Here is how things stand on Thursday, November 6:

Fighting

• The Russian Ministry of Defence said encircled Ukrainian troops in the cities of Pokrovsk and Kupiansk should surrender as they have no chance to save themselves otherwise.
• Russia said its forces were advancing north inside Pokrovsk in a drive to take full control of the Ukrainian city, but the Ukrainian army said its units were battling hard to try to stop the Russians from gaining new ground.
• Ukraine has acknowledged its troops face a difficult situation in the strategic eastern city, once an important transport and logistics hub for the Ukrainian army, which Russia has been trying to capture for more than a year.
• Russia sees Pokrovsk city as the gateway to its capture of the remaining 10 percent, or 5,000 square-kilometres(1,930 square miles), of Ukraine’s eastern industrial Donbas region, one of its key aims in the almost four-year-old war.
• A Ukrainian drone attack caused minor damage to oil pumping stations in two districts of Russia’s Yaroslavl region, Mikhail Yevrayev, the regional governor, said.

Energy

• Ukraine has resumed gas imports from a pipeline that runs across the Balkan peninsula to Greece, to keep its heating and electric systems running through the winter after widespread damage from intensified Russian attacks on Kyiv’s energy infrastructure.
• Data from the Ukrainian gas transit operator showed that Ukraine will receive 1.1 million cubic metres (mcm) of gas from the Transbalkan route on Wednesday, after the import of 0.78 mcm on Tuesday. The route links Ukraine to LNG terminals in Greece, via Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria.
• Poland is working on a deal to import liquefied natural gas from the United States to supply Ukraine and Slovakia, an agreement that would further tighten the European Union’s ties to US energy, the Reuters news agency reports, citing two sources familiar with the negotiations.

Nuclear weapons

• Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his top officials to draft proposals for a possible test of nuclear weapons, something Moscow has not done since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
• Putin’s order – made in response to US President Donald Trump’s announcement last week that Washington would resume nuclear testing – is being seen as a signal that the two countries are rapidly nearing a step that could sharply escalate geopolitical tensions.
• The US notified Russia in advance of its test launch of an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on November 5, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported, citing Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
• Russia-US relations have deteriorated sharply in the past few weeks as Trump, frustrated with a lack of progress towards ending the war in Ukraine, has cancelled a planned summit with Putin and imposed sanctions on Russia for the first time since returning to the White House in January.
• Trump said he “may be working on a plan to denuclearise” with China and Russia, during a speech at the American Business Forum in Miami.

Sanctions

• Bulgaria is drafting legal changes that will allow it to seize control of sanctioned Russian oil firm Lukoil’s Burgas refinery and sell it to a new owner to protect the plant from US sanctions, local media reported.
• Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna called on China to stop its economic support of Russia’s war in Ukraine and urged Beijing to join European and US efforts to pressure President Putin into a ceasefire.
• “China says that they are not part of this military conflict, but I was very clear that China has huge leverage over Russia, every week more and more, because the Russian economy is weak,” Tsahkna told Reuters.

Economy

• Ukraine plans to replace its kopek coins to shake off a lingering symbol of Moscow’s former dominance, Central Bank Governor Andriy Pyshnyi said, adding that he hoped the change could be completed this year.
• Ukraine introduced its hryvnia currency in 1996, five years after it gained independence from the Soviet Union, minting its own coins but retaining the former Soviet name kopek – kopiyka in Ukrainian. The new coins will be known by the historical Ukrainian term “shah”.