Pro-Ukraine fighters in Russia ‘kill colonel of security service’; Russian forces try to regain territory around Bakhmut; temporary lull in Avdiivka battle

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Reports said Russians fighting on the side of Ukraine killed a colonel of Moscow’s FSB security service in an ambush in Russia’s Bryansk oblast. The Kyiv Post and Ukrainska Pravda cited Ukrainian intelligence sources, Russian Telegram channels and the pro-Ukraine Russian Volunteer Corps or RDK, which circulated a video that it said showed the surprise attack.

Russia has accused Kyiv of other attacks on border regions. On Sunday, Russia said there had been a series of attacks in Bryansk and Belgorod, damaging five train carriages and causing one injury. Russian investigators said a freight train derailment in Russia’s Ryazan oblast was caused by a homemade bomb on the line. Russian officials have previously blamed pro-Ukrainian saboteurs for several attacks on the country’s railway system.

Three Russian FSB intelligence officers were killed in an explosion carried out as an “act of revenge’” by the local resistance in Russian-occupied Melitopol, Ukraine’s defence intelligence said. The three men were meeting at a post office used as a military headquarters, Ukrainian intelligence said.

The head of Ukraine’s ground forces said Russian troops had begun a push to regain territory near Bakhmut. A military spokesperson said Russian attacks on the shattered eastern town of Avdiivka had eased in the past day, but were likely to intensify again.

Ukraine presidential aide Andriy Yermak said on Sunday that he had arrived in the US with a delegation headed by the economy minister for talks on cooperation and support. “I will have meetings in the White House, Congress, thinktanks and with representatives of civil society organisations,” Yermak said.

Germany’s defence minister on Sunday announced Berlin would double its 2024 military aid for war-torn Ukraine, which is struggling to oust occupying Russian troops, to 8 billion euros ($8.5bn). “This is a strong signal to Ukraine, showing we are not giving up on it” when international attention is focused on the Israel-Hamas war, Boris Pistorius told television channel ARD.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned Ukrainians to prepare for new waves of Russian attacks on infrastructure as winter approaches, saying that troops were anticipating an onslaught in the eastern theatre of the war.

The United States will treat Russia as a full participant in this week’s Asia-Pacific summit in San Francisco, despite US efforts to isolate Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, a senior official said Sunday. With a visit by President Vladimir Putin politically unthinkable, Deputy prime minister Alexei Overchuk will represent Russia at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. “He’s being treated as the head of delegation, and he’ll have the opportunity to participate fully in the week’s events,” Matt Murray, the state department official in charge of APEC, told AFP.

In Kyiv, veterans and family of Ukrainian servicemen held a rally calling for legislation regulating the length of active military duty in Ukraine.

Large elements of the Wagner mercenary group have likely been assimilated into the command structure of Russian national guard (Rosgvardiya), the UK defence ministry said in an intelligence briefing. The Wagner arm in the Rosgvardiya is likely being led by Pavel Prigozhin, son of the late Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in a plane crash shortly after Wagner fighters captured the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and marched on Moscow – acts that Vladimir Putin declared “treason”.

Three people were killed in Russian attacks on the Donetsk oblast, acting regional governor Ihor Moroz said on Telegram. Two people were killed in Toretsk, where 30 houses, an infrastructure facility and an administrative building were damaged in Russian attacks. One person was killed in Minkivka.

A 64-year-old man was killed and his wife hospitalised after the Russian shelling of Dnipro district of the city of Kherson, according to regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin.