Here is the situation as it stands on Sunday, November 13.
Fighting
- Residents of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson celebrated Russian troops’ withdrawal – one of the biggest military achievements for Kyiv since Moscow invaded nearly nine months ago.
- Russian forces destroyed critical infrastructure – including communications, water, heat, and electricity – in Kherson before their withdrawal, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
- Ukraine’s National Police chief Ihor Klymenko said 200 officers were at work in the city, setting up checkpoints and documenting evidence of possible war crimes.
- About 70 percent of the Kherson region remains under Moscow’s control, with Russian troops fortifying their battle lines on the eastern bank of the Dnieper River.
- Russia said the Ukrainian city of Henichesk, located on the Sea of Azov, is now the Kherson region’s temporary administrative capital.
Diplomacy
- Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart President Ebrahim Raisi discussed deepening cooperation on political, trade and economic matters in a phone call.
- Russia said there was no agreement yet to extend a deal allowing Ukraine to export grain through the Black Sea, repeating its insistence on unhindered access to world markets for its own food and fertiliser exports.
- Turkey is committed to seeking peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. “We are working on how to create a peace corridor here, like we had the grain corridor.”
- Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen called for unity at the East Asia Summit, telling the gathering – including Russia, China and the United States – that current global tensions have taken a toll on everyone.
- Renowned British street artist Banksy appears to be behind the artwork that recently appeared on a destroyed building in Ukraine.
