Russia-Ukraine war live: Putin’s troops accused of executing surrendering soldiers

Ukraine’s forces attacked an oil depot in Russia-controlled Luhansk last night using combat drones, Russian news agency RIA Novosti reported on Monday, citing Russian-installed authorities in the Ukrainian region.

A fire that broke out after the attack has been extinguished and there was no information about casualties, RIA reported.

A winter storm has been declared in far western Ukraine, on the border with Poland, Slovakia and Hungary.  Heavy snowfall has threatened to shut down roads and civilians have been warned against unnecessary travel.

On the frontline, dropping temperatures and foggy conditions appear to have also impaired both sides’ ability to conduct aerial reconnaissance and mechanised assaults, which are attacks using tanks and armoured personnel carriers (APCs).

The Ukrainian head of the Avdiivka military administration, Vitaliy Barabash, said on Sunday that they believed Russian forces were waiting the weather out before resuming heavy assaults on the eastern Ukrainian city.

Nonetheless, fighting continues. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said there was “intense fighting” in multiple eastern cities and towns.

Overnight, Russia launched 23 drones and a cruise missile, according to the Ukrainian air force. They said in a statement this morning that they had destroyed 18 of the drones.

Meanwhile, at least three people were killed on Sunday as a result of Russian shelling in eastern and southern Ukraine, including a 69-year-old woman.

Below are some of the latest photos from Ukraine.

Russia launched 23 drones and a cruise missile overnight on Ukraine, Ukraine‘s air force said on Monday, adding that its air defence systems destroyed the missile and 18 of the drones before they reached their targets.

Anti-aircraft defense was deployed in at least 9 regions of Ukraine, the air force said on the Telegram messaging app.

The air force did not provide details on what happened to the drones that were not destroyed or whether there was any damage in result of the attack.

The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office said it had launched a probe into a video purporting to show the incident, saying it took place near an observation post outside Stepove village in Donetsk.

The video shows a Ukrainian soldier crawling out of a foxhole as six Russian soldiers wait for him outside. He is seen holding his hands up and then lying on the ground. Within seconds, another Ukrainian soldier stumbles out of the dugout and lies down. The Russian soldiers then fire upon the two unarmed Ukrainians.

Missile attacks and ground clashes between Russian and Ukrainian forces surged on Thursday, according to the Ukrainian military, as Russian troops launched offensives but failed to move forward on as many as six fronts.

A total of 73 combat skirmishes took place across the war’s frontline in the past 24 hours, an update from Ukraine’s General Staff of the Armed Forces on Thursday read, a day after Russia launched more than 100 attacks to recapture its lost positions in eastern Ukraine’s Robotyne.

These included 43 airstrikes and 34 attacks from multiple-launch rocket systems. Russian forces also used seven Iranian Shahed drones to target Ukrainian personnel, weapons and military equipment.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov came face-to-face with Western critics while attending international security talks on Thursday, amid European protests that Vladimir Putin’s top diplomat was invited to the summit while he wages war against Ukraine.

Some European officials present in North Macedonia walked out as the Russian minister addressed a session for foreign ministers of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation of Europe (OSCE), videos of the event showed.

A number of foreign ministers refused to attend the event over Russia’s involvement, including those of Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Vladimir Putin will not consider ending his invasion of Ukraine until he knows the result of the 2024 US presidential election, a senior official from the Joe Biden administration has said.

Experts have said Russia appears content to grind down Ukraine’s resolve in the conflict rather than risk losing yet more troops in an all-out assault, and that wearing down the patience of Kyiv’s Western allies appears to be a key part of that strategy.

Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Biden administation has dedicated over $60bn in aid to Ukraine, with a significant portion exceeding the $43bn budget allocated for military assistance.

Further funding is being held up by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, with Democrats outraged by the latest GOP efforts to tie Ukraine aid to a crackdown on immigration to the US.

Nato member Finland on Wednesday closed its last remaining border crossing with Russia after the government decided to seal the entire border with its eastern neighbor amid rising political tensions.

The decision to close the entire 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) border was made by the Cabinet of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo on Tuesday over concerns that Moscow is using migrants to wage “hybrid warfare” to destabilize the Nordic country following its entry into Nato.

The Raja-Jooseppi crossing point in Finland’s Arctic Lapland region, located some 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the northern Russian city of Murmansk, was closed at 2pm Wednesday, according to the checkpoint’s normal November schedule.

The Russian government on Friday named Valery Gergiev, the renowned director of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, to also lead Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre.

Gergiev is replacing Vladimir Urin at the Bolshoi. Urin announced Thursday that he was stepping down after a decade, but didn’t explain the reason behind his move.

Some Russian media said the departure of 76-year-old Urin was related to health issues. Others speculated it was linked to a letter calling for an end to Moscow’s military action in Ukraine that he and some other prominent cultural figures signed after the Kremlin sent troops across the border in February 2022.

Russia may have lost as many as six high-ranking officers in Ukraine in just one week following reports a senior general was killed by a landmine placed by his own side.

Major general Vladimir Zavadsky, 45, the deputy commander of the 14th Army Corps, died in occupied Ukraine on Tuesday, reported pro-Kremlin newspaper Lenta.

The elite military academy where Zavadsky studied, the Moscow Higher Combined Arms Command School, also announced his death in a social media post, although that has now been deleted.