Summary
It’s summary time, before we close this blog about Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s day in Washington DC.
What did we learn from the Ukrainian president’s press conference with Joe Biden? Not too much.
Zelenskiy and Biden reiterated their belief that the US should pass a significant supplemental aid package for Ukraine in its war with Russia, but acknowledged that Republicans on Capitol Hill are holding that process up as they seek concessions from Biden and Democrats on immigration policy and particularly the southern border.
That, of course, was the position coming into the press conference, after Zelenskiy went to the Hill and met senators and the House speaker, Mike Johnson.
Biden has ordered $200m in aid from the Pentagon via a “drawdown”, a process to provide ammunition, missiles and more swiftly to allies in need.
Neither leader was drawn into making dire predictions about what a second term for Donald Trump might mean for Ukraine.
Biden, of course, had no good news for Zelenskiy on membership of Nato.
But the US president did get off a zinger, of a sort, when he highlighted praise for Republicans by a Russian TV host and said: “If you’re being celebrated by Russian propagandists, it might be time to rethink what you’re doing. History … will judge harshly.”
“If you're being celebrated by Russian propagandists, it might be time to rethink what you're doing.”
— The Recount (@therecount) December 12, 2023
— President Biden slams Republicans for holding up Ukraine aid, which he says Russia is bragging about pic.twitter.com/Tn27gEQ4Hx
And with that, goodnight.
Updated
A Ukrainian reporter asks about Nato: what does Zelenskiy expect from the Washington summit next year and does he hope for membership and does Biden support such membership?
Zelenskiy: “I will answer very quickly on this very complicated question. We are allies but we are not members of Nato. So I will pass this very complicated question to our big friend, President Biden.”
Laughter.
Biden: “Nato will be in Ukraine’s future, no question … but conditions have to be met and right now we want to be sure they win the war.”
Biden then says, “Thank you all very much”, which begins the shouting of extra questions as the two leaders take their leave from the room.
Updated
Zelenskiy gives a strong response to a question about the notion of giving up territory to achieve peace with Moscow. Biden says Ukraine is a sovereign, independent nation and that it deterring aggression remains the US aim.
Both are asked whether they believe a second term for Donald Trump would mean the end of an independent Ukraine. Biden says there is strong bipartisan support for Ukraine and a small minority of Republicans who do not back it, but he says they do not speak for their party. It would send a “horrible” message if we walked away at this time, he says … so, an answer without a mention of the subject of the question, Donald Trump.
Biden is asked about Israel and Hamas next, about when the US will think or perhaps say the Israelis have gone far enough in their response to the attacks of 7 October. He doesn’t say when.
Zelenskiy says he has been speaking to Democrats and Republicans and that they offered ful-fledged support. “We will see, but until now we’ve always been trusting of our strategic partner, the United States,” he adds.
Updated
Biden invites the first question. It is about stalled advances and blocked aide: what is the strategy to turn this around, and if that fails, what is the right time to tell Ukraine it’s time for peace talks?
Biden starts by rehashing previous statements about how well Ukraine is doing against Russia and how much support Ukraine’s allies have given. The best way to keep doing this is to “pass the supplemental” funding bill, he says, to no one’s surprise.
Zelenskiy answers in Ukrainian, having delivered his opening statement in English. He also rehashes remarks about successes in the field.
From Mike Johnson, the House speaker, and other Republicans in Congress, Zelenskiy says, he “got this signal … they were positive but we know that we have two separate worlds and particular goals”.
Updated
Biden continues, saying he has asked Congress for more aid for Israel too, and says Jake Sullivan, his national security adviser, is on his way to the region, as is Lloyd Austin, the secretary of defense. He ends by thanking Zelenskiy again.
Zelenskiy speaks in English, thanking Biden in return and saying Ukraine is fighting for “our freedom and yours”, a motto he says resonates in Poland, the Baltic states and other countries.
“When freedom is strong in one country, it is strong everywhere,” he says.
Biden stands next to him, in front of US and Ukrainian flags, seeming to take notes on the podium before him.
Zelenskiy says he and Biden discussed how to “increase our strength for next year”, including a bid for control of the skies.
He eventually says he informed Biden of the progress of moves towards Ukrainian membership of the European Union, and stresses the importance of sending “a strong signal of unity to the aggressor”.
Updated
And we begin, Joe Biden opening with remarks in praise of Volodymyr Zelenskiy for “an enormous victory already” over Russia and Vladimir Putin, in “standing strong” against the invasion. Ukraine will prevail “unless we walk away”, Biden says.
Biden goes on to warn about failing to pass supplementary funding through Congress, saying “It’s stunning that we’ve got to this point” with funding held up by Republicans seeking immigration reform.
“Russia and loyalists in Moscow celebrated when Republicans voted to block Ukraine to aid last week,” Biden says. “The host of a Kremlin-run show literally said, and I quote, ‘Well done, Republicans. That’s good for us.’”
Biden repeats the line, adding: “If you’re being celebrated by Russia propagandists, it might be time to rethink what you’re doing. History … will judge harshly.”
Updated
Here’s the White House livestream link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxAnSckZ34w. It is not yet livestreaming from a press conference that was meant to start at 4.15pm ET.
This is, of course, not surprising. I may or may not therefore be spending my time reading up on why John Adams hasn’t got a DC monument yet.
Here, meanwhile, is an interesting post, about Zelenskiy’s meeting with senators, from Lisa Desjardins of PBS:
Zelensky behind the scenes.
— Lisa Desjardins (@LisaDNews) December 12, 2023
Senators in mtg tell me:
- he spoke entirely in English, which one Repub senator told me was poignant and felt like a real sign of respect.
- he asked to check the meaning of a few words as senators spoke
- This. one word he didn’t know: stalemate.
Updated
We’re waiting now for Biden and Zelenskiy to face the press. Our Washington bureau chief, David Smith, is in the room. The room, as it happens, (and thus also David), is not actually in the White House itself, but instead in the Eisenhower executive office building, just to the west of the executive mansion but part of its larger campus.
The White House itself says “the reason for the room’s name is a mystery. It is not clear where it originated, despite extensive research. Some believe it was due to the fact that during the 1930s the war department stored papers there, including treaties with the American Indian nations. But this is not true, as the state department used it for storage until the 1940s after the Navy Library moved out.”
Updated
Dan Sabbagh, the Guardian’s defense and security editor, filed a report on Zelenskiy’s Washington visit before the Ukrainian president’s trip to the White House. It begins:
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has struggled to persuade US Republicans to support a $61bn military aid package for Ukraine on a trip to Washington DC, with objectors insisting on White House concessions on border security as a condition for a deal.
The Ukrainian president addressed members of the Senate in a closed 90-minute meeting on Tuesday morning, but afterwards key Republicans repeated that they wanted to see a crackdown on immigration between the US and Mexico in return for supporting the package.
Lindsey Graham, a senator for South Carolina, told reporters he told Zelenskiy the problem was “nothing to do with you”. He added: “I said: ‘You’ve done everything anybody could ask of you. This is not your problem here.’”
Graham went on to accuse the White House of failing to tackle the southern border issue and called for Joe Biden to become personally involved in negotiations.
Senate Republicans last week blocked an emergency aid package primarily for Ukraine and Israel after conservatives complained at the exclusion of immigration policy changes they demanded.
Zelenskiy sought to reassure senators concerned about whether US military aid would be wasted because of corruption, Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota, told CNN, and that Ukraine needed more air defence systems to support counteroffensives.
Senior Democrats expressed frustration. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, said “The one person happiest right now about the gridlock in Congress is Vladimir Putin. He is delighting in the fact that Donald Trump’s border policies are sabotaging military aid to Ukraine.”
Dan’s report continues:
The Associated Press has a few details about the $200m Department of Defense drawdown Biden mentioned in the Oval Office earlier:
The roughly $200m in weapons and equipment will be taken from Pentagon stocks and include additional ammunition for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), high-speed anti-radiation missiles, anti-armor systems, artillery rounds, missiles, demolition munitions, 4 million rounds of small arms ammunition, generators and other equipment and spare parts, one official said.
Including that latest package, the US now has about $4.4 billion remaining in weapons it can provide from department stockpiles.
Updated
Here’s the White House pool readout on the Oval Office meeting and spray between Biden and Zelenskiy just now. As the pooler, Daniel Bush of Newsweek, advises, all quotes should ultimately be checked against the later transcript:
Pool was led into the Oval Office at 2.31pm. President Biden and President Zelenskiy … were seated in front of the fireplace. Biden spoke first.
‘We stand at a real inflection point in history,’ he said.
‘Congress needs to pass the supplemental funds’ to provide more aid to Ukraine, he said.
Biden also warned that Vladimir Putin was planning to bombard Ukraine’s electrical grid this winter.
‘We mustn’t let him succeed,’ he said.
Zelenskiy thank[ed] America and other allies for supporting Ukraine.
‘Ukraine can win,’ Zelenskiy said.
Zelenskiy said he wanted to strengthen Ukraine’s air defense system.
As the pool was asked to leave, Biden said he had signed ‘another $200m drawdown’ for aid to Ukraine.
Pool was ushered out of the Oval at 2.37pm.
Today’s foreign pooler, Juliane Schäuble, Washington DC correspondent for Der Tagesspiegel, adds that Zelenskiy spoke for about three minutes, in English, saying, “We have specifically defeated Russia in the Black Sea,” and saying the IMF and the World Bank were “impressed with Ukraine’s economy growth, almost 5%”.
Then he said: “We also have to walk faster with the frozen Russian assets – over $300bn frozen assets from terrorists and we should use it to protect against Russians war.”
Both poolers offer a list of participants in the bilateral meeting that is now taking place, before the two presidents face the press later:
US delegation
The president
Antony Blinken, secretary of state
Lloyd Austin, secretary of defense
Jake Sullivan, assistant to the president for national security affairs
Gen Charles Q Brown Jr, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff
Bridget Brink, ambassador of the United States to Ukraine
Ukraine delegation
The president
Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the president of Ukraine
Oksana Markarova, ambassador of Ukraine to the United States
Oleksandr Kamyshin, minister of strategic industries of Ukraine
Roman Mashovets, deputy head of the office of the president of Ukraine, chief military advisor
Igor Zhovkva, deputy head of the office of the president of Ukraine
Updated
About Joe Biden’s belief that Congress should provide additional aid …
… as Reuters reports, Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, didn’t have cheering news for the president when reporters managed briefly to collar him on Capitol Hill just now:
Republican leader Mitch McConnell said it would be ‘practically impossible’ for Congress to pass a supplemental funding package including aid for Ukraine before Christmas.
McConnell told reporters that a deal will not happen until Joe Biden reaches agreement with Republicans, who want to link funding for Ukraine to new border security measures.
Updated
Biden says he has signed $200m emergency aid drawdown as he meets Zelenskiy in Oval Office
Zelenskiy gave reasonably lengthy comments about his time in Washington, thanking everyone who had met with him so far.
“People need to be confident that freedom is secure,” he concluded.
Biden, who told Zelenskiy not to give up hope in the fight against Russia and said Congress should provide additional aid, told reporters to quiet down, then said he had just signed “another $200m drawdown from the department of defense for Ukraine”.
Here’s how the state department website defines a drawdown:
The use of the Presidential Drawdown Authority to direct a drawdown to provide military assistance under section 506(a)(1) of the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) is a valuable tool of US foreign policy in crisis situations.
It allows for the speedy delivery of defense articles and services from Department of Defense stocks to foreign countries and international organizations to respond to unforeseen emergencies. Such assistance can begin arriving within days – or even hours – of approval.
Updated
Biden and Zelenskiy are now speaking in the Oval Office.
They have met five times since their first, reportedly difficult meeting at the White House in September 2021. Thanks to Juliane Schäuble, Washington DC correspondent for Der Tagesspiegel, out of Berlin, here’s a list of the meetings that followed
21 December 2022 – Washington, DC
21 May 2023 – Hiroshima (G7 Summit)
20 February 2023 – Kyiv
12 July 2023 – Vilnius (NATO Summit)
21 September 2023 – Washington, DC
More soon…
Updated
… and here’s some more on Franklin Foer’s reporting of Biden and Zelenskiy’s first, awkward White House meeting in September 2021:
The official transcript of Biden and Zelenskiy’s remarks to reporters before their 1 September Oval Office meeting shows declarations of mutual respect and policy aims. But according to Foer, once the meeting began properly, Zelenskiy “seemed oblivious to Biden’s doubts” and “almost wilfully unaware of Biden’s moral code”.
Biden expected expressions of gratitude for US support, Foer writes. Zelenskiy “crammed his conversations with a long list of demands”. Chief among them: “He needed to join Nato.”
Biden was then 78. Zelenskiy was 43. The older man “tried to pass along some wisdom that might temper the younger man’s zeal”, Foer says, including by noting that sufficient support did not then exist for Ukraine to join Nato.
Russia had been stoking fighting in Ukraine since 2014 and was widely thought to be preparing a full-scale invasion.
Foer writes: “Zelenskiy’s frustration occluded his capacity for logic. After begging to join Nato, he began to lecture that the organisation is, in fact, a historic relic, with waning significance. He told Biden that France and Germany were going to exit Nato.
“It was an absurd analysis – and a blatant contradiction. And it pissed Biden off.”
As Volodymyr Zelenskiy heads for the White House and his scheduled appearance with Joe Biden, it’s worth a brief look at the reporting about his first such visit.
In August, Franklin Foer revealed in his book The Last Politician that Zelenskiy “bombed” in his first White House meeting with Biden in September 2021.
The following is from my own reporting on the book, linked to at the bottom. Biden and Zelenskiy, Foer says…
…failed to establish a rapport as the Ukrainian leader’s demand to join Nato and “absurd analysis” of alliance dynamics left the US president “pissed off”.
“Even Zelenskiy’s most ardent sympathisers in the [Biden] administration agreed that he had bombed,” Foer writes. “It suggested more difficult conversations to come.”
As in other sections of the book, Foer does not use direct quotes or cite sources when reporting the Biden-Zelenskiy meeting on 1 September. But his publisher, Penguin Random House, says the book is based on “unparalleled access to the tight inner circle of advisers who have surrounded Biden for decades”.
Elected in 2019 and under constant pressure from Russia, Zelenskiy had long sought a White House meeting. Donald Trump rebuffed him, because he refused to help dig up dirt on rivals including Biden – efforts which led to Trump’s first impeachment.
Foer claims Zelenskiy nursed “lingering resentments from the episode” and “at least subconsciously … seemed to blame” Biden, Trump’s successor in the Oval Office, “for the humiliation he suffered, for the political awkwardness he endured”.
The author also says Zelenskiy regarded Biden as weak, particularly over his decision to waive sanctions against a Russian company building Nord Stream 2, a gas pipeline to Germany, a move Zelenskiy saw as undermining Ukrainian economic and security interests.
Biden granted Zelenskiy a meeting but “didn’t think much” of him, Foer reports, particularly over friendly relations the Ukrainian president had struck up with the hard-right Republican Texas senator Ted Cruz, over the Nord Stream decision.
In protest, Cruz blocked confirmation of state department nominees.
“Whether he understood this or not,” Foer writes, “Zelenskiy was complicit with this stunt. It reeked of what the administration considered amateurism. To be fair, Biden didn’t think much of his Ukrainian counterpart, either.”
Updated
Ukraine’s defence minister, Rustem Umerov, rejected any notion on Tuesday that two of the country’s top military commanders were about to be dismissed, Reuters reports.
Commander in chief Valery Zaluzhnyi and joint forces commander Serhiy Nayev’s positions were reported to be in the balance. Zaluzhnyi’s relations cooled with Volodymyr Zelenskiy after the commander said the war with Russia was entering a stalemate.
Reuters’ report adds:
On this matter, there is no such question,” Umerov told a news conference alongside his Latvian counterpart. “On this matter, I am always open and if the question is ever raised, I will say something immediately. There are no such issues.”
Umerov, appointed in September, made a similar denial last month that changes in Ukraine’s command were under consideration.
In his latest comments, Umerov said rotations of positions were a normal part of military operations “but there are no such issues, however much our enemies want to knock us off stride”.
Updated
House speaker Johnson reasserts that Ukraine aid is linked to US border policy
US speaker, Mike Johnson, has reasserted his hardline stance on the border issues that are holding up an agreement on US aid for Ukraine.
“The border is an absolute catastrophe,” he said, and made clear that issue would be the priority for House Republicans. “These are the conditions of the American people,” he added, “we are resolute on that.”
This is bad news for Volodymyr Zelenskiy who had just met the US speaker and would have hoped to have seen a softening of his stance.
Johnson said he reiterated to Zelenskiy that the American people stood with him against Vladimir Putin, but he was unconvinced by White House assurances that Ukraine could win. He reiterated that his issue was with the White House and the Senate rather than Ukraine.
The Republican senator Eric Schmitt said he was told “nothing new” and that “the questions were very scripted” during the meeting with Ukraine’s president. “We’ve heard all of this before,” he added.
Updated
A declassified US intelligence report has assessed that the war in Ukraine war has led to 315,000 Russian deaths or injuries among its troops, or nearly 90% of the personnel it had when the conflict began, a source familiar with the intelligence told Reuters.
The report also assessed that Moscow’s losses in personnel and armoured vehicles have set back its military modernisation by 18 years, the source said.
Republican senators unmoved by Zelenkiy's appeal
Republicans senators left the meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskiy unmoved from their position that aid to Ukraine had to be paired with border security policy, the Associated Press reports.
Senator Markwayne Mullin said the emergency funding wouldn’t gain GOP support unless it included “real, meaningful border reform”.
Zelenskiy is scheduled to visit the new House speaker, Mike Johnson, the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, and then Joe Biden.
Biden has expressed a willingness to engage with Republicans as migrant crossings have hit record highs along the US-Mexico border, but Democrats in his own party oppose proposals for expedited deportations and strict asylum standards as a return to Trump-era hostility towards migrants.
With talks at a standstill, one Republican negotiator, Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma, said there was nothing Zelenskiy could say during his visit with the senators to sway the outcome.
“Hey, pay attention to us, but not your own country? No,” Lankford told reporters. “We’ve got to be able to deal with all these things together.”
Updated
US imposes sweeping sanctions targeting Russia over its war in Ukraine
The US has imposed sanctions on hundreds of people and entities, including in China and Turkey, as it targets Russia’s sanctions evasion.
The treasury and state departments targeted more than 250 individuals and entities, Reuters reports.
“We will continue to use the tools at our disposal to promote accountability for Russia’s crimes in Ukraine and those who finance and support Russia’s war machine,” the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said.
The treasury said it imposed sanctions on a network of four entities and nine people based in China, Russia, Hong Kong and Pakistan over the facilitation and procurement of Chinese-manufactured weapons and technologies to Russia.
It said the network sought to circumvent US sanctions and Chinese controls on the export of military-related materials.
It also targeted Turkey, UAE and China-based companies over the shipment of technology, equipment and inputs, including aircraft parts and X-ray systems.
Updated
Summary of the day so far...
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is in Washington today, where he will meet Joe Biden as he attempts to rescue a critical $61bn military aid package. Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said Zelenskiy told senators earlier that “if he gets the help, he can win this war”.
Jake Sullivan, the White House’s national security adviser, said that a failure to add funding to Kyiv’s military campaign to repel Russia will weaken Ukraine’s ability to defend itself.
Ukraine’s biggest mobile network operator, Kyivstar, said it was the target of a major cyber-attack on Tuesday morning that temporarily knocked out its cellular and internet signal. The cyber-attack affected the air raid alert system in more than 75 settlements in the Kyiv region, the regional military administration said.
Poland will demand the full mobilisation of the free world to help Ukraine, the newly appointed prime minister, Donald Tusk, said. He said: “We will demand full mobilisation of the west to help Ukraine. I can no longer listen to politicians who talk about being tired of the situation in Ukraine.”
Russian forces in southern Ukraine have “advanced considerably” around the village of Novopokrovka in the Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow’s occupational authorities have said. “Our units have advanced significantly forward north-east of Novopokrovka,” the Moscow-installed head of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia region, Yevgeny Balitsky, wrote on Telegram.
The whereabouts of Alexei Navalny, the jailed Russian opposition leader, inside the prison system remains unknown and he again did not show up at a court hearing by video link, Kira Yarmysh, his spokesperson, said on Tuesday. The EU’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, later said it was “highly worrying” that Navalny was reported to have been missing for seven days.
Updated
Oleksiy Danilov, who coordinates Ukraine’s war cabinet, has spoken to BBC News before the meeting between Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Joe Biden.
He said:
If it happens so that we receive a gift before Christmas, we will be happy with that. But if it will happen a bit later, then it shouldn’t be made into a tragedy …
Will Putin destroy us before humanity’s eyes? Will he be killing our children, our women, our elderly men? And will the whole world watch with their eyes closed? Then the question should be, in what world do we live?
Chris Murphy, a US senator, said the Senate could reach a deal on Ukraine aid and border security by Christmas if Congress delayed its upcoming break to keep working on an agreement, Reuters reports.
There are just three days before Congress breaks for the year.
Republican senators blocked an emergency aid package last week, which was intended primarily for Ukraine and Israel, after conservatives complained at the exclusion of immigration changes they had demanded as part of the package.
Updated
Zelenskiy tells US senators Ukraine can win the war with American help
Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said Ukraine’s president, Volodymr Zelenskiy, told senators earlier that “if he gets the help, he can win this war”.
Schumer was quoted by BBC News as saying:
He also made clear … that if we lose, Putin wins. This will be very dangerous for the United States.
Updated
Air raid alert system in Kyiv region affected by Kyivstar cyber-attack, says regional military administration
A cyber-attack on the biggest Ukrainian mobile operator, Kyivstar, affected the air raid alert system in more than 75 settlements in the Kyiv region, the regional military administration has said (see earlier post at 13.31).
The system did not work in some cities, including Bucha and Irpin, Reuters reports.
“There are also spot outages of the warning system in Boryspil and in 75 other localities,” it wrote on Telegram.
The administration also said alerts were duplicated by another warning system and that police would report air hazards through loudspeakers.
Updated
BBC News reports that the meeting between Volodymyr Zelenskiy; Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader and Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, is nearly over.
A statement should be read out soon.
Updated
Zelenskiy arrives on Capitol Hill before meeting with Biden
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has arrived on Capitol Hill as he prepares to keep military support flowing to his country.
The White House said the time was right for Zelenskiy’s trip to Washington as Joe Biden tries to get his aid package approved before the Christmas holidays, the Associated Press reports.
A senior spokesperson said the US could not let Ukraine aid lapse, adding that the president was willing to make compromises with Republicans.
Zelenskiy, who has spoken at the National Defense University in Washington DC, is due to visit the new House speaker, Mike Johnson, then talk with Biden at the White House.
Updated
Failure to continue funding Kyiv will weaken Ukraine's ability to defend itself, says White House
A failure to add funding to Kyiv’s military campaign to repel Russia will weaken Ukraine’s ability to defend itself, Jake Sullivan, the White House’s national security adviser, has warned.
Speaking at a Wall Street Journal forum, he said if US assistance is no longer forthcoming it would harm Ukraine’s ability to hold territory.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has flown to Washington DC in an attempt to rescue a critical $61bn military aid package.
Zelenskiy is due to meet the US president, Joe Biden, on Tuesday, as well as US senators and the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, at a time when Congress is holding up future American financial support for Kyiv’s war effort.
Updated
Ukrainian exports through the alternative Black Sea corridor could increase to 5m metric tonnes in December from 3.8m tonnes in November, Interfax Ukraine news agency quoted a senior Ukrainian government official as saying.
Ukraine launched the corridor in August after Moscow withdrew from the UN brokered Black Sea grain export deal in July and threatened to treat all vessels as potential military targets.
Here are some of the latest images from the newswires:
Updated
The US house speaker, Mike Johnson, said in a letter to the Joe Biden administration released last week that lawmakers need more detail on the administration’s objectives in Ukraine.
“Supplemental Ukraine funding is dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our nation’s border security laws,” he wrote.
Johnson, a Republican, said on Tuesday he was still waiting for the White House to respond.
“They haven’t sent anything back in return. There’s no return volley,” he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.
Ukraine’s intelligence agency said the cyber-attack on the country’s biggest mobile operator, Kyivstar, may be a Russian special services operation (see earlier post at 11.37 for more details).
“One of the versions that SBU is currently investigating is that the Russian special services may be behind this hacker attack,” the agency said in a statement sent to Reuters.
Earlier today, Kyivstar, which has 24.3 million customers, said it was the target of a major cyber-attack that temporarily knocked out its cellular and internet signal.
Kyivstar blamed it on Russia’s invasion without giving further details on the connection between the two.
“This is a war, it takes place not only on the battlefield, it also takes place in virtual space and unfortunately, we are affected as a result of this war,” Kyivstar’s general director Oleksandr Komarov said on national television.
“We see the main goal of this attack is the maximum possible destruction of the operator’s IT infrastructure. They partially achieved this goal,” he said.
Updated
Finland’s government has said it will reopen two crossings on its long border with Russia later this week after closing all eight roads between the two countries in late November to prevent an influx of asylum seekers.
“Without dismantling the restrictions, we cannot verify whether a change for the better is taking place. If the phenomenon continues, we will close these border crossing points,” prime minister Petteri Orpo told journalists.
Last month, Finland shut the Russian border until 13 December to block a rising number of refugees from arriving in the Nordic nation in what the government and its allies said was an orchestrated move by Moscow.
The Guardian’s Nordic correspondent, Miranda Bryant, has spoken to one of the asylum seekers caught in the geopolitical drama who crossed from Russia after a treacherous journey from Syria. You can read more here:
EU diplomats are discussing technical proposals to raise emergency funding for Ukraine outside of the bloc’s shared budget, as Hungary vowed it would not yield to pressure to drop its veto on a support package critical for Kyiv, the Financial Times reported this morning.
EU leaders are gathering today at a summit, where the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, plans to block Brussels’ bid to provide a critical €50bn financial aid lifeline to Ukraine and approve formal talks on the country joining the EU.
His stance comes in spite of efforts by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and other EU capitals to persuade him. Failure by the EU to agree the proposed funding package would severely affect Ukraine’s financial stability, Ukrainian and European officials have warned.
It would also mark the most egregious reversal in Brussels’ support since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, amid uncertainty over a similar-sized funding package in the US.
EU officials are working on possible solutions to overturn Hungary’s block on the package, which require unanimity, including the release of bloc funds earmarked for Budapest but currently frozen on rule-of-law concerns.
Diplomats have also begun private talks on a potential financial package between the other 26 members, people briefed on the discussions told the Financial Times. This would provide Kyiv with emergency funding for at least a year.
Updated
Hungary has repeated a promise that it will not be the last Nato country to ratify Sweden’s application to join the alliance, Tobias Billström, Sweden’s foreign minister, has said.
Billström met his Hungarian counterpart, Péter Szijjártó, in Brussels on Monday, in part to discuss Sweden’s accession to Nato – a major shift in the country’s security strategy following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine - which Hungary and Turkey have blocked.
Billström asked whether Hungary stood by its promise not to be the last Nato member to approve Sweden:
His clear message was, yes we do. We will not be last.
Turkey indicated in late November it could be ready to approve Sweden as a Nato member within a few weeks. But President Tayyip Erdoğan has linked the process to Turkey’s hopes of buying F-16 fighter jets from the United States, a deal Congress has delayed.
Updated
The IT infrastructure of Kyivstar, Ukraine’s largest mobile network provider, was “partially destroyed” by a large cyber-attack on Tuesday, Oleksandr Komarov, its chief executive, has said on national television.
Komarov said:
(The attack) significantly damaged the (IT) infrastructure, limited access, we could not counter it at the virtual level, so we shut down Kyivstar physically to limit the enemy’s access.
It’s unclear who the hackers were at this point, but Jason Jay Smart, a correspondent for the Kyiv Post, has posted on X that there have been “significant” cyberattacks from Russia on telecommunications and banking today.
Ukraine🇺🇦 is facing significant attacks by Russia🇷🇺 today on the telecommunications & banking sectors.
— Jason Jay Smart (@officejjsmart) December 12, 2023
ALL attacks emanating from Moscow are ALWAYS 🇷🇺-government backed & Russia regularly attacks the US🇺🇸 & NATO states.
👉The 🇺🇸 should allow American hackers to freely wreck 🇷🇺. pic.twitter.com/Mg4Tw9QQQv
Updated
The EU aims to convince Hungary of its proposed €50bn (£43bn) aid facility for Kyiv at its summit later this week to send a clear signal to Russia, a German government official said.
The official told a briefing in Berlin that all but one of the bloc’s 27 member states supported the Ukraine facility, Reuters reports.
The official said:
Our clear aim is to convince this state that the Ukraine facility is the right instrument to show our unity and send Russia a clear signal, but also to support US President [Joe] Biden’s efforts to mobilise the further necessary support.
Asked if there was a plan B, the official said: “We are betting on plan A”.
Some European diplomats think Victor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, is stalling support for Ukraine to pressure Brussels to release billions of euros of EU support to Budapest frozen over a rule-of-law dispute.
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Ukraine’s biggest mobile network operator victim of major cyber-attack
Ukraine’s biggest mobile network operator, Kyivstar, said it was the target of a major cyber-attack on Tuesday morning that temporarily knocked out its cellular and internet signal, Reuters reports.
The company said it was working to repair the outage and cooperating with law enforcement bodies.
Separately, the co-founder of Monobank, a major Ukrainian payment system, said his company was experiencing a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, but that everything was “under control”.
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Summary of the day so far...
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is in Washington today, where later he will meet Joe Biden as well as US senators and the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, at a time when Congress is holding up future American financial support for Kyiv’s war effort.
Poland will demand the full mobilisation of the free world to help Ukraine, the newly appointed prime minister, Donald Tusk said. He said: “We will demand full mobilisation of the west to help Ukraine. I can no longer listen to politicians who talk about being tired of the situation in Ukraine.”
Russian forces in southern Ukraine have “advanced considerably” around the village of Novopokrovka in the Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow’s occupational authorities have said. “Our units have advanced significantly forward north-east of Novopokrovka,” the Moscow-installed head of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia region, Yevgeny Balitsky, wrote on Telegram.
The whereabouts of Alexei Navalny, the jailed Russian opposition leader, inside the prison system remains unknown and he again did not show up at a court hearing by video link, Kira Yarmysh, his spokesperson, said on Tuesday. The EU’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, later said it was “highly worrying” that Navalny was reported to have been missing for seven days.
While Ukraine’s hopes of beginning membership talks will take centre-stage at this week’s EU summit, another potential member, Georgia, will also be seeking progress towards eventual entry to the bloc.
“In the case of Georgia, we have a government that is seemingly more interested in doing business with Russia than advancing on the EU path,” a senior EU official involved in talks with countries that want to join told Reuters.
The official said Georgia had gone backwards on some key reforms.
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Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, has also said his new government will try to put an end to the truck drivers’ protest at the Ukrainian border quickly.
Polish truckers have been blockading some of the road crossings between the two countries since early November in protest at Ukrainian drivers getting permit-free access to the EU.
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Poland will demand free world helps Ukraine, says Donald Tusk
Poland will demand the full mobilisation of the free world to help Ukraine, the newly appointed prime minister, Donald Tusk, has said.
Speaking in the Polish parliament, Tusk underscored the importance of continued Polish support for Ukraine.
He said:
We also need to speak with one voice about Ukraine. This must also unite us. The attack on Ukraine is an attack on all of us.
We will demand full mobilisation of the west to help Ukraine. I can no longer listen to politicians who talk about being tired of the situation in Ukraine.
They tell President Zelenskiy that they are tired of the situation. I will demand help for Ukraine from day one.
You can follow all the updates from Tusk in our Europe liveblog here:
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'Highly worrying' that Alexei Navalny has 'been missing for a week', says EU foreign affairs chief
The EU’s foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, has said it is “highly worrying” that Alexei Navalny, the jailed Russian opposition leader, is reported to have been missing for seven days.
Highly worrying news of @Navalny missing for 7 days. Russia’s political leadership is responsible for his safety & health in prison for which they will be held to account
— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) December 12, 2023
The EU reiterates its call for his immediate &unconditional release from
politically motivated incarceration
The Kremlin has described comments by the US expressing concern over the condition of the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny as unacceptable meddling in Russia’s domestic affairs, Reuters reports.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he was unaware of the whereabouts of Navalny, who has been moved from his penal colony to an undisclosed location (see earlier post at 08.26).
The White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, called for the immediate release of Navalny, saying “he should never have been jailed in the first place”.
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Moscow will “very attentively” watch a meeting between Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy planned for Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, also said that “tens of billions of dollars” already provided by Washington to Kyiv had failed to turn the tide of war and further aid would similarly fail to do so, Reuters reports.
He added that Zelenskiy’s authority was being undermined by the failures.
The meeting on Tuesday between Biden and Zelenskiy is intended “to underscore the United States’ unshakeable commitment to supporting the people of Ukraine as they defend themselves against Russia’s brutal invasion”, the White House said in a statement on Sunday.
“As Russia ramps up its missile and drone strikes against Ukraine, the leaders will discuss Ukraine’s urgent needs and the vital importance of the United States’ continued support at this critical moment.”
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The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said Russian forces are highly likely continue to struggle when fighting at night.
In its latest intelligence update, the MoD said Russian military training had not focused on night exercises, but has instead prioritised building towards set-piece, daylight events “to impress visiting senior officers”.
Writing on X, the MoD said:
Russian forces highly likely continue to struggle when fighting at night. Numerous reports from combatants have highlighted this trend since the start of the war.
In late November 2023, a social media user claiming to be a Russian soldier serving in Kherson highlighted the shortage of night vision goggles (NVGs) and low-light cameras for uncrewed aerial vehicles.
NVGs have frequently featured high in the lists of equipment Russian units request from their families and supporters. Ukrainian forces have often been equipped with night vision devices from international partners.
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Russian forces have 'advanced significantly' in southern Ukraine, says Moscow authorities
Russian forces in southern Ukraine have “advanced considerably” around the village of Novopokrovka in the Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow’s occupational authorities have said.
“Our units have advanced significantly forward north-east of Novopokrovka,” the Moscow-installed head of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia region, Yevgeny Balitsky, wrote on Telegram.
Novopokrovka lies about 12 miles east of Robotyne, which Kyiv said it recaptured in the summer but has since struggled to keep.
Balitsky said Russian forces are “not only holding the line but are gradually moving forward”. These claims are yet to be independently verified.
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Gyunduz Mamedov, a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine, said 597 shells were fired in the Kherson region over the last 24 hours, damaging a dormitory and administrative buildings. One person was killed and six others injured, he said.
Writing on X, Mamedov added that the Ukrainian air force destroyed nine out of 15 kamikaze drones that were “attacking from the south”.
These claims are yet to be independently verified.
597 shells were fired in the Kherson region over the last 24 hours, damaging a dormitory and administrative buildings. 1 person was killed and 6 others were wounded. Also, @KpsZSU destroyed 9 out of 15 kamikaze drones that were attacking from the south. A sports building was… pic.twitter.com/lKQUxsqoXa
— Гюндуз Мамедов/Gyunduz Mamedov (@MamedovGyunduz) December 12, 2023
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Europeans are generally open to the idea of Ukraine joining the EU, despite the costs and risks, but lukewarm at best about the bloc’s prospective enlargement to also take in Georgia and countries in the western Balkans, according to a survey.
The European Commission recommended last month that formal accession talks begin with Ukraine and Moldova. The EU’s 27 heads of government are due to discuss the proposal at a Brussels summit this week – although Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has said repeatedly he opposes opening negotiations with Kyiv.
The polling, of six EU member states for the European Council on Foreign Relations, found considerable support for the candidacies of Ukraine and, to a lesser extent, Moldova and Montenegro, but also deep economic and security concerns.
You can read the full story by the Guardian’s Europe correspondent, Jon Henley, here:
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Alexei Navalny's whereabouts in prison system remains unknown, says spokesperson
The whereabouts of Alexei Navalny, the jailed Russian opposition leader, inside the prison system remains unknown and he again did not show up at a court hearing by video link, Kira Yarmysh, his spokesperson, said on Tuesday.
Yarmysh wrote on X:
Today Alexey was again not taken to court via video, but now no one is talking nonsense about the “electrical accident”.
An employee of IK-6 stated that Alexey “left their colony,” but allegedly did not know where he was transferred.
Navalny’s allies said on Monday that he had been removed from the penal colony where he had been imprisoned since the middle of last year and that his whereabouts were unknown, Reuters reports.
They had been preparing for his expected transfer to a “special regime” colony, the harshest grade in Russia’s prison system.
Navalny, the anti-corruption activist who became a leading opponent of Vladimir Putin, has been convicted of extremism and other charges and is set to remain in prison for three decades.
He has called the charges against him politically motivated and said he believes he will not be released while Putin is alive.
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Hello and welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is in Washington today, where later he will meet Joe Biden as well as US senators and the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, at a time when Congress is holding up future American financial support for Kyiv’s war effort.
Here are the latest developments:
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has flown to Washington DC, in an attempt to rescue a critical $61bn military aid package, while separately the UK hinted that it may increase the value of the arms, ammunition and training that it donates to Kyiv.
Zelenskiy is due to meet the US president, Joe Biden, on Tuesday, as well as US senators and the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, at a time when Congress is holding up future US financial support for Kyiv’s war effort.
Shortly after arriving in the US capital, Zelenskiy said Ukraine was counting on the US, and that delays to future rounds of military aid were “dreams come true” for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. “Putin must lose,” Zelenskiy said in a speech at the National Defense University. “You can count on Ukraine, and we hope just as much to be able to count on you.”
Defence secretary Lloyd Austin, who introduced the Ukrainian president, said America’s commitment to Ukraine was unshakeable and supporting the war was critical to ensuring the security of the US and its allies.
Russia’s air defence systems destroyed a Tochka-U tactical ballistic missile over the Belgorod region that was launched from Ukraine, the Russian defence ministry said on Tuesday. The ministry, in a statement on the Telegram messaging app, said the attack took place at about 5am (0200 GMT). It did not say whether there was any damage as a result.
The International Monetary Fund’s executive board (IMF) on Monday approved a $900m disbursement for Ukraine from its $15.6bn loan programme, hours before the IMF chief, Kristalina Georgieva, met Zelenskiy.
Alexei Navalny, the jailed Russian opposition leader, has not been heard from for nearly a week and his lawyers have been unable to contact him, his supporters have said. On Monday, Navalny’s supporters said he again failed to appear by videoconference for a court hearing, with prison officials blaming a power outage. Later that day, Navalny’s lawyers were told he was no longer listed as a prisoner at IK-6, the penal colony where he has been incarcerated in the Vladimir region near Moscow.
A decision to start talks on Ukraine’s EU accession is on a knife-edge after Hungary said it would not bow to mounting pressure to give the green light. Viktor Orbán’s threat to veto the launch of negotiations is being taken seriously, with Ukraine’s foreign minister warning of “devastating consequences” for his country if the talks are blocked.
Russia will hold its presidential election in four annexed regions of Ukraine, Interfax news agency quoted the country’s central election commission as saying.
Russian forces have unleashed a major offensive on Avdiivka, with 610 artillery shellings reported near the eastern Ukrainian town over the past day, according to the Ukrainian military.
Britain has said it delivered two mine-hunting ships to Ukraine. The mine hunters, originally HMS Grimsby and HMS Shoreham, were renamed Chernihiv and Cherkasy in Glasgow in June, and will help Ukraine to maintain a critical route for merchant shipping travelling across the Black Sea.
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