Here are the highlights from the 1,351st day of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Published on November 6, 2025
Here’s how things stand on Thursday, November 6:
fights
- The Russian Defense Ministry has said that Ukrainian forces surrounded in the cities of Pokrovsk and Kupyansk should surrender because they have no chance to save themselves.
- Russia said its forces were moving north inside Pokrovsk in a campaign to take full control of the Ukrainian city, but the Ukrainian military said its units were fighting hard to prevent the Russians from gaining new ground.
- Ukraine has acknowledged that its forces face difficult conditions in the strategic eastern city, once a key transport and logistics hub for the Ukrainian military, which Russia has been trying to capture for more than a year.
- Russia sees the city of Pokrovsk as a gateway to seizing the remaining 10 percent, or 5,000 square-kilometers (1,930 square miles) of Ukraine’s eastern industrialized Donbass region, one of the main objectives of the nearly four-year-old war.
- Ukrainian drone strikes caused minor damage to oil pumping stations in two districts of Russia’s Yaroslavl region, regional governor Mikhail Yevrayev said.
Energy
- Ukraine has resumed importing gas from a pipeline that runs across the Balkan peninsula to Greece, to keep heating and electric systems running in winter after severe damage caused by extreme weather. Russian attacks on Kiev’s energy infrastructure.
- Data from the Ukrainian Gas Transit Operator showed that Ukraine will receive 1.1 million cubic meters (mcm) of gas from the TransBalkan route on Wednesday after importing 0.78 mcm on Tuesday. The route connects 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, a deal that would deepen the European Union’s ties to US energy, Reuters news agency reported, citing two sources familiar with the negotiations.
nuclear weapons
- Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his top officials to prepare a proposal for a possible test of nuclear weapons, something Moscow has not done since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.
- Putin’s order – issued in response to US President Donald Trump’s announcement last week that Washington would resume nuclear testing – is seen as a signal that the two countries are nearing a point that could rapidly escalate geopolitical tensions.
- Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by Russia’s Interfax news agency as notifying Russia ahead of the Nov. 5 test of an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
- Russia-US relations have deteriorated sharply in recent weeks as Trump, frustrated by the lack of progress towards ending the war in Ukraine, canceled a planned summit with Putin and imposed sanctions on Russia for the first time since returning to the White House in January.
- During a speech at the American Business Forum in Miami, Trump said he was “working on a denuclearization plan” with China and Russia.
Approval
- Bulgaria is drafting legal changes that would allow it to take 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 end its financial support for Russia’s war in Ukraine and urged Beijing to join European and US efforts to pressure President Putin for a ceasefire.
- “China says they are not part of this military conflict, but it is clear to me that China has a huge advantage over Russia, more and more every week, because the Russian economy is weak,” Tsakhakna told Reuters.
economy
- Ukraine plans to change its kopeck coinage to shake off a lingering symbol of Moscow’s former dominance, central bank governor Andriy Pishny said, adding that he hoped the change would be completed this year.
- Ukraine introduced its hryvnia currency in 1996, five years after gaining independence from the Soviet Union, minting its own coins but retaining the former Soviet name of kopeck – kopik in Ukrainian. The new coins will be identified by the historical Ukrainian word “shah”.