Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,368

On Sunday, November 23, 2018, this is how things are going.

Trump’s strategy

In Geneva, representatives from Ukraine, the United States, and the European Union are scheduled to meet to discuss US President Donald Trump’s proposed 28-point strategy for ending the conflict with Russia.
• Trump, who had initially demanded that Ukraine accept his proposal by Thursday, said the proposal was not his final offer, according to Trump’s press release on Saturday. We want to find peace, they say. We’ll eventually have it ended, he said.
• Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, announced on Saturday that he had approved the composition of Kyiv’s delegation.
• In a social media post, he wrote, “Our representatives know how to defend Ukraine’s national interests, and exactly what needs to be done to stop Russia from starting a third invasion,” noting that Russia’s “crimes” shouldn’t be “rewarded.”
• European and Western leaders welcomed Trump’s strategy in a statement on Saturday, but said the draft requires “additional work”.
• Additionally, they criticized some of its provisions, including the Ukrainian military’s size and the ceding of territory to Russia. They stated that “we are clear on the principle that borders must not be altered by force.”

• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz emphasized the need for Ukraine to decide its own fate and participate in any conflict resolution. He told reporters that “wars cannot be ended by major powers over the heads of the affected nations.”
• In a separate statement, the leaders of eight Nordic-Baltic nations reiterated their commitment to Ukraine, including by extending its military support. They remarked that “we have stood by Ukraine’s side from the beginning of Russia’s war of aggression” and that they will continue to do so.
• Democrats and some Republican hawks in Congress remained opposed to Trump’s proposal in Washington, DC. Senator Angus King described it as one of the worst “geopolitical mistakes” he has ever witnessed.

Fighting

• According to local officials, Russian forces carried out more than 60 strikes in the Ukrainian Dnipropetrovsk region’s Nikopol district, killing at least one person and injuring five others.
• Five people were hurt in a subsequent Russian attack on a store in Zaporizhia, and two women died in Kherson as a result of Russian shelling, according to officials.
• Following the deadly Russian missile attack in Ternopil, Ukraine’s west on November 19, the State Emergency Service announced it had ended its search and rescue operation.
• The organization reported that there were 33 fatalities, of which six were children. Additionally, 94 people received wounds.
• Zvanivka in Donetsk and Nove Zaporizhzhia in the Zaporizhia region, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
• The claim was made in response to a report from the Ukrainian newspaper Kyiv Independent that claimed more than 15 Zaporizhia villages had been allegedly taken over by Russian forces. The Black Bird Group, a Finnish open-intelligence organization, was mentioned in the article.
• Russian troops “encircled Ukrainian units” in several neighborhoods of Pokrovsk in Donetsk, according to Russia’s TASS news agency, which reported that the battle for the town of Pokrovsk and Donetsk continued for months.
• The Ukrainian military claimed that its forces were preventing Russian attacks on the town’s center and that its forces were occupying northern Pokrovsk’s design lines.