Russian glide bomb attacks kill four, damage a constructivist landmark in Kharkiv. Russia advances more than 470 square kilometers into Ukraine in October, a record since March 2022, according to Welt. Ukraine will increase its electricity import capacity from the EU by a quarter.
Russian glide bomb attacks kill four, damage a constructivist landmark in Kharkiv
A Russian glide bomb attack on Kharkiv on Monday evening damaged the Derzhprom building, a constructivist landmark from the 1920s placed on UNESCO’s World Heritage tentative list. A section of the building took a direct hit from a bomb, resulting in destruction of several floors. Nine people were injured in the attack that also damaged a medical facility.
Head of the Kharkiv regional police, Volodymyr Tymoshko, told Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne: “One of the glide bombs directly hit the Derzhprom building. The house withstood Nazi attacks during World War II, and now the Russians are trying to destroy it. The building hosts administrative offices and civilian agencies. A section that hosts a commercial court took a direct hit [from a bomb]: a glide bomb flew into one of the offices of its judges. It is a civilian site, it has no military function.”
Derzhprom, or the House of State Industry, was constructed between 1925 and 1928, when Kharkiv was the capital of Soviet Ukraine. Derzhprom, built as a state-level office house, is the world’s largest building in the constructivist style.
A subsequent Russian glide bomb attack overnight into Tuesday killed four people and damaged an apartment building and 19 private homes in the Osnovyanskyi district of Kharkiv.
Russia advances more than 470 square kilometers into Ukraine in October, record since March 2022
The Russian army advanced 478 square kilometers into Ukrainian territory in October, a record since March 2022 in the first weeks of the war, according to an AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War, cited by Germany’s Welt on Tuesday.
Last week, Russian forces rapidly advanced in Ukraine, capturing 196 square kilometers between October 20 and 27, Welt said, referring to the data offered by the Russian news outlet Agentstvo.
By October 27, Russian forces had taken more Ukrainian territory under their control than they did in August and September, when they captured 477 and 459 square kilometers respectively, Welt said.
The gains marked major shifts on the front line, in particular in eastern Ukraine around the city of Pokrovsk.
Two-thirds of the Russian gains that the news agency calculated were in Donetsk region. Russian forces are a few kilometers from Pokrovsk, which they are approaching from the south and east.
The last time that Russia made such advances was in March 2022, when they marched towards the capital Kyiv in the early stages of the war. Along with the Crimea peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014, and the areas of eastern Ukraine occupied before the full-scale invasion, Russia currently controls 18.2 percent of Ukraine’s territory, the agency said.
Ukraine to increase electricity import capacity from EU by quarter
Ukraine and the EU agreed that Ukraine will increase its electricity import capacity from Europe to 2.1 GW from current 1.7 GW starting in December, Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy said Tuesday.
“Beginning from December 1, the maximum electricity import capacity from the EU will increase to 2.1 GW from current 1.7 GW. It will bolster resilience of the Ukrainian energy system in the face of criminal Russian attacks and infrastructure destruction,” Ukrainian energy minister Herman Halushchenko said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen discussed the move in Kyiv in September.
“Ukraine will also be able to receive an additional 250 MW of guaranteed capacity from the EU in emergency mode,” the ministry said in a statement.
“I am grateful to our European partners, in particular to European Commissioner [for energy] Kadri Simson, for their consistent position and effective steps to support our energy system ahead of the winter,” Halushchenko said.