Charlotte Higgins

At the National Opera of Ukraine in Kyiv just lately, I watched a efficiency of an opera by the Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko. The work, charming and comedian and an escape from the grimness of Russian missile assaults, is known as Natalka Poltavka, primarily based on a play by Ivan Kotliarevsky, who pioneered Ukrainian-language literature within the late-18th and early-Nineteenth centuries. Operas by Verdi, Puccini and Mozart, and ballets equivalent to Giselle and La Sylphide, are on the playbill, regardless of the just about each day air raid sirens.

But there is no such thing as a Eugene Onegin in sight, nor a Queen of Spades, and never a whisper of these Tchaikovsky staples of ballet, Sleeping Beauty or Swan Lake. Russian literature and music, Russian tradition of every kind, is off the menu in wartime Ukraine. It is sort of a shock to return to the UK and listen to Russian music blithely performed on Radio 3.

This absence, some would say erasure, might be onerous to grasp exterior Ukraine. When a symphony orchestra in Cardiff removed the 1812 Overture from a programme this spring, there was bafflement verging on an outcry: excising Tchaikovsky was permitting Vladimir Putin and his pals the satisfaction of “owning” Russian tradition – it was censorship, it was taking part in into Russia’s palms. Tchaikovsky himself was not solely lengthy useless, however had been an outsider and an internationalist – so the varied arguments went.

It took some cautious rationalization to convey {that a} piece of music glorifying Russian army achievements, and involving precise cannons, could be someplace past poor style when Russia was at that second shelling Ukrainian cities – significantly when the households of orchestra members had been straight affected.

• Ukraine has accused Russia of looting empty houses within the southern metropolis of Kherson and occupying them with troops in civilian garments to arrange for road combating in what either side predict shall be one of many warfare’s most vital battles. In current days, Russia has ordered civilians out of Kherson in anticipation of a Ukrainian assault to recapture town, the one regional capital Moscow has seized since its invasion in February.

• Ukraine’s Russian-occupied metropolis of Kherson was reduce off from water and electrical energy provides on Sunday after an airstrike and harm to the Kakhovka dam, native officers stated.

• Ukraine’s army stated Russia was urging residents of Kherson to evacuate as quickly as potential, sending them warning messages on their telephones on Sunday. Russia was “occupying and evacuating” Kherson concurrently, attempting to persuade Ukrainians its drive are leaving when actually they’re digging in, Nataliya Humenyuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern forces, instructed state tv. The Kremlin-installed administration in Kherson already has expelled tens of hundreds of civilians from town.

• Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vučić has stated he expects the battle of Kherson to be the defining battle of the warfare. Russian state-owned information company Tass quoted him saying: “We have a difficult time ahead of us, next winter will be even more difficult than this one, because we are facing the Battle of Stalingrad, the decisive battle in the war in Ukraine, the battle for Kherson, in which both sides use thousands of tanks, aircraft, artillery. The west thinks that in this way it will be able to destroy Russia, Russia believes that in this way it will be able to protect what it took at the beginning of the war and bring the war to an end. This will create additional problems everywhere.”

• Russia’s defence ministry took the bizarre step of denying studies by Russian army bloggers {that a} naval infantry unit had misplaced a whole bunch of males in a fruitless offensive in japanese Ukraine, the state-owned RIA information company stated. It stated the ministry had rejected the bloggers’ assertions that the one hundred and fifty fifth marine brigade of the Pacific Fleet had suffered “high, pointless losses in people and equipment”.

• Ukraine continues to brace for fresh Russian attacks on its power infrastructure. Russia “is concentrating forces and means for a possible repetition of massive attacks on our infrastructure, primarily energy”, stated Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president.

• Planned blackouts are scheduled to hit seven areas of Ukraine all through Monday, in response to Ukraine’s state-run power firm. The areas embrace town of Kyiv, and the areas of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Kharkiv and Poltava.

• Kyiv’s mayor urged residents to arrange for a worst-case state of affairs by making emergency plans to depart town and stick with buddies or household. Vitali Klitschko urged residents to “consider everything” together with lack of energy and water. “If you have extended family or friends outside Kyiv, where there is autonomous water supply, an oven, heating, please keep in mind the possibility of staying there for a certain amount of time.”

• Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, Vadym Prystaiko, echoed Klitschko’s phrases about evacuating Kyiv’s residents, saying “I hope it won’t come to this. If it comes to it, we’ll have to move them back to west west of Ukraine, Lviv and all the places closer to the European Union. That’s a huge number of people to be located but Ukrainian winters can become quite harsh. We have to think how we do it.”

• Maksym Kozytskyi, governor of Lviv, considered one of Ukraine’s westernmost areas, has introduced preparation measures for receiving extra refugees and internally displaced individuals into his area, and appealed for assist with the supply of diesel turbines and monetary support for medical provides.

• Ukraine has acquired its first supply of Nasams and Apside air defence programs, the nation’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, introduced Monday. “We will continue to shoot down the enemy targets attacking us. Thank you to our partners: Norway, Spain and the US,” Reznikov wrote on Twitter.

• Russian state-owned information company RIA Novosti reported Monday that President Vladimir Putin will decide on whether or not to attend the subsequent G20 summit in individual by the top of the week. Zelenskiy has stated he is not going to attend if Putin does. The summit in Bali is because of start Tuesday 15 November.

• The head of Ukraine’s Byzantine-rite Catholic Church, Sviatoslav Shevchuk, met Pope Francis on the Vatican on Monday and stated there might be no dialogue with Russia so long as Moscow thought of the neighbour it invaded a colony to be subjugated. The Orthodox church of Ukraine has stated worshippers can celebrate Christmas on 25 December, a transfer away from the normal date of seven January directed in opposition to pro-Putin head of Russian Orthodox church.

• An inside rift over the provision of lethal drones to Russia to be used in Ukraine has opened up in Iran, with a outstanding conservative cleric and newspaper editor saying Russia is the clear aggressor within the warfare and the provision ought to cease. A former Iranian ambassador to Moscow has additionally hinted the international ministry could have been stored at the hours of darkness each by the Kremlin and the Iranian army.

• Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK has instructed Sky News in London that the brand new British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, will go to the nation quickly. Sunak had promised that Ukraine could be his first abroad port of name if he turned PM, however in a high-profile U-turn has headed to Egypt and Cop 27 as a substitute. Prystaiko stated:“We’re not going to discuss the dates, because of the security of your prime minister. But he’s coming to Ukraine quite soon.”

Patrick Wintour

The Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, studies:

An inside rift over the provision of lethal drones to Russia to be used in Ukraine has opened up in Iran, with a outstanding conservative cleric and newspaper editor saying Russia is the clear aggressor within the warfare and the provision ought to cease.

A former Iranian ambassador to Moscow has additionally hinted the international ministry could have been stored at the hours of darkness each by the Kremlin and the Iranian army.

Iran has denied for greater than two months that it bought the drones to Russia regardless of their use to target power stations and civilian infrastructure, however on the weekend said it had supplied a small number of drones before the war started, a proof that has been rejected by the US and Ukraine.

The row over the drones displays a wider international coverage debate in Tehran in regards to the dangers of growing shut hyperlinks with Moscow. It can also be uncommon, in that the criticism of Iran’s authorities is being led by a conservative cleric and a newspaper editor.

In remarks picked up by different Iranian newspapers, Masih Mohajeri, writing on the entrance web page of the newspaper Jomhouri-e-Islami, highlighted three issues the federal government ought to have completed: suggested the celebration that began the warfare, ie Russia, to look at worldwide laws that prohibit encroachment on the territory of different international locations; instructed Russia on the outset of the warfare that it had no proper to make use of the drones in Ukraine that Iran had supplied; maintained stronger relations with the invaded nation.

Read extra of Patrick Wintour’s report right here: Row brews in Iran over use of its drones in Ukraine war by Russia

Ukraine has accused Russia of looting empty houses within the southern metropolis of Kherson and occupying them with troops in civilian garments to arrange for road combating in what either side predict shall be one of many warfare’s most vital battles.

In current days, Russia has ordered civilians out of Kherson in anticipation of a Ukrainian assault to recapture town, the one regional capital Moscow has seized since its invasion in February, Reuters reported.

Kherson, with a pre-war inhabitants of almost 300,000, has been left chilly and darkish after energy and water had been reduce to the encompassing space over the previous 48 hours, either side stated.

Russian-installed officers blamed Ukrainian “sabotage” and stated they had been working to revive electrical energy. Ukrainian officers stated the Russians had dismantled 1.5km of energy strains, and electrical energy most likely wouldn’t return till Ukrainian forces recapture the realm.

Kyiv has described the evacuation of the realm as a compelled deportation, a warfare crime. Moscow says it’s sending residents away for security.