The Ukrainian president congratulated Donald Trump, who claimed victory in the US presidential election.
Later in the day, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army said that kyiv has captured 717 Russian prisoners since its offensive in the Kursk region launched in August 2024.
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RUSSIA WILL PURSUE “ALL ITS OBJECTIVES”
Russia “has no illusions” about Donald Trump but will “work” with him while pursuing “all its objectives” in Ukraine, Russian diplomacy warned after the Republican’s victory in the American presidential election.
“Our conditions remain unchanged and are well known in Washington,” the Foreign Ministry continued in a statement.
PRISONERS OF WAR
Ukraine said on Wednesday it had captured a total of 717 Russian prisoners of war since the start of its offensive in the Russian border region of Kursk, launched in early August.
The number of Russian soldiers taken prisoner is one of the claimed successes of this Ukrainian operation, which, however, did not make it possible to relax Russian pressure on the eastern front, as the kyiv authorities hoped.
The commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, Oleksandr Syrsky, reported on Facebook that “717 Russian soldiers” have been taken prisoner since the launch of this offensive on August 6.
RUSSIA CLAIMS TWO VILLAGES
Russia claimed Wednesday the capture of two villages near the industrial town of Kurakhové, in southeastern Ukraine, one of the sectors of the front where Russian troops are advancing against an exhausted Ukrainian army.
According to the daily report from the Russian Defense Ministry, Moscow forces seized Antonivka and Maksimivka, two villages located south of Kurakhové, and north of Vougledar, a Ukrainian fortress that fell in early October.
ZELENSKY FÉLICITE TRUMP
As Donald Trump claims victory in the US presidential election, Volodymyr Zelensky congratulated the billionaire in a message posted on X. “I appreciate President Trump’s commitment to the approach of ‘peace through strength ” in international matters, wrote the Ukrainian head of state in particular.
DEFENSE TREATY BETWEEN RUSSIA AND NORTH KOREA
The Council of the Russian Federation ratified on Wednesday a mutual defense treaty with North Korea, accused by the West and kyiv of wanting to commit thousands of soldiers to fighting against Ukraine.
This vote by the upper house of Parliament, which comes two weeks after that of the deputies, was hardly in doubt and no senator voted “against”. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who initialed the treaty in June in Pyongyang, must now promulgate the text which will then enter into force.
NORTH KOREAN SOLDIERS
In a video intervention, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke for the first time of the arrival of North Korean soldiers on Ukrainian soil alongside Russian troops. “I would like to thank all the people around the world who reacted to the deployment of North Korean soldiers in Ukraine. And who reacted not only with words, but also with actions to strengthen our military defense,” he said. the head of state.
“The first battles with North Korean soldiers open a new page of instability in the world, he added. Together, with the world, we must do everything to ensure that this Russian desire to extend the war is a failure.”
THE AUDITORS
The announced construction of a ski resort in the west of Ukraine is controversial: publications on social networks assure that hundreds of millions of euros in European aid would be used to finance this project. Misleading messages, as this Verifiers article explains.
WELCOME
Hello everyone and welcome to this live dedicated to the news of the war in Ukraine.
This is a new warning issued by Volodymyr Zelensky. In his traditional speech on social networks, the Ukrainian president estimated, Tuesday, November 5, that “the first battles against North Korean soldiers mark a new chapter in global instability”. According to him, “Together with the whole world, we must do everything to ensure that this Russian step towards the extension of the war – this real escalation – is a loss. A loss for Russia as well as for North Korea.”
The presence of soldiers sent by Pyongyang to help Russia against Ukraine worries the international community. On Sunday, November 3, the Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, had already estimated that “this would represent a very dangerous escalation of the conflict” between Moscow and kyiv. A little earlier, the head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, indicated that of the 10,000 North Korean soldiers who, according to Washington, entered Russia, up to 8,000 “were deployed in the Kursk region”, in Russia, on the border with Ukraine. However, neither Moscow nor Pyongyang have confirmed or denied the arrival of these troops.
In addition to concerns about the presence of North Korean soldiers, Ukraine also indicated on Tuesday that it was investigating the execution of six of its soldiers after their capture in the east of its territory by Russian forces. According to the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office, three of these soldiers were shot dead on October 23 after being taken prisoner “during an offensive on the town of Selydové”, whose capture by the Russian army was announced on October 29. Three more captured Ukrainian soldiers were executed on November 1 “during an assault on fortifications in the Pokrovsk sector”, an important logistical node which the Russians have been getting closer to for weeks, the Prosecutor’s Office said on Telegram.
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Ukraine: European aid diverted to build a luxurious “1.5 billion dollar” ski resort?
The Ukrainian authorities claimed at the end of October to have information on the execution by Russian soldiers of more than 100 prisoners of war, in the majority of cases recently. Ukraine and Russia have repeatedly accused each other of having killed prisoners of war since the start of the Russian invasion launched in February 2022. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights assures to have “documented numerous violations of international humanitarian law against prisoners of war, including cases of summary executions of Russian and Ukrainian prisoners of war.”
