Russia-Ukraine updates: Russian envoy says US ties in ‘ice age’
Ukraine updates from December 23: Russia’s ambassador to US warns the risk of a clash between the US and Russia is ‘high’.
The live blog is now closed, thank you for joining us. Here are the updates for December 23:
The live blog is now closed, thank you for joining us. Here are the updates for December 23:
- Russia’s ambassador to Washington has compared the state of US-Russia relations to an “ice age” and warned of a “high” risk of a direct clash between the pair.
- A Russian official has warned Moscow may cut oil output next year in response to price caps on its crude and oil products introduced by the European Union and G7.
- Shelling of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has “almost stopped”, according to a Russian-installed official in the region.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy returns to his Kyiv office after a trip to the United States, his first overseas venture since the war began.
US asks Putin to keep ‘acknowledging reality’ after ‘war’ reference
The United States has derisively called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to acknowledge reality and pull troops from Ukraine after he finally called the conflict a “war.”
Since Putin ordered the invasion in February, Russia has officially spoken of a “special military operation” and imposed a law that criminalises what authorities call misleading terminology. But at a news conference on Thursday, Putin himself used the word “war” as he said that he hoped to end it as soon as possible.
“Since February 24, the United States and rest of the world knew that Putin’s ‘special military operation’ was an unprovoked and unjustified war against Ukraine. Finally, after 300 days, Putin called the war what it is,” a US Department of State spokesperson said.
“As a next step in acknowledging reality, we urge him to end this war by withdrawing his forces from Ukraine.”
Putin tells Russian defence industry to up its game for Ukraine war
President Vladimir Putin has told Russia’s defence industry chiefs to up their game to ensure that the Russian army quickly gets all the weapons, equipment and military hardware it needs to fight in Ukraine.
Putin made the comments during a visit to Tula, a centre for arms manufacturing.
“The most important key task of our military-industrial complex is to provide our units and front-line forces with everything they need: weapons, equipment, ammunition, and gear in the necessary quantities and of the right quality, in the shortest possible timeframes,” said Putin.
“It’s also important to perfect and significantly improve the technical characteristics of weapons and equipment for our fighters based on the combat experience we have gained.”
Ukraine estimates grain harvest fell about 40 percent
Ukraine estimates its grain harvest fell by approximately 40 percent year on year due to the Russian invasion, a representative for the country’s industry told AFP news agency.
“We expect a grain harvest of 65-66 million tonnes” by the end of the year, the head of the Ukrainian Grain Association Sergiy Ivashchenko said, following a record harvest of 106 million tonnes last year.
“The main reason is the war,” which immediately led to fuel shortages and hindered sowing, Ivashchenko said.
Ukraine is a major exporter but Russia’s invasion in late February stopped shipments and blocked 20 million tonnes of grain in Ukraine’s ports.
Netherlands pledges 2.5 billion euros in 2023 Ukraine aid
The Netherlands has pledged 2.5 billion euros ($2.7bn) to help Ukraine in 2023, with most of the money earmarked for military aid.
“Nearly two billion is intended for military support”, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told a news conference in The Hague.
The rest will go towards humanitarian aid, rebuilding infrastructure, as well as ensuring accountability, he said.
“The exact use of the contribution depends on the needs of Ukrainians and therefore, on the course of the war,” the government said.
After heavy combat, Ukrainians in the east brace for cold
Eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region has witnessed heavy fighting and shifting front lines in recent months.
Residents are now facing a new threat: a bitter winter without heating, electricity and running water.
Read more here.
Ukraine eyeing bigger diplomatic footprint in Africa: Zelenskyy
Ukraine’s president says his country will boost its footprint in Africa next year by opening 10 new embassies and strengthening trade ties with the continent.
Ukraine has been trying to rally African countries to its cause as it fights off Russia’s full-scale invasion, in part by promoting a humanitarian grain initiative to help alleviate hunger in highly vulnerable countries.
Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian agricultural exports through the Black Sea had sparked global grain and fertiliser shortages earlier this year, endangering millions, before a UN-brokered deal partially eased it in July.
“We are overhauling relations with dozens of African countries,” Zelenskyy told a gathering of diplomats in Kyiv. “Next year we need to strengthen this.”
Besides opening the new embassies, Zelenskyy said, Ukraine would also aim to set up trade representative offices in several key hubs on the continent – which he described as a region “where our interests are so far represented less than we need”.
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events – Day 303
Click here for a roundup of the key events from day 303 of the war.
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Canada condemns alleged North Korean arms sales to Wagner Group
Canada has condemned alleged North Korean arms deliveries to Russia, saying Pyongyang’s transaction with the Wagner Group, a private military company, “clearly violates international law and United Nations Security Council resolutions”.
“We will continue to work with international partners to address these developments and respond to further arms deliveries should they take place,” Melanie Joly, Canada’s foreign affairs minister, said in a statement.
Joly’s remarks came after the United States on Thursday said North Korea had completed an initial arms delivery to the Wagner Group to help bolster Russian forces in Ukraine.
In response, North Korea’s foreign ministry issued a statement denying that it had supplied munitions to Russia. The statement did not make any mention of Wagner directly.
Finland asks Russia to guarantee the safety of its Moscow embassy
Finland’s foreign ministry says the country’s embassy in Moscow has asked Russia to guarantee the safety of the diplomatic mission following a security breach earlier this week.
The incident on Tuesday saw masked individuals throw sledgehammers into the embassy’s yard.
Who controls what in eastern Ukraine?
Russia to expand army as war drags on
Russia has announced plans this week to form 17 new divisions and a new army corps as it continues to wage a relentless battle for Ukraine’s eastern territories in the 43rd week of its war.
Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu unveiled plans on Monday to expand the army from 1.15 million to 1.5 million, citing the imminent expansion of NATO to include Finland and Sweden.
Read more here.
Russia has made progress towards ‘demilitarising’ Ukraine: Kremlin
The Kremlin says Russia has made significant progress towards “demilitarising” Ukraine, one of the goals President Vladimir Putin declared when he launched his war more than 10 months ago.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov offered the assessment of Russia’s military progress when asked during a news briefing about comments by Putin, who on Thursday said that Ukraine’s defence potential was close to zero.
“It can be stated that there is significant progress towards demilitarisation,” Peskov replied.
Global oil prices rise after Russia threatens to cut supply
Global oil prices have risen on the back of Moscow’s threat to cut oil output in the coming months.
Russia threatened on Friday to slash production by 5 to 7 percent in early 2023 in response to price caps on Russian energy exports rolled out by Western countries.
The warning spooked markets, sending global oil prices surging upwards by more than $1 fuelled by expectations of a drop in supply.
Read more here.
Russian politician files legal challenge over Putin’s reference to ‘war’
A St Petersburg politician has asked prosecutors to investigate Russian President Vladimir Putin for using the word “war” to describe the conflict in Ukraine, accusing him of breaking his own law.
Putin has for months described his invasion as a “special military operation” but on Thursday referred to the conflict as a “war” in a departure from his usual language.
Nikita Yuferev, an opposition councillor in the city where Putin was born, said he knew his legal challenge would go nowhere, but he had filed it to expose the “mendacity” of the system.
“It’s important for me to do this to draw attention to the contradiction and the injustice of these laws that he (Putin) adopts and signs but which he himself doesn’t observe,” he told the Reuters news agency.
Russian envoy to Washington says relations with US in ‘ice age’
Russia’s ambassador to the United States has compared the state of relations between Moscow and Washington to an “ice age”, according to a report by the state-owned TASS news agency.
TASS quoted Anatoly Antonov as saying that the risk of a clash between the two countries was “high” amid spiralling tensions over the conflict in Ukraine.
He added it was hard to say when talks on a strategic dialogue between the two sides could resume, but that talks on prisoner swaps had been “effective” and would continue.
Millions enduring ‘rolling blackouts and heating problems’: AJ correspondent
Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Kyiv, says that Ukrainian forces have been “successful by and large” in intercepting attack drones and cruise missiles deployed by Russia.
“But we also know that these [Russian] bombardments have had devastating consequences for the energy infrastructure here,” Stratford said.
“There are millions of people across the Kyiv region and the wider country who are enduring rolling blackouts and heating problems because the authorities cannot get electricity to them on a 24-hour basis,” he added.
“Ukraine’s energy minister has said authorities are not going to be able to restore the full working order of Ukraine’s electrical grid system until the summer and we are fully expecting more attacks by the Russians targeting this infrastructure.”
North Korea denies supplying arms to Russian mercenaries
North Korea’s foreign ministry has denounced as “absurd” a US report that the Russian mercenary force, Wagner Group, had received a shipment of North Korean rockets and missiles to support Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday that Pyongyang had sent an initial cache of weapons to the Wagner Group, which is searching worldwide for arms manufacturers who can supply its military operations in Ukraine.
Read more here.
Russian-installed official says shelling of Zaporizhzhia plant has ‘almost stopped’
The top Russian-installed official in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region says that shelling of the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has “almost stopped”.
Speaking on Russian state television, regional governor Yevgeny Balitsky said that Russian troops would not leave the nuclear plant and that it would never return to Ukrainian control.
The Zaporizhzhia plant, Europe’s largest facility of its kind, was captured by Russian forces in March, soon after their invasion of Ukraine.
The plant remains near the frontlines, and has repeatedly come under fire in recent months, raising fears of a nuclear disaster. Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of shelling the site.
Ukrainian mechanics trained to repair howitzers
A group of Ukrainian military mechanics left NATO member Lithuania after being trained to repair German artillery howitzers being supplied to Kyiv to defend against Russia.
The 16 mechanics spent the last two weeks in the central town of Rukla, several of them after receiving an introductory course in Germany.
“They acquired theoretical knowledge elsewhere, but … we taught them things from real life, what are the frequent failures which are not described in the textbooks,” Zilvinas Cerskus, a major in the Lithuanian military, said.
Der Spiegel news magazine reported in November that they were experiencing severe wear and tear due to intensive firing of up to 300 rounds per day. With no repair capacity in Ukraine, some of the howitzers were brought to NATO countries, including Lithuania.
Ukrainian Railways to delay $895m in bond payments
State-owned Ukrainian Railways has struck a deal to delay payments on $895m of Eurobonds for two years, Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said, part of a broader effort by the Ukrainian government this year that has saved billions.
He added the decision, which he said was backed by the government and finance ministry with investment banks JP Morgan and Dragon Capital acting as advisers, “will secure stable passenger and cargo transportation”.
The company, a key player in the country’s economy and labour market, has deferred debt payments on US dollar-denominated bonds worth $594.9m maturing in July 2024 and on $300m notes maturing in July 2026.
The Ukrainian government restructured all its Eurobonds earlier this year, leading to nearly $6bn in savings on payments through 2024.
Ukraine says Russia lost 100,950 troops since start of war
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that Russia has lost 100,950 troops in Ukraine since the war started on February 24.
It has also lost 3,005 tanks, 5,986 armoured fighting vehicles, 4,622 other vehicles and fuel tankers,1,984 artillery systems, 414 multiple launch rocket systems, 212 air defence systems, 283 aeroplanes, 267 helicopters, 1,698 drones, and 16 boats.
Zelenskyy returns from US
Zelenskyy says he is back in his office in Kyiv after his visit to Washington to meet Biden and other US officials.
“I am in my office. We are working toward victory,” he said in the video posted to his Telegram channel.
During his visit, Biden promised to continue projecting a “united defence”. The US also announced $1.85bn in military aid, including the Patriot air defence system which is deemed to be one of the most advanced US air defence systems.
Russian gas remains cheap and in demand: Deputy PM
Novak says Russian gas is cheap and remains in demand and that a decision on a potential gas hub in Turkey will be taken in 2023.
“Gazprom is actively working with Turkish colleagues, others, on gas hub in Turkey,” he said.
“Gas hub in Turkey may provide tools for gas pricing mechanism,” Novak said.
He said it was too early to discuss the results of an ongoing investigation into the damage done to the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September.
Russia’s Novak says it’s better to cut oil production
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Novak says it is better for Russia to cut oil production than to agree to a price cap imposed by Western countries.
During an interview with Russian state television, Novak also said a European Union embargo on Russian oil products might lead to price rises for oil products in Europe.
Novak said earlier that Russia may cut oil output by 5-7 percent in early 2023 due to price caps on its crude and oil products to halt their sales.
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 303
Click here for a roundup of the war’s key events from day 303.
Keep reading: