Ukraine Update…239 days into the Russian move on the Ukraine…

Water and electricity supplies to Kyiv were restored Tuesday, the capital’s mayor announced, after Russia unleashed a fresh wave of infrastructure attacks across Ukraine on Monday, that it described as retaliation for the weekend’s drone attacks. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Monday that the infrastructure attacks were “not all we could have done.”

Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.

• Seventeen vessels in total have now transited the Black Sea corridor since Russia suspended its participation in the agreement, the U.N. says, including three ships carrying corn, wheat, and sunflower meal that departed Ukrainian ports Tuesday. The U.N. says it’s continuing discussions with Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey to resume the deal in full. The latest boats will be boarded by Turkish and U.N. inspectors before making their way to Libya, Morocco, and Germany.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pledged to continue with the exports and accused Russia of exacerbating a global food crisis by threatening to block the vessels, during his Monday night address. Moscow’s U.N. representative, Vasily Nebenzya, accused Kyiv of using the grain corridor for “military and sabotage purposes,” and said drones had been used to attack Russian ships over the weekend “under the cover” of the deal. He did not provide evidence for the claim that Ukraine was responsible for the attack.
• BP, one of the world’s largest energy producers, reported massive profits on Tuesday, a day after President Biden lambasted oil companies whose profits have been buoyed by the war in Ukraine. BP reported third quarter profits of $8.2 billion — more than double its equivalent profit from a year earlier. Biden said companies could face higher taxes if they don’t pass on profits to consumers by lowering gas prices. The GOP criticized Biden’s idea as a political stunt.
• Norway’s prime minister said his country’s military will “increase its preparedness” starting Tuesday.Jonas Gahr Store said the change was not in response to any direct threat, but with the war in Ukraine, it is “necessary for all NATO countries to be increasingly on their guard.” Norway has become a crucial natural gas supplier for Europe, and has recently been spooked by a spate of drone sightings and people taking photos near sensitive areas.

• Russian forces launched a rocket attack on the city of Mykolaiv in the early hours of Tuesday morning killing one person, Ukraine’s emergency services claimed. Rescuers removed a woman’s body from the rubble of one of the residential buildings that had been destroyed, officials said.
• Moscow may have stationed a KILLJOY long-range ballistic missile in Belarus for the first time, in an attempt to send a message to the West and draw Minsk further into the war, British officials said Tuesday. Satellite imagery from mid October shows what appears to be a large canister encased within a protective earth berm at Belarus’s Machulishchi Airfield, the officials said in their daily update.
• Russian forces are probably still moving troops and military equipment across the Dnieper River, in an apparent retreat from some locations ahead of expected Ukrainian advances toward Moscow-occupied Kherson, according to the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War think tank. Urban warfare is expected to soon take place in and around Kherson.
• Pro-Russia officials in Kherson are expanding civilian relocations by about 9 miles from the river, Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-appointed head of the region, said in a Telegram post Monday. He also made the unsupported accusation that Ukraine was plotting a massive missile attack on a nearby hydroelectric dam. ISW analysts said his goal is probably to drive people to flee the area, and to “explain away” a future withdrawal of Russian forces.. “There is no scenario in which Ukraine would benefit from destroying the dam,” they said….

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