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What did 20 November 2025 follow in Ukraine?
Summary
A look back at the 20 November 2025 news cycle, shaped by a deadly strike in Ternopil and a purge of ministers over the Energoatom scandal.
What had Ukraine just lived through by 20 November 2025? Two days of grim news set the backdrop: a deadly Russian strike on civilians and a political shake-up in Kyiv.
On 19 November 2025, a ballistic missile struck a nine-storey residential building in Ternopil. As reported at the time, 31 people were killed and more than 100 injured, with search and rescue operations continuing and many people missing. The same day saw further Russian missile and drone strikes across the country. Later accounts put the Ternopil death toll at no fewer than 38, including seven children, with over 120 injured. A day earlier, overnight missile strikes on Berestyn in Kharkiv Oblast killed a 17-year-old girl and injured nine other people.
In politics, the Verkhovna Rada on 19 November 2025 dismissed energy minister Svitlana Hrynchuk and justice minister German Galushchenko. An anti-corruption investigation, known as Operation Midas, into alleged misconduct at the state nuclear agency had implicated them, among other officials. On 18 November 2025, former deputy prime minister Oleksiy Chernyshov was arrested on charges linked to the Energoatom scandal.
Beyond Ukraine
On 19 November 2025, Italy's Supreme Court of Cassation approved the extradition to Germany of a Ukrainian national who faces charges over alleged involvement in the 2022 Nord Stream explosions.
On the same day, the Russian Navy spy ship Yantar used lasers to disrupt Royal Air Force aircraft monitoring it in the North Sea, reported as a first. A Royal Navy frigate was following the vessel, with Poseidon P-8 planes deployed to track it.
On 20 November 2025, Lithuania reopened its Medininkai and Šalčininkai checkpoints with Belarus, which it had closed over security concerns involving weather balloons used for smuggling.
