An Iranian-made drone flies over Kyiv, Ukraine during a Russian attack, October 17, 2022 (Sergei Supinsky/AFP)


Monday’s Coverage: International Criticism of Putin’s Nuclear Bluster


Map: Institute for the Study of War


UPDATE DATE 1357 GMT:

Russian authorities have condemned a man to two years in a penal colony because of pictures by his 12-year-old daughter.

Alexei Moskalyov, a single parent from the town of Yefremov, was convicted on Tuesday of discrediting the armed forces.

Maria Moskalyov depicted Moscow’s bombing of a family standing under a Ukrainian flag and another with the slogan “Glory to Ukraine!”.

Alexei Moskalyov, 54, was separated from his daughter Maria when he was placed under house arrest and she was taken into a State shelter last month.

He has also been fined about $430 for an online post online in which he portrayed the Russian army as “rapists”, after revelations of war crimes committed against Ukrainian civilians last spring in Bucha in northern Ukraine.

Court officials said Alexei fled house arrest overnight, and was not present for the outcome of his trial. His lawyer said he will file an appeal while Maria remains in the shelter.


UPDATE 1350 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has visited the Sumy region in northern region.

Russian forces withdrew from the region last spring. Zelenskiy met officials and residents in the city of Okhtyrka, which withstood Moscow’s assault, and Trostianets, which was occupied for a month.

Zelenskiy told the crowd in Okhtyrka, “We won’t let any wound remain on the body of our state.”

In the past week, the President has also visited the frontline near Bakhmut, in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, and the Zaporizhzhia region in the south of the country.


UPDATE 0847 GMT:

Russian forces have shelled a hospital in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine.

The hospital suffered at least five explosions about 4 a.m., with almost all the windows knocked out on one side of the building.

Russian rockets damaged a kindergarten and school in Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region on Monday night.

Six houses and a non-residential building were also damaged. No casualties were reported.

Earlier in the day, two civilians were killed and 36 wounded in nearby Slovyansk by Russian missiles.


UPDATE 0801 GMT:

Ukraine’s military has revised the earlier report of Kyiv officials, saying 12 of 13 Russian drones were downed over the capital.

Three Iran-made Shahed drones were intercepted over the Dnipropetrovsk region in south-central Ukraine.

A “private enterprise” was set alight by debris, starting a fire over 4000 square meters.


UPDATE 0740 GMT:

UK military intelligence confirms that Russia’s conventional forces have shifted their focus in eastern Ukraine from Bakhmut — failing to take all of the city in a 10-month assault — to Avdiivka, 90 km (56 miles) to the south.

However, Russian forces have made only marginal progress at the cost of heavy losses in armoured vehicles.

The analysts say Russia’s 10th Tank Regiment has likely lost a “large portion of its tanks”, while failing so far to surround the town from the south.

The regiment is part of the 3rd Army Corps, the first major formation mobilized by Russia since August 2022. After a training in Belarus, the formation — “particularly dogged by problems with ill discipline and poor morale” — “appears to display limited combat effectiveness”.


UPDATE 0732 GMT:

Germany’s Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has confirmed the delivery of 18 Leopard 2 battle tanks, along with 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles, at the Ukrainian border on Monday.

Ukraine Defense Ministry spokesperson Iryna Zolotar said UK Challenger tanks have also arrived.

Ukraine Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said he had inspected the Challengers, the Marder infantry fighting vehicles, and Cougar armored trucks and Stryker armored personnel carriers from the US.


UPDATE 0714 GMT:

The UN Security Council has rebuffed Russia’s public-relations call for another investigation of the September explosions that damaged the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea.

Of the 15 Security Council members, only China and Brazil supported Moscow.

US Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood noted that investigations by Sweden, Denmark and Germany “are proceeding in a comprehensive, transparent, and impartial manner”.

This was an attempt to discredit the work of ongoing national investigations and prejudice any conclusions they reached that do not comport to Russia’s predetermined and political narrative. It was not an attempt to seek the truth.

No responsibility for the explosions has been established yet.


ORIGINAL ENTRY: Officials in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv say air defenses have downed all 13 Iran-made drones in Russia’s latest attack.

Mayor Vitaly Klitschko siad a shop was set on fire by falling debris in the west of the city, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Russia has carried out almost 20 waves of missile and drone attacks against energy infrastructure and civilian sites since October 10; however, they have had diminishing effect as Moscow’s stocks have dwindled. While half of Ukraine’s power grid was knocked out at one point, the country has come through the winter with the damage repaired. Three weeks ago, lights were on at night in Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv for the first time since the Russian invasion.