Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 273

Here is the situation as it stands on Wednesday, November 23:

Fighting

• Battles rage in eastern Ukraine, where Russia has sent some of the forces it moved following its withdrawal from around the city of Kherson in the south. Russia is pressing an offensive of its own along a stretch of the front line west of the city of Donetsk, held by its proxies since 2014.
• Russian missiles hit a maternity hospital in the Zaporizhia region killing a baby, Governor Oleksandr Starukhsaid on the Telegram messaging service.
• Two drones were shot down in the city of Sevastopol in Crimea when Russian air defences were activated, according to the governor.
• Russian shelling hit a humanitarian aid distribution centre in Orihiv, a town in southeastern Ukraine, killing a volunteer and wounding two women, the governor said.
• Ukraine’s security service and police raided a 1,000-year-old Orthodox Christian monastery in Kyiv to counter suspected “subversive activities by Russian special services”.
• A bipartisan group of 16 United States senators has asked the Biden administration to reconsider Ukraine’s request for lethal Gray Eagle drones to fight Russia, basing it on concerns that the drones could be shot down and may escalate the conflict. The Biden administration has so far rejected requests for the Gray Eagle drone.

Power supplies

• Ukraine’s government promised to set up shelters to provide heat and water after relentless Russian air attacks that have left its power structure in tatters as temperatures drop and snow falls.
• The head of Ukraine’s national power grid operator Volodymyr Kudrytsky said the damage dealt to power-generating facilities by Russian missile attacks was “colossal” but he dismissed the need to evacuate civilians.
• The Kremlin said no substantive progress had been made towards creating a security zone around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.

Economy

• Ukraine denied an assertion by Russian state gas company Gazprom that it had withheld gas meant for Moldova, and accused Russia of using gas as a political tool to limit supplies to Europe.
• The G7 may announce a price cap on Russian oil exports and the coalition will probably adjust the level a few times a year, a senior US Treasury official said.
• Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany must be ready for the situation in Ukraine to escalate but that his recent trip to China was worthwhile if only for spelling out the German and Chinese joint stance against using nuclear weapons.
• Disbursement of $4.5bn in US economic aid for Ukraine will begin in the coming weeks, US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen said.