Summary
Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, warned that Ukrainians are in “mortal danger” of being left to die if western countries do not continue their financial support. Zelenska made the remarks a day after Republican senators in the US blocked a key aid bill that would have provided more than $60bn worth of support to Ukraine.
The Polish government denied reports that the delivery of military equipment to Ukraine was being hindered by protesting Polish truckers blockading the border. “I categorically deny that such a situation occurred,” said Polish vice-minister of national defence, Marcin Ociepa. “Military convoys that cross the border are convoys escorted by military police.”
Avdiivka, the eastern Ukrainian city which has seen some of the most intense fighting of the war, is on the verge of “imminent collapse” to Russian forces, according to a report. A dispatch in The Times by its former Kyiv correspondent said that Ukrainian troops defending the frontline area are “starved of ammunition” and hamstrung in their attempts to repel the advancing enemy soldiers.
Ukraine condemned Russian plans to hold presidential elections next spring on occupied territory, declaring them “null and void” and pledging to prosecute any observers sent to monitor them. Russia’s upper house set the country’s presidential election this week for next March, and chair Valentina Matviyenko said residents in four occupied Ukrainian regions would be able to vote for the first time.
Olympic chiefs were criticised for allowing Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete next year as neutrals, outside of team events and if they do not actively support the invasion.
The Finnish supreme court has blocked the extradition of a Russian neo-Nazi group leader who fought in Ukraine, warning of the risk that he could be susceptible to inhuman treatment, which is precluded under the European convention on human rights.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz has reiterated that the world faced a drawn-out war in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion in February 2022, saying Germany needed to be ready to continue with aid efforts to Kyiv until 2025.
“That is why, if necessary and others are paring back, we must be able to possibly make an even greater contribution,” he said.
#Germany must be ready to support #Ukraine when aid from other countries weakens - Scholz
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) December 9, 2023
At the same time, the Chancellor noted that Berlin needs to increase assistance to Kyiv "if others begin to hesitate."
The Chancellor probably had in mind the political situation in the… pic.twitter.com/42oZhfeIuu
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We have further photos from the protest in Kyiv by relatives of soldiers held captive by Russian forces.
A group of European parliament members have urged the European commission, and the Polish government, “to act decisively” and end the blockade of border crossings between Poland and Ukraine by protesting truckers.
Lithuanian MEP Andrius Kubilius posted a statement signed by 18 MEPs today on X, which said the blockade “denigrated” the entire EU.
Such a situation is completely unacceptable; it serves only the interests of the Kremlin and seriously damages the reputation not only of Poland, but also of the European Union on the whole.
We therefore appeal to you … to immediately address the issue to act decisively to end the ongoing blockade of Ukraine due to the Polish lorry drivers’ strike.
It did not put forward any suggestions on how that could be achieved. But the most obvious option would be to alleviate the financial concerns of Polish drivers who have said they are now being undercut by as much as 35% by their Ukrainian counterparts.
The Polish government yesterday denied reports that the delivery of military equipment to Ukraine was being hindered by protesting Polish truckers who are blockading the border.
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Ukraine may not be able to muster the resources to launch a notable counteroffensive until 2025, western diplomats and military strategists have told the Wall Street Journal.
Kyiv’s forces are now digging in for what could be an extended period of just trying to stop any more Russian advances.
President Volodymyr Zelensky last week ordered the construction of an extensive network of battlefield fortifications to help troops hold the line. On Armed Forces Day on Dec. 6, Zelensky acknowledged the difficulty of the fight to regain occupied territories but urged perseverance. “Is there really an alternative? No,” he said in a video address.
It is a sharp shift in sentiment from earlier this year when Kyiv—buoyed by successes rolling back earlier Russian advances and with an infusion of Western arms—set out to eject Russian troops from the nearly 20% of Ukrainian territory they occupied. Ukraine’s allies hoped it could inflict sufficient damage on Russian forces that President Vladimir Putin would see the war as futile and acquiesce to negotiations acceptable to Kyiv.
The newspaper quoted an infantry sergeant in a frontline position who said that he is not honest about how the war effort is faring in his reports back to people at home. “What is the point?” he said.
Ukrainian officials are pressing on with a campaign to remove Soviet-era monuments as authorities in the capital Kyiv dismantled a statue of a Red Army commander from a central boulevard.
Municipal workers today hoisted the hulking statue of Mykola Shchors, a Ukrainian communist who fought against Ukrainian independence following the Bolshevik revolution, off its pedestal. The structure had occupied a prominent spot on a central artery named after Ukraine‘s national poet. Onlookers stopped to watch and photograph as a giant crane lowered the horse-riding Shchors onto a flatbed truck.
“We need to educate our youth so that they know our history,” said Zoya Kobyliukova, 82, who described communism as a “utopia” that led to many people being killed. “They’re doing the right thing to be taking him down.”
A Kyiv city councillor, Leonid Yemets, told Reuters the statue would be moved to a museum. Authorities in Ukraine‘s Black Sea port of Odesa dismantled a prominent statue of Catherine the Great last year after a months-long campaign by activists.
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In somewhat related news, the BBC reports it has seen evidence of several cases in which Russia has detained foreign migrants at its border with Finland and coerced them into joining the army rather than being detained and deported.
The practice of coercing people in pre-deportation detention centres to sign contracts for army service in Ukraine is not new, but the numbers swelled as foreign migrants arrived at Russia’s 1,340-km (833-mile) border with Finland.
Finland temporarily closed all eight of its Russian border crossings, accusing Moscow of channelling migrants and asylum seekers there as part of a destabilisation campaign after the government in Helsinki joined Nato earlier this year.
Analysis of court hearings in Karelia, one of three Russian regions bordering Finland, showed that in the past three weeks, 236 people were arrested for staying in Russia without valid visas, destined for deportation. The picture was similar in the other two border regions of Leningrad and Murmansk.
Among those appearing in court in Karelia was a Somali man in his 40s, who was arrested in mid-November, sentenced to a fine of 2,000 roubles (£17) and detained pending deportation – a standard procedure for anyone without an appropriate visa.
Awad and at least a dozen other inmates held in the pre-deportation centre in Petrozavodsk, Karelia’s capital, were approached by military representatives soon after their arrest and were offered “a job for the state”. They were promised good pay, medical care and permission to stay in Russia on completing a one-year army contract.
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Ukrainian border officials are intercepting fighting-age men who are trekking through mountainous regions to escape the country and avoid conscription, the Washington Post reports.
At least 25 men have drowned crossing the Tysa River, which forms part of the border between Ukraine and Romania and Hungary. One 46-year-old man reportedly died last month after getting lost and suffering severe frostbite.
Others are attempting a variety of outlandish techniques to evade capture and sneak out of Ukraine, according to Andriy Demchenko, a spokesperson at the headquarters of the state border guard service. Some have impersonated clergymen, others have dressed as women, and caregivers of disabled people, as well as – more conventionally – hiding in secret compartments in vehicles.
“Honestly, we need more soldiers. The professional military personnel are running out,” said Dolphin, a 68th Brigade assault team leader, last month.
Demchenko said more than 16,000 fighting-aged men have been prevented from leaving Ukraine since the beginning of the war.
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Kyiv says IOC allowing Russian athletes is ‘encouraging’ war in Ukraine
Reuters reports that Ukraine has criticised the decision of Olympic chiefs to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete next year as neutrals, outside of team events and if they do not actively support the invasion.
The Ukrainian foreign ministry said:
The members of the International Olympic Committee Executive Board who made this decision bear responsibility for encouraging Russia and Belarus to continue their armed aggression against Ukraine.
Athletes from Russia and Belarus have faced sanctions from a multitude of sports since Moscow launched its assault on Ukraine in February 2022, but a number of sports have eased restrictions over the past year.
Moscow denounced the conditions imposed to take part in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games as “discriminatory” but that athletes who could fulfil them would go.
According to the IOC, 11 athletes - eight Russians and three Belarusians - have so far qualified by meeting the neutrality criteria for the 2024 games.
Kyiv said Russian athletes often represent “sports organisations associated with the armed forces” and that “some of them are on active duty in the Russian military.”
The ruling means welcoming back sportsmen and women who “not only sympathise with the murders of Ukrainian women and children, but are likely to be directly involved in these terrible crimes,” the foreign ministry said.
“The International Olympic Committee has effectively given Russia the green light to weaponise the Olympics,” it added.
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Here are some of the latest images coming through from Ukraine:
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Afternoon summary
It’s coming up to 2.30pm in Kyiv, here are the day’s main developments:
Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, has warned that Ukrainians are in “mortal danger” of being left to die if western countries do not continue their financial support
Kyiv has condemned Russian plans to hold presidential elections next spring on occupied territory, declaring them “null and void” and pledging to prosecute any observers sent to monitor them
Ukraine says its forces have repelled 32 enemy attacks in the town of Avdiivka, which is dominated by a vast coking plant
However, there are reports that the eastern city, which has seen some of the most intense fighting of the war, is on the verge of “imminent collapse” to Russian forces
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Ukraine condemns Russian plan to hold presidential elections in occupied territories
Ukraine has condemned Russian plans to hold presidential elections next spring on occupied territory, declaring them “null and void” and pledging to prosecute any observers sent to monitor them.
Russia’s upper house set the country’s presidential election this week for next March, and chair Valentina Matviyenko said residents in four occupied Ukrainian regions would be able to vote for the first time.
Russia claims to have annexed the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions in the east and south of Ukraine during referenda last year dismissed by Kyiv and the west as a sham, but does not fully control any of them.
“We call on the international community to resolutely condemn Russia’s intention to hold presidential elections in the occupied Ukrainian territories, and to impose sanctions on those involved in their organisation and conduct,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry said.
It also warned countries against sending observers to the “pseudo-elections”, saying offenders would “face criminal responsibility”. “Any election in Russia has nothing to do with democracy. They serve only as a tool to keep the Russian regime in power,” the ministry said.
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Report: Avdiivka on verge of falling into Russian control
Avdiivka, the eastern Ukrainian city which has seen some of the most intense fighting of the war, is on the verge of “imminent collapse” to Russian forces, according to a report.
A dispatch in The Times by its former Kyiv correspondent said that Ukrainian troops defending the frontline area are “starved of ammunition” and hamstrung in their attempts to repel the advancing enemy soldiers.
The shell shortage forces soldiers like Sergeant Taras “Fizruk”, a 31-year-old mortar gunner, also from the 2nd Battalion, to make impossible life and death decisions.
‘We had ten times more ammunition over summer, and better quality,’ he said. ‘American rounds come in batches of almost identical weights, which makes it easier to correct fire, with very few duds. Now we have shells from all over the world with different qualities and we only get 15 for three days. Last week we got a batch full of duds.’
Instead of firing on Russians as soon as they come within range, they have to wait to be sure they are heading for their positions, and only hit large groups.
‘We should be controlling our sector from 4km away, so we can kill a few hundred Russian soldiers before they get to our infantry and we only take a few wounded,’ he said. ‘But without ammunition we can’t. When it’s two or three soldiers I’m not shooting any more, only when it’s a critical situation, say ten guys close to our infantry. If our rounds aren’t the same weight, the next round will fly two hundred metres past the Russians. And then it’s too late.’
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Russia has said it is looking into whether its frozen gold reserves, taken after the country invaded Ukraine, could be used to supply the climate damage fund to help developing countries.
In what Reuters said appeared to represent an attempt to try to fulfil Moscow’s aim of doing “everything possible” to stop the West from seizing its frozen reserves, Russia’s climate envoy said at the Cop28 summit the move would help to close the gap between developed and developing countries in dealing with climate change.
It is unlikely to be agreed upon. The west froze around half – or more than $300 billion – of Russia’s international reserves after Moscow sent its armed forces into Ukraine in February last year.
Kyiv wants the proceeds from Russian frozen assets to be used to help rebuild the country - something many in the West want to happen but which has been complicated by legal questions and the move’s possible future ramifications.
“We are ready to announce that Russia is looking into the voluntary contribution of finance to the loss and damage fund from the frozen national gold reserves held by international organisations,” Ruslan Edelgeriev, Russia’s climate representative, said on the main stage at Cop28 in Dubai. “It is a step dictated by the need to close the gap between developing and developed countries.”
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As support for US aid falters and an election looms, the White House needs a narrative based on reality, not rhetoric, says Emma Ashford, a senior fellow with the Reimagining US Grand Strategy programme at the Stimson Center, Washington DC.
As a recent Washington Post exposé highlighted, Ukrainian forces didn’t meet even the minimum bar for success in that campaign. Troops were hobbled by a mismatch between US and Ukrainian views of strategy, some poor tactical decisions on the part of the Ukrainian leadership, and Russian defensive fortifications that proved far more solid and effective than expected. In early November, Ukraine’s top general, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, admitted to an interviewer that the war was at a stalemate.
After 18 months of triumphalist rhetoric, reality is beginning to set in. Now policymakers in Kyiv and their western partners must answer some challenging questions: how much territory can Ukraine realistically recover through military means? How long will western public opinion continue to support funding the war? When does failure to invest in our defence industrial base mean that our stockpiles are insufficient to resource Ukraine?
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The Polish government has denied reports that the delivery of military equipment to Ukraine was being hindered by protesting Polish truckers who are blockading the border.
The Polish vice-minister of national defence, Marcin Ociepa, told local media yesterday:
I categorically deny that such a situation occurred. Military convoys that cross the border are convoys escorted by military police. They pass in a completely different way, [the same] as emergency vehicles, and are not hostages of any protests.
Over the past two months, Polish lorry drivers have blocked three border crossings with Ukraine. On 26 November, they expanded their protest by including Medyka, a key transportation hub. Slovakia has followed suit, with local lorry drivers staging their own blockade since Friday near the Ukrainian city of Uzhhorod.
According to Ukrainian drivers, the line from the Medyka crossing now stretches about 70km (45 miles), all the way to the south-eastern Polish city of Rzeszów. Around 2,500 lorries are moving as little as half a kilometre every nine hours, my colleague Luke Harding reported this week.
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In December 2021, a former primary school teacher in the UK was introduced to a beautician, Anastasia, in Ukraine, who would carry her baby. Dorothy, then 43, and her husband, Charlie, had been trying to conceive for eight years. When the last attempt ended in miscarriage, a consultant had suggested surrogacy.
Dorothy was touched by Anastasia’s empathy. Anastasia thought Dorothy had “good energy”. They agreed to work together: Dorothy and Charlie’s DNA, Anastasia’s body, at a cost of £43,000. They expected then to never to see or talk to each other again (the agency which connected them recommended this “for their own protection”).
But even as they spoke, the world they inhabited was spinning out of control. Approximately 100,000 Russian troops were gathered on the border of Ukraine. When Russia invaded, on 24 February 2022, 42 British babies were being carried by Ukrainian surrogates. Anastasia was one of them. This is the story of what happened to the surrogacy industry amid that chaos – and the extraordinary steps Dorothy and Charlie took to keep Anastasia and the baby safe.
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EU countries may soon be able to halt their last remaining Russian gas imports under plans to ban Russian energy companies from their pipelines and terminals.
The European Council and parliament have agreed new rules that could empower the EU’s member states to crack down on companies from Russia and Belarus that have continued to import Russian gas into Europe since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine by buying import capacity at key EU import terminals and pipelines.
The provisional agreement is expected to be endorsed and adopted by both institutions, which will mark the last stage in the legislative process before the plans are put to a vote by MEPs sometime next year.
The European Council said the proposals aim to protect the “essential security interests of the member states of the EU, while taking account of security of supply and diversification objectives”.
If formally approved, the proposed legislation would make it possible for the owners of EU gas import infrastructure to sever their ties with the companies still importing Russian gas without facing steep financial penalties for breaking their contracts.
The new rules would also help pave the way for the EU to reduce its last remaining gas imports from Russia, which had been Europe’s biggest supplier of gas for decades before the war in Ukraine began in February last year.
Russian police have put the prominent Russian American journalist and author Masha Gessen on a wanted list after opening a criminal case against them on charges of spreading false information about the Russian army.
The independent Russian news outlet Mediazona was the first to report on Friday that Gessen’s profile has appeared on the online wanted list of Russia’s interior ministry, and the Associated Press was able to confirm that it was. It was not clear from the profile when exactly Gessen was added to the list.
Russian media reported last month that a criminal case against Gessen, an award-winning author and an outspoken critic of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was launched over an interview with the prominent Russian journalist Yury Dud, reports AP.
In the interview, which was released on YouTube in September 2022 and has since been viewed more than 6.5m times, the two discussed, among other things, atrocities by Russian armed forces in Bucha, a Ukrainian town near Kyiv that was briefly occupied by the Russian forces.
After Ukrainian troops retook it, they found the bodies of men, women and children on the streets, in yards and homes, and in mass graves, with some showing signs of torture. Russian officials have denied their forces were responsible and have prosecuted a number of Russian public figures for speaking out about Bucha, handing some lengthy prison terms.
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Russian and Belarusian athletes will be allowed to compete at the Paris 2024 Olympics as long as they have not supported the war in Ukraine, the International Olympic Committee decided yesterday.
However, athletes who do qualify in individual sports will have to compete as “neutral” athletes – with no flags, emblems or anthems allowed. Russian and Belarusian teams will remain banned.
The controversial decision comes in defiance of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as well as more than 30 western countries – including Britain and the US – who had called for a complete ban.
Unsurprisingly, it was quickly criticised by Ukrainian athletes, including the Winter Olympic skeleton star Vladyslav Heraskevych, who questioned whether there would be any Russian or Belarusians in Paris who did not support the invasion of his country.
“To me this is madness, not something that is subject to common sense,” he said. The news also was greeted with anger in Russia, with the former sports minister Pavel Kolobkov saying: “This feels like some kind of handout … It was one thing when we performed on equal terms and competed on equal terms with other athletes. And it’s another thing when we are asked to participate under such humiliating conditions.”
In a statement explaining its decision, the IOC said that only eight athletes from Russia and three Belarusians had so far qualified for Paris, out of more than 4,600 from around the world.
The IOC confirmed that athletes and coaches who actively support the war will not be able to compete in Paris. “Athletes who are contracted to the Russian or Belarusian military or national security agencies will not be eligible to be entered or to compete,” it added.
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The Finnish supreme court has blocked the extradition of a Russian neo-Nazi group leader who fought in Ukraine, warning of the risk that he may be subject to demeaning conditions.
Jan Petrovsky, the head of the Rusich paramilitary group, was arrested in July at Lappeenranta airport, close to the border with Russia. He is subject to western sanctions and is wanted by Kyiv on terrorism charges.
The US sanctioned him for displaying “special cruelty” in the fighting in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region after Russia invaded.
However, the Financial Times reports that courts in Europe no longer extradite people to Ukraine over concerns they could be susceptible to inhuman treatment, which is precluded under the European convention on human rights.
Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Andriy Kostin, said he would continue to “explore the possibilities for arresting and extraditing” Petrovsky. He added that the Finnish court did “not assess his guilt, but only the conditions of his detention”.
“We are aware of the overall problem regarding the reluctance of some European countries to comply with [extradition] requests …. and the perception … that Ukraine, being in a state of war, may not be able to meet all international requirements regarding the conditions of detention,” Kostin said, according to the FT.
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Russian opposition figures behind bars in penal colonies or in self-exile abroad vow they will still put up a fight against president Vladimir Putin as he seeks yet another term in office in an election in March.
“No one but us will step into this battle for the hearts and the minds of our fellow citizens. So we need to do it and win,” imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said in an online statement.
Putin, 71, announced on Friday that he will run for president again, to pile another six years onto his two dozen in power. He could even run again in 2030.
The vote is scheduled for 15-17 March, with his victory all but assured. The vast majority of opposition figures are either imprisoned or have fled the country, almost all independent news outlets have been blocked, and any criticism has been muted by a slew of repressive laws adopted over the last decade, AP reports.
“Our task is to make sure that the issues we will be able to raise and bring into the public agenda in January, February, March stick — stick with Russians even after the election,” said Leonid Volkov, Navalny’s top strategist and chief of staff, who left Russia several years ago.
To that end, Volkov and his team launched a project called “Navalny’s Campaigning Machine.” The idea is simple — talk to as many Russians as possible, either by phone or online, and convince them “to turn against the candidates we hate: candidate Putin and candidate ‘War,’” as Navalny himself put it in an online post announcing the project in June.
In late October, the project already had about 170 volunteers making the calls, Volkov said, and was conducting a survey to figure out the specific grievances and needs of people in order to tailor talking points they would use in future phone calls.
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Nearly two years after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the Russian economy has demonstrated surprising resilience in the face of an unprecedented avalanche of western sanctions, AFP reports.
But economists continue to warn that Russia’s wartime economy may be showing signs of overheating, while western leaders are hoping the sanctions will finally bite. A French diplomatic source expressed hope that the economic penalties would start to be felt in late 2024 or early 2025.
Sanctions “are like a small puncture in a tire. It’s not immediate, but it works,” another European diplomatic source said. “It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” said Agathe Demarais, an analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
She said the goal of the penalties was not to trigger the collapse of the world’s ninth-largest economy, which could have provoked a global crisis, nor to bring about regime change. “Their aim is to limit the capabilities of the Russian war machine,” said Demarais.
The EU has imposed 11 rounds of sanctions on Russia since its all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, including hitting its key oil and gas exports. The 12th package of measures, including a ban on the import of Russian diamonds, is now in the works.
According to official figures, 49 percent of European exports to Russia and 58 percent of Russian imports are under sanctions. Even if Russia has become the most sanctioned country in the world, its economy has been dented but not devastated.
Pickup trucks and tourniquets bound for Ukraine’s battlefield are stuck in the miles-long line at the border with Poland, leaving components to build drones facing weeks of delays.
Ukrainian charities and companies supplying the war-torn country’s military have told of growing concerns as Polish truck drivers show no sign of ending a border blockade that has been in place since 6 November – creating lines that stretch for more than 19 miles and last up to three weeks in freezing temperatures.
The Polish protesters argue that Ukrainian truckers are in effect putting their livelihoods at stake by undercutting them after the EU relaxed limits on the number of Ukrainian drivers able to operate in Poland.
While drones will make it to the frontline, they are being delayed by two to three weeks, according Oleksandr Zadorozhnyi, the operational director of the Kolo foundation, which helps the Ukrainian army with battlefield tech, including drones and communications equipment.
About 200 pickup trucks needed to transport ammunition and evacuate the wounded from the frontline are blocked at the border because “deliveries have practically stopped”, said Ivan Poberzhniak, the head of procurement and logistics for Come Back Alive, Ukraine’s largest charitable organisation providing the military with equipment. “The pickup trucks are easy targets for Russia, so it’s impossible to deliver enough of them even normally,” he said.
The protesters insist they’re not stopping military transports or humanitarian aid into Ukraine. “Aid for the military passes through without having to wait at all,” said Waldemar Jaszczur, a protest organiser. He said Ukrainian truckers have been providing unauthorised transport services across Europe. They are asking “glaringly low prices” — 35% lower than what Polish truckers charge — and are “driving us out of the market”, he said.
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A deal to provide further US assistance to Ukraine by the end of the year appears to be increasingly out of reach for president Joe Biden.
The impasse is deepening in Congress despite warnings from the White House about the consequences of inaction. Republicans insist on pairing the funding with America’s immigration and border policies, with historic numbers of migrants arriving at the southern border.
After the Democratic president said this week that he was willing to “make significant compromises on the border”, Republicans swiftly revived demands that they had earlier set aside, hardening their positions and attempting to shift the negotiations to the right, according to a person familiar with the talks quoted by Associated Press.
Biden is facing the prospect of a cornerstone of his foreign policy — repelling Russia’s Vladimir Putin from taking over Ukraine — crumbling as US support for funding the war wanes, especially among Republicans. The White House says a failure to approve more aid by year’s end could have catastrophic consequences for Ukraine and its ability to fight.
To preserve US support, the Biden administration has quietly engaged in Senate talks on border policy in recent weeks, providing assistance to the small group of senators trying to reach a deal and communicating what policy changes it would find acceptable.
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Ukraine’s first lady warns that Ukrainians in 'mortal danger' without foreign aid
Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, has warned that Ukrainians are in “mortal danger” of being left to die if western countries do not continue their financial support, in an interview with the BBC.
Zelenska made the remarks a day after Republican senators in the US blocked a key aid bill that would have provided more than $60bn worth of support to Ukraine.
Zelenska told the BBC the slowdown in aid represented a “mortal danger” for her country:
We really need the help. In simple words, we cannot get tired of this situation, because if we do, we die. And if the world gets tired, they will simply let us die.
It hurts us greatly to see the signs that the passionate willingness to help may fade. It is a matter of life for us. Therefore, it hurts to see that.
The White House has warned that US funds for Ukraine could soon run out, and Republicans have held up a deal to authorise more assistance.
The UK has also been urging politicians in Washington DC to agree on a deal for Ukraine. The UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, said on a visit to Washington this week that the US was the “linchpin” of the western coalition backing Ukraine’s fight against Russia.
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Russian troops press on town of Avdiivka
Ukraine says its forces have repelled 32 enemy attacks in the town of Avdiivka, which is dominated by a vast coking plant, Reuters reports.
The head of the military administration in the town, less than 12km from the outskirts of the Moscow-held regional capital of Donetsk, said Russian forces were “pressing on the entire defensive line around the town”.
“Weather conditions prevent the occupiers from using their vehicles, so they resort to ‘human wave’ assaults, throwing more personnel into battles,” Vitaliy Barabash said.
Moscow’s forces have been inching forward on the flanks to try to cut supply lines.
A Ukrainian military spokesperson, Oleksandr Shtupun, said Russian forces had suffered heavy losses around the town.He told national television Russian forces had dropped about 450 bombs in the region and were bringing in reserves.
The Russian defence ministry rarely mentions Avdiivka in its reports, but the war blog Rybar said on Friday that battles were raging by the coking plant and near Stepove village, north of the city. Rybar acknowledged that the front was all but unchanged.
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Opening summary
It is 10am in Kyiv and we are restarting our rolling coverage of the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine says its forces have repelled 32 enemy attacks in the town of Avdiivka as Russian troops have been inching forward to try to cut supply lines. The head of the military administration in the town, less than 12km from the outskirts of the Moscow-held regional capital of Donetsk, said Russian forces were “pressing on the entire defensive line around the town”.
In other recent developments:
The Kremlin has said that the idea Russia would engage in peace talks with Ukraine on Kyiv’s terms in 2024 was unrealistic. It was responding to a media report that said Washington wanted such a scenario to unfold. The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, called the idea “absolutely unrealistic”.
Russia has launched a wave of cruise missiles against Ukraine, killing at least one person and injuring six, as the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, warned of attacks by Moscow this winter on energy infrastructure. Ukrainian air defences shot down 14 of 19 missiles fired by Russia during a morning airstrike, Ukrainian officials said, including those heading for Kyiv.
Vladimir Putin has said he will run for re-election in the March 2024 presidential poll, moving the longtime Russian leader a step closer to a fifth term in office. The announcement was widely expected, with Putin’s long-term spokesperson saying in a previous interview: “Putin will be re-elected next year with more than 90% of the vote.”
The Ukrainian parliament has approved four bills necessary to start European Union accession talks, including one on national minorities’ rights, a critical demand from Hungary, which opposes Ukraine’s EU bid. The Ukrainian parliament’s website confirmed that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed all the bills into law.
“We expect that Ukraine’s efforts will be duly appreciated by leaders of the European Union and the corresponding European promises to Ukraine will be fulfilled,” Zelenskiy said. Ukraine, he said, had “done everything expected of us” in taking on EU recommendations.
European Union leaders are conscious of how “existential” financial aid is to Ukraine and will honour their commitments, a senior official said, less than a week before a summit where billions in aid for Kyiv hang in the balance. Ahead of the year’s final summit of EU leaders in Brussels, on 14 and 15 December, Hungary has threatened to veto a proposal for the bloc to grant €50bn in budget aid to Kyiv through 2027.
The EU’s executive is due to approve next week a legal proposal on using proceeds from Russian assets frozen under sanctions, but doubts in France, Germany and Belgium mean Ukraine would not get the money anytime soon, officials and diplomatic sources said. The draft law is expected on 12 December.
Zelenskiy has underscored Kyiv’s need for more air defences and the importance of EU unity in the run-up to a key summit next week. The Ukrainian leader said that during a call with Estonia’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, the leaders “discussed the importance of maintaining EU political and financial support for Ukraine, as well as EU unity in light of the expected [European Council] summit decisions to open accession negotiations and provide €50bn in support.”
Ukraine’s farm ministry has raised its 2023 grain harvest forecast to 59.7m tonnes, saying the country had a “record grain yield”. The total grain and oilseed harvest is expected to reach 81.3m tonnes, the ministry added in a statement.
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