November 21, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine has moved here.

Ukrainian energy suppliers were forced to impose additional blackouts on Monday in addition to scheduled ones as temperatures across the country plummeted. 

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the blackouts are due to a higher level of demand for electricity than the country’s war-damaged infrastructure can provide. During a daily address to the nation, Zelensky appealed to regional and local authorities to double down on the message to residents to consume electricity.  

Temperatures in Kyiv are expected to hover around zero Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) for at least the next 10 days.

Yasno, Ukraine’s biggest energy supplier, said emergency outages affected almost a million households and businesses. 

Serhiy Kovalenko, CEO of Yasno, said that engineers are working to restore power before even further cold weather sets in – but warned that Ukrainians will likely have to live with outages until at least the end of March. 

The best-case scenario, barring new attacks on the grid, was that power shortages could be evenly distributed throughout the country, he said in a post on the company’s Facebook page.

In the event of severe damage to the grid by Russian attacks, he warned people can expect “not only hourly stabilization power outages but also emergency ones, when there may be no light for a very long time.” 

Kovalenko urged citizens to be prepared for the worst-case scenario and to stock up on warm clothes, blankets and supplies in case of long blackouts.

A resident boards an evacuation train on Monday, November 21, in Kherson, Ukraine.

Residents of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson are to be evacuated to other regions of the country with working electricity and more intact infrastructure for the winter — specifically women, children, the elderly and other vulnerable people, according to officials.

The Black Sea port city, which was recently liberated from Russian troops, is without electricity and authorities say the city’s infrastructure has been too damaged for citizens to survive winter. 

Iryna Vereshchuk, the vice prime minister for the Minister of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories, said Ukraine will offer free evacuation to citizens of Kherson to “Kryvyi Rih, Mykolaiv and Odesa cities, with possible further relocation to Kirovohrad region, Khmelnytskyi region or western regions of Ukraine.” 

Ukrainian authorities will offer free accommodation, food and medical attention to those who leave, she said. 

A team of independent inspectors from the UN’s nuclear watchdog on Monday reported “no immediate nuclear safety or security concerns” at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after shelling over the weekend, according to an official statement.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi in a statement said the team assessed the damage to the site Monday and concluded that “despite the severity of the shelling – key equipment remained intact and there were no immediate nuclear safety or security concerns.”

All six reactors at Europe’s largest nuclear power station are “stable” and the team confirmed the integrity of fuel and radioactive waste in their storage facilities, the statement continues.

However, “widespread damage” was still observed at the site, it said, which maintenance staff have already begun to repair. Grossi described the damage as “a major cause of concern as it clearly demonstrates the sheer intensity of the attacks.”

Non-radioactive leaks were caused by damage to condensate storage tanks and the team observed “several impacts on the main road along the plant’s reactors as well as on a site railway that is now out of service,” the IAEA statement said.

The team also observed a “pressurised air pipeline hit by shrapnel, two impacts on the roof of a special auxiliary building, minor visible damage to a sprinkler charging pipeline, as well as two impacts in a guardhouse area.” 

No further attacks had taken place in the plant’s vicinity overnight or throughout Monday so far, “though there had been shelling in the area of the nearby city of Enerhodar and the industrial area,” according to the IAEA team.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that he held an “urgent call” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky about the security situation at the nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia. 

Macron informed Zelensky of his “deep concern” following recent strikes in and around the site, according to a readout of the call. Macron told reporters on Monday that a “threat” still hangs over the plant. 

The French president also spoke with the chief of International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, on Sunday to discuss the plant and the pursuit of the demilitarization of the site, according to the Elysee Palace. 

Some background: There has been frequent shelling in and around the plant and more powerful explosions were heard there over the weekend, the IAEA said on Sunday. Russian and Ukrainian officials have blamed each other for recent shelling at the plant. 

The head of Russia’s nuclear energy agency Rosatom, Alexey Likhachev, said Monday the power plant is “at risk of a nuclear accident.”

IAEA said its team of experts were planning to conduct an assessment of the shelling impact on the site on Monday.

There is “mounting evidence” of “systemic war crimes” being committed in “every region where Russia’s forces have been deployed” in Ukraine, a top US State Department official said Monday.

“This includes deliberate, indiscriminate, and disproportionate attacks against the civilian population and elements of the civilian infrastructure,” abuses of civilians and prisoners of war and “efforts to cover up these crimes,” reports of executions, torture, and sexual violence, US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaack told reporters on a call. 

Russia has been accused of deliberately targeting Ukraine’s civilian power grid in an effort to leave the civilian population without electricity and heat — an act that would amount to a war crime.

Van Schaack said it is difficult to determine particular individual strikes would be war crimes, noting that “each individual strike has to be evaluated as against whether there were military objectives in the vicinity, or whether these were purely civilian objects,” but said “there is a consistent pattern of attacks on civilians elements.”

Van Schaack also highlighted Russia’s “construction of a vast transnational infrastructure of filtration operations, to which thousands of Ukrainian citizens have now been subjected,” which is a violation of international law.

“There are compelling reports describing physical and psychological abuse, including summary executions, as part of the operations and the forcible transfer and deportation including thousands of Ukrainian children, who’ve been abducted and forcibly adopted by families within Russia,” she said.

The United States is supporting the International Criminal Court, the Ukrainian Office of the Prosecutor General — which “has already identified thousands of incidents that may constitute war crimes” — the UN Commission of Inquiry, a European joint investigative team, Van Schaack said.

An aid worker delivers medicine to locals near Novopetrivka, following the withdrawal of Russian troops from Kherson region, Ukraine, on November 17.

Around one out of five people in Ukraine have trouble getting access to medicine, Dr. Jarno Habicht, the World Health Organization’s representative in Ukraine, said on Monday.   

The problem is worse in Ukrainian regions occupied by Russia, with one in three people there not able to get the medicine they need, Habicht told a news briefing Monday in Kyiv.  

This winter season and particularly snow which has already been witnessed in parts of Ukraine will pose a “formidable challenge” to the health system, he added.    

Continuous attacks to the health infrastructure in Ukraine have also impacted availability to health services, such as medicine, Covid-19 vaccines, and machinery in hospital intensive care units, the WHO official said.     

“I would say that with 50% of the civilian energy infrastructure being damaged or destroyed at a moment that there is a onset of a brutal winter where temperatures can plummet down to minus 20 degrees, that this is to be considered as the largest attack on health care on European soil since the Second World War,” WHO Europe’s regional director Hans Kluge said at the same news briefing.

The agency has so far verified some 703 attacks on health care facilities in Ukraine since the war began in February, according to WHO’s latest data.

Local residents look at parts of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), that Ukrainian authorities consider to be an Iranian-made drone Shahed-136, after a Russian drone strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, on October 17.

Iran and Russia have reached an agreement to begin the production of attack drones in Russia, according to a new intelligence assessment from a country that closely monitors Iran’s weapons program. 

Iran is beginning to transfer blueprints and components for the drones to Russia after the initial agreement was struck earlier this month, said a source familiar with the assessment.

US officials have said that Russia has received hundreds of drones from Tehran which have had a deadly effect in Ukraine.   

Earlier this month, the Iranian government acknowledged for the first time that it had sent a limited number of drones to Russia in the months before the start of its invasion of Ukraine.

“Some Western countries have accused Iran of helping the war in Ukraine by providing drones… we did provide a limited number of drones to Russia in the months before the start of the war in Ukraine,” Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told reporters in Tehran. 

The goal is for Russia to produce thousands of new attack drones using Iranian components and blueprints, the source explained. If the two countries move ahead full-steam with their plan the expectation is that production could begin in a few months and its possible that the drones could be used by Russia on the battlefield in Ukraine next year, the source said.

It would be a move that would further cement the partnership between Tehran and Moscow and likely provoke significant anger from Ukraine and its western allies including the US. 

The Washington Post first reported the agreement.

More background: The efforts come after CNN and other outlets reported that Iran was preparing to send weapons, including surface-to-surface short range ballistic missiles and more attack drones to Russia before the end of the year. 

The source familiar with the assessment said those reports caused concern in Iran, which appears to have prompted the regime to rethink its approach with the plan for Russia to manufacture the drones rather than Iran directly transfer them. 

The production process for the attack drones is not complicated when compared to the production of other weapons, the source explained.

CNN has asked the Russian embassy in Washington and the Iran mission at the United Nations for comment. 

When asked for comment on the assessment, White House national security council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said, “Iran and Russia can lie to the world, but they can’t hide the facts: Tehran is helping kill Ukrainian civilians through the provision of weapons and assisting Russia in its operations. It’s another sign of how isolated both Iran and Russia are.” 

Why this agreement matters: Drones have played a significant role in the conflict since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February, but their use has increased since the summer, when the United States and Kyiv say Moscow acquired drones from Iran. In recent weeks these Iranian drones have been used to target critical energy infrastructure in Ukraine.

The Iranian drones are known as a “loitering munition” because they are capable of circling for some time in an area identified as a potential target and only striking once an enemy asset is identified.

They are small, portable and can be easily launched, but their main advantage is that they are hard to detect and can be fired from a distance.

Inside a cell at a preliminary detention centre, which is believed to have been used by Russian forces to jail and torture civilians, on November 16, in Kherson, Ukraine.

The office of the prosecutor in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region released a statement on Monday giving more details about what it said were four “torture chambers” discovered in the regional capital after it was liberated from Russian occupation earlier this month. 

Ukrainian war crimes investigators have previously said they found 11 detention centers in the Kherson region and evidence of “torture” used in four of them.

Today’s statement said the four locations were in the city, “in the seized buildings of the Kherson temporary detention center, the pre-trial detention center and in one of the district police departments.”

“Parts of rubber truncheons, a wooden bat, a device used by the occupiers to torture civilians with electricity, an incandescent lamp and bullets from the walls were seized,” it said. “In the cells and basements, various methods of torture, physical and psychological violence were used against people.”

CNN cannot independently verify the claims.

Russia has previously denied allegations of war crimes and claimed its forces do not target civilians, despite extensive evidence gathered by international human rights experts, criminal investigators and international media in multiple locations. 

Last week, Alexander Malkevich, a member of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation, an advisory body largely packed with pro-government loyalists, said that Kyiv was planning to accuse the Russian military of crimes in Kherson, in an interview on Russian state-owned Sputnik radio.

CNN’s Yulia Kesaieva and Katharina Krebs contributed reporting to this post.

Satellite image of the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant facility in Enerhodar, Ukraine, on August 19.

The Zaporizhzhia power plant is “at risk of a nuclear accident,” according to the head of Russia’s nuclear energy agency Rosatom.

“We are informing the world community that the [nuclear power] plant is at risk of a nuclear accident, and it is obvious that Kyiv considers a small nuclear incident acceptable,” Alexey Likhachev, head of Rosatom, told reporters on Monday, according to the state-run TASS news outlet. 

“This will be a precedent that will forever change the course of history. Therefore, everything must be done so that no one has in their minds to encroach on the safety of the nuclear power plant,” he added. 

There has been frequent shelling in and around the plant and more powerful explosions were heard there over the weekend, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Sunday.

Today an IAEA team of experts will conduct an assessment of the shelling impact on the site. The nuclear facility is in Ukraine but occupied by Russian forces.  

Restoring power to recently liberated Kherson city is the “number one task,” according to a Ukrainian official, while Norway has agreed to provide $200 million in funding to help Ukraine buy natural gas this winter.

Here are the latest headlines:

• One wounded in Nikopol shelling: A 78-year-old man was wounded when Russian shelling hit the southern Ukrainian district of Nikopol overnight into Monday, according to a Ukrainian military official. Nikopol is located in the Dnipropetrovsk region across the river from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. On Sunday, Ukraine and Russia blamed each other for recent shelling that hit the plant’s infrastructure.  
• Kherson remains without power: The city of Kherson is still without electricity, an official in the office of President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday. “There is no electricity in Kherson city. We are working on it,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said. “This is the number one task for sure.”
• Norway to fund Ukrainian gas purchases: Norway has signed an agreement to provide funding of almost $200 million to help Ukraine purchase natural gas this winter, according to a Norwegian government statement on Monday. It is part of a 10 billion Norwegian kroner (approximately $976 million) package that the Norwegian government has allocated to Ukraine in 2022 and 2023, the statement said.
• Austria reducing Russian gas imports: Austria has successfully reduced its dependence on gas deliveries from Russia, the country’s climate action minister tweeted on Monday. Russia’s share of total gas deliveries to Austria fell from 79% in February to 21% in September, said Leonore Gewessler.
• Spain to send police to Ukraine: Spanish police will be deployed to Ukraine to support the country’s authorities “in the investigation into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced Monday.
• Russia will do “everything possible” to find those responsible for alleged soldier execution: Kremlin spokesperson Dimitri Peskov told journalists Monday that those responsible must be “punished.” On Saturday, Russia accused Ukraine of war crimes after a video emerged on social media which Moscow says shows Russian soldiers killed after surrendering to Ukrainian forces, but Ukrainian officials have disputed that account.
• Russia not aiming to topple Zelensky government: A change of the Ukrainian government is not one of the goals of Russia’s “special operation,” according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. A senior Russian senator had earlier said that any normalization of ties between Moscow and Kyiv can “only happen after a change in Ukraine’s leadership.”
• US defense secretary underlines support for Ukraine: Washington is committed to supporting Kyiv “for as long as it takes,” said US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday. It is “hard to predict how things will evolve and on what timeline, but we’re in this in support of Ukraine for as long as it takes,” he said.

Russia will do “everything possible” to search for those responsible for allegedly executing a number of Russian soldiers, adding that they must be “punished,” Kremlin spokesperson Dimitri Peskov told journalists Monday.

Peskov said Russia will use the full extent of “the framework of international mechanisms to draw attention to this crime and call to law and order those who may be involved in it.”

“Of course, Russia will search for those who committed this crime. They must be found and punished,” he added.

The precise details of what happened remain unclear.

The video – which has been geolocated by CNN – was filmed on the outskirts of the village of Makiivka, which lies in the eastern Luhansk region, about 25 miles (roughly 40 kilometers) northeast of the city of Lyman.

On Saturday, Russia accused Ukraine of war crimes after a video emerged on social media which Moscow says shows Russian soldiers killed after surrendering to Ukrainian forces.

The Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, commented on the incident on Sunday, claiming the Russians staged a surrender and opened fire first, adding that “returning fire is not a war crime.”

People wait in line to buy SIM cards in the central square of Kherson, Ukraine, on November 21.

The city of Kherson is still without electricity, an official in the office of President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Ukrainian television on Monday.

“There is no electricity in Kherson city. We are working on it,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said. “This is the number one task for sure.”

Ukrainian forces swept into the city and Russian troops retreated to the east on November 11 following a months-long Russian occupation.

Tymoshenko said the government had established a network of tents and buildings that had generators — so-called “invincibility points” — where people could access hot water and heat up food. Some 1,600 people accessed these facilities on Sunday, the State Emergency Service said on Telegram.

On Sunday, the Kherson city council also published a list of four water distribution points where residents could get water this week. 

Norway has signed an agreement to provide funding of almost $200 million to help Ukraine purchase natural gas this winter, the Norwegian government said in a statement on Monday.

The 2 billion Norwegian kroner (around $195 million) in funding will be “channeled” through the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

It is part of a 10 billion Norwegian kroner (approximately $976 million) package that the Norwegian government has allocated to Ukraine in 2022 and 2023, the statement said.

“Ukraine has specifically asked Norway for support for the procurement of natural gas this winter. The timing is critical, and we are very pleased that the EBRD is to be our partner in carrying out gas purchases,” Norwegian Minister of Finance Trygve Slagsvold Vedum said in the statement.

“It is important to channel the support through an established, internationally recognized organization, which will ensure effective and transparent use of the funding,”

The Ukrainian state-owned energy company Naftogaz will be the “formal recipient of the gas” in Ukraine, whilst payments will be made directly to European gas suppliers “that have received prior approval,” the statement added. 

Equipment operated by GCA (Gas Connect Austria) and TAG (Trans Austria Gas pipelines) at one of the largest interconnection gas hubs in Europe at Baumgarten an der March, Lower Austria, on May 9.

Austria has successfully reduced its dependence on gas deliveries from Russia, the country’s climate action minister tweeted on Monday.

Russia’s share of total gas deliveries to Austria fell from 79% in February to 21% in September, said Leonore Gewessler.

“I would like to thank everyone who has helped - the energy suppliers who have been working to find new supply countries and all the people who have been able to save energy at home,” she said.

“One thing is clear: we have not yet reached the end of the road. We will only be truly free when we can completely do without Russian #gas. We are working on this every day at full speed.”

The Austrian Ministry for Climate Action tweeted a graph showing that imports from other sources had increased accordingly. Norway is now a major alternative gas supplier, it said.

“Alternative routes: While only about a third of the volumes previously supplied arrive in #Austria via the Ukraine route from Russia, #gas imports from Germany are currently at a record level,” the ministry tweeted.

Austrian gas reserves are now filled at 95.53% capacity, it added.

Many European economies have been working to reduce their reliance on Russian fuel imports since Moscow invaded Ukraine.

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez speaks during NATO Parliamentary Assembly annual session in Madrid, Spain, on November 21.

Spanish police will be deployed to Ukraine to support the country’s authorities “in the investigation into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Monday.

In addition a training center for Ukrainian soldiers is expected to begin operating in the Spanish city of Toledo by the end of November, added Sánchez during a speech at the 68th annual session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Madrid.

“We are going to participate in the EU training mission,” Sánchez told the assembly.

The EU formally established a “military assistance mission” in support of Ukraine on October 17, “to enhance the military capability of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to allow them to defend Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” the EU Council said in a statement last week.

A change of the Ukrainian government is not one of the goals of Russia’s “special operation,” according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

“Russia is striving to achieve its goals in the special military operation, and these goals can be achieved in different ways,” Peskov told journalists Monday.

CNN asked Peskov about comments made by Russian Senator Konstantin Kosachev, who said that a normalization of relations with Ukraine could only happen if there was “regime change.”

When pressed if a change of power in Ukraine was one of the goals of the special operation, Peskov said: “No.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin speaks during a joint news conference with Indonesia's Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto following their meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, on November 21.

Washington is committed to supporting Kyiv “for as long as it takes,” said US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday.

Austin, answering a question on Ukraine from the media during a joint press conference in Jakarta with his Indonesian counterpart, said it is “hard to predict how things will evolve and on what timeline, but we’re in this in support of Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

The focus of the US is to support Ukraine, while Ukraine’s focus is to “make sure they’re doing everything to take back every inch of their sovereign territory,” he added.

Austin also said he believes Ukraine will be prepared to fight during the winter months, and will be in “much better condition than their adversaries” because of the support the US has provided.

Austin is in Indonesia to meet with senior military leaders. In the press conference, Austin said the US is a “proud partner” with Indonesia as the two countries “work together to advance our shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

A 78-year-old man was wounded when Russian shelling hit the southern Ukrainian district of Nikopol overnight into Monday, according to a Ukrainian military official.

Nikopol is located in the Dnipropetrovsk region across the river from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. On Sunday, Ukraine and Russia blamed each other for recent shelling that hit the plant’s infrastructure.  

“Six attacks overnight. Russians again terrorized Nikopol district with ‘Grad’ and heavy artillery,” Valentyn Reznichenko, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, wrote on Telegram Monday morning.

The wounded elderly man received medical aid and is being treated at home, he added.

Russian shelling damaged private houses, a boat and cars in Nikopol, Reznichenko said. 

There was also shelling in the nearby Marhanets and Myrove communities, he added. No casualties have been reported there, but details of the shelling are being clarified, he said. 

Reznichenko said the three communities in the Dnipropetrovsk region were hit by almost 60 shells. 

Konstantin Kosachev attends a council meeting in Moscow on November 18.

Any normalization of ties between Moscow and Kyiv can “only happen after a change in Ukraine’s leadership,” a senior Russian senator said in an interview published on Monday.

Sen. Konstantin Kosachev told Russian newspaper Argumenty i Fakty he “does not expect anything good from the current Kyiv regime,” state-run news agency TASS reported. 

“They are trapped in their own previous actions and ideology. They have no freedom of maneuver,” said Kosachev, deputy speaker of the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament.
“I believe, any potential normalization could take place only after a change of power in Ukraine. Hopefully, it [the process] will be constitutional next time.”

Kosachev warned that residents in Ukrainian regions including Odesa and Dnepropetrovsk “may change their status, if the authorities keep treating them as terrorists or separatists and refuse to engage in dialogue,” state media reported.  

“So much could change if [Kyiv] stopped speaking the language of power with them,” he added. 

The Russian state media report did not name Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by name. 

Germany is ready to provide anti-missile systems to Poland to help Warsaw strengthen its air defense capacity following a deadly missile incident on Polish territory near the Ukrainian border last week, Berlin’s defense chief said.

“We have offered to support Poland in securing its airspace — with our Eurofighters and Patriot air defense systems,” German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht told the Düsseldorf-based Rheinische Post and the Bonn-based General-Anzeiger newspapers. 

Berlin will also look to extend the deployment of German anti-missile systems in fellow NATO member state Slovakia until the end of 2023, Lambrecht said. 

Some context: Last week, the leaders of Poland and NATO said the missile that killed two people in Polish territory was likely fired by Ukrainian forces defending their country against a barrage of Russian strikes, and that the incident appeared to be an accident.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivers his nightly address from his office in Kyiv, Ukraine, on November 20.

Russia has already used more than 4,700 missiles in Ukraine since the beginning of war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday.

“Today is the 270th day of the full-scale war. Russia used more than 4,700 missiles,” he said in an address to members of the International Organization of La Francophonie.

Peace plan: Zelensky also spoke about what he called “the Ukrainian peace formula.”

“The Ukrainian peace formula is very clear, and each of its points has been thoroughly worked out,” he said. “Radiation and nuclear safety. Food security. Energy security. Release of all prisoners and deportees. Implementation of the UN Charter and restoration of the territorial integrity of Ukraine and the world order. Withdrawal of Russian troops and cessation of hostilities. Restoring justice. Countering ecocide. Prevention of escalation. Fixing the end of the war.”

Zelensky invited world leaders “to choose the element of the peace formula they can help Ukraine implement.”

The edited video purports to show captured Russian soldiers in an act of surrender, with several men lying on the ground on their fronts with their hands over their heads.

The Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, commented Sunday on an incident in eastern Luhansk, saying Russian servicemen “are those who are fighting and committing treachery” and that “returning fire is not a war crime.” 

Russia has accused Ukraine of war crimes after video emerged on social media, which Moscow says shows Russian soldiers killed after surrendering to Ukrainian forces.

The precise details of what happened remain unclear.

“From some pieces of video about the incident with the Russian military in Luhansk region it may be concluded that using the staged surrender, the Russians committed a war crime — they opened fire on the military of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” Lubinets said in a Telegram post on Sunday, implying that the Russians from the video may have acted as if they would surrender but did not.

“In this case, persons among the Russian servicemen cannot be considered prisoners of war, but are those who are fighting and committing treachery,” he said. “Returning fire is not a war crime. On the contrary, those who want to use the protection of international law to kill must be punished.”

What the video appears to show: The edited video purports to show captured Russian soldiers in an act of surrender, with several men lying on the ground on their fronts with their hands over their heads. More soldiers are seen emerging one by one from a building and lying down next to them in the yard.

A voice apparently directing the surrender can be heard shouting: “Come on out, one by one. Which of you is the officer? Has everyone come out? Come out!”

After about 10 men are down on the ground, another soldier emerges from the same building and appears to open fire in the direction of the Ukrainian soldiers conducting the surrender. 

A short burst of gunfire is heard before the video clip ends abruptly.

A second clip filmed later from a drone above the same location shows the bodies of what appear to be the same Russian soldiers in the yard, most just a few meters from where they had been lying in the first clip.

CNN has been unable to verify exactly what happened in the first video clip, and it is unclear exactly what happened in the period that elapsed between the first clip and the filming of the drone footage.

The UN investigates: Marta Hurtado, a spokesperson for the United Nations Human Rights Office, said, according to Reuters: “We are aware of the videos and we are looking into them. Allegations of summary executions of people hors de combat should be promptly, fully and effectively investigated, and any perpetrators held to account.”

More context: A UN panel of experts said in September that their investigation has found evidence that war crimes have been committed during Russia’s war in Ukraine, including cases of rape and torture of children.

More than $2.7 million has been allocated for the restoration of the newly liberated Kherson region, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal wrote in a Facebook post Sunday. 

“The government allocated 100 million hryvnia ($2.7 million) for the priority restoration of the liberated Kherson region,” Shmyhal wrote.

“This is the beginning of the reconstruction of the region. First of all, we are talking about the critical needs of the residents of the region: access to light, water, heat, communication and medicine,” he continued. “People will receive pensions that were accrued to them during the occupation.”

Shmyhal also elaborated on the financial support Ukraine has received from its partners.

“Canada issued five-year government bonds that are worth 500 million Canadian dollars (nearly $374 million),” he wrote. “The Ukrainian government made a decision to attract an additional $4.5 billion in grant funds from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the International Development Association.”

The Prime Minister said these resources will be directed to social security and salaries of state employees.

“Next week, Ukraine will also receive 2.5 billion euros from the European Union,” he added. 

Shmyhal also noted that, amid Russian attacks on the Ukrainian energy sector, the Kyiv government is “activating the import of energy-generating means.” 

“Every Ukrainian can import a generator or charging station from abroad without paying customs duties and VAT,” he said. “About 8,500 generator sets are imported to Ukraine a day.” 

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Russian-controlled Ukraine, on October 14.

Powerful explosions rocked the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine on the weekend, renewing concer