The longest truce of the war in Ukraine has ended, alert apps have been hacked on both sides, and the United States has announced new talks between Moscow and Kyiv in Abu Dhabi next week, according to AFP and Reuters reports carried by The Express Tribune and Geo News.
The truce ends
The ceasefire, limited to Ukraine’s eastern Kherson region, ran from October 27 to November 1 and ended after Russia refused an offer of an extension, according to Kyiv. “The ceasefire, which was in effect from October 27 to November 1, has ended,” said Ukraine’s Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, who called the pause “an important step in our joint humanitarian efforts” with Russia.
The pause was brokered by US First Lady Melania Trump and allowed a humanitarian mission to the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky, as the war enters its fifth year. We covered the start of the truce in our story on the Oleshky ceasefire. Pope Leo, who had pressed Russia for a truce in Oleshky, said he hoped it would “strengthen the desire for dialogue and lead to new concrete peace initiatives”.
Kherson’s governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, told residents to be particularly vigilant when the truce ended. A Ukrainian military officer said he feared the fighting would be “worse than before”, and said Russian forces across the Dnipro River had used the calm to bring in troops and ammunition and to scout Ukrainian positions with surveillance drones.
Alert apps hacked
Ukraine’s air force said its air-raid alert app had probably been “subjected to hostile interference” after baseless radiation-threat alerts appeared. “There is no radiation threat,” it said, and a spokesman confirmed the hack to AFP. Ukraine’s Centre for Strategic Communications blamed Russia.
Hours later Russia’s emergency ministry said its warning app, which alerts the public to drone attacks and other threats, had come under a “massive cyberattack” and that hackers had posted “false information”. Moscow did not say who was behind it.
New talks in Abu Dhabi
US envoy Steve Witkoff said on Monday that the US will bring Ukrainian and Russian delegations together in Abu Dhabi on November 10 and 11 for talks on “post-war security agreements, de-escalation, humanitarian measures, and ending the war”. Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, are expected to represent Washington, a senior US official told Reuters. Putin agreed to the round after meeting Witkoff in St Petersburg two weeks ago, as we reported in our story on Witkoff’s visit to Russia.
Before that, US negotiators will hold working-level talks in Brussels with France, Germany, Britain, the EU and Nato on security guarantees for Ukraine and reconstruction financing. The last formal US-mediated trilateral talks took place in February, and the process stalled when the US and Israel launched the war on Iran later that month. Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on territory and on security guarantees.
Refineries and Patriots
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that Ukraine would stop hitting Russian oil refineries, as Trump has demanded, if Washington supplied Patriot interceptor missiles. Trump has pressed Kyiv to stop the attacks, blaming them for rising diesel prices, though analysts attribute those to the Iran war. Overnight Russia said a drone hit an industrial enterprise east of Moscow, and Ukrainian media reported an attack on the Kstovo refinery. Ukraine’s energy ministry reported fresh power cuts across the country, including Kyiv, after Russian strikes on energy infrastructure.
What we know, and what we don’t
- Known: the Kherson truce has ended, both countries report alert-app hacks, and the US has scheduled talks for November 10-11 in Abu Dhabi.
- Known: the parties are still far apart on territory and security guarantees.
- Unknown: who carried out the hacks; Ukraine blames Russia, and Moscow has not said who targeted its app.
- Unknown: whether Moscow and Kyiv will send senior delegations, and whether anything will come of the talks.
Why it matters
The end of the truce, even a local one, removes one of the few pauses in the war, and the hacks suggest the fight is moving into alert systems that civilians depend on. The planned Abu Dhabi talks are the first formal trilateral round since February, and they take place while the US is also managing the war with Iran. Whether Washington can run both at once will affect energy prices and security far beyond Europe.
This article draws on reporting by The Express Tribune and Geo News, citing AFP and Reuters.
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