The Russian Black Sea Fleet has repelled drone strikes in Crimea. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has admitted heavy casualties after being shelled by Ukrainian forces. All reports on the Ukraine war in the ticker.
10:18 a.m .: According to Ukraine, Russia has made no progress in the war against each other even after partial mobilization. Despite an excess of weapons and other soldiers – including drafted reservists – the enemy is not successful, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, Valeryi Zalushnyi, said in Kyiv on Saturday. The Russian Defense Ministry had previously announced that the partial mobilization of 300,000 reservists had been completed.
Ukraine is still concentrating on liberating occupied territories and preventing the Russian occupiers from taking over new regions, Salushnyj said in a talk with US Chief of Staff Mark Milley. In addition, the air defense is active to protect important infrastructure from missile attacks.
9:25 a.m .: According to official information, warships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet have fended off several drone attacks in the Bay of Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia. “No objects were hit in the city,” Governor Mikhail Rasvozhayev said on Saturday on the Telegram news channel. “We keep calm. The situation is under control.” According to the authorities, ferry services in the bay have been temporarily suspended as a precaution. Sevastopol is important as the base of the Black Sea Fleet.
Saturday, October 29, 9:20 a.m.: The Russian TV presenter and former presidential candidate Xenia Sobchak entered Lithuania a few days ago – with her Israeli passport. In doing so, she did not violate the entry restrictions for Russian tourists. Critics, on the other hand, say Sobchak should not be viewed as a genuine Russian opposition figure. You can find out more about this in the video here:
6:15 p.m .: According to their own statements, the Russian occupiers have cleared the Ukrainian city of Cherson and the area northwest of the Dnipro River from civilians. Deputy Chief of Administration Kirill Stremousov did not say on Friday how many people had left the region where a Ukrainian attack is expected.
“It wasn’t a forced evacuation. We gave people the opportunity to leave the combat zone,” Stremusov said, according to the Russian state news agency TASS. From the Ukrainian point of view, however, the people have been abducted. There was no way to move to Ukrainian-ruled territory.
Another member of the occupation administration, Yekaterina Gubareva, said 36,400 civilians had been evacuated. The number cannot be verified. People were brought across the Dnipro by boats. The only two fixed crossings across the river have been rendered largely impassable by Ukrainian artillery.
3:45 p.m .: According to their own statements, the Ukrainian military has shot down more than 300 Russian Kamikaze drones of the Iranian type Shahed-136 since mid-September. Air Force spokesman Yuri Ihnat told journalists in Kyiv on Friday. It is assumed that Russia has ordered 2,400 such drones. It is not known how large the stock actually is. The Russian army uses these combat drones mainly at night and in several waves. Kamikaze drones circle over a target area for a period of time and then crash onto a designated target with an explosive charge.
Ihnat said the Ukrainian army also has disposable drones. Switchblade-300 drones from the USA are already in use. Switchblade-600 devices with a longer range are also expected. “We hope they will do very well in combat operations in Ukraine,” he said.
12:50 p.m .: Russian occupiers are currently renovating an old Cold War submarine base in Balaklava in Crimea. This is reported by the Ukrainian state news agency Ukrinform. According to this, the Russians want to hide and protect their submarines from the Ukrainian anti-ship missiles in the base known from the Cold War as “Object 825”.
Friday, October 28, 8:30 a.m.: The ruler of the Russian republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, has admitted high losses in his own ranks after an artillery shelling by Ukrainian troops. “23 fighters died and 58 were injured,” Kadyrov wrote on Friday night on his Telegram channel. Ukrainian sources reported earlier this week that a Chechen unit in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson revealed its location via photos on social media and was hit by artillery fire.
Usually, Russian officials don’t publish figures on their own casualties. In this case, Kadyrov was probably trying to put the even higher numbers quoted by the Ukrainian side into perspective. At the same time, the Chechen leader used the admission to call on his compatriots to be mobilized for the war in Ukraine.
Since the start of the Russian war of aggression more than eight months ago, Kadyrov has distinguished himself as one of the strongest supporters of the bloody conflict and has also sent his own units to Ukraine. He regularly criticized the Russian army leadership – often in conjunction with the financier of the mercenary units “Wagner”, Yevgeny Prigoshin – as too soft. Kadyrov also calls for the use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
2:58 p.m .: According to the authorities, a power plant in Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsula annexed by Russia was attacked by a drone. This was announced by the head of the city administration, Mikhail Raswoschajew, on Thursday. During the attack at night, a transformer was set on fire, but it was not connected to the grid. No one was injured, and there were no effects on the port city’s power supply. The drone was intercepted as it approached the power plant. Sevastopol is important as the base of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
There have been several explosions in military installations and drone attacks on the peninsula, which has been claimed by Russia since 2014. Ukraine does not officially commit to this. But the incidents suggest that Kyiv has the ability to attack far behind the front lines.
According to media reports, a fuel depot in the Russian-controlled city of Shakhtarsk in the Donbass went up in flames on Wednesday. The city is about 50 kilometers from the front east of Donetsk. The Ukrainian army repeatedly attacks Russian supply lines with long-range Himar rocket launchers from the USA.
8:05 a.m .: According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Russians’ “madness” is most evident in the fiercely contested city of Bakhmut. That’s what Selenskyj said on Wednesday evening. The city, which is in the Donetsk region and had a pre-war population of 70,000, has been the focus of Russian attacks for months. It is the only sector of the front where Russia is still on the offensive.
“This is where the madness of the Russian command is most evident,” said Zelenskyy in his evening speech from Kyiv. “Day after day, for months, they’ve been driving people to their deaths there and concentrating artillery attacks at the highest level.” Zelenskyi adviser Oleksey Arestovych said that in just one morning, Russian troops launched eight different attacks on the city, and each one been pushed back. This is reported by the British “BBC”. According to analysts, the city has little military value, rather it is symbolic. Because despite months of violent attacks, the Russians have not yet succeeded in taking the city.
Thursday, October 27, 07:45: Local media and regional officials reported that Russian forces attacked the Kyiv and Zaporizhia regions overnight. Kyiv Region Governor Oleksiy Kuleba did not reveal the location of the attack but said rescue workers were on the scene. “The Russians are terrorizing the Kyiv region at night,” he wrote on Telegram.
The Kyiv city government issued an air raid alert around midnight on Wednesday, urging residents to seek shelter. Acting mayor of Zaporizhia Anatoly Kurtev reported that Russian forces had attacked the city and its environs, causing a fire.
5:41 p.m .: Around 1000 bodies have been dug up in the recently liberated areas of Ukraine around Kharkiv. According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Reintegration, the bodies of civilians, including children, were exhumed in addition to the remains of military personnel.
2:59 p.m .: The Ukrainian armed forces are apparently not making good progress because of the bad weather. This is reported by “Ukrainska Pravda” and refers to statements by the Ukrainian Defense Minister, Oleksiy Resnikov. “Now some weather conditions, I mean the rain, are slowing us down. But we are using the tactic of reclaiming our villages, meters and kilometers, step by step, and we will continue to do so,” says Resnikov.
He also stated that he did not expect street battles in Kherson as Russian troops could not retreat across the Dnipro Bridge, which Ukrainian soldiers would control. “We control all bridges over the Dnipro with American systems like the HIMARS, as well as other MLRS like the M270 and 155mm artillery. For them (the Russians, editor’s note) staying in Kherson is a real risk because they will not be able to leave the city like they did at the front in Kharkiv, Izyum and have done in other cities”.
You can read more reports on the Ukraine conflict on the following pages.
