Ukraine-backed peace talks open in Malta – without Russia
A third round of Ukrainian-backed peace talks opens in Malta today with representatives from more than 50 countries. Moscow has oddly denounced it as “a blatantly anti-Russian event”.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has a 10-point plan to end the war. There were similar summits in Jeddah and Copenhagen this summer.
National security and policy advisers from more than 50 countries plus international institutions are expected – more than the roughly 40 at the Saudi summit in August.
“This meeting is a powerful signal that unity is preserved around Ukraine,” Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said this week.
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the Malta talks have “nothing to do with the search for a peaceful resolution”.
Zelenskiy’s peace plan calls for Russia to withdraw all its troops from within Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders, including from the territory of Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
Russia – which illegally claimed to annex the four Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in September 2022 – has rejected any settlement that would involve giving up land.
Participants include the US, the EU and Britain, as well as Turkey, which has offered itself as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia. Also attending are South Africa, Brazil and India – members of the Brics bloc that includes Russia.
China has been treading carefully about Russia’s war on Ukraine, and as we post this it’s unclear whether it will participate in the Malta summit.
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The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, claimed that Russian forces had lost at least a brigade’s worth of troops attempting to advance on Ukraine’s eastern town of Avdiivka. Russia began a renewed push to encircle the embattled town in mid-October, trying to overwhelm Ukrainian positions with constant barrages of artillery and waves of troops and fighting vehicles, according to reports.
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Russian forces have heavily shelled the centre of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, injuring a number of people and damaging at least 10 buildings, a senior local official and emergency workers said.
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The European Council has outlined plans to seize the profits from frozen Russian assets and direct billions of euros to support Ukraine. In a set of formal public conclusions after the culmination of the EU leaders’ summit, it said that “extraordinary revenues held by private entities stemming directly from Russia’s immobilised assets” could be directed to support Ukraine and its recovery.
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The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has condemned the Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán’s recent meeting and handshake with Vladimir Putin. “In the situation we are in with Russia, we should not use these bilateral contacts to negotiate things about ourselves that would weaken our unity [on Ukraine],” Macron said after a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels.
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Russia’s top investigative body has said it had opened a criminal inquiry into the attempted murder of former Ukrainian lawmaker Oleg Tsaryov, a pro-Russian figure who was reported to have been lined up by Moscow to lead a puppet administration in Kyiv after Russia’s invasion. He is in intensive care after being shot, a Russian official said.
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The wives and family of enlisted Ukrainian soldiers have gathered at Independence Square in Kyiv to call for the right to voluntarily demobilise after 18 months. “Our servicemen are strong, but they are not robots,” protesters shouted during the rally.
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The new Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico, has told other EU leaders that €50bn in EU aid to Ukraine should include guarantees that the funds would not be misappropriated, his office said. “Ukraine is among the most corrupt countries in the world,” he claimed.
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A third round of Ukrainian-backed peace talks opens in Malta today with representatives from more than 50 countries. Moscow has oddly denounced it as “a blatantly anti-Russian event”.
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Volodymyr Zelenskiy has a 10-point plan to end the war. There were similar summits in Jeddah and Copenhagen this summer.
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National security and policy advisers from more than 50 countries plus international institutions are expected – more than the roughly 40 at the Saudi summit in August.
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“This meeting is a powerful signal that unity is preserved around Ukraine,” Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said this week.
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Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the Malta talks have “nothing to do with the search for a peaceful resolution”.
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Zelenskiy’s peace plan calls for Russia to withdraw all its troops from within Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders, including from the territory of Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
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Russia – which illegally claimed to annex the four Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in September 2022 – has rejected any settlement that would involve giving up land.
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Participants include the US, the EU and Britain, as well as Turkey, which has offered itself as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia. Also attending are South Africa, Brazil and India – members of the Brics bloc that includes Russia.
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China has been treading carefully about Russia’s war on Ukraine, and as we post this it’s unclear whether it will participate in the Malta summit.
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Key events
As the talks kick off in Malta today – with Russia conspicuously absent – here are the 10 key points that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has outlined for Ukraine’s “peace formula”, first announced last October.
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Radiation and nuclear safety
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Food security
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Energy security
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Release of all prisoners of war and deportees
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Restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity
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Withdrawal of Russian troops and cessation of hostilities
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Justice
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Protection of the environment
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Preventing escalation of the conflict
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Confirmation of the war’s end
Russia’s campaign of strikes targeting Ukraine’s energy system damaged about 70 large facilities last autumn and winter, the head of the country’s state grid operator Ukrenergo has said.
In an interview with the Voice of America, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi said about half of Ukraine’s power system was damaged in the campaign, with many facilities hit.
“If we count the big [facilities], it is close to, I think, the 70s [that were damaged]. … Many lower-level facilities were damaged in frontline areas by artillery strikes, small transformer points or regional substations. There are probably hundreds, thousands of them,” Kudrytskyi said in the interview.
Kudrytskyi said that in order to protect its critical energy facilities from further attacks this winter, Ukraine had been restoring its plants’ capacity to generate power, as well as benefiting from what he described as a strengthened air force.
Ukraine is turning to methods used by US authorities against the Italian mob in the 1980s in order to oust Russian actors from its gambling sector.
After a decade-long ban, the country had legalised gambling shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, but started to revoke licences in September 2022. It has been a profitable way for Russia to make money and collect personal data.
Here is the Guardian’s chief reporter, Daniel Boffey, on the way Ukraine is looking to the emulate actions taken by US regulators in the casinos of Las Vegas in the 1980s:
Ukraine shot down three out of the four Iskander cruise missiles that Russia launched overnight at Dnipropetrovsk oblast in south-eastern Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian air force.
The air force wrote on Telegram that the launches were carried out from the Dzhankoi district of Russian-occupied Crimea and that the remaining missile did not reach its target. Explosions were heard around 1am.
No casualties have been reported, according to the Kyiv Independent.
Hello, I’m Clea Skopeliti and I’ll be updating the blog for the next few hours, bringing you the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war. The time in Kyiv is 10.50am.
Ukraine-backed peace talks open in Malta – without Russia
A third round of Ukrainian-backed peace talks opens in Malta today with representatives from more than 50 countries. Moscow has oddly denounced it as “a blatantly anti-Russian event”.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has a 10-point plan to end the war. There were similar summits in Jeddah and Copenhagen this summer.
National security and policy advisers from more than 50 countries plus international institutions are expected – more than the roughly 40 at the Saudi summit in August.
“This meeting is a powerful signal that unity is preserved around Ukraine,” Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said this week.
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the Malta talks have “nothing to do with the search for a peaceful resolution”.
Zelenskiy’s peace plan calls for Russia to withdraw all its troops from within Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders, including from the territory of Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
Russia – which illegally claimed to annex the four Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in September 2022 – has rejected any settlement that would involve giving up land.
Participants include the US, the EU and Britain, as well as Turkey, which has offered itself as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia. Also attending are South Africa, Brazil and India – members of the Brics bloc that includes Russia.
China has been treading carefully about Russia’s war on Ukraine, and as we post this it’s unclear whether it will participate in the Malta summit.
Summary
Hello, and welcome to this latest instalment in the Guardian’s live coverage of the Russian war against Ukraine. Let’s get you up to speed.
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The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, claimed that Russian forces had lost at least a brigade’s worth of troops attempting to advance on Ukraine’s eastern town of Avdiivka. Russia began a renewed push to encircle the embattled town in mid-October, trying to overwhelm Ukrainian positions with constant barrages of artillery and waves of troops and fighting vehicles, according to reports.
-
Russian forces have heavily shelled the centre of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, injuring a number of people and damaging at least 10 buildings, a senior local official and emergency workers said.
-
The European Council has outlined plans to seize the profits from frozen Russian assets and direct billions of euros to support Ukraine. In a set of formal public conclusions after the culmination of the EU leaders’ summit, it said that “extraordinary revenues held by private entities stemming directly from Russia’s immobilised assets” could be directed to support Ukraine and its recovery.
-
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has condemned the Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán’s recent meeting and handshake with Vladimir Putin. “In the situation we are in with Russia, we should not use these bilateral contacts to negotiate things about ourselves that would weaken our unity [on Ukraine],” Macron said after a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels.
-
Russia’s top investigative body has said it had opened a criminal inquiry into the attempted murder of former Ukrainian lawmaker Oleg Tsaryov, a pro-Russian figure who was reported to have been lined up by Moscow to lead a puppet administration in Kyiv after Russia’s invasion. He is in intensive care after being shot, a Russian official said.
-
The wives and family of enlisted Ukrainian soldiers have gathered at Independence Square in Kyiv to call for the right to voluntarily demobilise after 18 months. “Our servicemen are strong, but they are not robots,” protesters shouted during the rally.
-
The new Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico, has told other EU leaders that €50bn in EU aid to Ukraine should include guarantees that the funds would not be misappropriated, his office said. “Ukraine is among the most corrupt countries in the world,” he claimed.
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