Russia-Ukraine war live: explosions heard in Kyiv; reports Ukrainian forces have retaken eastern bank of Kherson

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Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on Telegram that two residential buildings had been hit in Kyiv’s Pechersk district, a residential area just north of the presidential administration.

“Several missiles were shot down by air defence over Kyiv. Medics and rescuers at the scene of the hits,” added Klitschko.

Kyivians reported hearing fire engines rushing to the scene on Twitter.

Two residential buildings have been hit with Russian missiles in Kyiv’s Pechersk district, according to the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko.

In a statement, Klitschko said:

Attack on the capital. According to preliminary information, two residential buildings were hit in the Pechersk district. Several missiles were shot down by air defence over Kyiv. Medics and rescuers at the scene of the hits.

The city’s military administration reports that four rockets were shot down, according to the Ukrainian minister of internal affairs Anton Gerashchenko.

At least two explosions were heard and smoke could be seen rising over Kyiv, according to a Reuters correspondent in the Ukrainian capital.

The explosions followed air raid sirens across the country hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy delivered his G20 summit video address.

The cause of the explosions is unclear but Andriy Yermak, chief of the presidential staff, tweeted that Moscow had responded to Zelenskiy’s speech “with a new missile attack”.

The Ukrainian newspaper Kyiv Post also said the city had been struck by Russian forces.

A series of explosions have been heard in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, according to reports.

This is from Christopher Miller of the Financial Times:

And from the Kyiv Independent:

Over the last week, several media reports have claimed that the west may be trying to pressure Ukraine into ceding territory in exchange for a ceasefire.

Some of Ukraine’s western allies are reportedly worried about the economic consequences of a protracted war. Italy’s La Republicca reported that some Nato allies envisaged talks beginning after Ukraine recaptured Kherson. On Friday, Ukraine announced Russian forces had fled the right bank of Kherson, but they still occupy the left side.

In response, President Zelenskiy and his aides adamantly ruled out talks, saying that first Russia must withdraw its troops from Ukraine and the country’s international borders are re-established.

Speaking to the G20 summit, Zelenskiy said there would be no Minsk-3, referring to the failed peace accords which Ukraine signed under pressure in 2015. The ceasefire was never adhered to by either side and the political points of the agreement would have given Russia’s proxies in eastern Ukraine a right to vote over Ukrainian legislation, if implemented.

The latest public pushback of the allies pressure to conclude the war in the near future has come from Ukraine’s army chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

On Monday, in a phone call with his US counterpart General Mark Milley, Zaluzhnyi said Ukraine’s military will not accept a compromise solution to the war.

I have assured (Milley) that we will fight until we have no strength. Our objective is to liberate the whole Ukrainian land from Russian occupation. We will not stop on this path under any circumstances. Ukrainian soldiers will accept no negotiations, agreements or compromise solutions. The only term for negotiation: Russia must leave all the occupied territories.

Zaluzhnyi further informed Milley of Ukraine’s efforts to defend its northern border with Belarus. In this last month, satellites have detected a build up of Russian forces and equipment in Belarus.

Zaluzhnyi said that despite facing “tremendous” resistance from Russian troops, Ukraine’s forces were pushing to retake the final slither of occupied Kharkiv region.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s forces were defending against a four-pronged offensive in Donetsk region and consolidating their recent advances in Kherson by building defences.

A western official warned that fighting in Ukraine was likely to descend into a grind throughout 2023 following Russia’s retreat from Kherson in which neither side is able to achieve a military breakthrough.

The gloomy assessment – if proved accurate – would ultimately favour Russia because it occupies a large swathe of Ukrainian territory and comes amid warnings of ammunition shortages on both sides and the impending onset of winter.

The western official, who was speaking on condition of anonymity, said:

If we take a big picture overall as we go into 2023, we are still expecting the grind. We are still expecting it to be largely static, and we still expect neither side to particularly win or lose, and really that extends all the way through 2023.

The official also stressed that any predictions about the future course of the war remain difficult to make, not least because of the offensive creativity of the Ukrainian forces. “The Ukrainians continue to surprise us,” they added, a reference to autumn successes near Kharkiv and most recently in Kherson.

Munitions supply is deemed to be a significant limiting factor for both sides, who are now deemed to be engaged in a race to rebuild stockpiles ahead of next spring. Ukrainian estimates that Russia has reduced its stock of Iskander cruise missiles to around 120 from around 900 pre-war, are thought to be accurate, officials indicated.

Russia successfully evacuated around 20,000 from the Kherson pocket in the period running up to the formal withdrawal announcement last week, and the west believes very few were left behind. Unlike previous withdrawals from Kyiv in April and near Kharkiv in September, it was relatively well organised and the number of abandoned vehicles was “in the tens not the hundreds”.

The official said they believed it will be very difficult for Ukraine to cross the Dnipro en masse – despite reports of raids across the river – where the Russians have built what were described as relatively old-fashioned but effective fortifications.

Meanwhile, they were monitoring whether Russia would try to move several thousand troops from Kherson to the Donbas and whether “Russia will be able to generate an offensive striking force in the Donbas region”. Russian attacks have been halted for months by well organised Ukrainian defences.

France’s president Emmanuel Macron expressed “deep concern” over Russia’s choice to continue its war in Ukraine, the French presidency said after a meeting between Macron and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 summit.

In a statement, Macron’s office added:

The consequences of this conflict go beyond Europe’s borders and should be overcome with close cooperation between France and China.

Macron and Xi agreed it was urgent to de-escalate the conflict and reaffirmed their position on preventing the use of nuclear weapons, the French presidency added.

Macron tweeted that he and Xi both “call for respect for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty”.

However, Beijing’s readout of the pair’s meeting made no mention of Ukraine until the final paragraph, which said:

President Xi made the point that China’s position on the Ukraine crisis is clear and consistent; China stands for ceasefire, cessation of the conflict and peace talks.

We are in Posad-Pokrovske, a frontline village in the Kherson region.

Russian and Ukrainian forces took and retook control of this village at least seven times. As a result, Posad-Pokrovske was razed to the ground.

Russia may have delayed announcing its withdrawal from Kherson in part to avoid giving President Joe Biden a political win ahead of the US midterm elections last week, according to a report.

The US has intelligence that senior Russian officials discussed the US midterm elections as a factor during deliberations about the withdrawal announcement, one source told CNN.

The intelligence signals Russia has a continued interest in influencing the US political landscape, and comes after President Biden suggested the timing of Moscow’s withdrawal announcement was more than just coincidence.

At a press conference last Wednesday, Biden said:

I find it interesting they waited until after the election to make that judgment, which we knew for some time they were going to be doing, and it’s evidence of the fact that they have some real problems – the Russian military.

Russian-installed civil servants in Nova Kakhovka, the second-largest city in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine, have left due to intensified shelling, according to officials.

The city’s Russian-installed administration said:

Employees of the Nova Kakhovka city state administration and state and municipal institutions also left the city and were relocated to safe areas in the region.

Here’s more detail from Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov‘s comments to reporters at the G20 summit earlier, where he said Ukraine’s conditions for restarting talks with Moscow were “unrealistic”.

Lavrov said:

All problems are with the Ukrainian side, which is categorically refusing negotiations and putting forward conditions that are obviously unrealistic.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has ruled out peace negotiations with Moscow as long as Vladimir Putin remains in power, after the Russian leader proclaimed the annexation of four Ukrainian regions in September.

Lavrov said western countries are “well aware that this process is hindered by Ukraine, which, including through laws, by Zelenskiy’s decree, bans negotiations with the Russian Federation”, adding:

We want to see concrete evidence that the west is seriously interested in disciplining Zelenskiy and explaining to him that this cannot continue, that this is not in the interests of the Ukrainian people.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Zelenskiy, responded to Lavrov’s remarks by blaming the continuation of the war on the Russian minister’s “public manipulation and unwillingness to stop murdering”.

Speaking at the G20 summit, Lavrov also accused western leaders of trying to “politicise” a joint declaration, a draft of which states that “most” members strongly condemn the war in Ukraine. He said:

Our Western colleagues tried in every way to make that declaration politicised and tried to push through language that implied condemning the actions of the Russian Federation on behalf of the entire G20, which includes us.