Here is the situation on Friday, November 15:
Fighting
- A Russian air attack struck a residential building and power installations in and near Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa, killing one person, injuring eight and knocking out a boiler plant used for heating, Ukrainian officials have said.
- A small Russian assault group briefly broke through to the outskirts of Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kupiansk for the first time since September 2022, in a sign of mounting pressure on the Ukrainian outpost. Ukraine’s military said its troops were still in full control of the rail hub and their forces had stopped the Russian advance.
- Russian forces have captured the village of Voznesenka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defence.
- The Ukrainian military has said it shot down 21 out of 59 Russian attack drones launched overnight on Thursday.
Russian affairs
- A military court in Moscow has sentenced a 43-year-old woman, Anastasia Berezhinskaya, to eight years in a penal colony for posting antiwar comments online, including several calling for the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
International affairs
- Russia is open to negotiations to end the Ukraine war if initiated by United States President-elect Donald Trump, but any talks need to be based on the realities of Russian advances in the conflict, according to Gennady Gatilov, Moscow’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva.
- Trump has chosen Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman who lacks security and intelligence experience and is seen as soft on Russia and Syria, as the US’s new director of national intelligence. The decision has sent shockwaves through the national security establishment given the 43-year-old is seen as sympathetic to Russia in its war on Ukraine.
- Germany needs to step up its role in defence if the US focuses less on Europe, the country’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has said, adding it did not make sense to present a debt-free Germany that is less capable of defending itself to President Putin.
- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un guided a test of suicide drones and ordered mass production of the aerial weapon, raising questions as to whether he is receiving technical help from Russia to develop the weapons amid warming military ties with Moscow.
- The foreign ministers of Poland, France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Ukraine will meet on November 19 in Poland’s capital Warsaw to discuss topics including Trump’s re-election and the war in Ukraine.
- President Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed developments in the conflict in Ukraine when they spoke this week, the Kremlin has said, declining to provide further details.
