Closing summary
The US has gone through 96% of the funds that it allocated for Ukraine, national security council spokesperson John Kirby has told reporters.
Slovakia’s new government has rejected a previously drafted plan to donate rockets and ammunition to Ukraine, following through on a pledge by incoming prime minister Robert Fico to halt military aid to Kyiv as it fights a Russian invasion.
Ukraine’s military spy agency claimed responsibility for the assassination of a Russia-backed lawmaker with a car bomb in the occupied eastern city of Luhansk, an operation it said it conducted with local resistance forces.
Leaders of the G7 group of countries have insisted that their support for Ukraine will “never waver”.
Military cooperation between Russia and China is becoming increasingly important, but the two countries do not intend to build a cold war-style military alliance, Vladimir Putin said as he hosted a top Chinese general.
The EU’s executive recommended that the bloc starts membership negotiations with Ukraine once it fulfils outstanding conditions. “The Commission recommends that the [EU] council opens accession negotiations with Ukraine,” the Brussels-based European Commission said.
Ukraine’s energy ministry said that Russia had attacked Ukrainian energy infrastructure with different weapons 60 times in recent weeks.
The Russian security council secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, said that the “destructive” policies of the US and its allies were increasing the risk that nuclear, chemical or biological weapons would be used, Reuters reported.
US funds for Ukraine are 96% depleted, says White House
The US has gone through 96% of the funds that it has currently allocated for Ukraine, national security council spokesperson John Kirby has told reporters.
The US believes that Ukraine can win back its territory, Kirby said, but acknowledged that progress had been slow, Reuters reports.
Some Republicans in the US have become sceptical about further funding for Ukraine’s war effort. The US president, Joe Biden, has urged Congress to pass a $106bn supplemental spending bill for military spending.
Updated
Slovakia's new government rejects military aid package for Ukraine
Slovakia’s new government has rejected a previously drafted plan to donate rockets and ammunition to Ukraine, following through on a pledge by incoming prime minister Robert Fico to halt military aid to Kyiv.
The aid package included 140 KUB air defence system rockets, more than 5,000 pieces of 125 mm cannon ammunition and 4 million rounds of small arms ammunition, according to the deal that had been put forward by the Nato country’s caretaker government before it handed over power last month.
Fico’s government rejected the package at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, according to the government’s website, Reuters reports.
Fico ran a campaign criticising western military support for Ukraine and sanctions on Russia, and backs pushing for peace talks – a line similar to the one taken by Hungary’s leader, Viktor Orbán, but rejected by Kyiv.
Fico’s leftwing SMER-SSD party won an election on 30 September and has formed a ruling coalition with the centre-left HLAS and nationalist SNS parties.
Fico has said repeatedly the country would halt shipments from army stores to Ukraine, but he has recently made clear private business deals would not be affected.
Updated
A Russian missile has damaged a civilian vessel under a Liberian flag entering the Black Sea port of Odesa, killing one and injuring four people, the Ukrainian military has said.
“The missile hit the superstructure of a civilian vessel under the flag of Liberia, at the moment of its entry into the port,” Ukraine’s southern military command said on Telegram.
It added that one person had been killed, and that three crew members and one port employee had been injured. These claims have not yet been independently verified.
Updated
Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of Nato, has urged Hungary to ratify Sweden’s stalled bid to join the alliance “without further delay”, AFP reports.
All but two of Nato’s 31 members – Turkey and Sweden – have signed off on Stockholm’s push for membership.
“The Hungarian government has repeatedly said that it will not be the last Nato ally to ratify Sweden’s accession,” Stoltenberg said at talks with Hungary’s president in Brussels.
“Now I count on Hungary to fulfil that commitment. The Hungarian parliament should vote to ratify without further delay.”
Updated
Exports of Ukrainian food by road declined slightly in the first six days of November amid difficulties on the Ukrainian-Polish border caused by a drivers’ strike, brokers have said.
Ukrainian authorities said later on Wednesday that a Polish trucker protest had caused disruptions at three border crossing points, but that the other five crossings were running normally, Reuters reports.
Ukraine is a major global food producer, but its main Black Sea export routes have been blocked due to Russia’s invasion and traders are trying to send as many goods as possible via rail and the road borders with Poland, Slovakia and Hungary.
Polish truckers blocked roads to three crossings with Ukraine on Monday, authorities said, to protest at what they see as government inaction over a loss of business to foreign competitors since Russia’s invasion.
Andriy Demchenko, spokesperson for the Ukrainian border guard, told an online briefing that three crossings were blocked for travel from Poland to Ukraine and two for travel from Ukraine to Poland.
“We advise carriers to avoid these three directions … to plan routes while these points are blocked,” Demchenko said.
Demchenko said about 1,000 lorries were standing at the border waiting to enter Ukraine as of Wednesday morning.
Research by Russian media outlet Mediazona suggests that, as of October 2023, 76 cases of railway sabotage had reached court since the invasion, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in its latest intelligence update.
At least 137 people, with the vast majority aged under 24, had been prosecuted, it added.
“Seventeen months after the first incidents were reported, sabotage of Russian railways by anti-war activists continues to represent a significant challenge for the Russian authorities,” the MoD wrote.
Updated
Germany is set to end the deployment of three Patriot air defence units to Poland after almost a year, the defence ministry in Berlin has confirmed.
Together with the Patriot systems, about 300 German soldiers have also been based in the Polish town of Zamość, about 31 miles from the Ukrainian border, since the start of the year to protect the southern town and its crucial railway link to Ukraine.
The deployment was triggered by a stray Ukrainian missile that struck the Polish village of Przewodów in the region last November, in an incident that raised fears of the war in Ukraine spilling over the border, Reuters reports.
The German ministry said in August that the deployment was unlikely to extend beyond the end of this year as the Patriots would either be needed for use by Nato’s rapid reaction response force in 2024 or would have to undergo maintenance.
The German soldiers will wrap up their operations on Friday and start redeploying from next week, the ministry said.
Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, said:
I am very happy about the friendly and appreciative reception our soldiers in Zamość were granted by the Polish military and the people living there.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images from the newswires:
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The US transport secretary, Pete Buttigieg, has announced a new American infrastructure adviser for Ukraine during a trip to Kyiv, Reuters reports.
Robert Mariner, who has performed engineering work for the US air force and navy, will serve as transport adviser to Ukraine after previously serving as an adviser to the transport counsellor at the US embassy in Afghanistan.
Buttigieg, who met Ukrainian officials to discuss the country’s economic recovery and the impact of the war on its supply chains, said Ukraine had asked that a US infrastructure adviser be named.
From the time Russia launched its full-scale invasion, I’ve kept close contact with my Ukrainian counterpart about impacts to global supply chains, particularly port and rail infrastructure. Today, I’m in Kyiv to deliver on a top ask to place an infrastructure advisor here.
— Secretary Pete Buttigieg (@SecretaryPete) November 8, 2023
The US Department of Transportation has coordinated similar advisory roles at US embassies in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Updated
Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, has said the people of Ukraine belong to the European family.
The start of EU accession talks was the next step, she added.
Die Menschen in der #Ukraine gehören zur europäischen Familie. Der Beginn der EU-#Beitrittsgespräche ist der nächste Schritt, den wir gemeinsam gehen sollten. Denn eine stärkere, größere und geschlossene EU ist die geopolitische Antwort auf Russlands Angriffskrieg.
— Außenministerin Annalena Baerbock (@ABaerbock) November 8, 2023
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Russian authorities have demanded an eight-year prison term for an artist and musician who was jailed after speaking out against Moscow’s war in Ukraine, the Associated Press reports.
Sasha Skochilenko was arrested in her native St Petersburg in April 2022, on charges of spreading false information about the military after replacing supermarket price tags with anti-war slogans decrying the invasion.
Her arrest took place about a month after authorities adopted a law effectively criminalising any public expression about the war in Ukraine that deviates from the Kremlin’s official line.
Independent Russian news site Mediazona cited Skochilenko, 33, as saying that she was “in shock” over the severity of the sentence being sought.
Updated
Russia’s biggest bank, Sberbank, expects a sharp cooling of the mortgage market after an expected 80% rise in mortgage lending this year, chief executive Herman Gref has said.
Gref said the value of mortgages issued by the bank for the whole of 2023 was expected to reach 4.6tn roubles (£40.8bn), Reuters reports.
At a financial forum in Moscow, he said:
Despite the fact that we will most likely see a serious cooling in the near future, 2023 can still be called a successful year for the Russian mortgage market.
The central bank last month increased its key interest rate by a higher than expected two percentage points to 15% in response to inflationary pressure and a weak rouble, and has now raised it by 7.5 percentage points since July.
Sberbank said on Tuesday it expected record profits this year but anticipated a slight decrease in corporate lending and a significant slowdown in retail.
VTB, Russia’s number two bank, expects mortgage loans across the entire sector to total 7.2tn roubles this year, falling to between 5tn and 5.5tn roubles in 2024.
Vyacheslav Dusaleyev, head of retail business at Rosbank, gave corresponding forecasts of 7.3tn roubles this year and 5tn next year.
He said:
In 2024, mortgage issuance will decrease by 30% compared to 2023 and will return to indicators comparable to the results of 2022.
Mortgage demand has remained buoyant, in part because of the wide range of preferential offers available, according to the central bank. But its deputy governor Olga Polyakova told the forum that the central bank believed there should only be a single preferential programme for those who really needed help with housing.
Updated
Ukraine’s parliament approved a law on Wednesday to allow funds raised from income tax paid by military personnel to be used to fund arms purchases and production, the finance ministry said.
The tax, which previously went into local coffers rather than the central budget, would raise about 96bn hryvnias (£2.2bn). The funds would be used to buy drones, implement new technology and boost the domestic defence industry, the finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko, said, according to Reuters.
During a round table discussion on the legislation ahead of the vote, Marchenko said:
We need to create the conditions to turn the course of the military campaign.
Updated
EU countries will next week start debating a proposal for a 12th package of sanctions on Russia that will focus on a ban of Russian diamonds, EU diplomats and an EU official told Reuters.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, EU countries have already applied 11 packages of sanctions against Moscow to diminish the Kremlin’s ability to finance the war. The measures span across sectors and include some 1,800 individuals and entities.
But so far, the EU has not sanctioned the Russian state-owned diamond miner Alrosa, even though major western jewellers are already boycotting stones coming from Russia.
Reuters reports that an EU official said:
The plan is that the Commission adopts the package in the coming days. Then it’ll be for Council to adopt.
The G7 has been debating various proposals since September on how best to track the Russian gems in order to block imports. An official G7 announcement, expected since last month, has been held up by a debate over whether to make a political announcement before the technical details were fully hashed out.
The proposal, drawn up by Belgium at the EU’s request, is expected to be mirrored closely in the Commission’s sanctions draft proposal, one of the diplomats said.
Poland pushed for bans on diamonds and liquefied petroleum gas in a September pitch, while Estonia has asked for liquefied natural gas (LNG) to be included too, though there is little appetite in the EU to make new waves in the volatile gas market.
The Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has said the bloc would look at banning Russian diamonds, freezing assets and imposing travel restrictions on 100 new individuals, and at tightening the implementation of the G7’s $60 a barrel price cap on Russian oil.
Updated
Summary of the day so far...
Ukraine’s military spy agency claimed responsibility for the assassination of a Russia-backed lawmaker with a car bomb in the occupied eastern city of Luhansk, an operation it said it conducted with local resistance forces.
Leaders of the G7 group of countries have insisted that their support for Ukraine will “never waver”.
Military cooperation between Russia and China is becoming increasingly important, but the two countries do not intend to build a cold war-style military alliance, Vladimir Putin said as he hosted a top Chinese general.
The EU’s executive recommended that the bloc starts membership negotiations with Ukraine once it fulfils outstanding conditions. “The Commission recommends that the [EU] council opens accession negotiations with Ukraine,” the Brussels-based European Commission said.
Ukraine’s energy ministry said that Russia had attacked Ukrainian energy infrastructure with different weapons 60 times in recent weeks.
The Russian security council secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, said that the “destructive” policies of the US and its allies were increasing the risk that nuclear, chemical or biological weapons would be used, Reuters reported.
Updated
Ukraine spy agency says it killed Russia-installed lawmaker with car bomb
Ukraine’s military spy agency claimed responsibility for the assassination of a Russia-backed lawmaker with a car bomb in the occupied eastern city of Luhansk on Wednesday, an operation it said it had conducted with local resistance forces.
Mikhail Filiponenko, a politician in a Russia-installed local assembly, had been active in Luhansk’s pro-Russian separatist movement since 2014.
He had served as one of the top commanders in the army of the so-called Luhansk People’s Republic.
The agency said Filiponenko was eliminated in an early morning explosion, Reuters reports. He died at the site, it added on Telegram.
Luhansk is one of four Ukrainian regions Russia claims to have annexed since the start of its invasion, something Kyiv and its western allies strongly reject.
Updated
Russian attacks killed three people in an eastern Ukrainian village on Wednesday, Kyiv has said.
Ukrainian emergency service said that two men and a woman had been killed in the village of Bagatyr, in the eastern Donetsk region, AFP reports.
The village, in an industrial region that the Kremlin claimed to have annexed last year, lies about 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the town of Avdiivka, a recent hotspot in the fighting.
“The attack destroyed a private house in the village of Bagatyr,” Ukraine’s emergency service said on social media. It said the three bodies had been recovered from under the rubble. These claims have not yet been independently verified.
Updated
G7 says its support for Kyiv will 'never waver'
Leaders of the G7 group of countries have insisted that their support for Ukraine will “never waver”.
At a G7 meeting in Japan, the bloc’s foreign ministers said they recognised that Russia is prepared for a long war.
They reiterated that they would continue to support Kyiv economically and militarily.
The group of rich countries has been at the forefront of sanctions on Moscow since last year’s invasion.
In Tokyo, the governments of the G7 countries – Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and the US – as well as EU representatives, said that the Israel-Gaza war should not distract from support for Ukraine.
A statement from the Japanese foreign ministry said leaders agreed on the need to impose severe sanctions on Russia and continue to support Ukraine, “even in today’s international situation” – a reference to the situation in the Middle East.
Updated
New UK sanctions have been imposed on Russian oligarchs and businesses, as well as international networks propping up the country’s oil and gold industries.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said 29 individuals and entities had been targeted in an effort to prevent them from helping Moscow evade existing international sanctions.
Russia’s gold and oil sectors have close links to Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin and help fund its invasion of Ukraine, according to the FCDO.
Those sanctioned include two of Russia’s largest gold producers, Nordgold and Highland Gold Mining, alongside mining magnate Vladislav Sviblov and fellow Russian tycoon Konstantin Strukov.
A United Arab Emirates-based network responsible for funnelling more than $300m in gold revenues to Russia has also been designated, PA Media reports.
As part of this, a handler of gold shipped to the UAE, Paloma Precious DMCC, and the key person behind the outfit, Howard Jon Baker, have been targeted, the FCDO said.
🚨 SANCTIONED: gold and oil networks propping up Russia’s war economy.
— Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (@FCDOGovUK) November 8, 2023
🛑 We are closing down avenues for sanctions circumvention.
🗜️️Our sanctions continue to box Putin in, helping to ensure his faltering war effort in Ukraine ends in failure. pic.twitter.com/mUugy1EPFB
Updated
Finland has informed Russia about its investigation into the damage on 7 October to the subsea Balticconnector gas pipeline between Estonia and Finland, the Finnish foreign minister has said.
Elina Valtonen told a news conference Russia had not asked for Finland’s help in investigating the damage to a Russian telecommunications cable that had happened on the same night, Reuters reports.
Russian state company Rostelecom said on Tuesday that a fibre optic cable linking St Petersburg and Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave had been damaged at the same time that a Chinese ship had passed over it, and that repairs were ongoing.
Two other telecommunication cables in the area were also damaged at about the same time.
Finnish police have said they are investigating whether a Hong Kong registered container vessel, the NewNew Polar Bear, damaged the pipeline by dragging its anchor over the seabed, but have not decided whether this was an accident or not.
The anchor was later found near the pipeline and was retrieved by Finnish investigators.
The incidents have highlighted the vulnerability of marine cables and pipelines at a time when security fears are running high because of the war in Ukraine.
Updated
Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister with responsibility for European integration, praised a report by the EU’s executive recommending an initiation of accession talks for Kyiv and said that Ukraine would continue reforming on its path to membership.
“It is the result of a huge amount of work done by the country in war,” she wrote on X.
‼️EU Commission recommends opening membership talks with Ukraine.
— Olga Stefanishyna (@StefanishynaO) November 8, 2023
It’s the result of a huge amount of work done by the country in war.
More comments and reflections, including on the next steps, soon.
Updated
Germany will examine the EU Commission’s recommendation to start membership talks with Ukraine thoroughly before making a decision, a government spokesperson said.
The membership talks were dependent on the success of reforms, the spokesperson added.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has welcomed the EU executive’s recommendation to open membership talks with Kyiv, describing it as the “right step in history”.
“Ukrainians deserve this both for their protection of European values, and for the fact that even at times of a full-scale war, we keep our word by developing state institutions,” he posted to Telegram.
Military cooperation between Russia and China becoming increasingly important, says Putin
Military cooperation between Russia and China is becoming increasingly important, but the two countries do not intend to build a cold-war-style military alliance, Vladimir Putin said as he hosted a top Chinese general.
Putin also told Gen Zhang Youxia, vice-chair of China’s central military commission, that modern weaponry would help to ensure the security of both their countries.
The Russian president also accused Nato of stoking tensions in the Asia-Pacific region, Reuters reports.
Updated
You can follow the latest developments around the EU accession negotiations in our Europe live blog here:
Updated
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, has welcomed the opening of EU accession negotiations with Moldova.
Moldova has undertaken significant reforms, despite constant destabilisation efforts against its democracy.
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) November 8, 2023
The Commission recommends that the Council opens accession negotiations.
Moldova, a country of about 2.5 million people situated between Romania and Ukraine, has been put on the radar of the EU’s enlargement efforts partly due to its vulnerability to possible Russian meddling.
Like Ukraine, Moldova believes its future security lies with the EU, with the country’s president, Maia Sandu, having alleged that the Wagner group had planned a coup on the country.
Updated
Sweden joining the Nato alliance is a pressing objective for Finland and Sweden, Finland’s foreign minister, Elina Valtonen, has told reporters.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, submitted a bill approving Sweden’s Nato membership bid to parliament for ratification last month.
Turkey had initially raised objections due to what it said was Sweden’s harbouring of groups it deems terrorist.
The bill must be approved by parliament’s foreign affairs committee before a vote by the full general assembly. Erdoğan would then sign it into law.
Sweden and Finland – which share a 1,340km (830-mile) border with Russia – submitted simultaneous membership applications last May, abandoning decades of military nonalignment to seek security as Nato members after the Russian invasion.
Finland formally became the 31st member of the transatlantic defensive alliance in April.
Updated
In a post to X, formerly Twitter, the European Commission said it has adopted its package recommending opening negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, to grant candidate status to Georgia, and to open accession negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina, once the necessary conditions have been met.
It wrote:
Despite the ongoing war, Ukraine demonstrated resolve in making substantial progress in creating a powerful reform dynamic. We recommend that the EU Council opens accession negotiations with Ukraine.
Another historic step for the citizens of 🇺🇦🇲🇩🇬🇪🇧🇦 regarding their 🇪🇺 aspirations.
— European Commission (@EU_Commission) November 8, 2023
We’ve adopted our 2023 Enlargement Package recommending to open negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, to grant candidate status to Georgia, and to open accession negotiations with Bosnia and… pic.twitter.com/Ipr61YHFSz
Updated
EU executive proposes to start membership talks with Ukraine once conditions met
The EU’s executive have recommended that the bloc starts membership negotiations with Ukraine once it fulfils outstanding conditions, Reuters reports.
“The Commission recommends that the [EU] council opens accession negotiations with Ukraine,” said the Brussels-based European Commission.
It added the talks should formally be launched once Kyiv satisfied remaining conditions related to stepping up the fight against corruption, adopting a law on lobbying in line with EU standards and strengthening national minority safeguards.
Late on Tuesday, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said his country was “preparing our next steps” to join the bloc, including by strengthening its institutions, although he acknowledged that this would require work by Kyiv to “adapt to EU standards”.
Updated
We reported earlier how officials claimed that Russia had attacked Ukrainian energy infrastructure 60 times in the last several weeks (see post at 09.28).
Ukraine fears Russia may have already begun a concerted campaign of attacks on the power grid for a second winter at war.
Last winter, thousands of Russian drones and missiles reportedly targeted Ukraine’s power sector, causing sweeping blackouts.
Ukraine’s energy minister, German Galushchenko, who is visiting the US, said the government was discussing with partners how to get through the critical cold months.
The west has stepped up supplies of air defences to neutralise the threat.
In a statement, the energy ministry said:
In recent weeks energy infrastructure facilities were attacked 60 times with different types of weapons.
After each new attack, the need for energy equipment grows, and therefore the help of partners for the Ukrainian energy sector is very important.
Updated
The EU will move ahead with a ban on Russian diamonds after securing sufficient backing from the G nations, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
The EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell told the FT that a two-day meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Japan that ended on Wednesday gave support to the move.
The EU said on Monday it was waiting for the G7 countries to come up with “some sort of proposal” in order to impose sanctions on Russian diamonds, Reuters reports.
The Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, hosted a top Chinese general and defence delegation in Moscow on Wednesday for talks to “deepen” military cooperation with Beijing as Russia’s troops fight on in Ukraine.
Shoigu welcomed Zhang Youxia, a high-ranking general and vice-chair of Beijing’s central military commission, in a red carpet ceremony in Moscow.
According to a statement published by his ministry, Shoigu said:
We, unlike some aggressive western countries, are not creating a military bloc. Relations between Russia and China are an example of strategic cooperation, based on trust and respect.
I am sure that today’s meeting will be another step to deepen the multi-profile links between our countries and military departments.
He said the pair will discuss “further steps to develop bilateral cooperation in the defence sphere”.
The Chinese official will meet the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, later on Wednesday, the Kremlin said. His visit came three weeks after Putin went to Beijing in a rare trip abroad.
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The Kremlin said on Wednesday the west had demonstrated its aggression towards Russia but said when it came to nuclear weapons, Moscow had its nuclear doctrine and that this had not been changed.
The Russian security council secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, said earlier on Wednesday that the “destructive” policies of the US and its allies were increasing the risk that nuclear, chemical or biological weapons would be used, Reuters reports.
When asked about the remarks, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said:
Patrushev is the secretary of the security council. He is part of the Kremlin. And his statements are statements from the Kremlin.
As for the Russian Federation, we have a doctrine where everything is clearly spelled out. There are no changes. This is confirmed by the president.
Updated
Russia has attacked Ukrainian energy system 60 times ahead of winter, says ministry
Ukraine’s energy ministry said on Wednesday that Russia had attacked Ukrainian energy infrastructure with different weapons 60 times in recent weeks.
In a statement, the ministry said:
After each new attack, the need for energy equipment grows, and therefore the help of partners for the Ukrainian energy sector is very important.
Updated
A Russia-backed politician was killed in a car bomb in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk, local media reported on Wednesday.
According to AFP, the politician’s son told the Luhansk Information Centre, a news agency run by Moscow-installed officials in the region, about the killing:
As a result of an explosive device that detonated in Mikhail Filiponenko’s car, the People’s Council deputy received injuries incompatible with life.
Updated
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, added that the UN’s attempts to revive the Black Sea grain initiative were still bearing no results.
Russia withdrew in July from the deal, which had allowed Ukraine to safely export grain from its Black Sea ports despite the war, according to Reuters.
Since then it has frequently attacked Ukrainian ports and storage facilities, and Kyiv says hundreds of thousands of tons of grain have been destroyed.
Russia says it quit the deal because the arrangement was not delivering grain to the poorest countries and because it still faces barriers to its own exports of grain and fertiliser.
Updated
The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said on Wednesday that the west had destroyed the global economy by imposing sanctions on Russia and that the west’s green transition had provoked crises on the global oil and gas market, Reuters reports.
Updated
Reuters reports that a Chinese delegation visited Russia’s defence ministry in Moscow on Wednesday, according to the Russian newspaper Izvestia, citing the ministry.
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Russia said on Wednesday that it had put on its wanted list another judge of the international criminal court, which is seeking the arrest of President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine conflict.
“Wanted in the framework of a criminal investigation,” said a notice in the interior ministry’s database, referring to Sergio Gerarde Ugaldo Godinez, a Costa Rica judge on The Hague-based ICC.
The notice did not provide details on the allegations against Godinez.
In March, the ICC announced an arrest warrant for Putin on the war crime accusation of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children.
The ICC also issued a warrant against Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s presidential commissioner for children’s rights, on similar charges.
Russia, which is not a member of the ICC, insists the warrant against Putin is “void”, AFP reports.
Updated
'Risk that nuclear, chemical and biological weapons will be used is increasing,' says Russian security chief
The Russian security council secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, said on Wednesday that the “destructive” policies of the US and its allies were increasing the risk that nuclear, chemical or biological weapons would be used, Reuters reports.
State news agency Tass quoted Patrushev, a close ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, as saying:
The natural consequence of the United States’ destructive policies is the deterioration in the global security.
The risk that nuclear, chemical and biological weapons will be used is increasing.
The international arms control regime has been undermined.
Updated
Summary
Hello, this is Wednesday’s live Guardian coverage of the Russian war against Ukraine.
Ukraine’s military said its troops had repelled Russian assaults in widely separated sectors of the war and were braced for a fresh attempt to capture the key frontline eastern town of Avdiivka.
Russia is engaged in a slow-moving campaign in eastern areas of the 1,000km frontline. Ukraine has registered limited progress in a counteroffensive launched in the east and south in June.
Ukraine’s general staff, in its Tuesday evening report, said its forces had beaten back 15 attacks near Kupiansk in the north-east and 18 attacks near Maryinka. Nine attacks were repelled in and near Avdiivka, where Moscow launched the latest of several drives in mid-October.
“The third wave [attack on Avdiivka] will definitely happen. The enemy is regrouping after a second wave of unsuccessful attacks,” said Vitaliy Barabash, head of the Avdiivka military administration.
In other recent developments:
There was a powerful explosion on Tuesday at Taganrog airport in Russia’s Rostov oblast which houses military aircraft, Ukrainian news sources, Russian officials and online observers said.
Shelling killed six people and wounded nearly a dozen in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, the Kremlin-backed head of the region, said on Tuesday. Donetsk has been controlled by Russian forces since 2014 and authorities routinely accuse Ukraine of attacks – claims that cannot be independently verified.
The heads of the US treasury, defence and state departments have called on Congress to fund $11.8bn in Ukraine aid as part of President Joe Biden’s supplemental spending request, according to a letter released on Tuesday. Senate Democrats blocked a Republican effort to win quick approval for a bill providing emergency aid to Israel that passed the US House of Representatives last week but provides no assistance for Ukraine.
The EU is expected to fire the starting gun on the process of Ukraine becoming a member state, with a report expected to recommend formal negotiations on accession on Wednesday. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said that his country was “preparing our next steps” to join the bloc, including by strengthening its institutions, although he acknowledged that this would require work by Kyiv to “adapt to EU standards”.
A newly built Russian naval corvette was “almost certainly” damaged after being struck in Crimea, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said in an intelligence update. The Ukrainian attack on 4 November hit the Askold cruise missile ship, which had not yet entered service. “Ukraine’s capability to hit Crimean shipbuilding infrastructure will likely cause Russia to consider relocating farther from the frontline, delaying the delivery of new vessels,” the update said.
The Netherlands sent its first five F-16 fighter jets to Romania on Tuesday for use in the training of Ukrainian pilots, Reuters reported.
Russia formally withdrew from a security treaty that limited key categories of conventional armed forces, blaming the US for undermining post-cold war security with the enlargement of the Nato military alliance. Nato allies said that as a consequence, they intended to suspend the operation of the treaty as long as necessary.
The US army needs Congress to approve $3.1bn to buy 155mm artillery rounds and expand production to quickly replace stocks depleted by shipments to Ukraine and now Israel, an army official said.
The US has accused Russia of financing a Latin America-wide disinformation campaign that feeds media contacts with propaganda aimed at weakening support for Ukraine and boosting anti-American and anti-Nato sentiments, Reuters reported.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was quoted as saying that Ukraine has deployed more western air defence systems, as it braces for a second full winter of Russian attacks on energy facilities.
G7 support for Ukraine in its war with Russia will not be affected by the intensifying Middle East conflict, Japan said as the group’s foreign ministers prepared to hold virtual talks with Kyiv during a meeting in Tokyo.
Ukrainian drones attacked over the Black Sea and the annexed Crimean peninsula on Tuesday, Moscow’s defence ministry said.
