According to Ukrainian sources, soldiers shot the musician because he did not want to conduct a concert for the Russian troops. The German weapon system Iris-T is already in use in Ukraine. All current reports on the war in Ukraine can be found here in the ticker.
12:23 p.m .: Ukraine has blamed the Russian army for further attacks on civilian targets. In Nikopol in the south of the country alone, more than 30 projectiles fell, said the deputy head of the presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, via telegram on Sunday. Six people were injured, more than 20 houses and several power lines were damaged, it said.
Battlefield reports cannot be independently verified. Nikopol is located opposite the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which was recently shelled several times – on the other bank of the Dnipro River, which was formed here into a reservoir.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recently spoke of a “very difficult situation” in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. As in the days before, it was the most difficult for the city of Bachmut. The military governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, reported on Sunday that one person was killed and three injured in the city of Bakhmut.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense published a video on Twitter that is supposed to show the situation near Bakhmut. The clip, which features a rugged landscape, is not footage of the Battle of Verdun but shows trenches of Ukrainian infantry that have been under heavy Russian fire for months, sources said.
According to the General Staff in Kyiv, the Ukrainian army destroyed several Russian army ammunition depots in the Zaporizhia area. Again, this could not be independently verified. The Ukrainian military also reported ongoing fighting in the Kherson region.
10.17 a.m .: According to British information, Russia can no longer keep up with the production of ammunition because of its actions in the war of aggression against Ukraine. “Russia’s defense industry is unlikely to be able to produce advanced munitions at the rate it is being used,” Britain’s Defense Ministry said in its Ukraine war intelligence update on Sunday.
The more than 80 rocket attacks on several Ukrainian cities earlier in the week meant a further deterioration in Russia’s long-range missile inventory, the British said. This is likely to limit Russia’s ability to hit that number of targets again in the future.
9.44 a.m .: According to Ukrainian sources, a conductor of the Cherson Philharmonic was shot dead in his house by Russian soldiers because he refused to cooperate. Yuriy Kerpatenko was “brutally” murdered because he refused “to cooperate with the occupying forces,” the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture said on Saturday. The southern Ukrainian city of Cherson has been occupied by Russian troops since the beginning of the war.
“According to media reports, the occupiers and their collaborators at the Philharmonic Orchestra were planning a festive concert in Kherson on the occasion of World Music Day on October 1,” the ministry said.
With the concert, the Russian representatives wanted to demonstrate “the alleged ‘restoration of a peaceful life’ in Cherson,” it said. However, Kerpatenko “categorically refused” to cooperate with them. The conductor made no secret of his attitude and refused to leave the occupied city.
Kerpatenko has been working at the Kherson Regional Philharmonic since 2000, and in 2004 he became chief conductor of the Music and Drama Theater in Kherson named after Mykola Kulish.
Sunday, October 16, 2:02 a.m.: According to Russian sources, at least 11 volunteers for the fight in Ukraine were killed and 15 others injured in an attack on a military site near the border with Ukraine. “Two citizens of a CIS country” carried out “a terrorist attack” on the training ground in the Belgorod region on Saturday, the Defense Ministry said in Moscow.
The perpetrators opened fire on the unit with automatic weapons during target practice by “volunteers for military special operations” in Ukraine, it said. The “terrorists” were shot. The Ministry did not provide any further information on the identity of the attackers. The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) is an association of former Soviet republics.
Four weeks ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilization of reservists after setbacks by the Russian army in Ukraine. According to government information, more than 200,000 people have been drafted since then, and the planned number of 300,000 should be reached in around two weeks. After the partial mobilization was announced, there had been protests and attacks on recruitment offices. Thousands of Russians also fled abroad to avoid confiscation.
In the Belgorod border region, the situation has been tense for days. The authorities report Ukrainian attacks almost every day. According to the governor, a fuel depot near the regional capital of the same name, Belgorod, was shot at on Saturday. On Friday, after an attack on a power plant, the power went out at times.
The Russian secret service FSB reported on Wednesday that eight suspects had been arrested after a bomb attack on the bridge to the Crimean peninsula annexed to Ukraine by Russia, and at the same time said it had foiled two planned Ukrainian attacks.
Violent incidents are common in Russian barracks. The background is brutal harassment of low-ranking soldiers. Degrading admission rituals and abuse are often the triggers for suicide or acts of violence.
In November 2020, a young conscript killed an officer with a hatchet and shot dead two other military personnel at an air base in Voronezh. In October 2019, a 19-year-old shot dead eight comrades and two officers while on guard duty at a base in Siberia. He later wrote in a letter that he had lived through “hell” due to regular harassment in the army.
Supplies for the Russian troops who are supposed to conquer the Donbass run through the big city. The Ukrainian city of Kharkiv is also frequently shelled from the Belgorod region. Therefore, in recent months there have been several explosions in ammunition or fuel depots, which were more or less clearly caused by Ukrainian attacks. Most recently, on Thursday, part of a rocket caused damage to a residential building in Belgorod. It could also have been the remains of a Russian anti-aircraft missile.
11:52 a.m .: According to reports, heavy fighting is currently underway in Kherson. Several posts by Russian soldiers report further Ukrainian advances in the region. Phillips P. OBrien, US war strategy expert shared these. However, there is currently no official information about a possible battle.
10:51 a.m .: According to British information, reservists mobilized by Russia are being sent to the war against Ukraine with inadequate equipment. Contingents of Russian reservists have been deployed to Ukraine in the past two weeks, the British Ministry of Defense wrote on Saturday in its regular intelligence update on the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. “The average level of their personal gear is almost certainly lower than the already poor supply of previously deployed troops.”
Many reservists would probably have to buy their own body armor themselves, especially a modern type 6B45 body armor, which was actually supposed to be issued to combat troops in general as part of the Russian Ratnik equipment program. Their price has more than tripled in Russian online retail since April.
10.19 a.m .: A Russian rocket hit severely damaged an energy supply system in the area around the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. This was announced by the energy supplier Ukrenerho on Saturday. The exact location was not mentioned. Specialists are working to restore a reliable power supply to Kyiv and central Ukraine, it said. However, the citizens were asked to consume little electricity, especially in the evening hours, so as not to overload the network.
Because of the attacks from the air, air raids were temporarily triggered throughout Ukraine in the morning. According to the authorities, industrial and energy plants were also hit in the city of Zaporizhia, which is close to the front. The blast from an explosion also damaged 16 residential buildings. But there are no injuries.
Since the beginning of this week, Russia has increased shelling of the Ukrainian hinterland, primarily aimed at destroying energy and water supplies. Russian sources reported on Saturday Ukrainian shelling on the city of Donetsk and Nova Kakhovka on the lower Dnipro River. A woman was killed in Donetsk. There was no independent confirmation of this information.
Saturday, October 15, 7:48 a.m .: According to the authorities, several regions of Ukraine were fired at by Russian troops on Saturday night. Infrastructure objects were hit in the southern city of Zaporizhia, close to the front. There are fires. Governor Oleh Staruch called on the population to go to shelters.
According to the local authorities, five enemy drones of Iranian design were intercepted over the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region. There, however, more than 50 shells from multiple rocket launchers and heavy artillery hit the Nikopol district. Two people were injured. Shortly after 7:00 a.m. local time (6:00 a.m. CEST) in the morning, an air alert was triggered for the entire Ukraine because further attacks were feared.
You can read more reports on the Ukraine conflict on the following pages.
