Russia-Ukraine war live: Zelenskyy suggests war could end without return of seized land
Welcome to our continuing coverage of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Here’s an overview of the latest news.
North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, vowed his country will “invariably support” Russia’s war in Ukraine as he met Russia’s defence minister and they agreed to boost military cooperation between the two countries, the North’s state media reported on Saturday.
A Russian military delegation led by the defence minister, Andrei Belousov, arrived in North Korea on Friday amid growing international concern about the countries’ expanding cooperation after Pyongyang sent thousands of troops to Russia last month.
Kim and Belousov reached a consensus on boosting strategic partnership and defending each country’s sovereignty and security interests, the Associated Press cited the official Korean Central News Agency as saying. Kim said North Korea “will invariably support the policy of the Russian Federation to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity”, KCNA said.
Belousov said Moscow-Pyongyang ties were “actively expanding in all areas, including military cooperation”, Russian news agencies reported.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, has urged his Nato counterparts to issue an invitation to Kyiv at a meeting in Brussels next week to join the western military alliance, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Friday.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has suggested that Ukrainian territory under his control should be taken under the “Nato umbrella” to try to stop the “hot stage” of the war with Russia. He told Sky News that such a proposal had “never been considered” by Kyiv because it had never “officially” been offered.
In other developments:
Abandoning Ukraine would jeopardise British, European and US security and lead to “infinitely higher” costs in the long term, the head of MI6 warned in a speech that amounted to a plea to US president-elect Donald Trump to continue supporting Kyiv. Richard Moore said he believed the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, “would not stop” at Ukraine if he was allowed to subjugate it in any peace talks involving the incoming US Republican administration.
Moore accused Russia of waging a “staggeringly reckless campaign” of sabotage in Europe while also stepping up its nuclear sabre-rattling to scare other countries off from backing Ukraine. “Our security – British, French, European and transatlantic – will be jeopardised,” he said during an address in Paris alongside his French counterpart.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy appointed Maj Gen Mykhailo Drapatyi as the new commander of Ukraine’s land forces. “The Ukrainian army needs internal changes to achieve our state’s goals in full,” the Ukrainian president said on Telegram on Friday.
The French president vowed to give Ukraine intensive support in its battle against Russia’s “escalation” of its invasion, his office said. Emmanuel Macron condemned Russia’s “indiscriminate” strikes against Ukraine’s cities and power infrastructure in a phone call with Zelenskyy on Friday, the Élysée Palace said. France has said Ukraine’s use of French missiles remains “an option”.
Russia launched more than 100 drones at Ukraine overnight on Thursday and early on Friday, killing one person and injuring eight others, officials said. A drone attack killed a woman in the southern city of Kherson, said the head of the local military administration, Roman Mrochko. A drone attack on the southern region of Odesa damaged 13 residential buildings and injured seven people, the national police said. Fragments from downed Russian drones struck buildings in two Kyiv districts and injured one person, officials said.
At least two Ukrainian regions suffered power cuts on Friday, electricity operator Ukrenergo said. Local media reported 70% of customers in Mykolaiv and the surrounding region had been without electricity for a second day as a result of Russian attacks on energy infrastructure.
Moscow said on Friday its forces had seized the village of Rozdolne in the southern part of Ukraine’s Donbas region, where it has made a string of territorial gains in recent months.
Russia downed 47 attack drones fired by Ukraine overnight to Friday, mainly targeting the Rostov border region, where a major fire broke out at an industrial site, authorities said. Ukraine’s military said it struck the region’s Atlas oil depot, causing a fire. Ukraine also struck a radar station for a Russian Buk air defence system in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, the military said.
Russia has sentenced Alexei Gorinov, the first person to be convicted for speaking out against Moscow’s military offensive in Ukraine, to another three years in prison in a second trial. The 63-year-old is already serving a seven-year sentence after a conviction in 2022. He wore a paper badge with a peace sign drawn on it as a court in Vladimir, east of Moscow, handed him the new sentence on charges of “justifying terrorism” on Friday, the Medizazona website reported.
Russian authorities returned more than 500 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers killed in combat, with most having died in the eastern Donetsk region, Ukraine said on Friday. Russia, for its part, does not announce the return of its bodies.