Ukraine-Russia war latest: Zelensky accuses Scholz of opening ‘Pandora’s box’ after call with Putin
Zelensky said the call between Scholz and Putin is part of the latter’s strategy to avoid changing policy
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Your support makes all the difference.Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has criticised German chancellor Olaf Scholz for speaking with Russian president Vladimir Putin over the phone for the first time in two years.
Mr Scholz urged Putin to pull his forces out of Ukraine and open talks with Kyiv in order to set the region on course for a “just and lasting peace”.
The Kremlin said that Berlin had requested the conversation, and Putin told Mr Scholz that any agreement to end the war in Ukraine must take into account “new territorial realities”.
Mr Zelensky said the call “opens Pandora’s Box”, claiming it is “critical for [Putin] to weaken his isolation, as well as Russia’s isolation, and to hold mere talks that will lead nowhere”.
This is a decades-old strategy which has “allowed Russia to avoid making any changes to its policies, effectively doing nothing, which has ultimately led to this war,” Mr Zelensky added.
“We understand all the current challenges and we know what to do. And we want to make it clear: there will be no ‘Minsk-3’; we need real peace,” he said, referring to the peace agreement signed in 2015 which granted self-governance to certain areas of Donbas.
Putin tells Scholz that Russia is willing to look at energy cooperation, Kremlin says
Vladimir Putin has told Germany’s Olaf Scholz that Russia is ready to look at energy deals if Berlin is interested, the Kremlin has said, following their first phone conversation since December 2022.
A readout from the Kremlin claimed: “It was emphasised that Russia has always strictly fulfilled its treaty and contractual obligations in the energy sector and is ready for mutually beneficial cooperation if the German side shows interest in this.”
Germany was heavily reliant on Russian gas before the war, but direct shipments ceased when the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea were blown up in 2022.
Germany and other European Union countries have imposed successive waves of sanctions on Russia over the war and taken steps to wean themselves off their dependence on Russian oil and gas.
Watch: UK will not have air supremacy over enemies in future wars, RAF chief warns
Ukraine detains Russian ‘mole’ in special forces, security service says
Ukraine’s SBU security service has detained a special operations forces unit commander accused of disclosing plans of operations behind enemy lines to Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency.
“The aggressor was most interested in intelligence on sabotage and reconnaissance raids by Ukrainian special forces behind the front line in the Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimean directions,” the SBU said in a statement.
The alleged “mole”, whose rank corresponded to lieutenant colonel, had access to information on planned routes, weapons and targets, according to the statement. Russian forces planned to use the intelligence to eliminate special forces soldiers on the front line and in the Russian-occupied south.
The SBU said Russia’s military intelligence “activated” the unit commander in the spring of this year but that he was recruited prior to Moscow’s invasion in February 2022 through his acquaintances in Russia.
Ukraine’s top military leadership aided with the case and the suspect could face life in prison on treason charges, according to the SBU.
Trump says ‘Russia and Ukraine’s gotta stop’
Donald Trump has said his administration would focus on ending Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“We’re going to work very hard on Russia and Ukraine. It’s gotta stop. Russia and Ukraine’s gotta stop,” he said during an event in Florida.
The US president-elect expressed regret over the deaths caused by the war, “whether they’re soldiers or they’re people sitting in towns”. “We’re going to work it.”
During his campaign, Mr Trump repeatedly said he could quickly end the fighting in Ukraine but did not offer details of how he would accomplish that.
Further mass displacement possible in Ukraine if energy sector hit, UN warns
Any further Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy system could trigger another wave of mass displacement as winter approaches, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine has warned.
Civilians are now more vulnerable than at any other winter during the conflict due to Russian strikes on its energy system and donor fatigue, warned Matthias Schmale, who said that around two thirds of Ukraine’s domestic energy production is currently offline due to Russian strikes.
“The real concern is if they were to target the energy sector again, this could be a tipping point...for further mass movements, both inside the country and outside the country,” Mr Schmale told reporters in Geneva.
Any further displacement would add to the 3.6 million that are currently displaced within Ukraine and the more than 6 million who have fled across its borders to escape the conflict since February 2022.
Sanctions on Russia will ‘destroy’ EU economy, Orban claims
Hungary’s Viktor Orban has claimed that European Union sanctions against Russia will “destroy” the bloc’s economy.
Mr Orban, widely seen as having the warmest relations with the Kremlin in the EU, has broken with the majority of European leaders and vocally opposed such sanctions.
Speaking on state radio on Friday, the hard-right leader claimed the EU’s sanctions regime “should be reviewed, because with such a policy of sanctions, energy prices will not come down”.
He added: “It will be painful for those who argued for sanctions. Not for us, because we will see this as a victory, but the other camp has to change because otherwise it will destroy the European economy.”
Footage shows remains of car that exploded in Crimea, killing Russian naval officer
ICYMI: Senior Russian naval officer killed in Crimea car bombing
A senior Russian naval officer has been killed in a car bombing in occupied Crimea – the latest in a series of targeted attacks on Russian military personnel.
Russian investigators said an unnamed serviceman was killed when an improvised explosive device detonated on Wednesday in the port city of Sevastopol – the primary headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet – and that the killing was being treated as terrorism.
In what will be a blow to the morale of Russian military leaders, a source in Ukraine’s SBU security service said shortly after the blast that the explosion had killed naval captain Valery Trankovsky – in a hit orchestrated by the SBU.
Describing the hit as legitimate and in line with the customs of war, the source called Trankovsky “a war criminal” for ordering missile strikes on Ukrainian civilian targets, including repeated attacks on Odesa and a missile strike that killed 29 people and injured more than 200 others in the city of Vinnytsia in July 2022.
Senior Russian naval officer killed in Crimea car bombing
A Ukrainian source accuses Valery Trankovsky of committing war crimes by ordering missile attacks on civilians
Russian troops disguised as Ukrainians briefly entered Kupiansk suburbs, Kyiv says
On Wednesday, Moscow’s forces – including soldiers disguised as Ukrainian troops – attacked the Kharkiv city of Kupiansk in four waves, but were repelled, Ukraine’s general staff said.
“They partially entered the suburbs, the industrial zone, and were destroyed by our troops,” Mr Besedin said. “There were assault actions using heavy armoured vehicles, there were attempts to bring in infantry.”
A map updated daily by Ukrainian war monitor DeepState, known to have close ties to the defence ministry, appears to corroborate these claims. It shows the entire city under Ukrainian control with Russian forces pushing towards its northern outskirts.
Our foreign affairs reporter Tom Watling has more details:
Ukraine says it has stopped Putin’s forces advancing on key city in Kharkiv
Kyiv’s military say they have full control of Kupiansk, but admit Russian forces did briefly breach its outskirts
With Ukraine’s claims to be facing 50,000 troops in Kursk indicating that Russia is going to attempt to crush the salient with a “hammer blow” prior to any potential negotiations forced by Donald Trump, an analyst has suggested that Kyiv’s prospects depend on the morale, quality and cohesion of the troops stationed there.
Dr Patrick Bury, a former Nato analyst now at the University of Bath, told The Independent: “If they stand and fight they do have some pretty good defensive positions and they’ve got some of the riverbanks to defend on.
“So if they are able to, you’d expect it to be bloody and costly and the Russians to make incremental gains.
“If they are overwhelmed or their morale cracks, then it could be more rapid. But – if the past is an indicator of the present – usually we’ve seen attritional, heavy battles with Russians taking lots of losses but slowly grinding the Ukrainians back.”
Read more analysis here:
Analysis: Ukraine is facing 50,000 Russian troops in Kursk – can they hold out?
Experts tell Andy Gregory and Tom Watling that the real question is how much Kyiv’s troops are able to inflict casualties on the Russians as the price for taking the territory back
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