Ukraine Daily

Wednesday, October 12

Russia’s war against Ukraine

Firefighters remove a dead body from debris of a building after Russian missile attack in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine on October 10, 2022. Today, the head of the city’s military administration Oleksandr Starukh, reported to the Ukrinform Ukrainian news agency that a multi-storey building was destroyed as a result of a new rocket attack on the city center of Zaporizhzhia. (Photo by Jose Colon/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Zelensky: Russia launched 28 missiles, over 15 drones at Ukraine on Oct. 11. Ukrainian Armed Forces intercepted 20 missiles and shot down almost all drones, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an evening address.

Governor: Russian missiles destroy 4 electrical substations in Lviv Oblast. Russia hit two of the substations for the second time in two days, Governor Maksym Kozytskyi said. Four electrical substations were providing Lviv Oblast with electricity and were important for exporting electricity abroad, the governor said.

Minister: Russia has struck about 30% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure since Oct. 10. This was the “first time from the beginning of the war” that Russia has “dramatically targeted” energy infrastructure, Energy Minister Herman Haluschenko told CNN. However, the Ukrainian energy system is stable, the minister said.

Electricity restored in over 3,500 Ukrainian settlements. More than 300 settlements, however, remain without power after Russia’s mass attack, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service reports. On Oct. 10, Russian forces hit critical and civil infrastructure objects in 12 oblasts and Kyiv, causing more than 30 fires, according to the officials.

Ukrainian intelligence: Russia continues to amass kamikaze drones in Belarus. As of Oct. 10, Russia has brought 31 Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones to Belarus and plans to transfer eight more before Oct. 14, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry reports. Belarus also intends to send to Russia 13 trains carrying ammo from the arsenals and storage bases of its armed forces, according to the ministry.

ISW: Russia likely relocating ammunition, other materiel from Belarusian storage bases. The Institute for the Study of War said in its latest assessment that open-sourced data supports Ukraine’s military reports that Russia is loading trains with weapons, equipment, ammunition, and other unspecified materiel from Belarus to relocate to areas of engagement further south and east. The experts think such activity is “incompatible with setting conditions for a large-scale Russian or Belarusian ground attack” against Ukraine from Belarus.

Zelensky asks for international observers on Belarus border, offers ‘peace formula.’ Ukraine did not plan and does not plan military actions against Belarus, President Volodymyr Zelensky said during an extraordinary G7 summit. “In order to completely remove this provocation, to remove these narratives by Lukashenko, to remove even the assumption of any alleged threat from us, we offer our solution,” said Zelensky.

Ukraine returns 32 POWs, body of Israeli soldier. President’s Office Head Andriy Yermak said that Ukraine returned officers and soldiers some of whom were considered missing. Ukraine also returned the body of Israeli citizen Dmytro Fialka, who was killed in action on Sept. 1. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk earlier said that Russia currently has 2,500 Ukrainian POWs.

UK intelligence: Russia’s new commander to lead ‘poorly resourced’ army against Ukraine. Russia tries to “improve the delivery” of its war by appointing General Sergei Surovikin as overall commander of its Joint Group of Forces leading the war effort in Ukraine, the U.K. Defense Ministry reported. Surovikin “will likely have to contest with an increasingly factional Russian defense ministry which is poorly resourced to achieve the political objectives it has been set in Ukraine,” reads the report.

Energoatom: Russia kidnaps Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant’s deputy head. Russian troops have kidnapped Valerii Martyniuk, deputy head of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, holding him in an unknown place and allegedly torturing him, according to state nuclear company Energoatom. Russian forces are trying to get information about the plant staff from Martyniuk “to force (the plant’s) personnel to work for (Russia’s nuclear corporation) Rosatom as soon as possible,” Energoatom stated.

UN Secretary-General aims to prolong grain deal for a year. Antonio Guterres and his team are working on an expanded Black Sea Grain Initiative, Ukraine Agricultural Ministry reported citing Stephane Dujarric, a spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General.

Russian media: Putin, Erdogan to discuss Ukraine. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet in Kazakhstan on Oct. 13, Russian state-controlled news agency Interfax reported, citing Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov. They will discuss Ukraine and their countries’ relations, said Peskov.

Ukrainians crowdfund about $10 million for kamikaze drones in 1 day. Ukrainian comedian, politician, and volunteer Serhiy Prytula said that he and activist Serhii Sternenko had raised nearly $10 million in one day to buy RAM ІІ kamikaze drones for the army. The “revenge” crowdfunding campaign was announced shortly after Russia’s mass missile attack on Ukraine on the morning of Oct. 10.

Some say Russia’s mass strikes across Ukraine on Oct. 10 were Russian President Vladimir Putin’s revenge for an explosion at the Crimean Bridge on Oct. 8. The Kyiv Independent’s Iryna Matviyishyn explains why this isn’t the case.

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Ukraine war latest: Russia again strikes Ukraine’s energy system. Russia continued to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure on Oct. 11, a day after launching its largest coordinated strike on Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

Photo: Pavlo Palamarchuk/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

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The human cost of Russia’s war

Death toll of Russia’s Oct. 10 missile attacks rises to 20. Russian missile strikes on Oct. 10 injured 108 people, State Emergency Service spokesman Oleksandr Khorunzhyi said. Over 200 sites were damaged, including 45 houses, 30 apartment buildings, and critical infrastructure. The strikes also damaged the power supply in 15 regions, Khorunzhyi said.

General Staff: Russia has lost 63,110 troops in Ukraine since Feb. 24. Ukraine’s General Staff reported on Oct. 11 that Russia had also lost 2,504 tanks, 5,162 armored fighting vehicles, 3,916 vehicles and fuel tanks, 1,496 artillery systems, 353 multiple launch rocket systems, 181 air defense systems, 268 airplanes, 235 helicopters, 1,114 drones, and 15 boats.

Russia’s attacks kill 6 in Donetsk Oblast, 1 in Zaporizhzhia. In the past 24 hours, Russian forces have killed six civilians and wounded eight in Donetsk Oblast, not including Mariupol and Volnovakha, according to the oblast governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko. Russia also fired 12 S-300 missiles at Zaporizhzhia in the morning, killing one person and hitting a car dealership and an educational institution, according to Zaporizhzhia Oblast Governor Oleksandr Starukh.

Russia hits thermal plant in Vinnytsia Oblast twice, injures 6 people. When rescuers were working at the spot after the first attack in the morning on Oct. 11, Russian forces struck the Ladyzhyn Thermal Power Plant again with kamikaze drones, according to energy company DTEK. Six people were injured, and the energy equipment was damaged again, according to DTEK.

General Prosecutor’s Office: 78 bodies exhumed from mass burial site in Lyman, Sviatohirsk. Some of the 34 bodies exhumed in Sviatohirsk, Donetsk Oblast, have signs of violent death. Law enforcement found two burnt bodies in the car in the town. In the cemetery in Lyman, Donetsk Oblast, authorities found around 110 graves, including those of children.

Official: Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia Oblast kills 7, injures 7. Russian forces shelled the communities of Orikhiv and Stepnohirsk on Oct. 11, reported Deputy Head of the President’s Office Kyrylo Tymoshenko. Zaporizhzhia Oblast Governor Oleksandr Starukh reported that Russian forces attacked the city of Zaporizhzhia in the early morning of Oct. 11, hitting infrastructure. Since Oct. 3, Russian attacks on Zaporizhzhia have killed at least 50 people and injured 77.

Governor: Russian forces rain fire on Nikopol, injuring 3 civilians. Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Governor Valentyn Reznichenko said that the city of Nikopol was targeted overnight on Oct. 12 with 100 Russian shells, damaging a private residence and badly injuring a 6-year-old girl and her mother. Both of them and another wounded woman are being treated in hospital. Overall, more than 30 high-rises and private residences, two kindergartens, a school, a number of shops, a gas transmission system and power lines were damaged in the attack.

International response

Spiegel: Ukraine receives German IRIS-T air defense system. According to the German magazine Der Spiegel, the first of the four new IRIS-T SLM air defense systems arrived in Ukraine via Poland. Germany’s Ambassador to Ukraine, Anka Feldhusen, on Sept. 12, told NV news outlet that Berlin will provide two systems by the end of 2022 and two more in the early months of 2023.

US works to expedite delivery of NASAMS air defense systems to Ukraine. The US is planning to deliver two National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) to Ukraine “in the very near future,” White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said, CNN reported.

Ukraine receives more HIMARS from US. Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said that four additional HIMARS from the U.S. have arrived in Ukraine: “HIMARS time: good time for Ukrainians and a bad time for the occupiers,” he wrote on Twitter.

Germany, Norway, and Denmark to buy 16 Zuzana howitzers for Ukraine. Germany in cooperation with Norway and Denmark plans to jointly purchase 16 Zuzana-2 self-propelled wheeled tank howitzers from Slovakia to provide additional assistance to Ukraine. The artillery systems will be produced in the Slovak Republic with a preliminary delivery in 2023.

Canadian combat engineers to train Ukrainian sappers in Poland. Canada’s military will deploy around 40 combat engineers to Poland to train Ukrainian sappers in engineering skills, using explosives for demolition work, and demining, Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand on Oct. 11. Canadian combat engineers will assist Polish-led training in the coming weeks under Operation UNIFIER.

White House: Russia planned for Oct. 10 large-scale attacks before Crimean Bridge explosion. “It likely was something they had been planning for quite some time. Now that’s not to say that the explosion on the Crimean bridge might have accelerated some of their planning,” John Kirby, White House national security spokesman, told CNN.

G7 leaders vow to hold Putin to account. Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) condemned Russia’s widespread missile attacks on Ukraine after an extraordinary G7 summit led by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “We will hold President (Vladimir) Putin and those responsible to account,” the G7 leaders’ statement reads.

Tsikhanouskaya offers Ukraine ‘to build alliance with democratic Belarus.’ Leader of the Belarus opposition in exile Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said Ukraine could establish diplomatic and political relations with the United Transitional Cabinet, an executive body that aims to thwart Belarusian dictator Lukashenko. “We are proposing Ukraine and the Ukrainian people build an alliance with democratic Belarus, fight together and support the Belarusian resistance,” said Tsikhanouskaya. “(We) are fighting on the same side against the same evil.”

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Today’s Ukraine Daily was brought to you by Denys Krasnikov, Dinara Khalilova, Oleksiy Sorokin, Alexander Khrebet, Olena Goncharova, and Anastasiya Gordiychuk.

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