The Daily Summary from the Guardian…..
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Ukraine faced its biggest drone attack of the war so far last night, according to Kyiv. Five people were wounded by falling debris in the capital city, including an 11-year-old child, and the attack led to power cuts.
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Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 71 of the 75 drones launched in the attack. “The enemy launched a record number of attack drones at Ukraine! The main direction of the attack is Kyiv,” the commander of Ukraine’s air force, Gen Mykola Oleshchuk, said.
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The former Russian prime minister turned Kremlin critic Mikhail Kasyanov has been added to a list of “foreign agents”, Russia’s justice ministry has announced. Kasyanov, who was the first head of Putin’s government in the early 2000s, now appears in the justice ministry’s register of foreign agents, a term reminiscent of the Soviet-era “enemy of the people”.
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The UK Ministry of Defence reported that Russia’s Black Sea fleet is facing issues reloading its vessels with cruise missiles. Russia will, the MoD said, need to overcome such issues “in time for maritime cruise missiles to be included in any winter campaign of strikes against Ukraine”.
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The Swiss president, Alain Berset, was in Kyiv to meet his Ukrainian counterpart and attend an international summit on food security. Latvia’s president, Edgars Rinkēvičs, was also in Ukraine – he met the country’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, and they discussed the progress of Ukraine’s integration into the EU…..
Will the Ukraine hold Presidenctial Elections next year?
For months, Ukraine has been caught up in a heated debate over whether the country needs to hold a presidential election next year as originally scheduled.
All elections – including presidential ones – are prohibited under the country’s current martial law, imposed after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Many in Ukraine are outraged by the idea, fearing a vote could distract the nation from its fight for survival.
Tensions eased after President Volodymyr Zelensky said in November that it was “not the right time” for elections.
US party politics
The discussion about Ukrainian elections is partly being pushed by US politicians ahead of the country’s election in 2024, particularly by a small group within the Republican party, says Olha Aivazovska, chairwoman of the election monitoring network Opora.
She argues that some hard-right Republicans are using the issue to justify their demand to block military aid to Ukraine.
And these voices are getting louder. As Donald Trump’s isolationist views gain greater influence in the Republican party, the issue of support for Ukraine gets caught up in US domestic politics and party divisions.
Although many Republicans support Ukraine, “it doesn’t mean that the far-right wing of this party will not use this topic against Ukraine next year [during] the presidential elections in the US,” Ms Aivazovska says.
They are already doing it…
Nov 25, 2023 – ISW Press
Russian forces launched the largest drone strike against Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion overnight on November 24 to 25 using a new modification of the Iranian Shahed 131/136 drones. Ukrainian military officials reported that Russian forces launched 75 Shahed drones that mainly targeted Kyiv City from the southeast (Primorsko-Akhtarsk) and northeast (Kursk Oblast) and that Ukrainian forces shot down 74 drones. Ukrainian military officials also reported that Ukrainian forces shot down a Russian Kh-59 cruise missile over Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and that air defenses activated in at least six regions, including Kyiv, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Mykolaiv, and Kirovohrad oblasts. Ukrainian Air Force officials stated that mobile fire groups enabled Ukrainian forces to shoot down a significant number of drones. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky observed that Russian forces launched the drone attack on the Ukrainian remembrance day of the 1932-1933 Holodomor man-made famine.
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Nov 24, 2023 – ISW Press
Ukrainian officials reported that Russian forces began a renewed offensive effort towards Avdiivka on November 22, although likely with weaker mechanized capabilities than in the previous offensive waves that occurred in October. Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Commander Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi reported on November 23 that Russian forces launched a “third wave” of assaults as part of the Russia offensive operation in the Avdiivka direction, and Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Colonel Oleksandr Shtupun stated that this “third wave” began on November 22. Shtupun reported a 25 to 30 percent increase in Russian ground attacks near Avdiivka on November 22 and stated that Ukrainian forces repelled several Russian columns of roughly a dozen armored vehicles in total during assaults. The Ukrainian General Staff reported that Ukrainian forces repelled at least 50 Russian assaults in the Avdiivka direction on November 23 and 24. Russian sources claimed that Russian forces continued offensive operations on Avdiivka’s northern and southern flanks but did not characterize any Russian assaults as heavily mechanized.