Russo-Ukrainian War: List of key events, day 246

Here is the situation as it stands on Thursday, October 27.

Conflict

• Ukrainian troops are resisting repeated attacks near the two eastern towns of Avdiivka and Bakhmut in the Donbas region, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, describing Russian tactics as “crazy” as the war in Ukraine drags on for a ninth month. fighting.
• Zelenskyy vowed to retake Kherson as his adviser said Russia is preparing for “the hardest battle” there.
• Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces in the southern Kherson region is proving more difficult than a previous offensive in Kharkiv due to humid weather and terrain, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said.
• Russia continues to argue that Ukraine intends to detonate a “dirty bomb” with radioactive contaminants. Kyiv has denied it. Slovenia said one of the images Russia used to claim that Ukraine plans to detonate a dirty bomb was an old photo of smoke detectors taken in Slovenia.

Diplomacy

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has monitored exercises by the country’s strategic nuclear forces that involve multiple practice launches of cruise and ballistic missiles, in a show of force amid rising tensions with the West over the Ukraine conflict. suggesting the eight-month conflict could go nuclear.
• UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said he was “relatively optimistic” that a UN-brokered deal allowing the resumption of Ukraine’s Black Sea grain exports would be extended beyond mid-November.
• US State Department spokesman Ned Price said the remains of a US citizen killed in fighting in Ukraine have been identified and handed over to Ukrainian authorities and will soon be returned to the person’s family.
• Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has said that the only way to facilitate a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine is to help Kyiv defend itself militarily.

Economy