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The latest developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine. All times EDT.
9:06 p.m.: Around 60 Russian soldiers were killed in a long-range Ukrainian artillery attack this week, Kyiv said on Saturday, the second time in four days that Ukraine claimed to have inflicted major casualties in a single incident, Reuters reported.
In a Facebook post, the armed forces general staff said Russia suffered the losses on Thursday when Ukrainian forces shelled the town of Mykhailkva, 40 kilometers to the south of Kherson. Russian forces abandoned the city earlier this month.
It gave no further details. The Russian defense ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment, and Reuters was unable to independently verify the Ukrainian military's account.
Ukraine said on Wednesday that around 50 Russian soldiers were killed or wounded on Tuesday in a shelling attack on the village of Denezhnykove, 70 kilometers behind front lines in the eastern province of Luhansk.
7:49 p.m.: Ukraine will soon begin evacuating people who want to leave the recently liberated southern city of Kherson and the surrounding areas, a senior official announced on Saturday, citing damage done by Russian forces, Reuters reported.
Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said some people had expressed the desire to move away from both Kherson and the area around Mykolaiv, around 65 kilometers to the northwest.
Kyiv says Russian troops destroyed Kherson's critical infrastructure before leaving earlier this month.
"This is only a voluntary evacuation. Currently, we are not talking
about forced evacuation," Vereshchuk said."But even in the case of voluntary evacuation, the state bears responsibility for transportation. People must be taken to the place where they will spend the winter," she said.
The government had several options, one of which was to use Mykolaiv as a transit point before sending people further west into safer areas, she added.
6:52 p.m.: Moscow has not officially contacted Kyiv about peace negotiations, but Russia would in any case need to completely withdraw its forces for talks to take place, a top Ukrainian official said Saturday, Agence France-Presse reported.
"We have not any official application from the Russian side about... negotiations," Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian presidential chief of staff, said in English remarks made via video link at the Halifax International Security Forum.
Any talks not based on Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity within the limits of its internationally recognized borders are "not acceptable," he said.
His remarks came a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed the idea of a "short truce" with Russia, saying it would only make things worse.
6 p.m.: The Ukrainian army said Saturday it was trying to verify the authenticity of footage that Moscow says proves Kyiv executed several surrendering Russian soldiers, Agence France-Presse reported.
Videos circulated on Russian social media this week that purport to show the bodies of Russian servicemen killed after surrendering to Ukrainian troops.
The Russian defence ministry said Friday the videos showed the "deliberate and methodical murder of more than 10 restrained Russian soldiers."
"Before launching an investigation, there must be grounds for it. We are currently establishing whether these videos are fake," Ukraine's spokesman for the general staff Bogdan Senyk told AFP.
Senyk said the videos were "given to specialists", noting the publication of fake videos has "intensified recently."
5:10 p.m.: In an address to the Halifax International Security Forum, Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian presidential chief of staff, said Ukraine, together with its allies, began to develop a declaration on the Ukrainian air shield. Yermak asked Western allies for security guarantees in its war against Russia while Kyiv is awaiting NATO members to offer unanimous consent to its admission in the North Atlantic alliance.
Yermak called Russia “a terrorist state” and said Ukraine stands in the way of Russian expansionism.
“Our state is effectively repelling the biggest threat to the peace and stability of the Euro-Atlantic region. And will go on,” he said, adding that for the Ukrainian people, the war in Ukraine is not a war for territory.
"It is a value conflict between democracy-based European civilization and the remnants of the Frankenstein monster mix of Russian imperial and Soviet totalitarian ideology. A value conflict is always existential. For Russia, it is about the destruction of the Ukrainian nation. It's about genocide. For us, this is a fight for survival.”
“We are very grateful to our American, Canadian, European partners, and our allies around the world for their constant and invaluable support,” he added.
4:45 p.m.: Hundreds of Ukrainians and sympathizers protesting the Russian invasion were joined by Ukrainian singer and 2004 Eurovision song contest winner Ruslana marching through central Athens on Saturday.
The protesters ended up at Athens' central Syntagma Square, where they sang Ukrainian folk songs, led by Ruslana, The Associated Press reports.
They were joined by a small group of Iranian protesters marching for women’s rights in Iran.
4:30 p.m.: A funeral has been held for one of two Polish men who died in a missile explosion near the border with Ukraine. Boguslaw Wos and another man died Tuesday in Przewodow, a small Polish farming community.
It appears that a Ukrainian air defense missile went astray as Ukraine was defending itself against a Russian bombardment. Poland, NATO and the United States blame Russia for the incident because the Ukrainian missile misfired during a defensive tactic against widespread Russian air strikes, The Associated Press reports.
Wos' funeral was held in a local church on Saturday. The second victim is to be buried on Sunday.
4:15 p.m.: Widespread protests in Iran — which supplies Russia’s drones — may affect the war in Ukraine said Ihor Semyvolos, the director of Ukraine’s Association Middle East Studies, or AMES.
In an interview with the The Kyiv Independent, Semyvolos said that the protests have shaken the country’s regime and can destabilize it for the long-haul, “An internal political crisis is looming in Iran, and it might be the strongest the country has seen in a while. This means they will have to focus resources internally, which might weaken their external positions,” including relations with Russia, Semyvolos said.
“But they can also choose the path of expansion and escalation, so this is a dangerous moment. I think they themselves haven’t yet decided how to respond to these protests… and we are the witnesses of this uncertainty,” he said.
3:45 p.m.: U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin outlined why defending Ukraine matters globally.
At the Halifax International Security Forum, Austin warned Saturday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine offers a preview of a world where nuclear-armed countries could threaten other nations.
“Putin’s fellow autocrats are watching," said Austin. "And they could well conclude that getting nuclear weapons would give them a hunting license of their own. And that could drive a dangerous spiral of nuclear proliferation.”
Austin dismissed Putin’s claims that “modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia,” calling it a vision of “a world in which autocrats decide which countries are real and which countries can be snuffed out.”
The war “shows the whole world the dangers of disorder," he said. "That’s the security challenge that we face. It’s urgent, and it’s historic.”
2:30 p.m.: The first Kyiv train arrived in newly liberated Kherson with scores of people anxiously awaiting at the platform. As the overnight train left the Mykolaiv station, a now mostly empty building with its windows blown out, Lyudmyla Desiatnykova could hardly believe her stop was next.
Kherson was the city where she grew up, where she raised her children, and where most of the 52-year-old woman’s extended family still lives. But it was a place she had not seen since July, when her family insisted she flee the Russian-occupied, war-torn city with her 15-year-old daughter. The Washington Post chronicles many tearful reunions like Lyudmila’s.
1 p.m.:
12:45 p.m.: Addressing the Halifax International Security Forum, Estonian President Alar Karis said the negative impacts on Russia should it lose its full-scale war should not concern the West, The Kyiv Independent reports. Instead, Karis said, “NATO must implement a new defensive posture as soon as possible, one which requires a greater presence and advance deployment of weapons, equipment, and ammunition.” "Putin continues to want to dismantle the current Euro-Atlantic security arrangement and restore his hegemony in the Baltic states and over Poland," Karis said, noting that "Russia's strategic goals have not changed."
12:40 p.m.: The head of Ukraine's biggest private energy firm says people should consider leaving the country to reduce demand on the country's power network.
"If they can find an alternative place to stay for another three or four months, it will be very helpful to the system," DTEK chief executive Maxim Timchenko told the BBC.
Russian attacks have damaged almost half of Ukraine's energy system.
Millions of people are without power as fresh snow fell on Kyiv Saturday, and temperatures dropped below zero degrees Celsius.
Many parts of Ukraine experience blackouts — both scheduled and unscheduled — as Russia keeps pounding the country’s energy infrastructure.
In her address at the European parliament, the president of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen characterized the targeting civilian infrastructure as a war crime.
9:50 a.m.: Britain will provide a 50-million-pound ($59.4 million) air defense package for Ukraine, including anti-aircraft guns and technology to counter Iranian-supplied drones to Russia, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on his first trip to Kyiv Saturday, posting a video of his visit on Twitter and pledging "We are with you all the way."
"We are today providing new air defense, including anti-aircraft guns, radar and anti-drone equipment, and stepping up humanitarian support for the cold, hard winter ahead," Sunak said in a separate statement, the BBC reports.
9:45 a.m.: Deputy Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine Ihor Zhovkva held a meeting with a delegation of the Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament led by its Co-President Terry Reintke. The delegation also included members of the German Bundestag and the Parliament of Finland.
They discussed joint efforts of countering Russian armed aggression against Ukraine.
Zhovkva briefed the members of the European Parliament in detail on the scale and consequences of Russia's massive strikes on the entire territory of Ukraine.
"This behavior of Russia is a direct justification for the need for the European Parliament to adopt a resolution designating Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. And this decision should be made next week," said Zhovkva, according to a release issued by the Office of the President of Ukraine.
9:05 a.m.: Russia's hammering of cities across Ukraine with missile strikes over the past week is partly designed to exhaust Kyiv's supplies of air defenses and achieve dominance of the skies above the country, Colin Kahl, the Pentagon's top policy adviser said on Saturday.
"They're really trying to overwhelm and exhaust Ukrainian air defense systems," Kahl told reporters during a trip to the Middle East, Reuters reports.
"We know what the Russian theory of victory is, and we're committed to making sure that's not going to work by making sure that the Ukrainians get what they need to keep their air defenses viable," said Kahl.
Ukraine says the strikes have devastated almost half of Ukraine's energy system, creating a potential humanitarian disaster as winter sets in.
9:00 a.m.: Leaders of French-speaking countries are gathering on a Tunisian island off the Mediterranean coast on Saturday for the 18th year as soaring cost of living are gripping Africa, Europe and the Middle East due to Russia's war on Ukraine.
French President Emmanuel Macron is attending the annual gathering of the 88-member International Organization of Francophonie on the island of Djerba in southern Tunisia. Security is tight in the North African country that has been in the middle of a political and economic crisis, the Associated press reports.
Representing more than 320 million French-speaking people across the Africa, presidents of Senegal, the Ivory Coast, Gabon, Mauritania, Niger and Burundi are also attending.
8:55 a.m.: In Kyiv, people woke up to several inches of snow on Saturday morning, as residents in the city face regular blackouts due to Russian missile strikes.
The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, has warned residents that they must prepare for the worst this winter with no heat or water if Russia keeps pummeling the country's energy infrastructure, the Associated press reports.
Russia has focused on striking Ukraine's energy infrastructure over the last month, causing power shortages and rolling outages across the country.
5:14 a.m.: The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank, said in its latest Ukraine assessment that Russian forces reinforced rear areas in Luhansk Oblast and attempted to regain lost positions as Ukrainian troops continued counteroffensive operations along the Svatove-Kreminna line.
Russian forces also continued limited ground assaults near Bakhmut and Avdiivka and in western Donetsk Oblast.
4:43 a.m.: The 21 world leaders at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum issued a statement saying "Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy," Agence France-Presse reported.
2:40 a.m.: Kyiv is building a wall to strengthen its border with Belarus as Minsk prepares for covert, extensive mobilization drills at the end of the year.
According to the Belarusian monitoring group Hajun, additional Russian aircraft has landed in Belarus.
Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko’s regime continues to back Moscow, opposing a U.N. resolution calling for Russia to pay reparations to Ukraine. The resolution passed anyway.
Lukashenko further isolates Belarus from the outside world as he threatens to nationalize foreign investors’ property in Belarus.
A prominent Belarusian human rights activist reports being tortured by Belarusian authorities, The Kyiv Independent reports.
1:16 a.m.: About a hundred Russian attacks were repelled in the Donetsk region on Thursday alone, said Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his nightly video address. “All our warriors who are holding out in Donbas are true heroes,” said Zelenskyy.
The Ukrainian president also highlighted the significance of continuing resistance against Russian aggression in talks he had Friday with Irish students, the Vice-President of the European Commission Dombrovskis, and with the participants of the security forum in Halifax, Canada.
12:02 a.m.: Ukrainian recruits training on U.K. soil will get a special token of U.K. support in their winter gear: a refillable lighter, a soldier’s best friend for generations, engraved with the message: “Glory to Ukraine, Glory to the heroes,” a tweet by the British ministry of defense said.
Some information in this report came from Agence France-Presse.
