Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 247

Here is the situation as it stands on Friday, October 28.

Conflict

• Russian President Vladimir Putin showed no regrets for the war against Ukraine, insisting it was going to plan as he played down any nuclear standoff with the West, while both sides prepared for what could be a key battle in Kherson in Ukraine’s south.

• Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Putin, said 23 of his soldiers were killed and 58 wounded in a Ukrainian artillery attack this week. The comments were unusual given that pro-Moscow forces have rarely admitted to major battlefield losses.
• Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure were forcing electricity cuts in the capital, Kyiv, and other places, officials said.
• “Shelling will not break us – to hear the enemy’s anthem on our land is scarier than the enemy’s rockets in our sky,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address.
• In Kherson, Ukrainian forces killed 44 Russian servicemen in the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian military said in a Facebook post. It also said Ukrainian forces destroyed an ammunition depot and a hangar with equipment.
• The Russian defence ministry, which said its forces had repelled attempted Ukrainian advances in the east, said it had destroyed a Ukrainian military factory producing solid rocket fuel, explosives and gunpowder near the town of Pavlohrad in the Dnipropetrovsk region. It said it had also shot down a Ukrainian air force Mi-8 helicopter.
•  A senior Russian government official raised the possibility that Russia could shoot down Western commercial satellites being used to help Ukraine’s war effort.
• Russian-installed authorities in Ukraine’s occupied region of Zaporizhia ordered phone checks on residents, announcing the implementation of military censorship under Russia’s martial law decree.

Diplomacy

• Joe Biden, the president of the United States, expressed scepticism about Putin’s comment that he had no intention of using a nuclear weapon in Ukraine. “If he has no intention, why does he keep talking about it?” Biden said in an interview with NewsNation.
• The US is reportedly preparing a new $275m package of military assistance for Ukraine to bolster its counteroffensive against Russian forces.

Economy

• Russia will retaliate if its state and citizens’ assets are confiscated by the European Union, the foreign ministry said.
• Moscow also said that provisions of the Black Sea grain deal to ease Russian agricultural and fertiliser exports were not being met, adding that it was yet to decide whether the agreement should be extended.