Tag: weapons

As the war enters its 667th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Friday, December 22, 2023.

 

Fighting

• Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said at least three people were killed and five injured after Russia bombed two coal mines in Toretsk in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. Some 32 miners who were underground at the time of the attack were brought safely to the surface, he added. The attack also damaged administrative buildings and equipment.
• Regional Governor Serhiy Lysak said two women were killed and an 86-year-old man injured in Russian shelling of the southern Ukrainian city of Nikopol, which lies on the Dnipro river. Russian artillery fire also killed another woman in the village of Tyagynka in the Kherson region, officials said.
• Ukraine’s air force said air defences shot down 34 out of 35 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched in a major Russian attack on 12 Ukrainian regions. The drones were launched in several waves during the night. There were no immediate reports of major damage or casualties.
• In its regular update from the front, the General Staff of the Ukrainian military said Ukrainian forces repelled at least 30 Russian attacks near Avdiivka and a further 11 around nearby Maryinka – two of the hottest points on the front line in eastern Ukraine – with a further seven outside Bakhmut.
• Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said Russia had launched about 7,400 missiles and 3,700 Shahed attack drones on the country since it began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Ihnat said air defences were able to shoot down 1,600 of the missiles and 2,900 of the drones. Fewer of the missiles were destroyed due to Russia’s use of supersonic ballistic missiles and because Patriot air defence systems from Western allies did not arrive until April this year, he added.

Politics and diplomacy

• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said he accepted an invitation from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy to hold a bilateral meeting in the future. Orban said Zelenskyy requested discussions on Ukraine’s ambitions to join the European Union. Orban did not give a date for the meeting, which would be their first since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
• The EU paid the final tranche of a multibillion-euro support package to Ukraine to help keep its war-ravaged economy afloat. The EU has sent 1.5 billion euros ($1.6bn) each month this year to ensure macroeconomic stability and rebuild critical infrastructure destroyed in the war. The money has also helped pay wages and pensions, keep hospitals and schools running, and provide shelter for people forced from their homes. Future financial support is unclear because Hungary is blocking a new $54bn aid plan.
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reacted angrily to a German proposal to seize frozen assets worth more than 720 million euros ($790m) from the Frankfurt bank account of a Russian financial institution. Asked about the plan at a press conference in Tunisia, Lavrov lashed out at German leaders as a “thieving lot”.
• A Russian court jailed two men, one of them Ukrainian, for financing an alleged ultranationalist group in Ukraine by selling illegal drugs. The two men were given jailed terms of 16 and 17 years after being found guilty of “financing extremist activities”.

Weapons

• The chief of the Russian General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, said Moscow had established “comprehensive” defence cooperation with North Korea but did not go into detail. The United States and South Korea have said Pyongyang could be sending weapons to Russia for use in the war in Ukraine in exchange for Russian technological know-how. Russia has denied the allegation.

As the war enters its 666th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Thursday, December 21, 2023.

Fighting

• Nine people, including four children, were injured in Russian shelling of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, as Russia also targeted the capital Kyiv, the second-largest city of Kharkiv and other regions with drones and missiles. Ukraine’s Air Force said air defence systems destroyed 18 out of 19 Russian attack drones and that Russia fired two surface-to-air guided missiles at Kharkiv. No casualties were reported.
• Ukrainian military spokesman Oleksandr Shtupun acknowledged that Russian forces were gaining ground around the industrial city of Avdiivka. Sthupun told Ukrainian television the Russians had “advanced by one and a half to two kilometres [0.3 to 1.2 miles] in some places” since October 10, but it had “cost them a lot”.
• The evening update from the Ukrainian General Staff reported 89 incidents of Russian ground attacks on seven sections of a front line that extends for about 1,000km (600 miles). There were 31 attacks near Avdiivka, it added.
• Ukraine’s Armed Forces are taking up a more defensive posture after a months-long counteroffensive failed to achieve a significant breakthrough, the United Kingdom’s Defence Ministry said in its latest assessment of the war. It said Ukraine was improving field fortifications along the front line.

Politics and diplomacy

• The Kremlin said there was no current basis for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine and that Kyiv’s proposed peace plan was absurd because it excluded Russia. “We really consider that the topic of negotiations is not relevant right now,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a “severe” response to foreign agents who try to help Ukraine by engaging in sabotage in Russia.
• Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich lost his attempt at the European Union’s top court to overturn the sanctions the EU imposed on him after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
• German federal prosecutors said they aim to seize more than 720 million euros ($789 million) from an unnamed Russian bank it suspects of trying to violate Western sanctions.
• Ukraine’s biggest mobile operator Kyivstar said it had fully restored its services in the country and overseas following a huge cyberattack last damaged IT infrastructure and affected air raid alert systems. More than half of Ukraine’s population are Kyivstar subscribers.
• A Russian court fined Google 4.6 billion roubles ($50.84m) for failing to delete so-called “fake” information about the war in Ukraine and other topics, according to the state TASS news agency.

• Yekaterina Duntsova, a 40-year-old former broadcast journalist, put her name forward to stand in Russia’s presidential election on a platform “for peace and democratic processes”. Duntsova has previously called for an end to the war in Ukraine and the release of political prisoners including opposition leader Alexey Navalny. The 40-year-old needs 300,000 signatures from across Russia by January 31 to support her candidacy. Vladimir Putin is expected to win in a landslide.

Weapons

• Oleksandr Kamyshin, Ukraine’s minister for strategic industries, said Kyiv plans to manufacture 1 million reconnaissance and attack drones as well as more than 11,000 medium- and long-range attack drones next year. The figure includes at least 1,000 drones with a range of more than 1,000km (620 miles), he said.
• Japan is considering allowing Patriot missile transfers to Ukraine, according to a report in Nikkei.

As the war enters its 665th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Wednesday, December 20, 2023.

Fighting

• Ukraine’s military said Russia launched its fifth air attack this month on the capital, with air defence systems destroying all weapons on their approach to Kyiv. “According to preliminary information, there were no casualties or destruction in the capital,” Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app.
• Russia’s Defence Ministry said it brought down a Ukrainian drone near the capital that led to restrictions on flights at Moscow’s main airports. No casualties were reported.
• Ukraine said its military was holding the line in the eastern Kharkiv region, despite being outgunned by Russian forces trying to take control of the town of Kupiansk. “The situation is complicated. We have to fight in conditions of superiority of the enemy both in weapons and in the number of personnel,” said Oleksandr Syrsky, the head of Ukraine’s ground forces. Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had repelled eight Ukrainian attacks around Kupiansk with artillery.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the military had asked for the mobilisation of 500,000 more people in the fight to remove Russian forces from its territory and urged the United States and Kyiv’s other Western allies to maintain their support for his country. He said he also hoped prisoner swaps, which he said had been delayed as a result of unspecified “reasons” on the Russian side, would soon resume. The last exchange took place in early August.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin told defence and military chiefs that Moscow had the momentum in its war in Ukraine and was well-positioned to reach its goals, claiming that attempts to defeat it had failed. Putin also said Moscow was upgrading its nuclear arsenal and maintaining the military at its highest level of readiness.
• Italy’s cabinet passed a decree allowing it to supply “means, materials and equipment” to Ukraine in its fight against Russia until the end of 2024. Supplies will include not only weapons but also power generators and “everything needed to support military operations in defence of unarmed civilians”, a Defence Ministry statement said.
• Volker Turk, the United Nations’s human rights chief, said there were indications Russia had committed war crimes in Ukraine, including 142 cases of “summary executions” of civilians as well we enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment such as sexual violence against detainees.
• A court in Poland convicted 14 citizens of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine for being part of a spy ring preparing acts of sabotage on behalf of Moscow. They were given jail terms ranging from 13 months to six years.

• A former Russian soldier sought asylum in the Netherlands and said he wanted to testify at the International Criminal Court (ICC) about Russian war crimes he witnessed while fighting in Ukraine. A Dutch legal source told the Reuters news agency the man had been a member of Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine since 2014 and had also worked as an instructor for the Wagner mercenary group there.
• Chuck Schumer, the majority leader in the US Senate, said the upper house aimed to pass an agreement to provide additional aid to Ukraine and bolster US border security as soon as it returns to Washington, DC in January after the Christmas and New Year holidays.

Weapons

• Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, said that since the country began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it had increased production of tanks by 5.6 times, drones by 16.8 times and artillery shells by 17.5 times. Speaking during Putin’s meeting with military chiefs, Shoigu said Russian forces had also laid 7,000sq km (2,703 square miles) of minefields in Ukraine – some of them as much as 600 metres (1,969 feet) wide – along with 1.5 million anti-tank barriers and 2,000km (1,243 miles) of anti-tank ditches.
• Zelenskyy said Ukraine planned to manufacture some 1 million drones next year for use on the battlefield. Ukraine and Russia use drones to scope out enemy positions, drop explosives and launch attacks on the enemy.

• The US charged Hossein Hatefi Ardakani, an Iranian, and Gary Lam, a Chinese national, with allegedly supplying dual-use US-manufactured microelectronics to Iran’s drone programme. “These very components have been found in use by Iran’s allies in current conflicts, including in Ukraine,” special agent Michael Krol said. Both men remain at large.
• The US Treasury Department, meanwhile, announced that it was imposing sanctions on a network of 10 Ardakani-linked entities as well as four individuals based in Iran, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Indonesia, for circumventing export bans to procure US components for Iranian-made attack drones.

 

As the war enters its 664th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Tuesday, December 19, 2023.

Fighting

• Ukraine’s Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi said the situation on the front line was not at a stalemate, after suggesting last month that it was a possibility. He declined to comment on the coming counteroffensive operations. “This is a war. I can’t say what I plan, what we should do. Otherwise, it will be a show, not a war,” Ukraine’s RBC media quoted him as saying.
• Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, a senior army general who has led counteroffensives against the Russians, told the Reuters news agency that front-line troops faced shortages of artillery shells – particularly Soviet-era 122mm and 152mm ammunition – and had scaled back some military operations because of a shortfall of foreign assistance.
• Zaluzhnyi criticised the president’s decision to fire regional military draft office chiefs. “These were professionals, they knew how to do this, and they are gone,” Interfax Ukraine cited him as saying. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy fired the country’s regional military recruitment heads in August in a corruption crackdown.

Politics and diplomacy

• Zelenskyy said new sanctions imposed on Moscow by the European Union would “truly reduce” Russia’s ability to finance its invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s diplomatic mission to the EU said the latest action showed previous efforts had failed. The 12th package of sanctions includes a ban on Russian-origin diamonds, additional import and export bans, and a tightening of the rules to close loopholes and combat sanctions circumvention, the EU said.
• The Russian government added the prominent writer Grigory Chkhartishvili – known by his pen name Boris Akunin – to a register of “terrorists and extremists” after he criticised the invasion of Ukraine. The 67-year-old is known for his historical detective novels and his longstanding criticism of President Vladimir Putin.

Weapons

• United States President Joe Biden said he was planning one more military aid package for Ukraine this month and that further assistance would require agreement in Congress.
• The Alphen Group, made up of more than 40 former top US and NATO diplomats and defence officials, urged the US Congress to approve new aid for Ukraine, warning that if Ukraine failed to win, it would not only be disastrous for Ukraine but also threaten the security of the US and its allies. Republicans earlier this month blocked an emergency spending bill including billions of dollars of aid for Ukraine, demanding tougher steps to control immigration at the US-Mexico border.
• Denmark set aside 1.8 billion Danish crowns ($264m) to help finance a Swedish initiative to donate CV90 armoured combat vehicles to Ukraine, the Danish Defence Ministry said in a statement.

As the war enters its 663rd day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Monday, December 18, 2023.

Fighting

• Ukraine’s Air Force said it destroyed 20 Russian drones and a missile – nine of them in the southern Odesa region. The falling debris started a fire in a residential home and killed one person. The air force said a second missile “did not reach its goal”. On Saturday, Ukraine said its air defence systems shot down 30 Russia-launched drones over 11 regions of the country
• Russia’s Defence Ministry said its air defence systems destroyed or intercepted a total of 35 Ukraine-launched drones over its Lipetsk, Volgograd and Rostov regions in Russia. It did not say what was targeted or whether there was any damage. The Ukrainska Pravda media outlet later reported that the attack – reportedly a joint operation of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and Ukraine’s Armed Forces – was targeting the Morozovsk airfield in the Rostov region. Several Russian military bloggers said that one bomber at the base suffered minor damage.
• The Freedom of Russia Legion, a Ukrainian-based paramilitary group of Russians who oppose President Vladimir Putin, said it was behind a cross-border attack inside Russia’s Belgorod region. The group said it had destroyed a platoon stronghold of Russian troops near Trebreno village and planted mines, but did not elaborate. Vyacheslav Gladkov, Belgorod’s regional governor, said Trebreno was under fire from Ukraine’s Armed Forces and that a “shooting battle” was under way on the edge of the village. He said three houses and a power line were damaged.

• The Associated Press news agency published drone footage indicating the scale of Russian casualties in the intense battles for control of the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka. The footage showed the bodies of about 150 soldiers – most of them in Russian uniforms – lying on the ground where they died outside Stepove, a village north of Avdiivka, that has been reduced to rubble. The drone unit said it is possible that some of the dead were Ukrainians.
• Family and friends of Ukrainian soldiers from the so-called Azov battalion held captive by Russia since the fall of Mariupol held a rally in Kyiv calling for their urgent exchange with Russian prisoners of war.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukraine’s security service said it had launched a criminal investigation after a “technical device” was found in an office that could have been used in the future by Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhnyi. It added that the device – initially characterised as a bug by local media – was considered under preliminary information to be “in a non-operational state”, and no means of information storage or remote transmission of audio recordings were found.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine and the European Commission would soon assess Kyiv’s progress on aligning its legislation with that of the European Union. A framework for negotiations on Ukraine’s EU accession is also expected in the coming months, he added in his nightly video address.
• Putin dismissed as “complete nonsense” remarks by United States President Joe Biden that Russia would be emboldened to attack a NATO country if it was successful in its invasion of Ukraine. Putin said Russia had no interest in fighting the NATO military alliance. Biden stressed the threat posed by Moscow in an appeal to Republican lawmakers resisting new support for Kyiv.
• A senior US congressional negotiator working over the weekend to craft a deal that would be acceptable to its critics said he was “very optimistic” about a solution. The Republicans have demanded the aid to Ukraine and Israel be linked to new measures at the US’s southern border. “I’m very encouraged. I’m very optimistic they’re moving in a very positive way,” Joe Manchin, a Democrat, told CNN’s State of the Union program.
• Police in Finland are seeking a court order to imprison a Russian man accused of committing war crimes against wounded or surrendered soldiers in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and 2015. Yan Petrovsky, who had been living in Finland under the name Voislav Torden, is already in Finnish custody but authorities are asking that he be formally jailed while they conduct an investigation into his alleged crimes.

As the war enters its 660th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Friday, December 15, 2023.

Fighting

• Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia launched 42 drones and six missiles, mostly targeting the southern Odesa region. Air defence systems destroyed most of the Iranian-made Shahed drones but 11 people were injured by falling debris, which also damaged buildings and warehouses.
• The air force said Ukraine was also attacked by Russian fighter jets dropping Kinzhal hypersonic missiles. One missile was shot down over the Kyiv region, but another two hit the west of the capital where there is an air base. Kyiv regional governor Ruslan Kravchenko said no casualties were reported, or damage to critical and civilian infrastructure.
• Speaking at his annual press conference in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his forces were “improving their position on almost the entire line of contact” in Ukraine and that there would be no peace until Russia had achieved its goals.
• Russia said it shot down nine Ukrainian drones heading towards Moscow. There were no reports of damage.
• Romania summoned Russia’s ambassador over a “new violation” of its airspace after a drone crashed on its territory leaving a crater 1.5 metres deep near the town of Grindu, which faces the Ukrainian port of Reni on the other side of the River Danube.

• Russia added Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence (GUR), to its list of people “wanted” for criminal offences. Moscow, which annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, accuses Budanov of organising a 2022 attack that partially destroyed the bridge it built linking the peninsula to Russia.

Politics and diplomacy

• European Union leaders agreed to formally open accession talks with Ukraine, in a decision Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed as a “victory” for Ukraine and Europe. The United States, meanwhile, welcomed the move as “historic”.
• EU leaders also agreed to impose a 12th round of sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine. The latest sanctions will target diamond exports and improve enforcement of an oil price cap designed to reduce the amount of money Russia makes by selling crude to non-EU countries.
• A Russian court overturned its decision to fine Oleg Orlov, the co-chair of Nobel Prize-winning human rights group Memorial, after finding him guilty of “discrediting Russian forces” after he said Russian soldiers were committing “murder” in Ukraine. The move means Orlov could now be jailed.
• A Russian court upheld a decision to keep Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in detention ahead of his trial on alleged charges of espionage that he denies. Asked about the journalist’s prolonged detention during his annual press conference, Putin said he hoped for a solution with the US. “There are contacts on this issue and dialogue is ongoing, but it’s not straightforward,” he said. Gershkovich was arrested in March.

• Igor Girkin, a 52-year-old hardline nationalist who is better known by his alias Igor Strelkov, went on trial in Moscow on charges of extremism after criticising the Kremlin’s military strategy in Ukraine. Girkin, a 52-year-old hardline nationalist who is better known by his alias Igor Strelkov, was a top commander in the Russian-backed armed groups in eastern Ukraine that began fighting Kyiv in 2014. He was arrested in July.

Weapons

• Zelenskyy made an unannounced visit to Germany that media reports said would focus on securing armaments for the war. The Ukrainian president visited the US military base in Wiesbaden, where he said he was “once again convinced of the excellent quality of US military aid to Ukraine”. Ukraine is trying to convince right-wing Republicans in the US to back billions of dollars in additional aid that they have been blocking in Congress.
• Ukrainian media said the country had taken delivery of an additional Patriot air defence system as Russia steps up aerial attacks on the country.

As the war enters its 659th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Thursday, December 14, 2023.

Fighting

• At least 53 people, including six children, were injured after Russia launched a missile attack on Kyiv, the second in a week. The city’s air defences shot down the missiles – Iskander-M and S-400s – but the falling debris blew out windows of apartment blocks as well as a children’s hospital and destroyed parked cars. Of the injured, 18 were taken to hospital.
• A group of hackers called Solntsepyok claimed responsibility for the cyberattack on Kyivstar, Ukraine’s biggest mobile phone network, after millions of people were left without phone access or air raid alerts. Kyiv believes the group is affiliated with Russian military intelligence. Kyivstar began restoring voice services to some people on Wednesday.

Politics and diplomacy

• With European Union leaders due to meet on Thursday to decide whether to formally open Ukraine membership talks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was on a visit to Norway after returning to Europe from the United States, said that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had no reason to block Kyiv’s membership of the 27-member grouping. Zelenskyy said he had been “very direct” when he had a brief chat with Orban in Argentina on Sunday.
• Orban, a conservative nationalist who is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in the EU and is blocking 50 billion euros in financial aid for Kyiv, appeared unmoved. “Our stance is clear. We do not support Ukraine’s quick EU entry,” Orban wrote in a post on Facebook, claiming Ukrainian membership would not serve the interests of Hungary or the EU.
• Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, meanwhile, promised Zelenskyy they would “stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes”. The five countries have provided Ukraine with aid worth some 11 billion euros since Russia began its full-scale invasion in February 2022 and said they were ready to continue giving extensive military, economic and humanitarian support. “Russia must end its aggression and withdraw its forces immediately and unconditionally from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders,” they said in a joint statement.
• Other EU leaders, including EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, reiterated their support for Ukraine, with Scholz suggesting the EU take enlargement decisions by majority vote rather than unanimity. Newly-elected Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he would try to persuade Orban to change course. “Apathy on Ukraine is unacceptable,” Tusk said, adding that he will try to convince “some member states”.

• A German court heard that Russia paid Carsten Linke, a former soldier working for Germany’s foreign intelligence agency (BND), at least 450,000 euros in return for information about weaponry with which the West was arming Ukraine. Linke and his accomplice, a Russian-born German diamond trader named Arthur Eller, are charged with high treason.

Weapons

• Germany’s Scholz stressed that the aim of the West’s continuing military support for Ukraine was to strengthen Kyiv’s defence to such an extent that Russia would “never again dare to attack”.

As the war enters its 658th day, these are the main developments.

Here is the situation on Wednesday, December 13, 2023.

Fighting

• Yevgeny Balitsky, the Moscow-installed head of the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhia region, said Russian forces had “advanced significantly forward northeast of Novopokrovka”. The village lies some 20km (12 miles) east of Robotyne, which Kyiv said it recaptured in August. Balitsky said Russian forces were “not only holding the line but are gradually moving forward”. Ukraine acknowledged battles in the area. “The defence forces repelled three enemy attacks in the areas north of Pryutne and west of Novopokrovka of the Zaporizhia region,” the army said in its daily report.
• The Ukrainian Air Force said it shot down nine of 15 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russia at several regions of Ukraine.
• One person was killed and four others injured during 24 hours of Russian bombardment of the southern Kherson region, according to Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the regional military administration.
• Ukraine claimed to have captured a tactically important hill in the eastern Donetsk region. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on social media that his troops had taken the foothold, which provides a vantage point over the front line near Pivdenne, a mining town to the northwest of the Donetsk city of Horlivka.
• A major outage at Kyivstar, the operator of Ukraine’s biggest mobile network, left 24.3 million people without mobile coverage and potential air raid alerts after what appeared to be the largest cyberattack since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country. “War is also happening in cyberspace. Unfortunately, we have been hit as a result of this war,” Chief Executive Officer Oleksandr Komarov told national television. Ukraine said it was investigating possible Russian state involvement and Kyivstar said it hoped to restore services by Wednesday.

• A declassified US intelligence report assessed that 315,000 Russian troops had been killed and injured in the war in Ukraine – nearly 90 percent of the personnel Moscow had when the conflict began – a source familiar with the intelligence told the Reuters news agency. The report also assessed that Moscow’s losses in personnel and armoured vehicles to Ukraine’s military had set back its military modernisation by 18 years.

Politics and diplomacy

• United States President Joe Biden and Zelenskyy met at the White House to discuss the “vital importance” of continued US assistance for Ukraine after US Republicans, who want to link funding for Ukraine to new border security measures, blocked billions of dollars of support.
• At a press conference following the meeting, Biden reiterated the need to maintain military aid for Ukraine, saying Republicans who stood in the way would hand a “Christmas gift” to Russian President Vladimir Putin. “If we don’t stop Putin … [he] will keep going,” Biden said.
• Zelenskyy, meanwhile, said about 600,000 Ukrainians were fighting Russian forces and that the country’s troops had been successful in the Black Sea as well as in establishing a new corridor for grain exports. He said the goal in 2024 was to “take away Russia’s air superiority”.
• The Ukrainian president earlier appealed directly to the US Congress over new funding and said that while he had got “positive” signals from the meeting, he would focus on action rather than words. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, did not appear to have been swayed. “What the Biden administration seems to be asking for is billions of additional dollars with no appropriate oversight, no clear strategy to win and with none of the answers that I think the American people are owed,” Johnson said.
• Earlier, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had said Russia would be closely watching the meeting between the two leaders. Peskov said that further US military aid to Ukraine would be a “fiasco”, claiming the billions of dollars in previous aid had not helped Ukraine on the battlefield.
• Zelenskyy emphatically rejected as “insane” suggestions that Ukraine should give up some of its territory to secure a peace deal with Russia. “It’s a matter of families and their history. We are not going to give up territories to terrorists,” Zelenskyy told reporters.
• Poland’s newly-elected prime minister, Donald Tusk, said Warsaw would demand the “full mobilisation” of the West to help Ukraine. “There is no alternative,” he said.

• The US announced a wave of new sanctions targeting more than 250 individuals and entities in countries including Turkey, China and the United Arab Emirates, as it tries to further isolate Russia over its full-scale invasion.
• Alsu Kurmasheva, a journalist with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) who Russia detained in October, was slapped with additional charges of “spreading false information about the Russian army”. RFE/RL’s acting president and board member Jeffrey Gedmin said the network “strongly condemned” the move. “It is time for this cruel persecution to end,” he said.

Weapons

• The US announced a new $200m military aid package for Ukraine including ammunition for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), high-speed anti-radiation missiles and artillery rounds. It is separate from the package currently stalled in Congress. “Unless Congress take action to pass additional aid, this will be one of the last security assistance packages we will be able to provide Ukraine,” the Biden administration said in a statement.