Ukraine-Russia updates: ‘Humanitarian catastrophe’ in Kherson

Kherson authorities have decided to impose a curfew from 5pm to 8am (15:00 to 06:00 GMT) and ban people from leaving or entering the city as a security measure.

“The enemy mined all critical infrastructure objects,” Yanushevych told Ukrainian TV. “We are trying to meet within a few days and [then] open the city.”

Russian forces have withdrawn from the city, but they are not far from it, and artillery exchanges echoed over Kherson on Sunday. This did not discourage crowds of jubilant, flag-waving residents from celebrating on the main square.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says he regrets Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision not to attend next week’s G20 summit in
Bali, where he would have had to face fierce criticism of the war he launched in Ukraine.

“It would have been good if President Putin had gone to the G20 summit,” Scholz said while in Hanoi. “But then he would have had to expose himself to all the questions and all the criticism that has been formulated by many countries in the world. That’s probably why he’s not here.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to give a video address on Tuesday, the first day of the two-day G20 meeting on the Indonesian island.

Putin cancelled his participation a few days ago and will now be represented by his foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov.

Russian state media released a video showing Lavrov leaving his plane in Bali on Sunday evening and being greeted by Indonesian dancers.

Here are a few photos showing people celebrating the pullout of Russian forces from the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson.

Governor Yaroslav Yanushevych reportedly asked residents of the recently liberated city of Kherson to avoid gathering in the central part of the regional capital due to the presence of mines, The Kyiv Independent reports.

“The enemy has mined nearly everything. Please, avoid crowded places,” Yanushevych was quoted as saying.

"The enemy has mined nearly everything (in Kherson). Please, avoid crowded places," Yanushevych said.

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) November 13, 2022

Some sanctions on Moscow could stay in place even after a potential peace deal with Ukraine, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen tells The Wall Street Journal.

“I suppose in the context of some peace agreement, adjustment of sanctions is possible and could be appropriate,” Yellen said during an interview on the Indonesian island of Bali ahead of the G20 summit there.

“We would probably feel, given what’s happened, that probably some sanctions should stay in place,” she said.

Russia says its forces have captured the village of Majorsk near the town of Horlivka, marking a minor success in the Donetsk region.

Ukraine has not yet released information about the village, but in a video address on Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted particularly heavy Russian attacks in the eastern province.

“It is pure hell there,” he said.

Russia has pulled out of Kherson, the only major city captured in nearly nine months of the war in Ukraine.

After weeks of Ukrainian advances, Russia’s military withdrew 30,000 soldiers to the east of the Dnieper River.

The Kremlin had annexed the region six weeks earlier in a move condemned internationally.

Ukraine’s president called the recapture a “historic day”.

How might this change military strategies on both sides?

The governor of Ukraine’s Donetsk region says two civilians have been killed and another wounded during Russian strikes in the eastern region.

“On November 12, Russians killed two civilians in the Donetsk region – in Bakhmut. In addition, law enforcement officers found the bodies of two dead during the occupation: in Yampol and in Yarovaya,” Pavlo Kyrylenko said in a message on Telegram.

Kyrylenko also reported that one person was injured due to strikes in the region.

“It is currently impossible to determine the exact number of victims in Mariupol and Volnovakha,” Kyrylenko added.

The Ukrainian police have called on residents to help identify collaborators with Russian forces during the eight-month occupation of Kherson.

Ukrainian police officers returned to the city along with public broadcasting services following the departure of Russian troops.

The national police chief of Ukraine, Ihor Klymenko, said about 200 officers were at work in the city, setting up checkpoints and documenting evidence of possible war crimes.

As Ukrainian forces consolidated their hold on Kherson, authorities contemplated the daunting task of clearing out explosive devices and restoring basic public services in the city.

One Ukrainian official described the situation in Kherson as “a humanitarian catastrophe”. The remaining residents in the city are said to lack water, medicine and food. There are shortages of key basics such as bread because of a lack of electricity.

Photos on social media showed Ukrainian activists removing memorial plaques put up by Russian-backed occupation authorities. A Telegram post by Yellow Ribbon, the Ukrainian resistance movement in the occupied territories, showed two people in a park taking down plaques picturing Soviet-era military figures.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russian forces destroyed critical infrastructure in the southern city of Kherson before their withdrawal.

“Before fleeing from Kherson, the occupiers destroyed all the critical infrastructure: communications, water, heat, electricity,” Zelenskyy said in a video address.

“[Russians] everywhere have the same goal: to humiliate people as much as possible. But we will restore everything, believe me,” he said.

Read more here.

Over the past month, Kyiv has come under more sustained attacks than at any time since the early weeks of the war.

But amid air raids, power cuts and sirens, the city’s three million people live life as normally as possible.

Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett spent a morning at the Ukrainian capital’s main registry office, getting a sense of love in a time of war.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the West is “militarising” southeast Asia in a bid to contain Russian and Chinese interests.

Speaking at a news conference at the conclusion of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Phnom Penh, Lavrov scolded the United States over its actions in the region, which both Russia and the West see as a potential strategic geopolitical battleground in the coming decades.

“The United States and its NATO allies are trying to master this space,” Lavrov told reporters.

He said Joe Biden’s Indo-Pacific strategy was an attempt to bypass “inclusive structures” for regional cooperation and would involve “the militarisation of this region with an obvious focus on containing China, and containing Russian interests in the Asia-Pacific”.

The Kremlin says Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi.

“The leaders discussed a number of current issues on the bilateral agenda with an emphasis on the continued building up of interaction in politics, trade and the economy, including transport and logistics,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

The leaders agreed that the contacts between Russian and Iranian institutions will be increased, it added.

Kyiv and its Western allies have accused Moscow of using Iranian-made drones in recent weeks to carry out attacks in Ukraine, where it launched a “special military operation” in February.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin says the fate of the grain deal after November 18 when it ends has not yet been decided.

Vershinin said the deal consists of two parts and the part suggesting lifting sanctions from exports of Russian food is not being implemented.

“It is impossible not to mention here the terrorist attacks that the Ukrainian side carried out on the Crimean Bridge. And the terrorist attack on Sevastopol, where ships are stationed that provide a humanitarian corridor through which dry cargo ships or other vessels that go as part of the implementation of this Black Sea grain deal,” he said.