KYIV, Ukraine – Ukraine’s presidential office says at least four civilians have been killed and 10 others injured in the latest Russian attacks.
A statement on Friday said Russian troops again fired on several towns facing the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant across the Dnieper. In Nikopol, shelling damaged dozens of residential buildings and power lines, and in the nearby towns of Marhanets and Chervonohryhorivka, Russian attacks knocked out power to thousands of people.
In the eastern region of Donetsk, Governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said Russian troops continued their attacks on Avdiivka and Bakhmut, and the whole region “has been turned by the Russians into a zone of active hostilities”.
“The civilians who remain in the area live in constant fear, without heat or electricity,” Kyrylenko said in televised remarks. “Their enemy is not only the Russian guns but also the cold.”
In the neighboring region of Luhansk, the Ukrainian army is continuing its counter-offensive, fighting for control of Bilohorivka and Svatove, Governor Serhiy Haidai said.
“The Russians practically destroyed some villages after they started retreating,” Haidai said. “There are many freshly mobilized Russians in the Luhansk region, but they are dying in droves – they only last two weeks on average.”
KEY DEVELOPMENTS:
– Russia’s hope for Ukraine victory revealed in battle for Bakhmut
– West says there are no bioweapons in Ukraine, Russia disagrees
— UN nuclear agency to investigate Russian ‘dirty bombs’ allegation
– Ukraine attacks Russia’s grip on the southern city of Kherson
— Russian leader Putin says he will not use nuclear weapons in Ukraine
— In the midst of the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis in Europe is driving up firewood prices
– Follow all AP stories about the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS:
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian authorities and the state electricity company on Friday announced further power cuts in and around the country’s biggest cities as part of ongoing Russian strikes targeting energy infrastructure.
The press service of Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s sole operator of high-voltage transmission lines, said in a statement that “emergency blackouts” of four hours a day or more had resumed in the Kyiv region. .
“Due to extensive damage and an imbalance in the electrical system, longer power outages are possible,” Ukrenergo said.
Local governor Oleksiy Kuleba said on Telegram on Friday that the Kyiv region is expected to experience “harder and longer” power cuts than at the start of the war.
Oleg Syniehubov, the governor of the Kharkiv region, announced on Telegram that hour-long daily power cuts will begin Monday across the province, including Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv.
He said the measures “are necessary to stabilize the power grid, as the enemy continues to bombard (Ukraine’s) energy infrastructure”.
BAKHMUT, Ukraine – Russian soldiers bombarding a town in eastern Ukraine with artillery are slowly closing in as they attempt to seize Bakhmut, which remained in Ukrainian hands during the eight-month war despite Moscow’s goal of capturing the entire Donbass region bordering Russia.
While much of the fighting over the past month has been in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine, the escalating battle around Bakhmut demonstrates Russian President Vladimir Putin’s desire for gains visible after weeks of sharp setbacks in Ukraine.
Taking Bakhmut would sever Ukraine’s supply lines and open a path for Russian forces to move towards Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, the main Ukrainian strongholds in the eastern Donetsk region. Pro-Moscow separatists have controlled parts of Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk province since 2014.
Before invading Ukraine, Putin recognized the independence of the self-declared republics from the Russian-backed separatists. Last month, it illegally annexed Donetsk, Luhansk and two other provinces that Russian forces occupied or largely occupied.
Russia beat Bakhmut with rockets for more than five months.
KYIV, Ukraine — The Ukrainian subsidiary of McDonalds announced Friday that it has reopened four restaurants in the Kyiv region and a fifth in the northwestern city of Zhytomyr.
The company began a phased reopening of its Ukrainian restaurants late last month, a symbol of the war-torn country’s return to normalcy and a show of support after the American fast-food chain pulled out of Russia in May.
The burger giant closed its Ukrainian restaurants after the full-scale invasion of the Kremlin in February, but continued to pay more than 10,000 McDonald’s workers in the country.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A Swedish prosecutor wants “further crime scene investigation” at the site of blasts that damaged two gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea and said on Friday a preliminary investigation concluded the cause was “sabotage presumed rude”.
Prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said he understands the intense interest in determining what happened to the Nord Stream I and 2 pipelines, which were built to transport Russian gas to Germany.
“But it is important both for the preliminary investigation and for the various collaborations that we have that we can now work in peace and quiet,” Ljungqvist said.
The Swedish Homeland Security Agency and the Armed Forces are involved in the investigation, which is being carried out in cooperation with authorities in other countries,” he said.
The Swedish Safety Service has previously said that the underwater “detonations” on September 26 caused extensive damage to pipelines in international waters off Sweden and Denmark. Pipelines ruptured, sending large amounts of methane into the air.
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian forces attacked Russia’s hold on the southern city of Kherson on Thursday as fighting intensified in the east of the country. The battles took place amid reports that Moscow-appointed authorities have abandoned the city, joining tens of thousands of residents who have fled to other Russian-held areas.
Ukrainian forces surrounded Kherson from the west and attacked Russia’s position on the west bank of the Dnieper, which divides the region and the country.
As the fighting unfolded, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow had no intention of using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, despite repeated warnings that it was prepared to use any means available to defend the country. Russia, including its nuclear arsenal.
“We don’t see the need for it,” Putin told a conference of international foreign policy experts outside Moscow. “It makes no sense, political or military.”
Meanwhile, Russia has warned that Moscow may target Western commercial satellites used for military purposes in support of Ukraine, and a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman accused the United States of continuing a “reckless and crazy woman”.
Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova argued that Washington should take an approach more like the one it took during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when the Cold War superpowers backed away from the brink of nuclear confrontation. .
