Ukraine Declares Nationwide Air-Raid Alert For Second Day In A Row

Rescue workers dig through the rubble in Selydove on November 15.

Ukraine declared an air-raid alert for its entire territory for the second consecutive day on November 15 after the air force warned of a threat of air strikes when MiG-31K warplanes were detected to have taken off from Russian territory.

"MiG-31Ks take off from the Savasleika airfield in the Nizhny Novgorod region," the air force said in a message, advising civilians to go to special shelters. Savasleika is located some 1,000 kilometers northeast of the Ukrainian border.

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The Russian military said it launched eight missile and 59 air strikes and fired 49 salvoes of rockets at both Ukrainian military positions and civilian areas in Ukraine.

Earlier on November 15, at least one person was killed when the Ukrainian city of Selydove in the eastern region of Donetsk was struck by Russian forces overnight, the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General's Office said on Telegram.

The message said that Russian troops used an S-300 antiaircraft system to launch four missiles at the city, striking a four-story apartment building and killing an 85-year-old woman, whose body was found under the rubble of the collapsed building.

An 82-year-old woman and a 56-year-old man were wounded in the attack, the prosecutor said, adding that a 50-year-old woman was hospitalized after being wounded when a Russian missile struck a different part of Selydove.

In the southern Zaporizhzhya region, a man was killed and seven other people were wounded in three Russian missile attacks earlier on November 15 on civilian infrastructure in a populated area, regional Governor Yuriy Malashko said on Telegram, without giving details about the precise location.

Meanwhile, the chief of the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine's Kherson region, Volodymyr Saldo, said on November 15 that a "small" number of Ukrainian forces had landed on the Dnieper River's left bank in the village of Krynkiy, some 30 kilometers northeast of Kherson city.

Saldo claimed on Telegram that the Ukrainian forces were being slaughtered and that the average life expectancy of a Ukrainian soldier there is about two days.

On November 14, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's chief of staff Andriy Yermak said Ukrainian forces had secured a foothold on the left bank of the Dnieper.

Neither Yermak's nor Saldo's claims could be independently verified.

SEE ALSO: Bridgehead On The Dnieper: Russia Struggles To Contain A Ukrainian River Crossing

Ukraine's General Staff on November 15 said its forces fought more than 60 close-quarter battles along the front line over the past 24 hours, with heavy fighting under way in the Lyman part of the Kharkiv region and around Avdiyivka, in the Donetsk region, which Russian forces have been unsuccessfully attempting to encircle in recent months.

Ukrainian forces "continue to conduct an offensive operation in the Melitopol direction" in southern Ukraine, the military added.

It did not mention any operation of Ukrainian troops across the Dnieper.

In Washington, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Speaker Mike Johnson's stopgap spending measure that would continue to fund the government into the new year with broad bipartisan support.

The bill does not include supplemental funding President Joe Biden requested for Ukraine.

With reporting by dpa