Joe Biden estimated on Tuesday, October 11, that Vladimir Putin was “a rational person” which had “clearly” misjudged the situation in Ukraine. “He thought he was going to be welcomed with open arms (…) and I think he made a complete miscalculation.”said the American president about his Russian counterpart in an interview with CNN (in English). Asked about the possibility of meeting the Russian president at the next G20 summit, Joe Biden said he had none “not the intention”while pointing out that “it depends[ait]” what his counterpart wants to talk about. Follow the situation in our live.
France is strengthening its military presence on NATO’s eastern flank. In the coming weeks, France will install additional troops in Romania equipped with tanks and armored vehicles. “Given the situation on NATO’s eastern flank, given the violence of the fighting in Ukraine, in this war led by the Russian Federation, the President of the Republic has decided to enhance our defensive posture”French Minister for the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu said on Tuesday during a hearing before the Senate Defense Committee.
New strikes targeted Ukrainian infrastructure. Russian forces continued firing into Ukraine on Tuesday, hitting energy facilities in particular. The city of Lviv (west) is 30% deprived of electricity, according to the town hall. Strikes also caused “severe destruction” on energy installations in the Dnipro region (center), depriving of power “many villages”, according to the regional governor. For its part, the Russian Ministry of Defense was pleased that these “massive strikes” have “achieved their goal“.
Ukraine has exhumed dozens of civilians killed in recaptured towns in the east. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office announced on Tuesday that it had exhumed the bodies of 78 civilians in two towns in the Donetsk region. “Sites of numerous burials have been discovered in the liberated cities of Svyatogirsk and Lyman”he said, reporting 34 bodies exhumed in Svyatogirsk and 44 in Lyman.