As the war enters its 987th day, these are the main events.

Here is the situation on Friday, November 8:

Struggle

• Russian forces captured the village of Kreminna Balka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Russia’s Defense Ministry said.
• A Russian-guided bomb attack in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia killed four people and injured 33, destroying homes and damaging an oncology center.
• Russia attacked an energy facility in the Zhytomyr region of northern Ukraine during overnight drone strikes that injured at least three people across the country, Ukrainian officials said.
• Fragments from downed drones injured at least two people in kyiv and damaged 10 buildings (including a medical centre, a business center and apartment blocks), while one man was injured in the southern city of Odessa, where a building 11-story building, cars and a gas pipes were also damaged by the Russian drone attack.
• In total, Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 74 of 106 drones launched by Russia across the country and another 25 were “lost locally.”
  

  

North Korean soldiers in Ukraine

• The French Foreign Ministry summoned North Korea’s general delegate in France to protest his country’s deployment of troops to Russia to support the war against Ukraine and warned there would be consequences.
• Strengthening ties between Russia and North Korea is not only a threat to European security but also to the United States, said NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
• Speaking at the European Political Community summit in Budapest, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said North Korea has already suffered casualties in combat with kyiv forces and that some of the 11,000 troops sent to Russia’s Kursk region had taken part in the fighting.
• Zelenskyy said more North Korean troops would be deployed to Russia’s side unless action was taken.

Security

• At the European Community summit, leaders agreed on the need to assume greater responsibility for their security and depend less on the United States. “We cannot delegate our security to the Americans forever,” French President Emmanuel Macron told his fellow leaders. “We need to be able to defend ourselves,” he said, warning that Europe must not become a weak “herbivore” surrounded by “carnivores.”
• Germany will be able to provide most of the 4 billion euros ($4.3 billion) it has promised to Ukraine even if the 2025 budget cannot be passed on time, following the collapse of the country’s coalition government, the news agency reports. Reuters, citing budget commission sources.
• The British government said it imposed its largest package of sanctions against Russia in 18 months, targeting 56 bodies and individuals involved in the Ukraine war, mercenary groups based in Africa and a nerve agent attack on British soil. Among those sanctioned were 10 China-based entities that allegedly supplied components to the Russian military.

russian affairs

• Russian President Vladimir Putin, outlining his worldview in a speech to a conference of experts in Russia, said Ukraine should remain neutral – referring to its application for membership in NATO – for there to be any chance for peace.
• “If there is no neutrality, it is difficult to imagine the existence of good-neighborly relations,” he said, adding that Ukraine’s borders must be in accordance with the wishes of the people living in the territory claimed by Russia.
• Putin also described NATO as a “blatant anachronism,” which the United States needed to dominate its zone of influence. He also suggested that Russia could conduct military exercises with North Korea. “We’ll see. We could also do exercises. “Why not?” he said.

trump presidency

• Putin congratulated Trump on winning the US election and said Moscow is ready for talks with the president-elect. He said he does not want Russia to return to the path it followed until 2022, before the Ukraine war, when there was a “veiled intervention” by other countries “aimed at subordinating it.”

• President Zelenskyy has said he does not know the details of President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to end the war in Ukraine and is convinced that a quick end would involve significant concessions for kyiv. “If it is simply fast, it will mean losses for Ukraine. “I just don’t understand yet how it could be any other way,” he said.
• Zelenskyy also said that talk of introducing a ceasefire without first agreeing on security guarantees for Ukraine was “very dangerous” and was “a preparation for the continuation of the occupation.”
• The White House has said the United States will continue to increase aid to Ukraine ahead of the transfer of power from President Joe Biden to Trump in January.
• Ukraine is not considering scenarios in which the United States cuts its military aid and welcomed the Biden administration’s efforts to use all allocated aid as quickly as possible.
• “We do not believe it is in the best interest of the United States to take that step,” said Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi. “There are voices around the world that assume that if military supplies to Ukraine are cut off, Ukraine will be forced to negotiate… This is not true,” Tykhyi said.