Closing summary
This blog is now closing. Below is a summary of today’s stories:
The Kremlin claimed that Ukraine withdrew from peace negotiations with Russia in 2022 “at Britain’s insistence”. The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, added that the UK “forbade” negotiations with Russia.
Ukrainian forces are turning their attention to strengthening their defensive positions along much of the frontline, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence. In its daily intelligence briefing, the MoD said the move follows Zelenskiy’s calls, from late November 2023, “for faster fortification in key sectors”.
Russia has launched its fifth air attack this month targeting Kyiv, Ukrainian military officials have said. Ukraine’s air force said air defence systems destroyed 18 out of 19 attack drones launched at Kyiv, Odesa, Kherson and other regions of Ukraine. It was not immediately clear how many were destroyed over Kyiv.
China’s president, Xi Jinping, met the Russian prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, in Beijing on Wednesday. Xi praised the growth of bilateral trade between the two countries, which reached a record $200bn in the first 11 months of 2023. According to the official readout, Xi said: “Developing China-Russia relations is a strategic choice made by both sides based on the fundamental interests of the two peoples.”
The top EU court on Wednesday upheld sanctions against Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich that had been placed upon him after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “The general court dismisses the action brought by Mr Abramovich, thereby upholding the restrictive measures taken against him,” said the EU’s top court in a ruling.
Reuters reports that the US issued new Russia-related sanctions on Wednesday, targeting entities in Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates, according to the treasury department website.
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The US-led coalition imposing a price cap on Russian oil has announced changes to its compliance regime that the Department of the Treasury said will make it harder for Russian exporters to bypass the cap, Reuters reports.
“These changes will further complicate efforts by Russian exporters to circumvent the price cap while deceiving Coalition service providers, and further raise costs for any Russian exporters that need premier services but are unwilling to sell oil under the cap,” the treasury department said in a statement.
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Eleven countries, including the UK, US and Ukraine, have established the Tallinn mechanism on cyber defence.
The mechanism aims to coordinate and facilitate civilian cyber capacity building to help Ukraine uphold its fundamental right to self-defence in cyberspace, and address longer-term cyber resilience needs.
The foreign ministries of Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, the UK and the US are part of the mechanism.
Minister of state in the Cabinet Office, and lead minister for the conflict stability and security fund, Lady Neville-Rolfe said:
The UK and Ukraine are fighting side by side in the cyberwar against Russia whose appalling attacks know no bounds. Russia is attacking Ukraine’s cyber infrastructure in order to harm innocent people, choke the economy and sow confusion.
That is why the UK is supporting Ukraine with state of the art technology, tools and expertise to thwart these cruel attacks, including those on critical infrastructure. Our support remains steadfast.
On X, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, welcomed the news.
Today, the foreign ministries of Ukraine and ten other countries established the Tallinn mechanism on cybersecurity: Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, the UK, and the US.
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) December 20, 2023
The Tallinn mechanism will help strengthen Ukraine's…
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Ukrainian forces pivoting 'to a defensive posture' along much of the front line, says UK
Ukrainian forces are turning their attention to strengthening their defensive positions along much of the frontline, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence.
In its daily intelligence briefing, the MoD said the move follows Zelenskiy’s calls, from late November 2023, “for faster fortification in key sectors”.
The MoD said:
In recent weeks, Ukraine has mobilised a concerted effort to improve field fortifications as its forces pivot to a more defensive posture along much of the front line.
It added:
In one part of the project, Ukraine has worked to improve defences along its border with Belarus with dragon’s teeth, razor wire, and anti-tank ditches as of mid-December 2023.
Russia continues local offensive options in several sectors, but individual attacks are rarely above platoon size. A major Russian breakthrough is unlikely and overall, the front is characterised by stasis.
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Here are some of the latest images coming through from Ukraine:
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Summary of the day so far...
The Kremlin claimed that Ukraine withdrew from peace negotiations with Russia in 2022 “at Britain’s insistence”. The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, added that the UK “forbade” negotiations with Russia.
Russia has launched its fifth air attack this month targeting Kyiv, Ukrainian military officials have said. Ukraine’s air force said air defence systems destroyed 18 out of 19 attack drones launched at Kyiv, Odesa, Kherson and other regions of Ukraine. It was not immediately clear how many were destroyed over Kyiv.
China’s president, Xi Jinping, met the Russian prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, in Beijing on Wednesday. Xi praised the growth of bilateral trade between the two countries, which reached a record $200bn in the first 11 months of 2023. According to the official readout, Xi said: “Developing China-Russia relations is a strategic choice made by both sides based on the fundamental interests of the two peoples.”
The top EU court on Wednesday upheld sanctions against Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich that had been placed upon him after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “The general court dismisses the action brought by Mr Abramovich, thereby upholding the restrictive measures taken against him,” said the EU’s top court in a ruling.
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Reuters reports that the vast majority of Ukrainians would not support the sacking of Valerii Zaluzhnyi from his position as head of the armed forces, a poll conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) showed on Wednesday.
Despite attempts to demonstrate unity during the war with Russia, signs of friction between Zaluzhnyi and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy have been evident for weeks, spurring domestic media speculation that the army chief could be fired.
KIIS found that only 2% of Ukrainians would actively support Zelenskiy removing Zaluzhnyi from his post, while 72% would view such a move “negatively”. The polsters surveyed 1,200 people living around Ukrainian-controlled territory on Dec. 4-10.
The public’s trust in Zaluzhnyi stood at 92%, the poll found, compared with 77% of people who trust Zelenskiy. Both those levels are very high.
Zaluzhnyi oversaw the major 2023 counteroffensive that failed to retake swathes of Russian-occupied land, but he is very popular with many Ukrainians after beating back Russian forces from swathes of land last year.
Zelenskiy’s trust levels have dipped slightly this year as the mood darkened after the counteroffensive made little headway and optimism over a quick end to the war faded.
Asked at news conference on Tuesday if he wanted to sack Zaluzhnyi, Zelenskiy denied there was any rift between them but said he wanted to see concrete results from the military leadership.
He avoided directly criticising Zaluzhnyi, with whom he said he had a working relationship, but he also did not explicitly extend his full support for the general.
This week, Zaluzhnyi criticised a decision that was made by Zelenskiy to fire the heads of the regional military draft offices amid a crackdown on corruption this summer. He also said the war had not reached a stalemate.
Ukrainian agriculture businesses have received 41.3bn hryvnias (£870m) in state loans since the beginning of 2023.
10,300 agricultural enterprises were financed under the state programme “Affordable Credits 5-7-9%”.
In a statement, the Ukrainian parliament’s committee on agrarian and land policy said that “despite Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine, the state constantly takes all measures to support the agro-industrial complex of Ukraine and food security”.
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The billionaire Roman Abramovich said in a statement on Wednesday that he was disappointed by the loss of a legal challenge to overturn sanctions imposed on him by the EU, Reuters reports.
“Although we are disappointed with today’s ruling, we welcome that the court did not take up several arguments presented by the EU Council and did not include them as a basis for maintaining sanctions,” Abramovich said in a statement issued on his behalf.
“Mr Abramovich does not have the ability to influence the decision making of any government, including Russia, and has in no way benefited from the war.”
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Some more details from Reuters about the £40m fine Google was handed by a Russian court.
The company was reportedly fined for failing to delete so-called “fake” information about the conflict in Ukraine, the Tass news agency reported.
Russia has been at loggerheads with foreign technology companies over content, censorship, data and local representation in a simmering dispute that intensified after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Alphabet’s YouTube has been a particular target of the Russian state’s ire but, unlike Twitter and Meta Platforms’ Facebook and Instagram, it has not been blocked.
The fine was calculated as a share of Google’s annual turnover in Russia. The company was handed similar turnover-based penalties of 7.2bn roubles in late 2021 and 21.1bn roubles in August 2022.
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A Russian court has fined Google 4.6bn roubles (£40m), Tass reports.
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Reuters reports that Kyiv plans to produce about 1m reconnaissance and attack FPV drones and more than 11,000 medium- and long-range attack drones next year, Ukraine’s minister for strategic industries said on Wednesday.
“All production facilities are ready, and contracting for 2024 begins,” Oleksandr Kamyshin said on Telegram messenger.
The figure included at least 1,000 drones with a range of more than 1,000km (620 miles), he said.
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Kremlin says Ukraine pulled out of 2022 peace talks 'at Britain's insistence'
The Kremlin has said there is no current basis for talks between Russia and Ukraine as none of the prerequisites are in place, Reuters reports.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Ukraine withdrew from the negotiation process in 2022 “at Britain’s insistence” and the UK “forbade” negotiations with Russia.
Ukraine says peace can only based on a full Russian withdrawal from all the territory it has seized since the war began in February 2022.
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EU court upholds sanctions against Roman Abramovich
The top EU court on Wednesday upheld sanctions against Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich that had been placed upon him after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reports.
After Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine in February 2022, the EU sanctioned Russian officials and a host of Russian businessmen, such as Abramovich, while freezing hundreds of billions of dollars of Russian assets.
Abramovich had launched a legal challenge against this.
“The general court dismisses the action brought by Mr Abramovich, thereby upholding the restrictive measures taken against him,” said the EU’s top court in a ruling.
Abramovich, who also holds Israeli citizenship and is a former owner of Chelsea football club, became one of the world’s most powerful businessmen after the 1991 break-up of the Soviet Union. Forbes estimates his net worth at $9.2bn.
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Reuters has this dispatch from Kyiv on now Ukraine plans to celebrate Christmas.
Ukrainians are gearing up to celebrate their first Christmas according to a new calendar, another step towards erasing all traces of Russian influence as their military fends off a Kremlin invasion.
Most Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians and the country’s main church agreed this year to move away from the traditional Julian calendar, which is used in Russia and celebrates the holiday on 7 January.
Moscow’s February 2022 attack rallied the nation in defence and sparked many Ukrainians to reject the Russian language and culture, among other historical ties to Kyiv’s former ruler.
“Everything that was related to Russia, and everything that Russia did the same way we did, provoked disgust among people,” said Mykhailo Omelian, an Orthodox priest in Kyiv.
Ukraine has also signalled its interest in joining the European Union, and many here see membership as a crucial affirmation of what they believe is their country’s historical place in Europe.
“It turns out that Ukrainians used to celebrate Christmas on 25 December, just like the rest of Europeans,” said Tetiana, a 25-year-old believer who said she would celebrate on 25 December for the first time.
Standing outside Kyiv’s golden-domed Saint Michael’s Monastery, she added that it would feel “a little unusual” but was “the right thing to do”.
Near the frontline of Russia’s invasion, which is nearing its two-year mark and shows no signs of abating, soldiers were also preparing to make the switch to 25 December.
“Just like it was before 7 January was imposed upon us,” said Bohdan, a service member stationed in eastern Ukraine.
On a recent Sunday morning, Ukrainian troops crammed into a small makeshift church for a liturgy, singing hymns as incense wafted in the air.
In another frontline church, Mykolai, a chaplain from Ukraine’s 95th Air Assault Brigade, said he expected troops to be in higher spirits as they celebrated.
“We basically understand that the enemy is godless, so this is just another day of war,” he said.
Ukrainian authorities have also stepped up a campaign to rename streets and settlements, as well as remove statues and monuments tied to the tsarist and Soviet past.
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Xi Jinping meets Russian PM in Beijing
China’s president, Xi Jinping, met the Russian prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, in Beijing on Wednesday. Xi praised the growth of bilateral trade between the two countries, which reached a record $200bn in the first 11 months of 2023, according to China’s official state readout.
In November, bilateral trade surpassed $21bn, the highest since the war in Ukraine began in February 2022.
According to the official readout, Xi said: “Developing China-Russia relations is a strategic choice made by both sides based on the fundamental interests of the two peoples.”
On Tuesday, Mishustin met his Chinese counterpart Li Qiang and said that ties between Moscow and Beijing had reached an “all-time high”.
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Opening summary
Russia has launched its fifth air attack this month targeting Kyiv, Ukrainian military officials have said.
Ukraine’s air force said air defence systems destroyed 18 out of 19 attack drones launched at Kyiv, Odesa, Kherson and other regions of Ukraine. It was not immediately clear how many were destroyed over Kyiv.
“According to preliminary information, there were no casualties or destruction in the capital,” Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app.
The Ukrainian air force also said Russia attacked the Kharkiv region in the east with two surface-to-air guided missiles. There were no casualites as a result of the assault, it added.
Ukraine‘s prosecutor’s office said on Wednesday morning that nine people, including four children, were injured in an overnight Russian drone attack on the Ukrainian southern city of Kherson.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy sought to boost the domestic mood in Ukraine and maintain western support that has been stuttering in recent weeks in an end-of-year press conference. “I am certain US and European financial support will continue,” the Ukrainian president said. “I’m confident the US won’t betray us.” Asked about reported tensions with his commander-in-chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, he said they had a “working relationship”.
Zelesnkiy insisted that on the battlefield “Russia hasn’t gotten any result from this year”. He said he would not drop his aim to restore Ukraine to pre-2014 territory, including the return of Crimea, but added that battlefield tactics could be changed after “careful consideration” of the results of military operations this year.
The Ukrainian president said if Donald Trump were elected US president in 2024, it could significantly change how the war in Ukraine played out. “If the policy of the next president, whoever it is, is different towards Ukraine, more cold or more economical, I think these signals will have a very strong impact on the course of the war,” Zelenskiy said.
Zelenskiy also said the military had proposed mobilising 450,000-500,000 more Ukrainians into the armed forces in what would mark a dramatic step up of Kyiv’s war. It was a “highly sensitive” issue that the military and government would discuss before deciding whether to send the proposal to parliament, Zelenskiy said.
Meanwhile in Moscow, the Russian president Vladimir Putin told defence officials that in Ukraine he would “not give up what is ours”, while claiming the Russian military had momentum. “Our troops are holding the initiative,” Putin said, during the end-of-year meeting with his defence leadership. “We are effectively doing what we think is needed, doing what we want.”
Defence minister Sergei Shoigu told the same meeting that Russia had increased tank production by 5.6 times since the start of what it calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine, and had laid 7,000 sq km of minefields along the 2,000km (1,250-mile) frontline.
The US Senate will not vote on a package to provide more aid to Ukraine and bolster US border security before early next year, as Democratic and Republican negotiators continue their work, chamber leaders said. “Our negotiators are going to be working very, very diligently over the December and January break period, and our goal is to get something done as soon as we get back,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters.
Ukrainian officials have discussed the possibility of reopening Boryspil international airport, which was closed for war reasons, President Zelenskiy said after a Boeing 777-300 operated by local airline Skyline Express took off from the airport with no passengers or cargo onboard. The so-called “technical flight” was a sign the infrastructure remains in working condition and safety can be granted despite constant Russian air attacks.
A Polish court convicted 14 citizens of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine for preparing acts of sabotage on behalf of Moscow as part of a spy ring. The defendants were charged last month with acts of espionage such as preparing to derail trains carrying aid to neighbouring Ukraine, and monitoring military facilities and critical infrastructure in the Nato member.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said there had been an “extensive failure” by Russia to take adequate measures to protect civilians in Ukraine and that there were indications that Russian forces had committed war crimes. Turk said his office’s monitoring indicated “gross violations of international human rights law, serious violations of international humanitarian law, and war crimes, primarily by the forces of the Russian Federation”.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said it would maintain its level of wartime investment in Ukraine after securing a rare increase in shareholder capital. The EBRD said the additional €4bn ($4.4bn) “will be used to provide significant and sustained investment for Ukraine’s real economy, both in wartime and in reconstruction”.
The US has issued fresh sanctions on 10 entities and four individuals based in Iran, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Indonesia that it accuses of supporting the production of Iranian drones, the Treasury Department said. Washington has long accused Tehran of supplying such weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine, which Iran denies.
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