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The capital Kyiv suffered power outages after the large-scale attack on Friday
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Volodymyr Zelensky has said he has held a “very positive and productive” with Donald Trump in the wake of Russia’s large-scale attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Much of the capital, Kyiv, experienced power outages as a result, with Putin’s forces ramping up attacks on on Ukraine’s energy grid in recent weeks as winter approaches.
The Ukrainian president said: “I informed President Trump about Russia’s attacks on our energy system—and I appreciate his willingness to support us. We discussed opportunities to bolster our air defence, as well as concrete agreements that we are working on to ensure this.”
On Friday, Moscow launched a large-scale overnight drone and missile attack, which killed a seven-year-old boy was killed when his home was hit in the southeast and injured at least 20 people.
A Russian MiG-31 fighter jet also crashed while attempting to land in the western Lipetsk region near the border with Ukraine, the Russian defence ministry said.
The aircraft reportedly crashed in an uninhabited area in Lipetsk, which is about 300km (190 miles) from Ukraine’s eastern border.
The cause of the crash remains unclear.
Volodymyr Zelensky has announced he has synchronized further sanctions with Japan against a list of Russian individuals who support Putin.
In a post on X, Zelensky said: “Today, we synchronized sanctions with Japan—I signed the relevant decree. The sanctions list includes CEOs and companies that generate profits for Russia’s war machine, supply weapons, critical components, and equipment.
“Since June of this year alone, we have already implemented eight sanction packages within our jurisdiction, aligning sanctions with the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, and all EU sanction packages.
“In total, 281 individuals and 633 legal entities have been included, and they are significant actors. We are also pushing for new sanction steps, in particular, the 19th EU sanction package.”
Ukraine’s General Staff has reported that Russia has lost around 1,121,570 troops since launching its full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022.
The daily update on October 11 noted that 1,060 Russian forces were lost in the past 24 hours alone.
The report also detailed extensive equipment losses on Russia’s side, including:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has admitted that his country’s air defences were responsible for shooting down an Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed in Kazakhstan on Christmas Day, killing 38.
Putin made the statement at a meeting with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliev in Tajikistan’s capital of Dushanbe on Thursday. Both men are attending a summit of the former Soviet nations.
“Of course, everything that is required in such tragic cases will be done by the Russian side on compensation and a legal assessment of all official things will be given,” Putin said.
“It is our duty, I repeat once again … to give an objective assessment of everything that happened and to identify the true causes.”
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A Ukrainian who fled his homeland following Russia‘s full-scale invasion has rapidly ascended to stardom in Japan‘s ancient sport of sumo, recently achieving a significant victory against one of its highest-ranked champions.
Danilo Yavhushyshyn, who left Ukraine three and a half years ago, now competes as Aonishiki Arata. The 21-year-old’s meteoric rise culminated three months ago with a defeat of Mongolian-born Hoshoryu, one of Japan’s two grand champions (yokozuna).
At a news conference on Thursday, Aonishiki, unlike some high-profile Ukrainians abroad, focused exclusively on his sporting journey.
He discussed his rigorous training, diet, learning Japanese, and his early introduction to sumo at age six in his home city of Vinnytsia, west-central Ukraine, now fully immersed in the sport’s regimented world.
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Ukraine’s budget and military needs for 2026 and 2027 are estimated to total around 130 billion euros.
The European Union has already poured in 174 billion euros since the war started in February 2022.
The biggest pot of ready funds available is through frozen Russian assets, most of which is held in Belgium – around 194 billion euros as of June – and outside the EU in Japan, with around 50 billion dollars, and the US, UK and Canada with lesser amounts.
Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in a joint statement on Friday they were ready to move towards using “in a co-ordinated way, the value of the immobilised Russian sovereign assets to support Ukraine’s armed forces and thus bring Russia to the negotiation table”.
The statement added they aimed to do this “in close co-operation with the United States”.
India is now believed to be the biggest supplier of fuel additives used to enhance the capabilities of Russian fighter jets, according to a new report.
More than half a dozen Indian companies – suppliers and manufacturers based in Delhi and Mumbai – were found to have supplied nearly half of the total of Russia’s imported fuel additives in 2024, a Kyiv-based think tank has found.
Fuel additives are chemical compounds in liquid form added to aviation fuel for both commercial and military aircraft to boost their performance.
Such fuel enhancers are used in Russian Su-34 and Su-35S fighter jets, which Vladimir Putin has used to attack Ukraine with cruise, supersonic and guided missiles, as well as glide bombs, the Economic Security Council of Ukraine (ESCU) told The Independent.
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Sir Keir Starmer has signalled his readiness to advance plans for using frozen Russian sovereign assets to support Ukraine‘s war effort.
His stance follows a meeting of European leaders in Copenhagen last week, where discussions centred on a “reparations loan” for Ukraine, funded by immobilised Russian assets.
Sir Keir subsequently co-signed a joint E3 statement on Friday with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron.
The statement declared: “We will increase pressure on Russia as President Putin continues his stalling tactics and abhorrent attacks in response to peace talks.
“To that end, we are ready to progress towards using, in a co-ordinated way, the value of the immobilised Russian sovereign assets to support Ukraine’s armed forces and thus bring Russia to the negotiation table.”
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President Volodymyr Zelensky said he discussed Russian attacks on the Ukrainian energy system in a “positive and productive” call with U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday.
“We discussed opportunities to bolster our air defense, as well as concrete agreements that we are working on to ensure this. There are good options and solid ideas on how to truly strengthen us,” Zelensky wrote on X.
He added that he had congratulated the president in securing a ceasefire in the Middle East, describing it as an “outstanding achievement”.
Ukrainian drones struck Russia’s Bashneft oil refinery in Ufa, causing explosions and a fire, a source in Ukraine’s SBU security service said on Saturday.
“This is the third SBU deep strike in Bashkortostan in the last month, 1,400 kilometers from Ukraine. Such strikes demonstrate that there are no safe places in the deep rear of the Russian Federation,” the source said.
Twenty-three Ukrainian children and adolescents have been brought out of Russian-occupied areas of the country to territory under Kyiv’s control, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff said on Thursday.
Andriy Yermak, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said the rescue was carried out under the president’s “Bring Kids Back UA” programme aimed at bringing to safe areas children deported to Russia or confined to Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.
Yermak said those returning included two sisters who refused a demand to attend Russian schools made by Russia-installed authorities who had threatened to remove the girls from their mother’s care.
Another teenage boy similarly refused to attend Russian school and one child and her mother were refused permission to leave occupied areas as one of their relatives was serving in the Ukrainian military.
Ukraine says Russia has illegally deported or forcibly displaced more than 19,500 children to Russia and Belarus in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Research by Yale’s School of Public Health suggested in September that the number could be closer to 35,000.
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