It said in its latest intelligence update that Maj Gen Alexander Linkov was reportedly appointed acting commander of Russia’s central military district on Thursday, replacing Col Gen Alexander Lapin. The ministry said: Lapin has been widely criticised for poor performance on the battlefield in Ukraine by both Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin. These dismissals represent a pattern of blame against senior Russian military commanders for failures to achieve Russian objectives on the battlefield. This is in part likely an attempt to insulate and deflect blame from Russian senior leadership at home. Updated at 07.48 GMT Key events Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature Despite the energy crisis in Kiev, the city is continuing to show its indomitable spirit, reports Mark MacKinnon, senior international correspondent for The Globe and Mail No electricity in central Kyiv this morning, but my favourite coffee shop is still managing to offer black coffee and avocado toast. Glorious. — Mark MacKinnon (@markmackinnon) November 6, 2022 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has thanked the 17 EU countries which have provided the country with 500 power generators to help with its power supply problems. We are grateful to 17 🇪🇺countries that sent 500 power generators to #Ukraine via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism to help with the energy problems caused by #Russian attacks and sustain access to electricity and heating. 🇸🇮🇸🇰🇮🇪🇦🇹🇸🇪🇪🇸🇩🇪🇮🇹🇩🇰🇫🇮🇪🇪🇧🇪🇧🇬🇱🇺🇨🇾🇵🇱🇫🇷#StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/8yfpXoHGRR — MFA of Ukraine 🇺🇦 (@MFA_Ukraine) November 5, 2022
Kyiv prepares to evacuate all civilians in case of total blackout, reports New York Times
Kyiv authorities have begun planning the evacuation of the city’s 3m residents if the Ukrainian capital suffers a complete blackout, according to the New York Times. The widespread bombardment by Russian forces of critical energy infrastructure across the country is continuing, with 40% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure damaged or destroyed. Municipal workers are setting up 1,000 heating shelters that can double as bunkers while engineers try to fix bombed-out power stations without the needed equipment, the NYT reports. Ukraine’s national energy utility said on Saturday that it would continue to impose rolling blackouts in seven regions in order to try to keep the grid from failing altogether. Roman Tkachuk, the director of security for the Kyiv municipal government was quoted as saying: If there’s no power, there will be no water and no sewage. That’s why the government and city administration is taking all possible measures to protect our power supply system. The NYT reports: “We understand that if Russia continues such attacks, we may lose our entire electricity system,” Roman Tkachuk, the director of security for the Kyiv municipal government, said in an interview, speaking of the city. Officials in the capital have been told that they would be likely to have at least 12 hours’ notice that the grid was on the verge of failure. If it reaches that point, Mr. Tkachuk said, “we will start informing people and requesting them to leave.” For now at least, the situation is manageable, and there were no indications that large numbers of civilians were fleeing Kyiv, he said. But that would change quickly if the services that relied on city power stopped. Updated at 09.27 GMT The Biden administration in the US is privately encouraging Ukraine’s leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless President Vladimir Putin is removed from power, according to the Washington Post. Biden administration privately encourages Zelensky to show Russia that Ukraine is open to negotiating an end to war https://t.co/WQU6P6e03b — The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 5, 2022 The Post quotes sources “familiar with the discussions”. The request was not a bid to force Ukraine into negotiations but an attempt to maintain support in countries worried about Putin’s war’s impact on the world economy and the threat of nuclear war. The Post quotes one anonymous U.S. official who stated: “Ukraine fatigue is a real thing for some of our partners.” The White House National Security Council had no immediate comment on the accuracy of the Post report. A State Department spokesperson said: “The Kremlin continues to escalate this war. The Kremlin has demonstrated its unwillingness to seriously engage in negotiations since even before it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.” Tens of thousands of Italians have marched through Rome calling for peace in Ukraine and urging Italy to stop sending of weapons to fight the Russian invasion. Agence France-Presse reported that one large banner carried by protesters on Saturday read “No to war. No to sending weapons” as a vast crowd broke into cries of “give peace a chance”. Italy, a founding member of Nato, has supported Ukraine from the start of the war, including providing it with arms. The new far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has said that will not change and the government has said it is expecting to send more weapons soon. But some, including former prime minister Giuseppe Conte, have said Italy should be stepping up negotiations instead. The peace rally was attended by about 30,000 people, Rome police told Italian media. Demonstrator Roberto Zanotto told AFP: The weapons were sent at the beginning on the grounds that this would prevent an escalation Nine months later and it seems to me that there’s been an escalation. Look at the facts: sending weapons does not help stop a war, weapons help fuel a war. Student Sara Gianpietro said the conflict was being dragged out by arming Ukraine, which “has economic consequences for our country, but for the respect of human rights too”. The Group of Seven foreign ministers, including Italy, vowed on Friday to continue supporting Ukraine in the fight against Russia. Pro-peace demonstrators in Rome on Saturday. Photograph: Antonio Masiello/Getty Images
Russian colonel general latest military commander to be replaced in Ukraine, says UK
A Russian colonel general has purportedly been replaced in the latest of a “series of dismissals” of senior Russian military commanders since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the UK Ministry of Defence says. It said in its latest intelligence update that Maj Gen Alexander Linkov was reportedly appointed acting commander of Russia’s central military district on Thursday, replacing Col Gen Alexander Lapin. The ministry said: Lapin has been widely criticised for poor performance on the battlefield in Ukraine by both Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin. These dismissals represent a pattern of blame against senior Russian military commanders for failures to achieve Russian objectives on the battlefield. This is in part likely an attempt to insulate and deflect blame from Russian senior leadership at home. Updated at 07.48 GMT Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has defended a controversial trip to China as “worth it” due to an agreement to oppose the use of nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine. Speaking to a meeting of his Social Democrats on Saturday, a day after his 12-hour visit to Beijing, Scholz hailed an accord with China’s President Xi Jinping that a nuclear escalation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine must be avoided, Agence France-Presse reported. Scholz said: I think that in light of all the debate about whether it was the right thing to travel there or not, the fact that the Chinese government, the president and I could state that there must not be any nuclear weapons used in this war, for that alone this trip was worth it. The German leader said after talks with Xi that he had insisted “the Russia war in Ukraine is a dangerous situation for the whole world” and urged Russia’s ally Beijing to use its “influence” on Moscow to avert an escalation and stop the invasion. Beijing’s Xinhua news agency reported: Xi underscored the need for China and Germany, two major countries with great influence, to work together in times of change and instability and contribute more to global peace and development. Xi Jinping welcomes Olaf Scholz in Beijing on Friday. Photograph: Kay Nietfeld/EPA
Surviving in besieged Bakhmut ‘becoming harder and harder’
Residents of the besieged eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut are living in dire conditions, with civilians killed and wounded daily, the deputy mayor said as fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces raged around the city. “With every day it’s becoming harder and harder to survive in this city,” Reuters reported Oleksandr Marchenko as saying from inside an empty government building as mortar fire boomed nearby. He said more than 120 civilians have been killed in Bakhmut since Russia’s invasion in February. There are districts where we don’t know the exact number of people killed because active fighting is ongoing there or the settlements are temporarily occupied [by Russian forces]. Ukrainian troops were “firmly holding the frontline”, Marchenko said, while describing a deteriorating humanitarian situation facing the city, where the population has fallen from its pre-war level of about 80,000 to as low as 12,000 today. Bakhmut has been an important target for Russia’s military in its slow advance through eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, one of the territories the Kremlin claims to have annexed. Kyiv’s military has said the…
