Russia’s military said on Sunday that its forces had taken control of the village of Vyshneve in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region as they pursued their advance towards the logistical centre of Pokrovsk.
A Moldovan security official accused Russia on Sunday of “massive interference” as Moldovans voted in a tightly fought presidential election that could see Moscow claw back influence in a country drawing closer to the European Union.
Europe would need to rethink its support of Ukraine if Donald Trump was elected president of the US, said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Sunday, as the continent “will not be able to bear the burdens of the war alone”.
Russian forces capture new village in Donetsk region
Russia’s military said on Sunday that its forces had taken control of the village of Vyshneve in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region as they pursued their advance toward the logistical centre of Pokrovsk.
Ukraine’s General Staff made no mention of the village falling into Russian hands, but reported fighting in the vicinity.
Popular Ukrainian war blog DeepState acknowledged the loss of Vyshneve and said Russian forces were moving on an adjacent village.
Ukraine’s General Staff, in an afternoon report on Facebook, said Russian forces had launched 19 attacks on the Pokrovsk sector of the 1,000km frontline in eastern Ukraine.
“In containing the pressure, the defence forces repelled enemy attacks,” it said. “The occupying forces are focusing their efforts on the villages of Promin and Vyshneve.”
DeepState said Russian forces were “becoming active near Hryhorivka”, a village west of Vyshneve on the way to Pokrovsk.
“They are trying, with infantry, to advance in forested areas along a rail line and they wanted to move into the village and gain a foothold,” it said. “Fortunately, this attempt was unsuccessful.”
Vyshneve is near Selydove, a major town whose capture was announced by the Russian military last week. On Saturday, the Russian defence ministry said it had captured two other villages on the eastern front.
Russian forces have focused on taking over all of the Donbas — made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions — after making an initial unsuccessful push on the capital, Kyiv, in the days after their February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
In September, Russian forces advanced at their fastest rate since March 2022, according to open source data, despite Ukraine seizing a part of Russia’s southern Kursk region.
Moldovan official accuses Russia of meddling in election runoff
A Moldovan security official accused Russia on Sunday of “massive interference” as Moldovans voted in a tightly fought presidential election that could see Moscow claw back influence in a country drawing closer to the European Union.
Pro-Western incumbent Maia Sandu, who has accelerated the nation’s push to leave Moscow’s orbit and join the EU, faced Alexandr Stoianoglo, an ex-prosecutor general backed by the traditionally pro-Russian Socialist Party.
The fortunes of Sandu, who set Moldova on the long path of EU accession talks in June, were being closely watched in Brussels a week after Georgia, another ex-Soviet state seeking membership, re-elected a ruling party regarded in the West as increasingly pro-Russian.
The future of Moldova, a poor agricultural nation of fewer than three million people, has been in the spotlight since Russia began its full-scale invasion of neighbouring Ukraine in 2022.
“We’re seeing massive interference by Russia in our electoral process ... an effort with high potential to distort the outcome,” Sandu’s national security adviser, Stanislav Secrieru, wrote on X.
There was no immediate comment from Moscow, which has denied past allegations of meddling. Moldova has accused Ilan Shor, a fugitive oligarch living in Russia, of spending millions of dollars to pay off voters to oppose Sandu. He denies wrongdoing.
Stoianoglo says he supports EU integration but also wants to develop ties with Russia in the national interest. He wants to renegotiate cheap Russian gas supplies and said he would meet President Vladimir Putin if Moldovans wanted it.
“I voted for a free, stable and blossoming Moldova that isn’t standing with its hand out, but develops in harmony based on relations with the West and East,” he said after casting his ballot.
Stoianoglo’s East-West balancing rhetoric contrasts with Sandu’s four years in power, during which ties with the Kremlin have unravelled, Moscow’s diplomats have been expelled and she has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Moscow calls her government “Russophobic”.
Sandu portrays Stoianoglo as the Kremlin’s man and a political Trojan horse, painting Sunday’s vote as a choice between a bright future in the EU by 2030 or one of uncertainty and instability.
Stoianoglo says that is untrue and that Sandu has failed to look out for the interests of ordinary Moldovans. He accuses her of divisive politics in a country that has a Romanian-speaking majority and a large Russian-speaking minority.
Security official Secrieru cited reports of Moldovans being transported to vote in an organised and therefore illegal way from Moldova’s pro-Moscow breakaway region of Transnistria where Russia has soldiers stationed as peacekeepers.
There had also been coordinated cyberattacks targeting the connectivity of voter record systems and disrupting links between polling stations domestically and abroad, he said.
Orbán says Trump victory would force Europe to rethink Ukraine support
Europe would need to rethink its support of Ukraine if Donald Trump was elected president of the US, said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Sunday, as the continent “will not be able to bear the burdens of the war alone”.
Orbán opposes military aid to Ukraine and has made clear he thinks Trump shares his views and would negotiate a peace settlement for Ukraine.
“We [in Europe] need to realise that if there will be a pro-peace president in America, which I not only believe in but I also read the numbers that way ... if what we expect happens and America becomes pro-peace, then Europe cannot remain pro-war,” said Orbán.
Ukraine will be high on the agenda when European leaders meet in Budapest in the coming week, he said, referring to a European Political Community meeting and a more informal meeting of EU leaders due to take place.
“Europe cannot bear the burden of [the war] alone, and if Americans switch to peace, then we also need to adapt, and this is what we will discuss in Budapest,” said Orbán.
Germany’s upstart leftists chip at pro-Ukraine consensus
Germany’s new leftist populist party aims to exact a high price from mainstream parties for helping them govern three eastern states: demanding that their regional officials join calls to stop arming Ukraine.
Such concessions risk eroding the pro-Ukraine consensus in Germany, Kyiv’s second biggest military supporter against Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour. They are also fostering tensions in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s three-way federal coalition in Berlin, which is already hanging by a thread.
Launched in January, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) is the only party to oppose arming Ukraine besides the far-right AfD, a pariah because other parties refuse to work with it.
The BSW’s electoral successes in the states of Brandenburg, Thuringia and Saxony in September make it a near-indispensable partner for mainstream parties seeking to form coalitions there.
Sahra Wagenknecht, the popular but divisive leader after whom the Russia-friendly, Nato-sceptic party is named, wants its regional branches to force any potential partners to sign up to its anti-war positions as the price of a coalition.
That led this week to the Brandenburg branch of Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) endorsing a joint statement with the BSW which included the message: “The war will not be ended by further weapons deliveries”.
The text, which also criticised the possible deployment of US long-range missiles in Germany, sparked outrage in Berlin and disquiet among some within the SPD.
Russian drone attack on Kyiv damages buildings, power lines
A Russian air attack on Kyiv damaged buildings, roads and several power lines in the city, said the capital’s military administration early on Sunday, after the military said air defences were trying to repel a drone attack.
There were no injuries in the attack, which came in waves and approached the city from different directions, said Serhiy Popko, the head of the Kyiv military administration, on the Telegram messaging app.
It was Russia’s second drone attack on Kyiv in as many nights. According to preliminary information, all of the attack drones were destroyed, Popko added. It was not immediately clear how many drones were launched at Kyiv.
Falling drone debris damaged an entrance and windows of at least five buildings in the Shevchenkivskyi and Holosiivskyi districts, including a hostel and windows in an office building, said Popko.
North Korea accuses South Korea of raising nuclear war risk
North Korean state media released a white paper on Sunday accusing South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol of exposing his country to the danger of nuclear war through his policies toward the North.
The document, compiled by North Korea’s Institute of Enemy State Studies and released by state news agency KCNA, criticised Yoon’s “reckless remarks” about war, abandoning elements of an inter-Korean agreement, engaging in nuclear war planning with the US, and seeking closer ties with Japan and Nato.
“Its ever-worsening military moves resulted only in the paradoxical consequences of pushing [North Korea] to stockpile its nuclear weapons at an exponential rate and further develop its nuclear attack capability,” said the paper.
Yoon, a conservative, has taken a hard line on North Korea, which has forged ahead with developing its arsenal of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions.
His administration blames North Korea for raising tensions with weapons tests and providing military aid and troops to aid Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Russia, Ukraine accuse each other of obstructing PoW swaps
Kyiv called on Moscow on Sunday to provide a list of Ukrainian prisoners of war (PoW) ready for a swap after Russia accused Ukraine of sabotaging the exchange process.
In requesting the list of Ukrainians from his Russian counterpart, Ukrainian human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets wrote on his Telegram messaging channel: “We are always ready to exchange prisoners of war!”
Kyiv and Moscow have frequently exchanged prisoners since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbour in 2022. The last swap took place in mid-October with each side bringing home 95 prisoners.
On Saturday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Ukraine was essentially sabotaging the process and had refused to take back its own citizens.
Zakharova said Russia’s defence ministry had offered to hand over 935 Ukrainian prisoners of war but that Ukraine had taken only 279.
Lubinets, in turn, said that Ukraine was always ready to accept its citizens and accused Russia of slowing down the exchange process. DM