Russia-Ukraine war live: Crimea bridge not fully operational until September 2023, says UK defence ministry | Ukraine
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Key events

More Ukrainian governors are posting their daily status updates to Telegram on what appears to have been a quiet night in several regions. Vitaliy Kim, governor of Mykolaiv reports that in his region one house has been destroyed and one car damaged overnight by shelling with no casualties reported. Dmytro Zhyvytskyi, governor of Sumy reports that the region suffered eight explosions following shelling, but as yet there were no details of any casualties.

Oleh Synyehubov, governor of Kharkiv, has posted to Telegram to say that there were no missile strikes on the region overnight, but there was continued shelling in the border settlements. The Kharkiv region borders Donetsk and Luhansk, two of the occupied regions of Ukraine that Russia has claimed to annex.

Synyehubov said that two residents were hospitalised as a result of the shelling. He also said that two highway workers were killed and two were injured as a result of their equipment hitting a mine in Chuhuiv. The claims have not been independently verified.

Ukraine calls on G20 to address child deportations

Ukraine has collated thousands of reports of its children being deported to Russia and wants their plight addressed at a summit of the Group of 20 major economies, Zelenskiy’s chief of staff was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

“The Russian Federation continues to commit its crimes in connection with Ukrainian children,” Zelenskiy’s office quoted Andriy Yermak as saying at a meeting he chaired of a group of officials responsible for child protection. “The removal of children continues.”

The statement by Zelenskiy’s office said its National Information Bureau showed 10,500 children had been deported or forcibly displaced. Ukraine’s minister responsible for reintegrating Russian-occupied territories noted at the meeting that only 96 children had been returned.

Yermak was quoted as saying Ukraine could count on UN help, but he restated Ukraine’s lack of confidence in the International Committee of the Red Cross to help.

Yermak said discussions about the return of the children should start at the 15–16 November G20 summit in Indonesia, which Zelenskiy is expected to attend, most likely remotely.

Crimean bridge repair unlikely before 2023, UK says

The UK Ministry of Defence has released its latest intelligence update, saying “Russian efforts to repair the Crimean bridge continue but it is unlikely to be fully operational until at least September 2023”.

“On 8 November the road bridge was due to be closed to allow the movement and installation of a replacement 64-metre space. Three more spans will be required to replace the damaged sections,” it said.

“Although Crimean officials have claimed these additional spans will be in place by 20 December, a briefing provided to President Putin added that works to the other carriageway would cause disruption to road traffic until March 2023.”

“The damage to the bridge, the recent attack on the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol and the probable withdrawal from Kherson all complicate the Russian government’s ability to paint a picture of military success.”

Updated at 01.50 EST

Millions in Ukraine without power

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on Tuesday about 4 million people were without power in 14 regions plus the capital Kyiv, but on a stabilisation rather than an emergency basis. Scheduled hourly power outages would affect the whole of the country on Wednesday, said Ukraine’s electrical grid operator, Ukrenergo.

Russian missile and drone attacks have targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in the past few weeks as winter approaches, when mean temperatures typically drop to several degrees below 0C and lows of -20C.

Two people look at a phone during a local power outage in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Two people look at a phone during a local power outage in Kyiv, Ukraine. Photograph: Ed Ram/Getty Images

A Ukrainian military statement on Tuesday accused Russian troops of continuing to loot and destroy infrastructure in the southern city of Kherson, where a showdown has been looming for weeks in the only regional capital Russia has captured intact since its invasion.

Russian artillery hit more than 30 settlements in Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, and in Zaporizhzhia region the Russian-installed authorities were forcing residents to accept Russian passports after seizing their Ukrainian documents, the statement said.

Fierce fighting in southern Ukraine – reports

A Russian-installed mayor in the town of Snihurivka, east of the southern city of Mykolaiv, was cited by Russia’s RIA news agency as saying residents had seen tanks and that fierce fighting was going on, Reuters reports.

“They got into contact during the day and said there were tanks moving around and, according to their information, heavy fighting on the edge of the town,” said the mayor, Yuri Barabashov referring to the residents.

“People saw this equipment moving through the streets in the town centre.”

Kirill Stremousov, deputy head of the Russian-installed administration in the Kherson region, said on the Telegram messaging service that Ukrainian forces had tried to advance on three fronts, including Snihurivka.

Vitaly Kim, the Ukrainian governor of Mykolaiv region, apparently quoting an intercepted conversation between Russian servicemen, suggested that Ukrainian forces had already pushed the Russians out of the area.

“Russian troops are complaining that they have already been thrown out of there,” Kim said in a statement on his Telegram channel.

File photo of damaged settlements in the village of Zorya, in the Mykolaiv region
File photo of damaged settlements in the village of Zorya, in the Mykolaiv region, following intense clashes this month. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Summary

Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. I’m Virginia Harrison and I’ll be bringing you all the latest developments as they unfold over the next few hours.

If you have just joined us, here are the latest developments:

  • Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his forces would not yield “a single centimetre” in fighting for control of eastern Donetsk region after earlier insisting that restoration of Ukrainian territory and compensation from Russia were conditions under which peace talks could take place. “The activity of the occupiers remains at an extremely high level – dozens of attacks every day,” Zelenskiy said. “They are suffering extraordinarily high losses. But the order remains the same – to advance on the administrative boundary of Donetsk region. We will not yield a single centimetre of our land.”

  • The Ukrainian president said about 4 million people were without power in 14 regions plus the capital, Kyiv, but on a stabilisation rather than an emergency basis.

  • The Ukrainian military accused Russian troops of continuing to loot and destroy infrastructure in Kherson, where a showdown has been looming for weeks in the only regional capital Russia has captured since its invasion. “On 7th November, a convoy of trucks passed over the dam of the Kakhova hydroelectric station loaded with home appliances and building materials,” a statement said. Russian forces were dismantling mobile phone towers and taking away equipment, it said.

  • Britain’s Ministry of Defence said Russia was preparing new fortified lines deep inside territory it controls “to forestall any rapid Ukrainian advances in the event of breakthroughs”. This involved installing concrete barriers known as “dragon’s teeth” to stop tanks, including near Mariupol in the south to help safeguard Russia’s “land bridge” to occupied Crimea even if Moscow loses other territory.

  • Zelenskiy called on Tuesday for an extension to the Black Sea grain export deal that lifted a Russian blockade of three major Ukrainian ports and eased a global food crisis. The accord, brokered by Turkey and the UN in July, expires on 19 November and looked in jeopardy in October when Russia briefly suspended its participation before rejoining. Ukraine also wanted the grain export deal expanded to include more ports and goods, and hoped a decision to renew the pact for at least a year would be taken next week, the deputy infrastructure minister said in a Reuters interview.

  • Pro-Kremlin forces in Russia are hoping that the Republicans win control of Congress, an outcome they believe could mean the Democratic president, Joe Biden, finds it harder to get military aid packages for Ukraine approved. But for now, few in Moscow expect the bipartisan US political consensus on Ukraine to crack, whatever the result of Tuesday’s midterm elections.

  • Zelenskiy urged the US to stay united in its support and for US politicians to maintain “unwavering unity” and follow Ukraine’s example “until peace is restored”.

  • The US and Russia will soon hold talks on resuming suspended nuclear arms control inspections that had been put on hold during the Covid-19 pandemic and languished after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the state department spokesman Ned Price said. Negotiations on the inspections would take place “in the near future” under the terms of the New Start treaty and would not include any discussion of the conflict in Ukraine.

  • Zelenskiy has told world leaders they will not be able to tackle the climate crisis unless Russia’s invasion of his country ends. “There can be no effective climate policy without the peace,” he said in a video address at the Cop27 UN climate summit in Egypt.

  • The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, will join next week’s G20 summit “if the situation is possible”, his Indonesian counterpart, Joko Widodo, who is hosting the meeting, said on Tuesday, adding that Putin could attend virtually instead. On Monday the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Putin would decide by the end of the week whether he would attend.

  • Zelenskiy will take part in the G20 meeting in Bali, most probably attending virtually, his spokesman has told Suspilne, the Ukrainian public broadcaster. Previously the Ukrainian position was that Zelenskiy would not appear if Putin did.

    Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report

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