Ukraine updates: Russia strikes cause deaths, power outages

Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles at Ukrainian cities, killing at least four people and damaging energy infrastructure (see below).

Plus, all eyes are on the city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, where fighting has been described as being really tough. Read here. 

The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that Russian forces occupying Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant have repaired and reconnected a second external power line, improving the site's stability.

The UN nuclear watchdog said on X that the 330-kilowatt line was reconnected to the plant at 7:43 p.m. (1743 UTC) local time on Friday — the first time in six months.

"This is a good day for nuclear safety," IAEA chief Rafael Grossi wrote.

In October, repairs to the first line ended the plant's 10th blackout since Russia seized it in 2022. That work was carried out under a local ceasefire brokered by the IAEA, which has maintained observers at the facility.

The Russian-installed administration said restoring the line would strengthen the region's energy system and secure heating for the nearby occupied city of Enerhodar.

Ukraine's energy minister previously accused Russia of deliberately shelling the plant's power lines to disconnect it from the national grid, while Moscow has blamed Kyiv for the attacks.

Europe's largest nuclear plant, with six reactors and a capacity of 6,000 megawatts, has been under Russian control since March 2022. The reactors remain shut down for safety reasons but still require constant cooling powered by the restored lines or, in emergencies, by diesel generators.

Hungary has contradicted the White House over a waiver granted by the United States relating to the Eastern European country's buying of oil and gas from Russia.

Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in a Facebook post that Budapest had won an "indefinite exemption" from Washington, which is threatening sanctions on nations that conduct energy trade with Moscow.

After Prime Minister Viktor Orban met with US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Friday to push its case, a White House official said Hungary had been granted a one-year waiver from the sanctions.

But Szijjarto insisted: "The prime minister spoke clearly and agreed with the US president that we would receive an exemption from sanctions for an unlimited period of time. So the Hungarian people will continue to pay the lowest energy prices in Europe." Szijjarto said in a video.

"There will be no sanctions on oil and gas deliveries to Hungary for an indefinite period. Anyone who claims otherwise was not present at the negotiations. It is much easier to ask those of us who were there," he added.

Hungary still relies on Russian energy, despite pressure from Kyiv, the European Union and NATO to wean itself off the energy supplies after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Figures from the International Monetary show Hungary bought nearly three-quarters of its gas and 86% of its oil from Russia last year.

Budapest has defended its move, saying that energy costs for homes and businesses would have surged if it had cut energy imports from Kremlin-backed sources.

In a sign of an apparent deal with Trump to avoid the sanctions, the White House official also noted that Hungary had committed to buying US liquefied natural gas (LNG) with contracts valued at some $600 million.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has confirmed that work is underway on Vladimir Putin's instruction to prepare proposals for a potential Russian nuclear test.

According to the state news agency TASS, Lavrov said: "Regarding President Vladimir Putin's instruction at the Security Council meeting on 5 November, it has been accepted for implementation and is being worked on. The public will be informed of the results."

The order came in response to President Donald Trump's unexpected announcement last week that the US would resume testing nuclear weapons for the first time in three decades.

"Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

TASS cited Lavrov as saying Russia hadn't been given clarification by the US regarding Trump's order.

Russia has not conducted a nuclear test since 1990, the year before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Putin has repeatedly stated that Moscow will respond in kind should Washington carry out a nuclear test.

A Ukrainian army battalion commander is accused of gathering 100 soldiers for a celebration, despite a ban by the Ukrainian General Staff. This made them targets for a deadly Russian attack. 

The General Prosecutor's Office said that twelve soldiers and seven civilians were killed when missiles and drones struck the Dnipropetrovsk region on November 1. Additionally, 36 soldiers were injured.

According to the investigation, the officer assembled the soldiers for a ceremony to present them with an award. During the celebration, Russian troops reportedly attacked with two ballistic missiles and three drones. 

The General Prosecutor's Office stated that the commander must answer for neglecting his duties. 

A van carrying two journalists, one from Austria and one from Spain, was attacked by a drone near the front line in eastern Ukraine. 

Among the passengers was Christian Wehrschütz, a correspondent for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ÖRF). 

According to ÖRF, the incident occurred on Saturday in the Donetsk region. The journalists were traveling with the Proliska aid organization to the city of Kostiantynivka.

Wehrschütz wrote on Instagram, "A drone caught us, but luckily everyone is fine," and posted a video of the incident filmed with his mobile phone.

The video shows the occupants fleeing the vehicle before an explosion is heard. Afterwards, the video shows a torn-off bumper, burning debris, and smoke.

Russia claimed to have gained ground in the strategic town of Pokrovsk and the nearby town of Myrnohrad, both in the Donetsk region, through house-to-house fighting.

The Russian Ministry of Defense also reported progress in Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region. Russia claims to have surrounded the three towns.

Kyiv acknowledges that the situation in Pokrovsk is difficult but says it is fighting on in all three towns.

DeepState, a Ukrainian-run open-source map of the front lines, shows Russia advancing around Pokrovsk and Kupiansk, though it does not appear that Russian forces have cut off Ukrainian troops in either town.

Russia's Defense Ministry also announced that its troops have seized control of the village of Vovche in Ukraine's eastern Dnipropetrovsk region.

According to the 2001 Ukrainian census, the population of the village was 13 people.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said he plans to emphasize the Atlantic alliance's nuclear capabilities more in the future, primarily to deter Russia.

"It is important that we talk more about nuclear deterrence with our societies, to ensure they understand how it contributes to our overall security," Rutte told Sunday's edition of the German Die Welt newspaper.

"When Russia is using dangerous and reckless nuclear rhetoric, our populations must know that there is no need to panic, because NATO has a strong nuclear deterrent, to preserve peace, prevent coercion, and deter aggression," he added.

Rutte also stressed the importance of NATO's nuclear capabilities, which he said were the alliance's "ultimate guarantee of our security."

"And (Russian President Vladimir) Putin must know that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought," he added.

Of the 32 NATO members, only the United States, France, and the United Kingdom possess nuclear weapons.

Rutte also said a recent NATO nuclear exercise had been successful, giving him "absolute confidence in the credibility of NATO's nuclear deterrence."

"It sent a clear signal to any adversary that NATO can and will protect all allies against all threats," the former Dutch prime minister said.

Russia is the world's largest nuclear power. Putin has repeatedly emphasized Russia's nuclear weapons capabilities to deter the West from providing stronger support to Ukraine.

At least three people were killed and many more were injured in an overnight Russian air attack on the city of Dnipro, where an apartment building was struck, and one person died in the Kharkiv region, Ukrainian officials said.

"There were also strikes in the Dnipro, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Sumy, and Chernihiv regions. The Odesa region has been under attack since the evening," Zelenskyy wrote on X.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko reported that Russian strikes damaged several large energy facilities in Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Poltava regions.

According to Zelenskyy, Russia launched 450 drones and 45 missiles overnight targeting Ukraine's energy sector and other infrastructure.

The Ukrainian president reiterated his call for Kyiv's allies to impose stronger sanctions on the Russian energy sector and to provide Ukraine with increased firepower.

Two people were wounded when a Ukrainian drone hit a residential building in the southern Russian city of Saratov, according to a statement by the local governor, Roman Busargin.

Saratov is an industrial city on the Volga River, 625 kilometers (388 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

Meanwhile, three Ukrainian drones hit an electricity substation in the northern Russian region of Vologda overnight, according to regional governor Georgy Filimonov.

The extent of the damage is still being assessed, but Filimonov said in a post on Telegram that electrical supplies in the region, which is located north of Moscow and around 1,900 kilometers (1,180 miles) from Ukraine, are continuing uninterrupted.

Separately, Russia's Defense Ministry announced on Telegram that it had shot down 82 drones overnight, primarily over regions bordering Ukraine.

Before the war, Pokrovsk was home to 60,000 people. Now the city has been largely deserted and lies in ruins after being devastated by fighting.

Thanks to its location at the intersection of major westbound roads, Pokrovsk has played a vital role as a logistics hub for Ukraine throughout the war, ensuring that goods continue to be supplied to the Donetsk region. Russia controls around 80% of Ukraine's eastern region.

Seizing Pokrovsk would allow Russia to advance deeper into the region and redeploy troops to other important cities in the area, such as Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Kostiantynivka and Druzhkivka.

The fall of Pokrovsk could also pave the way for advances elsewhere along the front line, including a push westwards towards the Dnipropetrovsk region. 

Pokrovsk's capture would not only carry military importance; it would also represent a significant propaganda victory for the Kremlin in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

It would be one of Moscow's most significant territorial gains since the capture of Avdiivka, also in the Donetsk region, in February 2024.

Meanwhile, for Ukraine and its army, which is already outgunned and plagued by manpower shortages, losing Pokrovsk could seriously damage morale.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's affinity for Russia's President Vladimir Putin was on full display during his visit to the White House, when he was asked about the US president's efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

Over the course of its war against Ukraine, Russia built up a network of agents to carry out acts of sabotage in European countries.

A study sheds light on the Kremlin's tactics and offers recommendations to the EU.

"The study situates Moscow's tactics against the backdrop of its full-scale war on Ukraine, showing that hybrid operations are not a side theatre but a central pillar of Russian strategy," researchers wrote.

Read in full here.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had the most to gain from a meeting with Donald Trump at the White House on Friday. And he did.

Trump has been pressuring European nations to stop buying Russian energy, and has sanctioned countries and companies that continue to import oil and gas from Russia.

But after talks with the US president, Orban said his country has received an exemption from the sanctions.

"We asked the president to lift the sanctions," Orban said, adding that Hungary is "in a significantly different situation than other European countries." 

For more on why Trump has made an exception for Hungary and Orban, read DW's full article. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia's main military goal is to seize the city of Pokrovsk.

Russia's Defense Ministry said this week that its forces had made advances in the city and were poised to capture it. Ukraine has denied Russia's claims that Pokrovsk is surrounded.

Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv that Ukrainian intelligence estimates "314 Russians inside the city itself," an increase from "up to 200" reported at the end of October.

Zelenskyy said in the last three days, Russia had launched around 220 assaults near Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian stronghold in eastern Donetsk.

"It is very important for Russia to do everything possible to actually capture Pokrovsk," said Zelenskyy.

According to the Ukrainian president, Moscow is determined to seize the city to show the US that it can achieve battlefield gains.

Gaining control over Pokrovsk would put Russian President Vladimir Putin a step closer to his goal of occupying the entire Donbas region, Ukraine's industrial and coal-producing heartland.

Despite heavy fighting, Zelenskyy noted that Russian forces have made "no progress" near the neighboring cities of Siversk, Kramatorsk, or Kostyantynivka.