Russian invasion of Ukraine: Day 645

Morning Summary for Thursday, 30th November 2023 - DAY 645

• Russian shelling hit the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk overnight, with at least three civilians reportedly injured. Photographs from the Getty agency showed firefighters working to extinguish the burning wreckage of a building in Pokrovsk, which is near the frontline in Donetsk.
  
  
• Reports online this morning citing Russian media said Ukrainian drones or missiles blew up a warehouse for Shahed drones in Bryansk, Russia, on Wednesday night. Social media footage showed an explosion claimed to be in the area.
  
  
• Ukraine used Patriot air defence missiles to destroy three Russian Mi-8 helicopters, an Su-34 bomber and an Su-35 bomber, Ukrainian air force spokesperson Col Yuriy Ignat has told a local news outlet. The “brilliant operation” took place in May, Ignat said. It was reported in Russia media at the time.
  
  
• Ukraine said it had killed five high-ranking Russian officials in a strike on a building in an occupied part of Kherson. The armed forces said the strike targeted a meeting in the village of Yuvileyne following “information provided by the underground and concerned local residents”.
  
  
• Russia is ramping up its attacks in the eastern Donetsk region, Ukrainian military spokesperson Oleksandr Shtupun said. Russia had “doubled its artillery fire and airstrikes” and had also “intensified ground infantry attacks”.
  
  
• Russia is also likely to have begun using more 500kg cluster bombs in Donetsk, according to the British intelligence, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said. The bombs eject 100-350 smaller bombs over a wide area.
  
  
• Russian forces claimed to have taken control of the village of Khromove in the same region. The village is on the western edge of Bakhmut, a city that fell to Russia over summer after a months-long battle and which remains the scene of heavy fighting.
  
  
• Russian casualties since the beginning of the war stand at 327,580, according to the Ukrainian military. In its latest daily update, Ukraine’s general staff said the figure had increased by 1,140.
  
  
• The secretary general of Nato, Jens Stoltenberg, has warned that the bloc must not underestimate Russia and its ability to continue fighting the war in Ukraine. “Russia’s economy is on a war footing, Putin has a high tolerance for casualties, and Russian aims in Ukraine have not changed,” he said.
  
  
• The European Union has delivered about 300,000 of the 1m shells it has promised to Ukraine, the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has said. Kuleba said the demands of Ukraine’s war effort meant there was a need for greater alignment of Ukrainian and Nato arms production and to create “a Euro-Atlantic common area” of defence industries.
  
  
• Kuleba said, however, that Ukraine has seen no sign that its Nato allies are tiring of the war or of providing it with support. “I heard a clear ‘No’ to any reference to fatigue, and I heard [a] clear ‘Yes’ to increased support to Ukraine … They understand that in order for them to feel safe, in order for them not to end up in a situation where Nato’s soldiers will have to fight, Ukraine has to win in this war.”
  
  
• Russia has failed in its bid to be re-elected to the executive council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. In a vote of the member states, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Poland were elected to fill three seats from the eastern Europe bloc for the 2024-2026 term.
  

Russian missile strikes in eastern Ukraine rip through buildings, kill 2 and bury families in rubble

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, rescuers work at the scene of a building damaged by shelling, in Novogrodivka, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 30, 2023. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian missiles tore through apartment buildings in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, local officials said Thursday, killing at least two people and burying families under rubble as the Kremlin’s forces continued to pound the fiercely contested area with long-range weapons.

Russian military units simultaneously launched six S-300 missiles toward the Donetsk region during the night, according to Ukrainian Internal Affairs Minister Ihor Klymenko. Another two were fired separately in the same area, the Ukrainian air force said.
The simultaneous missile strikes hit three Donetsk cities — Pokrovsk, Novohrodivka and Myrnohrad, Klymenko said. The cities lie 25-40 kilometers (15-25 miles) from the front line.
The battlefield has seen few major changes in recent months. A Ukrainian counteroffensive that started in June dented deep Russian defenses in some areas but has failed to change the complexion of the 22-month war.
Moscow has held firm in most of the areas it occupies while using the long-range weapons to inflict damage on Ukraine, including civilian areas.
Emergency workers pulled the body of a 62-year-old man from the wreckage of a destroyed multi-story building in Novohrodivka. Another death was reported in the same city by Ukraine’s Emergency Service. Four more people may be under the rubble, including a child, authorities said.
In Pokrovsk, the strikes destroyed a multi-story building, nine houses, a police office and cars. Emergency crews helped rescue a man with a 6-month-old baby, covered in blood, in his hands, officials said.
The head of the city administration, Serhii Dobriak, said it was fourth time Pokrovsk came under attack in the past month.
“They are striking the city center, the houses,” he said. “They are just destroying the civilian population.”
He urged people to evacuate because “the intensity of strikes is increasing.”
All three of the targeted cities are close to Avdiivka, a city where a fierce battle has taken place in recent months.
Avdiivka is a gateway to parts of the Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control.
Ukrainian officials said recently that Russian forces have ramped up attacks in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to gain ground near Avdiivka and around Bakhmut, another key front-line city.

In southern Ukraine, Russian forces shelled residential areas in the Kherson region, damaging critical infrastructure and a school, the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. One person was killed, the office said.
Ambulance paramedics came under fire in the village of Kindiika, where a doctor was wounded on Wednesday evening, according to the president's office. In Darivka, another Kherson region village, four people were injured as 10 houses, a hospital and a kindergarten were damaged during the night, the office said.
Zelenskyy on Thursday visited troops in Kupiansk, an area of fighting in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
“I know that every day you are losing your close people, your war buddies,” he told soldiers, according to a video posted on his Telegram channel. “You should know that everyone is aware that this is the highest price. That’s why I ask you to take care of yourselves.”
It was the Ukrainian leader's second straight day of touring battle areas across the country. On Wednesday he visited cities in southern Ukraine.
He has frequently made such visits during the war as he tries to keep up morale.

One person was killed and 10 were wounded, while four appeared to be trapped under rubble following Russian missile attacks in the Donetsk region, Ukrainian interior minister Ihor Klymenko and regional officials said today

Satellite images show Crimea lost naval defense line in storm

Satellite photos show that Crimea lost a naval defense line in a storm that battered the annexed Black Sea peninsula - Newsweek has reported.

“They may have been sunk or washed away. It is plausible that some or all of the trained dolphins have been freed,” Sutton said.

Russian soldier horrified by war 'relieved' to be captured by Ukraine

Ukraine's current counteroffensive has been somewhat stymied in areas like Avdiivka, where Russian soldiers have poured into the industrial town located in the eastern Donetsk region since early October. New gains on the territory annexed by Russia last year were made on Tuesday, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), costing Russia several tanks and military equipment in the process.

But as Russian President Vladimir Putin has continually endorsed the Kremlin's war efforts as an affront to Western ideals, even by means of conscripting hundreds of thousands of citizens as servicemen to aid his cause, there remains no resolution or end in sight. Casualties among Russian soldiers and generals continue, military equipment is being destroyed by Ukrainian forces, and the nation's economy is bearing the brunt of the 21-month conflict.

A damaged statute of a Soviet soldier is pictured in front of a destroyed building in Avdiivka, Ukraine, on October 26, 2023. Russian soldiers in Ukraine are lamenting their nation's war efforts, according to a new report.
Kostya Liberov / Libkos

Several Russian prisoners of war (POWs) in Avdiivka, most in their 30s and 40s, spoke to the Wall Street Journal from an undisclosed garage located in eastern Ukraine after they were captured by Ukrainian forces. The Journal reportedly confirmed their identities and withheld surnames.

One Russian soldier named Sergei, a former factory worker from Perm, near the Ural Mountains, who signed up in October for a raise from 30,000 rubles to 100,000 rubles, called the city's warfare "an animal nightmare."
He said Russian Army training was composed of tasks including picking up branches. Battlefield training involved firing two magazines' worth of ammunition from an assault rifle, in addition to first-aid lessons.
Instead of just driving trucks in the rear as he initially expected, he was on the frontlines of battle and eventually captured in mid-November in Avdiivka after he was wounded. He witnessed dead bodies strewn across the city's northern flank.
"I felt relieved," he said, adding that his family hasn't received any of the pay promised by the Kremlin. "I don't want to see this nightmare anymore."

Another Russian soldier named Pavel, formerly a machine-tool operator from Siberia, said he was among those conscripted in 2022 and had a choice to either fight or be thrown in prison.
He said his tactical training consisted of charging across a field, in the style of Soviet-era World War II movies in which troops shout "for Stalin!" On the battlefield, he said his unit's mission resulted in copious amounts of dead soldiers.
"The captain said we fulfilled our goal," Pavel told the Journal, blaming commanders for a lack of proper training. "But how can you say that if only 35 out of 100 men came back? And that was just on one day. ... To become real assault troops takes work and a lot of time."

Ukraine's General Staff of the Armed Forces said Wednesday that Putin's forces have suffered 327,580 military casualties since the start of the invasion.

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Newsweek couldn't verify Ukraine's figures, and other estimates tend to be more conservative than Kyiv's.
Russia hasn't publicly disclosed casualties among its own personnel.

Russians' support for Ukraine War hits rock bottom: Poll

In a video address Tuesday to the World Russian People's Council's plenary session, President Vladimir Putin did not mention the war he started by name, but his appeal to Russians' sense of patriotism was direct as he said Moscow was in a "fight for sovereignty and justice."
However, a poll by the research group Chronicles indicates that, ahead of the 2024 election, Putin might have an uphill battle in maintaining the population's support for the war as they feel its economic consequences. The survey found that pro-war Russians are a minority and were outnumbered by those who favor peace.


A Ukrainian tank is seen near the front line in the Kharkiv region on November 24. A poll by a Moscow-based research group has found that Russian support for the war has dwindled.  Anatolii Stepanov/Getty Images

Restrictive laws in Russia that criminalize criticism of the war can shape poll results, which are often based on questions that require only yes or no answers. But Chronicles, which was founded by Aleksei Miniailo, a Russian opposition politician, and a team of sociologists, says its surveys, in which a series of questions are asked, provide an accurate snapshot of public opinion.
The Moscow-based research group asked 1,199 adults across Russia a series of questions in a phone poll between October 17 and 22. It found that the core of support for the war was only 12 percent, compared with 22 percent in February, one year after the start of what the Kremlin calls a "special military operation."
Miniailo told Newsweek that consistent war support refers to the position of those who back the invasion of Ukraine, do not want Putin to withdraw troops and start peace talks without reaching military goals, and believe that army expenses should be the state budget's priority.
Russians with a consistent pro-peace position were at 18.5 percent in October, a small drop from 20 percent in February. They don't support the war, favor withdrawing troops and peace talks without reaching military goals, and believe social, not military, spending should be the budget priority.

Higher Military Spending

More than half (52 percent) of respondents said they experienced anxiety or depression, an increase from 32 percent in March 2022, a month after the invasion started. A main reason for dissatisfaction with the war is the financial concerns that Russian households are facing.

This week, Putin announced a significant increase in military spending. About 30 percent of the Russian budget will be directed toward the armed forces in 2024.
The poll found that 44 percent of respondents have experienced a decrease in family income, while 20 percent said crucial medicines are no longer available. Only 5 percent expected their income would improve because of an increase in military spending in 2024.
"A decrease in income is one of the core drivers of nonsupport," Miniailo said. "There is a strong correlation between decreasing income and other economic problems and people declaring less support for the war."


A man leaves a voting booth during the Moscow municipal deputies elections on September 9, 2022. Russia will hold a presidential election in 2024. NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/Getty Images

He went on: "The whole country has been brought up on stories of the Second World War, about how horrible it was, and now their government has started one.
"So of course people are shocked. They push it as far as possible from their conscience, from their attention, and when they feel the practical consequences of what is happening, it is once again actualized for them," he said.
The number of respondents who would not accept withdrawal from Ukraine without reaching military goals decreased from 47 percent in February 2023 to 33 percent in October 2023.
"This shows that people are tired. They are dissatisfied and don't want this to continue because their life is becoming worse," Miniailo said.
Another poll out this week, by the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center and the Levada Center, found that Russians were getting tired of the war but were divided about how to end it.
Sixty-eight percent of Russians support continuing the war, 22 percent strongly oppose a cease-fire under any circumstances, and about 20 percent strongly oppose the war. Meanwhile, 72 percent said they support peace talks, although only 19 percent are willing to make concessions to Ukraine for the sake of peace.

Ukraine’s SBU destroys key railway tunnel connecting Russia & China

Ukraine’s SBU security service carried out an overnight explosion on a key rail route between Russia and China, law enforcement agencies told NV on Nov. 30.

Russian general 'blown up on mine'

Poland to step up checks of exiting Ukrainian trucks

Polish truckers have been blocking the major crossings with neighbouring Ukraine for over three weeks now over what they call unfair competition from their Ukrainian counterparts.

Russians attack Darivka in Kherson Oblast: 4 people injured

Russians dropped guided bombs on Dariivka, prosecutor's office photo

Russian troops attacked Darivka in Kherson Oblast  overnight on 30 November, as a result of which a dozen residential buildings, a kindergarten, and a hospital were damaged, and four people were injured.

Source: Kherson Оblast Military Аdministration

Quote: "At midnight, the Russian army attacked Darivka. Enemy fire damaged a dozen residential buildings, a kindergarten, and a hospital. Four local residents were injured in their own homes. 

A 59-year-old man and a 75-year-old woman were taken to the hospital by ambulance. Doctors assess their condition as moderate. Two other women, aged 75 and 66, received medical assistance on the spot. They refused to be hospitalised."

Details: According to the investigation, Russian forces targeted the village of Darivka in Kherson Oblast, most likely with guided bombs.  


The prosecutor's office published a photo from the scene.



Under the procedural leadership of the Oleshkiv District Prosecutor's Office of Kherson Oblast, a pre-trial investigation was launched in criminal proceedings on the fact of violation of laws and customs of war (Article 438.1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).

Russian drone attacks policemen in Kherson Oblast, injuring two people

Two policemen have been injured on 30 November due to a Russian drone attack on Kherson Oblast.

• On 30 November, the Russians had already struck Kherson Oblast with artillery, killing three people in the village of Sadove. In Beryslav district, three residents of the village of Tiahynka were injured as a result of a Russian attack.
  

Court rules to seize $1.5 mln in cryptocurrency found during search at ex-head of Special Communications Service

Abducted girl "adopted" by Russian politician has brother, his location unknown

1-year-old Marharyta Prokopenko, deported to Russia during the occupation of the city of Kherson, has a 6-year-old sister and a 3-year-old brother. The location of the latter is unknown.

Closing Summary

• One person was killed and 10 were wounded, while four appeared to be trapped under rubble following Russian missile attacks in the Donetsk region.
  
  
• Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s presence at a meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in North Macedonia fuelled controversy.
  
  
• A number of delegates walked out of the room while the Russian minister spoke.
  
  
• Lavrov accused the west of killing the OSCE.
  
  
• Hungary’s foreign minister Péter Szijjártó met with Lavrov, despite European qualms about the Russian minister’s presence.
  
  
• Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that he discussed defence cooperation and the situation in the battlefield with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz. He also spoke with British prime minister Rishi Sunak.
  
  
• Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said troops’ most urgent needs at the moment are electronic warfare equipment, drones and protection against UAVs.
  
  
• The European Council president, Charles Michel, called for a defence union, underscoring the need to both continue supporting Ukraine and ensuring Europe’s own security.
  
  
• The European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, underlined the importance of sustained aid to Ukraine, calling for “strategic responsibility”.