A summary of today's developments
The British Ministry of Defence, in its latest intelligence estimate, pointed to signs from an independent Russian media outlet that public support in Russia for the military campaign was “falling significantly”.
The US expects “reduced tempo” in fighting to continue over the winter months, the top US intelligence chief Avril Haines has said.
Haines, speaking at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California, also alluded to past allegations by some that advisers to the Russian president Vladimir Putin could be shielding him from bad news – for Russia – about war developments, and said he “is becoming more informed of the challenges that the military faces in Russia”.
Russia will not sell oil that is subject to a western price-cap even if it has to cut production, Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Novak said on Sunday. The G7 and Australia agreed to the price-cap on Friday.
OPEC+ has agreed to stick to its oil output targets at a meeting on Sunday. OPEC+, which comprises the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies including Russia, angered the US and other western nations in October when it agreed to cut output by 2m barrels a day (bpd), about 2% of world demand, from November until the end of 2023.
A draft resolution is circulating at the United Nations in New York for a Nuremberg-style tribunal to hold the Russian leadership accountable for crimes of aggression in Ukraine.
More than 500 Ukrainian localities remained without power on Sunday following weeks of Russian airstrikes on the electric grid, an interior ministry official said.
Ukraine is imposing sanctions on 10 senior clerics linked to a pro-Moscow church on the grounds they agreed to work with Russian occupation authorities or justified Moscow’s invasion, the security service said.
A top Ukrainian presidential aide criticised Twitter owner, Elon Musk, for the billionaire’s “magical simple solutions,” citing ideas put forward by the billionaire on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Twitter content moderation. Mykhailo Podolyak listed “exchang(ing) foreign territories for an illusory peace” and “open(ing) all private accounts because freedom of speech has to be total”, as examples of such suggestions.
The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine has just tweeted about the issue of misinformation being spread during the conflict.
Last spring, russian propaganda about genetically-modified Ukrainian pigeons. Now, conspiracy theories about “cloned” Ukrainian soldiers. Next will be “super soldiers”genetically modified in secret biolabs.
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) December 4, 2022
Captain Ukraine? Nope. Every soldier of 🇺🇦 Armed Forces is a superhero.
A top Ukrainian presidential aide criticised Twitter owner, Elon Musk, for the billionaire’s “magical simple solutions,” citing ideas put forward by the billionaire on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Twitter content moderation.
Mykhailo Podolyak listed “exchang(ing) foreign territories for an illusory peace” and “open(ing) all private accounts because freedom of speech has to be total”, as examples of such suggestions.
“[Elon Musk] prefers so-called magical ‘simple solutions’,” Podolyak wrote on Twitter, an apparent reference to self-described free speech advocate Musk’s plans to reform Twitter as well as a tweet in which he called for Ukraine to give up the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula in exchange for peace.
Ukraine has had a complicated relationship with Musk, the world’s richest man, since the start of the Russian invasion, Reuters reports.
He was praised for providing thousands of Starlink satellite internet devices, made by Musk’s SpaceX, to Ukraine free of charge but the friendship ran into difficulties in October when Musk voiced support for peace conditions rejected by Kyiv.
Updated
There is currently no diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine, Irina Scherbakova, a co-founder of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Russian rights organisation Memorial, said.
“I am absolutely convinced that there is not a diplomatic solution with Putin’s regime, so long as it is still there,” she said.
“The solution that there will now be is a military one,” said Scherbakova, who was presented with an award for her human rights work at a ceremony in Hamburg, Germany.
“But these decisions, this diplomacy will only happen when Ukraine believes it has won this war and can set its terms.”
Scherbakova added that calls for peace were “childish”, she said, adding that things would not return to the way they were before the outbreak of the conflict.
“This war has turned so many things upside down, it will never be like that again.”
Updated
After major oil-producing countries led by Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed to maintain their current output levels on Sunday ahead of fresh sanctions against Moscow next week, Russia’s deputy prime minister Alexander Novak said: “We will sell oil and oil products to countries that will work with us on market terms, even if we have to reduce production somewhat.”
Even though “inflation, the tightening of monetary policies and China’s Covid-19 epidemic” were posing risks to the market, it was still “in a better state than two months ago”, Novak said, according to Russian news agencies.
“We are currently working on mechanisms to prohibit the use of the price cap tool at any level”, Novak added, stating that “such interference” could only cause “further market destabilisation and scarcity of energy resources”, AFP reports.
Moscow had repeatedly denounced the incoming oil price-cap, threatening to suspend deliveries to any country that adopted the measure.
Updated
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Summary
Today’s key events so far:
The British Ministry of Defence, in its latest intelligence estimate, pointed to signs from an independent Russian media outlet that public support in Russia for the military campaign was “falling significantly”.
The US expects “reduced tempo” in fighting to continue over the winter months, the top US intelligence chief Avril Haines has said.
Haines, speaking at the Reagan National Defense Forum in California, also alluded to past allegations by some that advisers to the Russian president Vladimir Putin could be shielding him from bad news – for Russia – about war developments, and said he “is becoming more informed of the challenges that the military faces in Russia”.
Russia will not sell oil that is subject to a western price-cap even if it has to cut production, Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Novak said on Sunday. The G7 and Australia agreed to the price-cap on Friday.
OPEC+ has agreed to stick to its oil output targets at a meeting on Sunday. OPEC+, which comprises the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies including Russia, angered the US and other western nations in October when it agreed to cut output by 2m barrels a day (bpd), about 2% of world demand, from November until the end of 2023.
A draft resolution is circulating at the United Nations in New York for a Nuremberg-style tribunal to hold the Russian leadership accountable for crimes of aggression in Ukraine.
More than 500 Ukrainian localities remained without power on Sunday following weeks of Russian airstrikes on the electric grid, an interior ministry official said.
Ukraine is imposing sanctions on 10 senior clerics linked to a pro-Moscow church on the grounds they agreed to work with Russian occupation authorities or justified Moscow’s invasion, the security service said.
Updated
More on Russia’s response to the $60 a barrel price cap on Russian seaborne crude oil. Reuters reports Russia will not sell oil that is subject to a western price cap even if it has to cut production, quoting President Vladimir Putin’s point man on energy.
The Group of Seven and Australia agreed to the price cap on Friday. The move to prohibit shipping, insurance and re-insurance companies from handling cargoes of Russian crude above the cap, is an attempt to punish Putin for the Ukraine conflict, Reuters reports.
The Russian deputy prime minister, Alexander Novak, said on Sunday the move by the west was a gross interference that contradicted the rules of free trade and would destabilise global energy markets by triggering a shortage of supply. He said:
We are working on mechanisms to prohibit the use of a price cap instrument, regardless of what level is set, because such interference could further destabilise the market.
We will sell oil and petroleum products only to those countries that will work with us under market conditions, even if we have to reduce production a little.
Novak said the western cap could trigger trouble in the products markets and could affect other countries beside Russia.
A source who asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the situation told Reuters that a decree was being prepared to prohibit Russian companies and traders from interacting with countries and companies guided by the cap. In essence, such a decree would ban the export of oil and petroleum products to countries and companies that apply it.
Putin in September warned the west that he could cut off energy supplies if price caps were imposed, telling them that Europe would be “frozen” like a wolf’s tail, in a reference to a well-known Russian fairytale.
Russia can access enough tankers to ship most of its oil beyond the reach of a new G7 price cap, industry players and a US official told Reuters in October, underscoring the limits of the most ambitious plan yet to curb Moscow’s wartime revenue.
Updated
A draft resolution is circulating at the United Nations in New York for a Nuremberg-style tribunal to hold the Russian leadership accountable for crimes of aggression in Ukraine.
There are signs that US opposition to the proposal may be softening in the face of lobbying by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Beth Van Schaack, the US ambassador for global criminal justice, said this week: “It’s something that President Zelenskiy cares deeply about. This is something Ukraine wants, and I think that’s going to carry a lot of weight. The question is, will they have the votes at the general assembly?”
She added: “So far, all of the [general assembly] resolutions on Ukraine have prevailed. The numbers have been quite strong.”
The international criminal court has already started investigating war crimes in Ukraine, but Ukraine’s leadership argues that the ICC is hampered in that while it can try those charged with individual war crimes, it cannot prosecute the Kremlin leadership over the broader crime of aggression since Russia is not a signatory to the relevant statute.
Read the full report here:
Russia is working on the possibility of banning oil supplies subject to a western-imposed price cap, Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Novak said on Sunday, Reuters reports.
“We are working on mechanisms to prohibit the use of a price cap instrument, regardless of what level is set, because such interference could further destabilise the market,” Novak said.
Russia will not operate under a price cap, even if Moscow has to cut production, Novak said.
Updated
More than 500 Ukrainian localities remained without power on Sunday following weeks of Russian airstrikes on the electric grid, an interior ministry official said.
“The enemy continues to attack the country’s essential infrastructure. Currently, 507 localities in eight regions of our country are cut off from electricity supplies,” deputy interior minister Yevgueny Yenin told Ukrainian television, AFP reports.
“The Kharkiv region is the worst hit with 112 isolated villages,” Yenin added.
A further 90 villages were cut off in the Donetsk and Kherson regions, he said, with others in the regions of Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia and Lugansk.
Repeated daily power cuts have left millions of people without heat or lighting while outside temperatures have dropped below zero Celsius (32 Fahrenheit) in recent days.
With further strikes on the network widely expected, Ukrainians fear a difficult prolonged winter as well as a flood of departures by refugees from a war now into a tenth month.
Private Ukrainian energy operator DTEK said on Thursday that nearly half of Ukraine’s electricity grid remains damaged after Russia began targeting Ukrainian energy facilities in October.
Updated
OPEC+ has agreed to stick to its oil output targets at a meeting on Sunday, two OPEC+ sources told Reuters. The decision comes two days after the Group of Seven (G7) nations agreed a price cap on Russian oil.
OPEC+, which comprises the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies including Russia, angered the US and other western nations in October when it agreed to cut output by 2m barrels a day (bpd), about 2% of world demand, from November until the end of 2023.
Washington accused the group and one of its leaders, Saudi Arabia, of siding with Russia despite Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
OPEC+ argued it had cut output because of a weaker economic outlook. Oil prices have declined since October due to slower Chinese and global growth and higher interest rates.
On Friday, G7 nations and Australia agreed a $60 a barrel price cap on Russian seaborne crude oil in a move to deprive Vladimir Putin of revenue while keeping Russian oil flowing to global markets.
Moscow said it would not sell its oil under the cap and was analysing how to respond.
Updated
The head of US intelligence Avril Haines said Washington expects the ‘reduced tempo’ in the Ukraine conflict to continue over the coming months.
The British MoD has released photographs of Ukrainian recruits training in the UK being issued with their kit for their return to Ukraine.
Ukrainian recruits training in the UK are issued kit in preparation for their return to Ukraine where they will fight to free their nation.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) December 4, 2022
As the temperature plummets, recruits are given cold weather clothing in addition to the regular kit.
#StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/CWqcGjA43y
Updated
Public support in Russia for war 'falling significantly', says UK
The British Ministry of Defence, in its latest intelligence estimate, has pointed to new signs from an independent Russian media outlet that public support in Russia for the military campaign was “falling significantly”.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 04 December 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) December 4, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/wgwjroo1ys
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/pSq13JBIrv
Meduza, a website reporting Russian news from Latvia, says it had obtained a recent confidential opinion survey conducted by the Federal Protection Service, which is in charge of guarding the Kremlin and providing security to top government officials.
The survey, commissioned by the Kremlin, found that 55% of respondents backed peace talks with Ukraine while 25% wanted the war to go on. The report didn’t mention the margin of error.
Levada Center, Russia’s top independent pollster, found in a similar poll carried out in November poll that 53% of respondents supported peace talks, 41% spoke in favour of continuing the fight, and 6% were undecided. That poll of 1,600 people had a margin of error of no more than 3.4%.
The British MoD noted that:
Despite the Russian authorities’ efforts to enforce pervasive control of the information environment, the conflict has become increasingly tangible for many Russians since the September 2022 partial mobilisation.
“With Russia unlikely to achieve major battlefield successes in the next several months, maintaining even tacit approval of the war amongst the population is likely to be increasingly difficult for the Kremlin.
In recent weeks, Russia’s military focus has been on striking Ukrainian infrastructure and pressing an offensive in the east, near the town of Bakhmut, while shelling sites in the city of Kherson, which Ukrainian forces liberated last month after an eight-month Russian occupation.
Updated
More on French president Emmanuel Macron’s comments that the west should consider how to address Russia’s demands for security guarantees if President Vladimir Putin agrees to negotiations about ending the war in Ukraine.
In his remarks, broadcast on Saturday, Macron told French TV station TF1 that Europe needs to prepare its future security architecture, Reuters reports.
This means that one of the essential points we must address – as President Putin has always said – is the fear that Nato comes right up to its doors, and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia.
That topic will be part of the topics for peace, so we need to prepare what we are ready to do, how we protect our allies and member states, and how to give guarantees to Russia the day it returns to the negotiating table.
Russia and the US have both said this week they are open to talks in principle, though US president Joe Biden said he would talk to Putin only if the Kremlin chief showed he was interested in ending the war. Ukraine says negotiations are possible only if Russia stops attacking and pulls out its troops.
Many in Ukraine and the west are strongly opposed to any negotiation with Putin that would reward him with concessions after nearly 10 months of war, especially as Ukraine has driven back Russian forces from large areas in the past three months.
But Macron‘s remarks suggested he was sympathetic to Moscow’s demand for security guarantees, which was the focus of intense but failed diplomacy in the run-up to the war, Reuters reports.
On 8 February, weeks before Russia’s invasion, Putin said at a joint news conference with Macron in Moscow that Russia would keep trying to obtain answers from the west to its main three security demands: no more Nato enlargement; no missile deployments near its borders; and a scaling back of Nato’s military infrastructure in Europe to 1997 levels. The US said at the time that the Russian demands were “non-starters”.
Updated
The head of US intelligence, Avril Haines, has alluded to past allegations by some that advisers to the Russian president Vladimir Putin could be shielding him from bad news – for Russia – about war developments, and said he “is becoming more informed of the challenges that the military faces in Russia”.
“But it’s still not clear to us that he has a full picture of at this stage of just how challenged they are,” Haines said late on Saturday at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California.
Looking ahead, Haines said, “honestly we’re seeing a kind of a reduced tempo already of the conflict” and her team expects that both sides will look to refit, resupply, and reconstitute for a possible Ukrainian counter-offensive in the spring, AP reports.
“But we actually have a fair amount of skepticism as to whether or not the Russians will be in fact prepared to do that,” she said. “And I think more optimistically for the Ukrainians in that timeframe.”
In recent weeks, Russia’s military focus has been on striking Ukrainian infrastructure and pressing an offensive in the east, near the town of Bakhmut, while shelling sites in the city of Kherson, which Ukrainian forces liberated last month after an eight-month Russian occupation.
Updated
‘Our mission is crucial’: meet the warrior librarians on Ukraine.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, a key part of its strategy was to destroy historic libraries in order to eradicate the Ukrainians’ sense of identity. But Putin hadn’t counted on the unbreakable spirit of the country’s librarians.
Read more here
The Moscow home of the son of Alexander Litvinenko, the defector killed with polonium-210 in London in 2006, has been visited by recruiting officers from the Russian army hoping to sign him up, Vanessa Thorpe and Jon Ungoed-Thomas report.
Anatoly Litvinenko, 28, has revealed that he was called up for military service in Ukraine a few weeks ago by soldiers who seemed unaware of his tragic history with Vladimir Putin’s regime.
“Around mid-October, almost a month after Putin called for the partial mobilisation in Russia, there was a knock at the door of the apartment of the Moscow flat registered as my official residence,” he writes on Sunday in the Observer, before the broadcast of a new television drama telling the story of his father’s poisoning at the hands of Russian assassins.
Read more here:
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Ukraine slaps sanctions on senior clerics in pro-Moscow church
Reuters reports Ukraine is imposing sanctions on 10 senior clerics linked to a pro-Moscow church on the grounds they agreed to work with Russian occupation authorities or justified Moscow’s invasion, the security service said.
The announcement made on Saturday is the latest in a series of steps against a Ukrainian branch of the Orthodox church linked historically to Moscow. The Orthodox church in Russia itself backs the war.
In a statement, the security services said the 10 clerics had variously agreed to cooperate with occupation authorities, promoted pro-Russian narratives and justified Russian military aggression in Ukraine.
Most of the clerics – all either members of the church or closely linked to it – live in territories controlled by Russia or are abroad, the service said.
“The Security Service of Ukraine continues to carry out comprehensive work on the protection of Ukrainian statehood and will continue to expose persons who threaten the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” it said.
The Ukrainian branch formally severed ties with the Russian Orthodox church last May, but is still mistrusted by many Ukrainians and accused of secret co-operation with Russia.
Updated
Zelenskiy says level of price cap on Russia oil won’t deter Russia
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has reacted to a deal struck by the G7 and Australia setting a $60 price cap on Russian seaborne oil, calling it not serious and doing little to deter Russia from waging war.
The price cap on Russian seaborne oil was adopted by the G7 and Australia, after it was agreed by EU countries. The measure aims to reduce Russia’s income from selling oil and limit a key source of funding for its war in Ukraine, while preventing a spike in global prices.
“You wouldn’t call it a serious decision to set such a limit for Russian prices, which is quite comfortable for the budget of a terrorist state,” Zelenskiy said in a video address on Saturday.
“It’s only a matter of time before stronger tools will have to be used anyway. It is a pity that this time will be lost.”
Russia has repeatedly said it will not supply oil to countries that implement the cap, and responded to the deal by reiterating it “will not accept” the cap and is analysing how to respond.
The G7 price cap will allow non-EU countries to continue importing seaborne Russian crude oil, but it will prohibit shipping, insurance and re-insurance companies from handling cargoes of Russian crude around the globe, unless it is sold for less than $60.
That could complicate the shipment of Russian crude priced above the cap, even to countries which are not part of the agreement.
US treasury secretary Janet Yellen said the cap will particularly benefit low- and medium-income countries that have borne the brunt of high energy and food prices.
Updated
US expects reduced tempo in fighting to continue for next few months
The top US intelligence chief says despite attacks on Ukraine’s power grid and other critical winter infrastructure, she sees no evidence of a reduced Ukrainian will to resist and expects the reduced tempo in fighting to continue in the next several months.
“We’re seeing a kind of a reduced tempo already of the conflict ... and we expect that’s likely to be what we see in the coming months,” Avril Haines told the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in California.
She said both the Ukrainian and Russian militaries would be looking to try to refit and resupply to prepare for a counter-offensive after the winter, but there was a question as to what that would look like, and added:
“We actually have a fair amount of skepticism as to whether or not the Russians will be in fact prepared to do that. I think more optimistically for the Ukrainians in that timeframe.”
Asked about the effects of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power grid and other civilian infrastructure, Haines said Moscow’s aim was partly to undermine the will of Ukrainians to resist, and added: “I think we’re not seeing any evidence of that being undermined right now at this point.”
Welcome and summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Christine Kearney and I’ll be with you for the next while.
US intelligence say they’re expecting the reduced tempo in fighting in Ukraine to continue in the next several months.
The US director of national intelligence said on Saturday she sees no evidence of a reduced Ukrainian will to resist, despite attacks on its power grid and other critical winter infrastructure.
In addition, she said both the Ukrainian and Russian militaries would be looking to try to refit and resupply to prepare for a counter-offensive after the winter, but there was a question as to what that would look like.
More on this shortly. In the meantime, here are the other key recent developments:
Russia “will not accept” a price cap on its oil and is analysing how to respond, the Kremlin said in comments reported on Saturday, in response to a deal by western powers aimed at limiting a key source of funding for its war in Ukraine. The price cap on Russian seaborne oil was adopted by the G7 and Australia, after it was agreed by EU countries.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the $60 price cap on seaborne Russian oil is not serious and will do little to deter Russia from waging war in Ukraine. “It’s only a matter of time before stronger tools will have to be used anyway. It is a pity that this time will be lost,” he said in a video statement on Saturday.
US treasury secretary Janet Yellen said the cap will particularly benefit low- and medium-income countries that have borne the brunt of high energy and food prices. “The price cap will immediately cut into (President Vladimir) Putin’s most important source of revenue,” Yellen said in a statement.
Russia’s embassy in the US criticised what it called the “dangerous” western move and said Moscow would continue to find buyers for its oil.
US defense secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday accused Russia of “deliberate cruelty” in its war in Ukraine, saying Moscow was intentionally targeting civilians. “With deliberate cruelty, Russia is putting civilians and civilian targets in its gunsights,” Austin told the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California.
Ukraine is slapping sanctions on 10 senior clerics linked to a pro-Moscow church on the grounds they agreed to work with Russian occupation authorities or justified Moscow’s invasion, the security service said on Saturday. The announcement is the latest in a series of steps against a Ukrainian branch of the Orthodox Church linked historically to Moscow. The Orthodox Church in Russia itself backs the war.
Eighteen Ukrainian diplomatic missions in 12 countries have received bloody packages, including animal parts, in what Ukraine has described as a “campaign of terror and intimidation”. Oleg Nikolenko, a spokesperson from Ukraine’s foreign ministry, said the packages were simultaneously sent from one European country, which he could not disclose while the investigation was ongoing.
The west should consider how to address Russia’s need for security guarantees if Vladimir Putin agrees to negotiations about ending the war in Ukraine, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said. He said Europe needed to address Putin’s fear that “Nato comes right up to its doors”, and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia, as Europe prepares its future security architecture, Reuters reports.
The Ukrainian army has recaptured 13 settlements in the Luhansk region, the eastern-most oblast in the country, according to the head of the regional administration, Serhiy Haidai. He said that artillery was still being fired at the villages by Russian forces. Doctors are due to visit next week and firewood is being organised for residents, Haidai posted on Telegram.
Russian forces are concentrating most of their strength on taking the town of Bakhmut in Donetsk, according to the British Ministry of Defence.
Ukraine has detained eight people over the theft of a mural painted by the elusive British street artist Banksy from a wall in the Kyiv suburbs, authorities said. The stencil image of a person in a nightgown and gas mask holding a fire extinguisher next to the charred remains of a window in the town of Hostomel went missing on Friday, they said.
