Ukraine will join Nato after war, Stoltenberg says; estimates of 1,000 Russian daily casualties ‘plausible’, says UK – as it happened

From 2d ago 12.17 CET Ukraine will become a Nato member subject to reforms after the war, says secretary general Ukraine will become a member of Nato subject to reforms after the war, the military alliance’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said. Allies agree that Ukraine will become a member of Nato. At [the Nato-Ukraine] meeting, we will agree recommendations for Ukrainians … reforms, as we continue to support Kiev on this path to Nato membership. However, all allies still agree that full membership remains impossible in the midst of war, even while ways to move Ukraine and Nato closer continue, he added. This month Germany and the Netherlands pledged €10bn for Ukraine, he added. Romania added a F16 training centre for Ukrainian pilots. Allies including the US and Finland are sending more air defences and ammunition to protect Ukrainian cities from Russian attacks. Stoltenberg also said that Sweden’s pending Nato membership “will make us all safer” and he called on Turkey and Hungary to complete its ratifications.

2d ago 16.48 CET A Russian court has accused Meta Platforms spokesperson Andy Stone of “promoting terrorism” and ordered his arrest, Russian news agencies have reported. The move follows a crackdown on freedom of speech in Russia following the launch of its war in Ukraine in February 2022, including against social platforms such as Meta that refuse to remove content judged illegal. In October 2022, Russia listed Meta as a “terrorist and extremist” organisation, opening possible criminal investigations and fines for users in the country. “Andy Mark Stone was (ordered) arrested in absentia in a case of supporting terrorism,” court spokeswoman Olga Nazarova said, according to the Tass news agency. Stone, who is not in Russia, was placed on the interior ministry’s list of wanted people yesterday. The reports did not provide any further details regarding the case. Facebook and Instagram have been blocked in Russia since shortly after the start of the Ukraine offensive and are only accessible via VPN. Twitter is also banned, as well as Russian independent media critical of the Kremlin. Before the bans, millions of Russians used applications belonging to Meta, especially Instagram, which remains hugely popular with young Russians, reports AFP. In April 2022, Russia put Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on a blacklist of people banned from entering the country.

2d ago 16.37 CET Hungary’s foreign minister has suggested the EU should study the consequences of its sanctions regime against Russia before working on its latest package. Peter Szijjarto said on Facebook: “While the East-West cooperation, which had long been a solid foundation for European growth, continues to break down, we are already discussing the 12th package of sanctions without any honest analysis of the effects of the 11 packages that have already been adopted.” Sky News reports that he added that “failed decisions in Brussels” caused Europe’s competitiveness to reach a “low level”. Proposals for a fresh round of sanctions against 120 Russian individuals and entities have been presented to EU member states for consideration. Hungary prime minister Viktor Orban recently threatened to bloc aid to Kiev if EU leaders did not review their strategy of support for Kyiv, according to Politico.

2d ago 16.13 CET Mariana Bezuhla, deputy head of the Ukrainian parliament’s national security committee, has called for the sacking of the army’s commander in chief, Valery Zaluzhny, for allegedly not preparing a plan for the war next year. “If the military leadership can’t provide any plan for 2024, and if all their proposals for mobilisation boil down to needing more people without any proposal for changes in the military system, then this leadership should step down,” she said, according to Sky. It comes after a high-profile disagreement between Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and Zaluzhny over whether the state of the war had reached stalemate, following few advances on either side over the course of many months. The latter told the Economist that there would be no “deep and beautiful breakthrough”.

2d ago 15.51 CET Moscow does not have plans to expand its territory any farther in Europe, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has insisted in response to remarks by the US defence secretary last week that Putin would not stop at Ukraine if he was victorious. The US secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin, said last week: “Putin won’t stop if he takes Ukraine. The next thing is he’s rolling across the Baltics … and the next thing you know, you and your comrades will be on the frontlines fighting against a Putin that we should have stopped, or Ukraine could have stopped early on.” In comments covered by Russian news agency Tass, Lavrov said: This comes from a man who holds a high-ranking position and cannot but receive expert views, including of Pentagon specialists who specialise in analysing relations between Moscow and Washington and who cannot but understand what is going on in Ukraine and that Russia has never had and can never have any aggressive or expansionist plans. He said Russia invaded because Ukraine was “exterminating everything Russian” after the use of Russian in schools and other official spaces was brought to an end.

2d ago 15.29 CET Věra Jourová, vice-president for values and transparency at the EU Commission, is part of a delegation in Kyiv this week and has released the following post outlining the priorities for Ukraine in the path towards accession to the bloc. .@EU_Commission recommended 🇺🇦 to work on 4 priorities by March 2024:

Honored to discuss #Ukraine's 🇪🇺 accession w/ @ua_parliament representatives from all political groups. pic.twitter.com/Wq2Rn27dta — Věra Jourová (@VeraJourova) November 27, 2023

2d ago 15.09 CET The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is turning his attention to Ukraine, Nato and the Western Balkans after weeks of intense focus on Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, AP reports. Blinken has spent much of the last month-and-a-half deeply engaged on the Gaza crisis, making two trips to the Middle East. Now, amid signs that a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas due to expire on Monday may be extended, Blinken is departing for Brussels for a Nato foreign ministers meeting. In Brussels, the alliance will reaffirm its support for Ukraine’s defence against Russia’s invasion, explore ways of easing tensions between Kosovo and Serbia and look at preparations for Nato’s 75th anniversary next year. The two-day session on Tuesday and Wednesday will include the first foreign minister-level meeting of the Nato-Ukraine Council, a body created by alliance leaders at their last summit to improve cooperation and coordination and help prepare Kyiv for eventual membership. “Allies will continue to support Ukraine’s self-defence until Russia stops its war of aggression,” said Jim O’Brien, the top US diplomat for Europe.

2d ago 14.46 CET Finland considers the inflow of asylum seekers from Russia a national security issue, the prime minister, Petteri Orpo, has said. Orpo said his country expects more asylum seekers to arrive at its border via Russia and plans to take further measures to stem the flow after closing all but one entry point in recent weeks. “Intelligence information from different sources tells us that there still are people on the move... If this continues, more measures will be announced in the near future,” he told a press conference. Some 900 asylum seekers from nations including Afghanistan, Kenya, Morocco, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen have entered Finland from Russia in November, an increase from less than one per day previously, according to the Finnish Border Guard. Finland blames a change in Russian border protocol for the increase, and calls this a hybrid attack. Moscow has denied the charge.

2d ago 14.32 CET Heavy snow has caused power outages in more than 2,000 towns and villages across 16 regions of Ukraine (see 9:45). Here are some of the latest images from the news wires. Ukrainian emergency workers try to push a car trapped in snow on the Odesa region highway. Photograph: AP Overnight snowfall in the Mykolaiv region blocked roads. Photograph: State emergency service handout/EPA A woman pushes a pram along a snow-covered path in Kyiv. Photograph: Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA

2d ago 13.57 CET Here is a selection of the Russia-Ukraine war photos which have made AFP’s pictures of the year. Russian prisoners of war queue for lunch at a camp for Russian POWs in western Ukraine on September 19, 2023. Photograph: Roman Pilipey/AFP/Getty Images Steeplejacks wave the Ukrainian flag after finishing installing the coat of arms of Ukraine on the shield of the 62 metre Motherland Monument in Kyiv, on August 6, 2023. Photograph: Roman Pilipey/AFP/Getty Images People wave Russian flags as President Vladimir Putin walks on the stage to give a speech during a patriotic concert dedicated to the upcoming Defender of the Fatherland Day at the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow on February 22, 2023. Photograph: Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty Images Ukrainian servicemen walk on the road toward their base near the frontline in the Donetsk region on February 4, 2023. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images

2d ago 13.41 CET There are now almost 300,000 Ukrainian children registered in Polish educational institutions, including about two-thirds who fled the Russian invasion with their families, according to the Ukrinform agency. As of this month, there are more than 286,000 Ukrainian children studying in Poland, BBC Russia cites Ukrinform as saying, from Polish education ministry data. Two-thirds of these children fled Ukraine from February last year, according to the data. However, according to Ukrinform, another 200,000 Ukrainian children may be living in Poland but are not attending Polish educational institutions. More than 3 million Ukrainains now live in Poland, with about half arriving since the Russian invasion.

2d ago 13.20 CET Ancient Scythian artefacts from museums in Russian-occupied Crimea have been returned to Ukraine after a legal dispute over ownership rights during which they spent almost a decade in the Netherlands, a Ukrainian museum has said. More than a thousand artefacts, including a solid gold Scythian helmet and golden neck ornament, were on loan to Amsterdam’s Allard Pierson Museum when Russian troops seized and annexed the peninsula in 2014. Both Ukraine and the museums located on the Moscow-controlled territory claimed ownership rights when the exhibition ended, reports Reuters. “After almost 10 years of court hearings, artifacts from four Crimean museums that were presented at the exhibition ‘Crimea: gold and secrets of the Black Sea’ in Amsterdam have returned to Ukraine. The Allard Pierson Museum handed them over to the National Museum of History of Ukraine,” Ukraine‘s national museum said. It said the collection would be stored in the national museum until the de-occupation of Crimea. The Allard Pierson Museum said the artifacts had been returned to Kyiv on Sunday. Ukrainian customs services reported that a truck carrying “2,694 kg of cultural property” entered the 980 year-old Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery complex, where a further identification process would take place. Scythian gold is already in Ukraine! A truck with 2,694 kg of cultural property entered the territory of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, where Kyiv customs officers will identify the treasures in the Treasury of the National Museum of Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/MZwEChaEZM — Oleksiy Goncharenko (@GoncharenkoUa) November 27, 2023 “This was a special case, in which cultural heritage became a victim of geopolitical developments,” said Els van der Plas, director of the Allard Pierson. “We are pleased that clarity has emerged and that they have now been returned.” In June, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled the items should be returned to Ukraine. Kyiv sees the artefacts as part of its national heritage, while the Moscow-controlled museums said they had to return to the peninsula due to loan terms. A copy of the fourth century B.C. golden ritual quiver, an ancient treasure from a Scythian king’s burial mound, is exhibited in the Museum of Historical Treasures in Kyiv, Ukraine, on 2 September 2022. Fearing Russian troops would storm the city, museum employees dismantled exhibits, carefully packing away artefacts into boxes for evacuation. For now, the museum is just showing copies. Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky/AP

2d ago 13.08 CET The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has said that he would take part in an OSCE meeting in North Macedonia if Bulgaria opened its airspace, and that some western countries had asked for meetings with him. “Apparently Bulgaria has promised Macedonia it will open its air space – if that happens then we will be there. Let’s see,” Lavrov told a conference in Moscow. “There are already several requests for meetings, including from western representatives.” He met the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, at the G20 last year. Lavrov added: “If someone approaches us, we never run away or hide.” Foreign ministers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe are due to meet in Skopje from 30 November to 1 December. Bulgarian airspace is closed to Russian aircraft as part of EU sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

2d ago 12.56 CET Russian forces advanced around Avdiivka over weekend, says US thinktank Russian forces have made confirmed advances north-west and south-east of Avdiivka over the weekend, according to the US-based Institute for the Study of War. Russia continued to intensely attack the eastern town of Avdiivka and the southern village of Robotyne, where fighting has centred in recent weeks, Ukraine said today. “The enemy continues offensive actions near Avdiivka.” It said Moscow’s forces had launched “more than 150” attacks on Ukrainian positions in villages around the town. Yesterday, Ukraine said it had “repelled” two dozen attacks around Avdiivka, AFP reports. Kyiv did not report gains or losses in the area. Moscow controls territory to the north, east and south of Avdiivka, which lies just 10km from the Moscow-held city of Donetsk. In the south, Kyiv said Russian forces had “conducted around 20 attempts to restore lost position near Robotyne of the Zaporizhzhia region, but gained no success”. Ukraine recaptured the tiny village of Robotyne in August, announcing a strategic victory in its counter-offensive. But Russia has attacked Robotyne since, with Ukraine appearing to struggle to hold on.

2d ago 12.44 CET The Nato secretary-general says that some of the most intense fighting of the war has taken place in recent weeks in the east of Ukraine. [It is an] extremely difficult situation along the front line, especially in the east. We see high casualty numbers and some of the most intense fightings that we have seen throughout the whole war has actually taken place over the last weeks and couple of months. At the same time, the frontline has not shifted in any significant way, so I think we need to distinguish between the fact that the frontline is not moving so much and the fact that actually there is very heavy fighting going on. Again we are impressed by the bravery, the competence of the Ukrainian forces, and also their ability to actually strike behind the Russian lines, deep into Russian controlled territory. And of course military achievements can partly be measured in square meters but also on the losses you are able to inflict on your adversary.

2d ago 12.38 CET Stoltenberg says that Ukraine will be free to negotiate whatever peace it wishes to agree with Russia, when and if the time comes for peace talks. It is for Ukraine to decide what are acceptable ways to end this war. Our responsibility is to support Ukraine and to enable them to liberate as much land as possible and to put them in the best possible place, when or if negotiations may start. Wars are by nature unpredictable. We have seen no sign that president Putin is planning for a peace, he is actually planning for more war. So what we do know is that the more military support we provide to Ukraine, the stronger their position will be on the battlefield and the stronger their position will be on a potential negotiating table

2d ago 12.29 CET Some further quotes from the press conference with Stoltenberg. Nato allies are following up and implementing the decisions we made on Ukraine and Nato membership at our summit in Vilnius in July this year. We made three important decisions. First of all we shortened Ukraine’s path to membership from a two-step process to one step process by removing the requirement for a membership action plan for Ukraine, so that step has already been taken. Second, we have established a Nato-Ukraine Council which is an important body where Ukraine and all Nato allies meet around the same table with the same rights, the same obligations, and that’s a body where you can make decisions together, so that moves Ukraine of course significantly closer to Nato by establishing a decision making body. That council will meet for the first time at the foreign ministerial level this week. Thirdly we have agreed a comprehensive, substantial program for ensuring full interoperability between Ukrainian forces and Nato forces. This will of course help them also to come closer to us, that they are more capable of operating together with Nato forces. On top of that, of course, the fact that Nato allies are delivering F-16s, battle tanks, artillery, training; all of that is in a very practical way, helping Ukraine to come closer to Nato because they are more and more capable of operating and working together with Nato soldiers and based on Nato doctrines and and training procedures. It’s too early to say exactly what we will be the decision at the Washington summit. All allies agree that in the midst of war full membership is not possible but of course we will continue to look into to address how we can move Ukraine and Nato even closer together.