WESTERN PERSPECTIVE
President Vladimir Putin said Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure and a decision to freeze participation in a Black Sea grain export programme were responses to a drone attack on Moscow's fleet in Crimea that he blamed on Ukraine.
Putin told a news conference on Monday that Ukrainian drones had used the same marine corridors that grain ships transited under the U.N.-brokered deal.
Kyiv has not claimed responsibility for the attack and denies using the grain programme's security corridor for military purposes. The United Nations said no grain ships were using the Black Sea route on Saturday when Russia said its vessels in Crimea were attacked.
Meanwhile, on the 250th day of a war that has ground on since Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, Russian missiles rained down across the country. Explosions boomed out in Kyiv, sending black smoke into the sky.
Russian forces shelled infrastructure in at least six Ukrainian regions on Monday, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in a statement on Facebook.
"That's not all we could have done," Putin said at the televised news conference, indicating more action could follow.
Ukrainian officials said energy infrastructure, including hydro-electric dams, was hit, knocking out power, heat and water supplies.
Oleh Synehubov, the governor of the northeastern Kharkiv region, said on Telegram that about 140,000 residents were without power after the attacks, including about 50,000 residents of Kharkiv city, the second largest city in Ukraine.
Ukraine's military said it had shot down 44 of 50 Russian missiles. But strikes left 80% of Kyiv without running water, authorities said. Ukrainian police said 13 people were injured in the latest attacks.
For the past three weeks, Russia has attacked Ukrainian civil infrastructure using expensive long-range missiles and cheap Iranian-made "suicide drones" that fly at a target and detonate.
Ukraine's Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said 18 targets, mostly energy infrastructure, were hit in missile and drone strikes on 10 Ukrainian regions on Monday.
WHEAT PRICES JUMP
Moscow announced the suspension on Saturday of its role in the grain programme after accusing Ukraine of using air and maritime drones to target vessels in the Bay of Sevastopol. It suggested one of the drones may have been launched from a civilian vessel chartered to export food from Ukrainian ports.
"Ukraine must guarantee that there will be no threats to civilian vessels or to Russian supply vessels," Putin said on Monday, noting that under the terms of the grain deal Russia is responsible for ensuring security.
Ukrainian and U.N. officials said 12 ships carrying grain sailed from Ukrainian ports on Monday despite Moscow's move. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his country would continue implementing the programme, brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July and aimed at easing global hunger.
"We understand what we offer the world. We offer stability on the food production market," Zelenskiy told a news conference. He earlier said Moscow was "blackmailing the world with hunger". Russia denies that is its aim.
The U.S. State Department said on Monday that food prices rose because of uncertainty around the Black Sea grain deal and that Russia's suspension of its participation was having "immediate, harmful" impacts on global food security.
The news that Moscow was pulling out of the deal had sent global wheat prices soaring by more than 5% on Monday morning.
Nevertheless, the continued flow of grain exports from Ukrainian ports suggested a new world food crisis had been averted for now.
Ukraine and Russia are both among the world's largest exporters of food. For three months, the U.N.-backed deal has guaranteed Ukrainian exports can reach markets, lifting a Russian de facto blockade.
The ships that sailed on Monday included one hired by the U.N. World Food Programme to bring 40,000 tonnes of grain to drought-hit Africa.
Also on Monday, the Russian Defence Ministry said Moscow had completed the partial military mobilisation announced by Putin in September and no further call-up notices would be issued.
Putin announced Russia's first mobilisation since World War Two on Sept. 21, one of a series of escalatory measures in response to Ukrainian gains on the battlefield.
Defence Minister Shoigu said at the time that some 300,000 additional personnel would be drafted. But the mobilisation has proceeded chaotically and thousands have fled Russia to avoid being drafted.
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
The grain deal between Moscow and Kiev has not met its stated goals, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday. Most of the Ukrainian agricultural products exported under the agreement have not reached the poorer nations they were supposedly intended for and have instead ended up in Europe and Türkiye, he argued.
Putin said Moscow was suspending its participation in the deal, but not fully withdrawing from it.
The deal was promoted to “secure the interests of the poorer nations,” he said, adding that, according to Russian intelligence, the real structure of Ukraine’s grain exports is vastly different.
“We agreed to that [grain deal] precisely in the interests of the poorer nations,”the Russian president said. “On the whole, it looks like 34% of [the Ukrainian] grain gets to Türkiye, 35% or even more is taken by the EU nations and only between three and four … or five percent, according to our Agriculture Ministry … goes to the poorer nations,” Putin said.
His words came as the Russian military closed the Black Sea grain corridor used to export Ukrainian grain under the agreement reached in Istanbul in July. The agreement – mediated by the UN and Türkiye – was initially hailed as critical for easing the global food crisis and helping the world’s poorest nations avoid starvation.
Russia has since repeatedly pointed out that the grain, in fact, goes to other destinations. Moscow decided to halt its participation in the deal following a massive drone attack on its naval base in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol last week. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the naval drones used in the attack navigated through the grain corridor’s security zone to reach their targets. One of them might have even been launched from a civilian vessel chartered to transport Ukrainian grain shipments, it added.
Earlier on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia was ready to compensate the missing Ukrainian grain export volumes from its own stocks. At the same time, he said that Moscow could not yet name the conditions that would make it resume its participation in the deal.
In the wake of Moscow’s decision to suspend its participation in the deal, the UN has insisted that “food must flow” regardless of circumstances. Civilian vessels “can never be a military target or held hostage,” the UN coordinator for the Black Sea grain initiative, Amir Abdulla, said. Russia has previously said that it could not guarantee the security of the grain corridor if Kiev used it for military purposes.
*The Russian armed forces wiped out over 2,500 Ukrainian servicemen and foreign mercenaries during its special military operation in Ukraine over the last week, according to TASS calculations based on daily briefings by Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov. This is more than one and a half times as many as a week earlier.
From October 17 to 23, the enemy suffered its heaviest losses in terms of manpower and equipment on the Nikolayev-Krivoy Rog front, as opposed to last week when the enemy suffered its heaviest losses in the Kupyansk direction. During the offensive in the South Donetsk direction, Russian troops advanced more than 3 km deep into the enemy's defense.
TASS has gathered the most important statistics on the special operation from October 24 to 30.
Offensive actions of Russian armed forces
The Russian Defense Ministry announced its troops’ offensive in the South Donetsk direction in the Donetsk People's Republic, during which a number of strongholds and crests were seized. Russian assault groups advanced more than 3 km deep into the enemy's defense and reached the settlement of Pavlovka. The enemy lost over 100 servicemen, six soldiers surrendered.
During the offensive, one Ukrainian tank was destroyed and another one was captured. Three armored combat vehicles and six transport vehicles were also destroyed.
Ukrainian losses in manpower
The most significant losses in manpower were sustained by the Ukrainian military in the Kupyansk direction: Ukraine lost 830 men. In the Nikolayev-Krivoy Rog direction, Ukrainian units made unsuccessful attempts to attack Russian positions on October 25, 26, and 27. It is stated that the enemy attacked five times on October 29 and made seven attacks before October 31. As a result, Ukrainian troops lost over 800 servicemen and foreign mercenaries in this direction, 650 men on the Krasny Liman front, and 190 men in the South Donetsk area.
In addition, over 40 Ukrainian servicemen were wiped out as a result of a Russian missile strike on a manpower and equipment gathering point near the village of Staroverovka in the Kharkov Region.
Ukrainian losses in equipment
Ukrainian troops lost their largest number of tanks this past week on the Krasny Liman front: 18 in total. According to TASS calculations, Russian units on the Nikolayev-Krivoy Rog front destroyed the most Ukrainian armored combat vehicles: 63 pieces.
Russian Lancet drones destroyed the Ukrainian Buk-M1 MLRS’s self-propelled firing system, according to a video published by the Russian Defense Ministry. The enemy also lost a US-made AN/TPQ-37 counter-battery radar.
In total, according to TASS calculations, the Ukrainian armed forces lost about 180 tanks and other armored vehicles, as well as over 170 vehicles of various types over the week.
Aircraft, air defense and artillery performance
According to TASS, the most productive day for Russian air defense equipment was October 30, when they destroyed three Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopters and an Su-25 attack aircraft.
The anti-aircraft gunners also intercepted two MiG-29 fighters, two Mi-8 helicopters, 76 drones, 78 multiple launch rocket systems: HIMARS, Smerch, Uragan and Alder, as well as 24 US air-to-surface anti-radiation missiles HARM during the week. The destroyed drones include nine shot down during a Ukrainian terrorist attack against Black Sea Fleet ships and civilian vessels at the Sevastopol roadstead on October 29.
Russian aviation, missile and artillery units destroyed several American M777 howitzers, two US-made HIMARS multiple launch rocket systems, as well as a German MARS-2 multiple launch rocket system and PzH 2000 self-propelled artillery unit.
Also, one Ukrainian speedboat was wiped out during an attempt by a Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance group to land near Energodar in the Zaporozhye Region.
In addition, seven autonomous maritime drones that had taken part in the above mentioned attack on ships in Sevastopol’s waters were also hit. This was the first time during the entire special operation, such incidents had not been officially reported before.
Destruction of important Ukrainian targets
On October 26, a Russian strike in the vicinity of the village of Prikolotnoye in the Kharkov Region eliminated a communications center of the Ukrainian armed forces, and destroyed an oil storage facility near Dnepropetrovsk that was being used to supply diesel fuel to troops in Donbass.
On October 27, a factory near the Dnepropetrovsk Region’s Pavlograd was destroyed. It produced rocket fuel, explosives and gunpowder for the Ukrainian military. On October 30, Russian forces struck a training center of the Ukrainian special operations forces near Ochakov in the Nikolayev Region.
On October 31, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that high-precision long-range air and sea strikes had been carried out. As a result, facilities of Ukraine's military control and energy systems were hit.
All in all, according to TASS calculations, Russian troops destroyed 33 Ukrainian command posts and 14 ammunition depots over the week.
Reuters/RT/TASS
