Here are the key events from day 1,363 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
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A cargo ship loaded with liquified natural gas on the Romanian side of the border with Ukraine on the Danube River is engulfed in flames after Russian strikes on Ukrainian port infrastructure in Izmail on November 17, 2025 [ISU Tulcea via AP]
By News Agencies
Published On 18 Nov 202518 Nov 2025
Here is how things stand on Tuesday, November 18:
Fighting
A Russian missile strike on the eastern Ukrainian city of Balakliia killed three people and wounded 10, including three children, a regional military official in the Kharkiv region said on Telegram on Monday.
At least two people were killed and three were injured in Russian shelling of the Nikopol district in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, Vladyslav Haivanenko, the acting head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration, wrote on Facebook.
Russian troops captured three villages across three Ukrainian regions, the RIA news agency cited the Russian Ministry of Defence as saying on Monday. The villages are Hai in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Platonivka in the Donetsk region and Dvorichanske in the Kharkiv region.
Russia’s air defence forces destroyed 36 Ukrainian drones overnight, RIA reported on Monday, citing the Defence Ministry’s daily data.
A Russian attack on Ukraine’s southern region of Odesa sparked fires at energy and port infrastructure facilities, Ukraine’s emergency services said on Monday.
The attack damaged port equipment and several civilian vessels, including one carrying liquefied natural gas, and forced Romania to evacuate a border village, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X.
A 68-year-old man has died after he was injured in a Russian drone attack in Ukraine’s Kherson region, the head of the regional administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, wrote on Telegram.
Two Ukrainian nuclear power plants have been running at reduced capacity for 10 days after a military attack damaged an electrical substation needed for nuclear safety, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said in a statement.
The Kremlin said on Monday that Russia’s port of Novorossiysk resumed export activities after a Ukrainian attack caused a two-day suspension of its oil loadings.
A firefighter stands at the site of apartment buildings hit by Russian missile strikes in the town of Balakliia in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region on November 17, 2025 [Anatolii Stepanov/Reuters]
Military aid
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a deal with French President Emmanuel Macron at France’s Velizy-Villacoublay Air Base for Ukraine to obtain up to 100 French-made Rafale warplanes over the next 10 years.
Macron said France’s rail transport manufacturer Alstom and Ukrainian Railways have signed a 475-million-euro ($551m) contract on delivering 55 electric locomotives to Ukraine, according to the Interfax news agency.
Regional security
Polish Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski said on Monday that one confirmed and one likely act of sabotage occurred on Polish railways after an explosion damaged a Polish railway track on a route to Ukraine over the weekend.
Polish Special Services Minister Tomasz Siemoniak added during the same news conference that chances are very high that the people who conducted the sabotage were acting on orders of foreign intelligence services. He appeared to be pointing fingers at Russia although he did not name the country.
Politics and diplomacy
During a joint news conference in Paris, Macron said he was confident Zelenskyy could improve Ukraine’s anticorruption track record and institute reforms to clear its path to European Union membership.
German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil told Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng during a state visit to Beijing on Monday that the two countries “should work together to finish the war in Ukraine” and “China can play a key role”.
He responded by saying, “China will continue to play a constructive role in the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis.”
The Kremlin said on Monday that there was an ongoing conversation about a possible prisoner-of-war exchange with Ukraine but declined to provide details.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Russia hoped for another summit between President Vladimir Putin and United States President Donald Trump soon.
Peskov added that Moscow took a very negative view of a bill that Trump said Republicans in the US were working on that would impose sanctions on any country doing business with Russia.
Russia’s financial watchdog added former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and leading economist Sergei Guriev – both critics of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – to its list of “extremists and terrorists”, its website showed on Monday.
Economy
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a letter to EU members on Monday that the bloc had three options or a combination of them to help Ukraine meet its financing needs: “Support … financed by member states via grants, a limited recourse loan funded by the union borrowing on the financial markets or a limited recourse loan linked to the cash balances of immobilised assets”.
The Chevron oil company is studying options to buy international assets of sanctioned Russian oil firm Lukoil after the US Department of the Treasury gave clearance to potential buyers to talk to Lukoil about foreign assets, five sources familiar with the process told the Reuters news agency.
