Summary of the day
A Ukrainian military spokesperson told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that Russia has fired at least 60 North Korean-supplied ballistic missiles during the war, launched by Moscow in February 2022. “Their accuracy, in principle, is not very high. We understand that the technology with which they were manufactured is outdated,” Andrii Cherniak, a military intelligence spokesperson, said, answering questions about the likelihood of Russia’s use of KN-23 ballistic missiles.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has been in Kyiv for an unannounced visit that marks his first trip to Ukraine since the early months of full-scale war in the summer of 2022. Scholz, who met with Volodymy Zelenskyy during the visit, used the trip to announce further equipment deliveries worth €650m (£540m) to be delivered this month. The package includes IRIS-T air defence systems, Leopard 1 tanks and armed drones, a defence ministry spokesperson said. Zelenskyy wrote on X: “We are deeply grateful to Germany for all the assistance it has provided. Germany stands as a European leader in supporting Ukraine, helping us defend ourselves against Russian aggression and terror.”
The US is preparing to send Ukraine an additional $725m in military assistance, including counter-drone systems and munitions for its high mobility artillery rocket system, which could indicate more of the longer-range missiles are headed to the battlefield, the Associated Press reported.
Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, warned her Chinese counterpart that Beijing’s support for Moscow would impact ties and instead urged China to help end the war in Ukraine. “The Russian president is not only destroying our European peace order through his war against Ukraine, but is now dragging Asia into it via North Korea,” she told a press briefing. “My Chinese counterpart and I have therefore discussed in depth that this cannot be in China’s interest either.”
Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of Russia’s upper legislative house, said she expects Russian-Ukrainian peace talks next year.
The Kremlin has said that preparations were under way for Vladimir Putin to visit India but no exact dates were given. The Russian president is likely to visit India in early 2025 at the invitation of his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, Indian broadcaster CNN-News18 reported earlier.
Officials said today that Russian attacks against Ukraine have killed at least four people and injured about two dozen others across multiple regions.
This blog is closing now. Thanks for following along. You can read all our Ukraine coverage here.
Updated
We have some comments from Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has met with his German counterpart, Olaf Scholz, today in Kyiv. You can read more about the trip here. Speaking to journalists, he said that strong weapons and diplomacy were required to ensure peace, as he urged Germany not to end its support to his country.
“We can only ensure peace through strength, the strength of our weapons, our diplomacy, and our cooperation,” Zelenskyy told a press briefing, alongside Scholz.
He added: “It is fundamental for us that Germany as a leader does not reduce (support) next year, including financial support.” Germany is to hold an election in February in which Scholz faces a mounting right wing challenge. Scholz has been criticised both by politicians who want Germany to stop sending weapons to Ukraine, and by those who want him to take more bold action, including sending long-range Taurus missiles to Kyiv, which he has so far refused to do.
Kremlin says preparations are under way for Putin to visit India
The Kremlin has said that preparations were under way for Vladimir Putin to visit India but no exact dates were given. The Russian president is likely to visit India in early 2025 at the invitation of his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, Indian broadcaster CNN-News18 reported earlier. Modi visited Kyiv in August and Moscow in July in an effort to encourage talks, casting Delhi as a potential peacemaker, but there have been few developments since.
During the Russia visit in July, Putin embraced the Indian leader at his home at Novo-Ogaryovo, greeted him as his “dear friend” and said he was “very happy” to see him.
Referencing the visit, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X that it undermined peace efforts to see Modi hug “the world’s most bloody criminal” on the same day so many civilians were killed across Ukraine by Russian airstrikes.
Russia remains one of India’s most important trading partners, particularly on weapons and defence. Russia is a vital supplier of cut-price oil and weapons to India, but Moscow’s isolation from the west and growing ties with Beijing have affected its partnership with New Delhi. You can read more about the countries’ relationship here.
Russia has fired at least 60 North Korean missiles against Ukraine - military intelligence
We are leading today’s blog with Germany’s foreign minster saying that Vladimir Putin is “dragging Asia” into the conflict by North Korea deploying thousands of troops to fight for Russia against Ukraine. Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has not denied the deployment of North Korean troops to his country but has also refused to confirm it. According to US intelligence, at least 10,000 North Korean soldiers have arrived in Russia, a figure that Ukraine’s military intelligence chief says includes 500 officers and three generals. North Korea has pledged to support Moscow until it achieves a “great victory” in Ukraine, as my colleagues Luke Harding and Alessio Mamo write in this story about Pyongyang’s involvement in the war.
A Ukrainian military spokesperson told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty today that Russia has fired at least 60 North Korean-supplied ballistic missiles during the war, launched by Moscow in February 2022. “Their accuracy, in principle, is not very high. We understand that the technology with which they were manufactured is outdated,” Andrii Cherniak, a military intelligence spokesperson, said, answering questions about the likelihood of Russia’s use of KN-23 ballistic missiles. Along with ammunition and missiles, thousands of North Korean soldiers have been fighting in Russia’s Kursk region to expel Ukrainian forces there, according to the Kyiv Independent. Ukraine launched a surprise incursion into the Kursk region in August, but has since lost more than 40% of the territory it had captured as Russian forces have mounted waves of counter-assaults.
Norway’s defence ministry has said it will provide F-35 fighter jets and Nasams (National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System) air defence systems to a logistics hub in Poland.
Early this month, Norway will assume air defence responsibility for a key hub for the transport of civilian and military material from other countries to Ukraine, the ministry said in a press release. “This way, Norway contributes to ensuring that aid to Ukraine reaches its destination, allowing Ukraine to continue its fight for freedom’, the country’s defence minister, Bjørn Arild Gram, said. The defence ministry also said that Norway will “safeguard” the airspace above the airport in Rzeszów, Poland, and will send about 100 soldiers in addition to the air defence systems and fighter jets.
Gram said:
Poland is making a tremendous effort to ensure that both civilian and military supplies reach Ukraine. The airport is also central to the medical evacuation efforts that Norway is responsible for.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have demonstrated the value of air defence, and the Norwegian contribution in Poland is highly appreciated. We are doing this primarily for Ukraine and Poland, but it also shows that we stand by our commitments within Nato.
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More now on the military aid due to be delivered to Ukraine this month - as announced to coincide with German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit today.
The weaponry includes IRIS-T air defence systems, Leopard 1 tanks and armed drones, a defence ministry spokesperson said on Monday.
“Winter is just around the corner, so there will also be winter equipment, as well as hand-held weapons and warming devices,” the spokesperson said just hours after Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced the deliveries during a surprise trip to Kyiv.
The spokesperson added the deliveries were part of a military aid package already announced by Berlin in October.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted a closer look at the weapons on X, adding, “it is crucial that Ukraine produces such weapons in cooperation with Germany.”
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Security guarantees vital if Ukraine is to rebuild economy, says steel CEO
Security guarantees will be key to Ukraine healing its shattered economy if Donald Trump moves to negotiate an end to the war with Russia when he returns to the White House, according to the chief executive of one of the country’s largest companies.
Yuriy Ryzhenkov, the chief executive of the steel company Metinvest, said the company’s economy could grow like Germany’s economic miracle after the devastation of the second world war if the right policies are in place - but added there was a high degree of uncertainty over Trump’s plans.
Trump has promised to end the Ukraine war in “one day”, but has given little indication of how he plans to do so once he takes power again in January. His pick as US envoy to Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, has proposed withdrawing US weaponry from Ukraine if it does not enter peace talks
Full story below
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Zelenskyy 'deeply grateful' for Germany's support as Scholz makes visit
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has heaped praise on Germany for supporting Kyiv’s war effort as Olaf scholz paid a visit to injured troops earlier today.
In a post on X he wrote: “Today, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz is in Ukraine, marking the first bilateral visit by a German Chancellor in more than two years.
“We are deeply grateful to Germany for all the assistance it has provided. Germany stands as a European leader in supporting Ukraine, helping us defend ourselves against Russian aggression and terror.
“Our meeting with (Olaf Scholz began with a visit to our warriors, wounded in combat against the occupiers, who are currently undergoing treatment and rehabilitation.
“Together, we are doing everything to restore a just peace for Ukraine—and therefore security for all of Europe—as soon as possible.”
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Hungary needs to strengthen its “peace mission” now when there is a risk of escalation of the war in Ukraine, Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, said in Moscow earlier today before he headed to talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.
“The past 1000 days prove that there is no solution to this conflict on the battlefield,” Szijjarto said in a live video on his Facebook page, reiterating Hungary’s stance. Szijjarto has met Lavrov several times since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, one of Europe’s most pro-Russian leaders, has said recently that the EU needs to rethink its support for Ukraine following Donald Trump’s US election victory, adding that Europe cannot finance the war alone. In contrast to most European nations, Hungary has repeatedly questioned the need to support Ukraine militarily, and has instead called for a ceasefire.
Russian senate speaker says she expects peace talks with Ukraine next year
Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of Russia’s upper legislative house, has said she expects Russian-Ukrainian peace talks next year.
In an interview with the pro-Kremlin newspaper Argumenty i Fakty, she said:
I will express my purely personal opinion. I believe that the probability that there will be a real attempt to start such negotiations and meetings in 2025 is significantly higher than the probability that such attempts will not be made. This, I repeat, is my personal forecast. What will happen next – we will see.
Matviyenko added, however, that the “serious escalation” undertaken by the outgoing Biden administration will “most likely affect potential negotiations”, referring to Washington granting Kyiv permission to use long-range missiles inside Russia.
Russia is reportedly open to discussing a Ukraine ceasefire deal with Donald Trump but rules out making any major territorial concessions and insists Kyiv abandon ambitions to join Nato.
Russia continues to demand “demilitarisation and denazification” of Ukraine, and in previous peace negotiations said Kyiv’s military should be reduced to 50,000, as my colleague Dan Sabbagh notes in this story. It also claims the territory of four eastern and southern Ukrainian provinces, Donetsk, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Luhansk, of which only the fourth is fully occupied.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has insisted that Ukraine needs security guarantees from Nato and more weapons to defend itself before entering any negotiations with Moscow.
He has appeared to shift his position by seeming to now concede that Ukraine may have to “temporarily” give up some territory to end the war, which could be negotiated back diplomatically at a future point. Ukraine wants an immediate invitation to join Nato, with membership later, but this is widely seen as unrealistic.
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Officials said today that Russian attacks against Ukraine have killed at least four people and injured 23 across multiple regions. Here is a report, summarising the attacks, from the Kyiv Independent:
Russian forces launched 110 Shahed-type drones and other unmanned aerial vehicles against Ukraine overnight, the air force said.
Fifty-two were shot down, 50 were lost across Ukraine thanks to electronic warfare countermeasures, and six flew to Belarus and Russia, according to the statement.
A Russian drone hit an apartment building in the western city of Ternopil, killing at least one person and injuring four, officials said. About 100 people were evacuated from the damaged building. The blast also damaged windows of the surrounding buildings, a school, and 20 cars.
In Dnipropetrovsk oblast, a 60-year-old man was injured during Russian attacks against Nikopol and the Marhanets community, Governor Serhii Lysak reported.
Russian attacks against Donetsk oblast injured five people, governor Vadym Filashkin reported. Two injuries were reported in the town of Pokrovsk, two in the village of Shevchenko, and one in the Andriivka village.
In Kherson oblast, three people were killed and 13 injured in Russian attacks over the past day, governor Oleksandr Prokudin said. The three fatalities and 11 injuries were reported after Russian forces struck a minibus in the city of Kherson on 1 December.
Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Chernivtsi, Khmelnytskyi, Kyiv, Luhansk, Poltava, Zhytomyr, Mykolaiv, Sumy, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts also came under attack but no casualties were reported.
Trump's threat of withdrawing from Nato should be taken 'very seriously', John Bolton warns
Donald Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton has been interviewed by Sky News’ Kay Burley.
Bolton said Trump “distrusts” Nato and does not understand the principle of a defensive alliance. Despite Trump’s tendency towards hyperbolic rhetoric, he said people should take the threat of Nato withdrawal “very seriously”. Bolton told Sky News:
He basically thinks we are defending Europe, we don’t get anything out of it. They are not paying anything. What is in it for us? It s the same view he has with our alliances with South Korea and with Japan. I am very worried about it.
Now Europeans and many others say ‘but we are close to paying 2% of our GDP on defence – which we pledged, by the way, ten years ago at a Nato summit’ and which many have still not reached. I think the US is going to have to increase its defence spending to something close to Reagan era level (4/5%). That means Europe is going to have to go up to 3%.
Burley put two of Trump’s claims to Bolton: that there were no high profile wars during his presidency between 2016 and 2020 and that he could end the Ukraine war within 24 hours when he enters office again next month. He agreed, broadly, that there were no “high profile wars”, though he said he dealt with the Afghanistan war “incorrectly” by making a deal with the Taliban, which Bolton said was implemented “disastrously” by Joe Biden, the outgoing US president.
“Trump is exaggerating. He is telling the truth in the sense that we were in a calmer period of history and we have see now what can happen, in part because of the weakness demonstrated by Biden in withdrawing from Afghanistan and failing to even try to deter the Russians before they invaded Ukraine,” Bolton told Sky News.
Looking at what Trump could do in office, Bolton, who was Trump’s national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019, added: “He has said he will get Zelenskyy and Putin in a room together and they would solve Ukraine in 24 hours – good luck with that.”
Bolton served in the Reagan, George W Bush and first Trump administrations. After his firing in 2019, Bolton published a book, The Room Where It Happened, in which he strongly criticised Trump’s leadership. Earlier this year, Bolton called Trump’s 2024 presidential bid “poison” to the Republican party. Known for his hawkish views, Bolton has previously advocated bombing North Korea and wielding military might elsewhere to further American interests rather than get bogged down in multilateral agreements.
Putin is dragging Asia into Ukraine war via North Korea, Germany's foreign minister says
Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, has warned her Chinese counterpart that Beijing’s support for Moscow would impact ties and instead urged China to help end the war in Ukraine
Speaking in Beijing, she said the over 1,000-day war was affecting the whole world and North Korean troops being deployed to fight for Russia in Ukraine and the use of Chinese-made drones.
According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Baerbock urged an international peace process for Ukraine and said “that is why I am here in China today”, adding that every permanent member of the UN security council had a “responsibility for peace and security in the world”
“The Russian president is not only destroying our European peace order through his war against Ukraine, but is now dragging Asia into it via North Korea,” she told a press briefing.
“My Chinese counterpart and I have therefore discussed in depth that this cannot be in China’s interest either.
She met with China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, for a “strategic dialogue” as Berlin seeks to build better ties with China while engaging on key differences.
China presents itself as a neutral party in the Ukraine war and says it is not sending lethal assistance to either side, unlike the US and other western countries.
But it remains a close political and economic ally of Russia, and Nato members have said Beijing is a “decisive enabler” of the war, which it has never condemned.
“Drones from Chinese factories and North Korean troops attacking the peace in the middle of Europe are violating our core European security interests,” Baerbock said.
Georgian police have arrested a prominent opposition leader after using water cannon and teargas to scatter anti-government protesters who rallied outside parliament for a fourth consecutive night.
The protests were sparked by the government’s announcement last week that it was suspending talks on joining the EU. Critics saw that as confirmation of a Russian-influenced shift away from pro-western policies, something the ruling party denies.
The Coalition for Change, the country’s largest opposition party, said in a post on X that Zurab Japaridze, one of its leaders, was arrested by police early on Monday as he was leaving the demonstration.
Moscow denies interfering in its neighbour, but a former Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, warned on Sunday that Georgia was “moving rapidly along the Ukrainian path, into the dark abyss”, adding: “Usually this sort of thing ends very badly.”
You can read more on this developing story here:
The Kremlin has responded to the news that the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, is in Kyiv in a show of support for Ukraine.
In a regular press briefing to journalists, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow had no “expectations” from the visit by Scholz, who spoke by phone to Vladimir Putin last month in a controversial phone call.
“I would not say we have expectations from this visit. Germany is continuing its line of unconditional support to Ukraine,” Peskov said, adding that Putin had not passed on a message to Volodymyr Zelenskyy through Scholz.
Ternopil: at least one person killed by Russian drone attack on western Ukrainian city
As we reported in the opening post, a Russian drone hit a residential building in the western city of Ternopil, killing at least one person and injuring several others, officials said on Monday.
Ternopil – a city with a population of about 225,000 – is far from the frontline and is not commonly targeted by Russian forces.
Serhiy Nadal, the head of the regional defence headquarters in Ternopil, said via Telegram that as result of the attack, a fire engulfed several flats on the top floor of a five-storey apartment building.
He said that residents from several apartments were evacuated and that emergency services were working at the scene. About 20 cars were reported to have been damaged in the yard of the building. Social media videos showed flames bursting out of the windows of a multi-storey apartment building in the darkness.
Ukraine must find diplomatic solutions to retake occupied territory, Zelenskyy says
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has suggested that retaking parts of Ukrainian territory may have to be achieved through diplomatic means, rather than military force.
In an interview with the Japanese news agency, Kyodo News, Zelenskyy said it is difficult to reclaim some of the Russian occupied parts of his country by force, including the Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, as things stand.
“Our army lacks the strength to do that. That is true,” Zelenskyy said. “We do have to find diplomatic solutions.”
He stressed that such steps could be considered “only when we know that we are strong enough” to prevent Russia from launching new aggression against Ukraine. Zelenskyy’s comments indicate a shift away from his long-held stance that his country will fight to regain all territory seized by Russia.
Zelenskyy has called on the outgoing Biden administration to help convince Nato members to invite Ukraine to join the alliance, as Russia continues to make battlefield gains. He said the conflict has entered a “complicated period”.
In October, he revealed a so-called victory plan, which contains a step that some crucial western allies have so far refused to countenance: inviting Ukraine to join Nato before the war ends.
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Why was the phone call between Scholz and Putin so controversial?
As we mentioned in the opening summary, Olaf Scholz held an hour-long call with Vladimir Putin on 15 November, angering Kyiv as it was seen to weaken Europe’s attempt to isolate the Russian president.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it opened a “Pandora’s box” that undermined efforts to end the war in Ukraine with “a fair peace”.
Scholz defended the call with Putin, their first direct communication in almost two years, saying it was important to tell him he cannot count on German support for Ukraine to wane. Scholz reportedly condemned Russia’s war on Ukraine and called on Moscow to negotiate with Kyiv to come to a “fair and lasting peace”.
He also criticised Russia’s deployment of North Korean troops against Ukraine, describing it as a “grave escalation” of the conflict (according to US, South Korean and Ukrainian intelligence assessments, up to 12,000 North Korean troops have been sent to Russia as part of a major defence treaty between Russia and North Korea).
Scholz’s willingness to engage with Putin is likely to provoke frustration in Ukraine, whose future became uncertain after Donald Trump’s victory, as American military aid may be reduced during his presidency.
As the second biggest backer of Ukraine after the US, Germany faces concerns that it will be left to take on a far bigger share of the war effort if Trump carries out his threat to reduce support for Kyiv, my colleagues Pjotr Sauer and Kate Connolly note in this story.
German chancellor in Ukraine for his first visit in over two years
Good morning and welcome to our coverage of Russia’s war on Ukraine. The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, visited Ukraine for the first time in more than two and a half years on Monday.
The diplomatic trip comes just weeks after he was criticised by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for having a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Their call came at a time of widespread speculation about what the new administration of president-elect Donald Trump will mean for Ukraine.
Scholz, who is under pressure from many voters to cut aid to Kyiv, said that, in his meeting with Zelenskyy, he will announce further military supplies this month totalling €650m (£539m). Zelenskyy is set to push Nato to invite Ukraine to join the military alliance at a meeting in Brussels this week.
“Ukraine can rely on Germany – we say what we do and we do what we say,” the German chancellor said. Scholz has been cautious about talk of fast-tracking Nato membership for Ukraine. In recent months, he has emphasised the importance of finding a path to peace, while stressing that it must not be chosen over Ukraine’s head.
Die Ukraine kann sich auf uns verlassen. Wir sagen, was wir tun. Und wir tun, was wir sagen.
— Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz (@Bundeskanzler) December 2, 2024
Um das erneut deutlich zu machen, bin ich heute Nacht nach Kyjiw gereist: mit dem Zug durch ein Land, das sich seit über 1000 Tagen gegen den russischen Angriffskrieg verteidigt. pic.twitter.com/sAcTtkTPW3
In other developments:
At least one person was killed and others injured in a Russian attack on Ternopil in western Ukraine, reports said on Monday morning. The city mayor, Serhiy Nadal, said a drone hit the fifth floor of an apartment building, starting a fire.
Ukraine’s air force said on Monday that Russia launched 110 drone attacks the previous night. The air force shot down 52 while 50 were “lost”, likely due to electronic warfare, it said. One remained in Ukrainian airspace and six headed toward Belarus and Russia.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that his country needed security guarantees from Nato and more weapons to defend itself before any talks with Russia. He called for “steps forward with Nato” and a “good number” of long-distance weapons for Ukraine to defend itself. “Only when we have all these items and we are strong, after that, we have to make the very important … agenda of meeting with one or another of the killers,” he said, adding that the EU and Nato should be involved in any negotiations. Zelenskyy made the comments after meeting the EU’s new foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, and the EU council chief, Antonio Costa, who were visiting Kyiv as a show of support on their first day in office.
Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, on Monday warned her Chinese counterpart that Beijing’s support for Russia would “impact” ties. “Foreign minister Baerbock emphasised that the increasing Chinese support for Russia’s war against Ukraine has an impact on our relations, as core German and European security interests are affected,” according to a German foreign ministry spokesperson.
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