Ukraine Daily
Wednesday, October 19
Russia’s war against Ukraine
KOZACHA LOPAN, UKRAINE - OCTOBER 18: Local residents put boarding over the smashed windows of their damaged shop on October 18, 2022 in Kozacha Lopan, Kharkiv Oblast. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)
Blinken calls Russia’s drone strikes ‘sign of increased desperation,’ promises continued US support. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called recent Russian drone strikes a “sign of increased desperation by Russia.“Blinken promised to continue adjusting U.S. aid to fit Ukrainian needs at a press conference at Stanford University in California on Oct. 17. He also called Russia’s strategy “a sign of the levels that they will stoop to, as we have seen repeatedly when it comes to harming civilians and civilian infrastructure.”
State Emergency Service: Russia has conducted nearly 200 strikes on Ukraine in 11 days. According to State Emergency spokesperson Oleksandr Khorunzhyi, Russia launched over 190 strikes across Ukraine with missiles and kamikaze drones from Oct. 7 to 18. Khorunzhyi said over 70 people were killed, more than 240 people were injured, and 380 sites were damaged.
General Staff: Russia launches 10 airstrikes against Ukraine over past 24 hours. The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported on Oct. 18 that Russia has also launched nine missile strikes and 10 attacks with multiple launch rocket systems against Ukraine. Ukraine’s military also repelled Russian attacks near Ohirtseve in Kharkiv Oblast, Bilohorivka in Luhansk Oblast, and Novokalynove and Marinka in Donetsk Oblast.
Reuters: Iran to sell more drones, missiles to Russia. Iran has pledged to provide Russia with surface-to-surface missiles and more drones, Reuters reported, citing two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats. According to an unnamed Western official familiar with the matter, a deal has been reached between Iran and Russia to provide surface-to-surface short-range ballistic missiles, including Zolfaghar missiles.
New York Times: Iran sends drone trainers to Crimea to help Russia’s war effort. Current and former U.S. officials who spoke to the New York Times on the condition of anonymity said that Iran has sent trainers to Russian-occupied Crimea to help Russian troops overcome problems with the fleet of drones that they purchased from Tehran. The trainers are from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a branch of the Iranian military designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S.
Zelensky: Russia buying Iranian drones is proof of its military, political bankruptcy. “We should remember that the very fact of Russia’s appeal to Iran for assistance is the Kremlin’s recognition of its military and political bankruptcy,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an address on Oct. 18. “It won’t help them strategically anyways,” he said. “It only further proves to the world that Russia is on a trajectory of defeat and is trying to draw in someone else as an accomplice in terror.”
PM Shmyhal: Ukraine receives 2 billion euros in macro-financial aid from EU. This tranche, aimed at supporting the economic stability of Ukraine, will help cover “urgent budgetary expenses, in particular, in the social and humanitarian fields,” said Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal on Oct. 18. This is the first tranche of the 5 billion euros package. In total, Ukraine has received 4.2 billion euros of macro-financial assistance from the European Union in 2022, according to Shmyhal.
Energoatom: Russia again kidnaps Zaporizhzhia plant workers. Russian forces in occupied Enerhodar have kidnapped Oleh Kostiukov, the head of information technology service at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, and Oleh Osheka, the assistant director general, according to state nuclear company Energoatom. The officials said nothing is known about the workers’ whereabouts and how they are treated.
Power restored at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi reported on Oct. 18 that the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has restored the connection to its last remaining operating 750-kilovolt power line after the third outage in ten days. “The repeated outages show how precarious the nuclear safety and security situation continues to be at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant,” Grossi said in a statement.
SBU: Antonov company’s management ‘did not take adequate measures’ to save Mriya aircraft. According to Ukraine’s Security Service, unnamed employees of state company Antonov prevented Ukraine’s authorities from organizing anti-aircraft and ground protection of the airfield. This led to the destruction of the world’s largest cargo aircraft AN-225 Mriya by Russian forces on Feb. 27. “(They) did not take adequate measures to preserve the plane, despite warnings from authorities,” the SBU reported.
Intelligence chief: Russian war criminal Girkin is in Ukraine. The Defense Ministry’s Intelligence Directorate Head Kyrylo Budanov said on Oct. 18 that Russian war criminal Igor Girkin, also known as Igor Strelkov, is currently in a Russian-occupied part of Ukraine. Girkin also said on his Telegram channel that he was sent to the front line in Ukraine. Girkin is a former Russian FSB agent and was a key figure in the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine in 2014 when he helped seize Sloviansk, Donetsk Oblast.
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Surrounded and desperate: How Russia lost Lyman. Ukraine’s recapture of Lyman, a city in Donetsk Oblast with a pre-war population of 20,000 that had been occupied by Russia since mid-May, proved once again the capacity of Ukraine’s forces to conduct large-scale combined arms offensives against an entrenched opponent.
Infographic: The Kyiv Independent
Ukraine war latest: Russia intensifies attacks on Ukraine’s energy facilities. President Volodymyr Zelensky said 30% of Ukraine’s power stations have been “destroyed” since Oct. 10, when Russia intensified its strikes on critical infrastructure across the country.
Photo: Ukrainian State Emergency Service / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
**Russia keeps hitting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, causing ‘massive blackouts.’**As Russian troops have been suffering from battlefield defeats since August, they have intensified long-range strikes against targets across Ukraine, hitting civilian infrastructure sites in Dnipro, Kyiv and Zhytomyr.
Photo: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images
The human cost of Russia’s war
Death toll from Russia’s Oct. 18 attack on Kyiv rises to 3. The victims were employees of the critical infrastructure facility in Kyiv hit by Russian troops in the morning on Oct. 18, said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko. The critical infrastructure site suffered significant damage; the restoration works are ongoing, according to Klitschko.
Update: Death toll after Russia’s Oct. 17 attack on Kyiv rises to 5. Rescuers have found the body of an elderly woman killed by Russia’s drone strike at a residential building in central Kyiv on Oct. 17; the search and rescue operation is still ongoing, according to the city mayor, Vitali Klitschko. This is the fifth victim of the first-ever Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital using Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones.
Police: Bodies of 5 children exhumed in liberated Lyman in Donetsk Oblast. Authorities have exhumed the bodies of four children at a mass burial site in liberated Lyman, as well as the body of one more boy buried by his mother in her yard, Ukraine’s National Police in Donetsk Oblast reports. According to preliminary information, they all died from shrapnel wounds after Russian strikes.
Russia attacks Sumy Oblast: 2 civilians killed, 1 injured. Russian forces shelled the village of Yunakivka near the Ukrainian border on Oct. 18, killing two and wounding one civilian, according to Deputy Head of President’s Office Kyrylo Tymoshenko. There were 14 explosions; the attack damaged a grocery store and several buildings around it, said Tymoshenko.
International response
Stoltenberg: NATO to send drone defense to Ukraine in coming days. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Oct. 18 that the alliance will provide Ukraine with anti-drone air defense systems to defend itself from Iranian-made drones, reported Reuters. On Oct. 17, Russia attacked Kyiv for the first time using Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones, killing five people.
Estonian parliament declares Russia terrorist regime. The Estonian parliament condemned Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukrainian territories and voted to declare Russia “a terrorist regime” on Oct. 18. “Putin’s regime, with its threats of a nuclear attack, has turned Russia into the biggest danger to peace in Europe and in the whole world,” reads the statement submitted by 85 Estonian lawmakers.
In other news
Ex-lawmaker detained after attempting to bribe Dnipro mayor with €22 million. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) reported on Oct. 18 that Ukrainian property developer and ex-lawmaker Maksym Mykytas attempted to bribe Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov. According to the investigation, Mykytas offered Filatov a bribe for signing a contract for the construction of the metro in Dnipro with the companies controlled by him without undergoing a tender. This is one of the record sums of the offered bribe, which was recorded by Ukraine’s law enforcement.
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