Russo-Ukrainian War: List of main events, day 635 | News of war between Russia and Ukraine

As the war enters its 635th day, these are the key developments.

Here is the situation on Monday, November 20, 2023.

Fighting

• The Ukrainian army said it has pushed back Russian forces as far as 8km (5 miles) from the banks of the Dnipro river in the southern Kherson region. Ukrainian and Russian forces have been stationed on either side of the Dnipro for more than a year after Russia withdrew its troops from the west bank last November. Ukraine said last week that it had made progress. “Initial figures vary from 3 to 8 kilometers (2 to 5 miles), depending on the details, geography and topography of the left bank,” military spokeswoman Natalia Gumenyuk told state television. Ukraine when asked what progress Kyiv has made. She said there was still “a lot of work to do”.
• The United Kingdom’s defense ministry said there were “few significant changes on the immediate front line,” adding that neither Russia nor Ukraine had made meaningful progress on the battlefield. In a statement, he said intense fighting was centered near Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, Avdiivka in the Dontesk region, and on the left bank of the Dnipro River.
• Russia launched several waves of drone attacks on Kyiv for the second night in a row, prompting air raid warnings. The Ukrainian Air Force said its air defense systems destroyed 15 of the 20 Shahed kamikaze drones targeting Kyiv, Poltava and Cherkasy regions. There were no initial reports of “critical damage” or casualties. On Saturday, Russian drone attacks caused power outages in more than 400 towns and cities in southern, southeastern and northern Ukraine.
• According to Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko, five people, including a three-year-old girl who was out with her grandmother, were injured in Russian artillery shelling in Kherson. One person was killed by shelling in the northeastern region of Sumy.

• The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked for quick changes in the military operations of Ukraine when he met with the Minister of Defense Rustem Umerov. Zelenskyy said that “priorities have been set” noting that there was “little time left to wait for results”. Zelenskyy said he had also replaced Major-General Tetiana Ostashchenko as head of the Medical Forces of the Armed Forces, saying the armed forces needed a “new level of medical support”.

Politics and diplomacy

• Bohdan Yermokhin, an orphaned Ukrainian teenager who was brought to Russia from the Ukrainian city of Mariupol during the war and was banned from leaving in March, has returned to Ukraine. Yermokhin, now 18, told the Reuters news agency that it was a “very pleasant gift”. Ukraine estimates that around 20,000 children have been illegally taken by Russia. Zelenskyy welcomed Yermokhin’s return and thanked Ukrainian officials, international organizations, and especially UNICEF, and authorities in Qatar for helping with mediation.
• Zelenskyy imposed sanctions on 37 Russian entities and 108 individuals including two former senior Ukrainian officials who are now in Russia for allegedly engaging in “kidnapping and sending removal of Ukrainian children from the occupied territory” and individuals who “in various ways help Russian terrorism against Ukraine. “.
• Anti-war Russian nationalist Igor Girkin, who is in custody awaiting trial for inciting terrorism, said he wanted to run for president. Also known by the alias Igor Strelkov, the former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer has repeatedly said that Russia will face revolution and even civil war if there is no major President Vladimir Putin’s military is fighting the war in Ukraine more effectively. Girkin helped Russia annex Crimea in 2014 and then organize pro-Russian militias in eastern Ukraine.