Russian forces have ramped up attacks in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to gain ground near two key front line cities, Ukrainian military officials have said. In a report by Associated Press, the head of Ukraine’s ground forces, said that Russian troops had begun a push to regain territory near Bakhmut. The eastern mining city was the site of the war’s bloodiest battle before falling into Russian hands in May.
Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote on Telegram on Sunday afternoon: “Toward Bakhmut, the Russians have become more active and are trying to recapture previously lost positions. ... Enemy attacks are being repelled.”
A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said on Sunday that Russian forces over the previous day repelled five Ukrainian attacks near Klischiivka and Kurdyumivka, two small settlements lying south of Bakhmut.
Russia has accused Kyiv of attacks on border regions. On Sunday, Russia said there had been a series of attacks in the border regions of Bryansk and Belgorod, damaging five train carriages and causing one injury.
According to a report by Agence France-Presse, Moscow said it would open an investigation into a Ukrainian strike which injured a civilian in a village on the Ukrainian border, without giving more specifics.
The governor of Belgorod, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said that drones and missiles had targeted several areas in the region on Saturday. He said that in most cases they had not caused damage, but three houses and “five railway carriages were damaged” in the town of Valuyki some 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the Ukrainian border. Gladkov also said that power lines were hit, temporarily cutting off electricity.
Overnight, Russia’s defence ministry said it had destroyed two Ukrainian drones in the region, preventing what it called attempts at a “terrorist attack”, said AFP.
Kyiv also said that a strike by Moscow caused the death of a 64-year-old man in the southern region of Kherson, and injured his wife.
Ukrainian officials hailed the anniversary of the recapture of Kherson city on Saturday, the regional capital liberated a year ago in the last major frontline shift but which remains a target of Russian shelling.
Ukrainian refugees returning from Israel, have spoken of their struggle, saying they had left “one war for another”. Agence France-Presse report:
Tetiana Kocheva fled her home in Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv after Russia invaded last year, taking refuge in Israel’s coastal town of Ashkelon, near Gaza.
Her husband had worked in Israel in the past, and she thought taking their three children there - away from Russian attacks - would guarantee living in peace.
But then came 7 October, when Hamas attacked Israel, leading to a war that has since killed thousands.
Like several thousand other Ukrainian refugees, Kocheva fled war for a second time. “If I am killed then at least it’s on my native land,” the 39-year-old said.
In the capital Kyiv, Anna Lyashko and her eight-year-old daughter Diana were also back from Israel. They had fled to Israel in the first weeks of Russia’s invasion in March last year.
They had been living close to areas of the Kyiv region that fell to Russian forces early in their attack, living without “electricity, water or communication”, the 28-year-old mother said. “My daughter was very scared and I decided to leave,” she said.
Lyashko decided to take her daughter to Israel, where she had a relative. But when hostilities started in Israel last month, it brought her back to the day Russia invaded Ukraine. “My first feelings were the same as 24th of February (2022) in Ukraine,” she said.
“Someone called me in the morning and said ‘Anna, war has started’, it was exactly the same feeling I had in Ukraine.” She said her daughter had “fear in her eyes” and that she “understood that I could not stay”.
They flew out of Tel Aviv a week later, with the help of the Ukrainian embassy.
Summary of the day so far
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former leader, posted on Telegram today an apparent response to a proposal put forth by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former Nato secretary general, to have Ukraine join the alliance without its currently Russian-occupied territories. Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chair of Russia’s security council, used Russia’s oft-touted and inaccurate rhetoric that Ukraine is not a country, and therefore cannot join Nato.
Three Russian guard officers were killed in an explosion carried out by the local resistance in Russian-occupied Melitopol, Ukraine’s defence intelligence said today.
In Kyiv, veterans and family of Ukrainian servicemen held a rally calling for legislation regulating the length of active military duty in Ukraine.
Large elements of the Wagner mercenary group have likely been assimilated into the command structure of Russian national guard (Rosgvardiya), the UK defence ministry said in its daily intelligence briefing. The Wagner arm in the Rosgvardiya is likely being led by Pavel Prigozhin, son of the late Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a plane crash shortly after Wagner fighters captured the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and marched on Moscow – acts that Vladimir Putin declared “treason”.
A senior Ukrainian military official played a key role in the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea last year, according to a joint investigation by the Washington Post and Der Spiegel published Saturday. Roman Chervinsky, a colonel in Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, was the “coordinator” of the Nord Stream operation, people familiar with his role told the US and German newspapers.
Russian investigators have determined that the freight train that was derailed yesterday in Russia’s Ryazan oblast was caused by a homemade bomb on the railway line. Authorities have opened a terrorism investigation into the derailment. While Kyiv has not yet commented on the incident, but Russian officials have previously blamed pro-Ukrainian saboteurs for several attacks on the country’s railway system.
Three people were killed in Russian attacks on the Donetsk oblast overnight, acting regional governor Ihor Moroz said on Telegram. Two people were killed in Toretsk, wehre 30 houses, an infrastructure facility and an administrative building were damaged in Russian attacks. One person was killed in Minkivka.
A 64-year-old man was killed and his wife hospitalised this morning following the Russian shelling of Dnipro district of the city of Kherson, according to regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin.
Parts of city of Donetsk have lost power following two projectile strikes in the northwestern part of the city. It’s unclear if the strikes came from Ukrainian or Russian forces.
Russia has accused Kyiv of attacks on border regions. On Sunday, Russia said there had been a series of attacks in the border regions of Bryansk and Belgorod, damaging five train carriages and causing one injury.
Russian forces have ramped up attacks in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to gain ground near two key front line cities. The head of Ukraine’s ground forces, said that Russian troops had begun a push to regain territory near Bakhmut.
A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said on Sunday that Russian forces over the previous day repelled five Ukrainian attacks near Klischiivka and Kurdyumivka, two small settlements lying south of Bakhmut.
Updated
In Kyiv, veterans and family of Ukrainian servicemen held a rally calling for legislation regulating the length of active military duty in Ukraine.
Local resistance kills three Russian guard officers in Melitopol
Three Russian guard officers were killed in an explosion carried out by the local resistance in Russian-occupied Melitopol, Ukraine’s defence intelligence said today.
#ГУРінформує
— Defence intelligence of Ukraine (@DI_Ukraine) November 12, 2023
✔️ У Мелітополі внаслідок вибуху в штабі окупантів знищено офіцерів рф
💥 11 листопада 2023 року у тимчасово окупованому Мелітополі пролунав потужний вибух.
🔗 https://t.co/c2lrvCdvQx pic.twitter.com/jpwuEdkstv
The explosion went off yesterday at the premises of the “new post office”, which the local Russian administration has turned into their headquarters. At the time, Russian federal security service and Russian guard officers were having a meeting.
The Kremlin has not commented on the explosion as of yet.
Updated
Russian forces attacked the Kherson Oblast Regional Library overnight, causing significant damage to both the interior and exterior, said regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin.
“A fire was raging,” Prokudin said on Telegram. “People who live nearby are horrified to talk about what they experienced.”
This video shows the aftermath of the Kherson Oblast Regional Library, which was significantly damaged by Russian occupiers on the night of Nov. 12.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) November 12, 2023
📽️: Oleksandr Prokudin / Telegram pic.twitter.com/Q8rQGOBMAY
Russian forces have increased the number of airstrikes in the east, said general Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who leads Ukrainian troops fighting in and near Avdiivka in the Donetsk oblast.
In particular, Russian forces have increased the use of guided air bombs, Tarnavskyi said.
Medvedev: Ukraine is not a country, Zelenskiy is a 'usurper'
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former leader, posted on Telegram today an apparent response to a proposal put forth by Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former Nato secretary general, to have Ukraine join the alliance without its currently Russian-occupied territories.
Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chair of Russia’s security council, purported that it was basically an acknowledgment then that Crimea and Donbas were no longer Ukraine. “Not bad, but it’s important to move on,” he said. “We must admit that Odessa, Nikolaev, Kyiv, and practically everything else is not Ukraine at all.”
He claimed that there were three more steps “before admitting the obvious”: that Volodymyr Zelenskiy – “who does not go to the polls”, Medvedev said – is not the president but a usurper, the Ukrainian language is not a language and Ukraine is not a country “but artificially collected territories”.
Therefore, Ukraine, even without the Russian-occupied territories, cannot be accepted into Nato as it is not a country, reasoned Medvedev.
This inaccurate notion that Ukraine is not an independent country, but instead a historical part of Russia, has been repeated in the rhetoric of Russian leadership for some time now. Vladimir Putin said this at a Nato summit in 2008, and again in 2014 when justifying the illegal annexation of Crimea.
“In general, like the Russian propagandists have duly noted recently, they have nothing to lose already so they can say whaterver they want,” said Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs.
Medvedev (whom Russian themselves call "The Sarmat of thr Russian thought) has launched a new "missile" in his Telegram channel:
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) November 12, 2023
"We must admit that Odesa, Nikolaev, Kiev and practically everything else are not Ukraine at all.
After that there are only three steps until the… https://t.co/VjLB36aBRJ
Updated
Here are some of the latest images coming in from Ukraine via news agency wires:
Kremlin press secretary: 'It is impossible to defeat Russia'
Dmitry Peskov, press secretary for Vladimir Putin, said in a television interview that Kyiv needs to “understand that it is impossible to defeat Russia”.
According to Peskov, the West is growing tired of the war in Ukraine and is reluctant to send aid in the form of money, weapons and munitions. But Kyiv is ready to dance for the West to beg for aid, Peskov said.
Updated
Summary of the day so far
Large elements of the Wagner mercenary group have likely been assimilated into the command structure of Russian national guard (Rosgvardiya), the UK defence ministry said in its daily intelligence briefing. The Wagner arm in the Rosgvardiya is likely being led by Pavel Prigozhin, son of the late Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a plane crash shortly after Wagner fighters captured the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and marched on Moscow – acts that Vladimir Putin declared “treason”.
Russian investigators have determined that the freight train that was derailed yesterday in Russia’s Ryazan oblast was caused by a homemade bomb on the railway line. Authorities have opened a terrorism investigation into the derailment. While Kyiv has not yet commented on the incident, but Russian officials have previously blamed pro-Ukrainian saboteurs for several attacks on the country’s railway system.
Former Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen put forward a proposal for Ukraine to join the military alliance – but without the territories occupied by Russia. Rasmussen, who led Nato between 2009 and 2014, insisted that this partial membership plan would not represent a freezing of the conflict, but would instead mark a determination to warn Russia that it cannot prevent Ukraine joining the western defensive alliance.
A senior Ukrainian military official played a key role in the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea last year, according to a joint investigation by the Washington Post and Der Spiegel published Saturday. Roman Chervinsky, a colonel in Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, was the “coordinator” of the Nord Stream operation, people familiar with his role told the US and German newspapers.
Three people were killed in Russian attacks on the Donetsk oblast overnight, acting regional governor Ihor Moroz said on Telegram. Two people were killed in Toretsk, wehre 30 houses, an infrastructure facility and an administrative building were damaged in Russian attacks. One person was killed in Minkivka.
A 64-year-old man was killed and his wife hospitalised this morning following the Russian shelling of Dnipro district of the city of Kherson, according to regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin.
Parts of city of Donetsk have lost power following two projectile strikes in the northwestern part of the city. It’s unclear if the strikes came from Ukrainian or Russian forces.
Parts of city of Donetsk have lost power following two projectile strikes in the northwestern part of the city.
Alexey Kulemzin, the Russian-appointed mayor of Donetsk, said on Telegram that there are partial power outages in the Voroshylovskyi, Kyivskyi, Kirovskyi, Kuibyshivskyi, and Leninskyi districts.
Citizens are posting on social media that the power outages came shortly after two projectiles struck the northwestern part of the city. It’s unclear if the strikes came from Ukraine or Russia.
Three killed in Russian attacks on Donetsk oblast
Three people were killed in Russian attacks on the Donetsk oblast overnight, acting regional governor Ihor Moroz said on Telegram.
Two people were killed in Toretsk, wehre 30 houses, an infrastructure facility and an administrative building were damaged in Russian attacks. One person was killed in Minkivka.
Nikiforivka and Rozdolivka also came under fire overnight, with three houses and an industrial building sustaining damages in the Chasovoyarsk community.
Ocheretyne, Stepove, Berdychi, Novokalynove, Tonenka and Orlivka came under enemy fire, while Russian forces shelled Avdiyivka and Novomykhailivka, damaging two houses.
Authorities recorded eight Russian shellings in the Lymansk community, with one house in Siversk sustaining damages.
Report: Russian train derailment caused by explosive device
Reuters is reporting that Russian investigators have determined that the freight train that was derailed yesterday in Russia’s Ryazan oblast was caused by a homemade bomb on the railway line.
Authorities have opened a terrorism investigation into the derailment.
“According to the investigation, at 07:12 on November 11, 2023, an improvised explosive device exploded,” the investigative committee said. “As a result, 19 wagons of the freight train were derailed.”
Kyiv has not yet commented on the incident, but Russian officials have previously blamed pro-Ukrainian saboteurs for several attacks on the country’s railway system since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
💥Explosion near Ryazan: Russian services say it was an assassination attempt
— Belsat in English (@Belsat_Eng) November 11, 2023
The Russian Investigative Committee said an explosion was near Rybnoye station this morning. A freight train derailed - 19 cars were damaged pic.twitter.com/Zep3eNfHFM
Several buildings and electicity lines in Russia’s Belgorod oblast were damaged in Ukrainian attacks yesterday, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram.
Ukrainian forces launcehd three shells at the city of Valuyki, damaging three private households, five cars and a power line, as well as creating a crater between railroad tracks, Gladkov said. Power has since been restored to the area.
Ukrainian forces also launched an artillery shell at the village of Krasny Khutor, and Russian air defence shot down an unmanned aerial drone over the village of Dubovoe. A kamikaze drone struck the village of Solntsevka with electronic warfare, but there were no casualties or destruction reported.
There were also no casualties or damages following Ukrainian mortar fire on Starry village and the village of Mokraya Orlovka. The village of Repyakhovka also came under artillery fire, but no one was hurt and there were no damages.
Ukrainian forces launched five mortar shells at the village of Murom, three tank shells at the village of Sereda, four mortar and six artillery shells at the village of Terezovka, as well as 20 grenade launcher rounds. There were no casualties or destruction.
Two kamikaze drones struck the village of Belyanka was attacked with the help of two kamikaze drones and the outskirts of a farm in Lozovaya Rudka. While the attack damaged an excavator, there were no casualties.
Here are some of the latest images coming in from Ukraine via news agency wires:
Russian forces launched two mortar attacks overnight on the border areas and settlements of the Sumy oblast, the Sumy regional military administration said on Telegram.
The mortar attacks resulted in four explosions in Myropilsk and three explosions in Velikopysarivsk.
UK defence ministry: Wagner mercenaries likely serving in Russian national guard
Large elements of the Wagner mercenary group have likely been assimilated into the command structure of Russian national guard (Rosgvardiya), the UK defence ministry said in its daily intelligence briefing.
The Wagner arm in the Rosgvardiya is likely being led by Pavel Prigozhin, son of the late Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a plane crash shortly after Wagner fighters captured the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and marched on Moscow – acts that Vladimir Putin declared “treason”.
The UK has proscribed the Wagner group as a terrorist organisation.
Other groups of Wagner fighters have likely joined another Russian private military company, Redut, the UK defence ministry said, which has 7,000 personnel in total.
While the UK defence ministry believes that the Russian state is now exercising more control over Wagner group activities and its former personnel following the July 2023 mutiny, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has said that Wagner medics have joined Chechen Akhmat special forces. That’s in addition to the 170 fighers that have already joined Akhmat, Kadyrov said in October.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 12 November 2023.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) November 12, 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/5yy8Og2gg3
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/y7g7HRnSxx
Russian forces launched 87 strikes on 18 communities in the Zaporizhzhia oblast over the past day, Yuriy Malashko, head of the Zaporizhzhia regional military administration, said on Telegram.
Temyrivka and Novodarivka were hit with multiple launch rocket systems, while Zaliznychne, Charivne, Chervone and other communities sustained nine unmanned aerial drone attacks.
There were no casualties, but private homes and commercial buildings sustained damages.
Russian forces launched one missiles, 63 airstrikes, 64 multiple launch rocket system attacks yesterday, and engaged Ukrainian troops in 80 combat engagements, the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said in its morning briefing.
Overnight, Russian forces launched another missile and air strike on Ukraine, using two Kh-59 guided missiles and one Iskander-M ballistic missile. Ukrainian air defence were able to destroy one guided missile, but officials are still gathering information on casualties and damages.
Air strikes hit Chuikivka in the Sumy oblast; Kyslivka, Stepova Novoselivka, Kopanky, Petropavlivka in the Kharkiv oblast; the Serebryansky forest and Bilohorivka in the Luhansk oblast, Sivers’k, Spirne, Terny, Novobakhmutivka, Klishchiivka, Andriivka, Novokalynove, Ocheretyne, Avdiivka, Orlivka, Lastochkine, Heorhiivka, Mar’inka, Novomykhailivka, Katerynivka, Urozhaine, Staromaiorske and Shakhtarsk in the Donetsk oblast; Robotyne in the Zaporizhzhia oblast and Tyahinka in the Kherson oblast.
More than 120 settlements in Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Mykolayiv oblasts came under artillery fire.
Also yesterday, the Ukrainian Air Force launched 10 air strikes, hitting two Russian artillery systems, eight concentrations of Russian troops, weapons, and military equipment, and two Russian air defence systems.
Senior Ukrainian official involved in Nord Stream pipeline sabotage – reports
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
Former Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen put forward a proposal for Ukraine to join the military alliance – but without the territories occupied by Russia.
Rasmussen, who led Nato between 2009 and 2014, insisted that this partial membership plan would not represent a freezing of the conflict, but would instead mark a determination to warn Russia that it cannot prevent Ukraine joining the western defensive alliance.
Meanwhile, a 64-year-old man was killed and his wife hospitalised this morning following the Russian shelling of Dnipro district of the city of Kherson, according to regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin.
In other key developments:
A senior Ukrainian military official played a key role in the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea last year, according to a joint investigation by the Washington Post and Der Spiegel published Saturday. Roman Chervinsky, a colonel in Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, was the “coordinator” of the Nord Stream operation, people familiar with his role told the US and German newspapers.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition has agreed to double German military aid for Ukraine next year to 8 billion euros ($8.54 billion), Bloomberg News reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Lawmakers from Scholz’s Social Democrats, the Free Democrats and the Green party agreed on the increase in negotiations over the proposed 2024 federal budget this week, Bloomberg said.
Latvia’s president said Russia is planning for a long war in Ukraine and urged wavering allies to continue supplying military support to Kyiv or risk Moscow threatening other countries. In an interview with Associated Press, Edgars Rinkēvičs said it was “important to actually fight for international peace, and peace in Europe, because if we stop Russia in Ukraine, then Russia is not going to be able to challenge other countries.”
Russia on Saturday launched a missile attack on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and the surrounding region for the first time in more than seven weeks, Ukrainian officials said. Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv city military administration, said a Russian ballistic missile was launched toward the capital at about 8 am local time. “The missile failed to reach Kyiv, air defenders shot it down as it was approaching the capital,” he said, adding that there were no casualties or major damage.
Ukrainian border guards said they had retaken a village in the country’s northeast adjacent to the Russian border. Online video from Kharkiv region showed border guards raising the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag in Topoli village alongside the Russian border, without further explanation.
Russian authorities said Saturday they had launched a “terrorism” probe after the derailment of a goods train southwest of Moscow. An “improvised explosive device” caused the derailment of 19 of the train’s wagons in the Riazan region on Saturday, the state investigation committee said in a social media announcement. Russian authorities have yet to blame Ukraine for Saturday’s incident but several sabotage attempts have been made on Russian railways since the country started its offensive against Ukraine in February 2022 and Moscow has repeatedly accused Kyiv of responsibility.
In the east, military spokesperson Oleskandr Shtupun said Ukrainian troops had repelled 35 Russian assaults in and near Avdiivka, which has been under intense fire since mid-October. Shtupun told national television that 70% of air strikes in the east and south targeted Avdiivka. Officials in Avdiivka say they anticipate a new Russian push on the city once the ground dries up from days of heavy rain.
