Summary of the day …
Here is a summary of today’s developments in the Russia-Ukraine war …
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has sharply rebuked Vladimir Putin over his “cynical” comments about civilian casualties. In parliament on Thursday Scholz said: “It makes me more than furious to hear the Russian president repeatedly warning that there could be civilian casualties from an armed conflict,” referring to Putin’s comments about the Israel-Hamas war. “It doesn’t get more cynical than that,” Scholz said, highlighting that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022 has caused a significant number of civilian casualties.
Scholz also said the EU must collectively continue to financially support Ukraine in future, but the use of additional funds was not a solution long term.
Ukraine’s parliament gave initial approval for the 2024 budget, which will increase funding for the army and national defence. Finance minister Serhiy Marchenko said the government’s priorities next year included accumulating funds for defence and security, and securing social payments for the population “to bring Ukraine’s victory closer”.
Ukraine claimed to make a small incremental gain of 400 metres to the south-west of Verbove in the Zaporizhzhia region. Military spokesperson Oleksandr Stupun said the southern advance was still difficult because of Russian minefields and heavily fortified defences.
Ukraine said its forces remained under fire near Kupiansk and Avdiivka on the eastern front. Stupun said Russian forces “do not stop their attempts to encircle” Avdiivka and “they continue to exert pressure there”.
Nato is stepping up patrols in the Baltic Sea after recent damage to undersea infrastructure. “The increased measures include additional surveillance and reconnaissance flights. A fleet of four Nato minehunters is also being dispatched to the area,” Nato said in a statement. The Balticconnector pipeline linking Finland and Estonia ruptured earlier this month in a possible deliberate act of sabotage, authorities have said. Both Finland and Estonia are Nato members that border Russia.
Finland’s ministry of defence said on Thursday it had blocked three planned property transactions involving Russian buyers on grounds that allowing the acquisitions to take place could hamper the defence of Finnish territory.
Russia scrambled fighter planes to prevent British military planes from entering Russian airspace over the Black Sea, the Russian defence ministry said. Russia said the British planes had turned back after being approached. It is not unusual for Russian and Nato forces to test each other’s airspace and defences. In June 2023 the UK’s Ministry of Defence claimed Nato had scrambled RAF jets six times in the previous three weeks, intercepting 21 Russian aircraft. An encounter between Russian and British planes in September 2022 near the Black Sea led to what was described as a “near-shoot down”.
A Russian-American journalist has been detained in Russia on charges of violating its foreign agents law, reportedly due to her coverage of Russia’s military mobilisation for its invasion of Ukraine. Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor with Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty’s (RFE-RL) Tatar-Bashkir service, was detained on Wednesday by masked Russian law enforcement agents. RFE-RL confirmed her detention on Thursday and said Kurmasheva had been charged with failure to register as a foreign agent and faced up to five years in prison.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his visit to Pyongyang, the Russian foreign ministry said on Thursday.
Kazakhstan has banned the export of 106 specific products to Russia which could be used for military purposes. Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, said: “These are goods that Kazakhstan doesn’t produce. Russia attempted to acquire western components through re-export.”
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Interfax in Russia has more detail of the incident where Russian planes claim to have warned off British planes from encroaching into Russian airspace near the Black Sea earlier today.
It reports the Russian ministry of defence claimed its air control “detected three air targets approaching the state border of the Russian Federation. Russian fighter crews identified the air targets as an RC-135 electronic reconnaissance and electronic warfare aircraft and two RAF Typhoon multi-role fighters.”
Interfax reports: “The Russian planes returned safely to their home airfield. There was no violation of the state border of the Russian Federation. The flight of Russian fighters was carried out in strict accordance with international rules for the use of airspace over neutral waters, without crossing air routes or dangerously approaching aircraft of a foreign state.”
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Sasha Skochilenko appeared in court today in St Petersburg, Russia. The 33-year-old artist and musician was arrested in April 2022 and faces charges of spreading false information about the army. She is accused of replacing supermarket price tags with slogans protesting against Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.
Prosecutors in April 2022 described her motive as “political hatred for Russia”, meaning she faces sentence ranging from a fine of 3m roubles (£25,000/$31,000) to between five and 10 years in jail.
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Nato to step up Baltic Sea patrols after undersea cable damage
Nato is stepping up patrols in the Baltic Sea after recent damage to undersea infrastructure in the region, the transatlantic military alliance said on Thursday.
“The increased measures include additional surveillance and reconnaissance flights, including with maritime patrol aircraft, Nato Awacs planes and drones. A fleet of four Nato minehunters is also being dispatched to the area,” Reuters reports Nato said in a statement.
The Balticconnector pipeline linking Finland and Estonia ruptured earlier this month in a possible deliberate act of sabotage, authorities have said. Both countries are Nato members that border Russia.
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Ukraine has claimed to have made a small incremental gain of 400 metres to the south-west of Verbove in the Zaporizhzhia region.
Military spokesperson Oleksandr Stupun made the claim on Ukrainian television, saying the southern advance was still difficult because of Russian minefields and heavily fortified defences.
Reuters reports Verbove is a village a few kilometres east of Robotyne, a village recaptured by Ukraine last month as it tries to push south towards the Sea of Azov.
The Ukrainian military said its forces were under fire near the towns of Kupiansk and Avdiivka. Stupun said that Russian forces “do not stop their attempts to encircle” Avdiivka and “they continue to exert pressure there”.
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Here are some of the latest images sent to us from Ukraine over the news wires.
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Russia scrambled fighter planes on Thursday to prevent British military planes from entering Russian airspace over the Black Sea, the Russian defence ministry said.
Reuters reports the ministry saying the British planes had turned back after being approached. It is not unusual for Russian and Nato forces to test each other’s airspace and defences.
In June 2023 the UK’s Ministry of Defence claimed Nato had scrambled RAF jets six times in the previous three weeks, intercepting 21 Russian aircraft in 21 days. An encounter between Russian and British planes in September 2022 near the Black Sea led to what was described as a “near-shoot down”.
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Suspilne is reporting that explosions have been heard in Kryvyi Rih and that air defence is in action.
The Guardian’s Moscow correspondent Andrew Roth has this updated report on the detention of Russian-American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva:
A Russian-American journalist has been detained in Russia on charges of violating its foreign agents law, reportedly due to her coverage of Russia’s military mobilisation for its invasion of Ukraine.
Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor with Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty’s (RFE-RL) Tatar-Bashkir service, was detained on Wednesday by masked Russian law enforcement agents.
RFE-RL confirmed her detention in a statement on Thursday and said Kurmasheva had been charged with failure to register as a foreign agent and faced up to five years in prison.
Kurmasheva is the second American journalist to be detained in Russia since the war began. Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was arrested in March and charged with espionage.
The Russian government has not made public the details of the criminal case against Kurmasheva. RFE-RL suspended its operations in Russia following Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and reporters for the outlet have since come under intense pressure as independent journalists with ties to a news agency funded by the US Congress.
Read more of Andrew Roth’s report here: Russian-American journalist detained in Russia for violating foreign agents law
Finnish police said on Thursday they had completed their crime scene investigation into the damage to a subsea gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia.
The Balticconnector pipeline linking Finland and Estonia ruptured earlier this month in what authorities said may have been a deliberate act of sabotage, cutting off the flow of gas between the two countries until April at least.
Reuters reports police said in a statement that samples collected at the site in cooperation with Finland’s armed forces and coast guard would now be analysed.
Finland had said it cannot exclude the possibility that a “state actor” was behind the damage. The pipeline connects two Nato countries, with Finland joining the alliance in April 2023 as a result of applying after Russian launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
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Scholz rebukes Putin as 'cynical' over Russian president's comments on civilian casualties
German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has sharply rebuked Russian president, Vladimir Putin, over his “cynical” comments about civilian casualties.
In the German parliament on Thursday, Scholz said: “It makes me more than furious to hear the Russian president repeatedly warning that there could be civilian casualties from an armed conflict,” referring to Putin’s comments about the Israel-Hamas war that erupted after Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October.
“It doesn’t get more cynical than that,” Scholz said, highlighting that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine launched in February 2022 has caused a significant number of civilian casualties.
Although Russia has repeatedly claimed that what it calls its “special military operation” does not target civilians, the UN has recorded 22,468 casualties, including 7,649 people killed in territory controlled by the Kyiv government since the invasion began.
Scholz also said in parliament earlier that Europe must still provide aid and financial stability for Ukraine, but that it was not a long-term solution.
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Ukraine parliament gives initial approval to 2024 budget with increased defence spending
Ukraine’s parliament gave initial approval on Thursday for the 2024 budget, which will increase funding for the army and national defence because of the war with Russia.
The finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko, said the government’s priorities next year included accumulating funds for defence and security, and securing social payments for the population “to bring Ukraine’s victory closer”.
The budget law, which was approved in its first reading, sets budget revenues at 1.7tn hryvnias ($46bn / £38bn / €43.5), and spending is targeted at 3.3tn hryvnias.
Reuters reports that officials have said that about half the state budget is planned to go to the defence sector next year.
Last year, Ukraine’s economy shrank by about one-third as millions of people fled the war, towns and cities were bombed, logistics routes and supply chains were disrupted, and the power sector and critical infrastructure were damaged by air strikes.
The government has forecast economic growth of about 5%. The budget is still to be approved in the second reading by parliament.
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Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has used his social media channels to promote that he is visiting construction sites in the Kyiv region where new homes are being built for those who have been displaced.
In a post on Telegram he said “We will restore everything that the occupier destroyed. Ukraine will never be a country of ruins.”
Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the Ukrainian presidency, has noted that Kazakhstan has made a decision to halt the export of 106 specific products to Russia.
In a post on social media, Yermak wrote:
Kazakhstan has imposed a ban on the export to Russia of 106 types of goods, including technological items that could be used for military purposes. These are goods that Kazakhstan doesn’t produce. Russia attempted to acquire western components through re-export.
Reuters reports that Finland’s ministry of defence said on Thursday it had blocked three planned property transactions involving Russian buyers on grounds that allowing the acquisitions to take place could hamper the defence of Finnish territory.
“The real estate acquisitions in question can be considered to hinder the organisation of national defence or the surveillance and safeguarding of territorial integrity,” the ministry said in a statement.
Volodymyr Litvinov, head of the Beryslav district administration in Kherson, has warned residents to stay in shelters because of a possible aerial bombardment, Suspilne reports.
Russian state-owned news service Tass reported earlier that air defence shot down an object over the airspace of Rostov. Citing the governor of the region, Vasily Golubev, it said there was no damage or casualties.
This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can reach me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has said that the Olympic Games can be used as a tool of political pressure and ethnic discrimination.
Reuters reports that Putin said:
The Games can be used as an instrument of political pressure against people who have nothing to do with politics. And as gross and in fact ethnic discrimination.
Last week the Russian Olympic Committee was banned by the International Olympic Committee for recognising regional organisations from four territories that Russia said it had annexed from Ukraine.
Although the IOC said the Olympic committees of Russia and Belarus would not receive an official invitation to the Paris games like other countries later this month, a decision on their participation would be made at a later date.
Here are some of the latest images from the news wires.
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Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during his visit to Pyongyang, the Russian foreign ministry said on Thursday.
The ministry did not provide any details of the meeting, which, according to state-run Tass news agency, lasted just over an hour.
Lavrov also spoke with North Korean foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, according to Reuters.
Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, thanked North Korea for backing his country’s military actions in Ukraine and pledged Moscow’s “complete support and solidarity” for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Russia’s foreign ministry said.
Lavrov’s two-day visit comes a month after North Korean leader Kim made a rare trip to Russia, during which he invited Putin to Pyongyang and discussed military cooperation, according to Reuters.
Speaking at a reception hosted by North Korea on Wednesday, Lavrov said Moscow strongly valued Pyongyang’s “unwavering and principled support” for Russia in the Ukraine war, which it calls a “special military operation”.
Lavrov said:
Likewise the Russian Federation extends its complete support and solidarity with the aspirations of the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea].
After talks with North Korean foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, Lavrov later told reporters that increased military activities by the US and its allies Japan and South Korea were a cause for concern, Russia’s state-run RIA news agency reported.
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Russia has detained an editor at US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) for failing to register as a foreign agent while visiting Russia for a family emergency, the broadcaster said.
Russia has tightened its control over the media since the start of the Ukraine war, forcing the closure of leading independent news outlets and designating many journalists and publications as “foreign agents”, Reuters reports.
After the war and the arrest of Wall Street Journal correspondent Evan Gershkovich in March on spying charges, almost all US journalists have left Russia. The state department has repeatedly urged US citizens to leave Russia.
Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Tatar-Bashkir Service who holds both U.S. and Russian passports, travelled to Russia on 20 May for a family emergency.
As Kurmasheva sought to leave Russia at the end of that trip, she was detained and her passports were confiscated as she awaited her return flight. She was fined for failing to register her US passport with Russian authorities.
Russian authorities announced on 18 October that Kurmasheva, who is based in Prague, had been charged with not registering as a “foreign agent”, RFE/RL said.
RFE/RL acting president Jeffrey Gedmin said:
Alsu is a highly respected colleague, devoted wife, and dedicated mother to two children.
She needs to be released so she can return to her family immediately.
Russia’s Tatar-Inform news agency said Kurmasheva had failed to register as a “foreign agent” while gathering information on Russia’s military activity. She could face up to five years in prison, according to RFE/RL, which called for her release.
The Russian government has yet to comment on her detention.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the EU must collectively continue to financially support Ukraine in future, but the use of additional funds was not a solution long term.
On Thursday, Scholz said:
We have a clear stance here: This aid for Ukraine, for the financial stability of the country, we will have to provide this jointly as Europeans.
Scholz added “that this cannot all be solved with additional funds”.
Lavrov criticises US, Japan and South Korea on visit to Pyongyang
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has criticised the US and its allies Japan and South Korea for pursuing a “dangerous” military policy towards North Korea, as he held talks with officials in Pyongyang.
At a press conference in Pyongyang, he said:
Like our North Korean friends, we are seriously worried about the intensification of military activity of the United States, Japan and South Korea in the region and by Washington’s policies.
We oppose this unconstructive and dangerous line.
He added that the US was placing “strategic infrastructure, including nuclear elements” in the region, AFP reports. He did not elaborate.
Lavrov said Russia backed “a regular negotiating process on security issues in the Korean peninsula”, adding that Moscow, Beijing and Pyongyang were seeking to propose “constructive alternatives” to de-escalate tensions in the region.
The veteran envoy’s meetings in Pyongyang are expected to lay the groundwork for a future visit by Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who was invited by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un last month at a high-profile summit in Russia’s far east.
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Russian forces carried out airstrikes overnight on targets in eastern, southern and northern Ukraine, Kyiv’s military said on Thursday.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The air force said 17 different weapons, including ballistic and cruise missiles and attack drones, had been used to strike industrial, infrastructure, civilian and military objects, Reuters reports.
Ukrainian forces shot down three drones and one cruise missile, it said.
Russia said it has sent 27 tonnes of humanitarian aid for civilians in the Gaza Strip to be transported from Egypt, Moscow’s emergency situations ministry said.
Ilya Denisov, deputy minister, said in a statement:
A special plane has taken off from the airport at Ramenskoye near Moscow for El-Arish in Egypt. The Russian humanitarian aid will be handed over to the Egyptian Red Crescent to be sent to the Gaza Strip.
Denisov said the aid included “wheat, sugar, rice [and] pasta”.
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday unveiled a deal to allow desperately needed humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, where one million people have fled their homes amid Israeli airstrikes, AFP reports.
After face-to-face talks in Israel and intense telephone diplomacy with Egypt, Biden said a limited number of trucks would be allowed to cross the shuttered Rafah crossing from Egypt into Gaza from Friday.
China is willing to expand trilateral cooperation with Mongolia and Russia, including the building of a trilateral economic corridor, president Xi Jinping told visiting Mongolian president Ukhnaa Khurelsukh on Thursday.
China will, as always, help Mongolia revitalise its economy, advance the construction of land ports in an orderly manner, and open up new channels of connectivity between the two countries, Chinese state media cited Xi as saying during his meeting with Khurelsukh, Reuters reports.
Russia has proposed a China-bound trans-national natural gas pipeline that cuts through Mongolia.
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has arrived in North Korea, the fellow pariah state that Moscow is calling upon for weapons to use against Ukraine.
Lavrov arrived on Wednesday night for a two-day visit.
On Friday, the US said arms shipments from North Korea to Russia were under way, with 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions arriving in recent weeks. Pyongyang was seeking a range of military assistance from Russia in return, including advanced technologies, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.
Kim Jong-un, the North Korean ruler, in September travelled to Russia onboard his specially built bulletproof train for a face-to-face meeting with his fellow regime leader Vladimir Putin, declaring their bilateral ties his country’s “number one priority”.
So far today, more customary blandishments have been exchanged by Lavrov and his hosts. “After the landmark summit … we can say confidently that [Russia-North Korea] relations have reached a qualitatively new, strategic level,” Lavrov reportedly told North Korean foreign minister Choe Son Hui.
North Korea has conducted a series of weapons tests this year and recently enshrined its illegal status as a nuclear weapons state in its constitution. South Korea is supplying ammunition to Ukraine, and has moved to strengthen its alliance with the US while entering a trilateral defence arrangement that also includes Japan.
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Summary
Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the Russian war against Ukraine. We begin the day as always with a summary of recent developments …
Vladimir Putin called the US delivery of long-range tactical ballistic missiles to Kyiv “another mistake by the United States” in his first public comments since an unprecedented Ukrainian strike destroyed helicopters at two airfields in Russian-occupied territory this week. The Russian president also claimed that the delivery of the Atacms missiles, which can strike targets more than 100 miles away and deliver salvoes with cluster munitions, would “simply prolong [Ukraine’s] agony.”
Images of Hungary’s prime minister shaking hands with Putin were “very, very unpleasant” and defied logic given Budapest’s past history with Moscow, the Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, said. Viktor Orbán and Putin held talks in China on Tuesday, with the Hungarian prime minister telling the Russian president he had never wanted to oppose Moscow and is trying to salvage bilateral contacts.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, arrived in North Korea on Wednesday, Russian news agencies said, with a Kremlin spokesperson telling the Tass news agency that the two-day visit was expected to lay the groundwork for a future trip to the country by Putin. The trip took place days after the US said Pyongyang had transferred munitions to Russia for the war in Ukraine.
Russian attacks in the past two days have killed at least 10 civilians in Ukraine and damaged the power grid in the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said. Among the targets hit was a residential building in the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia.
The lower house of the Russian parliament has passed the second and third readings of a bill that revokes Russia’s ratification of the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. Both were passed unanimously by 415 votes to zero. Ukraine’s foreign ministry later condemned the steps taken, and urged the international community to respond to Moscow’s “provocations”.
US President Joe Biden is to give a primetime speech to Americans on Thursday on the war in Israel and in Ukraine, the White House said. There have been concerns that the war between Israel and Hamas may divert military and international support from Kyiv.
French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed his country’s support for Ukraine during a phone call on Wednesday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the French presidency said. “He assured the Ukrainian president that the proliferation of crises would not weaken French and European support for Ukraine, which will be there for as long as it takes,” said Macron’s office.
Gen Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, in charge of Ukraine’s operations in the south, said Ukrainian forces had had “partial success to the south of Robotyne.” Robotyne is one of a group of villages in the south that Ukraine wants to secure as part of its advance towards the Sea of Azov – aimed at severing a land bridge linking Russian positions in the south and east.
Biden is reportedly to propose a joint $100bn package for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and the migration crisis at the US-Mexico border this week. The package is intended to bypass congressional chaos and bring Democrats, who have sought additional aid for Kyiv for weeks, together with Republicans, who want funds to tighten controls on the southern border.
