Ukraine Daily

Monday, November 7

Russia’s war against Ukraine

A howitzer, belonging to a Ukrainian artillery battery attached to the 59th Mechanized Brigade, shoots at a Russian target in Kherson Oblast on Nov. 5, 2022. (Photo by Metin Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Zelensky: More than 4.5 million people have no access to electricity due to Russian attacks. In a video address, President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the most difficult situation is currently in Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast. “Whatever the terrorists want, we must survive this winter and become even stronger in the spring,” Zelensky said.

Kyiv to have emergency blackouts on Nov. 7 due to shortage of electricity. Serhiy Kovalenko, CEO of energy supplier Yasno, said that the electricity shortages would be 32% more than expected. “It’s a lot and it’s a force majeure,” he said. Blackouts will be longer than outlined in the official blackout schedules for Nov. 7, and outages can start “from the morning,“ he said.

UK intelligence: Russia changes commander of its largest military district. Commander of Russia’s Central Military District Colonel General Alexander Lapin has been replaced with Major General Alexander Linkov, the U.K. Defense Ministry said in its intelligence briefing on Nov. 6. “If confirmed, this follows a series of dismissals of senior Russian military commanders since the onset of the invasion in February 2022,” the ministry wrote.

ISW: Kremlin officials collectively begin to deescalate their rhetoric regarding nuclear weapons use. The Institute for the Study of War said in its latest assessment that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and key Kremlin officials had initially increased their references to the use of nuclear weapons from Putin’s Sept. 30 annexation speech and throughout October, likely to pressure Ukraine into negotiations and to reduce Western support for Kyiv.

US official: Iran’s claim that it didn’t supply drones to Russia after Feb. 24 is false. Robert Malley, the U.S. special envoy for Iran, said that Iran had supplied dozens of combat drones to Russia during this summer. On Nov. 5, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian acknowledged for the first time that his country had provided drones to Russia but claimed that it happened before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Prosecutors open 10 cases against Russia’s ‘ecocide’ in Ukraine. According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, the list of ecocide crimes includes damage caused to a nuclear research facility in the city of Kharkiv in June, attacks on oil depots, as well as the killing of 800,000 chickens by Russian troops in late October at a farm in the city of Svyatohirsk in Donetsk Oblast. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russia has caused more than $37.5 billion worth of damage to Ukraine’s environment, according to Ukraine’s Audit Chamber.

Accounting Chamber: Russia’s damage to Ukrainian soil, air, forests worth at least $37 billion. The Russian all-out invasion has caused more than $37.4 billion worth of damage to Ukraine’s environment, according to the Accounting Chamber. Almost one-third of Ukrainian forests – three million hectares – has already been affected; some of the forests are lost forever, the government agency wrote. “Russia has also turned our fertile black soil into the world’s most contaminated with explosive materials land,” it stated.

Russian forces deport residents from six settlements in occupied parts of Kherson Oblast. Starting on Nov. 6, Russians have begun to forcibly “evacuate” residents of Hola Prystan, Oleshky, Kakhovka, Hornostaivka, Velyka Lepetykha, and Verkhnii Rohachyk settlements, according to the National Resistance Center. Russians are now actively setting up a defense line in the region while putting soldiers in stolen houses, where they resort to looting, the center reported.

Ministry: Russia damaged over 1,000 hospitals since Feb. 24. Russian forces damaged 1,100 medical facilities and destroyed 144 of them over the course of the nine-month-long full-scale invasion, the Health Ministry reported on Nov. 6.

Russian mercenary group Wagner to create paramilitary training centers near Ukraine’s border. Yevgeny Prigozhin, close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said the so-called “training centers“ located in the Kursk and Belgorod regions northeast of Ukraine’s border should consist of residents of these regions.

Read our exclusives here

Ukraine war latest: Major power outage reported in occupied Kherson as Ukraine braces for new strikes.

According to the Center for National Resistance, Russians have begun to forcibly “evacuate” residents of six settlements located along the left bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Oblast.

Photo: Ed Ram/Getty Images

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The human cost of Russia’s war

Russia shells Sumy Oblast, kills 1. Russian forces shelled the Vorozhba settlement 72 times on Nov. 6, killing a 62-year-old woman and wounding another, according to Sumy Oblast Governor Dmytro Zhyvytskyi. Russian shellings hit residential buildings, damaging three houses and three apartments.

Governor: Russian forces killed 1, injured 3 civilians in Donetsk Oblast. In the past 24 hours, Russian troops have killed one and injured two civilians in Toretsk, according to Donetsk Oblast Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko. One civilian has also been injured in Bakhmut, where the Ukrainian military is fighting with Russia.

General Staff: Russia has lost 75,930 troops in Ukraine since Feb. 24. Ukraine’s General Staff reported on Nov. 6 that Russia had also lost 2,765 tanks, 5,611 armored fighting vehicles, 4,191 vehicles and fuel tanks, 1,781 artillery systems, 391 multiple launch rocket systems, 202 air defense systems, 277 airplanes, 260 helicopters, 1,465 drones, and 16 boats.

International response

EU Commission to propose monthly package of up to 1.5 billion euros to Ukraine for 2023. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told President Volodymyr Zelensky the support would contribute to covering Ukraine’s needs in 2023. The package, totalling up to 18 billion euros, will cover part of the country’s state deficit through long-term loans.

In other news

Ukrainian boy killed in bus accident in Poland. A minibus with six Ukrainian citizens overturned on Nov. 5 as the driver lost control while trying to overtake a truck near the Polish city of Tarnow on the way to Rzeszow. The mother of the 13-year-old boy who died in the accident and a 6-year-old child were hospitalized with serious injuries.

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Today’s Ukraine Daily was brought to you by Denys Krasnikov, Alexander Khrebet, Oleksiy Sorokin, Alexander Query, Oleg Sukhov, Brad LaFoy, Natalia Datskevych, and Olena Goncharova.

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