In the Ukraine war, heavy fighting is currently raging in the Donbass again. War crimes are apparently coming to light in liberated Cherson. The news ticker.
- Missile Attacks Increase: Russia bombs ‘civilian critical infrastructure’
- Eastern Ukraine: Heavy fighting breaks out in the Donbass.
- Massive Attacks: Russia again attacks frontline positions in Donetsk and Luhansk
- Editor’s note: Read the latest developments in Ukraine conflict in our news ticker. The information processed here Ukraine war come partly from the warring parties Russia and the Ukraine. They can therefore not be independently checked in part.
+++ 7.40 a.m.: Hundreds of Ukrainians have been arrested and many have disappeared during the Russian occupation of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson. This emerges from a study by the US University of Yale published on Friday (November 18). The Conflict Observatory research group, whose work is supported by the US State Department, counted 226 unlawful arrests and enforced disappearances. About a quarter of the people were believed to have been tortured, and four of them died in captivity.
According to the report, the Russian military and the Russian secret service FSB were behind most of the cases. Those affected were men of military age, including civil servants, teachers, law enforcement officials and journalists.
Update from Saturday, November 19, 6:33 a.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has dismissed the idea of a “short-term ceasefire” with Russia, arguing that it would only make matters worse. “Russia now wants a brief ceasefire, a respite to regain strength,” said the president in a speech broadcast on Friday (November 18) at the International Security Forum in Halifax, Canada.
Such a respite would not end the war but only make things worse, he said. “A (…) real, lasting and honest peace can only come through the complete destruction of Russian aggression,” Zelenskyy added.
+++ 10.20 p.m.: After the liberation of the Ukrainian city of Cherson in the Ukraine War, numerous residents of the city reported on Russian war crimes that are said to have taken place during the occupation from March 2nd. Now the news portal reports Ukrainska Pravdathat young people are said to have been held in Russian torture chambers. The online portal relies on a report by the Ukrainian human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets, which he published on the social media platform Facebook.
According to Lubinet’s descriptions, the cruelty of the rooms in Kherson, where people are said to have been tortured by Russian soldiers, differs markedly from finds in other liberated areas: because men and women were held captive together, because there were special cells for juveniles and because all Rooms are said to have been under video surveillance. The exact age of the detained young people is still being investigated: “Witnesses have testified that some of the detained boys did not look older than 14 years,” reports Lubinets.
War crimes in Ukraine war: Russians accuse Ukrainian soldiers
+++ 8.25 p.m.: After a video surfaced on social media, Russia accused Ukraine of executing Russian prisoners of war. This is reported by several media, including the British newspaper Guardian and the news agency Archyde.com agree, but emphasize that the authenticity of the video and the circumstances under which it was created could not initially be independently verified.
The video shows a group of what appear to be Russian soldiers exiting a house with their hands in the air, then are told to lie on their stomachs in front of the building by gunmen wearing Ukrainian army yellow armbands. Then machine gun fire can be heard before at least twelve bodies are shown. The location of the recording is Makiivka in the Ukrainian region of Luhansk.
News in the Ukraine war: Russia with sharp allegations
A spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, called the video loud Archyde.com “further evidence of Ukraine’s crimes”. Matilda Bogner, head of the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, stressed that the mistreatment of prisoners by Russian soldiers has been “rather systematic”. The mistreatment of Russian prisoners of war has so far been classified as “not systematic”.
Ukraine war: Russia bombs “civilian critical infrastructure”
+++ 6.41 p.m: After massive Russian air raids in the past few days and weeks, almost half of the energy infrastructure in Ukraine is no longer operational. This was stated by Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Schmyhal at a press conference in Kyiv on Friday afternoon. Millions of people in Ukraine are currently without electricity.
According to Schmyhal, last Tuesday, November 15 alone, more than 100 rocket attacks were carried out, mostly on the country’s energy infrastructure. Russia accuses Shmyhal of “missile strikes on civilian critical infrastructure” and a fight “against the civilian population”. The Prime Minister therefore called on Ukraine’s European partner countries to provide support in the energy sector, such as financial aid and the delivery of spare parts.
Problems with German tank howitzers in the Ukraine war: spare parts are missing
+++ 5 p.m.: During the Ukraine war, Germany delivered a total of 14 Panzerhaubitzen 2000 to Kyiv. However, there are already problems that could endanger the use of combat vehicles. To Spiegel-Information there are planning errors when ordering spare parts.
A large part of the military equipment provided by the federal government has to be repaired after use at the front, it was reported Spiegel. However, the Federal Ministry of Defense has not yet ordered any spare parts so that the weapon systems can be repaired. Meanwhile, six howitzers were transported to Lithuania for maintenance. However, since the required spare parts are missing and are not available from the industry either, one of the tanks had to be cannibalized and left in Lithuania. According to the newspaper, the Bundeswehr pointed out months ago that the relevant material had to be ordered – apparently without success.
Ukraine war: 10 people die in rocket hit
+++ 3.25 p.m.: Russia has launched renewed airstrikes on Ukraine. Among other things, the city of Vilnjansk in the north of the Zaporizhia region was hit. In addition to the critical infrastructure, a residential building was also destroyed. The number of victims has now been corrected to ten, three of whom were children. “During the night of November 17, 2022, occupying forces carried out three S-300 rocket hits on the city of Vilniansk,” the city was quoted as saying UKrinform the regional prosecutor’s office. “A missile hit a two-story house.”
Children died further east in the same oblast. On Friday night, Russian forces shot dead a family with two children in the settlement of Komysh-Zoria, it was reported pravda.com. The region is occupied by Russian troops. The Ukrainian domestic intelligence service confirmed the violent death to the portal.
News about the Ukraine war: Russia launches attacks
+++ 1.45 p.m.: According to the Ukrainian military, Russia has again launched attacks on Kiev frontline positions in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. “The enemy is concentrating its efforts on obstructing our defense forces in certain areas, launching attacks towards Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Novopavlivka,” Oleksandr Shtupun, a spokesman for the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said on Friday. reported about it CNN.
Bakhmut and Avdiivka have been fiercely contested for several months, but remain in Ukrainian hands. According to the British MoD, the Russian army will “likely” step up its offensive operations in eastern Ukraine by moving troops from the south after they were forced to withdraw from the city of Kherson last week.
News on the Ukraine war: Kremlin excludes talks with the USA
Update from Friday, November 18, 12:55 p.m.: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was no prospect of a summit meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden, nor was it planned. Peskov is quoted by the Russian news agency Tass as saying: “There is simply nothing to discuss with them about Ukraine.”
Earlier, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia does not rule out further high-level meetings with the US on “strategic stability”.
News about the Ukraine war: Heavy fighting reported in Donbass
First report from Friday, November 18th: Kyiv/Moscow – In the Donbass coal and steel region in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian and Russian troops are fighting fiercely, with the front line hardly changing at the moment. The Ukrainian General Staff on Friday (November 18) reported artillery and tank shelling on villages such as Vodyane, Krasnohorivka and Maryinka near the town of Avdiivka. The Kiev information was not independently verifiable, but in this case it was consistent with reports from Russian military bloggers.
Ukrainian-controlled Avdiivka is a few kilometers north of Donetsk. Because the front between Ukrainian forces and Moscow-controlled separatists has been running there since 2014, Ukraine’s positions are well developed. In the nearly nine months since the Russian invasion on February 24, Russian forces have made little gains in terrain. According to Russian data, the village of Opytne was conquered last.
News about the Ukraine war: Russia fires at village with anti-aircraft missiles
According to the situation report of the Ukrainian general staff, another focus of the fighting is the region around the city of Bakhmut. There, Ukrainian positions were fired on with tanks, mortars, tube and rocket artillery. Here, too, the course of the front has remained practically unchanged for months.
There was also heavy artillery fire on the Kupyansk front. This important railway junction in the Kharkiv region was at the rapid advance of the Ukrainian army in September been recaptured. Since then, however, the Ukrainians have made little progress towards the east.
According to local authorities, Russian troops fired at a village in the Zaporizhia region at night with the S-300 system missiles, which were actually intended for anti-aircraft defense. A building was destroyed but no one was injured. (nak with dpa)