Ukraine Update…238 days into the Russian move on the Ukraine…Ukraine Cities rocketed again….

Here’s what else to know

• Multiple districts in the capital, Kyiv, have been cut off from power, and 80 percent of the city is without water after strikes on nearby facilities, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
• Two strikes hit critical infrastructure in the city of Kharkiv, its mayor said on Telegram, leaving part of the region without power. In Zaporizhzhia, the governor accused Russian forces of damaging a critical infrastructure facility. No casualties have been reported there so far but officials warned of interruptions to infrastructure supplies.
• Ukraine said it resumed agricultural exports out of its Black Sea ports Monday despite Russia’s withdrawal from the U.N.-brokered grain deal safeguarding the passage of the cargo vessels. According to Reuters, Turkey and the U.N. also resumed their inspections of ships departing Ukraine….

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Here’s what we know:

Ukraine said its forces shot down most of the Russian missiles, in the latest assault aimed at civilian infrastructure.

• Strikes temporarily knock out the water supply for much of Kyiv.

• Kyiv loses water, forcing residents to line up at the city’s wells.

• Moldova condemns Russian strikes after missile debris lands in its territory.

• Africa faces immediate pain from the grain deal’s suspension, but the impact on Ukraine could be delayed.

• ‘Too scary to stay’: Ukrainians along the front line in Kherson are fleeing as fighting escalates.

• Russia says it has recovered wreckage of the sea drones used to attack its Black Sea Fleet….

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The Russian trade picture….

Oil and gas are Russia’s most important exports by far, and a major source of government funding. The high price of oil and gas in the last year has inflated the value of its exports, which has helped Moscow offset revenue lost because of sanctions. Gazprom, the state-run Russian energy giant, posted a record profit in the first half of this year, even as shipments to Europe began to slump.

The International Monetary Fund has repeatedly revised its forecasts this year for the Russian economy, saying it would contract by less than the organization had anticipated. The I.M.F. said in October that it expected the Russian economy to shrink by 3.4 percent this year, a much smaller contraction than the 6 percent it forecast in July and the 8.5 percent it expected in April.

“Russia has withstood the economic sanctions better than anticipated, aided by high oil and gas prices and our dependence on fossil fuels,” said Gilberto Garcia-Vazquez, chief economist at Datawheel, the company that operates the Observatory of Economic Complexity….

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