events

Here’s where things stand on Saturday, November 29.

Fighting

• Russian drones struck six locations in Kyiv’s city centre and eastern suburbs early on Saturday, injuring four people, as apartment buildings and other dwellings were hit, said the head of Kyiv’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko.
• Ukrainian forces are defending their positions and hunting down sabotage groups in the northeastern city of Kupiansk, despite Moscow’s claims that its troops are fully in control of the area, Ukraine’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskii, said.
• Russia seized Kupiansk in the first weeks of its 2022 full-scale invasion, but Ukrainian troops recaptured it later that year. Russian President Vladimir Putin then claimed on Thursday that the city was “fully in our hands”. Syrskii swiftly rejected the claims, saying that “the scale of lies from the Russian leadership about the situation in Kupiansk is astonishing”.
• Russian forces cleared Ukrainian troops from 6,585 buildings in the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk in the last week amid fierce fighting, the Russian Ministry of Defence claimed.
• Ukraine said its forces have hit Russia’s Saratov oil refinery and the Saky airbase in the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula. “A series of explosions was recorded, followed by a fire in the target area,” Ukraine’s military said regarding the refinery strike.
• Russian air defence systems intercepted and destroyed 136 Ukrainian drones overnight, Moscow’s Defence Ministry has said.

Ukrainian politics

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, a close ally who has headed Ukraine’s negotiation team at fraught United States-backed peace talks, has quit, hours after anticorruption agents searched his home. Yermak was leading Ukraine’s effort to push back against peace terms proposed by the US, which would satisfy many of Moscow’s territorial and security demands.
• Zelenskyy said he would consider a replacement for his chief of staff on Saturday. “Russia is eager for Ukraine to make mistakes. We won’t make any,” Zelenskyy said in a video address, calling for unity. “Our work goes on. Our struggle goes on,” he added.
• Investigations into high-level corruption, coming just weeks after Ukraine’s justice and energy ministers resigned amid a wide-reaching probe, have sparked public outrage and thrust government leadership into crisis at a time when the country is fighting for its very survival.

Ceasefire talks

• In a video address to the nation, Zelenskyy said that senior Ukrainian officials representing the military, intelligence and Foreign Ministry would soon participate in talks with Washington officials on how to end the conflict.
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that Russia expects to have information on the agreed points of a proposed peace plan by the time a US delegation arrives in Moscow next week. Peskov said that Moscow is working on the assumption that it is negotiating the plan solely with the US.

Sanctions

• A European Union spokesperson said that “intensive discussions” are ongoing, including with Belgium, on using frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine stay afloat. Belgium’s support for the plan is crucial as the assets the EU hopes to use are held by Belgium-based financial institution Euroclear.
• The talks come as Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever warned in a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that using the assets could derail a Ukraine peace deal.
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he saw the need to use frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine as “increasingly urgent” and hoped there would soon be an agreement.
• Russia will deliver agreed crude and gas supplies to Hungary according to existing contracts, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Peter Szijjarto said after a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
• Blasts have rocked two vessels from Russia’s shadow fleet of sanctioned oil tankers in the Black Sea, near Turkiye’s Bosphorus Strait. The 274-metre-long (898 ft) tanker Kairos suffered an explosion and caught fire in the Black Sea while en route from Egypt to Russia, Turkiye’s Ministry of Transport said. It said emergency response vessels were immediately dispatched to the scene, and the 25 crew members on board were safely rescued.
• The Kairos was heading to Russia’s Novorossiysk port when it reported “an external impact” causing a fire 28 nautical miles (51.8km) off the Turkish shore, Turkiye’s Directorate General for Maritime Affairs said.
• A second Russian tanker, Virat, was reportedly struck some 35 nautical miles (64.8km) offshore, further east in the Black Sea. The cause of the blasts was not immediately clear, but there have been incidents of ships hitting mines in the Black Sea in recent years.
• Russia has failed to win enough votes to rejoin the United Nations shipping agency’s governing council despite urging countries to back its nomination for a seat it lost in 2023. The outcome is a blow for Russia, which also failed to secure enough support in September to get elected to the UN aviation agency’s governing council, in another diplomatic rebuke of Moscow over its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Regional security

• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio plans to skip a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels next week, the Reuters news agency reports, citing two anonymous US officials, in a highly unusual absence of Washington’s top diplomat from a key transatlantic gathering at a crucial time for peace talks in Ukraine.
• US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau will represent Washington instead, said one of the officials. It was unclear why Rubio planned to skip the December 3 meeting. But his likely no-show comes as US and Ukrainian officials have been scrambling to narrow gaps over US President Donald Trump’s plan to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
• Poland has detained two Ukrainians and three Belarusians on charges of acting on the orders of foreign intelligence services, as Warsaw warns of Russian attempts to destabilise countries backing Kyiv. Poland says it has been targeted with arson and cyberattacks in what it calls a “hybrid war” waged by Russia to undermine support for Ukraine.
• Germany recorded its highest number of drone sightings over military bases in October, a senior intelligence official said, with a growing focus on naval installations. Previously, drones had often been spotted over army and air force bases, including those training Ukrainian troops.
• Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla, the daughter of former South African President Jacob Zuma, has resigned from parliament amid allegations that she lured 17 men to fight for Russia in Ukraine. Zuma-Sambudla was a lawmaker in the Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) opposition party led by her father. MK officials said she resigned voluntarily and that her departure from the National Assembly and all other public roles was effective immediately.
• Putin will visit India on December 4-5 at the invitation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian state news agencies reported.

Here are the key events from day 1,373 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here’s where things stand on Friday, November 28.

Fighting

• Russian forces have “completely surrounded” the embattled Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk and control 70 percent of it, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.
• Putin also said that once Ukrainian troops withdraw from their positions in key areas, then the fighting will stop. But if they do not, then Russian forces will achieve their objectives by force.
• The Russian president added that the pace of Russia’s advance in all directions on the front line was “noticeably increasing”.
• Oleksandr Syrskii, Ukraine’s top commander, painted a different picture, saying on social media that Ukrainian troops had been blocking attempts by Russian forces to stage new assaults on Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad. Syrskii also said that Russia had been forced to bring reserve forces into the fight.
• Russia’s air defences shot down 118 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 52 over Russia’s Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, the Ministry of Defence in Moscow said.

Peace process

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian delegations will meet with those from the United States this week to work out a formula discussed at talks in Geneva to bring peace and provide security guarantees for Kyiv.
• Putin said that the draft peace proposals discussed by the US and Ukraine could become the basis of future agreements to end Moscow’s war on Ukraine, but if not, that Russia would fight on.
• Putin also called the Ukrainian leadership illegitimate and said it was senseless to sign any peace documents with them.
• The Russian president said the Ukrainian leadership lost legitimacy after refusing to hold elections when Zelenskyy’s elected term expired. Kyiv says it cannot hold elections while under martial law and defending its territory against Russian attacks.
• Zelenskyy will not agree to give up land to Russia in exchange for peace, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, told the US magazine The Atlantic.
• “As long as Zelenskyy is president, no one should count on us giving up territory. He will not sign away territory,” Yermak said.
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that even after a peace agreement with Russia, Ukraine will need strong armed forces and security guarantees, while no territorial concessions should be forced on the country.
• “We view the efforts of the US government to find a solution here very positively. However, we also say that the security interests of Europeans and also the security interests of Ukraine must be safeguarded,” Merz said.
• Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Ukraine’s membership in NATO remains unacceptable to Moscow.
• “For us, the threat is still the expansion of NATO,” she told reporters. “NATO’s desire to pull Ukraine into its orbit remains a threat to us.”

Sanctions

• The United Kingdom issued a temporary licence allowing companies to continue doing business with Lukoil International, a subsidiary of Russia’s sanctioned Lukoil, which is based in Austria. The licence, effective until February 26, permits payments and other transactions under certain conditions, including that funds due to Lukoil remain frozen.
• Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said the European Union’s plan to use frozen Russian state assets to help Ukraine stay solvent could endanger the chances for a potential peace deal to end the nearly four-year war.
• “Hastily moving forward on the proposed reparations loan scheme would have, as a collateral damage, that we as EU are effectively preventing reaching an eventual peace deal,” De Wever said in a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, seen by the Financial Times.
• Putin said Russia is preparing a package of retaliatory measures in response to potential seizures of Russian assets in Europe. He warned that any move to confiscate Russian assets would be “a theft of property” and harm the global financial system.

Regional security

• A Ukrainian man suspected of coordinating the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline in 2022 has arrived in Germany after Italy’s top court approved his extradition last week, German federal prosecutors said. The explosions that destroyed the pipeline in the Baltic Sea three years ago largely severed Russian gas transit to Europe.
• Hungarian President Viktor Orban said he plans to hold talks on Friday to ensure that Hungary gets adequate Russian crude and gas supplies, which would also allow it to provide crude to neighbouring Serbia.
• Russia said it will shut the Polish consulate in Irkutsk at the end of December in retaliation for Warsaw’s decision to close the Russian consulate in Gdansk.

Russian politics

• A Russian military court sentenced eight men to life in prison over their purported role in a deadly Ukrainian truck bomb attack on the bridge that links southern Russia to Crimea.
• The eight men, convicted on terrorism charges, were accused of being part of an organised criminal group that helped Ukraine carry out the bombing.
• Ukraine’s SBU domestic intelligence agency claimed responsibility for the attack, which in October 2022 ripped through part of the 19km (11.8-mile) bridge, killing five people and damaging what was a key supply route for Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.

Here are the key events from day 1,372 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here’s where things stand on Thursday, November 27.

Fighting

• Intense clashes took place across eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, including in Slobozhanske, Kupiansk, Lyman, Kramatorsk, Kostiantynivka, Pokrovsk, Huliaipole and Orikhiv.
• Ukraine’s military said some of the fiercest fighting was in the strategic town of Huliaipole in the southeastern region of Zaporizhia, where forces are battling for “every metre” of land amid increased Russian shelling and drone attacks.
• A Russian drone attack on the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson killed a woman and a young child, while Russian air strikes in Zaporizhzhia city injured 18 people, including 12 women, according to local authorities.
• Ukraine’s military claimed it struck a Russian military-industrial complex in the region of Chuvashia, sparking a fire.
• Early on Thursday, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces claimed its forces killed or wounded 1,140 Russian soldiers over the last day. It also claimed it destroyed one Russian tank, three armoured combat vehicles, 21 artillery units, 214 drones and two aircraft.

Diplomacy

• Russian officials expressed caution over the prospect of a quick peace deal. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that while negotiations are “ongoing” and “serious”, it is “premature” to suggest a deal is imminent.
• Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Moscow is not ready to publicly discuss the Trump administration’s recently modified peace plan, but that it will not budge on its key demands. “The overall success of this process is not guaranteed,” he said.
• Still, US special envoy Steve Witkoff is set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow next week, the exact date of which is yet to be confirmed, according to Russia’s Peskov.
• European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said the Trump-backed peace plan is a “starting point” but requires more work to ensure future Ukrainian and European security.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated his call for further sanctions on Russia, accusing the country of obstructing peace efforts.
• Sweden’s Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard also urged the EU to immediately enact a 20th round of sanctions on Russia.
• Numerous Baltic states issued strong statements of support for Ukraine after a meeting of EU foreign ministers, with Estonia’s Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna saying peace talks must begin with “firm conditions for the aggressor, not the victim”.

Energy

• Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy urged the public to conserve electricity and warned of emergency outages in some regions where energy infrastructure has been targeted by Russian attacks.
• Ukraine’s prime minister said the state would provide targeted energy assistance to 280,000 families living in front-line areas to help them “get through the winter period more easily and meet basic needs”, including by paying for up to 300 kilowatt hours per family monthly.
• Putin, on a state visit to Kyrgyzstan, announced Russia’s state nuclear energy corporation is considering building a nuclear power facility in the former Soviet state.

Here are the key events from day 1,371 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here’s where things stand on Wednesday, November 26.

Fighting

• Russian attacks on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv killed seven people and injured 21, the state emergency service said in a post on Facebook on Tuesday. Emergency services also pulled at least 18 people from the rubble, officials said.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the missile and drone attacks on Kyiv and surrounding areas caused “extensive damage to residential buildings and civilian infrastructure”.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence claimed that Russian forces launched a “massive strike” targeting military installations in Ukraine, including “defence industry facilities, energy facilities and drone storage sites”, according to Russia’s TASS state news agency.
• A Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Krasnodar region injured at least nine people, TASS reported, citing the regional task force.
• A Ukrainian attack left about 40,000 people without electricity in a Russian-occupied area of Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, Yevgeny Balitsky, a Moscow-installed official in the region, said in a post on Telegram.
• Ukrainian battlefield analysis site DeepState said that Russian forces have advanced near the city of Siversk and the villages of Novoselivka, Zatyshya, Novoekonomichne and Myroliubivka in the east of the country.
• Russian forces shot down four long-range missiles and 419 drones launched by Ukrainian forces in a 24-hour period, TASS reported, citing Russia’s Defence Ministry.

Peace plan

• United States President Donald Trump said that “tremendous progress” had been made in negotiations on a peace plan, with “only a few remaining points of disagreement” remaining.
• In a post on his Truth Social platform, Trump added that he had directed his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and his army secretary, Dan Driscoll, to meet at the same time with Ukrainian officials “in the hopes of finalising this Peace Plan”.
• Trump later on Tuesday backed away from his earlier deadline of Thursday for Ukraine to agree to the US-backed peace plan, saying “the deadline for me is when it’s over”.
• President Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, later said he had spoken to Driscoll on the phone and expected him in Kyiv this week, adding: “We are ready to continue working as quickly as possible to finalise the steps necessary to end the bloodshed.”
• In his nightly address, Zelenskyy said he hopes to see “continued active cooperation with the American side and President Trump”, noting that “much depends on the United States because it’s America’s strength that Russia takes most seriously”.
• The latest update on the peace talks came as representatives from the US, Ukraine and European countries met in Geneva to continue talks on ending the war.
• The United Kingdom, France and Germany issued a joint statement after the meeting, saying that “meaningful progress” had been made and that they had agreed for their militaries to begin “planning on security guarantees”. However, they also reiterated that any resolution to the war should preserve Ukraine’s sovereignty and its long-term security.
• They also confirmed that long-term financing will be made available for Ukraine, including the use of frozen Russian assets to fund reconstruction.
• Ukraine’s Deputy Presidential Chief Ihor Zhovkva met with the European Commission’s Gert Jan Koopman to discuss progress on European Union membership. The proposed peace plan reportedly leaves the door open for Ukraine to join the EU, but not NATO.

Here are the key events from day 1,370 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here’s where things stand on Tuesday, November 25.

Trump’s plan

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that a proposed peace plan now under discussion with the United States and Europe has incorporated “correct” points, but sensitive issues still need to be discussed with US President Donald Trump.
• Zelenskyy added that if negotiations proceeded on resolving the war, “there must be no missiles, no massive strikes on Ukraine and our people”.
• Trump also hinted at new progress in the talks, which took place in Geneva. “Is it really possible that big progress is being made in Peace Talks between Russia and Ukraine??? Don’t believe it until you see it, but something good just may be happening,” he wrote on Truth Social.
• A senior official told the AFP news agency that the US pressed Ukraine to accept the deal in Geneva, despite Kyiv’s protests that the plan conceded too much to Moscow. The official said Washington did not directly threaten to cut off aid if Kyiv rejected its deal, but that Ukraine understood this was a distinct possibility.
• White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt clarified that there is no meeting scheduled between Trump and Zelenskyy this week amid reports of a possible trip by the Ukrainian leader to the US capital.
• Leavitt told US broadcaster Fox News that “a couple of points of disagreement” remain between the US and Ukraine on a potential deal to end Russia’s invasion.
• Leavitt also pushed back against criticism, including from within Trump’s Republican Party, that the president is favouring Russia in efforts to end the war in Ukraine, describing those statements as “complete and total fallacy”. She said the US president was “hopeful and optimistic” that a plan could be worked out.
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia would wait to see how talks between the US and Ukraine on a potential peace plan pan out, and would not be commenting on media reports about such a serious and complex issue.
• But Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said that a European counter-proposal to a US 28-point peace plan for Ukraine was “not constructive” and that it simply did not work for Moscow.
• British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said there was more work to do to establish a “just and lasting peace” in Ukraine, but added that progress was being made.
• Finland’s President Alexander Stubb, too, welcomed progress made at the meetings in Geneva, but added that major issues remain to be resolved.
• Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said no deal regarding Ukraine can be allowed to undermine the security of Poland and Europe; on the contrary, it should strengthen it.
• German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said that the talks in Geneva on amending Trump’s 28-point plan to end the war with Russia had produced a “decisive success” for Europeans. Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard said that to achieve a lasting peace in Ukraine, its borders can’t be changed by force and there can’t be limitations on Ukraine’s military that would invite further Russian aggression.
• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Russia’s Vladimir Putin in a phone call that Ankara will contribute to any diplomatic effort to facilitate direct contact between Russia and Ukraine and to reach a “just and lasting” peace, his office said.

Fighting

• Powerful explosions rocked Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, on Tuesday as the Ukrainian air force issued a warning about missile attacks across the country.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said the country’s air defences shot down 10 drones en route to Moscow, a day after a Ukrainian strike on a power plant cut off heating in a town near the capital. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said emergency services were clearing up sites where debris from drones had fallen.
• The Defence Ministry added that a total of 50 Ukrainian drones were downed across the Moscow, Bryansk, Kaluga and Kursk regions, as well as Crimea and over the waters of the Black Sea.

Politics

• Polish prosecutors have arrested and charged a third Ukrainian man suspected of collaborating with Russia to sabotage a rail track, authorities said. Two other Ukrainians, who fled to Belarus, had already been charged in absentia over the blast on the Warsaw-Lublin line connecting Warsaw to the Ukrainian border.

• Two young street musicians who were jailed for more than a month in Russia for singing anti-Kremlin songs have left the country after being released from detention, according to Russian media reports. Vocalist Diana Loginova, 18, and guitarist Alexander Orlov, 22, were detained on October 15 in central St Petersburg after an impromptu street performance deemed critical of Putin and the government.

Energy

• Oil prices climbed about 1 percent on mounting doubts about whether Russia will get a peace deal with Ukraine that will boost Moscow’s oil exports. Brent futures rose 81 cents, or 1.3 percent, to settle at $63.37 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude gained 78 cents, or 1.3 percent, to settle at $58.84.

• Four opposition Democratic US senators, including Elizabeth Warren, said that the lax enforcement by the Trump administration of sanctions on Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 export terminal has allowed China to buy discounted liquefied natural gas and has helped Moscow fund the war in Ukraine.

• A heating and power plant in Russia’s Moscow region has resumed operations after shutting down due to a fire caused by a Ukrainian drone strike on Sunday, regional governor Andrei Vorobyov said.

• Russia’s Black Sea port of Tuapse resumed oil product exports last week after a two-week suspension following Ukrainian drone attacks, while the local oil refinery has restarted processing crude, the Reuters news agency reported, citing industry sources and data.

• Russian state oil and gas revenue may fall in November by about 35 percent from the corresponding month in 2024 to 520 billion roubles ($6.59bn) due to cheaper oil and a stronger local currency, according to calculations and analysis by Reuters.

Here are the key events from day 1,369 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here’s where things stand on Monday, November 24.

Trump’s plan

• United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters in Geneva that “a tremendous amount of progress” was made during talks in the Swiss city on Sunday and that he was “very optimistic” that an agreement could be reached in “a very reasonable period of time, very soon”.
• Rubio also said that specific areas still being worked on from a 28-point peace plan for Ukraine, championed by US President Donald Trump, included the role of NATO and security guarantees for Ukraine.
• Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s delegation, echoed Rubio’s sentiments, telling reporters that they made “very good progress” and were “moving forward to the just and lasting peace Ukrainian people deserve”.
• Trump had earlier posted on Truth Social saying that Ukraine was not grateful for US efforts. “UKRAINE ‘LEADERSHIP’ HAS EXPRESSED ZERO GRATITUDE FOR OUR EFFORTS, AND EUROPE CONTINUES TO BUY OIL FROM RUSSIA,” Trump wrote.
• The US president’s post prompted a quick reply from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who wrote on X that his country was “grateful to the United States … and personally to President Trump” for the assistance that has been “saving Ukrainian lives”.
• Zelenskyy later said in his nightly video address that Trump’s team in Geneva was “hearing us [Ukraine]” and that talks were expected to continue into the night with “further reports” to come.
• US media outlet CBS reported that Zelenskyy could visit the US this week for direct talks with Trump, but that it would depend on the outcome in Geneva.
• French President Emanuel Macron said the European Union (EU) should continue to provide financial support for Ukraine and that he remains confident in Zelenskyy’s ability to improve his country’s track record against corruption, adding that Kyiv’s path to EU membership would require rule of law reforms.
• Meanwhile, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban accused EU leaders of deliberately prolonging the war, which he claimed Ukraine has “no chance” of winning. He also described ongoing EU support for Kyiv in the conflict as “just crazy”.

Fighting

• A “massive” Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s Kharkiv killed four people and wounded 12 others on Sunday, according to local officials. The wounded included two children aged 11 and 12.
• The acting head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration, Vladyslav Haivanenko, said that the region experienced a “difficult day”, with repeated Russian drone and shelling attacks that killed a 42-year-old woman and a 39-year-old man, and wounded at least five people.
• A Russian shelling attack killed a 40-year-old man working in a field in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, the State Emergency Service wrote in a post on Telegram.
• The governor of Russia’s Moscow region, Andrei Vorobyov, said that a Ukrainian drone attack on the Shatura Power Station, a heat and power station ​120km (75 miles) east of the Kremlin, ignited a fire. The attack cut off heating to thousands of people, before it was later restored, Vorobyov said.
• Russia’s Federal Air Navigation Service also said temporary restrictions were in place at Moscow’s Vnukovo international airport after three Ukrainian drones headed for the capital were shot down.
• Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk says an explosion on a Polish railway line that is a key route for aid deliveries to Ukraine, including weapons transfers, was an “unprecedented act of sabotage”, pledging to find those responsible.
• Oil prices fell as loading resumed at the key Russian export hub of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea after being suspended for two days following a Ukrainian attack.

Weapons

• Ukraine and France signed an agreement for Kyiv to buy up to 100 Rafale fighter jets over the next 10 years during a meeting between Zelenskyy and Macron in Paris.

Here are the key events from day 1,367 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Saturday, November 22:

Fighting

• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said approximately 5,000 Ukrainian troops are trapped by Russian forces on the eastern bank of the Oskil River, in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region. There was no immediate comment from the Ukrainian military.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its troops captured the settlements of Yampil, Stavky, Novoselivka and Maslyakivka in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, as well as the village of Radisne in neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk region.
• The Russian Defence Ministry said 33 Ukrainian drones were intercepted and destroyed over five Russian regions, as well as Crimea and the Black Sea, overnight.
• At least eight Russian airports were forced to suspend operations during the nighttime attack, according to Russia’s aviation watchdog.
• Ukraine said its forces were holding defensive lines in the northern part of the embattled eastern city of Pokrovsk and were blocking attempts by Russian troops to advance further.
• Moscow’s forces have fought towards Pokrovsk, a logistics hub for the Ukrainian military, for months to try to capture the town, which Russian media has dubbed the “gateway” to Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region.

Peace plan

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has until this coming Thursday to approve a United States-backed peace plan with Russia, President Donald Trump has said.
• Speaking in the Oval Office after a meeting with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani on Friday, Trump said: “We have a way of getting peace, or we think we have a way of getting to peace. [Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy] is going to have to approve it.”
• President Zelenskyy pledged to work fast and constructively with Washington on the peace plan, but said he would not betray his country’s national interest.
• In a video statement, Zelenskyy urged Ukrainians to remain united in what he described as one of the most difficult moments in their country’s history, adding that he expected more political pressure over the next week.
• Zelenskyy also said after an hour-long phone call with US Vice President JD Vance that Ukraine would work with Washington, and Europe at an advisory level, towards a peace plan.
• Zelenskyy said he then spoke with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte about the “available diplomatic options” to end his country’s war with Russia, including the “plan proposed by the American side”.

• Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Moscow had still not officially received any peace plan from the US, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin told senior officials at a meeting of Russia’s Security Council that the US proposal could be the basis for a resolution of the conflict, but if Kyiv turned down the plan, then Russian forces would advance further.
• British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said any peace deal between Russia and Ukraine must ensure Kyiv’s future security, following a phone call between Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Zelenskyy.
• Starmer’s office said the leaders “underlined their support for President Trump’s drive for peace and agreed that any solution must fully involve Ukraine, preserve its sovereignty, and ensure its future security”.
• The European Union and Ukraine want peace, but they will not give in to aggression from Russia, the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has said.
• “This is a very dangerous moment for all,” Kallas said. “We all want this war to end, but how it ends matters. Russia has no legal right whatsoever to any concessions from the country it invaded; ultimately, the terms of any agreement are for Ukraine to decide.”

Sanctions

• The US has issued a Russia-related general licence allowing certain transactions with the Paks II civil nuclear power plant project in Hungary, according to the Department of the Treasury.
• The licence allows transactions linked to the nuclear power plant project involving some Russian banks, including Gazprombank, VTB Bank and the Russian central bank.
• Finnish fuel station chain Teboil, which is owned by Russia’s Lukoil, has filed for corporate restructuring, news agency STT reported, becoming the first international business owned by the major Russian oil firm to say it would close down as a result of the sanctions imposed by the US on Lukoil last month.
• Lithuanian state-owned railway group LTG said it will halt shipments of oil cargoes by Lukoil to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad due to the US sanctions.
• Located on the Baltic Sea coast, Kaliningrad receives many of its supplies from Russia via rail transit through NATO member state Lithuania, but can also get direct shipments from its own country via the coast.

Corruption

• Ukraine’s government plans to appoint a new supervisory board at Energoatom, the state nuclear company at the heart of a corruption scandal, by the end of this year, Economy Minister Oleksii Sobolev said.
• Ukraine has been rocked by a scandal over an alleged $100m kickback scheme involving senior officials in the energy sector and a former business associate of Zelenskyy.

Economy

• Ukraine will sharply increase gas imports via the southern Trans-Balkan route linking it with Greece as it battles to replace supplies lost due to Russian attacks, import data from transit operators showed.
• Russian drone and missile attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure have deprived Kyiv of at least half of its own gas production in recent months, forcing it to import an additional four billion cubic metres of gas over the winter heating season to make up the difference.

Regional security

• Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said sabotage acts inspired and organised by Russia are aimed at destabilising and weakening Poland and bear the hallmarks of “state terrorism”.
• Last weekend, an explosion damaged railway tracks on the Warsaw-Lublin route, which connects the Polish capital with the Ukrainian border, something Tusk described as an “unprecedented act of sabotage”.
• Nathan Gill, a British former member of the European Parliament and ex-leader of the populist Reform UK in Wales, has been jailed for more than 10 years after admitting taking about 40,000 British pounds ($52,344) in bribes to make pro-Russian speeches and statements.

Neck guards have previously been optional in Olympic competition, while in other competitions around the world they are not required.

While the guards are compulsory at youth international level, having to wear the guards will be a new experience at elite level for some of the world’s best players.

The British Elite League has not made them mandatory, despite the fatal incident involving Johnson occurring in their competition, and they are not yet required in the North America’s National Hockey League (NHL).

The NHL – regarded as the number one league in the world – will make the guards mandatory for new players, external entering the competition from the 2026-27 season onwards. However, those who already play in the league will not need to wear the protective equipment.

NHL players will feature at next year’s Milan-Cortina Olympics,, external having not appeared at the past two Games because of disruption to the domestic season in 2018 and concern over coronavirus at Beijing 2022.

The Olympic ice hockey competition will take place in Milan between 5 and 22 February 2026.

Here are the key events from day 1,364 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Wednesday, November 19:

Fighting

• Russian drones struck two central districts – Slobidskyi and Osnovyansk – in Ukraine’s second largest city Kharkiv, injuring five people in an apartment building and triggering a fire, authorities said.
• Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said 22 residents had been evacuated from one section of the damaged apartment building while another drone struck an area outside a medical facility, injuring a doctor and damaging the building and nearby cars.
• The Kharkiv region’s governor, Oleh Syniehubov, said 11 drones were deployed in the attack and seven people were injured in total.
• Russia’s civil aviation authority said it was temporarily halting flights at Krasnodar International Airport in southern Russia on Wednesday morning, saying only that it was for flight safety.
• Russian air defences shot down four Ukrainian drones en route to Moscow on Tuesday, the city’s mayor said. Moscow’s two largest airports, Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo, stopped all air traffic for a time before later reopening, Russia’s aviation watchdog said.
• Ukrainian drone attacks have caused extensive damage to the power grid in the Russian-occupied part of the Donetsk region. Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-appointed head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said about 65 percent of consumers were without power in the region.
• Ukraine attacked two thermal power stations in Russian-occupied Donetsk, according to a Telegram post by the commander of Ukraine’s drone forces. Major Robert Brovdi said the Starobeshivska and Zuivska power plants had been hit by his forces.
• Ukraine said it attacked military targets in Russia with United States-supplied ATACMS missiles, calling it a “significant development”. The military said in a statement that the “use of long-range strike capabilities, including systems such as ATACMS, will continue”.
• Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov conducted a regular inspection of troops fighting in eastern Ukraine, his ministry’s outlet, Zvezda, reported. Video posted by Zvezda showed Belousov presenting awards to military servicemen.

Military aid

• The Trump administration has approved a $105m arms sale to Ukraine to help it maintain existing Patriot missile air defence systems. The sale includes upgrading from M901 to M903 launchers, which can fire more missiles at once.
• Spain will provide Ukraine with a new military aid package worth 615 million euros ($710m), Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced on Tuesday.
• “Your fight is ours,” Sanchez said alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “neoimperialism” seeks to “weaken the European project and everything it stands for”.

Regional security

• The United Kingdom lacks a plan to defend itself from military attack, members of parliament warned while at least 13 sites across the UK have been identified for new factories to make munitions and military explosives, according to a report.
• Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said authorities have identified two Ukrainian nationals who had collaborated with Russia for “a long time” and were responsible for an explosion on a Polish railway route to Ukraine.
• “The most important information is that … we have identified the people responsible for the acts of sabotage,” Tusk told lawmakers. “In both cases, we are sure that the attempt to blow up the rails and the railway infrastructure violation were intentional and their aim was to cause a railway traffic catastrophe,” he said.

• The Kremlin accused Poland of succumbing to Russophobia after Warsaw blamed the explosion on a railway route to Ukraine on two Ukrainian citizens who it said were recruited by Russian intelligence.
• Soldiers from across the NATO alliance practised counterdrone skills in Poland on Tuesday with troops from the US, UK and Romania joining their Polish counterparts at the exercises in Nowa Deba in Poland’s southeast corner.
• The European Commission will propose a new initiative to help speed up the development and purchase of innovative defence technologies, according to a draft document seen by the Reuters news agency.

Ceasefire

• Zelenskyy said Ukraine will try to “reactivate” the diplomatic process to end the war with Russia. Zelenskyy later announced he planned to go to Turkiye on Wednesday to try to revive talks with Russia on how to end the war in Ukraine.
• No face-to-face talks have taken place between Kyiv and Moscow since they met in Istanbul in July.
• Steve Witkoff, a US special envoy, is expected to join the talks with Zelenskyy in Turkiye, another Ukrainian official involved in the meeting’s preparations told the AFP news agency.
• Ukraine plans to claim $43bn in climate compensation from Russia to help fund a planet-friendly rebuild after the war, Ukrainian Deputy Minister for Economy, Environment and Agriculture Pavlo Kartashov announced at the UN climate conference in Brazil.
• “We in Ukraine face brutality directly, but the climate shockwaves of this aggression will be felt well beyond our borders and into the future,” Kartashov said.

Politics and diplomacy

• One of Ukraine’s main opposition parties physically blocked lawmakers from holding a vote in parliament on Tuesday to dismiss two ministers over a corruption investigation, demanding the removal of the entire cabinet instead.
• Zelenskyy made a one-day visit on Tuesday to Spain and took the opportunity to view Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, a painting that depicts the horrors of war and specifically the bombardment of civilian targets in Spain by fascist German and Italian forces.

Economy

• Russian state conglomerate Rostec said its defence exports have fallen by half since 2022 as domestic orders became a priority during the war in Ukraine. Until 2022, Russia held second place in the world after the US in defence exports, but the volumes dropped “due to the fact that we have had to supply most of our production to our army”, Rostec chief Sergey Chemezov told reporters.
• Russian lawmakers endorsed new tax hikes on Tuesday as Moscow looks for new revenue sources to boost its economy during its nearly four-year war with Ukraine. Legislators in the lower house of parliament, the State Duma, approved the key second reading of a bill to raise the value-added tax from 20 percent to 22 percent.

Sanctions

• US oil firm Exxon Mobil has joined rival Chevron Corp in considering options to buy parts of sanctioned Russian oil firm Lukoil’s international assets, sources familiar with the matter told the Reuters news agency.
• Exxon is considering options for Lukoil assets in Kazakhstan, where both the US and the Russian firm have stakes in the Karachaganak and Tengiz fields, the sources said. Chevron, another partner in these assets, is also studying options to buy.

Here are the key events from day 1,363 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Tuesday, November 18:

Fighting

• A Russian missile strike on the eastern Ukrainian city of Balakliia killed three people and wounded 10, including three children, a regional military official in the Kharkiv region said on Telegram on Monday.
• At least two people were killed and three were injured in Russian shelling of the Nikopol district in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, Vladyslav Haivanenko, the acting head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration, wrote on Facebook.
• Russian troops captured three villages across three Ukrainian regions, the RIA news agency cited the Russian Ministry of Defence as saying on Monday. The villages are Hai in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Platonivka in the Donetsk region and Dvorichanske in the Kharkiv region.
• Russia’s air defence forces destroyed 36 Ukrainian drones overnight, RIA reported on Monday, citing the Defence Ministry’s daily data.
• A Russian attack on Ukraine’s southern region of Odesa sparked fires at energy and port infrastructure facilities, Ukraine’s emergency services said on Monday.
• The attack damaged port equipment and several civilian vessels, including one carrying liquefied natural gas, and forced Romania to evacuate a border village, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X.
• A 68-year-old man has died after he was injured in a Russian drone attack in Ukraine’s Kherson region, the head of the regional administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, wrote on Telegram.
• Two Ukrainian nuclear power plants have been running at reduced capacity for 10 days after a military attack damaged an electrical substation needed for nuclear safety, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said in a statement.
• The Kremlin said on Monday that Russia’s port of Novorossiysk resumed export activities after a Ukrainian attack caused a two-day suspension of its oil loadings.

Military aid

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a deal with French President Emmanuel Macron at France’s Velizy-Villacoublay Air Base for Ukraine to obtain up to 100 French-made Rafale warplanes over the next 10 years.
• Macron said France’s rail transport manufacturer Alstom and Ukrainian Railways have signed a 475-million-euro ($551m) contract on delivering 55 electric locomotives to Ukraine, according to the Interfax news agency.

Regional security

• Polish Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski said on Monday that one confirmed and one likely act of sabotage occurred on Polish railways after an explosion damaged a Polish railway track on a route to Ukraine over the weekend.
• Polish Special Services Minister Tomasz Siemoniak added during the same news conference that chances are very high that the people who conducted the sabotage were acting on orders of foreign intelligence services. He appeared to be pointing fingers at Russia although he did not name the country.

Politics and diplomacy

• During a joint news conference in Paris, Macron said he was confident Zelenskyy could improve Ukraine’s anticorruption track record and institute reforms to clear its path to European Union membership.
• German Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil told Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng during a state visit to Beijing on Monday that the two countries “should work together to finish the war in Ukraine” and “China can play a key role”.
• He responded by saying, “China will continue to play a constructive role in the political settlement of the Ukraine crisis.”
• The Kremlin said on Monday that there was an ongoing conversation about a possible prisoner-of-war exchange with Ukraine but declined to provide details.
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Russia hoped for another summit between President Vladimir Putin and United States President Donald Trump soon.
• Peskov added that Moscow took a very negative view of a bill that Trump said Republicans in the US were working on that would impose sanctions on any country doing business with Russia.
• Russia’s financial watchdog added former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and leading economist Sergei Guriev – both critics of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – to its list of “extremists and terrorists”, its website showed on Monday.

Economy

• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a letter to EU members on Monday that the bloc had three options or a combination of them to help Ukraine meet its financing needs: “Support … financed by member states via grants, a limited recourse loan funded by the union borrowing on the financial markets or a limited recourse loan linked to the cash balances of immobilised assets”.
• The Chevron oil company is studying options to buy international assets of sanctioned Russian oil firm Lukoil after the US Department of the Treasury gave clearance to potential buyers to talk to Lukoil about foreign assets, five sources familiar with the process told the Reuters news agency.

Here are the key events from day 1,362 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Monday, November 17:

Fighting

• Russia said its forces had moved forward sharply in Ukraine’s southeastern Zaporizhia region, taking the settlements of Rivnopillya and Mala Tokmachka as part of a major push aimed at taking control of the entire region. Currently, Russia says it controls 75 percent of the area.
• Ukrainian forces have struck the Novokuibyshevsk oil refinery in Russia’s Samara region, Kyiv’s General Staff said. It said it had recorded explosions and a fire at the site of the strike, but was still assessing the extent of damage.
• Ukrainian officials said on Sunday morning that Russian attacks on the country had killed at least four civilians and wounded 17 others over the last 24 hours.
• The Russian TASS news agency reported that Ukrainian attacks on Russia wounded two civilians in the Belgorod region.
• TASS added that Russia’s air defences destroyed more than 50 Ukrainian drones on Sunday evening. Earlier on Sunday, it said Russian air defences intercepted two Neptune guided missiles, four HIMARS rockets and 197 drones.

Energy

• Russia’s Novorossiysk port resumed oil loadings after a two-day suspension triggered by a Ukrainian missile and drone attack, the Reuters news agency reported, citing two industry sources. The Ukrainian attack has been described as the most damaging to date on Russia’s main Black Sea crude export infrastructure.

• Ukraine has secured imports of US liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Greece to cover its winter needs from December through to March next year, officials said during a visit to Athens by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin had a conversation with Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin last week during a visit by Kazakhstan’s president to Moscow, state media reported, as United States-led sanctions continue to take a financial toll on the company.

Environment

• The Greenpeace environmental campaigning group has revealed that France was sending reprocessed uranium to Russia for treatment so it can be reused, despite the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine. Greenpeace said that while it was legal, the trade was “immoral” as many nations seek to step up sanctions on the Russian government over its invasion of Ukraine, launched in 2022.

Here are the key events from day 1,361 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Sunday, November 16:

Fighting

• The Ukrainian military said it struck Russia’s Ryazan oil refinery, located about 200km (125 miles) southeast of Moscow, as “part of efforts to reduce the enemy’s ability to launch missile and bomb strikes”.
• The Ukrainian military said the strike caused multiple explosions and a large fire at the site.
• The Russian Ministry of Defence said its forces have taken control of the village of Yablukove in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region.
• The Ukrainian military confirmed withdrawing from the village of Novovasylivske in Zaporizhia, saying the retreat was necessary in order to relocate to “more favourable defensive positions”.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the widow of the first victim of the 1986 disaster at the Chornobyl power plant was among several people killed in a barrage of Russian strikes on the capital of Kyiv in recent days. He said Nataliia Khodemchuk’s death was the result of “a new tragedy caused once again by the Kremlin”.
• Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency reported that conditions are stable at the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine after an external power line was switched off as a precautionary measure on Friday.
• The Russian state-run TASS news agency reported that Ukrainian forces have launched a drone attack on residential buildings in the Russian city of Volgograd, damaging “the facades and glazing of apartment buildings and the surrounding area”.
• The Russian Defence Ministry said it shot down eight Ukrainian drones in the course of four hours over the regions of Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk, as well as Russian-occupied Crimea, according to TASS.

Politics and diplomacy

• Russia and Ukraine have agreed to move forward with a prisoner exchange that will see the release of about 1,200 Ukrainians, according to a Ukrainian official. The announcement came after several days of talks overseen by Turkiye and the United Arab Emirates, rejuvenating an exchange process laid out during previous negotiations in Istanbul.
• President Zelenskyy promised a “reboot” of state-owned energy companies, including reforms to root out corruption, as his government continues to grapple with a major scandal in which investigators said $100m was embezzled from power firms.
• Polish President Karol Nawrocki signed a bill providing social assistance for Ukrainian refugees, but stated it was the “last time” he would do so until new solutions to the issue were found. The Polish leader has argued that the provision of assistance to Ukrainian refugees, about one million of whom are living in Poland, is “unfair to Poles”. The legal status of Ukrainian refugees in Poland is set to expire in March.
• Serbian officials said that the United States will not ease sanctions on the Serbian oil firm NIS unless it changes the company’s majority-Russian ownership share, despite pleas for leniency from Belgrade. Energy Minister Dubravka Djedovic Handanovic said that the US “clearly and unequivocally” demanded changes to Russian ownership, giving Serbia until February 13 to find a solution.

Military aid

• Zelenskyy called for additional air defence resources, following a wave of Russian strikes on Kyiv that killed at least seven people and injured dozens more. The Ukrainian leader said that the attacks underscore the need for more assistance and “greater resolve” from allies following the strikes, which struck apartment buildings across the capital city on Friday.

Here are the key events from day 1,359 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Friday, November 14:

Fighting

• Russian forces launched a “massive” attack on Kyiv early on Friday, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, with air defences in action and a series of explosions reported in the capital.
• Klitschko said falling debris had struck a five-storey apartment building in Dniprovskyi district on the east side of the Dnipro River, and a high-rise dwelling was on fire in Podil district on the opposite bank.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited troops near Ukraine’s southeastern front line, where he warned of the need to shore up defences after his troops lost ground in increasingly high-intensity battles far from Russia’s main offensive in the east of the country.
• President Zelenskyy said the situation near the city of Orikhiv in the Zaporizhia region was “one of the most difficult” along a sprawling front line and that thwarting Russian forces there was key to shielding Zaporizhzhia city.
• Ukraine’s military said its troops hit a Russian oil terminal in occupied Crimea and also an oil depot in the occupied Zaporizhia region.
• The Ukrainian General Staff said Russian oil facilities and other military targets were hit by domestically produced weapons, including the “Flamingo” ground-launched cruise missile, drone missiles, and drones.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces have captured two more Ukrainian settlements: Synelnykove in the Kharkiv region and Danylivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
• Russian air defence units destroyed and intercepted 130 Ukrainian drones overnight over Russia, the state-run TASS news agency reports, citing daily data from the Defence Ministry in Moscow.

Peace talks

• The Kremlin said Ukraine would have to negotiate an end to the war “sooner or later” and predicted that Kyiv’s negotiating position would worsen by the day.
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said he hoped Washington would take no actions liable to escalate the Ukraine conflict.
• Lavrov said United States President Donald Trump had long advocated dialogue with Russia, had sought to fully understand the Russian position on Ukraine and “demonstrated a commitment to finding a sustainable peaceful solution”.
• “We are counting on common sense and that the maintaining of that position will prevail in Washington and that they will refrain from actions that could escalate the conflict to a new level,” Lavrov said.

Ukraine energy scandal

• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Zelenskyy have discussed the $100m energy corruption scandal that has engulfed Kyiv, the German government said in a statement.
• Zelenskyy pledged complete transparency, long-term support for independent anticorruption authorities and further swift measures to regain the trust of the Ukrainian people, European partners and international donors, the statement said.
• Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko also announced an audit of all state-owned companies, including in the energy sector, following the scandal that has led to the suspension of two cabinet ministers.
• The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) said it is lending 22.3m euros ($26m) to a Ukrainian energy firm as part of a pipeline of deals, signalling its ongoing support for the sector despite the corruption scandal.
• The EBRD cash will go to private Ukrainian energy company Power One to finance new gas-piston power plants and battery energy storage systems, the lender said in a statement.

Aid to Ukraine

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF) will soon begin a staff mission to Ukraine to discuss its financing needs and a potential new lending programme, IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack said.
• Ukraine is in talks with the IMF about a new four-year lending programme for the country that would replace its current four-year $15.5bn programme. Ukraine has already received $10.6bn of that amount.
• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament that the European Union could either borrow the money needed to cover Kyiv’s financial needs in 2026 and 2027 against the collateral of its long-term budget, or each EU country could borrow on its own and extend a grant to Ukraine.
• A third option was a proposal from the Commission to organise a loan that would effectively become a grant, on the basis of the Russian central bank assets frozen in the EU. European finance ministers agreed that funding Ukraine with a reparations loan based on immobilised Russian assets would be the most “effective” of the three options being considered.
• Europe’s top development banks and Ukrainian energy firm Naftogaz signed a deal to provide an EU grant of 127 million euros ($127m) in additional funding to the firm, on top of a 300 billion euro loan ($349bn) it outlined last month to secure Ukraine’s natural gas supply, amid the ongoing attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure by Russia.
• Nordic and Baltic countries will together contribute $500m to the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List arms initiative, their defence ministers said in a joint statement.

Russian sanctions

• About 1.4 million barrels per day of Russian oil, or almost a third of the country’s seaborne exporting potential, remain in tankers as unloading slows due to US sanctions against energy firms Rosneft and Lukoil, according to US financial services firm JPMorgan.
• Bulgaria’s parliament has overruled a presidential veto on legislation allowing the government to take control of Lukoil’s oil refinery and sell it to shield the asset from looming US sanctions.
• Bulgarian President Rumen Radev had attempted to veto a move by lawmakers giving a government-appointed commercial manager powers to oversee the continued operation of Lukoil’s refinery in Bulgaria beyond November 21, when the US sanctions are due to take effect, and to sell the company if needed.
• Russia’s Port Alliance group, which operates a network of sea cargo terminals, said foreign hackers had targeted its systems over three days in a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack and an attempted hack.
• The group said critical elements of its digital infrastructure had been targeted with the aim of disrupting export shipments of coal and mineral fertilisers at its sea terminals in the Baltic, Black Sea, Far East and Arctic regions. The attack was successfully repelled, and operations remained unaffected, Port Alliance said.

Here are the key events from day 1,355 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Monday, November 10:

Fighting

• The Russian Ministry of Defence said its forces captured the Ukrainian settlement of Rybne in the southeastern Zaporizhia region.
• Fighting also continues in and around the city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine. The rate of Russian advances in the strategic city “remains temporarily decreased” as Moscow’s forces slow ground activity “to extend logistics and bring up reinforcements to southern Pokrovsk”, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, DC-based think tank.
• Elsewhere in Ukraine, repair crews were racing to restore power to thousands of people after Russian drone attacks on Saturday targeted energy infrastructure across the country.
• Ukraine’s central Poltava area, as well as the northeastern regions of Kharkiv and Sumy, were the hardest-hit, with 100,000 customers in Kharkiv alone without electricity, water and heating, Deputy Prime Minister for Restoration of Ukraine Oleksii Kuleba said on Sunday.
• Russia faced its own power outages after Ukraine struck back with drone and missile attacks, cutting power and heating to thousands of households in the Russian cities of Belgorod and Voronezh.

Politics and diplomacy

• In an interview with Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov said that ending Moscow’s war on Ukraine is “impossible” without “fully taking into account Russia’s legitimate interests and addressing its root causes”.
• Lavrov added that discussions with the US were under way, but “not as rapidly as we would prefer”, noting that he was ready to meet face-to-face with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
• Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu travelled to Egypt for meetings with top officials, including President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Russia’s state TASS news agency reported, with plans to discuss “military and military-technical cooperation”.
• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told reporters that the United States agreed to provide a “financial shield” to Hungary in the event of economic or budgetary pressures, though he did not explain further. The comments came after Hungary announced it had secured a one-year waiver from US sanctions on Russian oil and gas.

Sanctions

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv and its European partners were preparing a 20th package of sanctions on Russia.
• Ukraine will propose “including Russian legal entities and individuals that are still profiteering from energy resources”. The package is expected to be signed within a month, the president added.
• Zelenskyy also signed new Ukrainian sanctions against eight Russian individuals, including an FSB agent accused of “information sabotage” and financier Kirill Dmitriev, who runs Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and is President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy on international economic and investment cooperation.
• Another set of new sanctions will target five Russian businesses, including publishing houses engaged in “justifying aggression” and “spreading Russian propaganda worldwide”, Zelenskyy’s office said.

Regional security

• In Belgium, three drones were detected above the Doel nuclear power plant on Sunday evening, according to the Reuters news agency, the latest in a series of drone sightings that have prompted the temporary closure of two major airports over the past week.
• The United Kingdom said it plans to provide equipment and personnel to Belgium in light of the incidents. Air Chief Marshal Richard Knighton told the BBC broadcaster that while the source of the drones was not yet known, Russia has been involved in a pattern of “hybrid warfare” in recent years.

Here are the key events from day 1,354 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Sunday, November 9:

Fighting

• Russian forces fired more than 450 drones and 45 missiles at Ukraine overnight on Saturday, targeting its energy infrastructure and killing seven people, according to Ukrainian officials.
• Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said that Russian forces targeted substations that power two nuclear power plants in Khmelnytskyi and Rivne, and condemned Moscow for “deliberately endangering nuclear safety in Europe”.
• Energy facilities in Kyiv, Poltava and Kharkiv regions were also hit, disrupting the power and water supply for thousands of people, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.
• Ukrainian energy company Naftogaz said the attack on its gas infrastructure was the ninth since early October, according to the AFP news agency.
• The Russian Ministry of Defence confirmed launching “a massive strike with high-precision long-range air, ground and sea-based weapons” on weapon production and gas and energy facilities in response to Kyiv’s strikes on Russia.
• The ministry also said that Russian forces had taken more territory around the towns of Pokrovsk and Kupiansk, and captured the village of Volchye in eastern Ukraine.
• Russia’s TASS news agency, citing the Defence Ministry, said that Russian forces had shot down 15 Ukrainian drones over Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, the Black Sea and Russia’s Rostov region on Saturday night. It also said Russian forces downed two guided bombs and 178 drones over the past day.
• TASS also reported another Ukrainian drone attack in Russia’s Belgorod region late on Saturday, and said at least 20,000 people were without power.

A rescue operation is underway in Dnipro. Overnight, Russia struck the city, hitting an apartment building. As of now, 11 people have been reported wounded, including children. Unfortunately, one person has been killed. My condolences to the family and loved ones. Dozens of… pic.twitter.com/TFUG3SjxpA

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 8, 2025

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for Europe, the G7, and the United States to step up sanctions on Russia’s energy sector following its latest attack.
• “So far, Russia’s nuclear energy sector is not under sanctions, and the Russian military-industrial complex still obtains Western microelectronics. There must be greater pressure on its oil and gas trade as well,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.
• Sybiha, the Ukrainian foreign minister, meanwhile, called for the International Atomic Energy Agency to meet over the attacks on the substations supplying the nuclear power plants and address “these unacceptable risks”.
• Sybiha also called for India and China to put pressure on Moscow to stop its “reckless attacks that risk a catastrophic incident”.
• Hungary said it has secured an indefinite waiver from US sanctions on Russian oil and gas imports, as a White House official reiterated that the exemption was for only a period of one year.

Here are the key events from day 1,351 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Thursday, November 6:

Fighting

• The Russian Ministry of Defence said encircled Ukrainian troops in the cities of Pokrovsk and Kupiansk should surrender as they have no chance to save themselves otherwise.
• Russia said its forces were advancing north inside Pokrovsk in a drive to take full control of the Ukrainian city, but the Ukrainian army said its units were battling hard to try to stop the Russians from gaining new ground.
• Ukraine has acknowledged its troops face a difficult situation in the strategic eastern city, once an important transport and logistics hub for the Ukrainian army, which Russia has been trying to capture for more than a year.
• Russia sees Pokrovsk city as the gateway to its capture of the remaining 10 percent, or 5,000 square-kilometres(1,930 square miles), of Ukraine’s eastern industrial Donbas region, one of its key aims in the almost four-year-old war.
• A Ukrainian drone attack caused minor damage to oil pumping stations in two districts of Russia’s Yaroslavl region, Mikhail Yevrayev, the regional governor, said.

Energy

• Ukraine has resumed gas imports from a pipeline that runs across the Balkan peninsula to Greece, to keep its heating and electric systems running through the winter after widespread damage from intensified Russian attacks on Kyiv’s energy infrastructure.
• Data from the Ukrainian gas transit operator showed that Ukraine will receive 1.1 million cubic metres (mcm) of gas from the Transbalkan route on Wednesday, after the import of 0.78 mcm on Tuesday. The route links Ukraine to LNG terminals in Greece, via Moldova, Romania and Bulgaria.
• Poland is working on a deal to import liquefied natural gas from the United States to supply Ukraine and Slovakia, an agreement that would further tighten the European Union’s ties to US energy, the Reuters news agency reports, citing two sources familiar with the negotiations.

Nuclear weapons

• Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his top officials to draft proposals for a possible test of nuclear weapons, something Moscow has not done since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
• Putin’s order – made in response to US President Donald Trump’s announcement last week that Washington would resume nuclear testing – is being seen as a signal that the two countries are rapidly nearing a step that could sharply escalate geopolitical tensions.
• The US notified Russia in advance of its test launch of an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on November 5, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported, citing Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
• Russia-US relations have deteriorated sharply in the past few weeks as Trump, frustrated with a lack of progress towards ending the war in Ukraine, has cancelled a planned summit with Putin and imposed sanctions on Russia for the first time since returning to the White House in January.
• Trump said he “may be working on a plan to denuclearise” with China and Russia, during a speech at the American Business Forum in Miami.

Sanctions

• Bulgaria is drafting legal changes that will allow it to seize control of sanctioned Russian oil firm Lukoil’s Burgas refinery and sell it to a new owner to protect the plant from US sanctions, local media reported.
• Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna called on China to stop its economic support of Russia’s war in Ukraine and urged Beijing to join European and US efforts to pressure President Putin into a ceasefire.
• “China says that they are not part of this military conflict, but I was very clear that China has huge leverage over Russia, every week more and more, because the Russian economy is weak,” Tsahkna told Reuters.

Economy

• Ukraine plans to replace its kopek coins to shake off a lingering symbol of Moscow’s former dominance, Central Bank Governor Andriy Pyshnyi said, adding that he hoped the change could be completed this year.
• Ukraine introduced its hryvnia currency in 1996, five years after it gained independence from the Soviet Union, minting its own coins but retaining the former Soviet name kopek – kopiyka in Ukrainian. The new coins will be known by the historical Ukrainian term “shah”.

Here are the key events from day 1,350 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Wednesday, November 5:

Fighting

• Russian and Ukrainian troops have fought battles in the ruins of Pokrovsk, a transport and logistics hub in eastern Ukraine, with Ukraine’s military reporting fierce fighting under way in a part of the city that was key for Kyiv’s front-line logistics.

  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he visited troops fighting near the eastern city of Dobropillia, where Ukrainian forces are conducting a counteroffensive against Russian troops.

  Russia struck civilian energy and port infrastructure in a massive overnight drone attack on Ukraine’s southern region of Odesa, the region’s governor said in a post on the Telegram messaging app, adding that rescuers extinguished fires and there were no casualties.

• Ukraine has struck an oil refinery in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region east of Moscow, the General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said in a statement. The extent of damage to the Lukoil refinery in the town of Kstovo, which supplies the Russian military, was not immediately known.

• Ukraine’s military also said that its drones had caused “considerable damage” to a petrochemical plant in Bashkortostan in central Russia. Regional authorities reported an attack on the Sterlitamak petrochemical plant, but added that the facility was still operating.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law that allows the use of military reservists to guard oil refineries after Ukrainian drone strikes have led to fuel shortages in some regions of the country.

Weapons

• Putin lauded his country’s development of new weapons, including the Burevestnik cruise missile and Poseidon super torpedo, describing them as faster and more effective, with the Burevestnik said to be capable of reaching more than three times the speed of sound.
• Putin also said that Russia was proceeding with the mass production of its Oreshnik missile, which Moscow said was first used to attack Ukraine in November 2024.

• Zelenskyy again urged the United States to remain open to supplying Kyiv with long-range weapons for its war effort against Russia’s invasion, while also calling for more sanctions on Moscow’s gas and nuclear sectors.

• Norwegian munitions maker Nammo has signed a letter of intent with a Ukrainian industrial partner to produce, develop and sell ammunition in Ukraine, Norway’s government said.

Sanctions

• Kazakhstan’s state-owned oil and gas company Kazmunaygaz and the sanctioned Russian oil and gas firm Lukoil are continuing work on joint projects in accordance with contractual obligations, despite Western sanctions, Russia’s Interfax agency reported.

• Japan’s investment firm Marubeni plans to follow the guidance of the Japanese government regarding its involvement in Russia’s Sakhalin-1 oil project after the US government sanctioned the project’s key shareholder, Rosneft, Marubeni’s CEO, Masayuki Omoto, told a briefing in Tokyo.

• Turkish fuel supplier Guzel Enerji has announced that it will raise the price of diesel after Western sanctions on Russian oil companies led to issues with supply and increased insurance and financing costs, according to a document seen by Reuters news agency.

Politics and diplomacy

• Zelenskyy called on Hungarian leader Viktor Orban to stop blocking Kyiv’s bid to join the European Union.
• The European Commission said that the EU could welcome new member countries as early as 2030, as it praised Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova for their progress on reforms needed to join the bloc.
• The EU may need to come up with a bridging solution to keep Ukraine financed in early 2026 if a deal on an EU loan, based on frozen Russian assets held in EU accounts, continues to be delayed, European Commissioner for Economy and Productivity Valdis Dombrovskis said.

• Germany plans to increase its financial aid to Ukraine by about 3 billion euros ($3.5bn) next year, a spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of Finance said. Germany has already contributed about 40 billion euros ($46bn) since the full-scale Russian invasion began in 2022.

• Maxim Oreshkin, a deputy chief of staff in Russia’s presidential administration, will lead Moscow’s delegation to the G20 summit in South Africa later this month, according to a decree signed by Putin. The Kremlin earlier said that Putin, who is facing an International Criminal Court warrant for arrest, would not travel to the summit in Johannesburg on November 22-23.

• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is constantly working as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia over Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, including in Zaporizhzhia, IAEA chief Rafael Mariano Grossi said.

Here are the key events from day 1,349 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Tuesday, November 4:

Fighting

• Russia said on Monday that its troops had advanced in the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, an important transport and logistics hub that they have been trying to capture for more than a year, but Ukraine said its forces were holding on.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters that Pokrovsk remained under severe pressure, though Russian troops had made no gains in the past day.
• He also said that Russia was massing troops by the nearby town of Dobropillia, where Kyiv’s forces advanced earlier this year in a successful counteroffensive. He described the situation in Dobropillia as complicated.
• Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Response Corps said that Ukrainian forces had thwarted a Russian attempt to cut off a supply route to Pokrovsk from Rodynske, to the north.
• Elsewhere, Russia said its troops had also attacked Ukrainian forces near another eastern city, Kupiansk, and dislodged them from four fortified positions in the industrial zone on the left bank of the Oskol River. Zelenskyy said that up to 60 Russian soldiers remained in Kupiansk, and that Ukrainian forces were trying to clear them.
• The Russian Ministry of Defence said its forces had carried out heavy overnight strikes on a Ukrainian military airfield, a military equipment repair base and military-industrial facilities, as well as gas infrastructure facilities that supported them.
• Ukraine’s military said it hit an oil refinery in Russia’s Saratov region, adding that a successful strike and resulting fire had been recorded on one of the refining facilities.
• Ukraine also said that it had hit Russian military logistical facilities in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian region of Luhansk.

Weapons

• Zelenskyy announced that Kyiv will set up offices for arms exports and joint weapons production in Berlin and Copenhagen this year.

• Zelenskyy added that Ukraine plans to launch mass production of its domestically produced missiles – the Flamingo and Ruta – by the end of this year.
• He also said that a Ukrainian delegation would visit Washington, DC, next week for further talks on a US-Ukraine drone deal, which Kyiv hopes will bolster ties with the administration of US President Donald Trump.

Politics and diplomacy

• The European Commission (EC) said in a draft text that Ukraine is showing “remarkable commitment” to joining the European Union, but must reverse recent negative trends in the fight against corruption and accelerate rule of law reforms, according to the Reuters news agency.
• The agency reported that the EC also said that Kyiv needed to make more progress on judicial independence, fighting organised crime and respecting civil society.
• Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin departed for a two-day visit to China, which the Kremlin said is significant and includes planned talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Economy

• Zelenskyy said Ukraine still needs to raise $750m to secure gas imports for the upcoming winter. The government wants to increase natural gas imports by about 30 percent after Russia sharply intensified its attacks on Ukraine’s energy sector in recent weeks, focusing on gas facilities.

Here are the key events from day 1,348 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Monday, November 3, 2025:

Fighting

• Russia fired a wave of drones and missiles at Ukraine overnight on Sunday, killing at least 15 people, including two children, the Kyiv Independent reported.
• The attacks cut electricity to nearly 60,000 residents in the southern front-line region of Zaporizhia, Ukrainian authorities said.
• Ukrainian forces launched a drone attack on one of Russia’s main Black Sea oil ports, Tuapse, causing a fire and damaging at least two foreign vessels there, according to local officials.
• The overnight attack on Sunday forced the temporary closure of dozens of Russian airports, chiefly in the country’s south and west, for safety reasons, Russia’s aviation watchdog Rosaviatsiya said on Telegram.

Weapons

• United States President Donald Trump said that he is not considering a deal that would allow Ukraine to obtain the long-range Tomahawk missiles for use against Russia.

Sanctions

• Turkiye’s largest oil refineries are buying more non-Russian oil in response to the latest Western sanctions on Russia, two people with direct knowledge of the matter and several industry sources told the Reuters news agency. Turkiye is a major buyer of Russian crude, along with China and India.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the continuing deadly Russian attacks on his country proved that Moscow was aiming to “inflict harm” on civilians, and announced that Kyiv had beefed up its air defences in response.
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “painstaking work” on the details of a possible agreement is needed to resolve the war in Ukraine, and not a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The battle over Ukraine’s Pokrovsk rages as both Russia and Ukraine continue to hit each other’s energy infrastructure.

Here is how things stand on Sunday, November 2, 2025:

Fighting

• At least four civilians have been killed and 51 injured across Ukraine by Russian attacks, according to local officials.
• A strike blamed on Russia hit a shop in the Samariivskyi district of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, killing two and injuring multiple people, regional military chief Vladyslav Haivanenko said.
• The Ukrainian military has said Russian forces launched four missiles and dropped 139 guided bombs over the past day, as well as thousands of shells and drones.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its air defences intercepted 164 Ukrainian drones, including 39 over the Black Sea and 26 over Crimea, overnight.
• Fighting continues to intensify near the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, with the Russian army saying its forces destroyed Ukrainian military formations near the railway station.
• Oleksandr Syrskii, Ukraine’s top military commander, said Ukrainian troops were facing a “multi-thousand enemy” force in Pokrovsk, but rejected Russian claims that they were surrounded or blocked.
• Ukraine confirmed that its special forces had been deployed to protect key supply lines in Pokrovsk, while Russia claimed Ukrainian troops were surrendering and some of the special forces were killed while landing in a helicopter.
• Ukraine’s military intelligence announced a strike on the Koltsevoy fuel pipeline near Moscow, claiming all three lines were destroyed.
• A drone attack by Ukraine reportedly hit an oil terminal pier and a tanker in Tuapse town, located on the northeast shore of the Black Sea, setting fire to port infrastructure.

Politics

• Ukraine condemned Russia’s attacks on key energy infrastructure. Its Foreign Ministry accused Moscow of carrying out strikes on a power substation feeding nuclear power plants in “nuclear terrorism”.
• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that its inspectors visited a substation critical to nuclear safety and security in Ukraine, and reported damage “as a result of recent military activities”.
• In a statement on Friday, G7 energy ministers condemned Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, saying they are affecting civilians.
• Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed on Friday that his foreign intelligence service has identified 339 Ukrainian children who have been allegedly abducted by Russia.

Regional security

• Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius told the Reuters news agency he is confident that the country’s governing coalition can agree on a new model of military service for implementation next year as planned.
• An unidentified drone was spotted over the Kleine Brogel Air Base in Belgium on Saturday, the second such sighting over the previous 24 hours.