Russia’s Shoigu warns of ‘dirty bomb’; Putin congratulates China’s Xi on third term

Moscow has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that Ukraine intends to use chemical or radioactive weapons in a bid to discredit Moscow. Similar reports circulated on Sunday on Russian state media. Ukraine has consistently denied any such plans.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was quick to congratulate Xi Jinping on Sunday after the Chinese leader secured a third term as head of the country’s ruling Communist Party. Putin said he looked forward to further developing a “comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction” between the countries.

Key developments

• Russian oil logistics in chaos with weeks until sanctions bite


• Russia hits Ukraine’s power grid, causing widespread blackouts


• Ukraine crop deal fears boost food costs and slow shipments


• Ex-Moscow investment banker takes top job in war-torn region 


• The private jet that took 100 Russians away from Putin’s war

On the ground

Ukraine shot down 16 drones on the night of 23 October, its defence ministry said on Sunday, after Moscow’s troops attacked positions in the south. Eleven drones were destroyed in the Mykolaiv region alone. That follows Russia’s extensive missile and drone attacks on Saturday, targeted at Ukraine’s electrical grid. Russia is attempting offensives in the Bakhmut and Avdiivka directions, Ukrainian army spokesman Oleksandr Shtupun said. Kremlin troops continue to shell Ukrainian positions along the line of contact and conduct aerial reconnaissance. Russian forces continued on Saturday to withdraw from Ukraine’s western Kherson region “while preparing to conduct delaying actions that will likely be only partially effective,” said the Institute for the Study of War.

Russia’s Shoigu holds calls with UK, Turkey, France

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu spoke on Sunday with his UK, French and Turkish counterparts, Russia’s ministry said, in each case raising “concerns” that Ukraine plans to detonate a “dirty bomb” as a provocation. No further details were offered in the brief, identical readouts.

Russia has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that Kyiv’s forces intend to use chemical or radioactive weapons. Ukraine has denied any such plans.

The situation in Ukraine “has a steady tendency towards further, uncontrolled escalation,” Shoigu said, according to a readout of the call with Sebastien Lecornu of France. Shoigu also spoke Friday with US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, the pair’s first conversation since May.

Power restored to hard-hit Khmelnytskyi; power rationing in Kyiv

Ukrenergo said it had restored power to Khmelnytskyi after Russian missile strikes on the western Ukrainian city on Saturday left almost 700,000 people without electricity. Work continues on restoring power to the Rivne, Cherkasy and Volyn regions, Ukrenegro said.

Ukrenergy, the national grid operator, ordered limits to electricity supplies in Kyiv and four adjacent regions to avoid network overload in the aftermath of recent Russian attacks.

Electricity cuts in Kyiv may last four hours or more, the power company DTEK Kyiv Electric Networks said on its website.

Russia says it destroys major aviation fuel depot

Russia’s defence ministry said in a daily briefing it had destroyed a major depot in the Cherkasy region of central Ukraine that stored more than 100,000 tonnes of aviation fuel for Ukraine’s air forces.

There was no confirmation of the incident and no comment from Ukraine.

Pilots dead as Russian fighter jet crashes in Siberia

Two pilots were killed when a Russian Su-30 fighter jet crashed into a two-storey building in Irkutsk, southern Siberia, on Sunday during a test flight, the regional governor said. No civilians were harmed.

Irkutsk is the main manufacturing site of Irkut Corporation, which makes Russia’s Sukhoi Su-30 attack aircraft.

The incident comes less than a week after a Russian military jet slammed into an apartment building in Yeysk, southern Russia, killing more than a dozen people. In that case, the pilots ejected before impact.

Ukraine’s Motor Sich executives detained in collaboration probe

Ukraine’s Security Service, or SBU, detained executives from the major industrial company Motor Sich PJSC in what authorities say is an investigation into possible collaboration: specifically, supplying aviation parts to Russia amid the war.

Investigators are looking into the possible supply by Motor Sich of aviation engines to Russia from its Zaporizhzhia-based plant via intermediaries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, with the components subsequently used in “Russian attack helicopters.”

The company’s president and head of foreign trade were detained, the service said on its website without specifying names. Vyacheslav Bohuslayev, Motor Sich’s president and co-owner, didn’t pick up calls from Bloomberg News to his personal phone. The company didn’t return calls to its office.

Putin congratulates China’s Xi on third term

Vladimir Putin told China’s Xi Jinping he looks forward to “continuing our constructive dialogue and working closely together to develop a comprehensive partnership and strategic interaction” between the two nations, according to a Kremlin statement.

Russia’s leader was among the first to send regards after Xi secured a historic third term as head of the country’s ruling Communist Party.

Weeks left to straighten out Russian oil logistics

Traders, tanker companies and the world’s most powerful governments are becoming increasingly fixated upon one question in the oil market: can the petroleum industry’s supply chain handle the harshest sanctions on Russian exports in history, due to start in another six months?

In the meantime, a vast shadow fleet of tankers is being amassed to service Moscow’s interests. Intense US-led diplomatic wrangling to soften aggressive European Union sanctions has been going on for months, but time is ticking.

Ukraine’s PM asks Germany for urgent military aid

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal asked Germany to provide further military aid as soon as possible, in particular to defend against repeated Iranian-made drones, according to an interview with Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and reported by DPA.

Ukraine is “impatiently” waiting for new ammunition, which is needed “right now,” Shmyhal said. “It is literally a matter of days.”

Separately, Shmyhal said Ukraine may be left without salaries and pension payments if the European Union stops providing promised funding. “We have already exhausted all possibilities of saving,” he said.

Ukraine says Russian troops flee in Kherson area

Russian troops continue to leave the Kherson region amid a Ukrainian counteroffensive, the general staff in Kyiv said on Facebook. Russian officers left the town of Beryslav, 77km east of Kherson up the Dnipro river, according to the account.

US-based analysts at the Institute for the Study of War said Kremlin troops have abandoned their positions in Charivne and Chkalove. Medics, as well as officers, have reportedly evacuated from Beryslav, they said.

Russian forces are removing patients from the Kakhovka Hospital on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, “likely to free up hospital beds for Russian military casualties that may result from the withdrawal across the river,” ISW said.

Annexation officials order rapid Kherson evacuation

Russian-installed authorities ordered all civilians in the southern city of Kherson to leave “immediately” ahead of an expected advance by Ukrainian troops and take “documents, money, valuables and clothes” with them.

In a Telegram post that added urgency to previous statements, the pro-Kremlin administration called on civilians to use boat crossings over the Dnipro River to move deeper into Russian-held territory, citing a tense situation at the front.

There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian authorities. Kyiv has warned that Russia has mined and may attempt to blow up the Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River above Kherson, causing massive flooding to the city and dozens of other settlements downstream. DM