Summary
Ukrainian authorities have said the country cannot produce enough electricity to meet growing demand for heating and is turning to neighbouring EU countries for help, amid fears of Russian strikes on production facilities.
Russia is throwing “waves” of soldiers towards the embattled Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, suffering massive losses in their attempt to capture strategically important territory on the eastern frontlines, Ukrainian soldiers say.
A leading Russian politician and supporter of the president, Vladimir Putin, has denied a report that he adopted an infant who had been forcibly taken from an orphanage in Ukraine.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence reports that a group of former Wagner mercenary soldiers have been recognised officially as Russian military veterans, following speculation over how they would be treated following their mutiny against Russia and death of their leader.
Ukraine said that it wants its export routes via Poland unblocked before it holds talks with Warsaw and the European Commission aimed at ending protests by Polish truckers that are reducing Ukrainian exports.
A Russian actor has been killed in a Ukrainian attack while performing to Russian troops in a Russian-controlled area of eastern Ukraine, according to her theatre. Ukrainian commanders said their forces had struck what they said was a Russian military award ceremony.
Ukraine has not reached a stalemate in its war with Russia because the west can help Kyiv by “dropping five more queens on the board”, according to an influential historian of eastern Europe.
Finland said it would close all but one crossing point on its border with Russia in an effort to halt a flow of asylum seekers to the Nordic nation, as Estonia accused Moscow of mounting “a hybrid attack operation” on Europe’s eastern border.
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Ukrainian traders’ union UGA has said that parliament’s “ill-considered” plans to change grain trading rules could completely halt Ukraine‘s key grain exports.
On 21 November, a bill passed its first reading in parliament that would change rules on the taxation of grain export transactions and could also introduce minimum export prices for grain. The bill is designed to minimise tax evasion on certain agricultural products, such as grain and oilseeds.
“UGA is concerned about a possible complete halt in grain exports from Ukraine due to the adoption by the parliament of ill-considered legislative changes to grain and oilseed exports that introduce contradictions in legislation, including tax legislation,” the union said.
It noted that some of the new requirements are impossible to fulfil and others may result in significant losses for both, traders and farmers. Ukraine was the fourth-largest grain supplier globally before Russia’s February 2022 invasion and in value terms grain accounted for half of its total exports last year.
UGA said the bill proposed that minimum export prices should not be lower than the average grain prices quoted on international exchanges for the previous 10 days. “This requirement is unenforceable... at some point the minimum export price from Ukraine set by this mechanism will exceed the real prices on the world market,” traders said. UGA said that global prices determined purchase and export prices in Ukraine, and not vice versa.
The shock victory of Geert Wilders’ far-right Eurosceptic party in Dutch elections sent a political tremor through Brussels, seven months ahead of crucial EU elections.
Wilders has promised to hold a “Nexit” referendum, while he opposes further support for Ukraine and is friendly with Moscow, having visited in 2018. In one social media post which recirculated today, Wilders stands in front of the Russian coat of arms and flag in the State Duma. He wrote in the caption: “Stop the Russiaphobia. It’s time for Realpolitik. Partnership instead of enmity!”
“The European Union is in danger of death from within and without,” socialist MEP Raphael Glucksmann said in an interview with the France 2 network, warning that Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, would be celebrating Wilders’ triumph.
Wilders’ PVV may not be able to build a coalition to make him prime minister so he can join the other 26 EU members at their summits. But Europe’s support for Ukraine, grand plans to fight climate change and efforts to build a joint strategic position in the face of crises such as the Gaza war could be endangered.
European elections to be held in June will be a new test of Wilders’ popularity. With 17 million people, the Netherlands is the seventh most populous EU country and its MEPs – along with rightwingers from countries like Poland, Italy, France and Hungary – could form a powerful group.
“We can expect at least a consolidation of rightwing populists, even an increase in their number of seats in the European parliament, said Nathalie Brack of Brussels Free University.
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The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has thanked the US for its support, on Thanksgiving, and said that with “American support and global leadership, millions of Ukrainian lives have been saved.”
On behalf of all Ukrainians, Olena @ZelenskaUA and I wish all Americans a happy Thanksgiving.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 23, 2023
We thank you, the people of America.
We know how many of you sincerely sympathize with our struggle and wish Ukraine victory. We saw how many of you took to heart the illegal and…
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A Russian attack using cluster munitions killed three people today in a suburb of Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson, a Ukrainian official said, bringing the number of civilians to die in the day to at least six.
Five people were wounded in what Ukrainian interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said was an afternoon of heavy shelling of Kherson’s Chornobayivka suburb. More than 60 residential and infrastructure buildings were damaged in the daylight attack, he said.
Cluster munitions – a type of bomb that opens in the air and releases smaller “bomblets” across a wide area – are used by both Russia and Ukraine, which has received them as military aid from the US. Critics say the weapons litter the ground and harm and kill many more civilians than combatants.
Kherson city is the capital of a region of the same name that is located on the Dnipro River near the mouth of the Black Sea and a key gateway to Crimea. Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and uses it for logistics operations and rear supply depots during the current war.
Of military significance and lying on the war’s long frontline, the Kherson region has been a stage for heavy fighting. Ukrainian troops last week reported gaining multiple bridgeheads on the Russian-held eastern side of the river.
Before the afternoon attack, Russian forces fired other parts of the province with eight night-time artillery barrages, killing a 42-year-old man in his apartment building and wounding another man, the Ukrainian presidential office said. Russian shelling also killed two people in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, the office said.
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Russia sending 'waves' of soldiers to Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, say Ukrainian soldiers
Russia is throwing “waves” of soldiers towards the embattled Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, suffering massive losses in their attempt to capture strategically important territory on the eastern frontlines, Ukrainian soldiers say.
Sitting in an indent – surrounded on almost three sides by Russian forces – Avdiivka has become a symbol of a grinding war in which neither side has made a decisive breakthrough in more than a year. But despite having suffered steady losses in troops and equipment, Russia was showing no signs of abandoning its attempt to capture the former coal hub in Ukraine’s industrial east.
“The fields are just littered with corpses,” Oleksandr, a deputy of a Ukrainian battalion in the 47th mechanised brigade, told AFP. “They are trying to exhaust our lines with constant waves of attacks.”
The city has been destroyed by relentless Russian artillery and aerial bombardments in some of the most intense fighting of the 21-month war. But about 1,500 of the 30,000 prewar residents have remained – mainly pensioners living in their basements and relying on special food convoys to bring in supplies.
The city briefly fell to Russian-backed separatists in 2014, and Ukraine has spent the last nine years building defences and trenches to protect the city. Throwing huge numbers of soldiers towards the city marks a change in Russia’s tactics in the battle for Avdiivka. In October, Moscow launched a massive attack to try to encircle Avdiivka with hundreds of armoured vehicles.
“Columns of tanks and armoured personnel carriers were advancing,” said a 29-year-old drone operator who gave his call-sign as “Trauma”. “But they fell into minefields, were hit by drones and anti-tank missiles.”
A western official said the Russian army lost more than 200 armoured vehicles in that failed attack. Now Moscow has “switched to infantry tactics,” said Oleksandr – “advancing solely at the expense of human resources.”
Russian soldiers typically advance at night, in groups of five to seven fighters, Trauma told AFP. “Then early in the morning, they launch their attack.” Ukraine responds with a barrage of heavy weaponry – artillery, mortars, grenades, drones and cannon fired from US-supplied Bradley Fighting Vehicles. “Some die, others keep on coming. It’s like a zombie movie,” Trauma added.
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The European Council president, Charles Michel, interviewed by the Kyiv Independent during a visit to the Ukrainian capital, has said that his “goal is to do everything to make a positive decision possible” over integration into the EU.
Here are some of the most interesting quotes.
My goal is to do everything to make a positive decision possible, but you know we need to decide on unanimity in the European Council. It’s always challenging.
The most important thing for me is to make sure that the EU is acting in a geopolitical way. It means that we need to understand what’s at stake and what’s at stake on the European continent. This is peace, security, prosperity.
We have decided in a few months to mobilise more than €82bn in total for supporting Ukraine. And we are going to do more. It is a proposal to increase the support with an additional package of €50bn for Ukraine. But in terms of ammunition, you are absolutely right that we need to speed up. We need to accelerate.
[On the prospect of elections next year] First and foremost, this debate is for Ukrainians. It’s my first point. The second part, we must be realistic. It is so difficult to do an electoral campaign in those circumstances. But, it is the responsibility of the Ukrainian authorities to make the decision.
I don’t think this counteroffensive had failed. Two examples. Firstly, how the Ukrainian army made huge progress in the Black Sea is extremely important. This is a major step in the right direction. Secondly, the recent progress made on the left side of the Dnipro River is also very important.
[On whether the EU is preparing for the possibility of a Trump victory in the US president election] We are determined to strengthen our support for Ukraine together with the United States. Last time, when I met with Joe Biden, we agreed on this principle that it is important for Congress and people in the United States to feel the support coming from the EU. And it is also important in the EU that we feel this strong commitment expressed by Joe Biden and his team.
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The European border and coastguard agency, Frontex, has said it will send more officers and other staff to Finland next week as the Nordic nation seeks to limit the number of asylum seekers coming via Russia.
Helsinki has accused Moscow of funnelling migrants to the border from nations such as Yemen, Afghanistan, Kenya, Morocco, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria, a charge the Kremlin has denied.
Finland yesterday said it will close all but the northernmost crossing point on its 1,340km (830 miles) border with Russia, leaving open only a remote Arctic route.
Frontex said it would deploy 50 border guard officers and other staff to Finland along with equipment such as patrol cars, to bolster control activities. Finland earlier this week said it had asked for 60 Frontex officers on top of 10 already stationed in the country.
Frontex said it would send a first group of staff on 29 November, including border surveillance officers, support for registering migrants, document experts and interpreters. The fundamental rights “of all people” will be respected and upheld, Frontex said.
“The agency is acutely aware of the humanitarian aspect of this scenario, especially considering the harsh weather conditions and the unpreparedness of the people arriving at the Finnish border,” it added.
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Russia has succeeded in selling almost all of its oil well above a western-imposed price cap of $60 a barrel, a Russian government official has said.
The EU, G7 countries and Australia introduced the price cap on Russian oil last December, aiming to curb Russia‘s ability to finance the conflict in Ukraine.
“Even unfriendly countries note that the so-called price cap has not worked. More than 99% of oil traded well above the $60 a barrel ceiling,” Vladimir Furgalsky, a Russian energy ministry official, told a round table discussion at the upper house of parliament.
Russia was forced to cut exports of oil and oil products immediately after the price cap was introduced as it struggled to find enough ships to transport all of its output. But it then managed to place most of its exports with domestic or non-western foreign shippers, which do not require western insurance coverage.
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Europe’s largest fund manager Amundi expects the Russian economy to grow three times faster than the eurozone’s in 2024, its chief investment officer said today, stressing the ineffectiveness of sanctions levied over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Amundi expects Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) to grow by 1.5% in 2024 and by 2% in 2025, compared with 0.5% and 1.2% for the euro zone. “It means that the United States, Europe, Japan, Australia – the major developed countries – are unable to sanction a country effectively,” Amundi’s CIO Vincent Mortier said at a news conference in Paris on the fund manager’s 2024 outlook. “That’s what it means. We can deplore it, but it’s a reality.”
The impact of the sanctions was visible in terms of asset-freezing for a certain number of people, Mortier said, but not so much on Russia’s imports and exports.
Major emerging economies under the Brics umbrella (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), as well as countries such as Turkey and Kazakhstan, benefited from the sanctions as Russia managed to move its exports away from western countries, Mortier said.
“It’s a reality check. In the end, if we take stock of the war in Ukraine: Europe has suffered directly and strongly; for the United States [the impact is] neutral; but Turkey, central Asia and Asia more generally have benefited,” he said.
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Russian politician denies report that he adopted Ukrainian orphan
A leading Russian politician and supporter of the president, Vladimir Putin, has denied a report that he adopted an infant who had been forcibly taken from an orphanage in Ukraine.
Citing Russian and Ukrainian documents, the BBC reported today that Russian lawmaker Sergei Mironov had adopted a child, now two years old, who was taken from an orphanage in the Ukrainian city of Kherson last year.
Mironov called the investigation a “hysteric fake unleashed by Ukrainian special services and their western curators.” Without commenting on the specific details of the BBC report, he said it was an “information attack” designed to “discredit” him.
Mironov, 70, leads a pro-Kremlin opposition party in Russia’s parliament. He previously spent a decade as head of the federation council, Russia’s upper house of parliament – a key post marshalling the Kremlin’s legislative agenda.
He is a staunch supporter of the military campaign against Ukraine, and has been awarded honours by Putin for his service to Russia. In his response today, Mironov said Russia would achieve “complete victory” against Ukraine on the battlefield.
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The EU executive has approved €900m in advance payments to Hungary under its hitherto frozen share of recovery funds, as the bloc seeks to overcome Budapest’s veto of aid to Ukraine.
The EU’s Brussels-based executive, the European Commission, froze Hungary out of the bloc’s post-pandemic economic stimulus due to concerns over corruption and backpedalling on democratic checks and balances under the veteran prime minister, Viktor Orban.
In turn, Hungary has blocked EU decisions otherwise expected next month to grant Ukraine €50bn in economic aid through 2027 and start accession talks with Kyiv. Budapest also stalled a plan to extend €20bn in EU military aid to Kyiv, and is against sanctions over Russia for waging the war.
Orban, who touts his ties with Moscow, says Hungary is no more corrupt than other EU countries. Budapest has rolled out a billboard campaign vilifying the European Commission, and Orban’s Fidesz party is pushing a bill on “protecting national sovereignty” from foreign meddling - both moves raising the stakes in Hungary’s clashes with the EU.
The advance payments, which do not require meeting rule-of-law conditions otherwise attached to EU financial aid, come under RePowerEU, part of the post-pandemic EU stimulus meant to support energy transition away from fossil fuels.
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Russian shelling killed three civilians in southeastern regions of Ukraine, Kyiv authorities said today.
Southern Ukraine‘s Kherson region received eight nighttime artillery barrages, killing a 42-year-old man in his apartment building and wounding another man, the Ukrainian presidential office said.
Russian shelling also killed two people in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, the office said. It was not possible to independently verify the reports, AP said.
Russia has sentenced a Ukrainian man to 18 years in prison for trying to blow up buildings in the Moscow-controlled Ukrainian city of Melitopol in a plot allegedly orchestrated by Kyiv, state media said.
A military court in Russia’s southern city of Rostov-on-Don found Dmitri Golubev guilty on various “international terrorism” charges for one explosion and two attempted blasts in Melitopol in August last year, Russian state media reported.
Russian forces captured the southern Ukrainian city in the first week of their full-scale military campaign last year. Prosecutors said Golubev planted an explosive device at the entrance to the regional traffic police headquarters, with the subsequent detonation damaging the building, AFP reports.
Russia’s FSB security service said it had foiled two other planned bomb attacks – one on a government building in Melitopol and a roadside bomb planted along a route used by Moscow-installed officials. There were no reports of casualties in any of the incidents.
Russia said Golubev had been recruited by Ukraine’s secret services, which trained him on how to build and detonate explosive devices and supplied the materials.
According to Russia’s Kommersant newspaper, during the trial Golubev admitted to planting the explosives, but rejected the charges of “international terrorism.” The paper quoted him as telling the court: “I am Ukrainian, I was defending Ukraine.”
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Ukraine’s national seed bank, one of the world’s largest, has been successfully moved from the frontline eastern city of Kharkiv to a safer location, Crop Trust, a non-profit organisation said today.
Last spring, a research facility near the seed bank was damaged. That raised concerns about the preservation of the collection, the 10th largest seed collection in the world. “As part of a year-long effort, the Ukrainian genebank system … has successfully and safely transported over 50,000 seeds from Kharkiv to a more secure location,” Crop Trust, the body set up by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, said.
It gave no new location of the collection, reports Reuters. The genebank includes many endemic seed species, some of which, including wheat and rapeseed, are important for food security. Kharkiv is located just a few dozen kilometres from the border with Russia and the city is constantly bombarded by Russian missiles and attack drones.
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Austria’s foreign minister has urged EU leaders not to favour Ukraine over the western Balkan nations in terms of accession to the bloc.
Ahead of a summit next month to decide whether to formally approve membership talks with Ukraine and Moldova, and to review the potential expansion of the bloc to up to 35 members, Alexander Schallenberg told the Financial Times that Bosnia and Herzegovina should not be overlooked.
“Our geostrategic seismograph is kicking out in both directions,” he said, adding it would be “geostrategic disaster” if the commission looked at the western Balkans “with a magnifying glass and with rose-tinted glasses to Ukraine … You cannot have certain groups on the fast lane, others on service lane”.
The European Commission this month recommended talks with Ukraine and Moldova should start but that negotiations with Bosnia should wait until “the necessary degree of compliance with the membership criteria is achieved”.
Schallenberg said discussions with Bosnia were “going in the right direction already”.
But … let’s not create a problem in the region that has been waiting for 20 years and give them another hoop [to jump through]. As [Albanian prime minister] Edi Rama said, if I quote him correctly, ‘Do we have to start a war in the Balkans to get your attention?’
There will be a very heated debate and we want the signals to be equal in both directions for geostrategic reasons … We have to send a signal to third parties: these countries are ours, they’re part of our family.
Nothing is moving for the people [of Serbia]. For the first time we have surveys in Serbia where relative majority is not in favour of the European Union any more. That should ring all our alarm bells. We’re losing them.
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Ukraine wants export routes via Poland unblocked before talks with Warsaw and European Commission
Ukraine has said that it wants its export routes via Poland unblocked before it holds talks with Warsaw and the European Commission aimed at ending protests by Polish truckers that are reducing Ukrainian exports.
Two Ukrainian drivers have died and thousands of trucks have been stuck for days in the winter cold as the truckers block the roads to three crossings on the Polish-Ukrainian border, a key route for Ukraine’s trade during Russia’s invasion.
Taras Kachka, Ukraine’s trade representative and a deputy economy minister, said drivers were being forced to live for days in freezing temperatures and unhygienic conditions.
“Our task is to unblock the road first and then talk about all the demands that the protesters have,” Kachka said in an interview on national television. “This should be done at the negotiating table … in Brussels, or in Warsaw, or in Kyiv, but not on the road in winter, causing damage not only to the economy but also to the health and lives of drivers who are stuck there.”
Ukrainian media outlets reported that a truck driver died overnight near the Polish village of Korczowa where he had been stuck waiting to cross the border. Another driver died on 11 November near the crossing in the Polish city of Chelm.
Polish truckers started their blockade on 6 November to protest against what they said was business lost to Ukrainian drivers who have been made exempt from seeking permits to cross the Polish border during the Russian invasion.
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Ukraine cannot produce electricity to meet growing demand, says grid operator
Ukrainian authorities said today the country cannot produce enough electricity to meet growing demand for heating and is turning to neighbouring EU countries for help, amid fears of Russian strikes on production facilities.
Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure last winter left millions in the cold and dark. “Electricity consumption is continuing to grow, and there is a deficit in the energy system,” grid operator Ukrenergo said.
Ukrenego said that yesterday it had appealed to operators in Romania, Slovakia and Poland to provide “emergency assistance” to bolster supplies, AFP reports. “The situation remains difficult: repairs are under way at several blocks of thermal power plants, and there is a shortage of electricity in the power system,” Ukrenergo said.
Kyiv has been asking western countries to bolster its air defence systems in case Russia restarts systematic strikes on energy facilities, as it did last winter.
It said energy consumption has increased recently due to falling temperatures, putting an additional burden on production facilities that are in need of maintenance and repair.
Ukrenergo said 409 settlements in the country were without electricity because of Russia’s invasion and “other reasons.” It said the disruptions were in the regions of Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, and Kherson.
The New York Times reported yesterday that Ukrainian authorities have declined to provide detailed data on the state of the power grid, due to the war. But a United Nations report this summer approximated that Ukraine’s generation capacity had fallen to half of its prewar level by late April.
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The first snow of the year fell in Kyiv yesterday, blanketing Ukraine’s capital in a layer of white and raising concerns about a potential Russian attack on the country’s energy infrastructure.
Last October, Russia began relentless waves of attacks on critical infrastructure that lasted for months and left millions of people without heating, electricity or water for parts of the winter.
This year, there have been only sporadic such attacks so far, but many fear that Moscow is merely waiting for the onset of sub-zero temperatures, in order to cause maximum disruption and distress.
“It has been a warm autumn and Russia postponed these attacks, but they will come for sure. We are preparing,” said Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, in an interview in Kyiv.
Danilov said he had recently returned from an unpublicised visit to London, where he met various security and military officials including Sir Tim Barrow, the UK’s national security adviser, and Adm Sir Tony Radakin, the chief of the defence staff. Although he did not go into detail about the discussions he had in London, Danilov said strategies for protecting Ukraine from winter infrastructure attacks had been one of the key topics.
“Our friends, including the ones from Great Britain, help us to solve these extremely difficult issues,” he said.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence reports that a group of former Wagner mercenary soldiers have been recognised officially as Russian military veterans.
It comes after the group merged into Russia’s national guard, and it follows speculation over how Wagner fighters would be treated after the mutiny and the death of their leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, alongside other top brass, in an attack suspected to have been orchestrated by Moscow.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 23 November 2023.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) November 23, 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/7tiQlpoOMV
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/NOyuF1SdrK
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A Russian actor has been killed in a Ukrainian attack while performing to Russian troops in a Russian-controlled area of eastern Ukraine, according to her theatre.
The Russian theatre where actor Polina Menshikh, 40, worked said she had been killed while performing on stage in the Donbas region. Reuters could not verify details of the incident but military officials on both sides confirmed there had been a Ukrainian attack in the area on 19 November.
A Russian military investigator quoted by Russian state television said a school and cultural centre had been hit by Himars missiles in a village in the Donetsk region referred to as Kumachovo and known by Ukrainians as Kumachove, 60 km (37 miles) from the front line.
The unidentified investigator said one civilian, of whom he gave no further details, had been killed but made no mention of military casualties. The Russian defence ministry declined comment and has mentioned no casualties from the attack.
Ukrainian commanders said their forces had struck what they said was a Russian military award ceremony, targeting Russia’s 810th separate naval infantry brigade.
Robert Brovdi, a Ukrainian military commander, said in a post on social media that 25 people had been killed in the strike and more than 100 wounded.
Unverified video footage on pro-Russian Telegram channels showed soldiers watching Menshikh singing on stage with a guitar on the day the Russian military celebrates their missile and artillery forces.
Mid-song, the building is suddenly rocked by a blast and windows can be heard shattering before the lights go out and someone is caught on camera using an expletive.
Brovdi said the attack was “revenge for the 128th”, a reference to a Russian strike this month on soldiers from Ukraine‘s 128th separate mountain assault brigade, which said 19 of its soldiers had been killed.
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Finland has said it will close all but one crossing point on its border with Russia in an effort to halt a flow of asylum seekers to the Nordic nation, as Estonia accused Moscow of mounting “a hybrid attack operation” on Europe’s eastern border.
The announcement yesterday came after weeks of tension on the 830-mile (1,330km) border across which Helsinki accuses Moscow of guiding refugees and migrants in an apparent act of revenge for the Nordic nation’s cooperation with the US.
From midnight tomorrow, said the Finnish prime minister, Petteri Orpo, the only open border crossing of Finland’s eight stations would be its northernmost at Raja-Jooseppi.
Estonia levelled similar accusations at Russia yesterday, saying Moscow was involved in “a hybrid attack operation” to bring people to its border in an attempt to undermine security and unsettle the Baltic state’s population.
Since last Thursday, 75 people, largely from Somalia and Syria, had attempted to enter Estonia from Russia through the Narva crossing point, the Estonian public broadcaster ERR reported. None had asked for asylum and all had been turned back, the interior ministry said.
Estonia has made preparations to follow in the footsteps of Finland and close border crossings if “the migration pressure from Russia escalates”, the interior minister, Lauri Läänemets, told Reuters through a spokesperson.
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Ukrainian child seized from children's home adopted by Putin ally - BBC
Documents discovered by BBC’s Panorama show that the leader of a Russian political party, Sergey Mironov, 70, is named on the adoption record of a two-year-old girl taken in 2022 by his now wife.
Originally named Margarita, the children was one of dozens to go missing from Kherson regional children’s home when Russia took control of the city. The girl’s identity was changed in Russia, records cited by the BBC report.
The Ukrainian government says that some 20,000 children have been taken by Russian forces since the invasion. Russia claims it does not deport Ukrainian children but instead evacuates them to protect them from hostilities.
In March, the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for overseeing the abduction of Ukrainian children. The Yale Humanitarian Research Lab has alleged in a report that at least 6,000 children from Ukraine had been sent to Russian “re-education” camps in the past year.
The BBC reports:
The mystery surrounding Margarita began when a woman in a lilac dress turned up at Kherson’s children’s hospital, where the 10-month-old was being treated for a bout of bronchitis in August 2022. Margarita was the youngest resident of the local children’s home, which looked after children who had medical problems, or whose parents had lost custody of them or had died. Margarita’s mother had given up custody shortly after her birth, and her father’s whereabouts were unknown.
The woman in lilac introduced herself as ‘the head of children’s affairs from Moscow’. Soon after the woman left, the head of the home says she received repeated phone calls from a Russian-appointed official, who had recently been put in charge of the children’s home. The official demanded that Margarita be sent back to the home immediately. Within a week, Margarita was discharged from the hospital. The following morning, staff at the children’s home were asked to prepare her for a journey. Russian men - some in military-style camouflage trousers, one in black glasses and holding a briefcase - arrived to collect the girl.
North Korea has warned it will deploy new weapons and stronger armed forces along its heavily armed border with South Korea, as officials in Seoul claimed that Russia had helped Pyongyang carry out a satellite launch.
After closer collaboration between Pyongyang and Moscow, North Korea has provided Russia with large quantities of ammunition for its war in Ukraine, although both leaders have denied striking an arms deal.
In a sign of rising tensions on the peninsula, North Korea has said it would restore “all military measures” it had halted under a 2018 confidence-building agreement with South Korea.
South Korea had already said it would suspend some of the measures, which are designed to reduce the possibility of an accidental conflict along the demilitarised zone (DMZ), after North Korea launched a satellite – apparently successfully – for the first time late on Tuesday. Seoul added that it would step up surveillance along the DMZ.
A statement from North Korea’s defence ministry, according to the state-run KCNA news agency, said: “From now on, our army will never be bound by the 19 September North-South military agreement. We will withdraw the military steps, taken to prevent military tension and conflict in all spheres including ground, sea and air, and deploy more powerful armed forces and new-type military hardware in the region along the military demarcation line” – a reference to the border that has separated the countries since the end of the 1950-53 Korean war.
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Ukraine has not reached a stalemate in its war with Russia because the west can help Kyiv by “dropping five more queens on the board”, according to an influential historian of eastern Europe.
Timothy Snyder, a Yale professor, argued that continuing high levels of military aid could allow Ukraine to prevail, in response to a recent interview given by Kyiv’s top military commander, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, suggesting that the war was deadlocked.
“I hate the stalemate analogy because war is not a game of chess,” Snyder said in an interview. “In chess, there are only so many pieces on the board, and the reason why you get into stalemate is that your pieces get into a certain arrangement.”
However, war did not mirror the board game, the historian argued, because the amount of resources or weaponry available to each side is not limited. “The reason why I hate the stalemate analogy is that it suggests we can’t just drop five more queens on the Ukrainians board, and we can do it any time.”
At the beginning of November, Zaluzhnyi acknowledged in an interview with the Economist that Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive was stalling. “Just like in the first world war we have reached the level of technology that puts us into a stalemate,” he said, prompting a debate about whether the statement was correct.
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Reuters reports that Ukraine‘s efforts to revive sea exports in defiance of Russia’s military blockade have given a glimmer of hope to a teetering farm sector in which loss-making producers are abandoning some land in one of the world’s biggest grain belts.
Access to the Black Sea is critical if Ukraine is to preserve an agricultural industry that was the fourth-largest grain supplier globally before the conflict and in value terms accounted for half of Ukraine‘s total exports last year.
While makeshift export routes and abundant supply elsewhere have tamed record global food prices since last year, the strain on Ukrainian agriculture has worsened as a UN-backed export deal collapsed and EU neighbours baulked at land shipments.
Agriculture has suffered losses of over $25bn (£20bn) since the war began, Ukrainian grain trader association UGA estimates. Ukraine‘s grain exports so far in the 2023-24 season that started in July are running 28% below the year-earlier volume, according to agriculture ministry data.
The area planted with corn, its flagship grain export, has shrunk by a quarter since the start of the war and total crop planting could suffer a double-digit decline in 2024, producers say, as cash-strapped farms leave some land idle.
A new Black Sea shipping channel may offer a lifeline, like for Ukraine‘s depleted steel industry. “The sea corridor is essential for Ukrainian farming to survive,” Jean-Francois Lepy, head of grain trading at French agribusiness group InVivo, said. “Without a corridor there is going to be a serious problem in 2024-2025,” he said on the sidelines of this month’s Global Grain conference in Geneva.
The “humanitarian corridor” established by Ukraine‘s military in late August has expanded steadily, with Kyiv estimating over 3m tonnes of grain shipped so far. Its future remains clouded by military risks, with several vessels struck by mines or missiles, but Ukrainian producers are encouraged.
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The bulk of Ukrainian crops have entered the winter season in predominantly good condition, analyst APK-Inform quoted the country’s state weather forecasters as saying today.
Ukraine is a grower of winter wheat, winter barley and winter rapeseed. “During the second 10-day period of November, agrometeorological conditions for the end of the growing season of winter crops were quite satisfactory,” APK-Inform quoted forecasters as saying in a report. “The condition of the plants before entering winter is mostly good.”
The state-run weather forecasting centre monitors weather conditions and their effects on crops, reports Reuters. The agriculture ministry this week said that farmers had completed winter crop sowing, seeding about 5.8m hectares (14.3m acres) as of 20 November.
The area included 4.02m hectares of winter wheat, or 92.3% of the expected area, the ministry statement said. Ukraine‘s winter wheat typically accounts for at least 95% of its overall wheat output.
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A journalist working for Russian state television has died from injuries sustained in a drone attack in Ukraine, the network said today.
Moscow has repeatedly accused Kyiv of attacking reporters, reports AFP. Last month, it said three correspondents from the Izvestia news outlet were injured by shelling in the Donetsk region.
“Boris Maksudov, a military correspondent for the Rossiya 24 TV channel, has died,” Vladimir Solovyev, a prominent presenter on the state-controlled network announced on social media.
News that Maksudov had been wounded in Ukraine‘s Zaporizhzhia region was first reported yesterday by the Russian defence ministry, which said his injuries were not life-threatening.
“Boris Maksudov died a hero’s death, like a brave fighter”, said the CEO of the Russian media group Rossia Segodnia, Dmitry Kiselyov, according to state-run news agency RIA Novosti.
At least 15 media workers apart from Maksudov have been killed in Ukraine since Moscow launched its assault last February, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. In May, AFP video journalist Arman Soldin was killed near the eastern Ukraine town of Bakhmut, which Russian forces captured this summer after months of intense fighting.
Ukraine is also to receive additional assistance from Ramstein partners including a German air defence package announced this week during a visit to Kyiv by the German defence minister, Boris Pistorius. Defence minister, Rustem Umerov, also announced a Dutch package and Estonian financing for help with information technology.
Ukraine’s military commander-in-chief, Gen Valery Zaluzhniy, said on Telegram that he had taken part in the meeting for the first time and described the situation along the 1,000km (600-mile) front as “complicated but controllable”.
Zelenskiy has long pointed to improved air defence as a key element to help keep Ukrainian cities safe from Russian air strikes – including on energy infrastructure – as wintry weather takes hold.
At different points in the war, about to extend into its 21st month, Russia has launched attacks on Ukrainian power stations and other infrastructure. Missile and drone strikes have also hit apartment blocks and other civilian sites, though Russia denies targeting civilians.
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Volodymyr Zelenskiy has welcomed the formation by western allies on Thursday of a 20-nation coalition to boost Ukrainian air defences, “enabling our cities and villages to be better protected”.
Zelenskiy said the group was formed at a virtual meeting of the Ramstein group examining Ukraine’s military needs. Germany said it and France would be taking on leading roles. “Not everything can be disclosed publicly at this time, but the Ukrainian air shield is becoming stronger every month,” Zelenskiy said.
Lithuania said it delivered a new package of military aid to Ukraine comprising three million bullets, remote detonation systems and winter equipment.
The Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta shipped a record high 29.4m tonnes of Ukrainian grain between January and October, Reuters reported, citing the port authority.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said he urged Vladimir Putin to end Moscow’s war on Ukraine and withdraw all troops, in the first G20 video call the Russian president participated in since the conflict. Speaking at the virtual G20 meeting, Putin said Russia had always been “ready for talks” to end the “tragedy” of war, but then blamed Kyiv for the lack of such talks.
Zelenskiy has said Ukraine’s troops face “difficult” defensive operations on parts of the eastern front as winter cold settles in. Forces in the south were still conducting offensive actions, he said.
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, is threatening to block Ukraine’s candidacy for membership of the EU. European leaders will meet on 14 and 15 December to discuss Ukraine’s EU bid.
The European Council president, Charles Michel, said he expected a “difficult” meeting next month about Ukraine joining the EU. He promised to do “everything in my power” to bring about a decision in December.
The EU has approved a further €1.5bn (£1.3bn) payment in macro financial assistance to Ukraine. It is the 10th payment made as part of an €18bn programme to keep the Ukrainian economy moving.
The Kremlin said there were “no revisions” to its policy of pardoning prisoners in exchange for fighting in Ukraine. It followed local media reports of a Russian “satanist” killer who was released.
