At least 14 people have been killed and 57 others injured in Russian attacks carried out over the past 24 hours in several regions of Ukraine. This was reported by the Kyiv Independent, citing local authorities. The Odessa region was particularly affected, where Russian forces conducted what governor Oleg Kiper called a "massive attack".
Overnight, Russia launched a total of 170 attack drones of the Shahed type: 147 were shot down or neutralized by Ukrainian defenses. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the attacks hit residential buildings, energy infrastructure and other civilian facilities in the Odessa, Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv, Kherson, Poltava, Zhytomyr and Kiev regions.
Furthermore, during the night, Russian forces attacked a ship in the Black Sea bound for Odessa with military equipment and dual-use goods for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. This was reported by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Russian Presidents Vladimir Putin and American President Donald Trump could meet on the sidelines of the Apec summit, scheduled for November 18 and 19 in Shenzhen, China. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov stated this on Russian public television.
For further information:
What is the Gerbera drone with which Russia could hit Italy and how does it work
What does the US-Russia peace plan include?
Ukrainian war, Zelensky at the UN: "Putin must be stopped, sanctions strengthen us"
What we know about NATO's "Sentilla dell'Est" operation
Tomahawk, how the missiles that could change the war in Ukraine work
From Bucha to Kramatorsk, up to the pediatric hospital in Kiev: the worst massacres of civilians
Tactical nuclear weapons: what they are, the differences with strategic ones, the effects
Contributions from our correspondent in Ukraine
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Humanitarian crisis in the Ukrainian town occupied by Russian forces since 2022 on the left bank of the Dnipro Oleshky (Alyoshki in Russian), opposite Kherson, from which it is only nine kilometers as the crow flies. The bridge connecting the two cities is closed. The inhabitants who were unable to leave during these years of war, at least 1,500, including around forty children (according to Kiev sources) are without food, water, gas, electricity and adequate medical care. They can't even bury the dead. The last grocery store closed in January, the last supply of food dates back to the end of May. Ambulances no longer respond to calls. Serious patients cannot be transferred to hospitals in other locations. The local hospital, long seen as the last refuge, remains open, but is out of medicine and fuel for generators and has started to stop accepting patients in recent days. The streets of Oleshky and its surroundings - around 4 thousand other people live in the villages, including 150 children - are mined, drones fly over the area and it is not even known which of the two parties they belong to, according to a complaint by Human Rights Watch. It is an isolated outpost and the Russian forces, the Ukrainians denounce, refuse to open humanitarian corridors towards the unoccupied Ukrainian territories. Before the war, about 40 thousand people lived in Oleshky and the surrounding villages. The UN coordinator for Ukraine, Matthias Schmale, announced yesterday that he had received information about a difficult humanitarian situation in Oleshkya. “International law includes the obligation of the United Nations to provide food and medical care to civilians and, when necessary, humanitarian assistance,” he said, adding that Ukrainian authorities have asked the UN to provide humanitarian assistance. However, he added, Russia refuses to guarantee safe access to humanitarian organizations, including the UN. Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Michael O'Flaherty on Friday called for a local ceasefire, unrestricted humanitarian access and the safe evacuation of civilians from Oleshky, also reminding him that the responsibility for civilians living in occupied territory lies with the occupier. The situation is denounced as critical both by the Ukrainians, who began raising the alarm last spring, and, since last August, also by the Russians. In recent days even the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, spoke of the situation in the city as critical. “The regime in Kiev is doing everything possible to prevent supplies and Russian forces continue to operate to resolve the situation,” he said.
Ukraine and Russia discussed the Oleshly crisis on May 15. But since then, the Ukrainians continue to wait for a response from the Russians with authorization to displace civilians and send humanitarian aid. "It's a humanitarian catastrophe", Tetiana Hasanenko, the displaced mayor of Oleshky, reported to the Kyiv Independent last April. "If something isn't done, people will die of hunger. It's not possible to leave, no food supplies are arriving," testified Anna, a resident of Oleshky who managed to escape, in an interview with Meduza.
It's also difficult to talk to residents. Some people go months without contact. Those who manage to charge a phone with generators or find the line to send a message or talk on the phone complain about the shortage of food. People resort to bartering and this summer they lived with what grew in the gardens, but they are starting to eat dogs, as a resident testified to Ukrainskaia Pravda. Winter will be a tragedy. Those who feel up to it go by bike or on foot to the village of Radensk, 20 kilometers further from the front and better supplied. But the path is dangerous. Even the Russian soldiers left to guard this outpost are without food and take it from residents who leave signs outside their homes reading: "there is no food". They do not allow residents to bury those killed in bombings. They want to bring the corpses to Henichesk to certify that they were killed by the Ukrainians. The bodies are stored in the hospital cellars, after the morgue was closed. Since May, bodies have been piling up. There will be a hundred of them.
Russian Presidents Vladimir Putin and American President Donald Trump could meet on the sidelines of the Apec summit, scheduled for November 18 and 19 in Shenzhen, China. Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov stated this on Russian public television. “It will be a good opportunity for leaders to meet, one way or another, on the sidelines of the summit,” he said. Peskov explained that Putin is currently expected to participate in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum summit, where the Russian president has already agreed to a meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. However, the spokesperson did not confirm the hypothesis of a three-way summit between Russia, China and the United States. "It is difficult to say whether it will be a trilateral meeting or whether bilateral meetings will be held," he specified. However, the decision on Putin's participation in the G20 scheduled for December in Florida remains open. "That decision has not yet been taken. The circumstances need to be assessed. In any case, Russia will actively participate in the work of the G20," Peskov said. In recent days the spokesperson had thanked the White House for the invitation, however judging it "premature" to provide a definitive answer. Even US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, after a meeting in New York with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, had evoked a possible conversation between Trump and Putin at the end of the year, on the sidelines of the G20, calling it "a new opportunity for the two leaders to talk".
"Cardinal Matteo Zuppi is always welcome in Moscow". Thus the Russian ambassador to the Holy See, Ivan Soltanovsky, in an interview on Avvenire, on the eve of the Archbishop of Bologna's new trip to Russia. Zuppi's third visit to Moscow begins tomorrow and he will be in the city from today. Three days of meetings and talks which will end on Wednesday, reports the CEI newspaper, and which arrive after the July visit to Ukraine where the cardinal had also entered a Russian army prison camp and where he had received the request to do the same in Russia to verify the conditions of those captured by the Kremlin military. The Russian ambassador to the Holy See Soltanovsky observes in Avvenire that humanitarian diplomacy "has produced concrete results", recalling the exchange between prisoners of war favored by the mediation of the Pope's envoy. Now work is being done on the exchange between civilian prisoners. "This is a new topic and it is still difficult to say what developments it may have. In-depth work will be necessary to establish precisely who falls into this category. Based on the lists received so far, it is still difficult to evaluate to what extent such exchanges will be possible", says the ambassador. Finally, Soltanovsky supports the words of the Pope who condemned the rearmament of Europe which EU leaders justify by also recalling the Russian "threat". "The rearmament of Europe is a dangerous process and is, unfortunately, also the result of the complete absence of dialogue between Russia and EU countries - underlines the diplomat -. We observe that a part of the European elite tries to rearm not only the countries, but also the minds and hearts of Europeans experiencing serious economic problems. It is precisely these forces that are sabotaging the peace process in Ukraine".
"Cardinal Matteo Zuppi is always welcome in Moscow". The Russian ambassador to the Holy See, Ivan Soltanovsky, told Avvenire on the eve of the Archbishop of Bologna's new trip to Russia. Zuppi's third visit to Moscow begins tomorrow - the CEI newspaper reports - and he will be in the city from today. Three days of meetings and talks which will end on Wednesday and come after the July visit to Ukraine where the cardinal had also entered a Russian army prison camp and where he had received the request to do the same in Russia to verify the conditions of those captured by the Kremlin military. The Russian ambassador, in his conversation with Avvenire, speaks of the work carried out by Zuppi for the liberation and exchange of prisoners: "Every time an agreement is reached, it is a result of great importance, which we naturally welcome. We are very grateful to Cardinal Zuppi for his contribution". As for the exchange of civilian prisoners, "it is a new topic and it is still difficult to say what developments it may have. In-depth work will be necessary to establish precisely who falls into this category. Based on the lists received so far, it is still difficult to evaluate to what extent such exchanges will be possible", says the diplomat. Finally, for Soltanovsky "the rearmament of Europe is a dangerous process and is, unfortunately, also the result of the complete absence of dialogue between Russia and EU countries. We observe that a part of the European elites tries to rearm not only the countries, but also the minds and hearts of Europeans experiencing serious economic problems. It is precisely these forces that sabotage the peace process in Ukraine".
