Closing summary
It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
Russian forces may be capable of launching a “large offensive” in Ukraine by the end of January or February despite successive defeats and military problems, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, warned. He said Vladimir Putin’s goals had not changed since he ordered his troops to invade Ukraine in February, and he called on western allies not to listen to the Kremlin’s “empty statements”.
The US is finalising plans to send the Patriot missile defence system to Ukraine which could be announced as soon as this week, according to US officials. The plan is awaiting approval by the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, before it is sent to President Joe Biden for his signature. Approval is expected, two US officials and a senior administration official told CNN.
Generators are as important as armour in helping Ukraine survive Vladimir Putin’s energy terrorism this winter, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. Ukraine needed an additional €800m (£686m) to survive the winter and €1.5bn to restore the long-term damage to the energy grid, its president told an emergency conference in Paris convened to coordinate infrastructure and humanitarian aid to the country over the next four months.
More than €1bn was raised to support Ukraine this winter at the aid conference in Paris, France’s foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, said. The money, pledged by 46 countries and 24 international organisations, would be split between restoring Ukraine’s depleted energy network, the food sector, water supply, health and transportation, Colonna said.
Ukrainian forces have reportedly damaged a key bridge outside the southern city of Melitopol, a key objective for Kyiv in the region. Video posted online showed two supports of the bridge had been damaged during the attack, just two days after Ukraine hit a Russian barracks sited in a resort in the city, with Himars rockets causing substantial damage and casualties.
Ukrainian officials gave the all clear on Tuesday after air raid sirens blared across the country following warnings that Russia may carry out a new wave of missile strikes. Ukrainian media said the alerts may have been triggered by MiG fighter jets that took off from Ryazan, near Russia’s border with Ukraine, and flew towards Belarus.
Russia and Ukraine pounded each other’s forces in heavy fighting in the eastern region of Donetsk on Tuesday. Moscow is battling to take full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, two of four territories the Kremlin claims to have annexed in votes rejected by most countries as illegal.
Ukraine must take into account the new territorial “realities” that include Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions, the Kremlin has said. Ukraine’s president said on Monday that Russia could begin to withdraw its troops from the territory of Ukraine to show they are capable of abandoning their aggression. In response, the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there could be “no question” of Moscow beginning to pull out its troops by the end of the year.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, will hold talks to discuss the events of 2022 in late December, the Russian business daily Vedomosti reported. Dmitry Peskov told the newspaper that the date and the agenda of the meeting are already known, but an official announcement will come later. The talks will unlikely be face-to-face, the paper said.
The Belarusian ministry of defence has announced a “sudden combat readiness check” of its troops. The exercises are mostly taking place in the north-west of the country, not close to Ukraine’s border. This is one in a string of announcements by Belarus since mid-October which Kyiv say is designed to stoke fear in Ukrainians and disinform Ukraine’s army.
Germany will approve another €50m in winter aid for Kyiv following Russia’s missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said. She said Berlin was working to deliver generators, blankets and heating fuel to Ukraine over Christmas.
The UK Foreign Office announced it was imposing sanctions on 12 Russian commanders for their role in attacks on Ukrainian cities. They include Maj Gen Robert Baranov, identified by Bellingcat as the commander of programming and targeting Russian cruise missiles, as well as four Iranians, including the co-owner and managing director of MADO, an Iranian drone engine manufacturer.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Tuesday that there was an agreement on removing heavy weapons from Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plants. Talks were under way, he said, adding: “We managed to protect Chornobyl and our goal is to protect Zaporizhzhia. The coming weeks will be crucial.”
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said he did not expect to have contact with the US regarding further prisoner exchanges, Russian media reported. The White House said on Monday that senior US officials plan to hold talks this week with Russian counterparts to discuss the case of the detained American Paul Whelan. Ryabkov was quoted as saying that he didn’t know what the Americans “have in mind”.
Ukraine’s parliament has adopted a law on national minorities, a key requirement for the country’s accession to the EU, it said in a statement. The bill is designed to “improve the protection of the rights of national minorities”, including “the rights to self-identification, the use of languages of national minorities, education, participation in political, economic, social, and cultural life, etc”, the New Voice of Ukraine reported.
Two Ukrainian journalists have been awarded for their coverage of the Russian bombardment of the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol during the early weeks of the war. Freelance photojournalist Evgeniy Maloletka and Associated Press videographer and photojournalist Mstyslav Chernov spent three weeks documenting the impact of the fighting and artillery bombardments in Mariupol, including the shelling of a maternity hospital as well as the struggle of residents to survive.
Updated
Russia could launch ‘large offensive’ in January or February, warns Ukraine
Russian forces may be capable of launching a “large offensive” in Ukraine by the end of January or February despite successive defeats and military problems, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said today.
Moscow is preparing to mount a major offensive at the start of 2023 as it continues to attack Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, Kuleba said.
Speaking to reporters from a bomb shelter in central Kyiv, he said:
I think the Russian capability to conduct an offensive, maybe a large offensive, may be restored somewhere by the end of January, February. That’s what they’re trying to do. And we, of course, do everything possible to prevent it from happening.
Russia “definitely still hopes they will be able to break through our lines and advance deeper in Ukraine”, he said, pointing to “the conscription they have announced, and the training of new conscripts, and the movement of their heavy weapons across the country”.
He said Vladimir Putin’s goals had not changed since he ordered his troops to invade Ukraine in February, and called on western allies not to listen to the Kremlin’s “empty statements”. He said:
No one should be fooled. Russia has not changed its ultimatums and still wants to conquer all of Ukraine. What they want right now is not peace, but a pause in aggression to continue it later. We will not play this game.
Ukraine’s immediate concern was restoring electricity to the entire country following waves of Russian missile attacks on crucial infrastructure which aimed to “destroy the Ukrainian energy system and leave millions of people without access to power, water and heating amid freezing temperatures”, he said.
Putin hopes that without power, water and heating, Ukrainians will stop resisting and accept Russian ultimatums, but this is a grave miscalculation. Russian missile terror will not break Ukraine down.
Updated
Ukraine’s parliament has adopted a law on national minorities, a key requirement for the country’s accession to the EU, it said in a statement.
A total of 324 members of parliament voted in favour of repealing an old bill and adopting the new one, a Ukrainian MP, Yaroslav Zhelezniak, said on Telegram.
The bill is designed to “improve the protection of the rights of national minorities”, including “the rights to self-identification, the use of languages of national minorities, education, participation in political, economic, social, and cultural life, etc”, the New Voice of Ukraine reported.
Oleksandr Korniyenko, the Ukrainian parliament’s first deputy speaker, said it had “voted for all the necessary laws that pave the way for us to join the EU”, adding:
We are looking forward to positive decisions for Ukraine. Ukraine is Europe!
Today, the @ua_parliament voted for all the necessary laws that pave the way for us to join the EU. We are looking forward to positive decisions for Ukraine. Ukraine is Europe! 🇪🇺🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/TBswZl3KSs
— Oleksandr Korniyenko (@OlekKorn) December 13, 2022
Ukraine was granted EU candidate status in June, a historic move that opened the door to EU membership for the war-torn country. The move from applicant to candidate usually takes years, but the EU has dramatically accelerated the process in the context of Moscow’s war against Kyiv.
Updated
US finalising plans to send Patriot missile defence system to Ukraine - report
The US is finalising plans to send the Patriot missile defence system to Ukraine which could be announced as soon as this week, according to US officials.
The plan is awaiting approval by the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, before it is sent to President Joe Biden for his signature. Approval is expected, two US officials and a senior administration official told CNN.
Once the plans are approved, the Patriots are expected to ship quickly and Ukrainian forces will be trained to use them at a US army base in Grafenwoehr, Germany, officials said.
The Patriot defence system is widely considered one of the most capable long-range weapons to defend against incoming ballistic and cruise missiles, CNN writes. It can potentially shoot down Russian missiles and aircraft far from their intended targets inside Ukraine.
As Russian forces have launched waves of missile and drone attacks across Ukraine, Kyiv has pleaded with its western allies for additional, sophisticated air defence systems. Recent attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure have put renewed pressure on the Biden administration to send these systems.
The “reality of what is going on on the ground” led the Biden administration to make the decision, an official said.
Updated
Ukraine’s economy could shrink by 50% this year if Russia continues to attack the country’s national power grid and other critical infrastructure, its prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, said.
Shmyhal was quoted by Interfax Ukraine news agency as saying:
If Russia’s terrorist activities against our infrastructure continue, we may lose another 10% to these figures – that is, up to 50% of our GDP.
The Ukrainian government estimated that damage from the war could reach $700bn by the end of the year, he said. All sectors of the economy were impacted, he added.
Two Ukrainian journalists have been awarded for their coverage of the Russian bombardment of the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol during the early weeks of the war.
Freelance photojournalist Evgeniy Maloletka and Associated Press videographer and photojournalist Mstyslav Chernov were the only journalists on the ground during the Russian invasion and siege of Mariupol.
The pair spent three weeks documenting the impact of the fighting and artillery bombardments in Mariupol, including the shelling of a maternity hospital as well as the struggle of residents to survive, before they were smuggled out of the city.
Ukraine’s culture minister, Oleksandr Tkachenko, said Maloletka and Chernov have been awarded the Press Freedom Award by Reporters Without Borders. He thanked the two journalists, adding:
In this war, we defend our freedom of speech, our right to the truth. And journalists bring it to the world.
Maloletka and Chernov “worked in extremely difficult conditions, with the Russian army looking for them because of the impact of their photos”, Reporters Without Borders said.
Their photo of a pregnant woman injured in the shelling of a maternity hospital went around the world and drew international public opinion’s attention to what was happening in the besieged city.
Updated
In its three decades in British retail, the lingerie brand Agent Provocateur, the 1990s brainchild of Dame Vivienne Westwood’s son, has rarely shied away from controversy.
Whether it be its daring window displays or that 2001 TV advert featuring Kylie Minogue riding a velvet bucking bronco, the brand has stirred up some strong emotions. But it had not, until now, been accused of inadvertently helping to finance a war in Europe.
The continued presence of Agent Provocateur-branded stores in Russia has, however, politicised the peekaboo bras, barely there corsets and sex toys, as the company has been placed on a database of firms that are said to be at risk of aiding and abetting Russian aggression, albeit unwittingly.
The Leave Russia project at the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) argues that “international companies may exercise their influence by putting economic pressure and refusing to cooperate with the aggressor”. Otherwise, it is argued, they add value to the Russian economy.
There appear to be 10 Agent Provocateur franchise stores in Moscow, as listed on agentprovocateur.ru, a Russian-language website. Typically, a franchisee pays a royalty in order to operate under a brand name and sell its products.
Denis Dovgopoliy, a prominent venture capitalist in Ukraine who has backed efforts to persuade western firms to leave Russia, said a franchise model allowed “Russian entrepreneurs to build businesses and pay taxes”, although he said he held particular scorn for those that were “actively involved in the supply or technology chain of entire industries”.
Summary of the day so far
It’s 6pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
Generators are as important as armour in helping Ukraine survive Vladimir Putin’s energy terror this winter, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. Ukraine needed an additional €800m (£686m) to survive the winter and €1.5bn to restore the long-term damage to the energy grid, its president told an emergency conference in Paris convened to coordinate infrastructure and humanitarian aid to the country over the next four months.
More than €1bn was raised to support Ukraine this winter at the aid conference in Paris, France’s foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, said. The money, pledged by 46 countries and 24 international organisations, would be split between restoring Ukraine’s depleted energy network, the food sector, water supply, health and transportation, Colonna said.
Ukrainian forces have reportedly damaged a key bridge outside the southern city of Melitopol, a key objective for Kyiv in the region. Video posted online showed two supports of the bridge had been damaged during the attack, just two days after Ukraine hit a Russian barracks sited in a resort in the city, with Himars rockets causing substantial damage and casualties.
Ukrainian officials gave the all clear on Tuesday after air raid sirens blared across the country following warnings that Russia may carry out a new wave of missile strikes. Ukrainian media said the alerts may have been triggered by MiG fighter jets that took off from Ryazan, near Russia’s border with Ukraine, and flew towards Belarus.
Russia and Ukraine pounded each other’s forces in heavy fighting in the eastern region of Donetsk on Tuesday. Moscow is battling to take full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, two of four territories the Kremlin claims to have annexed in votes rejected by most countries as illegal.
Ukraine must take into account the new territorial “realities” that include Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions, the Kremlin has said. Ukraine’s president said on Monday that Russia could begin to withdraw its troops from the territory of Ukraine to show they are capable of abandoning their aggression. In response, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there could be “no question” of Moscow beginning to pull out its troops by the end of the year.
Russian president Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will hold talks to discuss the events of 2022 in late December, the Russian business daily Vedomosti reported. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, told the newspaper that the date and the agenda of the meeting are already known, but an official announcement will come later. The talks will unlikely be face-to-face, the paper said.
The Belarusian ministry of defence has announced a “sudden combat readiness check” of its troops. The exercises are mostly taking place in the north-west of the country, not close to Ukraine’s border. This is one in a string of announcements by Belarus since mid-October which Kyiv say is designed to stoke fear in Ukrainians and disinform Ukraine’s army.
Germany will approve another €50m in winter aid for Kyiv following Russia’s missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said. She said Berlin was working to deliver generators, blankets and heating fuel to Ukraine over Christmas.
The UK Foreign Office announced it was sanctioning 12 Russian commanders for their role in attacks on Ukrainian cities. Those sanctioned include Maj Gen Robert Baranov, identified by Bellingcat as the commander of programming and targeting Russian cruise missiles, as well as four Iranians including the co-owner and managing director of MADO, an Iranian drone engine manufacturer.
Arms shipments to Ukraine will end as soon as peace talks to end the Russian invasion begin, Italy’s defence minister told parliament. “I am aware that military aid will have to end sooner or later, and will end when we will have the peace talks that we are all hoping for,” said the defence minister, Guido Crosetto, while addressing the upper-house Senate.
French president Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that there was an agreement on removing heavy weapons from Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plants. Talks were underway, he said, adding: “We managed to protect Chornobyl and our goal is to protect Zaporizhzhia. The coming weeks will be crucial.”
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said he did not expect to have contacts with the US regarding further prisoner exchanges, Russian media reported. The White House said on Monday that senior US officials plan to hold talks this week with Russian counterparts to discuss the case of the detained American, Paul Whelan. Ryabkov was quoted as saying that he didn’t know what the Americans “have in mind”.
Good afternoon from London, it’s Léonie Chao-Fong still here with you today. Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have anything to flag that you think we should be covering. I’m on Twitter or you can email me.
Updated
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said he does not expect to have contacts with the US regarding further prisoner exchanges, Russian media has reported.
The White House yesterday said senior US officials plan to hold talks this week with Russian counterparts to discuss the case of the detained American, Paul Whelan.
Jake Sullivan, the White House’s national security adviser, told reporters on Monday:
We will have an engagement with them this week. We have had regular engagement of course along the way and the next conversation at a high level will take place this week.
But Ryabkov was quoted by Russia’s Interfax news agency as saying:
I don’t know what they have in mind. As the president has already said, we have a department dealing with this matter. According to my information, no contacts are expected on this subject through the lines that I know about.
Updated
Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has vowed his country “will persevere” with the support of allies after the announcement by France’s foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, that a conference for Ukraine raised more than €1bn.
About 1 billion euros to support 🇺🇦 in the winter period was announced at the conference in Paris on the initiative of @EmmanuelMacron. The aggressor will not succeed in plunging us into cold and darkness. With the support of our friends, we will persevere. pic.twitter.com/9TIq7BnPaE
— Denys Shmyhal (@Denys_Shmyhal) December 13, 2022
Updated
Belarus announces 'sudden combat readiness check' of its troops
The Belarusian ministry of defence announced a “sudden combat readiness check” of its troops on Tuesday.
The exercises are mostly taking place are in the north-west of the country, not close to Ukraine’s border. This is one in a string of announcements by Belarus since mid-October which Kyiv say is designed to stoke fear in Ukrainians and disinform Ukraine’s army.
Spokespeople for Ukraine’s army said its chief, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, had a call with his Polish counterpart, Tomas Piotrowski, in which they discussed the announcement on Tuesday. Belarus borders Ukraine as well as Poland.
In mid-October, Belarus announced a joint military taskforce with Russia to deal with what its president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, described as the Ukraine-Nato threat. Belarus and Russia have said they are creating joint military training centres in Belarus and Russia has been sending in troops and equipment.
As it stands, Belarus has not sent forces into Ukraine but it allows Russia to regularly launch missiles from its territory into Ukraine and was one of the key launchpads for Russia’s February attack.
Analysts say that a potential attack on Ukraine from the north would probably be aimed at cutting off or disrupting supplies coming in from Poland as well as stretching Ukrainian forces across the country.
Ukraine has not ruled out the possibility of such an attack but Ukraine’s defence minister Oleksii Reznikov told Reuters in November that Ukraine is confident it can repel any attempt.
On Tuesday, the spokesperson for Ukraine’s border service, Andriy Demchenko, said that they had not observed the type of offensive military formation on Ukraine’s border with Belarus that would indicate an attack is imminent.
Updated
Ukrainian officials gave the all clear on Tuesday after air raid sirens blared across the country following warnings that Russia may carry out a new wave of missile strikes.
No new attacks were reported despite the air alerts, officials said.
Russia has launched several waves of missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure since October that have caused power outages across the country.
Ukrainian media said the alerts may have been triggered by MiG fighter jets that took off from Ryazan, near Russia’s border with Ukraine, and flew towards Belarus.
Paris aid conference raises €1bn for Ukraine, says France
More than €1bn was raised to support Ukraine this winter at an aid conference in Paris, France’s foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, said.
The money, pledged by 46 countries and 24 international organisations, would be split between restoring Ukraine’s depleted energy network, the food sector, water supply, health and transportation, Colonna said.
She said these were “new commitments, thanks to the holding of this conference. It is aid, or gifts in kind. It is not loans.”
Updated
Earlier we reported that air sirens had been heard across Ukraine, including Kyiv, this afternoon.
There have been no immediate reports of attacks, and Ukrainian media said the alerts may have been triggered by MiG fighter jets that took off from Ryazan, near Russia’s border with Ukraine, and flew towards Belarus.
Russia rejects Zelenskiy’s peace proposal, says Ukraine must accept new ‘realities’
Ukraine must take into account the new territorial “realities” that include Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions, the Kremlin has said in response to Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s three-step proposal for peace.
In a statement to G7 countries yesterday, the Ukrainian leader said Russia could begin to withdraw its troops from the territory of Ukraine to show they are capable of abandoning their aggression.
Zelenskiy told G7 leaders he was offering Moscow an “opportunity to make a real, meaningful step towards diplomatic settlement” of the conflict.
He said:
The holidays are ahead, celebrated by billions of people around the world: Christmas of the Gregorian calendar, New Year, Christmas of the Julian calendar. This is the time when normal people think about peace, not about aggression. I offer Russia the opportunity to at least try to demonstrate that they can abandon the way of aggression. It would be right to start withdrawing Russian troops from internationally recognised borders of Ukraine this Christmas. If Russia withdraws its troops from Ukraine, it will ensure a lasting cessation of hostilities.
Russia does not have full control of any of the four provinces of Ukraine it says it annexed in September, but which most UN member countries have condemned as illegal.
In response, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Ukraine needed to accept new territorial “realities”, including that the Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk provinces of Ukraine were Russia’s “new subjects”.
Asked about the proposed Russian troop withdrawal, Peskov said:
The Ukrainian side needs to take into account the realities that have developed during this time. And these realities indicate that new subjects have appeared in the Russian Federation. They appeared as a result of referendums that took place in these territories. Without taking these new realities into account, no kind of progress is possible.
There could be “no question” of Moscow beginning to pull out its troops by the end of the year, he said.
Updated
Air raid alerts have been reported across Ukraine, including its capital Kyiv.
People are being urged to stay in shelters.
⏺ В Україні масштабна повітряна тривога. Перебувайте в укриттях! pic.twitter.com/t5wmoB5Eqd
— Ukrinform (@UKRINFORM) December 13, 2022
Talks between the Chinese and Russian presidents later this month will unlikely be face-to-face, according to the Russian newspaper Vedomosti.
Earlier we reported that Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin will hold a meeting to discuss the events of 2022 in late December.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has confirmed to the paper that the date and the agenda of the talks are already known, and an official announcement will come later.
Xi and Putin were “in constant communication”, he told reporters during his daily briefing today. He added:
We are preparing to continue this communication. We will inform you in a timely manner as to when and how future contacts will take place.
Here are some of the latest images we have received from Ukraine.
'Generators as important as armour': Zelenskiy urges €800m in Ukraine winter help
Generators are as important as armour in helping Ukraine survive Vladimir Putin’s energy terror this winter, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, told an emergency conference convened in Paris to coordinate short-term infrastructure and humanitarian aid to Ukraine for the next four months.
Zelenskiy said his country needed an additional €800m to survive the winter and €1.5bn to restore the long-term damage to the energy grid.
The aim of the conference is to set up an international coordination mechanism to ensure the €800m needed secures Ukraine the right mix of generators, transformers, equipment for the restoration of high voltage networks, and gas turbines.
Zelenskiy vowed that “we will do everything to counter the blackout and the energy terror. Most of our power plants are damaged or destroyed by the bombings,” he said addressing the conference by video link.
Every day our engineers have to disconnect millions of Ukrainians for these repairs. Currently there are 12 million. And every day we expect new Russian strikes. That’s why the generators have become as important as armour to protect the population.
He was addressing a French-inspired conference designed to coordinate humanitarian aid to the country attended by more than 40 countries and 30 multilateral bodies. In the afternoon France was holding a separate conference on the long-term reconstruction of the country.
Energy experts say the key task for Ukraine is not to avoid black-outs but to ensure that each day all neighbourhoods are receiving at least three hours of electricity, something that requires difficult distribution of the grid.
Latest figures from the EU Frontex cited by the Polish migration expert at Warsaw University Maciej Duszczyk show the Russian bombardment has not led to a second wave of mass refugees.
He said there had been only a slight net increase of 10,000 Ukrainians crossing their border in the past week, with 65% still going to Poland.
He added:
The next two months are crucial, but the exodus may be lower than in April because Ukraine’s morale about winning the war is higher.
He added although the temperature was projected to drop below freezing at night it was due to be about five degrees by day, relatively mild for a Ukrainian winter.
Olena Zelenska, the president’s wife, addressing the conference in person, asked Europeans to imagine being under the Russian bombardment.
The first lady of Ukraine said in a rare address:
But how do you feel what this war is doing to our country and our people? how do you feel what more than 4,000 missiles that hit Ukrainian cities mean? What does 50,000 missiles launched in a single day against our country mean? What are 2,719 educational establishments affected or destroyed? How do you feel over 1,100 medical establishments destroyed or affected? Can you imagine half of France without electricity?
Macron, often accused of trying to secure a premature peace said “it is up to Ukraine, the victim of this aggression, to decide on the conditions for a just and lasting peace”.
He added the 10-point peace plan proposed by Zelenskiy at the G20 in Bali “constitutes an excellent basis on which we will build together”.
Updated
Germany will approve another €50m in winter aid for Kyiv following Russia’s missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said.
Baerbock said Berlin was working to deliver generators, blankets and heating fuel to Ukraine over Christmas, as Russia’s pummelling of power facilities causes power shortages in many parts of the country.
“We will not allow” Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, to break the people of Ukraine, she told reporters at a donors’ conference in Paris.
Updated
UK sanctions Russian commanders and Iranian businessmen
The UK Foreign Office announced it was sanctioning 12 Russian commanders for their role in attacks on Ukrainian cities, including Major General Robert Baranov, identified by Bellingcat as the commander of programming and targeting Russian cruise missiles.
The Foreign Office view the dozen as the most senior officers directly involved in the assault on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure. The sanctioning makes them prime targets for war crimes tribunals in the event of such trials ever being held.
🚨 SANCTIONED: 12 senior commanders of Russian military forces, including units implicated in attacks on Ukrainian cities.
— Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (@FCDOGovUK) December 13, 2022
🔗 https://t.co/WO17BiD2g9 pic.twitter.com/GVcuhaOcqa
The UK said it was sanctioning four Iranians including the co-owner and managing director of MADO, an Iranian drone engine manufacturer.
The Foreign Office, citing UK defence intelligence reports, claimed:
Russian armed forces are struggling to replenish their missile reserves, while they are increasingly forced to rely on second rate drones supplied by Iran to keep up their inhumane bombardments of the Ukrainian people.
James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, said:
The Iranian regime is increasingly isolated in the face of deafening calls for change from its own people and is striking sordid deals with Putin in a desperate attempt to survive.
Updated
The UK has announced a fresh package of sanctions targeting Russian military commanders implicated in missile strikes on Ukrainian cities, as well as Iranian businessmen involved in the production and supply of drones to the Kremlin.
My colleague Patrick Wintour tweets:
12 senior Russian commanders sanctioned by UK for attacks on Ukrainian cities, including Major General Robert Baranov, identified by Bellingcat as the commander of programming and targeting Russian cruise missiles. Co-owner of Iranian drone engine manufacturer also targeted.
— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) December 13, 2022
Ukrainian forces damage key bridge near Melitopol, reports say
Ukrainian forces have reportedly damaged a key bridge outside the southern city of Melitopol, a key objective for Kyiv in the region.
The crossing over the Molochna River is situated between Melitopol and the village of Kostyantynivka just to the east of the city on the M14 highway and was struck overnight.
Video posted online showed two supports of the bridge had been damaged during the attack, with the span partly collapsed by the blast, making it reportedly unusable for heavy military traffic.
An explosion damaged the bridge in occupied Melitopol (Zaporizhzhia Oblast) last night.
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) December 13, 2022
Ukrainian Army continues targeting Russian ground lines of communication on the southern front. Melitopol is a key logistics hub that leads to occupied Crimea.
📹https://t.co/ilVF86MTrq pic.twitter.com/rE8x0fyrly
The strike on the bridge comes just two days after Ukraine hit a Russian barracks sited in a resort in the city, with Himars rockets causing substantial damage and casualties.
The increase in Ukrainian pressure on Russian forces in Melitopol appears to be following a similar pattern to tactics used against Kherson before its liberation, with the targeting of both Russian troops and supply lines, including logistics links to the Crimean peninsula and to the east via the Russia-occupied cities to Berdiansk and Mariupol.
With Ukrainian forces now operating east of the Dnieper River, Melitopol is seen as a key objective for Kyiv in the south of the country after the recapture of Kherson.
Summary
The time in Kyiv is 1pm. Here is a round-up of the day’s stories so far:
The United States has shipped the first part of its power equipment aid to Ukraine, US officials said on Monday, as Washington works to support the country’s energy infrastructure against intensifying attacks from Russia. The first tranche was power equipment worth about $13m, one of the officials said. Another source familiar with the matter said two more planeloads of equipment would leave from the United States this week.
Russia and Ukraine pounded each other’s forces in heavy fighting in the eastern region of Donetsk on Tuesday. Moscow is battling to take full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, two of four territories the Kremlin claims to have annexed in votes rejected by most countries as illegal.
There were unverified reports on social media of an attack on a bridge behind the frontlines in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol, which is seen as vital to Russia’s defence of territory it holds in the south, including Crimea, Reuters reports. Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-installed official in Zaporizhzhia region, shared video on his Telegram channel of what he said was the bridge and blamed Ukrainian “terrorists” for the damage. Ivan Fedorov, the exiled mayor of Melitopol, also shared video showing damage to what appeared to be the same bridge.
The town of Klintsy in Russia’s southern Bryansk region was shelled overnight by Ukraine, the regional governor claimed, adding that there were no casualties or damage. “As a result of the work of the air defence systems of the Russian Armed Forces, the missile was destroyed, some parts hit the territory of an industrial zone,” governor Alexander Bogomaz said on Telegram.
Global economic powers have pledged to beef up Kyiv’s military capabilities with a focus on air defence, as Russian missiles, artillery and drones hammered targets in Ukraine. The Group of Seven promised to “meet Ukraine’s urgent requirements” after president Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed for modern tanks, artillery and long-range weapons to counter Russia’s devastating invasion, Reuters reported.
Arms shipments to Ukraine will end as soon as peace talks to end the Russian invasion begin, Italy’s defence minister told parliament on Tuesday. “I am aware that military aid will have to end sooner or later, and will end when we will have the peace talks that we are all hoping for,” said the defence minister, Guido Crosetto, while addressing the upper-house Senate.
French president Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that there was an agreement on removing heavy weapons from Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and that talks were under way on the modalities around this. “We managed to protect Chornobyl and our goal is to protect Zaporizhzhia. The coming weeks will be crucial,” Macron said, as he arrived to attend an international conference France is hosting an international conference in Paris to provide urgent aid to help Ukraine get through freezing winter temperatures as Russian forces target civilian infrastructure across the country, Reuters reported.
European Union countries’ energy ministers must decide on Tuesday if they are ready to reach a deal on an EU-wide gas price cap, the Czech Republic’s industry minister, Jozef Sikela, said. “This is now purely up to the ministers to show if they are ready to reach an agreement or not,” Sikela said on his arrival to a meeting of EU energy ministers in Brussels, where they aim to agree on the price cap.
Belarus has launched an unannounced inspection of its troops’ combat readiness, its defence ministry said on Tuesday. “The activities will be comprehensive in nature; troops will have to move to the designated areas as soon as possible, carry out their engineering equipment, organise protection and defence, and set up bridge crossings over the rivers Neman and Berezina,” the defence ministry said.
Russian president Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will hold talks to discuss the events of 2022 in late December, the Russian business daily Vedomosti reported on Tuesday. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, told the newspaper that the date and the agenda of the meeting are already known, but an official announcement will come later.
European Union governments on Monday struck a deal with Hungary that sorts out financial aid for Ukraine in 2023 and gains Budapest’s approval for a global minimum corporate tax, all in exchange for EU flexibility about funds paid to Hungary. The complex deal came after months of wrangling between EU institutions, member countries and Hungary and was spelled out on Monday by the council that represents EU member governments and by diplomats speaking anonymously.
Ukraine has called for the west to supply Patriot missiles batteries and other modern air defence systems. The country’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, made the appeal to western allies amid growing concerns that attacks by Russia on its electricity grid could create a new wave of refugees.
The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council said he expected another wave of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Ukraine to go to Europe over the winter because of “unliveable” conditions. Millions of people in Ukraine have been left without heat, clean water or power amid plummeting temperatures, following Russian missile strikes on the country’s energy infrastructure.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, for now. My colleague Léonie Chao-Fong will be along shortly to continue bringing you all the latest from Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Arms shipments to Ukraine will end as soon as peace talks to end the Russian invasion begin, Italy’s defence minister told parliament on Tuesday.
“I am aware that military aid will have to end sooner or later, and will end when we will have the peace talks that we are all hoping for,” said the defence minister, Guido Crosetto, while addressing the upper-house Senate.
Earlier this month, Italy’s cabinet adopted a decree allowing it to keep supplying Ukraine with weapons for the whole of next year without seeking formal approval from parliament for each new shipment.
Updated
Russia and Ukraine pounded each other’s forces in heavy fighting in the eastern region of Donetsk on Tuesday.
Moscow is battling to take full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, two of four territories the Kremlin claims to have annexed in votes rejected by most countries as illegal.
Moscow is also attacking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with waves of missile and drone strikes, at times cutting off electricity for millions of civilians enduring Europe’s deadliest conflict since the second world war.
“A little more than 50% of the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic has been liberated,” Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed administrator of the portion controlled by Moscow, told Russian state-owned news agency RIA.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the report.
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French president Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday that there was an agreement on removing heavy weapons from Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and that talks were under way on the modalities around this.
“We managed to protect Chornobyl and our goal is to protect Zaporizhzhia. The coming weeks will be crucial,” Macron said, as he arrived to attend an international conference France is hosting an international conference in Paris to provide urgent aid to help Ukraine get through freezing winter temperatures as Russian forces target civilian infrastructure across the country, Reuters reported.
European Union countries’ energy ministers must decide on Tuesday if they are ready to reach a deal on an EU-wide gas price cap, the Czech Republic’s industry minister, Jozef Sikela, said.
“This is now purely up to the ministers to show if they are ready to reach an agreement or not,” Sikela said on his arrival to a meeting of EU energy ministers in Brussels, where they aim to agree on the price cap.
The Czech Republic holds the EU’s rotating presidency and is responsible for drafting negotiation texts for EU countries. Sikela said the country had put a “feasible” proposal on the table, which addressed countries’ various concerns over the gas price cap.
Updated
Belarus has launched an unannounced inspection of its troops’ combat readiness, its defence ministry said on Tuesday.
“The activities will be comprehensive in nature; troops will have to move to the designated areas as soon as possible, carry out their engineering equipment, organise protection and defence, and set up bridge crossings over the rivers Neman and Berezina,” the defence ministry said.
It added that military equipment and personnel will be moved and movement along certain public roads would be restricted.
The town of Klintsy in Russia’s southern Bryansk region was shelled overnight by Ukraine, the regional governor claimed, adding that there were no casualties or damage.
“As a result of the work of the air defence systems of the Russian Armed Forces, the missile was destroyed, some parts hit the territory of an industrial zone,” governor Alexander Bogomaz said on Telegram.
Klintsy is a town of about 60,000 people, about 45km (28 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
Reuters was not able to immediately verify the report.
Updated
Global economic powers have pledged to beef up Kyiv’s military capabilities with a focus on air defence, as Russian missiles, artillery and drones hammered targets in Ukraine.
The Group of Seven promised to “meet Ukraine’s urgent requirements” after president Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed for modern tanks, artillery and long-range weapons to counter Russia’s devastating invasion, Reuters reported.
Zelenskiy also urged G7 leaders gathered at a virtual meeting to support his idea of convening a global peace summit dedicated to bringing peace to his country.
The summit would be focused on the implementation of Kyiv’s 10-point peace plan that insists on, among other things, Russia’s withdrawal of all its troops from Ukraine and no territorial concessions on Kyiv’s part.
The British defence minister Ben Wallace said on Monday he would be “open-minded” about supplying Ukraine with longer-range missiles to target launch sites for Russian drones that have hit infrastructure if Russia carried on targeting civilian areas.
US president Joe Biden told Zelenskiy on Sunday that Washington’s priority was to boost Ukraine’s air defences. The US also shipped the first batch of power equipment to Ukraine under an aid package agreed last month.
Russia is “deliberately trying to freeze Ukrainians to death as we enter winter”, a senior US official said. “Our strategy right now first is to help Ukraine protect itself against this deliberate attacks on civilian energy infrastructure because it could be a humanitarian catastrophe.”
Moscow has denied targeting civilians but the war has displaced millions and killed thousands of non-combatants.
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Attack on Melitopol bridge - report
There were unverified reports on social media of an attack on a bridge behind the frontlines in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol, which is seen as vital to Russia’s defence of territory it holds in the south, including Crimea, Reuters reports.
Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-installed official in Zaporizhzhia region, shared video on his Telegram channel of what he said was the bridge and blamed Ukrainian “terrorists” for the damage. Ivan Fedorov, the exiled mayor of Melitopol, also shared video showing damage to what appeared to be the same bridge.
In the suburbs of the occupied #Melitopol in the Zaporizhzhia region of #Ukraine, a bridge was blown up, along which #Russian military equipment was transported from the east, traffic on the bridge was suspended. This was reported by the mayor of the city Ivan Fedorov. pic.twitter.com/GcM72IHJoV
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) December 12, 2022
The Guardian has not independently confirmed the reports.
Updated
Ukraine’s chances of surviving the winter without a mass exodus of refugees into Europe rest on a resilience conference being jointly co-chaired by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in Paris on Tuesday.
With as many as 47 countries and 22 multilateral institutions attending, France and Ukraine hope to set up a small coordinating mechanism to process Ukrainian requests for funding and help in kind to survive winter after Russia mounted a series of massive missile strikes on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.
French diplomatic sources said the aim was for each country and entity to appoint an official responsible for supplying the help Ukraine requests between now and March. The French will provide a platform so Ukrainians requests can be processed and countries can come forward to fill gaps in a process analogous to the regular conferences at which a group of allies meeting in Ramstein airbase coordinate military aid to Ukraine.
The requests at the Paris resilience conference will centre on energy, water, food, transport, and health.The UK is expected to focus its offer on helping to restore crippled Ukrainian power stations, including by providing transformers. The UK is also expected to slap further sanctions on Iran for supplying drones to Russia for use in Ukraine. The G7 in a joint statement described the attacks as a war crime.
The statement added, “We are determined that Russia will ultimately need to pay for the restoration of critical infrastructure damaged or destroyed through its brutal war. There can be no impunity for war crimes and other atrocities. We will hold President Putin and those responsible to account in accordance with international law”.
Macron sees the conference as a chance to reassert his fully fledged support for Ukraine’s right to regain its lost territories.
There will be no explicit discussion of how Europe should cope with a second refugee influx, but the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council Jan Egeland said on Monday he anticipates another wave of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Ukraine in Europe because of “unliveable” conditions.
He said: “Nobody knows how many but there will be hundreds of thousands more as the horrific and unlawful bombing of civilian infrastructure makes life unliveable in too many places,” Jan Egeland told Reuters by phone after returning from a trip to Ukraine earlier this month.
Updated
Putin and Xi to hold talks later this month
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will hold talks to discuss the events of 2022 in late December, the Russian business daily Vedomosti reported on Tuesday.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, told the newspaper that the date and the agenda of the meeting are already known, but an official announcement will come later.
EU breaks Hungary stalemate to approve €18bn aid plan
European Union governments on Monday struck a deal with Hungary that sorts out financial aid for Ukraine in 2023 and gains Budapest’s approval for a global minimum corporate tax, all in exchange for EU flexibility about funds paid to Hungary.
The complex deal came after months of wrangling between EU institutions, member countries and Hungary and was spelled out on Monday by the council that represents EU member governments and by diplomats speaking anonymously. It means Ukraine will get €18bn from the EU budget next year.
Budapest had been vetoing making payments by that stable, predictable and cheaper means, rather than by the bilateral loans that member countries have been extending to Kyiv.
It also agreed to drop its veto over the OECD-agreed global minimum corporate tax of 15% to be applied to large international corporations where they make money, rather than where they set up offices for tax purposes.
US sends first power equipment to Ukraine
The United States has shipped the first part of its power equipment aid to Ukraine, US officials said on Monday, as Washington works to support the country’s energy infrastructure against intensifying attacks from Russia.
The first tranche was power equipment worth about $13m, one of the officials said. Another source familiar with the matter said two more planeloads of equipment would leave from the United States this week.
A US official said the equipment departed from a US military base. The first tranche is part of the $53m aid announced last month, after Ukraine said it needed transformers and generators as well as air defence systems.
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Welcome and sumamry
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest developments for the next while.
It’s 7.30am in Kyiv. Our main stories this morning: the European Union reached a deal in principle to send an €18bn ($18.93bn) financial aid package to Ukraine and approve a minimum tax on major corporations in a big move that narrowed a rift between the bloc and recalcitrant member Hungary.
And the United States has shipped the first part of its power equipment aid to Ukraine, US officials said on Monday, as Washington works to support the country’s energy infrastructure against intensifying attacks from Russia.
Here are the other key recent developments.
Ukraine has called for the west to supply Patriot missiles batteries and other modern air defence systems. The country’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, made the appeal to western allies amid growing concerns that attacks by Russia on its electricity grid could create a new wave of refugees.
The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council said he expected another wave of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Ukraine to go to Europe over the winter because of “unliveable” conditions. Millions of people in Ukraine have been left without heat, clean water or power amid plummeting temperatures, following Russian missile strikes on the country’s energy infrastructure.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged leaders of the Group of Seven nations on Monday to support his idea of convening a special global peace summit in winter dedicated to bringing peace to his country. Zelenskiy also appealed to the G7 nations for an additional 2bn cubic metres of natural gas as well as long-range weapons, modern tanks, artillery units and shells.
Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout has joined the Kremlin-loyal ultranationalist Liberal Democratic party (LDPR), its leader said. Bout, once nicknamed “the Merchant of Death”, was freed last week after 14 years in US custody in a high-profile swap with the American basketball star Brittney Griner. The move could see Bout seek a seat in the Russian parliament.
The exiled mayor of Melitopol claims Russian troops are “redeploying” and “panicking” following Ukrainian attacks on the Russian-occupied city over the weekend. Russian forces “are busy moving their military groups to other places to try to hide them”, Ivan Fedorov said without providing evidence.
Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence has warned that Russia has enough missiles to launch another three to five waves of strikes on the country. Vadym Skibitsky also claimed Russia is using old Ukrainian missiles against Kyiv and outlined the four general directions from which Russia is launching missiles into Ukraine.
Two civilians have been killed and 10 more injured after Russian rocket attacks on the town of Hirnyk in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. Russian forces struck the centre of the town “with cluster munitions and Uragan MLRS [multilaunch rocket systems]”, the prosecutor general’s office said.
Two people were killed and another five wounded after Russian troops shelled the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, according to local authorities. “The enemy again attacked the residential quarters of Kherson,” governor Yaroslav Yanushevich said on Telegram, adding the Russian forces hit a maternity ward, a cafe and apartment buildings on Saturday.
Vladimir Putin will not hold a year-end press conference for the first time in at least a decade, in what Kremlin watchers view as a break with protocol due to his war in Ukraine. There would also be no New Year reception at the Kremlin, officials said.
Britain’s defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said he would be “open minded” about supplying Ukraine with longer-range weapons if Russia continued to target civilian areas. Wallace said he “constantly” reviewed the weapons systems the UK sends to Ukraine, and that he “will be open minded to see what we do next” if Moscow tries to “break those Geneva conventions”.
The EU has secured enough gas for this winter but could face a gas shortage next year if Russia further cuts supplies, the European Commission and the International Energy Agency (IEA) have warned.
An international team of legal advisers has been working with local prosecutors in Ukraine’s recaptured city of Kherson to gather evidence of alleged sexual crimes by Russian forces. A team from Global Rights Compliance, an international legal practice headquartered in The Hague, are conducting a full-scale investigation part of a broader international effort to support overwhelmed Ukrainian authorities.
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