Putin continued to reject Ukrainian sovereignty during a speech at the Valdai Discussion Club on October 27, thereby rejecting the legal fact that Ukraine is a fully sovereign state, that the Russian Federation recognized the sovereignty of Ukraine and that the Ukrainian people exist as a separate nation, according to a report by analysts at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) for October 27.

“Putin’s perpetuation of the narrative that Ukraine and Russia are a single people separated into different states by arbitrary historical circumstance indicates his continued objective to destroy the Ukrainian state and erase the notion of a Ukrainian people … The many conditionals in this comment underscore Putin’s rejection of the idea that there is currently any independent Ukrainian national identity,” the report says.

The ISW stress that these statements, along with many Russian actions, must cause serious reflection on the question of whether Russia’s war against Ukraine is a genocidal action since genocide is legally defined as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

The report also says that Konstantin Vorontsov, Deputy Director of the Department for Nonproliferation and Arms Control of the Russian Foreign Ministry, threatened that the Russian Federation could attack Western commercial satellites supporting Ukraine. U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the United States would respond to any attack on U.S. infrastructure.

Russian sources claimed that Ukrainian troops on Thursday conducted counter-offensive operations in the north–east of Kharkiv region and on Kreminna-Lysychansk line and conducted limited ground operations in Kherson region. Russian troops, in turn, continued to strike Donetsk region, continue to prepare for defense on the eastern bank of Dnipro in Kherson region.

The Russian military also sent mobilization notices to foreign citizens working in Russia.

“Yevgeny Prigozhin‘s Wagner Group may be further developing its air warfare capabilities and fielding more complex equipment on par with the conventional Russian military,” the report reads.

According to ISW, Russian and occupation officials began seizing mobile phones of residents in the territories occupied by the Russian Federation to support law enforcement agencies and operational security measures.