WAR IN UKRAINE: October 21, 2022
Authorities exhume the graves of civilians who were killed in Lyman, Ukraine on October 15. Wolfgang Schwan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 241
Zelensky: 'Ukraine didn't order Crimean Bridge attack.' President Volodymyr Zelensky told the Canadian media that Russian domestic conflicts could cause the explosion. "We definitely did not order that, as far as I know," Zelensky said. A day after the Oct. 8 explosion, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin accused "Ukrainian intelligence" of damaging the bridge connecting Russian-occupied Crimea and Russia over the Kerch Strait. Zelensky held a joint interview in his office in Kyiv with CBC TV, Radio Canada and CTV. He also thanked Canada for its support of Ukraine.
Iran has deployed military experts in Russian-occupied Crimea to help launch drone attacks on Ukraine, the White House says. The Iranians are trainers and tech support workers, a US spokesman said. "We assess that Iranian military personnel were on the ground in Crimea and assisted Russia in these operations," White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters - BBC
Ukraine has completed the exhumation of bodies in the largest mass grave discovered following the retreat of Russian troops from the eastern city of Lyman, Ukrainian police said Thursday. According to the National Police of Ukraine, 146 bodies were exhumed at the Lyman cemetery in the Donetsk region, of which 111 were civilians and 35 military personnel. Police said some of the victims died of shrapnel injuries from Russian shelling, adding some bodies showed signs of having suffered “a violent death,” without giving further details. CNN teams who went to Lyman previously reported seeing bodies with their hands tied behind their backs in the mass graves. With the cemetery exhumations now complete, the number of bodies exhumed in Lyman now totals 166, of which five are children, according to police - CNN
New York Times: US believes Ukrainian military has opportunity to make gains against Russia’s army. American officials interviewed by the New York Times believe that the upcoming few weeks, while the weather holds, could allow Ukraine’s military to press forward in Donbas and potentially retake Kherson. The officials, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive or classified assessments of the war, warn that there is "little chance of a widespread collapse in Russian forces" that would allow Ukraine to take another huge swath of territory, similar to what it claimed in September during the Kharkiv counteroffensive - Kyiv Independent
Early on October 21, a series of blasts rocked the Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhya. Missiles hit an industrial facility in Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. Meanwhile, Russia has sent in thousands of recently mobilized troops to reinforce the defense of the southern region of Kherson, where Kyiv's forces have been making major advances in their offensive to retake territory occupied by Moscow - RFE/RL
The cost of living crisis in the UK is making life difficult for Ukrainian refugees. Almost 1,000 recently lost their allocated homes with British sponsors and are now being hosted by councils. However if the situation continues to deteriorate it could cause further problems for the asylum seekers.