According to a US general, more than 100,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or injured in Ukraine so far. A governor installed by Russia dies in a car accident. All current voices and developments on the Ukraine war can be found in the ticker.
More on the course of the war in Ukraine.
Thursday, November 10, 2022, 6:48 a.m.: According to US military estimates, the war between Russia and Ukraine has seen high casualties on both sides. “You are dealing with well over 100,000 killed and injured Russian soldiers,” said US Army General Mark Milley on Wednesday (local time). The same applies “probably to the Ukrainian side”.
The numbers are the most accurate the US has released to date. However, they could not be independently verified.
Milley also promoted talks to end the war. It is possible that neither Ukraine nor Russia could win militarily, the US general said. It is therefore necessary to look for “other means”.
On Wednesday Moscow ordered the withdrawal of Russian soldiers from the strategically important southern Ukrainian city of Cherson and parts of the region of the same name. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reacted cautiously and considered it unlikely that the Russian army would leave the city without a fight.
6:02 p.m .: The leadership in Kyiv reacted skeptically to the announcement from Moscow about a complete withdrawal of troops from the right bank of the Dnipro River in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson. “Ukraine sees no signs that Russia is giving up Kherson without a fight,” Presidential Advisor Mykhailo Podoliak wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.
There is still a significant number of Russian soldiers in the regional capital and reserves are being drawn up. “Ukraine is liberating territories by relying on reconnaissance data and not on staged TV announcements,” Podoliak stressed.
Earlier, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered the evacuation of the occupied parts of Kherson on the west bank of the Dnipro. This also includes the regional capital of the same name, Cherson, which has been the only Ukrainian regional capital to have been conquered by the Russians since the beginning of the war at the end of February.
The Ukrainian army had recently severely damaged the Dnipro bridges with targeted rocket attacks, thereby significantly affecting Russian supplies. Cherson was largely conquered by Russia in February and illegally annexed in September.
2:28 p.m .: The deputy governor of the Kherson region appointed by Russia is dead. According to Russian agencies, citing local authorities, Kirill Stremousov was killed in a car accident on Wednesday. The exact circumstances are still unclear.
The Russian news agency TASS reports that the press office of the Russian occupying forces in Kherson has confirmed the death. Most recently, the politician urged civilians to leave the city of Kherson on the western bank of the Denipr River.
Stremusov became known mainly through videos from social networks from the front. Back in October, Stremousov caused a stir with a glorification of the Russian empire. You can see the scene in the video below.
Wednesday, November 9, 12:52 p.m .: Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill I personally celebrated a funeral service for a controversial military chaplain in Moscow’s main cathedral on Wednesday. The coffin with the body of Mikhail Vasilyev, covered with a Russian flag, was laid out in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. According to the church, Vasilyev died on Sunday at the age of 51 in the “zone of military special operations in Ukraine carrying out his pastoral work”, i.e. in Russia’s war against the neighboring country.
Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin posthumously awarded the cleric the title of “Hero of Russia,” according to the President’s Office, for bravery in “fulfilling civic duty.” In a TV interview at the end of October, Vasilyev advised women to give birth to many children so that it would not be so painful for them if a son was drafted into military service. That caused outrage. A church spokesman made it clear that the life of every child is equally valuable, regardless of the number of children in the family.
Cyril I awarded Vasilyev with the church order “for fame and honor” at the service. He justified this with his “devotional service for church and fatherland”. The priest dedicated his life to the Church and the armed forces and remained faithful to both “until death,” according to the Moscow Patriarch. He stands firmly with Putin and justifies the war against Ukraine.
11:38 p.m .: The new Ukrainian ambassador Oleksii Makeiev said in the “RTL Nachtjournal special”: “I am hopeful that this will happen because this war has to be won. Nowadays, our girls and boys on the front need riflemen and battle tanks.” Germany could play a leading role here. “We are still in a trusting conversation. We hope that the coalition of the willing, the Western powers, will contribute to this.” He hopes for a quick decision: “Better today or tomorrow, but not the day after tomorrow. Because we need the tanks to liberate territory and win the war. The quicker that happens, the quicker this war will be over.”
11:20 p.m .: According to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the situation on the war fronts in Ukraine remains difficult. There is currently less news from the combat zones, said Selenskyj in his daily video address on Tuesday evening. “But that doesn’t mean that the intensity of the fighting has decreased.”
“Fierce battles for positions are still going on in some areas,” said Zelenskyy. “And as before, it is particularly difficult in the Donetsk region.” Nothing has changed in the order given to the Russian troops to advance to the borders of the administrative region. But: “We are not giving up a single centimeter of our country there.”
Away from the combat zones, intensive work is being done to restore normal life in the liberated areas. This applies above all to restoring the supply of gas and electricity, for example in the Kharkiv area. And to help the population get through the upcoming winter period, the government has exempted the import of energy supply devices – such as generators or transformers – from import duties.
5:14 p.m .: According to the Ukrainian Air Force, the Kremlin has reached an agreement with Iran to supply long-range ballistic missiles. For example, Russia plans to purchase Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar ballistic missiles, which Ukraine believes will be used to continue attacking civilian energy infrastructure. Air Force spokesman Yuri Ihnat said at a press conference on Monday. Major General Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Service, said the delivery of Iranian missiles could happen by the end of November. Iran itself denies the plans, according to the New York Times.
According to Ihnat, Ukraine is currently holding talks with Western allies on how to defend itself against the missiles. “This is a serious threat, because unlike the Russian ones, Iranian missiles are highly accurate and very fast, and these characteristics are battle-tested,” Budanov recently told the online site War Zone. So you could shoot the rockets already at the start. But that would require longer-range weapons, which the United States and other allies have been reluctant to deliver, according to the New York Times report. The fear: Ukraine could use it to attack military targets in Russia.
The missiles Moscow wants to buy from Iran are similar to the Iskander missiles that Russia has used since the war began. According to Western military analysts and Ukrainian officials, Russia is turning to Iran because of a shortage of Iskander missiles in its inventory.
4:19 p.m .: According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Russia and India are considering joint production of modern armaments. According to the state agency TASS, Lavrov said on Tuesday after a meeting with Jaishankar in Moscow that he had spoken to Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar about the prospects for military-technical cooperation. Which armaments could specifically be involved remained open. It is the fifth meeting of the two ministers this year.
Referring to the aid for Ukraine attacked by Russia, Lavrov accused Western countries of wanting to consolidate a “dominant role in world affairs” and “preventing the democratization of international relations” under the pretext of “Ukrainian events”. He therefore rates the position of the “Indian friends” on Ukraine highly, said Lavrov.
India is taking a neutral stance on Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine because it has close ties with the West and Russia. The country also does not support Western sanctions and is promoting conflict resolution through dialogue. Recently, India bought more relatively cheap oil from Russia. New Delhi is also heavily dependent on Moscow for its military equipment and spare parts. According to Lavrov, Russia and India also want to work more closely together in the field of nuclear energy and space travel.
India’s Foreign Minister Jaishankar stressed in the “New York Times” that his country wanted to continue buying oil from Russia. “As the third largest oil and gas consumer and not a very high-income country, we need to look for affordable sources, so the India-Russia relationship is to our advantage.”
11.01 a.m .: The Frankfurt Public Prosecutor’s Office had the locations of the Swiss bank UBS searched in the morning. Areas of private customer business at the headquarters in Frankfurt and at the branch in Munich are affected by the raid, reports the “Spiegel”. It is about collecting evidence in a money laundering proceeding. Bank employees are not accused.
The background to this is the investigation into the oligarch Alisher Usmanov. The Putin confidant, who is on the EU sanctions list, is being investigated on suspicion of money laundering, tax evasion and violation of the Foreign Trade Act. In September, the investigators had already moved to Usmanow’s villas on Tegernsee and searched them.
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