World about Ukraine: October digest, Week 4

World about Ukraine weekly digest as of the last 4th week of October 2023.

U.S. NEWS: Ukraine Hopes to Secure 18 Billion Euros in EU Aid in 2024

Ukraine, reliant on foreign aid since Russia’s invasion last year, hopes to receive 18 billion euros ($19 billion) of assistance from the European Union next year, the same amount it secured for 2023, officials said on Monday.

Kyiv has just received 1.5 billion euros ($1.59 billion) in a ninth tranche of financial assistance from the EU, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on the Telegram messaging app.

The Washington Post: Russia and Ukraine intensify fight over Avdiivka, another ruined city

Ukraine — Russia and Ukraine are once again locked in a fierce battle for control of a dead city.

In recent days, Moscow’s forces have gradually advanced to the north of Avdiivka — about three miles north of the occupied regional capital of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine — hoping to encircle the city and seize control of one of Ukraine’s most well-fortified points on the front.

The fierce escalation in fighting bears ominous echoes to the hellish months-long battle for Bakhmut in which tens of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers died over control of a city that was largely razed, leaving little more than smoldering ruins.

The Guardian: German prosecutors handed evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine

Dossiers of evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine have been presented to German federal prosecutors at the start of a campaign to use the principle of universal jurisdiction to bring war criminals to justice.

The cases were filed on Thursday morning by the Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ), representing 16 survivors and the families of victims in three separate war crimes cases: an indiscriminate missile attack on a coastal resort near Odesa that killed 22 people; the execution of four men in occupied territory in the Kharkiv region in spring and summer last year; and a series of executions and acts of torture and sexual violence committed outside Kyiv in March 2022.

BBC: Forced evacuations as Russian attacks intensify

Ukraine has started the forced evacuation of around 1,000 children from areas near to the front line as Russia intensifies attacks.

Parents have been told they must move their families to safety from 31 settlements in the southern Kherson and eastern Donetsk regions.

Anyone under the age of 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Officials in the north-eastern Kharkiv region are also preparing to evacuate 275 children from 10 settlements.

Ukraine has ordered such evacuations before when fighting has intensified.

Officials say many children are living under near constant shelling and insist it’s now far too dangerous for them to remain at home.

BLOOMBERG: US Sending Ukraine $150 Million More in Weapons From Stockpiles

The Biden administration is pulling an additional $150 million in military equipment from US stockpiles to aid Ukraine, sending more air defense missiles, rockets, artillery ammunition, anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons as Kyiv continues its counteroffensive against Russia.

“Ukraine’s forces are fighting bravely to reclaim territory seized by Russia’s forces, and this additional support will help them continue making progress,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement on Thursday.

U.S. NEWS: U.S. Ambassador Says Ukraine Pilots Training on F16s

The U.S. ambassador to Ukraine said on Thursday that Ukrainian pilots were undergoing training in the United States on F-16 fighter aircraft, a key element on Kyiv’s wish list to secure the weaponry it needs in its war against Russia.

The U.S. approved sending F-16s fighter jets to Ukraine from the Netherlands and Denmark in August once pilot training is completed.

“Ukrainian pilots are now training with the Arizona Air National Guard on F-16s,” Ambassador Bridget Brink said on X, formerly Twitter.

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Russian drone debris downed power lines near a Ukraine nuclear plant. A new winter barrage is likely

Russia fired almost a dozen Shahed drones against Ukrainian targets and falling debris from an intercepted drone damaged power lines near a nuclear plant in the country’s west, knocking out electricity to hundreds of people, officials said Wednesday. Ukraine’s air force said it stopped all the drones that were launched.

For the fourth day in a row, the Kremlin’s forces took aim at the Ukrainian region of Khmelnytskyi, injuring 16 people, according to local authorities.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy Infrastructure said falling drone wreckage in Khmelnytskyi broke windows in the administrative building and the laboratory of the local nuclear plant and knocked out electricity to more than 1,800 customers. The plant is about 200 kilometers (120 miles) east of the border with Poland.

U.S. NEWS: Ukraine Plans to Ramp up Monthly Drone Output by Year-End

Ukraine aims to produce tens of thousands of drones every month by year-end as it ramps up its defence industry output despite the challenge posed by Russian attacks, the minister for strategic industries said on Wednesday.

Drones have played a central role in the 20-month-old Russia-Ukraine war, used in huge numbers by both sides for surveillance and attack. Kyiv has focused on increasing its output, but has relied heavily on foreign-made drone engines.

Speaking at a NATO Industry Forum in Stockholm, Oleksandr Kamyshin, the minister who oversees Ukraine’s defence industry, did not disclose detailed current drone production figures, but put the number in the thousands per month.

EURONEWS: Malta hosts two-day Ukraine peace formula talks

Sixty-five countries sent delegates. Russia was not invited and China chose not to attend.

Two-day talks on Ukraine’s plan for peace are taking place in Malta with the participation of more than 65 countries – but not Russia, Maltese and Ukrainian officials said.

The meeting of national security delegates is the third round of such talks in recent months. Ukraine sees them as an opportunity to win support for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s 10-point peace plan from countries across the globe, especially as the conflict in the Middle East risks shifting the focus away from Ukraine.

BNN: G7 Condemns Russia’s Attacks on Ukraine’s Grain Infrastructure

In the geopolitical theater of trade and security, the G7, a collective of industrially developed democracies, has expressed its disapproval of Russia’s assault on Ukraine’s grain infrastructure. The damaging reverberations of this conflict reach far beyond the borders of Russia and Ukraine, posing a significant threat to global food security and the fragile equilibrium of international trade.

Ukraine Front Lines