These were the key developments on the 1,010th day of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Here is the situation on Saturday, November 30:
Fighting
- Ukraine’s army chief, Oleksandr Syrskii, said he would strengthen troops on the eastern front with reserves, ammunition and equipment after he visited Pokrovsk and Kurakhove in the Donetsk region. Syrskii said Ukrainian forces are continuing to repel Russian advances in the east.
- Russian authorities returned more than 500 bodies of Ukrainian soldiers killed in combat, with most having died in the eastern Donetsk region, Kyiv said.
- Social media video released on Friday showed the Atlas Oil Depot in the Rostov Region of Russia on fire.
- Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appointed Major-General 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,” Zelenskyy said.
- Ukraine has lost about 40 percent of the territory it captured in Russia’s Kursk region in a surprise incursion in August, amid intensifying Russian counter-assaults.
- Military analysts say Ukraine’s military is experiencing manpower shortages, making it harder to rotate troops out of the more than 1,000km (620 miles) of front line or to build up reserve forces.
- Residents of Kyiv went about life on Friday with flashlights and candles after Russia fired nearly 200 missiles and drones at Ukraine’s energy infrastructure a day earlier, leaving more than a million households without power.
- A possible resumption of nuclear weapons tests by Moscow remains an open question in view of hostile US policies, a senior Russian diplomat was quoted as saying early on Saturday. “This is a question at hand,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told the TASS news agency when asked whether Moscow was considering a resumption of tests.
Diplomacy
- Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and agreed to boost military cooperation between the two nations, according to Pyongyang state media.
- Kim told Belousov that Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons is the result of direct military intervention by the United States and the West, and Moscow is entitled to take action in self-defence, the country’s KCNA news agency reported.
- France’s President Emmanuel Macron has promised to provide Ukraine with intense support in its battle against Russia’s “escalation” of its invasion, his office said.
- Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has reportedly urged NATO counterparts to issue an invitation to Kyiv to join the Western military alliance at a meeting in Brussels next week.
- Zelenskyy said in an interview broadcast on Friday that offering Ukraine NATO membership while allowing Russia to keep for the moment territory it had captured could be a solution to end the “hot stage” of the 33-month-old war.
- The spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called for Russia to “immediately cease all attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure”.
- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the Russia-Ukraine war “has shown us the weakness of the rules-based international system”.
- Outgoing European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell described the situation in Ukraine as “worsening” and said he is pessimistic that United States President-elect Donald Trump will improve it. Borrell said Ukraine is able to defend itself only as long as its allies support it.
- German Chancellor Olaf Scholz assured Zelenskyy of Germany’s continued support in a call on Friday, in which they agreed to stay in contact, also with a view on possible paths to a just peace, he said on social platform X.
- Ukraine accused Georgia of trying to “please Moscow” after the country’s Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said his country would suspend EU accession talks.
Regional security
- Russia is 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, the head of the United Kingdom’s MI6 foreign spy agency said.
- Poland has deployed Leopard 2 battle tanks in Latvia to reinforce the NATO brigade there.
- German defence giant Rheinmetall and Lithuania signed deals to begin construction of a $190m ammunition plant to make artillery shells in the country.
- German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius wants to order four new submarines to help meet NATO’s security requirements in Europe, a parliamentary budget committee source told the AFP news agency.
- Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence agency has warned of possible attempts by other states to influence the upcoming federal election.
Human rights
- Russia 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 – a former Moscow city councillor – is already serving a seven-year sentence following a conviction in 2022.