TOP HEADLINES

· Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his army was fighting ferocious battles with Russian forces in the eastern region of Donetsk. "The situation on the frontline hasn't changed significantly," Zelenskyy said in his daily address to the nation. "The fiercest battles are in the Donetsk region, towards (the cities of) Bakhmut and Avdiivka".

· President Zelenskyy said he sees a "positive trend" in Kyiv's relations with Israel after the two countries shared intelligence about Russia's purported use of hundreds of Iranian drones in its war against its neighbor. "So we are at the beginning of cooperation, this is a positive trend in relations with Israel," Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv, adding that "after a long pause, I see us moving forward". 

· Ukrainian troops are holding out against repeated attacks near the two eastern towns of Avdiivka and Bakhmut in the Donbas region, Zelenskyy said, describing the Russian tactics as "crazy".

· A Russian-backed separatist official in Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region said heavy fighting was taking place in the region's Kreminna and Svatove districts.

· Authorities in Crimea said the Balaklava thermal power station on the peninsula was targeted by an overnight drone attack, but claimed it was not badly damaged. "The transformer is minimally damaged. There were no casualties," the Russian-installed governor of Sevastopol Mikhail Razvozhayev said on Telegram.

· The United Nations is using before-and-after satellite imagery to monitor the cultural destruction inflicted by Russia's offensive in Ukraine, announcing it will launch its tracking platform publicly within weeks. The UN's culture agency UNESCO said it had verified damage to 207 cultural sites in Ukraine since the conflict began on February 24.

· The United Nations said it was relatively optimistic about prospects for renewing an agreement that allows grain exports from Ukraine. The 120-day Black Sea Grain Initiative, a UN-led deal agreed with Moscow and Kyiv, runs until November 19. It spells out terms for exporting grain from Ukrainian ports blocked due to the military campaign Russia started in February.  

· Russia's strategic forces carried out drills, including a test launch of a ballistic missile from a submarine, further stoking concerns that a nuclear weapon could be deployed in the conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin surveyed the drills carried out by his nuclear-capable forces.

· Russia will have to answer for its "barbaric violations of the laws of war" in Ukraine, French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said. Whenever Ukraine troops take back territory from the Russian forces, they discover "massacres or mass graves, as in Bucha in the spring and more recently in Izyum," Borne said during a debate on the conflict in the upper house Senate. "These are shocking, revolting, monstrous acts. They are barbaric violations of the laws of war, and Russia will have to answer for them," she added.

· A senior Russian foreign ministry official said that commercial satellites from the United States and its allies could become legitimate targets for Russia if they were involved in the war in Ukraine.

· Ukraine has boosted its forces in the northern region near Belarus to counter any possible renewed Russian attack across the border, Ukraine's General Staff said. "At the current time the creation of a strike force (in Belarus) is not observable. (But) there are and will be threats. We are reacting, we have already increased our troops in the northern direction," Oleksii Hromov, deputy head of the General Staff's Main Operations Directorate, told a regular briefing.

· Kyiv said Russia returned the remains of a U.S. citizen who was killed fighting Moscow's forces in Ukraine, along with 10 Ukrainian servicemen in a prisoner swap. "The body of an American volunteer, a veteran of the U.S. Army, Joshua Alan Jones, who fought for Ukraine and died in a battle against the occupiers, was also handed over," Ukrainian President's Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak, said announcing the exchange.

IN DETAIL

Thermal power plant hit by overnight drone attack

Authorities in Crimea said a thermal power plant on the peninsula was targeted by an overnight drone attack, but claimed it was not badly damaged.

"Today at night there was a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) attack on the Balaklava thermal power station," the Russian-installed governor of Sevastopol Mikhail Razvozhayev said on Telegram. "The transformer is minimally damaged. There were no casualties," he added. 

The official said there was "no threat to power supply" and that "the incident does not affect the power supply of Sevastopol and the peninsula." 

He said the transformer that caught fire during the supposed attack "was under maintenance and did not work".

"Workers at the plant quickly dealt with the fire," he added. 

His statement came as Ukraine pressed on with a counteroffensive in the south. 

Moscow's forces fighting in Ukraine have in recent weeks hit the country's power supplies.

UNESCO verifies damage to 207 cultural sites in Ukraine 

The United Nations is using before-and-after satellite imagery to monitor the cultural destruction inflicted by Russia's offensive in Ukraine, announcing it will launch its tracking platform publicly within weeks.

The UN's culture agency UNESCO said it had verified damage to 207 cultural sites in Ukraine since the conflict began on February 24.

They include 88 religious sites, 15 museums, 76 buildings of historical and or artistic interest, 18 monuments and 10 libraries.

The worst-affected regions are in eastern Ukraine and around the capital. Donetsk region has 59 verified damaged cultural sites, followed by Kharkiv with 51, Kyiv with 30 and Luhansk with 25.

"Our conclusion is it's bad, and it may continue to get even worse," UNESCO's cultural and emergencies director Krista Pikkat told reporters at a briefing in Geneva.

"Cultural heritage is very often collateral damage during wars but sometimes it's specifically targeted as it's the essence of the identity of countries."