Russian forces were fighting street-to-street battles with Ukrainian troops on the outskirts of the eastern Ukrainian town of Selydove as Moscow’s forces pushed to gain control over the whole of the Donbas region, according to pro-Russian bloggers.
Russia’s Black Sea Fleet had been forced to move many warships from the naval base of Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsular, which Russia annexed in 2014, due to attacks by Ukraine, a Russian-installed official was quoted as saying on Sunday.
Moldovans voted on Sunday in a presidential election and a referendum that could make or break their country’s efforts to join the European Union, after allegations of Russian interference.
Russian forces ‘storm town in eastern Ukraine’
Russian forces were fighting street-to-street battles with Ukrainian troops in the outskirts of the eastern Ukrainian town of Selydove as Moscow’s forces pushed to gain control over the whole of the Donbas region, according to pro-Russian bloggers.
Russian forces, which President Vladimir Putin ordered into Ukraine in February 2022, advanced in September at their fastest rate since March 2022, according to open source data, despite Ukraine taking a part of Russia’s Kursk region.
The thrust of the Russian advance over recent months has been in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, over which Putin says he wants to gain full control.
In recent weeks, Russia has surrounded towns in the Donetsk region and then slowly constricted them until Ukrainian units are forced to withdraw. According to bloggers, they are doing the same to Selydove, which had a pre-war population of more than 20,000.
“Street by street fighting is going on in the town,” according to Yuri Podolyaka, a prominent Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger. “The assault on Selydove has intensified.”
Other pro-Russian bloggers published videos of intensive shelling of Selydove. Reuters was unable to immediately verify the footage. The Russian defence ministry did not comment and there was no immediate comment from Kyiv.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s military, in a late afternoon report on Sunday, said Ukrainian forces had repelled 15 Russian attacks around several towns and villages, including Selydove. The report said nine battles were still raging in the area.
The popular Ukrainian war blog DeepState showed Selydove to be in Ukrainian hands.
Russia controls about 80% of the Donbas and is pushing westwards along about 100km of the 1,200km front around the tactically important towns of Pokrovsk and Kurakhove.
The 2½-year-old Ukraine war is entering what Russian officials say is its most dangerous phase as Russian forces advance and the West ponders how the war will end.
Ukraine wants Nato membership, a step that Russia has said would be unacceptable. The US and key Nato powers have not publicly endorsed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s call for an immediate Nato-membership invitation.
Russian forces, which have taken about a fifth of Ukraine, control 98.5% of the Luhansk region and 60% of the Donetsk region. Together, the two regions make up the Donbas, which is the cradle of the war.
Ukraine attacks force Black Sea Fleet to move warships
Russia’s Black Sea Fleet has been forced to move many warships from the naval base of Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, due to attacks by Ukraine, a Russian-installed official was quoted as saying on Sunday.
The remarks by Dmitry Rogozin, a Russian-installed senator for the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia region and a former head of Russia’s space agency, are the first Russian official confirmation that the fleet has had to move from Sevastopol.
Ukraine has repeatedly said its attacks on Russian warships in the Black Sea have forced Moscow to move ships to Novorossiisk.
Rogozin told the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper that Russia needed to get more serious about its drone development, the organisation of its military drone units and the development of electronic warfare and satellite positioning systems.
“A military-technical revolution is taking place before our very eyes,” Rogozin said of the development of drones and electronic warfare, adding that the pace of innovation was changing the situation at the front every month.
“The Black Sea Fleet is an illustrative example,” Rogozin was quoted as saying. “It was forced to change, basically, its residence due to the fact that our large ships became just big targets for unmanned enemy boats.”
Russia had been behind on drone technology at the start of the 2022 war, and although it had since made significant advances, it needed to move faster, particularly in the focus of its weapons spending and the creation of special drone regiments, said Rogozin.
He said satellite and surface guidance systems that could overcome electronic warfare were of particular importance to allow accurate targeting.
Moldova holds election dogged by alleged Russian meddling
Moldovans voted on Sunday in a presidential election and a referendum that could make or break their country’s efforts to join the European Union, after allegations of Russian interference.
As the war in Ukraine turns the political and diplomatic spotlight on Moldova, the former Soviet republic has sought to escape Moscow’s orbit and embarked on the long process of EU accession talks.
Polls show incumbent Maia Sandu, who has championed EU accession in four years as president, has a clear lead over her 10 rivals on the ballot, though the election will go to a 3 November run-off if she fails to reach the 50% mark.
The 52-year-old former World Bank adviser is likely to face Alexandr Stoianoglo (57), a former prosecutor-general backed by the pro-Russian Party of Socialists, if there is a second round.
The referendum will decide whether to insert a clause into the constitution defining EU accession as a goal. A strong “yes” would endorse Sandu’s push to join the bloc by 2030, while a “no” would be a major setback for her.
The results will set the tone for next summer’s parliamentary election, where Sandu’s party may struggle to retain its majority.
“Our vote at the referendum will define our fate for many decades to come,” she said after casting her ballot, urging Moldovans to vote.
Polls show a majority support joining the EU, though five candidates told supporters to vote “no” or boycott, saying the referendum had been timed to boost Sandu’s vote at the election.
Despite speculation the referendum could fail to garner the turnout threshold of a third of voters, it had passed the 42% mark by 6pm, said election officials.
Stoianoglo boycotted the referendum as he voted, saying the country needed a new government and that if he won, he would develop ties with the EU, Russia, the US and China.
Moldova has alternated between pro-Western and pro-Russian courses since the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union.
Ties with Moscow have deteriorated under Sandu. Her government has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, accused Russia of plotting her overthrow, and diversified energy supply after Russia reduced gas supplies.
The foreign ministry said two polling stations in Moscow — set up for Moldovans abroad — had been “artificially” overcrowded and there might be illegal attempts to bus voters in.
The vote has been overshadowed by election-meddling allegations.
Police accused Ilan Shor, a fugitive tycoon who lives in Russia, of trying to pay off a network of at least 130,000 voters to vote “no” and back a candidate he would only disclose at the last minute.
Shor, jailed in absentia for fraud and theft and under Western sanctions, has offered to pay Moldovans to persuade others to vote “no” and back “our candidate”. He denies wrongdoing.
In the run-up to the vote, state radio in Chisinau has urged people not to vote for money and asked them to report any such offers to the authorities.
On Thursday, law enforcement agencies said they had uncovered a programme in which hundreds of people were taken to Russia to undergo training to stage riots and civil unrest.
Russia denies interfering and accuses Sandu’s government of “Russophobia”.
Serbia’s Vučić thanks Putin for natural gas supplies
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said he thanked Putin on Sunday for helping his country secure sufficient supplies of natural gas for the winter.
Russia and Serbia have a three-year gas supply contract which expires in March 2025.
The phone call, the first between the two leaders for nearly 2½ years, was to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Belgrade from fascism and to discuss bilateral issues, said Vučić, Putin’s closest ally in Europe.
“We have had a long, good, open and meaningful conversation,” the Serbian president said in a video on Instagram.
“I especially thanked him for helping ... to secure sufficient natural gas quantities from Russia to Serbia this winter,” he said.
Ukraine strikes key Russian explosives manufacturer
Ukraine struck a manufacturer of military explosives deep inside Russian territory overnight, as well as storage infrastructure at a military airfield in the Lipetsk region, Kyiv’s General Staff said in a statement on Sunday.
Russian air defence units downed 110 Ukrainian drones over the country, said Russia’s defence ministry, including one over the Moscow region, 43 over the border region of Kursk, and 27 over the southwestern Lipetsk region.
The Russian Shot Telegram channel reported that drones attempted to strike the Ya. M. Sverdlov State-Owned Enterprise in Dzerzhinsk city, Nizhny Novgorod region, about 400km east of Moscow.
The explosives plant, one of the largest manufacturers of its kind used by Russian forces in the war that Moscow launched against Ukraine in February 2022, is subject to sanctions by the US and the European Union.
Kyiv’s General Staff said it was still assessing the damage from its attack.
Four firefighters received minor shrapnel wounds in a drone attack on an industrial zone in Dzerzhinsk city, the region’s governor said, without specifying the target of the attack.
The Russian defence ministry said on Telegram that eight Ukrainian drones were destroyed over Nizhny Novgorod. Residents reported powerful explosions and white smoke in the area of the plant, reported Shot.
Moscow’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram that debris fell in the Ramensky district of Moscow region but there was no damage or casualties.
Kyiv has often said its air attacks target infrastructure key to Russia’s war efforts and are a response to Moscow’s continued air attacks on Ukraine.
Russian officials often do not disclose the full extent of damage inflicted by the drone attacks, especially on military, transport or energy infrastructure.
Russian missile strikes injure 17 in central Ukrainian city
Russian missile strikes on the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih wounded 17 people, said authorities on Sunday, following an overnight attack on the country that included dozens of drones.
Regional governor Serhiy Lysak said 15 apartment buildings, stores, a cafe, a church, office spaces, a bank branch and a gas pipeline were damaged in the city, which is President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown.
Kyiv’s military said Russia had fired two ballistic missiles and also reported that Ukraine had shot down 31 out of 49 Russian drones across the country.
Around 10 drones were destroyed near the capital, Kyiv, said the city’s military administration on the Telegram messaging app. There were no reports of destruction or injuries, it added. DM