Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 10-30-2024

His comments were in response to a New York Times report that said Ukraine had requested Tomahawk missiles with a range of 2,400 kilometers (1,500 miles), citing American officials.

A recent leak about Ukraine’s request for long-range Tomahawk missiles, which was supposed to remain confidential, highlights the breach of confidentiality between Kyiv and its Western partner, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with Nordic media representatives on Wednesday, Oct. 30

“But it was confidential information between Kyiv and the White House… How to understand these messages? It means that there are no confidential things between partners,” Zelensky said.

Ukraine’s use of drones shows how smaller nations can punch above their weight in modern warfare

Kyiv Post attended campaign rallies for both candidates to see what the nominees said live, and to hear their base constituents’ thoughts on Ukraine.

With just days left until Election Day 2024, Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump are head-to-head in polls across the country, especially in the seven swing states that are expected to decide the winner. Only an estimated 3% of likely voters are undecided, while the vast majority are clear on why they support their chosen candidate.

Kyiv Post attended political rallies of both candidates to talk to voters about what has pushed them to choose Harris or Trump – and what they think about Russia’s war in Ukraine.

A new BRICS currency is unlikely to work due to differences in economies, but Russia is developing other financial instruments to avoid the US dollar and dependence on the West.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was gifted with a BRICS banknote, a souvenir, from the so-called BRICS currency in October 2024 – but it’s unlikely to replace local currencies or the US dollar.

The symbolic banknote, unveiled during the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan, caused a stir on social media, with some claiming that the currency would undermine the US dollar and become an alternative currency for the countries trading with Russia, especially BRICS nations such as Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Exclusive Kyiv Post interview with a Georgian political opposition leader: Will Georgia be able to defend a democratic future, and why did the protests stop?

A powerful rally in the center of Tbilisi, drawing tens of thousands protesting against electoral fraud in Georgia, ended almost as quickly as it began. In Ukraine, a tent city would likely have already been set up, a Maidan council assembled, and the protest would have transformed into a protracted revolution.

The Ukrainian Channel 24, citing anonymous sources, reported that the President's Office labeled the article as deliberate disinformation aimed at discrediting Ukraine’s operation in Kursk.

Russia and Ukraine have started preliminary discussions leading to the halting of attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure, according to the Financial Times, citing diplomatic sources. Ukrainian officials reportedly aim to revive talks, which were postponed following Kyiv’s incursion into the Kursk region, with Qatar’s mediation.

One source described the talks as “very early discussions” about the possibility of resuming formal negotiations. However, a former senior Kremlin official suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin would likely oppose any deal until Russian forces regain control of the Kursk region from Ukraine’s military.

Russian media reported that 41-year-old former US Marine Corey John Nawrocki was killed alongside Ukrainian operatives attempting to enter the Bryansk region.

Russian media has reported the death of Corey John Nawrocki, a 41-year-old former US Marine infiltrating Russia’s Bryansk region with a group of Ukrainian operatives.

The group comprised 10 operatives in total, with Nawrocki among the four killed, Russian state media TASS reported, citing the Russian National Guard.

The primary factor underpinning Russians’ support for the war in Ukraine is a sense of loyalty to President Vladimir Putin, research by the University of Kent in Britian has found.

The study revealed that about half of Russia’s adult population supports the war, though “this war support does not reflect other potential motivations, such as wanting to dominate Ukraine or Ukrainians, or reacting with aggression to a perceived Ukrainian threat,” according to university press materials.

The findings, published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, revealed that ‘right-wing authoritarianism’—a set of attitudes characterized by a high degree of submissiveness to authority figures—was a key determinant of support.

The penalties, which have doubled weekly since 2020, have reached $2.5 decillion – approximately 9.2 sextillion times the world’s richest person, Elon Musk’s net worth.

A Russian court has fined Google 2 decillion Russian rubles ($2.5 decillion) for refusing to reinstate more than a dozen pro-Kremlin accounts on Google’s subsidiary YouTube.

The fine has snowballed into the amount since 2020, when a Russian court ruled that failure to reinstate the channels nine months after the court decision would amount to a fine of 100,000 rubles ($1,030) daily, an amount that doubles weekly.

The world in focus, as seen by a Canadian leading global affairs analyst, writer and speaker, in his review of international media.

At least 93 people are dead or missing after an Israeli air strike on the town of Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, the Hamas-run health ministry says, in an attack that the United States called "horrifying". Rescuers said a five-storey residential building was hit, and videos on social media showed bodies covered in blankets on the floor. The Israeli military said it was "aware of reports that civilians were harmed today [Tuesday] in the Beit Lahia area". It added that the details of the incident were being looked into. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been operating in northern Gaza during the past two weeks, particularly in the areas of Jabalia, Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun - BBC

Ukraine and Russia are in preliminary talks to halt strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure, according to people familiar with the matter. Kyiv was seeking to resume Qatar-mediated negotiations that came close to an agreement in August before being derailed by Ukraine’s invasion of Kursk, said the people, who included senior Ukrainian officials. “There’s very early talks about potentially restarting something,” said a diplomat briefed on the negotiations. “There’s now talks in the energy facilities.” An agreement would mark the most significant de-escalation of the war since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the full scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. Moscow and Kyiv have already reduced the frequency of attacks on each other’s infrastructure in recent weeks as part of an understanding reached by their intelligence agencies, according to an official - FT

Those subjected to torture have included conscientious objectors to the draft as well as mobilized men and regular troops who have refused orders to fight against Ukraine.

Russia has expanded its use of torture at home and abroad since invading Ukraine, with the practice notably used to clamp down on dissent during the war, a report by a UN rights expert said Tuesday.

Torture has become "a tool for stifling the civic space, for silencing all anti-war or dissidents, anybody who disagrees with the policies and the Russian authorities," report author Mariana Katzarova told reporters.

Due to the drone activity, Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport briefly halted flights early in the morning, from 04:37 to 05:20, as a safety measure.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine launched an extensive overnight attack on multiple Russian regions early morning on Wednesday, Oct.30, according to Russia's Defense Ministry.  

In the Kursk region, Governor Alexei Smirnov reported that air defenses shot down five drones. The drones' wreckage landed in the town of Zheleznogorsk, causing a small fire on a building’s roof and some dry grass, which was quickly put out. No one was injured.

Critics of the Zelensky administration says it has no long-term plan for conducting its three-month-old invasion of the Russia Federation – and now the North Koreans are coming.

North Korean troops said to be en-route to Russia’s western Kursk region to help the Kremlin’s forces to repel a Ukrainian invasion have not yet been spotted in combat, news reports said on Tuesday, Oct. 29.

The Ukrainska Pravda news outlet citing a Ukrainian military intelligence source said that as many as 3,000 of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) soldiers were travelling through Russia on their way to the Kursk sector, but that front line Ukrainian forces had yet to see them.

According to the polls, Donald Trump made significant gains in October and is now neck and neck with his rival, Kamala Harris.

A new US president will be elected in a week's time. According to the polls, Donald Trump made significant gains in October and is now him neck and neck with his rival Kamala Harris. Europe's press examines why he has been able to catch up and what his return to power would mean.

A chilling prospect

On Tuesday, the Secretary of Ukraine's National Security Council, Oleksandr Lytvynenko, told Parliament that the army planned to recruit another 160,000 people.

Kyiv announced a fresh mobilisation drive Tuesday as Moscow seized the mining hub of Selydove, and the US said some North Korean troops were in Russia's Kursk region, warning that thousands more were on their way.

Russia has been making swift advances in the eastern Donetsk region for weeks and on Tuesday said it "fully" captured Selydove -- whose estimated population of around 21,000 people has fled from Moscow's drone and rocket attacks.

This attack marks the nineteenth air assault on Kyiv since October began.

Russian drones launched yet another attack on Kyiv, injuring nine people early on Wednesday, Oct. 30, sparking a fire in a residential high-rise, and damaging a kindergarten building, according to the Kyiv City Military Administration (KMVA).

The city’s air raid alert lasted more than two hours, with Kyiv Post correspondents reporting explosions and flashes in the sky around 4 a.m.

Ukrainian Defense Forces posted a video taken by a reconnaissance drone of the US supplied loitering munitions hitting the Russian “Tor” surface-to-air missile.

The Ukrainian 14th Separate Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Regiment published a video on its Telegram channel on Monday, Oct 28, that showed the US-made AeroVironment Switchblade 600 loitering munition in action. The event was said to be an operation conducted in cooperation with special forces troops from the Security Service (SBU).

The video shows how the 14th Regiment reconnaissance drone detected and then tracked the Russian 9K330 Tor (NATO: SA-15 Gauntlet) surface to air missile (SAM) system, somewhere in the Donetsk region. The post then says the drone operator passed the coordinates to the SBU unit that was armed with the Switchblade 600.

While the exact contents of the containers from North Korea are unclear, analysts estimate 80-95% are ammunition – mainly 152mm and 122mm artillery shells – with 5-20% being other weapons.

North Korea’s arms deal with Russia could be worth up to $5.5 billion, providing a critical lifeline as Russia faces mounting ammunition shortages in its war against Ukraine, according to researcher Olena Guseinova from Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul.

Reports suggest Moscow has turned to Pyongyang not only for weapons but potentially even personnel. Guseinova’s study outlines a deal with North Korea that could provide Russia with urgently needed military supplies.

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• The rate of Russian advances in Ukraine has increased in recent weeks but remains slow and consistent with positional warfare rather than with rapid mechanized maneuver—emphasizing how generally stagnant Russian advances have been after over two and half years of war.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin attempted to use an annual Russian nuclear deterrence exercise to further boilerplate nuclear saber-rattling information operations that aim to influence Western decision making.
• Recent Russian polling suggests that Russian domestic support for local government entities has somewhat declined over the past year, most likely in response to increased crypto-mobilization force generation efforts at the regional level.
• Russian officials and milbloggers are conducting information operations that falsely portray the Georgian opposition's peaceful and legal challenges to the conduct of the October 26 parliamentary election results as a Western- and Ukrainian-sponsored illegal coup d'état.
• The Georgian protests have been peaceful and legal - far from the Russian claims of an illegal coup.
• These concerted Russian efforts to baselessly discredit the Georgian pro-Western opposition and civil society are part of a common Kremlin tactic aimed at framing the valid and legal concerns of pro-Western political entities in the post-Soviet space as illegitimate and violent.
• Ukrainian forces recently advanced in Toretsk, and Russian forces made advanced near Kupyansk, Pokrovsk, Kurakhove, and southwest of Donetsk City.
• The Russian Ministry of Defense (MOD) continues to rely on Russia's prison population to replace depleted Russian units on the frontline.