As the war enters its 985th day, these are the main developments.
Here is the situation on Wednesday, November 6:
Fighting
- A Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia has killed six people, injured at least 20 more, and destroyed a critical infrastructure facility, Ukrainian officials have said.
- A Ukrainian army drone has attacked an apartment block in the Russian city of Belgorod, injuring one civilian and setting three apartments on fire.
- Ukraine’s military said it shot down 48 out of 79 drones and two missiles launched by Russia overnight.
- Russia’s Ministry of Defence has said that while it believes Ukraine is incapable of producing nuclear weapons, it is able to make a “dirty bomb” – a conventional weapon combining explosives with radioactive material.
North Korean troops in Ukraine
- South Korea’s Defence Ministry has reiterated its belief that more than 10,000 North Korean troops are in Russia, with a “significant number” in the frontline areas, including Russia’s Kursk region.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the first battles between Ukrainian and North Korean troops “open a new page in instability in the world” after the country’s Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said a “small engagement” had taken place.
- Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) democracies – the United States, Japan, Italy, Britain, Germany, France and Canada – and three allies – South Korea, Australia and New Zealand – have called the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia a “dangerous expansion of the conflict”.
International affairs
- Russia would use all possible means to defend itself in response to NATO aggression, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said, adding that “nobody will be safe”.
- Parcels that exploded at logistics depots in several European countries were a test run for a Russian plot to trigger explosions on cargo flights to the United States, according to a Lithuanian presidential adviser. Western governments and intelligence agencies have previously said Moscow is behind a series of acts of sabotage aimed at destabilising Ukraine’s allies.
- Polish prosecutors have indicted two men – a Belarusian citizen and a Polish citizen – on accusations of cooperating with Belarusian intelligence services in espionage operations in the country. If convicted, they face up to 10 years in prison.
- Poland plans to invest three billion zlotys ($744m) to boost ammunition production, according to a new bill, as it aims to ensure it has sufficient supplies in the event of a Russian attack.
- The European Union’s likely new energy commissioner, Dan Jorgensen, told a parliamentary hearing that he wants to “speed up” the end of the bloc’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels.
Russian affairs
- An engineer at a factory making tanks for Russia’s war in Ukraine has been jailed for 16 years after being convicted of passing military secrets to Kyiv, weeks after his wife received a similar sentence.
- A Moscow court has fined US tech giant Apple 3.6 million roubles ($36,889) for refusing to remove two podcasts containing “information aimed at destabilising the political situation in Russia”.
