Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the West was on the path to a “joint victory” over Russia, while hailing the military aid that made possible the recapture of Kherson, the BTA reported.

"Ukraine’s defense forces regained control of more than 60 settlements in the Kherson region", Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address. Russian forces have destroyed the critical infrastructure before fleeing. Meanwhile, tough opposition was being encountered in Donetsk. “There it is just hell- there are extremely fierce battles there every day”, Zelensky said. Ukrainian forces destroyed a local hotel during shelling, the mayor of the town of Gorlovka, Ivan Prikhodko, reported on Telegram.

Finland has earmarked an additional EUR 2.9 billion for defence since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Its defence budget in 2023 has increased with 20% to EUR 6.1 billion, DW reports. The country is planning to build a fence along the vast majority of its border with Russia.

The civil society organization Transparency International – Georgia released a study revealing that in comparison with previous years Georgia’s economic dependency on Russia has “significantly increased”. In March-September 2022, about 9,500 Russian companies were registered in Georgia, which is 10 times more than in all of 2021. According to the organization, 97% of these companies are individual enterprises, which indicates that quite a few Russians plan to settle in Georgia for a long time.