Claimed image of Moscow’s troops raising the Russian flag on a building in Selydove, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, October 29, 2024
Tuesday’s Coverage: US — 10,000 North Korea Troops Deployed “Within Weeks” For Russia’s Invasion
UPDATE 1307 GMT:
At least four civilians have been killed and 41 injured by Russian attacks across Ukraine over the past day.
The fatalities were in the Donetsk region in the east and the Kherson region in the south.
Air defenses downed 33 of 62 Iran-type drones launched by Russia overnight. Another 23 were lost to electronic counter-measures.
In Kyiv, drone debris injured nine people, including a child. It damaged a multi-story residential building and started a fire.
UPDATE 1242 GMT:
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has criticized US officials for revealing “confidential information” from Kyiv.
Citing the officials, the New York Times said a request for Tomahawk missiles with a range of 2,400 km (1,500 miles) was part of the secret “non-nuclear deterrence package” in the Victory Plan presented by Zelenskiy this month.
The officials said the Biden Administration was unconvinced that Ukraine needed the weaponry and was reluctant to supply them due to limited numbers.
“It was confidential information between Ukraine and the White House. How to understand these messages?” Zelensky said during a press briefing with journalists from Nordic countries. “This means between partners, there is no [confidentiality].”
The President said Ukraine requested the missiles on the condition that it would deploy them only if Russia refused to end its invasion and de-escalate.
“I said that this is a preventive method. I was told that it is an escalation,” he summarized.
UPDATE 1212 GMT:
Russia has expanded its use of torture at home and abroad during the 32-month invasion of Ukraine, says Mariana Katzarova, the UN human rights monitor for Russia.
Katzarova said on Tuesday that Russia was employing torture as “a tool for stifling the civic space, for silencing all anti-war or dissidents, anybody who disagrees with the policies and the Russian authorities”.
Writing for The Guardian, Emma Graham-Harrison and Artem Mazhulin detail the sexual abuse of Ukrainian men by Russian troops.
The UN has recorded 236 incidents of sexual violence against men and two against boys in less than three years. They include “rape, attempted rape, threats of rape and castration, beatings or the administration of electric shocks to genitals, repeated forced nudity, and sexualized humiliation”.
UPDATE 0923 GMT:
Russia and Ukraine are in “preliminary discussions” on ending attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure, sources have told the Financial Times.
The sources, including senior Ukrainian officials, says Kyiv wants to resume Qatar-mediated negotiations that took place this summer. They were suspended by Ukraine’s cross-border incursion from August 6 into the Kursk region in western Russia.
The FT said both countries have scaled back attacks on energy infrastructure in recent weeks after an “understanding reached by their intelligence agencies”. However, until an agreement can be reached, Ukraine intends to maintain strikes on Russia’s facilities to pressure Moscow into further talks.
A “former senior Kremlin official” said Vladimir Putin is unlikely to agree to any deal “as long as the Ukrainians are trampling the land in Kursk”.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier this month that an agreement over energy infrastructure could pave the way for negotiations to end Russia’s 32-month invasion.
Four Ukrainian officials said the two countries reached a “tacit agreement” in autumn 2023 not to strike each other’s energy infrastructure. Moscow deemed the agreement to have been broken when Kyiv resumed strikes on Russian oil hubs in spring 2024.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has denied that it has been in negotiations with Kyiv.
ORIGINAL ENTRY: Russia’s 13-month offensive has breached Ukraine’s defensive lines in the Donetsk region in the east of the country.
Until recently, the Russians had made only limited gains at high cost to troops and equipment. But their advance has escalated with the capture of the town of Vuhledar, joining that of Avdiivka in February, and the threat to Toretsk and the logistics hub of Pokrovsk.
On Tuesday, analysts supported Russian claims that they had overrun the mining town of Selydove, around 18 km (10 miles) southeast of Pokrovsk.
Emil Kastehelmi, an analyst at the Finland-based Black Bird Group, summarized:
The city of Selydove is now most likely totally lost. There could be some Ukrainians in the western parts, but the city is basically lost.
Kastehelmi assessed that Moscow’s forces have advanced “faster than it has been any time after the summer of 2022”: “We’re looking at really large movements on the front lines, especially when put into the context of this whole full-scale invasion.”
The Ukrainian mapping site DeepState evaluated that Russia has taken 196.1 square km (75.7 square miles) from October 20 to 27.
“The Russian army has not had such a rapid weekly advance since at least the beginning of this year,” it concluded.
Having resisted the Russian invasion for 32 months, inflicting more than 600,000 casualties on Moscow’s forces and defeating Vladimir Putin’s plans to conquer all of the country, Ukraine is facing severe shortages of troops, artillery, and other weapons. The US is prohibiting Ukrainian long-range strikes inside Russia.
Ukraine will begin calling up another 160,000 people to serve in its military, the Secretary of the National Security Council, Oleksandr Lytvynenko, told Parliament on Tuesday. A security source said the conscription will take place over three months.
