Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on November 9 signed laws extending martial law and a general mobilization by 90 days as Russia launched two missile strikes at Ukrainian civilian targets.
The laws, which passed the Verkhovna Rada on November 8, extend martial law and the general mobilization until February 14, 2024.
Martial law was introduced in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the day Russia's full-scale invasion began. A general mobilization was announced at the same time. The vote by Ukraine's parliament to extend them is the ninth since the beginning of the full-scale war.
The General Staff of Ukraine's military referred to the two missile strikes in its early summary as air-raid alerts were declared in the Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad, Kherson, and Mykolayiv regions.
Serhiy Lysak, the governor of Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, separately said that one Russian missile was shot down over the region by Ukrainian air defenses. The latest strikes came a day after the Ukrainian military said at least five civilians were killed by recent Russian shelling in eastern and southeastern Ukraine.
The General Staff said in its evening summary that there had been 55 close-quarters combat clashes during the day at the front on November 9. It said Ukrainian forces repulsed dozens of "unsuccessful attacks" in areas of southeastern and southern Ukraine that have seen heavy fighting for weeks.
There also were 13 air strikes and 42 attacks from rocket salvo systems on Ukrainian troop positions and populated areas, the General Staff said, adding there were dead and wounded among the civilian population but without specifying numbers or locations.
The summary said Russian forces again attacked Ukraine using a Kh-59 guided cruise missile, which it said was destroyed by Ukrainian air defenses.
It was not possible to verify the claims.
On the diplomatic front, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba again rejected calls for the start of negotiations with Russia. Kuleba said previous attempts were fruitless and Ukraine "should not and will not fall into this trap."
"Between 2014 and 2022, Ukraine held about 200 rounds of talks with Russia," Kuleba said on X, formerly Twitter. "During this period, 20 cease-fire agreements were reached, all of which were quickly violated by Russia."
Kuleba, addressing "those with short memories," also emphasized that neither these negotiations nor the agreements were able to prevent the full-scale invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine.
"Those who argue that Ukraine should negotiate with Russia now are either uninformed or misled, or they side with Russia and want [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to take a pause before an even larger aggression," he said.
