Russia Ukraine war: Moscow admits breakthrough for Kyiv but troops face ‘hell fire’

The Russian military has pinned down Ukrainian forces who crossed onto the eastern bank of the River Dnipro in southern Ukraine and is raining “Hell fire” on them, Vladimir Saldo, a Russian-installed official, said on Wednesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff said on Tuesday that Ukrainian forces had secured a foothold on the east bank of the Dnipro River in the Kherson region.

A top Ukrainian official said its troops have established a beachhead on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River near Kherson, an important advance in bridging one of Russia‘s most significant strategic barriers in the war.

Andriy Yermak, head of the president’s office, provided no details but confirmed the development that has been widely discussed in military forums over the past month.

“Against all odds, Ukraine’s defense forces have gained a foothold on the left bank of the Dnieper,” Yermak told the Hudson Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, in a speech Monday.

One of five men convicted of killing a Russian journalist critical of the Kremlin has been pardoned halfway through his 20-year sentence after a stint fighting in the “special military operation” in Ukraine.

She was shot and killed in the elevator of her Moscow apartment block, triggering outrage at home and in the West.

Her death on 7 October, which is Putin’s birthday, led to suggestions the shooting was done to please the president.

NATO announced Wednesday it has opted to buy six new E-7A Wedgetail surveillance planes built by U.S. aircraft manufacturer Boeing as the 31-nation military alliance looks to update its eyes in the sky in coming years.

NATO’s fleet of 14 Airborne Warning and Control System, or AWACS, aircraft are outdated and expensive to maintain. But their large fuselage-mounted radar domes can detect aircraft hundreds of miles away and they remain useful to monitor Russia’s war on Ukraine from NATO’s eastern flank.

NATO said that production of the six new Wedgetails — a militarized version of the Boeing 737 jetliner — will begin “in coming years,” with the first planes expected to be ready for duty by 2031. No cost was provided for the planes, but based on U.S. and U.K. contract information the price could hit $5 billion.

The European Union’s executive said Wednesday it proposed to the member states a new package of sanctions targeting the Kremlin and its associates, seeking to tighten previous measures approved since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine as well as adding dozens of economic operators.

The proposal sets in motion final talks between the 27 member states to reach the necessary unanimity on the issue and officials have said they hope to have the 12th package operational by the end of the year.

Even though Wednesday’s statement did not go into details, preparatory talks centered on imposing export restrictions on Russia‘s lucrative diamond industry.

Ukraine said on Tuesday it had secured a foothold on the eastern bank of the Dnipro “against all odds”, in a potentially major setback for Russian occupation forces in the south where Kyiv is trying to open a new line of attack.

A Ukrainian military spokesperson said on Wednesday that Ukrainian troops were trying to push Russian forces back from the eastern bank of the river, which serves as a formidable natural barrier on the battlefield.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby on Wednesday told reporters that Mr Biden still wants Congress to move funding for Ukraine, Israel, defence needs in the Indo-Pacific and US border security in the single package which the president submitted on 20 October, the day after he delivered an Oval Office address in which he urged the US legislature to maintain “American leadership” in the world by supporting Ukraine and Israel in their defensive struggles against Russia and Hamas.

Kim Sengupta returns to Kamianka in eastern Ukraine – the scene of one of the most extraordinary exchanges he has witnessed during the 21-month war – to hear about the struggle to rebuild amid accusations of Russian collusion and vast destruction.

Russian oil tankers are not targeted in the European Commission’s proposal for tightening the implementation of a price cap on the country’s crude oil, EU diplomats said on Wednesday.

The Financial Times reported earlier on Wednesday that Denmark will be tasked with inspecting and potentially blocking Russian oil tankers sailing through its waters under new European Union plans as a way of enforcing a $60 per barrel price cap on Moscow’s crude.

The FT said that Denmark would target tankers carrying Russian oil that did not have Western insurance, a step that would hit Russian oil export income hard while snarling up the entire Russian oil production and refinery business.

“We have seen nothing about it in the Commission proposal,”one EU diplomatfamiliar with the Commission text said and two others confirmed they found no such reference in the proposal.

Russia sends about a third of its seaborne oil exports, or 1.5% of global supply, through the Danish straits so any attempt to halt those supplies would send oil prices higher and trigger a confrontation with Russia.

“We are almost halfway through November and we must be prepared for the possibility that the enemy may increase the number of drone or missile strikes against our infrastructure. Russia is preparing for winter,” the Ukrainian president said in his nightly address on Sunday.