Closing summary
The EU has adopted a 12th package of sanctions against Russia, the European Commission said. This package focuses on imposing additional import and export bans on Russia, combating sanctions circumvention and closing loopholes, it said.
Russia has damaged or destroyed almost every building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, according to a new report, as part of a major assault which has seen civilian infrastructure deliberately flattened.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has presented documents to Russia’s Central Election Commission to register as a candidate in the 2024 presidential election. Supporters of Putin have formally nominated him to run in the 2024 presidential election as an independent candidate.
Russian fighters from the Storm-Z units are “highly likely being returned to combat duties with unhealed wounds”, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence update.
Polish truckers have resumed their blockade of the main crossing at the Ukrainian border, a week after it was lifted, Ukraine’s border service said.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has detained a Ukrainian citizen who allegedly spied for Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) to help direct a Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia, according to the SBU.
The Kremlin has welcomed the victory claimed in parliamentary elections by Serbian leader Aleksandar Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow hoped the result would lead to the “further strengthening of friendship” between the countries.
Frontline Ukrainian soldiers face shortages of artillery shells and have scaled back some military operations because of a lack of foreign assistance, Brig Gen Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, a senior army general, said. He told Reuters: “There’s a problem with ammunition, especially post-Soviet (shells) – that’s 122 mm, 152 mm. And today these problems exist across the entire frontline… The volumes that we have today are not sufficient for us today, given our needs. So, we’re redistributing it. We’re replanning tasks that we had set for ourselves and making them smaller because we need to provide for them.”
The main units of a German army brigade that is moving to Lithuania will start to arrive in 2025 and reach full fighting readiness in 2027, the Lithuanian defence minister, Arvydas Anusauskas, said. Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, called the agreement on a permanent deployment of a German brigade in Lithuania a “historic moment”.
Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, will meet China’s president, Xi Jinping, this week, the Russian government said. The two leaders are expected to meet for talks in China on 19 and 20 December, with Mishustin also due to hold a meeting with the Chinese premier, Li Qiang.
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EU adopts 12th package of sanctions against Russia
The EU has adopted a 12th package of sanctions against Russia, the European Commission has said.
This package focuses on imposing additional import and export bans on Russia, combating sanctions circumvention and closing loopholes, the council said.
Among the measures is the prohibition on the direct or indirect import, purchase or transfer of diamonds, including jewellery, from Russia.
You can read the press release here.
The EU has adopted 🆕 sanctions against Russia. These include measures to:
— EU Council (@EUCouncil) December 18, 2023
💎 ban the import, purchase or transfer of diamonds from Russia
💪 strengthen the cooperation with third countries to impede sanctions’ circumvention
More⬇️ #StandWithUkraine
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Russia has damaged or destroyed almost every building in Avdiivka – report
Russia has damaged or destroyed almost every building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, according to a new report, as part of a major assault which has seen civilian infrastructure deliberately flattened.
According to the Centre for Information Resilience, all 17 of the city’s educational institutions have been hit. The Russians have targeted nine out of 11 medical clinics, all five of Avdiivka’s churches and its three large supermarkets. The worst affected district is Khimik, made up of Soviet-era housing.
Russian forces have targeted the central area’s 26 high-rise apartment buildings, in an apparent attempt to stop the Ukrainian army from using them as observation posts. There have been strikes on 25 out of 26 tower blocks, which were once home to thousands of people, the report said.
Belén Carrasco Rodriguez, who led the project, said:
Avdiivka has been a central battleground in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The bombardment of the city has been relentless – almost no building in the city centre has been left unscathed, with nearly all critical civilian infrastructure like schools, hospitals and supermarkets largely destroyed or damaged.
Russian strategy has involved the indiscriminate shelling of urban areas alongside the use of more precise weaponry to target specific buildings. We’ve seen similar patterns in other frontline cities such as Mariupol and Bakhmut, where we mapped Russian forces’ aggressive encirclement of those cities.
According to Avdiivka’s military mayor, Vitaliy Barabash, 154 residents have been killed. Around 1200 people remain inside the city, which has been on the frontline since 2014, when Russia seized the nearby regional capital of Donetsk.
In October, Russian armed forces attacked from three directions, using tanks, armoured personnel carriers and infantry.
So far, they have succeeded in capturing two kilometres of territory, as well as an industrial zone on Avdiivka’s south-eastern outskirts. Fierce battles continue.
Ukrainian troops control the main urban centre and a large coke and chemical factory to the north-west, as well as a crucial supply road.
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Here are some of the latest images from the newswires:
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Putin submits documents to register as candidate for 2024 Russian presidential election
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has presented documents to Russia’s Central Election Commission to register as a candidate in the 2024 presidential election, the Associated Press reports.
“He submitted them,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian state media.
Supporters of Putin have formally nominated him to run in the 2024 presidential election as an independent candidate.
The nomination by a group of at least 500 supporters, under Russian election law, is a requirement for those not running on a party ticket.
Independent candidates also need to gather at least 300,000 signatures of support from 40 regions or more.
The group that nominated Putin included top officials from the ruling United Russia party, prominent Russian actors and singers, athletes and other public figures.
Putin has dominated Russia’s political system and the media for the past two decades, jailing prominent opposition politicians – such as Alexei Navalny and Ilya Yashin – who could challenge him on the ballot.
Putin has won previous elections by a landslide, but independent election watchdogs say they were marred by widespread fraud.
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Russian fighters likely being returned to combat duties with unhealed wounds, says UK's MoD
Russian fighters from the Storm-Z units are “highly likely being returned to combat duties with unhealed wounds”, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said.
Some members of the unit have returned after limb amputations, it said in its latest intelligence update.
The MoD wrote on X:
Members of Russian Shtorm-Z units are highly likely being returned to combat duties with unhealed wounds, and even after limb amputations.
This follows credible reports that members of Shtorm-Z, Donetsk militias, and Wagner group have frequently received minimal or no treatment.
It is likely that convict recruits – who make up a large proportion of Shtorm-Z units – are especially liable to receive poor treatment. One reason is that prisoners often lack the paperwork required to access military hospitals.
Whilst reducing pressure on an overburdened military medical system, the lack of proper in-theatre medical attention will transfer the administrative and medical burden back to troops’ home units.
Storm-Z is an unofficial term used by Russian troops, combining a term for assault troops with the letter Z, adopted by the military as a symbol of their invasion of Ukraine.
Bulgaria has scrapped a tax on the transit of Russian gas through its territory after Hungary threatened to veto the country’s longtime bid to join the Schengen free-travel zone, AFP reports.
Lawmakers unanimously backed a proposal to abandon the exceptional tax of 20 leva (£9) a megawatt hour (MWh) for Russian gas coming from the TurkStream gas pipeline that it channelled to Hungary and Serbia.
Bulgaria and neighbouring Romania joined the EU in 2007, but their bid to join the free travel zone has met with opposition from member states over the years.
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The EU will hold a summit on 1 February to discuss its multi-annual budget, including funding for Ukraine, the European Council president, Charles Michel, has said.
EU leaders agreed last week to open membership talks with Ukraine, but they could not agree on a €50bn (£43bn) package of financial aid for Kyiv due to opposition from Hungary.
The row over financial aid comes at a dire time for Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia has failed to make major gains and the US president, Joe Biden, has so far been unable to get a $60bn package for Kyiv through the US Congress.
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Polish truckers resume blockade of main crossing at Ukrainian border
Polish truckers have resumed their blockade of the main crossing at the Ukrainian border, a week after it was lifted, Ukraine’s border service has said.
“Today, after 15:00 (1300 GMT), Polish carriers began a protest action on the access roads to the Dorohusk-Yahodyn checkpoint,” the service wrote on Telegram.
Protests by Polish truckers started last month against the terms of EU access for Ukrainian lorries.
They blocked the main road corridors into Ukraine, leading to higher prices for fuel and some food items as well as delays to drone deliveries to the Ukrainian army.
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Reuters reports that Denmark has set aside 1.8b Danish crowns ($264m) to help finance a Swedish initiative to donate CV90 armoured combat vehicles to Ukraine, the Danish Ministry of Defence said in a statement on Monday.
Sweden has already donated 50 CV90s to the country in its war with Russia. The Danish donation would help finance production of more such vehicles, spare parts, ammunition and a multi-year maintenance agreement, the ministry said.
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Reuters reports that two court hearings for jailed Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny that were due to take place on Monday have been postponed until January, court filings showed.
Navalny’s allies, who had been preparing for his expected transfer to a “special regime” colony, the harshest grade in Russia’s prison system, say he has not been seen by his lawyers since 6 December and have raised the alarm about his whereabouts.
Two Ukrainian civilians were killed and at least two others injured over the past day, the president’s office reported on Monday.
In the north, the Russian army shelled the village of Krasnopillia in the Sumy region, killing a civilian in his home and damaging residential buildings, it said.
In the south, an 81-year-old man was reported to have died on the street during an attack on the centre of Kherson city.
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Reuters has further details about the agreement on a permanent deployment of a German brigade in Lithuania (see earlier post at 10.14).
Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, said most of the units will be arriving in 2025-2026, and they and their families will get “attractive conditions”, including German-language schools, housing and flight connections.
“The speed of the project clearly shows that Germany understood the new security reality,” he said.
Germany already leads Nato’s multinational battle group in Lithuania of about 1,000 troops, which will be integrated into the German brigade, Reuters reports.
Lithuania will spend about 0.3% of its gross domestic product over the next several years to build housing, training grounds and other infrastructure for the German troops, Laurynas Kasciunas, head of parliamentary national security and defence committee, said.
“All political parties, left to right, agree that this is a priority. We will find the resources needed,” Kasciunas told reporters.
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The EU is to make more than €65m (£56m) available to Ukraine’s neighbours to help fund hosting of refugees.
The European Commission said the money from the Asylum Migration and Integration Fund will support Bulgaria, Czechia, Poland, and Romania.
The European Union is hosting more than 4.1 million people benefiting from temporary protection, a status that holds until 2025.
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Summary of the day so far...
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has detained a Ukrainian citizen who allegedly spied for Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) to help direct a Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia, according to the SBU.
The Kremlin has welcomed the victory claimed in parliamentary elections by Serbian leader Aleksandar Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow hoped the result would lead to the “further strengthening of friendship” between the countries.
Frontline Ukrainian soldiers face shortages of artillery shells and have scaled back some military operations because of a lack of foreign assistance, Brig Gen Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, a senior army general, said. He told Reuters: “There’s a problem with ammunition, especially post-Soviet (shells) – that’s 122 mm, 152 mm. And today these problems exist across the entire frontline… The volumes that we have today are not sufficient for us today, given our needs. So, we’re redistributing it. We’re replanning tasks that we had set for ourselves and making them smaller because we need to provide for them.”
The main units of a German army brigade that is moving to Lithuania will start to arrive in 2025 and reach full fighting readiness in 2027, the Lithuanian defence minister, Arvydas Anusauskas, said. Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, called the agreement on a permanent deployment of a German brigade in Lithuania a “historic moment”.
Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, will meet China’s president, Xi Jinping, this week, the Russian government said. The two leaders are expected to meet for talks in China on 19 and 20 December, with Mishustin also due to hold a meeting with the Chinese premier, Li Qiang.
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Security service detains Ukrainian civilian accused of helping direct Russian strike on Zaporizhzhia
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has detained a Ukrainian citizen who allegedly spied for Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) to help direct a Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia, according to the SBU.
The man was allegedly remotely recruited by the FSB in October and subsequently formed his own networks of informants to scour Zaporizhzhia in search of the positions of Ukrainian troops and defences.
The conspirators then are accused of taking pictures and videos of different suspected locations, which they shared with their FSB contacts.
A building in central Zaporizhzhia was allegedly struck as a result of the spying. Five people died, and another five were seriously injured.
The SBU said that the man has been charged with treason and faces life in prison if convicted.
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Answering a question about whether he considers the battlefield situation a stalemate, Ukraine’s army chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, replied “no”, Ukraine’s RBC media reported.
He declined to comment on whether Ukraine would continue counteroffensive operations during the winter.
Last month, Zaluzhnyi told the Economist the war had entered a phase of attritional fighting in which neither side would make much progress unless there was a technological breakthrough.
He also suggested that Russia was slowly getting the upper hand thanks to its superior numbers.
“Just like in the first world war, we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate,” he said, adding: “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”
Ukraine has scaled back military operations due to shortfall in foreign assistance, says commander
Frontline Ukrainian soldiers face shortages of artillery shells and have scaled back some military operations because of a lack of foreign assistance, a senior army general has said.
Brig Gen Oleksandr Tarnavskyi was speaking after Republican lawmakers held up a $60bn (£47bn) US package and Hungary blocked €50bn (£43bn) in EU funding for Kyiv.
He told Reuters:
There’s a problem with ammunition, especially post-Soviet (shells) – that’s 122 mm, 152 mm. And today these problems exist across the entire frontline …
The volumes that we have today are not sufficient for us today, given our needs. So, we’re redistributing it. We’re replanning tasks that we had set for ourselves and making them smaller because we need to provide for them.
Tarnavskyi added that the shortage of artillery shells was a significant issue for Ukraine, but also noted that Russian forces faced ammunition problems.
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Kremlin welcomes Aleksandar Vucic's victory in Serbian elections
The Kremlin has welcomed the victory claimed in parliamentary elections by Serbian leader Aleksandar Vučić’s party (see earlier post at 08.32).
Vučić said on Sunday his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), which has been in power since 2012, won the vote, while official results are expected late on Monday.
Opposition parties have claimed electoral fraud favouring the government, and called for a recount.
“We welcome this achievement from Vučić,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Peskov, who referred to Serbia as a “brotherly” country, said Moscow hoped the result would lead to the “further strengthening of friendship” between the countries.
Serbia and Russia have historically close ties, with Belgrade not joining international sanctions against Moscow for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last February.
At least 31 Ukrainian civilians were killed by mines and explosive remnants of war, and 98 others injured between 1 August and 30 November 2023, Gyunduz Mamedov, a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine, said, citing data from the UN human rights office.
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A UN rights expert has said the “enforced disappearance” of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was alarming and demanded that Moscow immediately release him.
The Kremlin critic’s lawyers have been prevented from meeting him since 6 December, and he did not appear for a scheduled court hearing last Friday, AFP reports.
Mariana Katzarova, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Russia, said:
I am greatly concerned that the Russian authorities will not disclose Mr Navalny’s whereabouts and wellbeing for such a prolonged period of time which amounts to enforced disappearance.
Navalny, 47, is serving more than 30 years in prison after being found guilty of crimes including extremism – charges that his supporters characterise as politically motivated.
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'Historic' agreement signed on German army brigade in Lithuania
The main units of a German army brigade that is moving to Lithuania will start to arrive in 2025 and reach full fighting readiness in 2027, Lithuanian’s defence minister, Arvydas Anusauskas, has said.
Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, called the agreement on a permanent deployment of a German brigade in Lithuania a “historic moment”.
“We will and we are ready to defend Nato territory,” Pistorius said during a press conference with Anusauskas in Vilnius.
Pistorius said the aim is to station 4,800 troops and about 200 civilians permanently in coordination with Nato following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Latvia, which borders Belarus and Russia, is considering expelling over 1,000 Russians for failing to comply with the necessary requirements to extend their temporary residency permits, Latvian news outlet Delfi reported.
In 2022, the Latvian parliament tightened residency rules in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, meaning Russians living in Latvia must now apply for a permanent residence and pass a basic-level Latvian language test.
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Billions of dollars in financial assistance from the US and EU is vital to Ukraine’s economic recovery, Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the International Monetary Fund, has said.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Georgieva said Kyiv can manage a likely short-term funding gap of “a couple of months” but needs fresh financial support to avoid endangering economic growth.
Her comments come after Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, last week struggled to persuade Republicans to support a $61bn military aid package, with objectors insisting on White House concessions on border security as a condition for a deal.
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Russian prime minister due to meet Chinese president this week
Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, will meet China’s president, Xi Jinping, this week, the Russian government has said, according to Sky News.
The two leaders are expected to meet for talks in China on 19 and 20 December, with Mishustin also due to hold a meeting with the Chinese premier, Li Qiang.
In November, Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, who heads the world’s biggest nuclear power, said military cooperation between Moscow and Beijing was increasing and focused on hi-tech areas that would ensure strategic security.
The Kherson region has been hit by 374 shells over the last day, killing one person and damaging infrastructure and residential buildings, Gyunduz Mamedov, a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine, wrote on X.
Over the past 24 hours 374 shells from various types of weapons were fired in Kherson region. A civilian was killed, residential buildings and infrastructure were damaged. At least 8-9 regions of Ukraine are shelled every day.#StopRussianAggression pic.twitter.com/7GjgJtObiY
— Гюндуз Мамедов/Gyunduz Mamedov (@MamedovGyunduz) December 18, 2023
Key event
The Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić’s ruling SNS party has claimed victory in Sunday’s snap parliamentary election.
Early results, which came amid concerns about widespread reports of irregularities, put the SNS – which appeared on the ballot as “Aleksandar Vučić – Serbia must not stop!” at about 46%.
Serbia has refused to impose sanctions against Moscow but Vučić has previously described Ukraine as a “friendly country” and has said Crimea and Donbas are Ukrainian sovereign territories.
You can follow our Europe blog for the latest on the Serbian election results:
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Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
Here are the latest developments:
Ukraine and Russia launched a swarm of drones at each other’s territories on Sunday as both sides step up attacks, with the Russian assault reportedly killing one person in Odesa and the Ukrainian strike targeting a Russian military airfield.
Ukraine’s air force said on Sunday morning that it had destroyed 20 drones and a cruise missile that Russia launched overnight. Nine of the drones were downed over the southern Odesa region, with falling debris starting a fire in a residential house and killing one person.
The Russian defence ministry said in a social media statement that its air defence systems destroyed or intercepted a total of 35 Ukraine-launched drones over Lipetsk, Volgograd and Rostov regions. It did not say what was targeted or whether there was any damage.
The Freedom of Russia Legion, a Ukrainian-based paramilitary group of Russians who oppose President Vladimir Putin, claimed responsibility on Sunday for a cross-border attack a few kilometres into Russia’s Belgorod region. The group, designated as terrorist in Russia, said it had destroyed a platoon stronghold of Russian troops near Trebreno village, without specifying whether it had destroyed infrastructure or killed soldiers, and said it had left mines behind.
Ukraine’s security services said Sunday they had discovered a bug in one of the offices used by army chief Valery Zaluzhny, but added that it was “not operational”.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, vowed to make Russia a “sovereign, self-sufficient” power in the face of the west. In a campaign speech he accused the west of unsuccessfully trying to “sow internal troubles” in Russia.
Putin also warned of “problems” with neighbouring Finland after it joined Nato earlier this year. Russia plans to reorganise military divisions to station more troops in its north-west region, by the EU and Nato border.
Putin dismissed claims from the US president, Joe Biden, that Russia could attack a Nato country as “nonsense”. It came after Biden said Putin would not stop at Ukraine if it secures victory, as he pleaded with Republican lawmakers to authorise further aid to Kyiv.
Visit of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to Washington DC last week has yet to bear fruit as Biden called lack of congressional support for aid a “Christmas gift” to Russia. Biden has requested $61.4bn (£48.4bn) in further aid to Ukraine but Republicans in Congress have rejected the proposals.
But one top Democrat said he was “very optimistic” about a resolution. US congressional negotiators worked deep into the weekend in an attempt to craft an urgent deal linking aid to Ukraine and Israel to new border security. “I’m very encouraged,” said Senator Joe Manchin.
Russia is not interested in extending the Black Sea grain deal, the agriculture minister said. The deal led to 33m tonnes of grain leaving Ukraine’s ports before it collapsed in July.
Ukraine claims almost 350,000 Russian troops have been killed or injured. The figure is higher than the 315,000 estimated by US intelligence, according to reports, but even that represents a significant toll for Moscow.
Ukraine continued its use of “memetic warfare” as the defence ministry posted a video of two Russian tanks being destroyed, with guitar music and the caption “WELCOME TO UKRAINE”. Scholars have tracked the use of memes to try and grab control of the war narrative.
An intelligence report from the UK Ministry of Defence said Russia is likely to deploy “electoral fraud and voter intimidation” when elections take place in occupied Ukrainian territories. Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia will vote in March’s presidential elections but they are expected to not be “free or fair”.
It comes as Putin was confirmed to be running for president again as an independent candidate in Russia after two decades in power. Russian news agencies reported the news on Saturday, with the victory of Putin, 71, a formality.
Russian rocket forces have loaded a new Yars intercontinental ballistic missile into a silo at the Kozelsk base south-west of Moscow. The missiles are capable of delivering multiple nuclear warheads.
More than a year after the Russians retreated from Izium, the Ukrainian city is wracked by suspicion and distrust about collaborators. Read Shaun Walker’s Observer dispatch from a city still in ruins here.
Lorry blockades are continuing at the Polish-Ukrainian border. Polish drivers say Ukraine is undercutting them as about 2,150 Ukrainian lorries remain stuck in Poland unable to return.
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