Ninth month of heroic resistance of Ukraine against Russian military invasion

Key updates on the war against Ukraine as of October 28, 2022

#RussiaIsATerroristState #ArmUkraineNow

DESTRUCTION AND LOSSES

📌 More than 1,252 children were affected by the Russian armed aggression in Ukraine. 430 children were killed, and another 822 were wounded.

📌 Russian occupants illegally took 46 children from the Kherson Regional Children’s Orphanage to the temporarily occupied Simferopol.

📌 On October 22, the Russians attacked the infrastructure of 9 regions of Ukraine with 40 missile strikes and 16 Shahed drones. As a result of the massive missile attack:

• Explosions occurred in the Khmelnytskyi region. The city was left without electricity. The city council urged residents to stock up on water, as the water supply will be cut off within an hour.
• An attack was carried out on an energy facility in Lutsk, said the mayor of Ihor Polishchuk. The city has lost power and water supply. The shock wave damaged a private house. One civilian received burns.
• The head of the Rivne Regional Military Administration, Vitalii Koval, has confirmed the hit in the Rivne region. Correspondents of the Suspilne reported electricity and water supply outages.

• The air defence system went off in the Lviv region.
• All 5 missiles were shot down over the Kyiv region with the first salvo, reports Oleksiy Arestovych, advisor to the Office of the President of Ukraine.
• At the same time, 5 regions were hit with missiles or fragments.
• The enemy launched 2 missile strikes on the regional energy infrastructure facilities in the Odesa and Kirovohrad regions — Regional Military Administrations.
• 3 people were wounded due to the missile strikes in the Odesa region, the District State Administration reported.

📌Russia’s missile strikes left almost 1,5 million Ukrainians without electricity — Office of the President of Ukraine.

📌As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, 90% of the country’s wind energy and nearly 40-50% of its solar energy are no longer operating.

📌As a result of the search operations in the recently liberated territories of Ukraine, about 1000 bodies of fallen heroes and civilians have already been exhumed. In particular, almost 450 are at the site of one of the largest mass burial sites in Izium.

📌KYIV REGION:

• On the night of October 27, the Russian army attacked the Kyiv region. Several hits were recorded in one of the communities. Previously, there were no injuries. The air defence system also worked in the region.
• According to official data, during the occupation of the Kyiv Oblast, the invaders illegally took 147 peaceful Ukrainians out to the territory of Belarus and the Russian Federation. Another 43 civilians in the region are being held captive. An additional 89 people were exported and their fate is unknown.

📌SYMU REGION:

• The Russian invaders attacked the Khotin community from Grad with multiple rocket launchers and tubed artillery on the morning of 27 October. Explosions rang out in one of the villages, where 5 private houses were damaged. 

📌 ZAPORIZHZHIA REGION:

On October 22, the Russians hit Nikopol with MLRS and heavy artillery at night — Valentyn Reznichenko, head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration. “More than 20 houses and several gas pipelines were damaged in the city. Power lines were brought down. Almost 1,000 families were left without electricity. Power engineers are already fixing the networks,” Reznichenko said.

• On October 27, Zaporizhzhia and its suburbs were also hit at night — the infrastructure object was destroyed. 

📌DNIPROPETROVSK REGION:

• 2 people were killed and four more injured, with 3 of them being in serious condition, as a result of a missile attack on the city of Dnipro on 25 October.  Due to the fall of shell wreckages, a fire broke out at a gas station. Among the dead is a pregnant woman.
• Russian occupation forces have been shelling the Nikopol, Marhanets and Chervonohryhorivka communities throughout the night of October 28. In the Nikopol district, a dozen multi-story and private buildings were damaged. Almost 1,000 families are without electricity.

📌MYKOLAIV REGION:

• On the night of 27 October, Russian troops attacked the city of Mykolaiv with S-300 anti-aircraft missile systems, causing destruction and injuring one person. As a result of the missile strike, a three-storey administrative building was destroyed and a new high-rise building was damaged.

📌KHARKIV REGION:

• At least 17 people, including both civilians and soldiers from the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The three bodies of servicemen were retrieved by the investigators on the first day of work and were buried in a mass grave in the Borova district. Now, the bodies are being sent for forensic examination. 

On 13 April, they brought the bodies in two trucks, dug a 3-metre deep pit with an excavator and dumped all the bodies there. Then they levelled the earth using tanks.

📌DONETSK REGION:

• On October 27, due to shelling by the Russian army, 3 people were killed in the city of Bakhmut and one in the city of Sviatohirsk. In addition, law enforcement officers found the bodies of 5 civilians who were killed during the Russian occupation in the village of Shandryholove.

📌 KHERSON REGION:

• On October 24, Russian invaders shot at a car carrying residents of the town of Oleshky, because they did not stop at the occupiers’ request. The passengers received shrapnel wounds. Two passengers were killed, one died on the spot and another died on the operating table. A five-year-old girl survived but had her finger amputated.

📌 CNN: Satellite images by Maxar Technologies show that Russian mercenaries have built a two-kilometre so-called “Wagner Line” near the town of Hirske in the Luhansk region. 

As the publication notes, the fortification comprises four rows of cement pyramids that the Russians hope will stop any Ukrainian vehicles and tanks from moving eastward. A large trench is located behind the anti-tank fortifications.

📌Russia exerts constant psychological pressure on Ukrainian soldiers who are in captivity and on their relatives. In particular, Russia constantly repeats that Ukraine abandoned them and no one needs them, said Andriy Yusov, spokesman for the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

📌Maria Lvova-Belova, the Commissioner for Children’s Rights under the President of Russia, illegally adopted a boy deported from Mariupol. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine initiated the opening of a case against Lvova-Belova, in whose actions “signs of a criminal offence can be seen”.

📌On October 25, Ukraine recovered the bodies of 25 more killed defenders.

📌Russia Intends to Commit Genocide in Ukraine, Six Ways to Prove It. Lecture by Timothy Snyder. 

RUSSIAN AND BELARUSIAN CONTEXT 

⚠️ As of October 22,  some units of the Russian army were leaving the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region. They’ve retreated from Charivne and Chkalov and evacuated the officers and the medical personnel from Beryslav reports the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

⚠️Part of the Russian weapons that the occupiers delivered to the east of Ukraine is unusable, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported. In addition, Russia fires at the positions of Ukrainian troops along the contact line implements fortification equipment of positions in certain directions, in particular on the left bank of the Dnipro River, and actively conducts aerial reconnaissance.

⚠️Vladimir Putin stated that Russian losses on the battlefield are ten times less than Ukrainian losses in his speech at a plenary meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club.

“There are losses in certain places, and I am sad to tell you this, it can be 1 to 10 or 1 to 8 soldiers. Recently, it is almost always 1 to 6, 1 to 8. They are not spared at all. Can true patriots of their country allow this?”

⚠️General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: The enemy continues to take measures to replenish its losses. According to the information available, representatives of private military companies are recruiting prisoners in penal institutions in the city of Ulyanovsk. The majority of prisoners agreeing to fight in Ukraine have been convicted of murder, rape and drug trafficking.

⚠️Russian propaganda has begun to spread the message that Ukraine has apparently already completed “technical preparation for a provocation with a ‘dirty bomb’.

⚠️ National Resistance Center: Local military enlistment offices in Gomel Oblast, Belarus, are conducting covert mobilisation of drivers and mechanics, the Belarusian underground resistance has reported.

⚠️Defence Express: Russia is planning to conduct the Grom exercises after the end of the Steadfast Noon nuclear deterrence drill, which began on 17 October and will last until 30 October.  These will be the second exercises in a year since the prior year’s exercises were not held in 2021 but were postponed to 19 February 2022.

⚠️National Resistance Center: Iranian instructors were brought to Belarus, where they are training the Russian military and coordinating UAV launches on infrastructure facilities in Ukraine.

DEFENSE UPDATES

📌On October 26, as part of another prisoner exchange, Ukraine returned 10 Ukrainian servicemen. Among them, there is one officer and 9 soldiers and sergeants. The body of an American volunteer, a veteran of the US Army, Joshua Alan Jones, who fought for Ukraine and died in a battle with the occupiers, was also handed over.

📌Since 1 August, 397 ships have exported 9 million tonnes of Ukrainian agricultural products to countries in Africa, Asia and Europe through the ports of Greater Odesa as part of the Grain Initiative.

📌As of October 24, The Armed Forces pushed the Russian occupants out of Karmazynivka, Myasozharivka, and Nevske in Luhansk Oblast and Novosadove in Donetsk Oblast.

📌 Estimated losses of the Russian Federation Army in Ukraine:

📌The Ukrainian aerospace company Ukrspecsystems has developed a new SHARK drone. This was reported by the company’s press service. It can adjust the American HIMARS reactive artillery systems and is resistant to work in EW conditions. This is a completely Ukrainian drone — from idea to production. SHARK can solve all the main tasks of reconnaissance, surveillance and adjustment of fire.

PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT OF UKRAINE

📌  Germany handed over a new batch of weapons, military clothes, and equipment for the military to Ukraine — website of the Federal Government.

Five armoured engineer vehicles, 7 heavy and medium bridge systems, 167,000 rounds of ammunition for firearms, 100 tents, 183 generators, 116,000 winter jackets, 80,000 winter trousers, and 240,000 winter hats were handed over. The transfer of the Iris-T SLM has finally been officially confirmed, as the media reported last week.

📌  German car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz is leaving the Russian market; the company is selling its factories in the Moscow suburbs and all its property to a local investor. 

📌Germany will hand over two MARS systems and four Panzerhaubitze 2000 howitzers to Ukraine in the coming days, President Steinmeier said during his visit to Ukraine.

📌 The manufacturer Raytheon Technologies handed over to the US government two NASAMS anti-aircraft missile complexes, which are intended for Ukraine. This was announced by the company’s general director, Greg Hayes, in an interview with CNBC.

📌Lithuanian electricity transmission system operator Litgrid and the main natural gas transmission operator Amber Grid have urgently shipped to Ukraine equipment worth almost €100,000 to repair damaged electricity substations and gas pipelines. The aid will be channeled through the NGO Blue/Yellow.

📌 The EU froze Russian assets worth 17.5 billion euros. Most of this amount was frozen in seven EU countries. These are Germany, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Ireland, Italy and Austria. It concerns the accounts, real estate, yachts and other property of 1,350 individuals and legal entities against whom restrictions have been imposed due to Russian aggression in Ukraine.

📌 Lithuania sent 7 armored SUVs and other equipment to Ukraine – Lithuanian Defense Minister Arvydas Anushauskas.

📌 Norway introduced a new package of sanctions against Russia and its regime. New sanctions are being introduced against 30 officials and seven organizations from Russia and the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine. More than 1 260 individuals and 115 organizations are now on Norwayʼs sanctions list.

📌 The Canadian government introduced sanctions against 35 Russian nationals and six Russian companies, including executives of Gazprom.

📌The United States is preparing a new $275 million package of military assistance for Ukraine to bolster its counter-offensive against Russian forces, a source familiar with the plan said on Thursday. The package is expected to include ammunition and more High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers.