Moscow claims to have conquered the villages near Bekhmut

• 20:58: London announced new sanctions against leaders of Russian mobilization in Ukraine

The UK has announced new sanctions against Russian officials who have extended their deployment and prison officials who recruit criminals to fight in Ukraine.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Denis Mantourov, who is in particular responsible for supplying troops mobilized to London, is one of 22 Russian officials targeted by the sanctions, which include an asset freeze and travel ban in the country. Kingdom.

Dozens of local governors from regions with “significant numbers” of conscripts were also targeted after the “partial” mobilization of hundreds of thousands of Russian reservists to fight in Ukraine was announced at the end of September. , according to the British Foreign Office.

• 3:51 p.m.: Kyiv orders “heightened security measures” for all its embassies

Ukraine has ordered “enhanced security measures” at all its embassies after an “employee” at the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid, Spain, was slightly injured in a letter bomb explosion.

“(Ukrainian Foreign Minister) Dmytro Kuleba ordered to strengthen the security of all Ukrainian embassies. He also called on the Spanish authorities to urgently investigate this attack,” the spokesperson of the ministry said on his Twitter account. Oleg Nikolenko, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.

• 14:26: Moscow claims to have conquered villages near Bakhmout

Russia claims to have captured three villages near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.

“After offensive operations, Russian soldiers liberated the settlements of Bilogorivka (located about 25 km north of Bakhmut) and Perche Travnia” (a village called Ozarianyvka in Ukrainian, located about twenty kilometers to the south), the Russian Defense Ministry said. Later in the day, he announced the capture of Andriivka, the third district in the south of the city.

• 13:38: Blinken called Russia’s strikes targeting infrastructure in Ukraine “barbaric”.

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Wednesday condemned Russia’s “barbaric” attacks on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.

“Over the past few weeks, Russia has bombed more than a third of Ukraine’s energy system, plunging millions of people into cold and darkness,” he said after a two-day meeting of NATO diplomatic chiefs in Bucharest. “These are the new targets of President Putin… this brutality against the Ukrainian people is brutal,” he added.

• 12:51: Kyiv welcomes EU call for special court on “Russian crimes”

On Wednesday, the Ukrainian presidency welcomed the proposal of the European Union to work on the creation of a special tribunal for the trial of “Russian crimes” in Ukraine. “This is what we have been proposing for a long time,” Ukrainian presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak said on Telegram after the European Commission announced that it wanted to work on the creation of such a tribunal. creation of mechanisms for the use of frozen Russian assets in the reconstruction of Ukraine.

• 12:33 PM: Ukraine has appointed a new director at the Russian-occupied Zaporozhye power plant

The Ukrainian chief engineer of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, which was occupied by the Russian army, has agreed to take over the management of this infrastructure, which has been appropriated by Moscow. “I have made my decision. In my opinion, this is the only possible and correct decision: to accept the offer (…) to lead the Zaporizhzhya NPP,” Yuri Tchernichuk said in a statement published on the account. center.

The information was provided by the Russian nuclear power operator Rosenergoatom, which de facto controls the area after it was occupied by Russian forces. “We have done and are doing the possible and the impossible so that the world does not experience new (nuclear accidents) like Fukushima and Chernobyl,” he said in a statement.

• 11:07: Moscow and Beijing conduct joint air patrols in the Asia-Pacific

Against the background of the conflict in Ukraine and rivalry between Beijing and Washington, Russia and China have carried out joint air patrols in the Asia-Pacific region.

A Russian and Chinese strategic bomber squadron “carried out air patrols over the Sea of ​​Japan and the East China Sea,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. According to the same source, the joint flight lasted about eight hours.

• 10:18: For the leader of Chechnya, the Pope is a “victim of propaganda”

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said on Wednesday that he was a “victim of propaganda” after Pope Francis called minority Russian soldiers involved in an attack in Ukraine “brutal”.

In an interview with American Jesuit newspaper America on Monday and published on its website, the pope said he had “a lot of information about the brutality of the Russian troops” who had arrived in Ukraine. “The most cruel ones are maybe those who come from Russia, but (they) are not in accordance with the Russian tradition, such as Chechens and Buryats,” he specifically stated.

Ramzan Kadyrov said in a press release published on Telegram: “How can we understand – simply, what ethnicity is such a Russian soldier in such a unit, more than 190 ethnic groups live in our country?” “Of course, the head of the Vatican will not be able to answer this question. He has simply become a victim of propaganda and the ruthlessness of the foreign media.”

• 09:27: The EU wants to create a special war crimes court in Ukraine

The European Union wants a special United Nations-backed tribunal to investigate and try possible war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine, the European Commission president said on Wednesday. Ursula von der Leyen added that she would continue to support the International Criminal Court, adding, “We are ready to start working with the international community to get the widest possible international support for this specialized tribunal.”

The EU executive has also proposed a plan to freeze Russian assets in response to the intervention in Ukraine in February. “We blocked 300 billion euros of reserves of the Central Bank of Russia and froze 19 billion euros for Russian oligarchs,” the president of the Commission said in a press release.

• 6:50: France announces it is sending electricity generators to Ukraine

As a result of cooperation between the EU 17 Member States, the Civil Protection Mechanism has been requested to be activated to deliver around 500 generators and 2,000 winter tents to Ukraine.

France, in turn, has contributed through 100 generators that arrived in Suceava, the European center of Romania, and will soon be delivered to Ukraine. Germany also announced the upcoming supply of “more than 350 generators” to Kiev.

• 4:26: Ukraine urges NATO countries to speed up aid delivery

“Last time I said three words: weapons, weapons, weapons. This time I have three more words: faster, faster and faster,” Ukraine’s foreign minister said on Tuesday. , Dmitri Kouleba, shortly before the meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens. Stoltenberg. What are Ukraine’s most pressing needs? Patriot air defense generators and missiles, he beat.

At the meeting of the enlarged G7 held outside NATO under the chairmanship of Germany, mobilization was demanded in the face of the energy crisis caused by the war.

• 01:12: According to Zelensky, Russians are ruthless in Donbass

In his daily address on Tuesday evening, the president of Ukraine said that the situation on the front is “difficult”, according to him, the Russian army is trying to advance in Donbass and the Kharkov region in the east of the country. Ukraine.

“Despite extremely heavy losses, the invaders are still trying to advance in the Donetsk region, strengthen in the Lugansk region, penetrate the Kharkiv region. They are preparing something in the south,” said Vladimir Zelensky.

With Reuters and AFP