Update on the situation at 4 p.m.
Ukraine claims ‘successful strike against Russian Black Sea Fleet command headquarters’
The Directorate of Strategic Communications of the Ukrainian Army confirmed on Telegram, on Friday, attacked the Russian fleet command headquarters in the city of Sevastopol. Previously, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that “five missiles [avaient] were shot down by anti-aircraft defense above the city, and that the building in question, on fire, had been “damaged”. Sevastopol is located on the Crimean peninsula, a Ukrainian region annexed by Moscow since 2014.
Russia restarted its campaign of “energy terror” before winter, Ukraine denounces
“The phase of energy terror has already begun. » This is the expression that Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Chmyhal used on Friday to denounce the resumption of Russian bombings on infrastructure, which disrupt the supply of water or electricity. “We see it through the destruction of infrastructure” producing and storing fuels and “first strikes” against electrical posts “the last two weeks”he said at an economic forum in kyiv, quoted by the Interfax-Ukraine news agency.
The first ships loaded with wheat leave the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk
The bulk carrier Aroyatloaded with more than 17,000 tonnes of wheat, crossed the Black Sea via a “temporary humanitarian corridor”, Friday, towards Egypt. Three other cargo ships were entering the ports of Chornomorsk and Pivdenny to load “127,000 tonnes of agricultural products and iron ore for China, Egypt and Spain”, according to Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukrainian infrastructure minister. Since Russia’s non-renewal of the agreement allowing the secure export of Ukrainian agricultural products to the Black Sea, Kiev has sought to establish maritime corridors along the coasts of allied countries as far as the Bosphorus, defying Russian threats.
The Ukrainian army has carried out repeated assaults over the past twenty-four hours on the eastern front line, according to Russian separatists
“Over the past twenty-four hours, the enemy has carried out a number of actions in the direction of Lyman, carried out combat reconnaissance in several directions at once”, said the head of the Russian occupation of the Donetsk region, Denis Pushilin, on Friday. In Bakmout, a town under Russian control since May, the situation “rest[ait] burning » and Ukrainian soldiers also sought to advance further north, near the towns of Sakko i Vantsetti and Rozdolivka, Pushilin also said. All of this information could not be independently verified.
Zelensky in Canada, country with the second largest Ukrainian diaspora in the world
The Ukrainian president continued his tour of North America by visiting Canada, where he was welcomed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who assured him of Canada’s “unwavering support” against Russia. Mr. Zelensky is then due to deliver a speech to the Canadian Parliament, then travel to Toronto, where the two heads of state will meet business leaders and members of the Canadian-Ukrainian community. Canada has the second largest Ukrainian diaspora in the world after Russia with some 1.4 million people.