Closing summary
The White House will step up its engagement with US lawmakers trying to strike a bipartisan deal that would provide military aid for Ukraine and Israel while tightening US border security, a Democratic senator said. “The White House is going to get more engaged this week,” senator Chris Murphy, the lead Democratic negotiator, said on NBC News’ Meet the Press.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he held important meetings with the presidents of Paraguay, Uruguay and Ecuador, while he was in Argentina to witness the swearing-in of Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei. Zelenskiy also said he had spoken on the phone with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, updating him on frontline developments and thanking him for France’s military aid.
Overnight, four Ukrainian civilians were killed and seven others injured as a result of strikes on residential areas in the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Kherson regions, Gyunduz Mamedov, a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine, wrote on X.
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White House to intensify push for Ukraine aid and border security deal, says US senator
The White House will step up its engagement with US lawmakers trying to strike a bipartisan deal that would provide military aid for Ukraine and Israel while tightening US border security, a Democratic senator has said.
Republicans have insisted that additional funding for Ukraine must be paired with major US border security changes.
A bipartisan group of senators trying to broker a compromise have made little progress with less than a week before the US Congress leaves for a Christmas break, according to Reuters.
“The White House is going to get more engaged this week,” senator Chris Murphy, the lead Democratic negotiator, said on NBC News’ Meet the Press.
He said it was important to know if Joe Biden would sign any prospective deal.
He said Republicans’ current border security demands were unreasonable and that the party was “playing games with the security of the world” by linking the military aid to US border security measures.
The White House asked Congress to act on a $100bn supplemental funding request in October, arguing that it “advances our national security and supports our allies and partners”.
The request identified border security, allies in the Indo-Pacific, Israel and Ukraine. About $61bn covered money for Ukraine, which included $30bn to restock defence department equipment sent to support the country after Russia invaded in February 2022.
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Here are some of the latest images from the news wires:
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Zelenskiy holds talks with South American leaders as he visits Argentina
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he had met his Uruguayan counterpart, Luis Lacalle Pou, to thank the country for supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
“I thanked Uruguay for sending its representative to the most recent Peace Formula meeting and expressed hope that Uruguay would attend the next round of talks in Switzerland,” Zelenskiy wrote on X.
“We paid special attention to the prospect of holding the Ukraine-Latin America summit. I also invited President Luis Lacalle Pou to visit Ukraine.”
Zelenskiy is in Argentina to witness the swearing-in of Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei.
While in the country, he has also held important meetings with the presidents of Paraguay and Ecuador, in which trade and bilateral cooperation were discussed, he wrote on Telegram.
I met with President @LuisLacallePou to thank Uruguay and its people for supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) December 10, 2023
Ukraine is fighting a tough battle against Russian invaders while also working to implement the Peace Formula, one of the key political… pic.twitter.com/XCodE8QXcp
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Ukraine has transported the first batch of lorries to Poland by rail, bypassing the blockage of the land border between the two countries by Polish drivers, Ukrainian state railways Ukrzaliznytsia said on Sunday.
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.
“The truck consignment arrived in Poland by rail. The Ukrainian and Polish parties have agreed on all issues related to the transport and customs and border procedures,” Ukrzaliznytsia said on the Telegram messaging app.
“The trucks will continue to their destination by road,” it said, adding that the rail shipments would be made regularly using modernised platforms.
Earlier, the Polish government had denied reports that the delivery of military equipment to Ukraine was being hindered by the protesting truckers.
Allies of Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, will hold a closed-door meeting with Republicans in Washington to push for an end to US military support for Ukraine, the Guardian has learned.
Márton Ugrósdy, the deputy state secretary for the prime minister’s political director’s office, and Attila Demkó, a leading pro-Orbán academic, along with members of the Hungarian embassy in Washington, will on Monday begin a two-day event hosted by the conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank.
Read our full report here:
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Zelenskiy holds call with Emmanuel Macron while he visits Argentina
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he had spoken on the phone with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, while he was in Argentina.
Zelenskiy said he updated Macron on frontline developments in the war and thanked him for France’s military aid.
“I also stressed the importance of the #EUCO summit opening Ukraine’s EU accession talks. Ukraine has fulfilled all the required European Commission’s recommendations,” he wrote on X.
“The European Council’s decisions will have a significant impact on the motivation of Ukrainian society and the army.”
Zelenskiy travelled to Buenos Aires to witness the swearing-in of Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei, later on Sunday.
While in Argentina, I had a call with @EmmanuelMacron.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) December 10, 2023
I informed Emmanuel on frontline developments and thanked him for all the military aid provided by France. We discussed our priority needs and the next French defense package, which will significantly strengthen Ukraine’s…
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According to Reuters, when asked what the chances were of diplomacy to bring about a ceasefire or peace in Ukraine, Sergei Lavrov said:
You’ll have to call Mr [President Volodymyr] Zelenskiy because a year and half ago he signed a decree prohibiting any negotiations with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.
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The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said it was up to the Ukrainians to realise how deep in a hole the US had put them.
Speaking to a conference in Doha, he said “the war in Ukraine was not a war of choice, it was a war that we could not avoid due to the years of America trying to undermine Russian culture and language in eastern Ukraine. All this has been cancelled. It was not a war of choice when your people are being physically exterminated and this is being legislated for.”
He said the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, had a chance in March and April 2022 to reach a deal on the basis of Ukrainian neutrality, but the US and the UK rejected it.
He also claimed the votes against Russia at the general assembly followed threats by the US. He said: “Ambassadors were approached – your bank is in Merrill Lynch and your kids are at Stanford.”
He said Russia had twice defeated foreign powers including Napoleon and Germany.
He claimed Russia had already become much stronger and would be stronger when the war ends.
Asked if Russia wanted Donald Trump to win the US presidential elections he said: “We respect the American people and would not make any remarks as if we do not.” No evidence had ever been produced of Russian interference, he said.
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The leader of the democratic opposition in Belarus, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, has said she is on her way to Brussels to address foreign ministers and take part in the EU-Belarus consultative group meeting.
“We will discuss legalisation issues, Lukashenko’s sham 2024 elections, stronger sanctions to help free political prisoners and strategies to counter Russia,” she wrote on X.
Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus since 1994 who has been shunned by the west, backed Russia’s invasion in Ukraine in February 2022 by allowing Moscow to use its territory to launch the war.
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Vladimir Putin said on Friday that he would run for president in the March 2024 election, moving the longtime Russian leader a step closer to a fifth term in office.
Putin has dominated Russia’s political system and the media for the past two decades, jailing prominent opposition politicians, such as Alexei Navalny, who is serving more than 30 years in prison.
Reuters reports:
With the Kremlin in full control of state media and able to decide who can and cannot run, the Navalny camp says this is not a real election.
But it sees the 100-day campaign window as a rare opportunity to draw Russians into a political conversation and convince them that the Ukraine war and the economic strains it has brought are problems of Putin’s making.
“Of course it’s impossible to beat Putin in the ‘elections’,” top Navalny aide Leonid Volkov told Reuters. “The aim of our campaign is to change the political agenda in Russia.”…
So far only three people have declared their intention to run against him. Two are low-profile figures, Boris Nadezhdin and Yekaterina Duntsova, who may struggle to gather the 300,000 signatures required to support their candidacies.
The third, nationalist Igor Girkin, is in jail awaiting trial on a charge of inciting extremist activity …
With the lineup still unclear, the Navalny camp has launched its campaign by simply urging Russians to vote against the incumbent.
“We don’t have our own candidate. We had a candidate, Navalny, and they refused to register him, tried to kill him and put him in prison. Now we have, so to speak, a collective candidate ‘against Putin’,” said Lyubov Sobol, a close Navalny associate.
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Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, reportedly made a stopover visit to Cape Verde on his way to Buenos Aires, where he is due to witness the swearing-in of Argentina’s new president, Javier Milei, on Sunday.
According to Zelenskiy’s official website, he met with Cape Verde’s prime minister, Ulisses Correia e Silva, thanking him for his support for Kyiv’s diplomatic initiatives and discussing efforts to boost Ukrainian grain exports to Africa.
Zelenskiy also expressed his appreciation for Cape Verde’s backing of UN resolutions supporting Ukraine’s territorial integrity and calling for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory before peace talks can begin, the Associated Press reports.
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The official account of the general staff of the armed forces of Ukraine has said that from 4 December to 10 December, demining units of the state special service of transport discovered, removed and neutralised 882 “explosive objects”.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion last February, the units have detected, removed and neutralised 89,531 explosive objects, it wrote on Telegram.
Some of the mines that have littered the country have been laid by Ukrainian forces to protect their own defensive lines, but the majority have been Russian.
Від початку тижня з 04 по 10 грудня підрозділи з розмінування Державної спеціальної служби транспорту виявили, вилучили та знешкодили 882 вибухонебезпечних предметів.
— Генеральний штаб ЗСУ (@GeneralStaffUA) December 10, 2023
Розміновано (перевірено) територію площею 1759,42 га https://t.co/qmK8g3YukV pic.twitter.com/avzYZbxHDw
The major wave of strikes launched by the Russian air force towards Kyiv and central Ukraine on the night of 7 December was likely the start of a more coordinated campaign to try to degrade Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD).
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.
In its latest intelligence update, the MoD wrote on X:
On the night of 7 December 2023, the Russian air force conducted a major wave of strikes towards Kyiv and central Ukraine using its heavy bomber fleet, for the first time since 21 September 2023.
These aircraft, highly likely Tu-95 BEAR H, likely launched at least 16 air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs) from their typical operating area over the Caspian Sea.
The missiles were highly likely AS-23a KODIAK, Russia’s premier ALCM. Russia has almost certainly been stockpiling these missiles for use in the winter campaign.
This was probably the start of a more concerted campaign by Russia aimed at degrading Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. However, initial reports indicate the majority of these missiles were successfully intercepted by Ukrainian air defence.
Four Ukrainian civilians killed in strikes on residential areas overnight, says former deputy prosecutor general
Overnight, four Ukrainian civilians were killed and seven others injured as a result of strikes on residential areas in the Kharkiv, Donetsk and Kherson regions, Gyunduz Mamedov, a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine, wrote on X.
A dormitory, 12 houses, an educational institution, and infrastructure facilities were damaged, he added. These claims are yet to be independently verified.
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The human rights commissioner of Ukraine’s parliament, Dmytro Lubinets, has said Russia’s war on Ukraine “is a war against human rights all over the world”.
He wrote on Telegram:
Violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as international humanitarian law committed by Russia in Ukraine, threaten the proper functioning of the international human rights system.
The war launched by Russia against our country is a war against human rights all over the world.
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Russia used “heavy artillery” to target Nikopol at night, Serhiy Lysak, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, wrote on Telegram. No causalities were reported.
Russia has fired 19 shells at the city of Kherson over the past day, the governor of the Kherson region, Oleksandr Prokudin, has said.
The Russian military has targeted the residential quarters of the settlements of the region, he wrote on Telegram, with one person being killed and four others injured.
These claims have not yet been independently verified.
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Opening summary
Welcome to our live coverage of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Here is a summary of the latest developments:
Ukraine condemned Russian plans to hold presidential elections next spring on occupied territory, declaring them “null and void” and pledging to prosecute any observers sent to monitor them. Russia’s upper house set the country’s presidential election this week for next March, and chair Valentina Matviyenko said residents in four occupied Ukrainian regions would be able to vote for the first time. Ukraine’s foreign ministry said: “We call on the international community to resolutely condemn Russia’s intention to hold presidential elections in the occupied Ukrainian territories, and to impose sanctions on those involved in their organisation and conduct.”
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy was travelling to the inauguration of Argentina’s president-elect, Javier Milei, Kyiv said on Saturday. Zelenskiy congratulated Milei, a far-right populist who has challenged Argentina’s political establishment, on his victory and both leaders spoke on the phone soon after Milei’s election. Zelenskiy then thanked Milei for his “clear support for Ukraine”, saying: “This is well noticed and appreciated by Ukrainians.” Milei’s office published a statement after the call saying he had “offered that Argentina could be the host of a summit between Ukraine and Latin America”.
Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, warned that Ukrainians were in “mortal danger” of being left to die if western countries did not continue their financial support. Zelenska made the remarks a day after Republican senators in the US blocked a key aid bill that would have provided more than $60bn worth of support to Ukraine.
The Polish government denied reports that the delivery of military equipment to Ukraine was being hindered by protesting Polish truckers blockading the border. “I categorically deny that such a situation occurred,” said Polish vice-minister of national defence, Marcin Ociepa. “Military convoys that cross the border are convoys escorted by military police.”
Avdiivka, the eastern Ukrainian city that has seen some of the most intense fighting of the war, is on the verge of “imminent collapse” to Russian forces, according to a report. A dispatch in the Times by its former Kyiv correspondent said Ukrainian troops defending the frontline area were “starved of ammunition” and hamstrung in their attempts to repel the advancing enemy soldiers.
Olympic chiefs have been criticised for allowing Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete next year as neutrals, outside team events and if they do not actively support the invasion.
The Finnish supreme court has blocked the extradition of a Russian neo-Nazi group leader who fought in Ukraine, Jan Petrovsky, warning of the risk that he could be susceptible to inhuman treatment, which is precluded under the European convention on human rights.
