Massive shelling, global elections and Ukraineʼs budget for 2025. The main points over the past week

Over the past week, Ukraine received help from the United States and Sweden, passed important draft laws, but also suffered another massive shelling from Russia. Meanwhile, new governments were elected around the world — in Lithuania, Bulgaria, Japan, Uzbekistan, and Moldova.

Babel has collected the most important news of the week to keep you up to date.

New aid to Ukraine

The USA declared a new $425 million aid package to Ukraine. It included missiles for air defense, shells for artillery, armored vehicles and anti-tank weapons. Meanwhile, Sweden has allocated €63 million for Ukraine, of which €20 million will go towards the purchase of Ukrainian-made defense equipment. Great Britain will allocate $3.7 billion annually for the defense of Ukraine.

Budget, corruption and the Accounting Chamber

The Verkhovna Rada supported the draft State Budget for 2025 in the first reading. The main priority is security and defense, for which 2.22 trillion hryvnias are invested.

MPs supported the reform of the Accounting Chamber in the second reading. The adoption of this law is one of Ukraineʼs obligations in order to receive money from the International Monetary Fund. And in order to receive €4 billion under the Ukraine Facility Plan, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed the law on agreements with investigations into corruption cases. This is what it provides.

Prosecutors and MSEC

Andriy Kostin was dismissed from the position of the Prosecutor General — he resigned against the background of incidents when prosecutors received disability due to MSEC (all MSECs in Ukraine will begin to be liquidated from December 31, 2024). MSEC will be replaced by teams of practicing doctors.

North Korean troops in Ukraine

The military contingent of the DPRK, numbering up to 12 000 soldiers, is training at five training grounds in Russia. The ambassador of Ukraine to the UN named the North Korean generals who came to Russia. As the head of the Foreign Ministry of North Korea stated, the leader of the DPRK Kim Jong Un from the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine ordered to help the Russian army. In exchange for this, Pyongyang receives from Russia rice, advanced space technologies, and its military — a salary in dollars ($2 thousand).

Massive shelling

In a week, Russia hit Ukraine with more than 900 bombs, launched about 30 missiles and almost 500 Shahed drones. Most of these strikes were aimed at civilian objects and critical infrastructure.

At the beginning of the week, on the night of October 29, the Russians attacked Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih and Kyiv. In Kharkiv, the occupiers hit the “Derzhprom” building, one of the most famous constructivist buildings in the world, which is under temporary enhanced protection by UNESCO. The next day, Russia struck a high-rise building in Kharkiv, killing three people. And on November 2, Russians hit the location of law enforcement officers in Kharkiv. Police colonel Andriy Matvienko was killed there.

Elections in the world

In Lithuania, the opposition Social Democrats won the parliamentary elections. At the seventh parliamentary elections in four years in Bulgaria, the GERB party of former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov became the leader. Japanʼs pro-government coalition lost its majority in the lower house of parliament. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party of Uzbekistan won the leadership in the parliamentary elections.

The second round of presidential elections took place in Moldova. The Central Election Commission recorded a record turnout. The results are still being counted. In the first round, the incumbent pro-European president Maia Sandu won 42.49% of the vote, and Oleksandr Stoyanoglo, who is supported by pro-Russian opposition parties, won 25.95%.

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