Russian invasion of Ukraine: Day 642

Summary for Monday, 27th November 2023 - DAY 642

• Russia is having to pull air defence systems out of Kaliningrad, its external province on the Baltic Sea, to replace those it has lost in the Ukraine war, according to an intelligence update from the UK’s Ministry of Defence. “This follows an increase in losses of SA-21 air defence systems in Russian-occupied Ukraine in late October 2023.”
  
  
• The move shows that Russia is so overstretched by the conflict that it is having to accept additional risk to strategically important Kaliningrad, which is bordered on three sides by Nato member states, according to the MoD.
  
  
• The Russian military death toll in Ukraine has reached 324,830, according to estimates provided by the Ukrainian military.
  
  
• Russia sent waves of kamikaze drones into Ukraine on Saturday in what Kyiv said was the most intensive drone attack since the start of the war. Five people were wounded by falling debris, while several buildings were damaged as about 17,000 people in the Kyiv region were left without electricity, reports said. Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 74 of the 75 drones.
  
  
• In Russia, 24 drones reportedly attacked the Moscow region and three other provinces to the south and west, while two Ukrainian missiles were launched over the Azov Sea. One person was injured in the city of Tula, south of Moscow, when an intercepted drone hit an apartment building, it was reported.
  
  
• Russian troops continue attempts to advance near Avdiivka with Ukrainian forces repelling attacks to its north-east, west and south-west. According to reports by the Ukrainian general staff, Russia has conducted airstrikes in support of ground operations geared toward encircling the city on the outskirts of Donetsk.
  
  
• Russian soldiers “seek to reoccupy” the town of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, according to the spokesperson for Ukraine’s ground forces, Volodymyr Fitio. “The enemy intends to advance to the settlement of Sinkivka in order to develop their further success in the offensive on Kupiansk,” he said.
  
  
• Ukraine’s arms industry minister has called for the country to turn itself into the “arsenal of the free world” and provide weapons for export. Oleksandr Kamyshin aims to revive the state sector and coordinate private enterprises to boost export of weapons.
  
  
• Many of the countries that have sanctioned Russia over the war in Ukraine need to take urgent action to disrupt the supply of technology for its electronic warfare campaign, according to a report. It names companies whose parts have been found in Russian equipment.
  
  
• Ukraine needs more air defences to protect grain export routes, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said at the Grain from Ukraine summit on food security in Kyiv, which was attended by leaders from European countries including Switzerland and Lithuania.
  
  
• About 2,100 vehicles are unable to get into Ukraine because of a Polish blockade. According to an update by Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry reported by the Kyiv Independent, the flow of traffic at the Dorohusk-Yahodyn crossing – usually 680 lorries a day – is down to a few dozen every 24 hours.
  

One person killed and almost half a million left without power after storm in Black Sea area, says Russian news agency

Almost half a million people have been left without power and one person was killed after a storm in the Black Sea area flooded roads, ripped up trees and took down power lines in Crimea, the Russian state news agency Tass has said.
The storm also hit southern Russia and sent waves flooding into the beach resort of Sochi, blew the roof off a five-storey building in Anapa and damaged homes and schools in Kuban, the state news agency said.
It was part of a weather front that earlier left one person dead and hundreds of places without electricity amid heavy snowfall and strong blizzards in Romania and Moldova yesterday, reports AP.
The storm prompted several Crimean regions to declare a state of emergency after it became the strongest recorded in the past 16 years with wind speeds reaching 144km per hour, Tatyana Lyubetskaya, a Russia-installed official at the Crimean environmental monitoring department, told Tass.
The government in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, told people to stay at home today and closed government offices including schools and hospitals as strong winds are still expected.
The head of one Crimean region, Natalia Pisareva, said everyone in the Chernomorske area of western Crimea had lost water supply as well as central heating because pumping stations had lost power. There were also reports of a problem with a gas pipeline in Saky, western Crimea.


Local residents being evacuated from the flooded village of Pribrezhnoe in Crimea on 27 November. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images


Local residents get out of a truck during emergency evacuation from a flooded street on Sunday night. Photograph: Alexey Pavlishak/Reuters

Ukraine’s national security adviser has claimed that Russia has instructed a network of its spies in Ukraine to destabilise society

We made a big mistake in 1991 when we didn’t close down the KGB but just changed its name to SBU and the metastases of the KGB remained.
We are all adults here. Unfortunately, we recognise that we have not been able to clean up all of the security systems. So of course there are traitors that exist there. The fact that there is an ongoing trial over Oleh Kulinich [the former head of the SBU in Crimea] on charges of high treason is a solid proof of that.

The Nato secretary-general says that some of the most intense fighting of the war has taken place in recent weeks in the east of Ukraine

[It is an] extremely difficult situation along the front line, especially in the east. We see high casualty numbers and some of the most intense fightings that we have seen throughout the whole war has actually taken place over the last weeks and couple of months.
At the same time, the frontline has not shifted in any significant way, so I think we need to distinguish between the fact that the frontline is not moving so much and the fact that actually there is very heavy fighting going on.
Again we are impressed by the bravery, the competence of the Ukrainian forces, and also their ability to actually strike behind the Russian lines, deep into Russian controlled territory. And of course military achievements can partly be measured in square meters but also on the losses you are able to inflict on your adversary.

Russia captures fortified factory district in Avdiivka, Ukrainian troops reportedly outgunned

Reports from both sides tell of strong Russian advantages in artillery, air power and armored vehicles as they capture a stronghold of factories on the town’s southeastern edge.

Screenshot from video 110 separate mechanized brigade

Russian troops captured fortified positions held by Ukrainian forces for more than eight years on the southeastern edge of Avdiivka, near the Yasynuvata-2 railway station, official and open source reports said on Monday.
Russian infantry backed by tanks, strong artillery and systematic air strikes pushed Ukrainian troops out of nearly 90 percent city’s southeastern industrial district, reports said.
At the other side of the city, in the northern industrial area surrounding the Avdiivka Coke and Chemical plant, the Russians continue to threaten an already tenuous supply lifeline for Kyiv forces in the sector.
Moscow-loyal milbloggers claimed that Russian forces had captured the entire territory of the coke plant as well as portions of an adjacent rail yard, and were close to breaking the Ukrainians’ hold on the village Stepove, further to the northwest. Ukrainian sources claim the situation is “difficult” but claim they still control the plant.

If consolidated, the Russian gains would leave thousands of Kyiv’s troops dug in throughout central Avdiivka, at the bottom of a funnel-shaped terrain pocket less than 15 kilometers wide, and under real risk of encirclement.
Located near the Donetsk region’s largest city Donetsk, Avdiivka has been on the front lines between Ukrainian and Russian-led forces since 2014, which the Kremlin first invaded Ukraine.
In October of this year, Russia kicked off a local offensive with the objectives of pushing Ukrainian forces away from Donetsk and, ideally, killing and wounding so many Ukrainian soldiers that the losses would bring Kyiv to the negotiating table.

Drone attack leaves Catholic cathedral in Kyiv with damage

A Day of Remembrance

Heavy snow has caused power outages in more than 2,000 towns and villages across 16 regions of Ukraine

A Russian court has accused Meta Platforms spokesperson Andy Stone of “promoting terrorism” and ordered his arrest

51-year old woman injured in attack on Nikopol

Ukrainian former prisoners forcibly deported to Russia stuck on border with Georgia again

A group of Ukrainian citizens, formerly prisoners from the occupied territories, who were taken to Russia and deported after their time in prison, have been blocked on the border of Russia with Georgia for a long time.

Closing Summary

• Ukraine will become a member of Nato subject to reforms after the war, the military alliance’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg said. Nato states still agree that full membership remains impossible in the midst of war, even while ways to move Ukraine and Nato closer continue, he added.
  

• The Nato secretary-general said that some of the most intense fighting of the war has taken place in recent weeks in the east of Ukraine. Russian forces have made confirmed advances north-west and south-east of Avdiivka over the weekend, according to the US-based Institute for the Study of War.
  

• The UK ministry of defence has described as “plausible” Ukrainian estimates of Russian casualties running at a daily average of almost 1,000 in November. This would, on the face of it, make November 2023 one of the most difficult months for Russian forces, with many of its losses coming from its assault on Avdiivka – although figures on Ukrainian losses were not provided.
  

• Moscow does not have plans to expand its territory any farther in Europe, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, insisted in response to remarks by the US defence secretary last week that Putin would not stop at Ukraine if he was victorious.
  

• Exports to Russia from Turkey of civilian goods used by the military such as microchips and telescopic sights are increasing, causing concern to the US and the EU, which seeks to prevent such items entering the country.
  

• Ancient Scythian artefacts from museums in Russian-occupied Crimea have been returned to Ukraine after a legal dispute over ownership rights during which they spent almost a decade in the Netherlands, a Ukrainian museum said.