Ukraine sends new forces to the front, Zelensky suggests NATO shield

Fresh Ukrainian troops are being redeployed to the heavily threatened front-line regions of Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, while Ukraine’s president said he could agree to a ceasefire if NATO agrees to protect areas under Ukrainian control.

The new deployments are in response to the Russian advance in eastern Ukraine, Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi announced on Friday. They are tasked with thwarting the enemy’s broader plans, “which go far beyond these front line sections,” Syrskyi stated on Facebook.

Pokrovsk and Kurakhove, on the western edge of the Donbass mining and industrial region, are seeing the fiercest battles, the General Staff’s Friday report revealed.

Beyond them stretches a vast steppe landscape leading to the Dnipro River. A Russian breakthrough here could pave the way to key cities such as Dnipro and Zaporizhzhya.

Ukraine has been defending against Russia’s large-scale invasion for more than two and a half years.

Zelensky proposes phased NATO protection

On the diplomatic front, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine could agree to a ceasefire with Russia if NATO extends its protection to the parts of the country controlled by Ukraine.

“If we want to stop the hot phase of the war, we need to take under the NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control,” Zelensky said in an interview on Friday with the British TV channel Sky News.

“We need to do it fast. And then on the [occupied] territory of Ukraine, Ukraine can get them back in a diplomatic way.”

A NATO invitation would still need to be extended to the whole of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders, he said. His country’s constitution does not allow recognition of Russian-occupied territories.

Scholz reiterates support

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz once again assured Zelensky of Germany’s solidarity in a telephone call on Friday.

“We will continue our military support for Ukraine in close coordination with our European and international partners,” Scholz said in a post of X after the call.

After the phone call, Zelensky thanked Scholz for Germany’s help and support, particularly with air defence weapons, in a post on his Telegram channel. He said Scholz informed him of the chancellor’s recent phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Zelensky wrote that peace “can only be achieved through strength.” He had previously criticized the Scholz-Putin phone call.

Russian defence minister in North Korea

Russian Defence Minister Andrey Belousov, meanwhile, reaffirmed the good relations between his country and North Korea at a meeting with his counterpart No Kwang Chol in Pyongyang.

The Russian state news agency TASS reported on Friday that Belousov had stated cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang in the military field is actively expanding. The two recently signed a strategic partnership treaty.

Pyongyang is said not only to have supplied Moscow with artillery ammunition and missiles, but also to have sent more than 10,000 soldiers to the war zone on Russia’s border with Ukraine.

General: Ukraine energy at risk

German Major General Christian Freuding, the military chief coordinator of the German Ukraine Aid organization, sees the energy supply in Ukraine as being increasingly at risk due to targeted Russian attacks.

Freuding also made it clear that he does not expect the early winter weather in the combat zones to provide much relief for the country’s defenders.

The effects of the so-called mud season before the onset of hard frost had “not been as severe” in the Donbass region as in the past two winters, he said in a Bundeswehr video.

Further deliveries of spare parts and generators are needed, as is material support for the Ukrainian military. He mentioned equipping newly formed units, as well as air defence and anti-aircraft defence.

“The will of the Ukrainian population and the Ukrainian military to win this war remains unbroken. But of course there is exhaustion,” said Freuding.

Bodies of soldiers exchanged

The bodies of 502 Ukrainian soldiers killed in the fight against the Russian invasion were returned by Russian on Friday as part of an exchange mediated by the International Red Cross.

Most were killed in Ukraine, according to the Coordination Staff for Prisoner of War Matters, but 17 were killed in Russia, where Ukrain had advanced in the border region of Kursk.

According to Russian media reports, Russia received the bodies of 48 Russian soldiers in return.

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