On the 615th day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a latest analyst report reports military advances by the kyiv army near the occupied town of Bakhmut, in the east of the country.
In its last bulletin published on Monday October 30the Institute for the Study of War said it observed a slight advance of Ukrainian forces in eastern Ukraine.
“Ukrainian forces reportedly continued their offensive operations towards Bakhmut on October 30 and confirmed their advance,” reports the American think tank. The ISW specifies that “geolocated images published on October 30 indicate that Ukrainian forces advanced northeast of Kurdyumivka (10 kilometers southwest of Bakhmut).”
“Additional geotagged imagery from October 29 indicates that Ukrainian forces advanced slightly west of Robotyne [au sud-est du pays]in the west of the Zaporizhia oblast”, add the analysts of this institute.
Police custody of a Russian oligarch in France on suspicion of laundering tax fraud
Russian oligarch Alexei Kuzmitchev, close to Vladimir Putin, was arrested Monday in France and placed in police custody in an investigation notably for laundering tax fraud and violations of international sanctions, judicial sources close to the case indicated.
“Searchs were carried out today in several places, notably in the Var and at the Parisian home of Mr. Kouzmitchev,” the judicial source told AFP, confirming information from the daily Le Monde. He was placed in police custody in a preliminary investigation entrusted to the Anti-Corruption Office (Oclciff) opened in particular for laundering tax fraud and violation of international sanctions.
Alexei Kuzmitchev is considered “a large shareholder of the Alfa Group conglomerate, which includes Alfa Bank, one of the largest taxpayers in Russia”, according to the European Union which placed him on the list of targeted people by sanctions on March 15, 2022.
kyiv and Washington refute Moscow’s accusations over Dagestan riots
Ukraine and the United States both rejected Russia’s accusations on Monday evening, accusing it of having “provoked” anti-Israel riots the day before at an airport in the predominantly Muslim Russian Caucasian republic of Dagestan.
The spokesperson for Ukrainian diplomacy, Oleg Nikolenko, estimated that “the accusations of the Russian Foreign Ministry on Ukraine’s involvement in the events in Dagestan are an attempt to shift the responsibility” to Kiev.
For its part, Washington described the accusation as “classic Russian rhetoric: when something goes wrong in your country, you blame someone else”, blasted John Kirby, spokesperson for the National Security Council of the White House.
Moscow judges that Ukraine played a “key role” in the airport assault
Echoing the first statements from local authorities, Vladimir Putin on Monday evening accused Ukraine and its Western allies of having instigated the assault on the airport, calling on its security services to take “strong measures” in retaliation.
Russian diplomacy in particular accused Ukraine of having played “a key role” in the riots, considering that these clashes were “the result of a provocation planned and led from the outside”, affirmed in a communicated the spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, without providing evidence.
Netherlands confirms imminent delivery of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine
The wait for kyiv should not be very long anymore. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte indicated on Monday on the social network
The head of state clarified that “the F-16s promised by the Netherlands to strengthen Ukrainian air defense will arrive at the training center in Romania in two weeks.” An announcement which “means that the training courses for the Ukrainian pilots who will fly them will be able to start soon,” added Mark Rutte.
Like the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Belgium have also committed to supplying F-16 aircraft to Ukraine. A response to kyiv’s repeated requests to defend its airspace.