REPORTS FROM RUSSIA
The Russian Armed Forces have eliminated more than 1,400 Ukrainian troops and foreign mercenaries over the past week, according to TASS calculations based on daily briefings by Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov.
TASS has summarized the key statistics concerning Russia’s special military operation for October 17 to October 23.
Strikes against Ukraine's critical infrastructure
The Russian Defense Ministry throughout last week said massive strikes continued against Ukrainian military command and energy facilities. On October 18 and 19, the designated targets were hit by high-accuracy long-range sea and air-launched weapons, and on October 20 and 23 by air-launched missiles.
In addition, high-accuracy weapons of the Aerospace Force hit the workshops of the Kommunar defense plant in Kharkov, where warheads for the Neptun anti-ship missiles produced there were destroyed. Ukraine also lost several fuel storage facilities, including an oil tank farm with 56,000 tons of diesel fuel of the Dnepr joint group of forces and a fuel depot with more than 100,000 tons of aircraft fuel for the Ukrainian Air Force.
Losses in manpower
The Ukrainian army suffered the most significant losses in manpower in the Nikolaev and Krivoi Rog area. The Ukrainian side lost over 800 troops and mercenaries of the Foreign Legion during repeated unsuccessful attempts to attack Russian positions. Ukraine’s armed forces lost about 300 men in the Krasny Liman area and more than 160 in the Kupyansk area. In the southern Donetsk area, the Russian army eliminated over 80 enemy soldiers, and in the Zaporozhye area more than 40.
In another attempt to land troops on the left bank of the Kakhovka reservoir with the aim to capture the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant, the enemy lost more than 90 servicemen and 14 boats.
In the vicinity of the city of Zaporozhye, Russian aircraft and missile forces and artillery destroyed the command post of Ukraine’s united group of troops Dnepr.
Losses in material
In the Nikolaev and Krivoi Rog area, the enemy made several attempts to break through the Russian defenses. A tank battalion was used in one of such attempts. During last week, 20 tanks, 66 armored combat vehicles, and 70 other vehicles were destroyed in this area. The Russian forces seized two tanks, one infantry fighting vehicle and one mine clearing vehicle UR-77.
In the Krasny Liman area, the enemy lost 6 tanks, 23 armored combat vehicles, 9 armored personnel carriers and 17 other vehicles. In the Kupyansk area, the Russian forces destroyed 3 tanks, 7 armored combat vehicles, 8 armored personnel carriers and 9 vehicles. In the Zaporozhye and southern Donetsk area, Ukrainian troops lost 5 tanks, 16 combat armored vehicles and 13 other vehicles.
In addition, 4 counter-battery radars AN/TPQ-36, AN/TPQ-37 and AN/TPQ-50 of US manufacture, 4 launchers of the S-300 air defense missile system and a low-altitude target detection radar ST-68UM were destroyed.
In just one week, Ukraine’s armed forces lost 165 tanks and other armored vehicles, as well as over 120 other vehicles of various types.
Aviation, air defense and artillery’s targets hit
Operational-tactical and army aviation, missile and artillery units, and air defenses of the Russian army destroyed Ukraine’s Sukhoi-25 and MiG-29 planes, one Mi-8 helicopter, as well as 24 warehouses of ammunition, weapons and military equipment.
A high accuracy strike by Russia’s Aerospace Force destroyed a hangar with Ukrainian foreign-made military equipment near Novaya Kamenka, in the Kherson Region.
As a result of counter-battery operations, Russian artillery wiped out several Ukrainian artillery batteries, platoons of the multiple launch rocket systems Uragan and Olkha and US MLRS HIMARS.
Russian air defense systems shot down 70 unmanned aerial vehicles of various types, and 98 HIMARS, Olkha and Smerch MLRS rockets, as well as 14 US-made HARM anti-radar missiles were intercepted in flight.
REPORTS FROM WESTERN MEDIA
Rebuffed by Western countries, Russia doubled down on its warning that Kyiv is preparing to use a "dirty bomb" in Ukraine and said it would bring the issue to the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.
Russia sent a letter on its assertion about Kyiv to the United Nations late on Monday, and diplomats said Moscow planned to raise the issue with the Security Council at a closed meeting the following day.
"We will regard the use of the dirty bomb by the Kyiv regime as an act of nuclear terrorism," Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Security Council in the letter, seen by Reuters.
With Ukrainian forces advancing into Russian-occupied Kherson province, top Russian officials had phoned their Western counterparts on Sunday and Monday to air their suspicions.
The foreign ministers of France, Britain and the United States rejected Moscow's allegations as "transparently false" and reiterated their support for Ukraine.
"The world would see through any attempt to use this allegation as a pretext for escalation," they said in a joint statement.
Later, the United States issued a warning to Russia.
"We've been very clear with the Russians ... about the severe consequences that would result from nuclear use," State Department spokesman Ned Price said. "There would be consequences for Russia whether it uses a dirty bomb or a nuclear bomb."
Russia's defence ministry said the aim of a "dirty bomb" attack by Ukraine would be to blame Russia for the resulting radioactive contamination. The ministry has begun preparing for such a scenario, it said, readying forces and resources "to perform tasks in conditions of radioactive contamination."
The U.N. nuclear watchdog said it was preparing to send inspectors to two unidentified Ukrainian sites at Kyiv's request, in an apparent reaction to the Russian talk of a "dirty bomb". It said both sites were already subject to its inspections and one was inspected a month ago.
Russia's state news agency RIA had earlier identified what it said were the two sites involved in the operation - the Eastern Mineral Enrichment Plant in central Dnipropetrovsk region and the Institute for Nuclear Research in Kyiv.
U.S. officials said there was no indication Russia had decided to use a dirty bomb or any nuclear weapon.
"We continue to see nothing in the way of preparations by the Russian side for the use of nuclear weapons," White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia's accusation was a sign it was planning such an attack and would blame Ukraine.
"If Russia calls and says that Ukraine is allegedly preparing something, it means one thing: Russia has already prepared all this," Zelenskiy said in an address.
Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said late Monday he had a discussion with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on "ways to end Russia's nuclear blackmail".
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier arrived in Ukraine on Tuesday on his first visit since Russia invaded on Feb. 24 and would meet Zelenskiy, German broadcaster ntv reported.
EVACUATION
Russia has ordered civilians to evacuate territory it controls on the western bank of the Dnipro River, where Ukrainian forces have been advancing this month shortly after Russia claimed to have annexed the area.
A defeat for Russia there would be one of its biggest setbacks since its invasion.
Ukraine's military said Russian-installed authorities in Kherson were evacuating banks, administrative facilities, and emergency service and medical personnel, while funding for schools and school meals had been stopped. Equipment used by internet service providers had been stolen and robberies of residents and looting had increased, it said.
Reuters could not verify the report.
Kherson's regional capital is the only big city Russia has captured intact since the start of the invasion, and its only foothold on the west bank of the Dnipro, which bisects Ukraine. The province controls the gateway to Crimea, the peninsula Russia seized and claimed to annex in 2014.
Pro-Russian authorities in Kherson announced on Monday that men who stay would have the option of joining a military self-defence unit. Kyiv accuses Russia of press-ganging men in occupied areas into military formations, a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.
Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine's military spy chief, said Russian forces were preparing to defend Kherson city, not retreat.
"They are creating the illusion that all is lost. Yet at the same time they are moving new military units in and preparing to defend the streets of Kherson," he told the Ukrainska Pravda online media outlet.
Since Russia's forces suffered major defeats in September, President Vladimir Putin has escalated the war, calling up hundreds of thousands of reservists, announcing the annexation of occupied territory and repeatedly threatening to use nuclear weapons to defend Russian land.
This month, Russia started a campaign using long-range cruise missiles and Iranian-made drones to attack Ukraine's energy infrastructure.
TASS/Reuters
