Russia-Ukraine updates: 1.5 million people in Odesa without power
A Russian strike on the port city of Odesa has left more than 1.5 million people without power, Ukraine’s president has said.
This blog is now closed. Thanks for joining us. These were the updates on the Russia-Ukraine war for Saturday, December 10.
This blog is now closed. Thanks for joining us. These were the updates on the Russia-Ukraine war for Saturday, December 10.
- More than 1.5 million people in Ukraine’s Odesa region are without power after Russian drone strikes on the electricity generating system, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
- Oleksandra Matviichuk, from the Ukrainian Centre for Civil Liberties – one of three recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize – said Russia uses a “tactic of terror against people in the occupied territories”, referring to the war in Ukraine.
- President Zelenskyy said Russian forces have “destroyed” the eastern city of Bakhmut where the most active fighting in Ukraine is taking place.
- Ukraine’s military also reported attacks in other provinces: Kharkiv and Sumy in the northeast, Dnipropetrovsk in central Ukraine, Zaporizhia in the southeast and Kherson in the south.
More than 1.5 million people in Odesa without power: Zelenskyy
More than 1.5 million people in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region are without power after Russian drone strikes on the electricity generating system, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said in a video address.
On Saturday, all non-critical infrastructure in Ukraine’s southern port city was without power after Russia used drones to hit energy facilities.
Russia used Iranian-made drones to hit two energy facilities in Odesa, officials said.
Dozen European countries push to lower cap on gas prices
A dozen European Union countries including Belgium, Italy, Poland and Slovenia have made a push to “significantly” lower a planned cap on natural gas prices as the bloc struggles to strike a deal on the measure.
Gas prices in Europe have soared this year after Russia slashed gas deliveries following its invasion of Ukraine.
EU countries held emergency negotiations on Saturday as they try to reach a deal in time for a meeting on Tuesday of their energy ministers. EU members have wrangled for months over whether to cap gas prices but have so far failed to bridge the gap between their divergent views.
Pro-cap countries say the measure would shield their economies from high energy costs, but Germany, Europe’s biggest economy and gas market, and the Netherlands have opposed it.
They warn it could disrupt the normal functioning of energy markets and deter gas producers from sending much-needed fuel to Europe.
UK sanctions Russians over human rights abuses
Britain has announced wide-ranging sanctions against 30 targets worldwide, including five people from Russia and Russian-held Crimea amid the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, which has attracted successive waves of UK sanctions against Moscow.
Those targeted include Russian Colonel Ramil Rakhmatulovich Ibatullin for his role as the commander of the 90th Tank Division, which has been involved in fighting since Russia invaded Ukraine.
The government said there had been multiple allegations made against serving members of the 90th Tank Division, including the conviction in Ukraine of a senior lieutenant on sexual abuse charges during the war.
Nobel Peace Prize recipients slam Russia’s war in Ukraine
After receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, this year’s recipients took turns criticising Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Jailed Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian organisation Memorial and Ukraine’s Centre for Civil Liberties were announced as the winners in October. They were recognised for their work in documenting war crimes, human rights abuses and the abuse of power.
Read our in-depth story here.
Romania defuses fourth naval mine in Black Sea since March
Romania’s navy has defused a naval mine that had drifted close to its Black Sea shore, the Ministry of National Defence says.
Mines began floating in the Black Sea after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, and Romanian, Bulgarian and Turkish military diving teams have been defusing those drifting in their waters.
The ministry said the navy was alerted by a Turkish cargo ship to a mine drifting about 2.5 nautical miles (4.6km) north of the Black Sea port of Constanta, Romania.
The Black Sea is crucial for shipping grain, oil and oil products. Its waters are shared by Bulgaria, Romania, Georgia, Turkey, Ukraine and Russia.
The mine defused on Saturday was the fourth handled by the Romanian military since March. Since the war started, Turkey, Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine have destroyed roughly 40 mines in the western Black Sea.
Putin ‘does not want negotiations’: Matviichuk
Putin “does not want negotiations”, says Oleksandra Matviichuk from the Ukrainian Centre for Civil Liberties.
“Putin will stop only when he wants to stop. What he calls negotiations and some ‘political’ compromise means the life of our [Ukrainian] people because when we sent mobile groups to Bucha … We found civilian bodies scattered around the streets until liberation.
“It is occupation; we have the names of the things they are. Ukraine will never compromise with the lives of our people”, she said.
Russia used Iranian drones to hit Odesa energy facilities: Ukrainian officials
Russia used Iranian-made drones to hit two energy facilities in Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa, Ukrainian officials say.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said two power facilities in the Odesa region were hit by Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones.
Fifteen of those drones, which carry an explosive payload and fly into their targets, were launched on targets in the southern regions of Odesa and Mykolaiv, and 10 were shot down, Ukraine’s armed forces said on Facebook.
Odesa, Ukraine’s largest port city, had a population of more than 1 million people before Russia’s February 24 invasion.
Maksym Marchenko, governor of the Odesa region, said Russia used “kamikaze drones”, which fly into their targets rather than bomb or fire on them. He said two had been shot down over the Black Sea.
Australia sanctions Russia, Iran for rights violations
Australia will place sanctions on Russia and Iran in response to “egregious” human rights violations, Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong says in a statement.
Seven Russians involved in what Wong said was the attempted assassination of jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny would have human rights sanctions imposed on them.
Australia is also placing further financial sanctions on three Iranians and one Iranian business for supplying drones to Russia to use in Ukraine.
Since the start of the Ukraine war, Australia has sanctioned hundreds of Russian individuals and entities, including most of Russia’s banking sector and all organisations responsible for its sovereign debt.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Matviichuk: This is ‘recognition’ for Ukrainian people
Oleksandra Matviichuk from the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Ukrainian Centre for Civil Liberties says the honour is “recognition” for the Ukrainian people.
Speaking to Al Jazeera’s James Bays and Folly Bah Thibault, reporting from Oslo, Matviichuk said: “This Nobel Peace Prize is a recognition of the efforts of the whole Ukrainian nation, who bravely struggle for freedom and our democratic choice.”
“This is a huge responsibility because this is a Nobel Peace Prize during the war and during a very bloody war,” she said.
Jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner: Russia trying to make Ukraine a ‘dependent dictatorship’
Natalia Pinchuk – who accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of her husband, Ales Bialiatski, a jailed activist from Belarus – shared some of his thoughts, recorded earlier, including a call to fight against “international of dictatorships”.
Pinchuk quoted Bialiatski as saying Russia is trying to establish “a dependent dictatorship” in Ukraine.
“The same as today’s Belarus, where the voice of the oppressed people is ignored and disregarded,” he said, according to Pinchuk. He cited the Russian military bases in Belarus, its economic dependence on Russia and its “cultural and linguistic Russification”.
“Goodness and truth must be able to protect themselves,” he said.
Bialiatski has been detained since July 2021 pending trial after Minsk’s crackdown on large-scale protests against the government and after criticising President Aleksandr Lukashenko.
The 60-year-old was not allowed to transmit an acceptance speech for the Nobel ceremony.
Viktor Bout praises Putin, backs Russia’s war in Ukraine
Viktor Bout, an arms dealer called the “Merchant of Death”, has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin and backed Moscow’s war on Ukraine shortly after being released from a United States prison.
On Thursday, Bout, who had served nearly half of his 25-year sentence, was freed in a prisoner swap for American basketball star Brittney Griner.
Speaking to the Kremlin-backed RT channel in an interview released on Saturday, Bout said he kept a portrait of Putin in his prison cell.
Bout, 55, said he “fully” supported Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine and would have volunteered to go to the front if he had the “opportunity and necessary skills”.
“Why did we not do it earlier?” he asked, referring to Putin’s decision to launch an offensive against Ukraine in February.
Power cuts due to war in Ukraine turn Kazakh city into icy hell
The northeastern city of Ekibastuz in Kazakhstan has descended into winter misery as countries around the globe struggle with energy shortages due to Moscow’s assault on Ukraine.
The city with a population of 150,000 people was left without heating for more than a week in temperatures that dropped to minus 30C (minus 22F), sparking anger.
The Ekibastuz ordeal is just the latest in a long list of problems involving thermal infrastructure in the vast Central Asian country.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev lamented that the hydrocarbon-rich nation depends on imports from Russia.
Russian Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate: Kremlin’s war against Ukraine ‘insane and criminal’
Russian Nobel Peace Prize co-laureate Jan Rachinsky, the chairman of the human rights organisation, Memorial, has denounced Russia’s “imperial ambitions” inherited from the ex-Soviet Union “that still thrive today”.
Putin and his “ideological servants” have hijacked the anti-fascist struggle “for their own political interests”, he said, as he was honoured by the Nobel committee, along with Ukraine’s Centre for Civil Liberties and jailed Belarusian rights advocate, Ales Bialiatski.
Now, “resistance to Russia is called ‘fascism'”, and has become “the ideological justification for the insane and criminal war of aggression against Ukraine”, he said, using harsh language considering the stiff penalties Moscow imposes on those who publicly criticise the invasion.
Amid crackdowns on the opposition and media, Russia’s Supreme Court ordered Memorial dissolved at the end of 2021 and ordered a raid on its Moscow offices on October 7, which was the very day it was announced as co-winner of this year’s Peace Prize.
Iran now one of Russia’s top military backers: UK Ministry of Defence
Iran’s backing for the Russian military is likely to grow in the coming months, and Moscow will probably offer Tehran an “unprecedented” level of military support in return, the UK Ministry of Defence has said.
The ministry’s latest intelligence update said Iran has become one of Russia’s top military backers since Russia invaded Ukraine in February and that Moscow was now trying to obtain more weapons, including hundreds of ballistic missiles.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 10 December 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/32IwfHj0a1
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/gT1KKRBrap
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) December 10, 2022
IAEA’s chief discusses nuclear concerns
Following the shelling of the Russian-controlled nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has rung the alarm, warning of a possible nuclear catastrophe.
The nuclear watchdog chief, Rafael Grossi, discusses the challenges with Al Jazeera.
‘Full-fledged war is a possibility’, NATO says
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says fighting in Ukraine could spin out of control and become a war between Russia and the Western alliance.
“If things go wrong, they can go horribly wrong,” Stoltenberg said in remarks to Norwegian broadcaster NRK. “It is a terrible war in Ukraine. It is also a war that can become a full-fledged war that spreads into a major war between NATO and Russia. We are working on that every day to avoid that.”
Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway, said in the interview that it was important to avoid a conflict “that involves more countries in Europe and becomes a full-fledged war in Europe”.
Russian drone attacks target power network in Odesa: Officials
All non-critical infrastructure in Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa was without power after Russia used drones to hit energy facilities, local officials say. Much of the surrounding region has also been affected.
“Due to the scale of the damage, all users in Odesa except critical infrastructure have been disconnected from electricity,” Odesa Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov wrote on Facebook.
A statement posted by the city administration on the Telegram app said Russian air strikes hit key transmission lines and equipment in the Odesa region early on Saturday.
In pictures: A rare moment of rest in Bakhmut
A Reuters photographer captures rare downtime for Ukrainian soldiers in one of the main battlegrounds of the war: the eastern city of Bakhmut, where intense fighting with Russian forces is taking place.
Ukraine can’t achieve peace by ‘laying down its arms’: Rights group
Ukraine cannot achieve peace by “laying down its arms” against Russia, said Oleksandra Matviichuk as she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Ukraine’s Centre for Civil Liberties at a ceremony in Oslo.
“The people of Ukraine want peace more than anyone else in the world. But peace cannot be reached by a country under attack laying down its arms,” Matviichuk said. “This would not be peace, but occupation.”
Separately, the wife of the jailed Belarusian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Byalyatski said Russia wants to turn Ukraine into a “dependent dictatorship” like Belarus, as she received the award on his behalf.“I know exactly what kind of Ukraine would suit Russia and Putin — a dependent dictatorship. The same as today’s Belarus, where the voice of the oppressed people is ignored and disregarded,” Natallia Pinchuk said, quoting her husband.
EU struggles over gas price cap
A dozen countries including Belgium, Italy, Poland and Slovenia have made a push to “significantly” lower a planned European Union cap on gas prices, as the bloc struggles to strike a deal on the measure, Reuters reports.
EU countries are holding emergency negotiations as they attempt to line up a deal to cap gas prices at a December 13 meeting of their energy ministers – but states remain split over the plan.
“The text has not gone far enough towards what we could consider a satisfactory compromise,” they said.
G7 price cap and ban on Russia’s seaborne oil kick in
What are Russia’s options for overcoming these measures and what is their effect on the global oil markets?
Germany and France should compensate Donbas residents: Duma speaker
Germany and France should pay compensation to residents of the Donbas region, State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin has said in reference to comments made by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
In an interview with a German magazine, the ex-leader said that peace agreements aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine that began in 2014 had been an attempt to “give Ukraine time” to build up its defences.
“Merkel’s confession puts moral and material responsibility for the developments in Ukraine on Germany and France,” Volodin wrote on his Telegram channel. “They will have to pay compensation to residents of the Donbass republics for the eight years of genocide and inflicted damage. This is just the beginning,” he warned.
Russian-installed Kherson official says withdrawing hryvnia
The Russian-installed administration of Ukraine’s Kherson region says that it has begun changing locally circulated Ukrainian hryvnia currency into Russian roubles, with hryvnia circulation in Moscow-controlled areas of the region to end on January 1.
“For the sake of the convenience of residents and to allow for a smoother integration of the region into the Russian economic space, this week banks in Kherson region began currency exchange operations,” said Andrei Peretonkin, the head of the Russian central bank’s local branch, in a video published on Telegram.
The southern region came under Moscow’s occupation immediately after the start of the February invasion. It was then declared annexed to Russia in a highly condemned referendum deemed illegal by Western countries.
In an important victory for Ukrainian forces, Russia withdrew from Kherson city last month, but it still holds control over most of the region.
Bakhmut is destroyed: Zelenskyy
Russian forces have “destroyed” the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.
“The occupiers actually destroyed Bakhmut, another Donbas city that the Russian army turned into burnt ruins,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.
He did not provide further details. Some buildings remain standing in the city and residents are still milling about in the streets.
Fighting heated up around Bakhmut after Ukrainian forces recaptured the southern city of Kherson nearly a month ago. Russia has been focusing on the eastern city in what some observers say is a display of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s desire for visible gains after a number of military setbacks.
Taking Bakhmut would rupture Ukraine’s supply lines and open a route for Russian forces to press on toward Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, key Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk.