Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,363

On Tuesday, November 18, 2018, this is how things are going.

Fighting

• Three people were killed and three children were hurt in a Russian missile attack on Balakliia, eastern Ukraine, according to a regional military official in the Kharkiv region’s Telegram on Monday.
• Vladyslav Haivanenko, the acting head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration, wrote on Facebook that at least two people were killed and three were hurt in the Russian shelling of the Nikopol district in the Ukrainian region.
• According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, three villages were taken by Russian forces in three regions of Ukraine on Monday, according to the RIA news agency. Hai and Platonivka in the Donetsk and Dvorichanske in the Kharkiv regions are the villages.
• 36 Ukrainian drones were destroyed overnight by Russia’s air defense forces, according to RIA reporting on Monday, citing daily data from the Defense Ministry.
• According to Ukraine’s emergency services, a Russian attack in Odesa, in southern Ukraine, sparked fires at energy and port infrastructure facilities on Monday.
• According to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, the attack forced Romania to leave a border village and damaged port equipment and several civilian vessels, including one carrying liquefied natural gas.
• According to Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the regional administration, a 68-year-old man has died after being injured in a Russian drone attack in the Kherson region of Ukraine.
• According to Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, an electrical substation required for nuclear safety has been damaged by a military attack that left two Ukrainian nuclear power plants running at reduced capacity for ten days.
• Following a two-day suspension of its oil loadings, the Russian port of Novorossiysk, according to the Kremlin, resumed export activities on Monday.

military assistance

• At France’s Velizy-Villacoublay Air Base, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and French President Emmanuel Macron agreed to purchase 100 French-made Rafale warplanes over the course of ten years.
• According to the Interfax news agency, Macron claimed Alstom, France’s rail transport company, and Ukrainian Railways have signed a 475 million euro ($551 million) contract to deliver 55 electric locomotives to Ukraine.

Regional security

• After an explosion on a Polish railway track on a route to Ukraine over the weekend, Polish Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski reported on Monday that one confirmed and one likely act of sabotage took place on Polish railways.
• The likelihood that those responsible for the sabotage were acting at the people’s volition, according to Polish Special Services Minister Tomasz Siemoniak, who spoke at the same press conference. Despite not naming Russia, he appeared to be pointing the finger at Russia.

diplomacy and politics

• Macron expressed confidence in Zelenskyy’s ability to improve Ukraine’s anticorruption record and implement reforms to ensure its accession to the EU during a joint press conference in Paris.
• During a state visit to China on Monday, German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil stated that China “should work together to end the conflict in Ukraine” and that “China can play a key role.”
• China will continue to contribute to the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis, he said in his response.
• The Kremlin confirmed on Monday that a possible prisoner-of-war exchange with Ukraine was taking place, but it would not provide more details.
• Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s summit is anticipated to take place in Russia, according to Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin.
• Peskov added that Moscow was very opposed to a bill that Trump claimed Republicans in the US were working on that would impose sanctions on all nations that conduct business with Russia.
• Russian’s website added former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov and prominent economist Sergei Guriev to its list of “extremists and terrorists” on Monday, according to the watchdog’s website.

Economy

• In a letter to EU members on Monday, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, stated that the bloc had three options for helping Ukraine meet its financing needs: “Support… financed by member states via grants, a limited recourse loan funded by the union borrowing on the financial markets or a limited recourse loan linked to the cash balances of immobilized assets.”
• Five sources with knowledge of the process told the Reuters news agency that the Chevron oil company is considering options to purchase foreign assets from the Russian oil company Lukoil after the US Department of the Treasury approved potential buyers talking to Lukoil about foreign assets.