Russia-Ukraine updates: War reaching new level of ‘barbarism’

A top Ukrainian presidential aide criticised Twitter owner Elon Musk for the billionaire’s “magical simple solutions”, citing ideas put forward by Musk on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Twitter content moderation.

Mykhailo Podolyak listed “exchang[ing] foreign territories for an illusory peace” and “open[ing] all private accounts because freedom of speech has to be total”, as examples of such suggestions.

“[Elon Musk] prefers so-called magical ‘simple solutions’,” Podolyak wrote on Twitter, an apparent reference to self-described free speech advocate Musk’s plans to reform Twitter, as well as a tweet in which he called for Ukraine to give up the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula in exchange for peace.

Twitter representatives did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Musk was praised in the war’s early days for providing thousands of Starlink satellite internet devices, made by Musk’s SpaceX, to Ukraine free of charge, but the friendship ran into difficulties in October when Musk voiced support for peace conditions rejected by Kyiv.

There is currently no diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine, a co-founder of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Russian rights organisation Memorial said.

“I am absolutely convinced that there is not a diplomatic solution with [President Vladimir] Putin’s regime, so long as it is still there,” said Irina Scherbakova.

“The solution that there will now be is a military one,” added Scherbakova, who was presented with an award for her human rights work at a ceremony in Hamburg, Germany.

There would ultimately be some form of diplomatic resolution to the conflict, she said, but according to her, “this diplomacy will only happen when Ukraine believes it has won this war and can set its terms”.

Russia is getting ready for a “massive attack” on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, according to a Ukrainian official.

“We understand that a massive attack is being prepared and is possible any day … Remember that neither day nor night matters to the enemy. Their task is terror,” Nataliya Gumenyuk, spokesperson for Ukraine’s Southern Defence Forces, told Ukraine’s Channel 24.

She said Ukrainian authorities are taking necessary precautionary measures.

“For almost two weeks, the enemy has not launched massive missile strikes. However, this pause may end at any time,” she said, adding that the Ukrainian military is beefing up protection at power plants and other critical infrastructure.

A large number of refugees from Ukraine are likely to flee to Germany in the weeks ahead, the German ambassador to Britain says.

“We are very concerned about that because these attacks on the energy infrastructure mean that many people in freezing temperatures might be forced to leave Ukraine, so we expect another wave of refugees in the coming weeks,” Ambassador Miguel Berger said.

Germany’s Federal Ministry of the Interior put the number of people leaving Ukraine and entering the country since the invasion began at more than one million as of November 30.

The ambassador said he could see no grounds for optimism on ending the war by diplomatic means.

The owner of an emerald ring estimated to be worth $50,000 to $70,000 has put the family heirloom up for auction to help Ukrainians, The New York Times reports.

Mitzi Perdue, the widow of United States chicken magnate Frank Perdue, said the sale price would be donated to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine, which she visited this year during the Russian invasion.

“After five days, I wanted to do more, and then I started thinking, ‘What can I do to be most helpful?’ and then I thought, ‘I own something that’s of historic significance,'” she was quoted as saying by the Times.

The ring was given to her when Frank Perdue proposed marriage in 1988. He died in 2005. The ring was recovered from a shipwreck of a Spanish galleon that sunk in a 1622 hurricane near the Florida Keys.

Germany’s defence ministry has raised serious concerns about the planned purchase of United States-made F-35 fighter jets, part of the country’s military modernisation drive, according to documents seen by AFP.

Berlin announced in March that it would buy 35 of the warplanes made by Lockheed Martin to replace its ageing Tornado fleet, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But the defence ministry has raised concerns about “delays and additional costs” in the nearly 10 billion euro ($10.5bn) purchase, according to a classified letter to parliament’s budget committee.

Risk factors range from upgrading work needed at airfields that will host the F-35s, to security requirements, and potential problems with approval for flight operations in Germany, it said.

The Saudi-led OPEC oil cartel and allied producers including Russia did not change their targets for shipping oil to the global economy, amid uncertainty about the impact of new Western sanctions against Russia that could take significant amounts of oil off the market.

The decision at a meeting of oil ministers comes a day ahead of the planned start of a European Union boycott of most Russian oil and a price cap of $60 per barrel on Russian exports imposed by the European Union and the Group of Seven democracies.

In a statement, OPEC+ pushed back against criticism of its decision in October to slash production by two million barrels per day, saying the cut had been “recognised in retrospect by the market participants to have been the necessary and the right course of action towards stabilising global oil markets.”

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Russia will not export oil that is subject to a Western-imposed price cap even if Moscow has to accept a drop in oil production, President Vladimir Putin’s point man on energy has said.

“We are working on mechanisms to prohibit the use of a price cap instrument, regardless of what level is set, because such interference could further destabilise the market,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said.

He added that Russia will not operate under a price cap, even if Moscow has to cut production.

Group of Seven (G7) nations and Australia agreed on Friday to a $60 per barrel price cap on Russian seaborne crude oil in a bid to deprive Putin of revenue while keeping Russian oil flowing to global markets.

President Emmanuel Macron has rejected criticism from right-wing nationalist leader Marine Le Pen and others that arms deliveries to Ukraine are weakening France’s ability to defend itself against attack.

“That is both false and dangerous,” Macron told the newspaper Le Parisien.

“As commander-in-chief of the armed forces, I can assure you that always, when we supply something, we do so while maintaining our defence capacities for our territory, our critical infrastructure and our citizens,” he added.

Le Pen had said earlier to broadcaster CNEWS that France could not supply weapons to Ukraine for its defence against the Russian invasion at the expense of its own security.

More than 500 Ukrainian localities are without power following weeks of Russian air attacks on the electric grid, an interior ministry official said.

“The enemy continues to attack the country’s essential infrastructure. Currently, 507 localities in eight regions of our country are cut off from electricity supplies,” First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Yevhen Yenin told Ukrainian television.

“The Kharkiv region is the worst hit with 112 isolated villages,” Yenin added.

Another 90 villages were cut off in the Donetsk and Kherson regions, he said.

Russia has been accused of scattering thousands of landmines across Ukraine’s Donetsk region.

Authorities there say it is extremely dangerous for people trying to return to their communities and for infrastructure repairs to take place.

Lithuania has sent two more self-propelled howitzer 2000s back to Ukraine after repairing them.

The tanks were delivered together with ammunition, the defence ministry in Vilnius said.

Lithuanian Defence Minister Arvydas Anusauskas said on Twitter in late November that the two howitzers were being repaired in the EU and NATO country.

A maintenance centre for combat vehicles was established by two major German arms manufacturers, Kraus-Maffei Wegmann and Rheinmetall.

The Saudi Arabia-led OPEC oil cartel and allied producing countries, including Russia, are expected to decide how much oil to supply to the global economy, amid weakening demand in China and uncertainty about the effect of new Western sanctions against Russia that could take significant amounts of oil off the market.

The 23-country OPEC+ alliance is scheduled to meet on Sunday, a day before the planned start of a European Union boycott of most Russian oil and a $60 per barrel price cap on Russian exports imposed by the EU and G7.

Iranian and Russian security officials have reportedly met in Tehran to discuss unspecified military cooperation, according to official readouts from Iranian state media, the latest sign of deepening ties between the two countries.

General Mohammad Bagheri, the chief of staff of Iran’s Armed Forces, and Colonel General Alexander Fomin, Russia’s deputy defence minister, might have discussed on Saturday the sale of Iranian drones and missiles to Russia for use in Ukraine, the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said.

The meeting has not been reported in Russian media.

Moldova’s natural gas company Moldovagaz will start buying gas from domestic supplier Energocom while continuing to buy it from Russia’s Gazprom, the head of Moldovagaz has said.

Gas supplies are an ongoing source of tension between Russia and Moldova, which lies between southern Ukraine and Romania.

Gazprom, Russia’s state producer, withdrew its latest threat to cut supplies on November 28 but said it reserved the right to lower or halt flows in future if Moldova failed to make agreed payments.

The estimated cost of rebuilding Ukraine following the devastation caused by the Russian invasion will cost an estimated $1 trillion, according to Ukrainian authorities, and it keeps spiralling upwards.

Ukrainian residents who lost their homes have to find shelter elsewhere, as temperatures reach below freezing.

Ukraine is slapping sanctions on 10 senior clerics linked to a pro-Moscow church on the grounds they agreed to work with Russian occupation authorities or justified Moscow’s invasion, the security service has said.

“The Security Service of Ukraine continues to carry out comprehensive work on the protection of Ukrainian statehood and will continue to expose persons who threaten the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” it said.

The announcement is the latest in a series of steps against a Ukrainian branch of the Orthodox Church linked historically to Moscow. The Orthodox Church in Russia itself backs the war.

The Ukrainian branch formally severed ties with the Russian Orthodox Church last May but is still mistrusted by many Ukrainians and accused of secret cooperation with Russia.

US intelligence expects the slowed pace of fighting in Ukraine to continue over the next several months and sees no evidence that Ukraine’s will to resist Russia has diminished, despite Moscow’s crippling attacks on the Ukrainian power grid, a senior official has said.

“We’re seeing a kind of a reduced tempo already of the conflict … and we expect that’s likely to be what we see in the coming months,” Avril Haines, director of national intelligence in the Biden administration, told the annual Reagan National Defence Forum in California.

She said she believed Russian President Vladimir Putin had been surprised that his military had not achieved more in its war on Ukraine but was likely becoming more informed of the challenges that the military faces in Russia.

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Recent polling suggests support for the war in Ukraine is falling “significantly” among the Russian public, the British defence ministry has said in its latest intelligence update.

The data indicated 55 percent of the population favoured peace talks, while only 25 percent claimed to support the ongoing conflict.

Despite efforts on the part of Russian authorities to control the information environment, support has fallen sharply since April, when 80 percent of respondents were in favour of Putin’s “special military operation”.

A ship with Ukrainian wheat destined for Ethiopia has reached port, becoming the first vessel to sail as part of a push to send food to countries most vulnerable to famine and drought.

Ukraine and allied nations launched an initiative to export $150m worth of grain to Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, DRC, Kenya, and Yemen.

“We ship food. We ship hope,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a tweet accompanying a short clip of a vessel carrying 25,000 tonnes of wheat for Ethiopia, which he said arrived on Saturday in the port of Doraleh, in neighbouring Djibouti.