Closing summary
The time in Kyiv is 4.45pm. Here’s a round-up of the day’s headlines:
The Kremlin said on Friday 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, Reuters reported. Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, called the idea “absolutely unrealistic”.
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 and there is little question about the outcome.
Ukrainian air defences shot down 14 out of 19 missiles fired by Russia during a morning air strike on Friday, Ukraine’s air force spokesman said. The missiles were shot down in the region outside Kyiv and the central region of Dnipropetrovsk, the military official, Yuryi Ihnat, said on television.
A Russian missile attack killed one civilian and injured four others in Ukraine’s central region of Dnipropetrovsk on Friday, the region’s governor, Serhiy Lysak, said. “Unfortunately, one person is dead. Preliminarily, four people are wounded. They are all in hospital. Two people are in severe condition,” Lysak said on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine has told residents to save energy after a power plant near the front line was hit by shelling, in the first such warning this winter. “This afternoon, the enemy attacked one of the thermal power plants in the front-line zone. The equipment was seriously damaged as a result of shelling,” the energy ministry said on Thursday. It did not say which plant was affected, but said that two of its power units had stopped working, leading to a “temporary shortage of electricity” in the grid.
European Union leaders are conscious of how “existential” financial aid is to Ukraine and will honour their commitments, a senior official said on Friday, 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 the 14 and 15 December, Hungary has threatened to veto a proposal for the bloc to grant €50bn in budget aid to Kyiv through 2027, Reuters reported.
The European Union’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, two days before the year’s final summit of the EU’s 27 national leaders at which billions of much-needed budgetary and military aid for Kyiv are at stake, as well as advancing Ukraine’s membership bid.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has underscored Kyiv’s need for more air defence 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 on Friday 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.
The British foreign secretary, David Cameron, urged US lawmakers to approve fresh aid for Ukraine, one day after Senate Republicans blocked a funding bill for Kyiv. “I’m not worried about the strength and unity and consensus and bravery of the Ukrainian people … I’m worried that we’re not going to do what we need to do,” Cameron told the Aspen Security Forum in the US capital.
The Biden administration is considering getting behind new restrictions on who can seek asylum and an expanded deportation process to secure new aid for Ukraine and Israel in a supplemental funding bill, a source familiar with discussions told Reuters. The White House and Congress are racing to strike a deal that would deliver military aid to the two allied nations while discouraging illegal immigration across the US-Mexico border with only a week until lawmakers depart for a Christmas break.
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, met Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, in a bid to break the deadlock ahead of an EU summit after the Hungarian leader threatened to block Ukraine’s accession talks. Macron welcomed Orbán at the Élysée Palace for a working dinner to discuss, according to the French presidency, “several subjects” on the agenda for the EU summit next week, including “various aspects of European support for Ukraine”.
Ukraine began using train platforms to bypass a border blockade by Polish truck drivers, Ukrzaliznytsia, Ukraine’s rail network, said. The first train deployed in the operation moved 23 trucks across the border from Ukraine into Poland, a statement said.
The UK and US accused Russian security services of engaging in a sustained cyber-espionage campaign against top politicians, journalists and NGOs. The UK foreign ministry said Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) was behind “unsuccessful attempts to interfere in UK political processes” and said it had summoned Russia’s ambassador to London about the issue.
Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, pledged $4.5bn to Ukraine, including $1bn in humanitarian aid to help support the war-torn country’s recovery effort in an online summit of leading industrial nations. The $1bn humanitarian aid includes funding for generators and other power supplies, as well as measures to clear mines planted by Russia, the foreign ministry said. The remaining $3.5bn includes funding for credit guarantees for World Bank loans to Ukraine.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Ukraine live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
Updated
Ukraine’s farm ministry on Friday 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.
Updated
