Ukraine-Russia war latest: Exiled Kyiv political aide hospitalised after second Russian car bomb attack

Russian authorities said they have opened an investigation into the explosion of a car in Moscow that Russian media reported belonged to an exiled Ukrainian political aide. Russian media reported ⁠the car belonged to ​Sergei Zavorotniy, ⁠a onetime ‌spokesperson for former Ukrainian prime minister Mykola Azarov, who ‌has been living ‌in Russia since fleeing Ukraine amid anti-government protests in 2014.Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that Zavorotniy was hospitalised. It is the latest in a series of apparent assassination attempts inside Russia. On Thursday, ‌a member of the ​Russian military was killed ‌after the ⁠car he was ⁠driving was blown up in St ‌Petersburg, ​investigators said.In other news, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said he was pleased at the prospect of further sets of talks and European participation ​in them.His Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, agreed to let European representatives join the next round of Ukraine peace talks, a US envoy said, though he ruled out agreeing to foreign peacekeeping troops in Ukraine.Such a deployment, he said, would be a "continuation of war".There were signs of renewed tensions, with Zelensky saying Ukrainian military units had recorded significant disruptions to Starshield satellite ‌communications service for several days.Ukrainian attack sets major Russian oil refinery on fireUkrainian drones have struck an oil refinery in Russia’s Volgograd city and a production facility in Rostov-on-Don, according to local reports.The attack comes a day after trilateral peace negotiations in Abu Dhabi ended with US envoys visiting Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky in Ireland.The Ukrainian attack set the Lukoil-Volgogradneftepererabotka refinery, one of Russia’s largest oil refineries, ablaze. Alisha Rahaman Sarkar13 November 2026 10:00What’s next for Ukraine-Russia peace talks as war approaches fifth year?US envoys met yesterday with Russian president Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin before heading to Ireland for talks with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky as Washington sought new momentum for its peace efforts.Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who is also president Donald Trump's son-in-law, brokered talks this week between delegations from Moscow and Kyiv.The session in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, brought the first direct discussions between Ukrainian and Russian representatives in nine months as the push for a settlement stalled.The talks produced no major breakthrough, aside from an agreement to swap a large number of prisoners, with the exact figure still to be announced.More here.Alisha Rahaman Sarkar13 November 2026 09:30Russian strikes cause new outages in 12 Ukrainian regionsRussian strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure overnight caused power outages in 12 Ukrainian regions, deputy energy minister Artem Nekrasov said on Friday. The affected ⁠regions ‌are Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Zhytomyr, Kyiv, ‌Mykolaiv, Odesa, ‌Rivne, Sumy, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi and ⁠Chernihiv."Energy workers are working at an intensified pace, but new attacks and constant air raid alerts are complicating and delaying repairs," Nekrasov said.Rituparna Chatterjee13 November 2026 09:23Second car bomb to hit Russia in two days targets exiled Ukrainian political aideRussia’s ​Investigative Committee, which handles serious crimes, said on Friday that it had ⁠opened an investigation into the explosion of a car in Moscow that Russian media ⁠reported ​belonged to ⁠an exiled Ukrainian political aide.Russian media reported ⁠the car belonged to ​Sergei Zavorotniy, ⁠a onetime ‌spokesperson for former Ukrainian prime minister Mykola Azarov, who ‌has been living ‌in Russia since fleeing Ukraine amid anti-government protests in 2014.Russian ⁠newspaper Kommersant reported that Zavorotniy was hospitalised.It is the latest in a series of apparent assassination attempts inside Russia. On Thursday, ‌a member of the ​Russian military was killed ‌after the ⁠car he was ⁠driving was blown up in St ‌Petersburg, ​investigators said.There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on Friday. Ren ‌TV and the 112 Telegram channel both reported that Zavorotniy had lost his left arm in the attack, and that ‌he was in hospital with a concussion, ‌rib fractures and other injuries.The Baza Telegram channel published a photograph of a black four-door car with a smashed windshield, doors and front bumper on a city street. Russia's Investigative Committee, which handles serious crimes, said it had opened an investigation into the incident.Law enforcement officer inspects the site of a car explosion that killed a military serviceman in St. Petersburg, Russia, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026. (AP Photo) (AP)Rituparna Chatterjee13 November 2026 08:56Sapphire linked to Romanov family fetches nearly £4m at auctionA bracelet containing a sapphire once owned by Russia's doomed Romanov family has fetched more than 4.1 million Swiss francs (£3.7 million) at auction in Geneva.Sotheby's said that the price vastly exceeded the expected price range of 850,000 to 1.7 million francs (£770,000 to £1.54 million) for the stone, which went under the hammer late on Wednesday.The buyer was a private collector who was not identified.The cushion-shaped sapphire weighs 197.80 carats and is a Ceylon stone that likely came from the Mughal Empire in South Asia.More here.Alisha Rahaman Sarkar13 November 2026 08:00Finland says its forces detected 'strike' on Russian warship in Baltic SeaFinland's military said on Thursday its forces had detected "a strike" on a Russian warship in the Baltic Sea a ​day earlier, but that the security situation in the ‌area remained stable.It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties or what had caused the strike. Estonian media reported on Thursday that ​the vessel was a small Russian navy ship and that ​it later returned to St Petersburg.Smoke from a fire rises above the port area of Ust-Luga on the Baltic Sea following what regional authorities described as a drone attack, amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict, in the Leningrad region, Russia, November 11, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer (Reuters)"The Finnish Defence Forces ⁠detected... a strike on a Russian warship in the Gulf ​of Finland area and has monitored the development of the situation," ​a spokesperson for the Nordic country's military said in an emailed statement to Reuters.Finland is not under any immediate military threat, the spokesperson added. The ​defence forces declined to provide further details about the location or ​timing of the incident, or how it was detected.Alisha Rahaman Sarkar13 November 2026 07:30Putin says Western peacekeeping troops in Ukraine would trigger resumption of ​warRussian president Vladimir Putin said Moscow had always been open to talking to the EU about Ukraine, but signalled serious outstanding differences."As far as the Europeans are concerned, we have never been opposed to engaging in dialogue with Europe, and we ​have never broken off that dialogue. It was they who broke off the dialogue with the Russian Federation," he said.He then warned that the European idea of sending Western troops into Ukraine once a peace deal was concluded would trigger a resumption of the ​war because Russia would see that as a threat to its own security."We would very much like you, gentlemen, and the US administration as a whole, to work with your European allies so that they can finally make up their minds as to what they want: peace or war in Ukraine," said Putin.Rituparna Chatterjee13 November 2026 07:16Ukrainian troops spent month in underground tunnels to launch counterattackSoldiers fighting for Ukraine crawled through 15 kilometres of gas pipeline filled with corpses to launch a surprise attack on Russian troops in Kharkiv.Volodymyr Zelensky had last month hailed the “stunning success” of the operation by the Khartiia corps, launched to prevent Russian troops slipping into the eastern city of Kupyansk.Now, Kyiv has revealed that its troops spent as long as a month underground, battling through freezing water and sifting through the bodies of dead Russian soldiers that Moscow had built up as a barricade inside the long tunnels - before opening fire on a group of Russian soldiers.More here.Alisha Rahaman Sarkar13 November 2026 07:00Human rights lawyer Maria Bontsler, 66, sentenced to 12 years in jailA Russian court in Kaliningrad sentenced 66-year-old human rights lawyer Maria Bontsler to 12 years in a penal colony on treason charges, the legal rights project Slovo Zashite said.Prosecutors accused her of passing sensitive information to Ukraine, according to Al Jazeera.“My administrative and criminal prosecution stems from my professional work in human rights advocacy and legal practice – specifically, from providing qualified legal assistance to dissidents, members of the opposition, and others,” Bontsler was quoted as saying by the Moscow Times in her final statement to the court.Rituparna Chatterjee13 November 2026 06:20Russia says four killed in Ukraine attackAt least four people were killed in a Ukrainian attack on Russia’s Volgograd region, the governor said this morning.The statement comes after local reports suggested Ukrainian drones struck an oil refinery in Volgograd city and a production facility in Rostov-on-Don. Alisha Rahaman Sarkar13 November 2026 06:13