Here is the situation on Thursday, November 21:

Fighting and weapons

• Ukraine reportedly fired 12 British Storm Shadow cruise missiles – the latest Western weapon it has been permitted to use on Russian targets – into Russia’s Kursk region, according to pro-Russian Telegram channels.
• The Ukrainian military said a Russian command post has been “successfully struck” in the town of Gubkin in Russia’s Belgorod region, about 168km (105 miles) from the border with Ukraine.
• Russian forces have taken control of the settlement of Illinka in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, according to the country’s Defence Ministry.
• Russia has staged “a massive information-psychological attack” by posing as Ukrainian intelligence and spreading a fake warning about an imminent massive air attack, Kyiv has claimed, saying the message “contains grammatical errors typical of Russian information and psychological operations”.
• The United States has reopened its embassy in Kyiv after it was shut on Wednesday due to what it called the threat of a significant air attack.
• Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, has said Russia will punish any NATO states that help Ukraine strike deep into Russia with long-range Western weapons.
• Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expressed opposition to the US’s decision to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles to attack inside Russia, saying it will further inflame the conflict.
• French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot has dismissed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to lower his country’s threshold for a nuclear strike as just “rhetoric”, saying France is “not intimidated”.
• The Netherlands has handed the final two of 18 promised F-16 fighter jets to a training facility in Romania, where Ukrainian pilots and ground staff are being taught to fly and maintain the planes, the Dutch Defence Ministry has said.
• The Pentagon has announced $275m in military aid to Ukraine, including more ammunition for the HIMARS rocket system. The Biden administration also moved to forgive $4.7bn in US loans to Ukraine, though Congress could still block the move.

North Korea in Ukraine

• Nearly 11,000 North Korean troops have been deployed to Kursk as part of Russia’s airborne unit and marines, with some already participating in battles against Ukrainian troops, South Korean lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun has said, citing the country’s spy agency. North Korea has also shipped additional arms for the war in Ukraine, including self-propelled howitzers and multiple rocket launchers, Lee added.
• North Korea and Russia have signed another protocol on cooperation after meetings covering trade, the economy, science and technology in Pyongyang, North Korean state media KCNA has said.

International diplomacy

• Britain and Romania offered their support to Moldova in tackling the effects of Russia’s 1,000-day-old invasion of neighbouring Ukraine, as London signed a new security and defence partnership agreement with the ex-Soviet state.
• Russia dismissed as “absurd” suggestions it was involved in damage caused to two fibre-optic data telecommunication cables in the Baltic Sea, after European governments accused Russia of being responsible for cutting one cable between Finland and Germany and another between Sweden and Lithuania.
• Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said that Kremlin-controlled gas producer Gazprom’s decision to cut supply to Austria showed how poor the rule of law was in Russia and sent a message to firms the world over.

Russian affairs

• A group of Russian doctors have appealed to President Putin over the “shameful” jailing of a Moscow paediatrician for comments she was alleged to have made opposing the war in Ukraine.
• Russia has detained a German citizen on suspicion of explosives smuggling and terrorism, accusing him of blowing up a pipe at a gas distribution station in the Kaliningrad Baltic Sea exclave, the Federal Security Service has said.