Russian President Vladimir Putin accused NATO members on Sunday of taking part in the Ukraine conflict by donating arms to the country and said the West planned to break up Russia. Read our live blog to see how all the day's events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT+1).
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4:30am: Belarusian partisans say Russian military aircraft damaged near Minsk
A Russian A-50 surveillance military aircraft was damaged in a drone attack at an airfield near the Belarus capital of Minsk on Sunday, Belarus partisans and members of the exiled opposition said.
"Those were drones. The participants of the operation are Belarusian," Aliaksandr Azarov, leader of Belarusian anti-government organization BYPOL, was quoted as saying on the organisation's Telegram messaging app and on the Poland-based Belsat news channel.
"They are now safe, outside the country."
Belsat is a Polish broadcaster focused on Belarusian news that Minsk has branded extremist. BYPOL, which includes former law enforcement officers who support opposition politicians, has been branded a terrorist organization.
Franak Viacorka, an adviser to Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said in a post on Twitter it was the most successful act of sabotage since the beginning of 2022.
Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports. There was no immediate response from the defence ministries of Russia and Belarus to a request for comment.
3:08am: Russia in firing line of top UN rights meet
Russia's war in Ukraine looms large as the UN Human Rights Council meets Monday, with calls for unity in condemning Moscow and extending a probe into war crimes in the conflict.
Days after the United Nations General Assembly in New York voted overwhelmingly to demand Russia immediately withdraw from Ukraine, Moscow's war is expected to dominate the opening of the top UN rights body's main annual session in Geneva.
"We're looking for this session to show, as the UN General Assembly showed... that the world stands side-by-side with Ukraine," British ambassador Simon Manley said at an event Friday marking the one-year anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion.
The meeting, which is due to last a record six weeks, will be the first presided over by new UN rights chief Volker Turk, who kicks the session off early Monday.
UN chief Antonio Guterres will also address the council on the first day, while nearly 150 ministers and heads of state and government will speak, virtually or in person, during the four-day high-level segment.
Among them will be the top diplomats of the United States, China, Ukraine and Iran.
8:56pm: US, Poland and Germany may hold joint manoeuvres, minister says
Washington is in talks with Berlin and Warsaw to hold joint military manoeuvres in Poland in response to Russia's threat to the eastern border of the NATO alliance, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said Sunday.
Exercises were being "considered", Pistorius told public broadcaster ARD, without confirming or adding any details "for now".
Military manoeuvres in a country bordering Ukraine, invaded one year ago by Russia, would send a "very clear" signal to NATO allies "but also to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin," he added.
NATO "is far from being as weak as (Putin) has believed for a long time," said Pistorius.
4:22pm: CIA chief says Putin 'too confident' in Russia's ability to wear Ukraine down
As the war in Ukraine enters its second year, CIA Director William Burns said Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is being “too confident” in his military's ability to grind Ukraine into submission.
Burns in a TV interview said the head of Russia's intelligence services had displayed in their November meeting “a sense of cockiness and hubris” that reflected Putin's own beliefs “that he can make time work for him, that he believes he can grind down the Ukrainians that he can wear down our European allies, that political fatigue will eventually set in.”
That conversation, in which Burns warned of the consequences if Russia were to deploy a nuclear weapon in Ukraine, was “pretty dispiriting,” Burns said. Burns said he judged Putin as “quite determined” to continue prosecuting the war, despite the casualties, tactical shortcomings and economic and reputational damage to Russia.
4:18pm: CIA chief says US 'confident' China considering arms for Russia
The US is "confident" that China is considering providing lethal equipment to support the Russian forces invading Ukraine, according to CIA director William Burns.
Such a step by China would be "a very risky and unwise bet", the intelligence chief said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS's Face the Nation. "I hope very much that they don't."
His comments, along with others Sunday by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, constituted the latest blunt US warning to China to stop short of providing lethal weaponry to Russia.
2:48pm: Putin says Russia cannot ignore NATO nuclear capability
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview broadcast Sunday that Russia has no choice but to take into account NATO's nuclear capabilities, in remarks justifying Russia's recent suspension of its participation in the New START treaty.
As he has done repeatedly during the invasion of Ukraine, Putin claimed that Russia faces an existential threat because, in his view, NATO members are seeking the country’s “strategic defeat”. He said on Russian state TV that the suspension of New START stemmed from the need to “ensure security, strategic stability” for Russia.
“When all the leading NATO countries have declared their main goal as inflicting a strategic defeat on us (...) how can we ignore their nuclear capabilities in these conditions?” Putin said.
2:34pm: Algeria to reopen Kyiv embassy
Moscow ally Algeria is set to reopen its embassy in Kyiv, which has been closed since Russia's invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago, the foreign ministry said on Sunday.
"This decision comes within the framework of safeguarding the interests of the Algerian state," a ministry statement said, adding that the embassy would reopen soon without providing details.
A chargé d'affaires will run the mission when it reopens, it added.
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune had announced the planned reopening during a television broadcast on Friday, acknowledging Algeria's long-standing relations with Russia.
11:30am: Russia, Iran sending top envoys to UN's human rights council
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will help kick off the latest and longest-ever session of the UN's top human rights body on Monday, with Iran's foreign minister, a senior Russian envoy, and the top diplomats of France and Germany among scores of leaders set to take part.
The more than five-week session of the Human Rights Council opens as the world grapples with rights concerns including Russia's war in Ukraine, repression of dissent in Russia and Belarus, new violence between Palestinians and Israelis, and efforts to solidify a peace deal in Ethiopia that ended two years of conflict between the national government and rebels in the Tigray region.
The council, made up of 47 member countries, takes up an extensive array of human rights issues – including discrimination, freedom of religion, the right to housing and the impact of economic sanctions targeting governments on regular people – as well as country “situations” like those in Afghanistan, Syria, Myanmar, Nicaragua and South Sudan. It usually meets three times a year.
9:07am: NATO taking part in Ukraine conflict with arms supplies, says Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin accused NATO members of taking part in the Ukraine conflict by donating arms to the country and said the West planned to break up Russia.
"They are sending tens of billions of dollars in weapons to Ukraine. This really is participation," Putin said in an interview with the Rossiya-1 channel aired on Sunday.
7:52am: Ukraine military says Russian offensive near Yahidne unsuccessful
Ukraine's military said on Sunday that Russia conducted unsuccessful offensives near Yahidne over the past day, after Russia's Wagner mercenary group claimed to have captured the village in eastern Ukraine.
The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said in a morning update that Russia keeps concentrating its offensive efforts along the entire Bakhmut front line, were Yahidne is located.
The months-long struggle for Bakhmut, where only about 5,000 of 70,000 residents remain, has seen some of the bloodiest attritional fighting of Russia's year-old invasion.
7:52am: Gazprom to ship 39 mcm of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Sunday
Russia's Gazprom said it will ship 39 million cubic metres (mcm) of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Sunday.
3:33am: Russia's UN diplomat accuses West of 'arm-twisting' in vote isolating Moscow
Russia's senior diplomat to the United Nations accused the West on Sunday of "cowboy" methods and "arm-twisting" of some countries during last week's United Nations General Assembly vote that demanded Moscow withdraw its troops from Ukraine.
The 193-member General Assembly on Thursday overwhelmingly isolated Russia at the UN, calling on the eve of the one-year anniversary of Moscow's invasion for a "comprehensive, just and lasting peace" in line with the founding UN Charter.
"The methods of achieving the result are again 'cowboy'," Dmitry Polyansky, Russia's deputy UN ambassador, said on the Telegram messaging platform.
He added that a number of representatives from "developing" countries complained to the Russian mission about pressure from their Western colleagues who are allies of Kyiv.
"According to our calculations, almost 30 pairs of arms were twisted," Polyansky said. Polyansky did not provide any evidence for his accusations and there have been no public comments from developing countries about pressure on them to vote in support of the UN resolution.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP & Reuters)
