Russian invasion of Ukraine: Day 639

Summary for Friday, 24th November 2023 - DAY 639

• On Thanksgiving, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has thanked the US for its support, saying that with “American support and global leadership, millions of Ukrainian lives have been saved”.
  
  
• Russia has sentenced a Ukrainian man to 18 years in prison for trying to blow up buildings in the Moscow-controlled Ukrainian city of Melitopol. According to Russia’s Kommersant newspaper, Dmitri Golubev said: “I am Ukrainian, I was defending Ukraine.”
  
  
• Ukraine’s national seed bank, one of the world’s largest, has been successfully moved from the frontline eastern city of Kharkiv to a safer location, said Crop Trust, a non-profit organisation.
  
  
• Russia has claimed it is succeeding in selling almost all of its oil above a western-imposed price cap of $60 a barrel. The EU, G7 countries and Australia introduced the price cap on Russian oil in December 2022.
  
  
• A leading Russian politician and supporter of Vladimir Putin has denied a report that he adopted an infant who had been forcibly taken from an orphanage in Ukraine.
  
  
• The bulk of Ukrainian crops have entered the winter season in predominantly good condition, analysts APK-Inform quoted the state weather forecaster as saying. Ukraine is a grower of winter wheat, winter barley and winter rapeseed. Ukraine’s grain exports so far in the 2023-24 season that started in July are running 28% below the year-earlier volume, according to agriculture ministry data.
  
  
• A Russian attack using cluster munitions killed three people in a suburb of Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson on Thursday, a Ukrainian official said, bringing to six the number of civilians to die in a single day. Russian shelling also killed two people in the Donetsk region, Ukraine’s presidential office said.
  
  
• Ukraine has not reached a stalemate in its war with Russia because the west can help by “dropping five more queens on the board”, according to Timothy Snyder, a Yale professor and influential historian of eastern Europe.
  
  
• Armenia did not take part in a summit held by a Russia-dominated security grouping, because the country has been irked by what it sees as a lack of Russian support over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
  
  
• Ukraine has said it cannot produce enough electricity to meet growing demand for heating and is turning to neighbouring EU countries for help, amid fears of Russian strikes on energy facilities.
  
  
• Russia is throwing “waves” of soldiers towards the embattled Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, suffering massive losses in their attempt to capture strategically important territory on the eastern frontlines, Ukrainian soldiers say.
  
  
• The UK’s Ministry of Defence reports that a group of former Wagner mercenary soldiers have been recognised officially as Russian military veterans, after speculation over how they would be treated following their mutiny against Russia and death of their leader.
  
  
• Ukraine said that it wants its export routes via Poland unblocked before it holds talks with Warsaw and the European Commission aimed at ending protests by Polish truckers that are reducing Ukrainian exports.
  
  
• Finland said it would close all but one crossing point on its border with Russia in an effort to halt a flow of asylum seekers, as Estonia accused Moscow of mounting “a hybrid attack operation” on Europe’s eastern border.
  

Ukraine’s defence ministry has released night footage of a mobile fire group

Ukrainian truckers say hope fading for end to Polish protests

The American ambassador in Kyiv, Bridget A Brink, said that 153 ships have as of today gone through Ukraine’s Black Sea humanitarian corridor

Finland shuts nearly all crossings to Russia

Finland to Russia: stop flow of migrants

Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in a few days a vessel with be loaded with grain for Nigeria

Moscow is on fire after suspected drone attack

A fire broke out at the Chagino power substation’s transformer building in southeastern Moscow early on Nov. 24, sending thick smoke into the area, the Russian Mash Telegram channel reported.

Ukrainian Forces secure strategic footholds across the Dnipro river, cut off key road in Kherson region

Sacked Ukrainian cyber chief released on bail amid corruption probe

Ukraine's former cybersecurity chief was released from detention on Friday on $700,000 bail, according to Ukraine’s anti-corruption non-profit.
Yurii Shchyhol, the ex-head of Ukraine’s State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection (SSSCIP) was detained earlier this week as part of an investigation into an embezzlement scheme.
After leaving the pretrial detention center, Shchyhol will have to comply with a number of rules like not talking to witnesses or other suspects, giving up his passport for international travel, and wearing an electronic bracelet, said the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Action Center.
Shchyhol and his former deputy, Viktor Zhora, were dismissed earlier this week amid an investigation into a corruption scandal involving the procurement of software for the state agency.
The court took Shchyhol into custody on Thursday, while Zhora is still waiting for a verdict. In a Facebook post, Zhora said that there’s a chance that he could spend this weekend in a pre-trial detention center.
Prosecutors said on Wednesday that during the search of Shchyhol's phone, investigators discovered a crypto wallet containing $1.5 million in Bitcoin and Tether. Shchyhol did not provide any comments on this matter, while Zhora dismissed it as fake. Shchyhol’s bail was set at $700,000.
Both Shchyhol and Zhora said previously that they are confident they could prove their innocence.
In the international cyber community, Zhora and Shchyhol are among the most recognizable Ukrainian state officials. As part of their work at SSSCIP, they were responsible for the cybersecurity of state information resources and critical infrastructure.
Zhora frequently talked to journalists from international media and attended various security events. He recently delivered a keynote speech at the Cyberwarcon cybersecurity conference in Washington, D.C. and was interviewed onstage at the Black Hat event in Las Vegas.

New details of the scandal

Ukraine’s anti-corruption agency released additional evidence of Zhora’s and Shchyhol’s alleged involvement in an embezzlement scheme on Wednesday.
According to the investigation, Shchyhol and Zhora, as well as four other suspects managed to embezzle $1.72 million between 2020 and 2022 by classifying the procurement of software for the SSSCIP.
This software was intended to protect against cyber threats, according to Shchyhol. Zhora explained that it was designed “to create and maintain secure electronic registers."
The investigators didn't mention the name of the company that developed the software. However, during the court hearing on Wednesday, prosecutors said it was EPAM Systems — a U.S.-based company that has offices in Ukraine and is one of the largest tech companies in the country. EPAM has not responded to Recorded Future News' request for comment.
According to the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) of Ukraine, the software was procured through intermediary companies linked to Ukrainian businessman Roman Koval, who is suspected to be the mastermind behind the scheme.
Koval is Zhora’s ex-business partner. The companies affiliated with him have been providing services to state agencies for the past seven years.
NABU speculated that Koval used his connections at SSSCIP to appoint “a loyal person” as the deputy head of the agency to oversee procurement. The Record couldn't independently verify this claim, but investigators published screenshots of Koval's alleged conversation with Zhora, in which they discussed the scheme and Zhora’s role in it.
Earlier this week, Shchyhol said that “all of the SSSCIP’s purchases from 2020 were carried out in compliance with current legislation.”
In a Facebook post on Thursday, Zhora said that the money investigators claimed was stolen was actually used to acquire extra services for the software in question. "Such work requires a large number of different specialists, additional contractors, and experts," he said.
Zhora declined to provide more details about the case and Shchyhol said that he would share more “in court and after defeating the enemy.”

Ukraine’s SBU accuses ‘Hero of Russia’ of war crimes in Bucha

Ukraine’s SBU security service has officially charged Lt. Col. Alexander Dosyagayev, a decorated Russian officer with the Hero of Russia title, with committing war crimes in Bucha, Kyiv Oblast, when the town was under Russian occupation in early 2022.

Traitor who handed over his own father to Russians faces life in prison

A village council deputy in Kherson Oblast and member of the now-banned pro-Russian Party of Regions who sided with invading Russian troops during the occupation of the area was detained, Ukraine’s SBU security service reported via Telegram on Nov. 24. 

Closing Summary

• Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy discussed “efforts to maintain European unity” in a call with outgoing Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte, after far right politician Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) got the most votes in the Dutch election.
  
  
• Kajsa Ollongren, the Dutch defence minister, said she hoped military support to Kyiv would continue but also that she was worried due to the PVV’s stance on Ukraine.
  
  
• Robert Fico, Slovakia’s populist prime minister, has said he considers the war between Ukraine and Russia a ‘frozen conflict’.
  
  
• The British Ministry of Defence said Russian forces in Ukraine continued to suffer mass casualties from Ukrainian long-range precision strikes well behind the frontline.
  
  
• Ukraine’s truckers union said hopes of a rapid end to Polish trucker protests at the border were fading.
  
  
• Finland temporarily closed all but one of its eight passenger crossings to Russia.
  
  
• The Finnish prime minister, Petteri Orpo, said the high flow of migrants via Russia must stop.
  
  
• The Ukrainian deputy prime minister, Olha Stefanishyna, said a veto of the country’s European aspirations at an EU summit next month “would be the irresponsibility of the others”.
  
  
• Plans to expand the Grain from Ukraine programme further across Africa one year after its launch will be announced on Saturday by Zelenskiy, backed by the appointment of a new series of goodwill ambassadors including Charlotte Leslie, a former Conservative MP with deep contacts in the Middle East.