demyasheva pronounced the ruling in Putin's hometown.

Several municipal lawmakers and noted Russian director Aleksandr Sokurov were among those who were in attendance to support Skochilenko.

Opposition lawmaker Boris Vishnevsky said the court ruling "has nothing to do with law, justice, or humanism."
"This is not justice; this is a reprisal. Those who called this justice, I hope will be tried one day, though I don't know when that will happen. I hope very much that Sasha will be released earlier," Vishnevsky said.

Skochilenko was arrested in April 2022 after she replaced five price tags in a supermarket in late March with pieces of paper containing what investigators called "knowingly false information about the use of the Russian armed forces."
In her final testimony hours before the verdict and sentence were handed down, Skochilenko reiterated her previous statement that her actions in the store were to promote peace.

Prosecutors had asked the court to convict Skochilenko and sentence her to eight years in prison.
Skochilenko has several medical conditions, including a congenital heart defect, bipolar disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Since her arrest, rights groups have called for her immediate release.

Weeks after Russia started its ongoing unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Putin signed a law that allows for lengthy prison terms for distributing "deliberately false information" about Russian military operations as the Kremlin seeks to control the narrative about its war in Ukraine.

Article 207.3, which includes a prohibition on calling it a war -- Moscow officially calls it a "special military operation" -- represented a significant new phase in the Kremlin's effort to stamp out opposition to the invasion in Ukraine and clamp down on dissent.

Moment Russians flee kamikaze tank filled with own explosives set for Ukraine

This is the moment Russian soldiers fled their own tank filled with explosives in a kamikaze run at Ukrainian forces.

Closing Summary

• Two first responders were killed in the Zaporizhzhia region by Russian rocket attacks on Saturday.
  
  
• Ukrainian police said Russia fired a series of rockets at the village of Komyshuvakha, which caused a fire. Emergency responders responding to the fire were hit by a second attack which killed two of them. Four residents were injured.
  
  
• Ukraine was subject to an overnight drone attack by Russia, as the Ukrainian armed forces claimed it shot down 29 of the 38 drones that were sent on a raid.
  
  
• More than 400 towns and villages in the south, southeast and north of the country were affected by the drone attacks.
  
  
• An oil refinery was hit in Odesa as part of the attack.
  
  
• Meanwhile, Ukraine said it had carried out “successful actions” on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. It comes after Ukraine and Russia acknowledged earlier this week that Ukraine had established positions on the eastern side of the river, which marks part of the frontline in south-east Ukraine.
  
  
• Ukraine’s armed forces have claimed to have killed another 620 Russian soldiers on Friday during its operations.
  
  
• In response, Russia has said it had heavily bombed Ukrainian forces near the river, and killed about 75 soldiers.
  
  
• In its daily intelligence briefing, the UK’s Ministry of Defence notes Russian forces are suffering “particularly heavy casualties” in fighting around Avdiivka, which is one of three areas seeing heavy ground fighting.
  
  
• Despite the heavy fighting, however, the MoD said neither side was making any significant progress.
  
  
• Hungary must say no to the current Europe model built in Brussels as the country continues to object to Ukraine joining the EU, the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, told a congress of his Fidesz party on Saturday.
  
  
• The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has called on Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to take the first step towards a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Ukraine.
  
  
• More than 100 Russian doctors have signed a joint letter calling on Putin to release a woman jailed for a supermarket protest against the war in Ukraine.
  
  
• Ukraine has been the target of nearly 4,000 cyber-attacks since the invasion began, three times higher than before.