Russia-Ukraine war live: UN chief believes war in Ukraine ‘will go on’; Putin in Belarus for talks with Lukashenko | Ukraine

It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:

• Vladimir Putin has travelled to Belarus to meet the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, as fears grow in Kyiv that Moscow is pushing its closest ally to join a new ground offensive against Ukraine. Putin described the talks as “very productive” and insisted that Russia has no interest in “absorbing” anyone, adding that unspecified “enemies” wanted to stop Russia’s integration with Belarus. Lukashenko said high level Belarusian-Russian negotiations covered “the entire range of matters concerning Belarusian-Russian relations”.

• Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, held talks with his Belarusian counterpart, Sergei Aleinik, in Minsk earlier today ahead of Putin’s visit to Minsk. The foreign ministers discussed “specific topical issues, the efforts to counter the illegal sanctions of the West, as well as interaction on international platforms”, Belarusian state media cited Belarus’s foreign ministry as saying, as well as having “touched upon trade and economic cooperation matters and the implementation of joint projects”.

• Belarus’s defence ministry said it had completed a series of inspections of its armed forces’ military preparedness, hours ahead of Putin’s visit to Minsk. Weeks of military manoeuvres and inspections have raised fears in Kyiv that Belarus, which acted as a staging post for Russia to launch its invasion of Ukraine in February, could be preparing to take a more active role in the conflict once again.

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine was ready for “all possible defence scenarios” against Moscow and its ally. “Protecting our border, both with Russia and Belarus, is our constant priority,” Zelenskiy said on Sunday after a meeting with Ukraine’s top military command. “We are preparing for all possible defence scenarios.”

• The exiled Belarus opposition leader, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, has warned that the chances of Minsk sending soldiers into Ukraine “may increase in coming weeks”. Kyiv was “right to prepare” for Minsk to join Moscow’s new offensive because the probability “might increase in coming weeks”, Tsikhanouskaya said in an interview with Kyiv Post.

• The head of Moldova’s security service, Alexandru Musteata, has warned of a “very high” risk of a new Russian offensive towards his country’s east. Russia still aims to secure a land corridor through Ukraine to the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria, Musteata said, adding that his agency believed Moscow was looking at several scenarios to reach Moldova and that it was possible an offensive would be launched in January-February or later in March-April.

• A Russian drone attack caused “fairly serious” damage in Kyiv region on Monday and three areas in the region have been left without power supply, governor Oleksiy Kuleba said. Russia unleashed 35 “kamikaze” drones on Ukraine in the early hours of Monday as many people slept, hitting critical infrastructure in and around Kyiv in Moscow’s third air attack on the Ukrainian capital in six days.

• Ukraine’s atomic energy agency accused Russia of flouting nuclear safety by sending a “kamikaze” drone over part of a nuclear power plant in Mykolaiv region just after Sunday midnight. Energoatom said the Iranian-made Shahed drone had been detected over the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant, and called on the international nuclear community to protect atomic sites from the risks of war.

• Air raid alerts were issued across Kyiv and most of Ukraine on Monday early afternoon, officials said. There were no immediate reports of attacks and the alarm was ended about 20 minutes after the alert.

• Ukraine’s air force said it had shot down 30 out of 35 Russian-launched Shahed drones overnight. The Iranian-made Shahed-136/131 kamikaze drones were reportedly launched from the eastern coast of the Sea of Azov, the force added.

• Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had shot down four US-made HARM anti-radiation missiles over the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, in the space of 24 hours, the state-run TASS news agency reported. One person died and several were injured by Ukrainian shelling in the region on Sunday morning, the region’s governor said.

• Ukraine’s forces are holding on to the heavily contested eastern city of Bakhmut in the country’s eastern Donetsk region, according to Zelenskiy. “The Bakhmut direction is key,” he said in his latest national address. “We keep the city, although the occupiers are doing everything so that not a single undamaged wall remains there.”

• The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, said he believes Russia’s war in Ukraine “will go on” and does not see a prospect for “serious” peace talks in the immediate future. Speaking to reporters during his annual end-of-year conference in New York, Guterres said he “strongly hoped that peace could be reached in 2023, citing the “consequences” for Ukraine’s people, Russian society and the global economy if a deal is not found

• Rishi Sunak said that the west should reject unilateral calls by the Kremlin for a ceasefire in Ukraine and focus on “degrading Russia’s capability to regroup and to resupply” at a meeting of European leaders in Latvia. The UK prime minister was speaking at a summit of the 10-country Joint Expeditionary Force in the Latvian capital at a time of heightened concern as to whether Britain will continue the robust support for Ukraine that began under Boris Johnson.

• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, asked western leaders meeting in Latvia to ramp up the supply of a wide range of weapons systems to his country. He called on leaders “to do everything to accelerate the defeat” of Russia, and said supplying air defence systems to Kyiv would be “one of the most successful steps against Russian aggression and this step is required right now”.

• EU ministers have agreed a plan to cap the price of gas, ending months of argument over how to handle the cost of soaring energy prices after Russia cut gas supplies to Europe. A gas price cap will kick in if prices on the main European gas exchange, the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF), exceed €180 (£157) a megawatt-hour for three consecutive working days, far lower than the European Commission’s original proposal of €275 a MWh, which had been derided by cap-supporting countries as a joke.

• The Canadian government has announced plans to seize $26m in sanctioned assets from the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, with the proceeds from the forfeiture to go towards reconstruction in Ukraine and compensation of victims of the Russian invasion. The move marked the first case of the Canadian government using new powers to pursue the seizure of assets belonging to sanctioned individuals, it said in a statement.

That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, and the Russia-Ukraine war blog today. Thank you for reading.

The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, said he believes Russia’s war in Ukraine “will go on” and does not see a prospect for “serious” peace talks in the immediate future.

Speaking to reporters during his annual end-of-year conference in New York, Guterres said he “will not relent in the pursuit of peace in Ukraine in line with international law and the United Nations Charter”, referring to the UN charter’s key principle of respecting sovereignty and territorial integrity.

He said he was “not optimistic” about the possibility of effective Ukraine and Russia peace talks in the immediate future, adding:

I do believe that the military confrontation will go on.

Nevertheless, he said he “strongly hoped that peace could be reached in 2023, citing the “consequences” for Ukraine’s people, Russian society and the global economy if a deal is not found. He added:

All these are reasons for us to do everything possible to make a peace solution happen before the end of 2023.

In the meantime, he said he would focus on increasing the efficiency of a UN-brokered deal that resumed Ukraine’s Black Sea food and fertiliser shipments, continue to try to restart the export of Russian ammonia via Ukraine and seek to accelerate the exchange of prisoners of war.

The head of Moldova’s security service, Alexandru Musteata, has warned of a “very high” risk of a new Russian offensive towards his country’s east, echoing recent messages from several Ukrainian military commanders that Moscow is preparing for a major new offensive early next year.

Russia still aims to secure a land corridor through Ukraine to the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria, Musteata told the TVR-Moldova television channel, as reported by Reuters.

Musteata said:

The question is not whether the Russian Federation will undertake a new advance towards Moldova’s territory, but when it will do so.

He said his agency believed Moscow was looking at several scenarios to reach Moldova and that it was possible an offensive would be launched in January-February or later in March-April.

Transnistria, which is controlled by pro-Russian separatists and permanently hosts 1,500 Russian troops as well as a large arms depot, borders western Ukraine.

Musteata said Russia wanted its forces to link up with those forces in Transnistria.

Dan Sabbagh

Boris Johnson’s Ukraine policy may not have always been sophisticated – “Dobryi den, everybody!” – but his enthusiasm was welcomed in Kyiv. Six months of Conservative party chaos later, his successor but one, Rishi Sunak, is yet to demonstrate he is as supportive at a time when Ukraine needs the west to dig in.

A leak at the start of the weekend said that Sunak had ordered an internal assessment of the significance of British military aid to Ukraine. Revelation of the Whitehall exercise was accompanied by a pointed briefing to the BBC, accusing the prime minister of resorting to a “Goldman Sachs dashboard” approach.

“Wars aren’t won [by dashboards]. Wars are won on instinct,” the critic continued – a demonstration that cracks are appearing in Britain’s policy towards Ukraine.

Downing Street may have rejected that characterisation on Monday, but a Ukraine review is on. “The PM is staying closely across the detail of developments in Ukraine and the impact of UK and international support,” a spokesperson said. “To ensure we are delivering the best possible assistance.”

It is also no secret in Westminster that Sunak and his defence secretary, Ben Wallace, are not close. Wallace has been the ever present in Britain’s Ukraine policy, but also a long-term supporter of Johnson who then backed the ill-fated Liz Truss and flirted with backing Johnson in an unlikely comeback against Sunak.

Read the full story here:

The exiled Belarus opposition leader, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, has warned that the chances of Minsk sending soldiers into Ukraine “may increase in coming weeks” as fears grow in Kyiv that Moscow is pushing for its closest ally to join a new ground offensive against Ukraine.

Tsikhanouskaya’s remarks came as Vladimir Putin travelled to Belarus for talks with Alexander Lukashenko, a meeting that the Belarusian president said would cover the “military-political situation” in the region as well as economic cooperation.

Ukraine will be closely monitoring the talks. Last week, several Ukrainian military commanders said Russia might try another attempt at invading the country from the north. Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that Ukraine was ready for “all possible defence scenarios” against Moscow and its ally.

Kyiv was “right to prepare” for Minsk to join Moscow’s new offensive because the probability “might increase in coming weeks”, Tsikhanouskaya said in an interview with Kyiv Post.

She said:

Belarusian armed forces are part of the society and share the same view on the war – 86% of Belarusians are against participation in the war. This has stopped the order to send Belarusian troops to the battlefield in Ukraine. It was not a good will of dictators or Lukashenko’s standing up to Putin – he is fully on the Kremlin’s side.

However, the probability of such an order remains and might increase in coming weeks. I think the Ukrainian leadership is right to prepare for this scenario even though it means distracting significant forces from active war zones in the south-east.

Lukashenko “sees Ukraine as a threat”, she said, adding that “a democratic, free, European Ukraine is a bad example to the dictatorships of Lukashenko and Putin, therefore this war is a logical decision for them.”

Asked what Russia and Belarus’ join aim might be, she replied:

To destroy Ukraine, its European aspirations and national identity, and bring it under their control.

It’s 6.15pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:

• Vladimir Putin has travelled to Belarus to meet the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, as fears grow in Kyiv that Moscow is pushing its closest ally to join a new ground offensive against Ukraine. In the run-up to the meeting, which will be Putin’s first visit to Belarus since 2019, Lukashenko said the two leaders would discuss the “military-political situation” in the region as well as economic cooperation.

• Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, held talks with his Belarusian counterpart, Sergei Aleinik, in Minsk earlier today ahead of Putin’s visit to Minsk. The foreign ministers discussed “specific topical issues, the efforts to counter the illegal sanctions of the West, as well as interaction on international platforms”, Belarusian state media cited Belarus’s foreign ministry as saying, as well as having “touched upon trade and economic cooperation matters and the implementation of joint projects”.

• Belarus’s defence ministry said it had completed a series of inspections of its armed forces’ military preparedness, hours ahead of Putin’s visit to Minsk. Weeks of military manoeuvres and inspections have raised fears in Kyiv that Belarus, which acted as a staging post for Russia to launch its invasion of Ukraine in February, could be preparing to take a more active role in the conflict once again.

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine was ready for “all possible defence scenarios” against Moscow and its ally. “Protecting our border, both with Russia and Belarus, is our constant priority,” Zelenskiy said on Sunday after a meeting with Ukraine’s top military command. “We are preparing for all possible defence scenarios.”

• Berlin had “concerns” about Putin’s visit to Belarus and whether talks between the Russian and Belarusian presidents will impact Minsk’s role in the war in Ukraine, a German government spokesperson said. Steffen Hebestreit said there was a possibility that Belarus could ramp up aid to the Russian army, but warned to wait for the results of the talks and not to draw any conclusions in advance.

• A Russian drone attack caused “fairly serious” damage in Kyiv region on Monday and three areas in the region have been left without power supply, governor Oleksiy Kuleba said. Russia unleashed 35 “kamikaze” drones on Ukraine in the early hours of Monday as many people slept, hitting critical infrastructure in and around Kyiv in Moscow’s third air attack on the Ukrainian capital in six days.

• Ukraine’s atomic energy agency accused Russia of flouting nuclear safety by sending a “kamikaze” drone over part of a nuclear power plant in Mykolaiv region just after Sunday midnight. Energoatom said the Iranian-made Shahed drone had been detected over the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant, and called on the international nuclear community to protect atomic sites from the risks of war.

• Air raid alerts were issued across Kyiv and most of Ukraine on Monday early afternoon, officials said. There were no immediate reports of attacks and the alarm was ended about 20 minutes after the alert.

• Ukraine’s air force said it had shot down 30 out of 35 Russian-launched Shahed drones overnight. The Iranian-made Shahed-136/131 kamikaze drones were reportedly launched from the eastern coast of the Sea of Azov, the force added.

• Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had shot down four US-made HARM anti-radiation missiles over the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, in the space of 24 hours, the state-run TASS news agency reported. One person died and several were injured by Ukrainian shelling in the region on Sunday morning, the region’s governor said.

• Ukraine’s forces are holding on to the heavily contested eastern city of Bakhmut in the country’s eastern Donetsk region, according to Zelenskiy. “The Bakhmut direction is key,” he said in his latest national address. “We keep the city, although the occupiers are doing everything so that not a single undamaged wall remains there.”

• Russian military proxy group Wagner continues to take a major role in attritional combat around Bakhmut, the UK Ministry of Defence said. In recent months, the group had developed offensive tactics to make use of the large number of poorly trained convicts it has recruited, the ministry noted in its latest intelligence report.

• Rishi Sunak said that the west should reject unilateral calls by the Kremlin for a ceasefire in Ukraine and focus on “degrading Russia’s capability to regroup and to resupply” at a meeting of European leaders in Latvia. The UK prime minister was speaking at a summit of the 10-country Joint Expeditionary Force in the Latvian capital at a time of heightened concern as to whether Britain will continue the robust support for Ukraine that began under Boris Johnson.

• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, asked western leaders meeting in Latvia to ramp up the supply of a wide range of weapons systems to his country. He called on leaders “to do everything to accelerate the defeat” of Russia, and said supplying air defence systems to Kyiv would be “one of the most successful steps against Russian aggression and this step is required right now”.