Firefighters battle a blaze in a building hit by a Russian missile, Dnipro, Ukraine, November 21, 2024

Thursday’s Coverage: Zelensky — “We Will Not Recognize Any Occupied Territory as Russian”

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1711 GMT:

The Ukraine Prosecutor General’s Office says Russian forces shot dead five Ukrainian troops in the latest mass execution of prisoners of war.

The soldiers were captured and killed on October 2 on the outskirts of Vuhledar, a town in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine overrun by the Russians.

Senior prosecutor Taras Semkiv said a war crimes investigation has been launched.

The Prosecutor General’s Office says it has documented the execution of more than 100 POWs during Russia’s 33-month invasion.

UPDATE 1701 GMT:

Russia has sent air defense missiles and other military technology to North Korea in return for the deployment of North Korean troops propping up the invasion of Ukraine, say South Korean intelligence officials.

South Korea’s top security adviser, Shin Won-sik, told the broadcaster SBS, “It has been identified that equipment and anti-aircraft missiles aimed at reinforcing Pyongyang’s vulnerable air-defence system have been delivered to North Korea.”

North Korea also received “various forms of economic support” and may have acquired Russian technology for its spy satellite programme, Shin said.

Russia is estimated to have supplied North Korea with more than a million barrels of oil since March, according to satellite imagery analysis from the UK-based Open Source Centre.

UN sanctions ban countries from selling oil to North Korea, except in small quantities.

UPDATE 1653 GMT:

The US has imposed sanctions on Russia’s Gazprombank, preventing the State-controlled lender from carrying out any new energy-related transactions that include the US financial system.

The US also cited 50 other Russian banks and the Bank of Russia’s System for Transfer of Financial Messages.

Hungary and Slovakia, who have long-term contracts with Russian energy company Gazprom, are studying the changes.

“EU payments for energy resources through Gazprombank will likely become impossible at the end of 2024,” assess Sinara Investment Bank analysts.

The sanctions have a wind-down period for transactions involving Gazprombank until December 20 and for those related to the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project in far eastern Russia until June 28, 2025.

The US has authorized transactions related to energy with certain exceptions for a dozen Russian financial institutions until April 30, 2025.

UPDATE 1641 GMT:

While attention has been focused on US and UK permission for Ukraine to carry out missile strikes inside Russia, British military intelligence has cited the key development of Ukrainian drone attacks against Russian military targets.

The analysts assess:

Over 1,000 days into the conflict, Russia’s Aerospace Forces, despite technological and numerical advantage have failed to gain air superiority over Ukraine.

In mid and late September Ukraine struck four Russian strategic ammunition depots hundreds of kilometres from Ukraine. The total tonnage of ammunition destroyed across the sites represents the largest loss of Russian and North Korean supplied ammunition during the war.

The attacks again highlight Russia’s inability to protect strategic military sites from Ukrainian UAV attack.

UPDATE 1032 GMT:

China has responded to Russia’s attack on Ukraine with an experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said, “All parties should remain calm and exercise restraint, work to de-escalate the situation through dialogue and consultation, and create conditions for an early ceasefire.”

The spokesperson added, “China’s position on the Ukraine issue has been consistent and clear, advocating for resolving the crisis through political means and avoiding an escalation of the situation.”

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Russia’s use of the IRBM shows “how dangerous this war is”: “That Putin has now also used a medium-range missile to strike Ukrainian territory is a terrible escalation.”

UPDATE 0620 GMT:

A high-ranking North Korean general was wounded in a recent Ukrainian missile strike on Russia’s Kursk region, sources have told the Wall Street Journal.

On Wednesday, Ukraine — using a UK-made Storm Shadow missile for the first time inside Russia — reportedly hit a command headquarters in Kursk, part of which has been held by Kyiv since August 6.

The general’s identity and the extent of the injury were not disclosed.

UPDATE 0615 GMT:

Two civilians have been killed and 12 injured by an overnight Russian drone strike on Sumy city in northern Ukraine.

Rescue operations were ongoing as of 7 a.m.

Twelve apartment buildings, five private residences, a store, and three cars were damaged by the three drones.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Trying to unsettle Kyiv’s international backers, Vladimir Putin has fired an “experimental” intermediate-range ballistic missile on Dnipro in south-central Ukraine.

In a televised address hours after the attack on Thursday morning, Putin declared that the Oreshnik, capable of carrying nuclear warheads, was launched at a military site as “a response to US plans to produce and deploy intermediate and short-range missiles”. He proclaimed that Moscow “had the right” to strike western countries provided Ukraine with weapons used against Russian targets.

Earlier this week the US lifted its ban on Ukraine using American-made ATACMS missiles inside Russia. An ATACMS struck a munition depot in the Bryansk region on Monday.

On Wednesday, Ukrainian and UK officials confirmed that a British-made Storm Shadow was used for the first time on Russian territory, striking a command headquarters in the Kursk region.

Putin threatened, “Russia reserves the right to use weapons against targets in countries that permit their weapons to be used against Russian targets.”

The IRBM was fired from the Astrakhan region in southern Russia, travelling about 500 miles, alongside a Kinzhal hypersonic missile and seven Kh-101 cruise missiles aimed at Dnipro between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. Six of the Kh-101s were intercepted by Ukraine’s air force.

Video showed strikes in multiple flashes. The Ukraine Air Force said the Oreshnik hit “without consequences”.

The attack damaged a rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, an industrial enterprise, two houses, and nine garages. Two civilians were injured, and one was hospitalized.

US and UK officials noted that Russia has only a “handful” of the Oreshniks.

A US official said Moscow, fulfilling a treaty commitment, notified Washington in advance of the launch to prevent retaliation. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said a 30-minute notice was given through the US’s Nuclear Threat Reduction Center.

Zelensky: “Putin Is So Afraid”

Ukrainian officials initially suspected that Russia had fired an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time in its 33-month invasion. Western officials subsequently said an IRBM had been used.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said:

[Putin] is so afraid that he is already using new missiles. And he is looking around the world for other places to find weapons: now in Iran, now in North Korea.

It is obvious that Putin is using Ukraine as a training ground. It is obvious that Putin is afraid when there is simply a normal life around him. When people just have dignity. When the country simply wants to be and has the right to be independent.

After Putin’s address, Zelenskiy spoke of “a clear and severe escalation in the scale and brutality of this war — a cynical violation of the UN Charter”, following the deployment of around 11,000 North Korean troops in the Kursk region in western Russia.

He noted that Putin took both steps “while ignoring everyone in the world who is calling for no further expansion of the war”, including China and Brazil.

Putin is not only prolonging the war — he is spitting in the face of those in the world who genuinely want peace to be restored….

Putin must feel the cost of his deranged ambitions. Response is needed. Pressure is needed. Russia must be forced into real peace, which can only be achieved through strength. Otherwise, there will be endless Russian strikes, threats, and destabilization—not just against Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, postponed its sitting on Friday “for reasons of potential security issues”. The next session was not scheduled until December, and legislators were advised to keep their families out of Kyiv’s government district.

UN Head: “Worrying Development”

The spokesperson for UN Secretary General António Guterres spoke o “yet another concerning and worrying development”.

Stéphane Dujarric said, “All of this [is] going in the wrong direction.” He called on all parties to de-escalate and “to protect civilians, not hit civilian targets or critical civilian infrastructure”.

NATO spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah noted “yet another example of Russia’s attacks against Ukrainian cities”: “Deploying this capability will neither change the course of the conflict nor deter Nato Allies from supporting Ukraine.”

The US Ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, posted: