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Stay on top of Russia-Ukraine war 10-17-2024 developments on the ground with KyivPost fact-based news, exclusive video footage, photos and updated war maps.
With the UN estimating that almost a quarter of Ukraine's territory is currently contaminated with landmines and explosive remnants of war (ERW) the need for innovative demining techniques continues.
A Japanese manufacturer of industrial drones is launching a business project to use its products as a platform for detectors able find landmines “sown” in Ukraine following Russia's full-scale invasion. The company plans to make its project commercially viable as early as 2025, according to the Japanese business outlet Nikkei.
Japanese journalists point out that Prodrone, a Nagoya-based company, will cooperate with the Tokyo consulting agency Padeco to commercialize the project. Prodrone will supply and maintain geodesic drones that can fly at a height of about 50 centimeters (20 inches) above the ground, while Padeco will be responsible for negotiations with Ukraine’s local authorities and companies. They plan to eventually transfer the development of mine detection equipment and drone operation to a Ukrainian company.
The comment of Ukraine having the capability to build a nuke within weeks came a few months ago in a closed meeting, German news outlet BILD alleged.
[Updates: 7:57 p.m.]
Ukraine’s Presidential Communications Advisor Dmytro Lytvyn dismissed BILD’s claim and said it’s “[playing] into the hands of Russian propaganda.”
Zelensky received a lukewarm response to the first part of his much-anticipated Victory Plan after presenting it to the Ukrainian Parliament and foreign partners on Wednesday.
The number one element of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s new Victory Plan for ending the war calls for guaranteed entry into NATO – but alliance leaders have already rejected this option.
Zelensky announced the first part of the plan to the Ukrainian parliament on Wednesday, outlining five stipulations that aim to protect the territorial integrity of the country and rebuild it after the war ends.
Russia, in league with Iran, North Korea, andd other rogue actors, has described itself as already being “at war” with America and Europe.
The Ukrainian president said he told Republican candidate Donald Trump that Ukraine’s solution is either restoring its status as a nuclear state or becoming a NATO member, but Kyiv chose the latter.
It’s either joining NATO or building nukes, President Volodymyr Zelensky said he told Donald Trump.
The statement marked the first occasion after the 2022 full-scale invasion that Zelensky directly referred to Ukraine’s possible return to being a nuclear state.
The drug Ketamine is being innovatively used to help returning soldiers overcome the war’s impacts on their mental health. Kyiv Post spoke to early adopters and health experts.
In the winter of 2023, in eastern Ukraine, highly experienced combat medic Ihor Kholodylo was loading injured Ukrainian soldiers into his medical evacuation van when it was hit by a shell from a Russian tank. The massive explosion threw Kholodylo some five meters through the air and nearly killed him.
Kholodylo, a psychologist in civilian life, sustained traumatic brain injury, concussion, leg wounds, and shockwave impacts on his eyes, spine and cardio-vascular system. The latter required major surgery to regulate a wildly arrhythmic heart.
He found himself outside of Ukraine when the full-scale invasion began and has since then been raising funds for the Ukrainian cause with his concerts.
Alexey Botvinov, the Ukrainian virtuoso pianist from Odesa, received the Platinum Medal of France’s Société Académique Arts-Sciences Lettres for outstanding services to the arts as a pianist and as founder and president of the “Odessa Classics” Festival.
Michael R. Bloomberg and Vitaly Klitschko about the situation and projects in Ukraine.
When a nation is consumed by crisis, headlines focus on presidents and prime ministers. But the people struggling to survive tend to focus on someone else: the mayor. That is true whether the crisis is a war, hurricane, global pandemic, or any other event that upends people’s lives. While global attention and international aid flows to national governments, it is no less important to equip mayors to lead their cities through crisis – and Kyiv helps illustrate the stakes.
Cities don’t wage war, but they often bear the brunt of it. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Kyiv has been the target of regular assaults and bombardments. Homes, hospitals, schools, and other critical infrastructure have been damaged or destroyed.
As a last act by the Biden administration.
The FATF meets next week, October 22, and is expected to debate again Russia’s FATF blacklisting. It is absolutely remarkable that Russia is not already on the FATF blacklist with its buddies North Korea and Iran. It is just incredible that Western countries have not made this happen already as Russia is clearly a state sponsor of terrorism – ask the head of Germany’s biggest arms maker whom Russia planned to kill, or the UK and German postal services who countered Russian bomb plots, or indeed the head of UK MI5 and it’s German equivalent who over recent weeks have identified the broader terrorist threat from Russia.
Russia continues to break sanctions, and encourages others to do so – see the FT, and others reporting around shadow fleets.
Wherever Russia occupies Ukrainian territory, there is a systematic process of stamping out any trace of Ukrainian identity. By definition, this is tantamount to genocide.
The plight of children – kidnapped in their thousands and taken to Russia for re-education – is a scandal far too few are aware of.
Russia’s illegal war on Ukraine has been an unrelenting tragedy for its people, but few have suffered more deeply than Ukraine’s children. Over 20,000 have been forcibly deported to Russian-occupied territories, Russia, and Belarus, ripped away from their families and homes. While international law is clear on prohibiting such actions, these children have been placed in Russian foster or adoptive families, some even given Russian citizenship in a disturbing attempt to erase their Ukrainian identities.
The WSJ reports that the shift is expected to push back Ukraine's timeline for fielding a whole F-16 squadron by several months.
In a move that could delay Ukraine’s deployment of F-16 fighter aircraft, the US has decided to start training young Ukrainian cadets to fly the aircraft rather than relying solely on experienced pilots, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal, citing US officials.
This shift is expected to push back the timeline for Ukraine to field a full F-16 squadron by at least several months.
The government's latest crackdown bars 18 ships from UK ports and British maritime services, bringing the total number sanctioned to 43.
Britain on Thursday announced its largest sanctions to date against Russia's "shadow fleet" of tankers used to sidestep a Western embargo on oil exports after its invasion of Ukraine.
The government's latest crackdown bars 18 ships from UK ports and British maritime services, bringing the total number sanctioned to 43.
Ukrainian band Okean Elzy’s 30th-anniversary concert moved to the underground bomb shelter, with fans joining in on the chorus as air raid sirens blasted across the Ukrainian capital.
Okean Elzy, one of Ukraine’s most celebrated rock bands, shifted its final concert in a group of performances celebrating its 30th-anniversary, on Wednesday evening to the subway tunnels to the tune of air raid sirens with fans joining in on the chorus.
The concert at Kyiv’s Palace of Sports was interrupted at around 8 p.m. when air sirens rang across the capital, prompting all in attendance to seek shelter in the nearby subway station where the band joined in and continued the concert.
Zelensky’s Victory Plan is a WINNING strategy which, had Kyiv’s Western allies listened to him the first time around, would have already seen an end to the war.
I received a question on the social media platform “we counter Russian propaganda” about the reactions to President Volodymyr Zelensky's “Victory Plan” to end the war in Ukraine:
“Why is it getting a lukewarm response from allies?”
Russia is negotiating with Kazakhstan to involve its airlines in domestic flights due to a shortage of aircraft, but sanctions could halve Russia’s fleet by 2026.
The Russian authorities are turning to friendly countries for help in organizing domestic flights due to the risk of a shortage of aircraft among Russian carriers. The Ministry of Transport is negotiating with Kazakhstan to involve Kazakh airlines in operating flights within Russia, The Moscow Times reported.
This involves so-called cabotage flights, where a foreign airline operates flights between cities within another country, a practice currently only allowed for Russian carriers.
The world in focus, as seen by a Canadian leading global affairs analyst, writer and speaker, in his review of international media.
Stray dogs are eating the dead in the streets of northern Gaza, an emergency services chief says. “You can see the signs of hunger on the people in northern Gaza,” Fares Afana, the head of emergency services in northern Gaza, told CNN by phone on Monday. “Israeli forces are destroying everything that represents life or signs of life.” Afana told CNN that he and his colleagues have received the bodies of Palestinians killed in northern Gaza, with some showing signs of scavenging by animals, which has stifled efforts to identify the deceased. “Stray dogs who are hungry are eating these bodies in the street… It makes it difficult for us to identify the bodies,” he said. He shared a photo with CNN showing the remains of a young boy whose body he said was fed on by stray dogs - CNN
U.S. long-range B-2 stealth bombers launched airstrikes early Thursday morning targeting underground bunkers used by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, officials said. It wasn’t immediately clear what damage was done in the strikes. However, there are no previous reports of the B-2 Spirit being used in the strikes targeting the Houthis, who have been attacking ships for months in the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip. The Houthis’ al-Masirah satellite news channel reported airstrikes around Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, which the group has held since 2014. They also reported strikes around the Houthi stronghold of Saada. They offered no immediate information on damage or casualties. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the B-2 bombers targeted “five hardened underground weapons storage locations in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.” - AP
The nature of armed conflict in 2024 would be unrecognizable to those who drafted the conventions 75 years ago as the fusion of AI with modern weapons has the potential to undermine them.
The 1949 Geneva Conventions’ four main treaties and its three subsequent protocols, along with the Hague Conventions and the Geneva Protocol, lay down rules for the use of conventional, biological, and chemical weapons in armed conflict, defining the basic rights of military personnel, civilians, wartime prisoners, the wounded and sick in times of war.
These international agreements, particularly as they apply to the types and use of particular weaponry are a product of the time in which they were written, with the most recent update being agreed more than 40 years ago in the 1980 UN convention on “Certain Conventional Weapons,” it is time for an update.
Scholz's comments came on the same day that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky unveiled his long-awaited Victory Plan to end Russia's invasion, rejecting any territorial concessions.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday that Berlin wanted to explore ways towards ending the conflict in Ukraine sparked by Russia's invasion, while stressing this had to happen in concert with Kyiv.
"Alongside clear support for Ukraine, it is time for us to do everything we can to explore how we can get to a situation where this war doesn't carry on indefinitely," Scholz told Germany's parliament, saying he was open to talks involving Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ex-Russian military officer, critic of Putin’s policies, and now a political prisoner, Girkin, accuses Putin leadership of “gross mistakes.”
Imprisoned ardent nationalist and former Russian officer Igor Girkin notably questioned the Kremlin's articulated theory of victory and assessed that 2025 and possibly late 2024 will be “a serious test” for Russia because the Kremlin has yet to address medium- to long-term force-generation and defense-industrial-capacity constraints.
Girkin published a series of letters from prison written between September 28 and October 12 in which he argued that the Kremlin’s current strategy depends on the outcome of the US presidential elections, implying that the Kremlin anticipates that Russia will be able to outlast Western support for Ukraine based on the policies of a new US administration.
Zelensky’s victory plan is facing setbacks as NATO hasn’t agreed to offer Kyiv membership soon, and the US remains firm on limiting Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons on Russian territory.
Despite President Zelensky’s “victory plan,” revealed yesterday, highlighting NATO membership as a key goal, Ukraine’s allies have no plans to offer Kyiv an official invitation to join the alliance anytime soon.
As reported by Voice of America, US Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith addressed questions from journalists about Ukraine’s membership, stating that NATO’s position remains unchanged.
Biden would also hold a virtual meeting of Ukraine's allies in November as he tries to shore up international support for Kyiv before a possible return of Donald Trump to the White House.
US President Joe Biden announced a $425 million arms package for Kyiv Wednesday in a call with President Volodymyr Zelensky, ahead of a farewell visit to Berlin to discuss Ukraine, the White House said.
The package includes air defense and armored vehicles, said a readout of the call, adding that Biden had briefed Zelensky "on his efforts to surge security assistance to Ukraine over the remainder of his term in office."
Despite not providing any evidence, Fico said that the EU has been undermining the Ukraine peace process since the start of the war.
Ahead of the upcoming European Council summit, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico criticised the EU for acting as a 'war cabinet' and undermining the peace process in Ukraine while questioning Russia's responsibility for the Bucha massacre.
Just before leaving for the summit in Brussels on 17-18 October, Fico (Smer-SD/NI) denounced the EU for its military aid to Ukraine, and expressed regret that "the EU, which is a peace project, is behaving like a military cabinet."
Industry representatives said that payment issues, likely resulting from Western sanctions, caused up to 40% of unfulfilled shipments and led to an increase in prices needed to facilitate them.
Auto suppliers in Russia reportedly could not facilitate up to 40% of car parts shipments due to payment issues.
The issues have worsened since July with up to 40% of shipments stuck at the origin due to payment issues, where failed payments meant shipments could not be sent from abroad, Head of the Russian Union of Auto Insurers Yevgeny Ufimtsev told Russian news outlet Izvestia.
Around 20 Russian troops and military equipment were present at the time, though casualty details remain unconfirmed.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine have successfully targeted a Russian training ground, reportedly with a missile carrying a cluster warhead. A video of the strike was shared by the Southern Defense Forces on Facebook on Tuesday, Oct. 15.
The strike, which was likely carried out by the US-made missiles, marks at least the sixth time in the past eight months that Russian soldiers gathered in open areas within range of Ukrainian missiles were attacked.
Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.
Key Takeaways from ISW:
Harris takes on pro-Trump interviewer on Fox; Canada probes “foreign interference” in upcoming elections; Pentagon unveils new $425M aid package for Kyiv, including missiles and ammo.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Wednesday that, according to an internal intelligence probe, some members of the country’s Conservative Party opposition could be involved in “foreign interference” in the nation’s elections, which must be held by the end of this month.
Trudeau disclosed, "I have the names of a number of parliamentarians, former parliamentarians and or candidates in the Conservative Party ... who are engaged, or are at high risk of, or for whom there is clear intelligence around foreign interference.”
![[VIDEO] Ukrainian Band Okean Elzy Shifts Concert to Subway as Sirens Rang Across Kyiv](https://static.kyivpost.com/storage/2024/10/17/cfa8ced419c33142a93c3062f1138727.jpg?w=1280&q=90&f=webp)
