RussiaUkraine War At A Glance What We Know On Day 275 Of The Invasion

Much of Ukraine remained without electricity, heat and water two days after a devastating series of Russian missile attacks against the country’s civilian infrastructure. The Kyiv mayor, Vitaly Klitschko, said 60% of households in the city of 3 million had no power, and there were rolling blackouts around the country. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said basic utilities were gradually being restored, but there were problems with water supplies in 15 regions.

Russia risked causing a “nuclear and radioactive catastrophe” by launching attacks in which all Ukraine’s nuclear power plants were disconnected from the power grid for the first time in 40 years, Ukraine’s nuclear energy chief said. Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday that three nuclear power plants on territory held by Ukrainian forces had been switched off after the latest wave of Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities.

All nuclear power stations in the government controlled part of Ukraine are up and running again and connected to the main electricity grid, the country’s energy provider Ukrenergo has said. Its chief executive Volodymyr Kudrytskyi said that if the situation continues, power cuts will be pre-announced rather than in an emergency. The UN’s nuclear watchdog confirmed that Ukraine’s four nuclear power plants have been reconnected to the national power grid after completely losing off-site power earlier this week.

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, said Russian strikes on critical infrastructure had killed at least 77 people since October. Since early October, Russian forces have launched missiles roughly once a week with the aim of destroying the Ukrainian energy grid, crippling the country’s power and heat supply.

Hospital patients are being evacuated from Kherson city because of bombardment by Russian forces, the governor of the region, Yaroslav Yanushevych, said. The recently recaptured city in the south of the country faced heavy shelling last night.

More than 15,000 people have gone missing during the war in Ukraine, an official in the Kyiv office of The Hague-based International Commission on Missing Persons said. The ICMP’s programme director for Europe, Matthew Holliday, said it was unclear how many people had been forcibly transferred, were being held in detention in Russia, were alive and separated from family members, or had died and been buried in makeshift graves.

The EU will intensify efforts to provide Ukraine with support to restore and maintain power and heating, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said. In a statement following a phone call with President Zelenskiy, she said the EU would provide 200 medium-sized transformers and a large autotransformer from Lithuania, a medium-sized autotransformer from Latvia and 40 heavy generators from the EU reserve in Romania.

EU diplomats are meeting this evening to resume talks on whether they can finalise a deal on a price level to cap Russian oil exports, according to a report by Bloomberg. European Union governments remained split over at what level to cap Russian oil prices to curb Moscow’s ability to pay for its war in Ukraine without causing a global oil supply shock, with further talks expected on Friday. Six of the EU’s 27 countries are said to be opposed to the price cap level proposed by the G7, which will come into force on 5 December.

Zelenskiy, has called on Europeans to remain united against Russia’s war and to severely limit the price for Russian oil.

Foreign ministers from the G7 will discuss how to further support Ukraine in ensuring its energy supply during a meeting in Bucharest next week, German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said.

The European Union is pressing ahead with a ninth sanctions package on Russia in response to Moscow’s attack on Ukraine, the European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, said during a visit to Finland. She said the EU would “hit Russia where it hurts to blunt even further its capacity to wage war on Ukraine”.

Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has met with a handpicked cadre of mothers of soldiers fighting in Ukraine for a carefully staged meeting meant to calm public anger over mobilisation. While dozens of ordinary mothers have gone public saying they were snubbed by the Kremlin, Putin sat down with a former government official, the mother of a senior military and police official from Chechnya, and other women active in pro-war NGOs financed by the state.

Zelenskiy said Russia’s new strategy to destroy Ukraine’s infrastructure would not weaken the country’s resolve to liberate all occupied land, describing the conflict, in an interview with the Financial Times, as a “war of strength and resilience” and pushing back against western fears of escalation.

In his address late on Thursday, Zelenskiy said: “Together we endured nine months of full-scale war and Russia has not found a way to break us, and will not find one.” He also accused Russia of incessantly shelling Kherson, the southern Ukrainian city that it abandoned earlier this month. Seven people were killed and 21 wounded in a Russian attack on Thursday, local authorities said.

Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said his country’s parliament would ratify Nato membership for Finland and Sweden early next year. Hungary and Turkey are the only members of the alliance who have not yet cleared the accession.

Hungary will provide €187m ($195m) in financial aid to Ukraine as its contribution to a planned EU support package worth up to €18bn in 2023, according to a government decree.

British foreign minister James Cleverly said the UK would pledge millions of pounds in further support for Kyiv to ensure the country has the practical help it needs through the winter, during a visit to Ukraine. Cleverly is set to meet Zelenskiy and foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba on the trip.

Russia and Ukraine have carried out the latest in a series of prisoner of war exchanges, with both sides handing over 50 people, officials in Kyiv and Moscow confirmed.

Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko provoked ire in Ukraine by suggesting that the end of the war is Ukraine’s responsibility, and that if it does not “stop”, it will end in the “complete destruction” of the country. He said that similar to relations with Germany after the second world war, once the Ukraine war has concluded “we will make it all up”.

Ground battles continue to rage in eastern Ukraine, where Russia is pressing an offensive along a stretch of frontline west of the city of Donetsk, which has been held by its proxies since 2014.

Forbes Ukraine estimates that Russia has spent $82bn – or a quarter of its annual budget – on its war in Ukraine. Forbes reports: “This estimate includes the direct costs that are necessary to support military operations. But it does not include stable defence spending, or losses related to the economy.”

The Russian war effort in Ukraine is characterised by confusion among reservists over eligibility for service and inadequate training and equipment, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence. In its daily update, the MoD said some reservists were having to serve with “serious chronic health conditions” since they were called up during Vladimir Putin’s announcement of a “partial mobilisation”.

The MoD said Russian soldiers are likely to have suffered heavy casualties while digging “ambitious” trench systems near the town of Svatove in the Luhansk oblast while under heavy artillery fire. It added that Russian reservists have been killed in large numbers in frontal assaults into well-defended Ukrainian areas near Bakhmut in the Donetsk region. Both areas are in eastern Ukraine, towards the border with Russia.

The UK believes that the Kremlin is likely to be worried about reservists’ families who will risk arrest by protesting about the conditions their relatives face.

Half of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, is still without power. Energy companies are working to get electricity restored, which will give people power for three hours on an alternating basis. On Wednesday night, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, spoke out against “energy terror” by Russia, as it repeatedly seeks to take out the country’s power infrastructure.

Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg has said there would be “no lasting piece” if Russia wins in Ukraine. He said Nato will continue its support for Ukraine and increase “non-lethal” aid, Reuters reports.

More than 15,000 people have gone missing during the war in Ukraine, an official in the Kyiv office of The Hague-based International Commission on Missing Persons said. The ICMP’s programme director for Europe, Matthew Holliday, said it was unclear how many people had been forcibly transferred, were being held in detention in Russia, were alive and separated from family members, or had died and been buried in makeshift graves.

Germany’s Bundestag is planning to pass a resolution declaring the starvation of millions of Ukrainians under Joseph Stalin a genocide. The resolution, which will be jointly brought to the vote next week by the three governing parties and conservative opposition leaders, aims to serve as a “warning” to Moscow as Ukraine faces a potential hunger crisis this winter.

Two Swedish brothers, one who worked for the country’s security police and armed forces, went on trial in Stockholm today accused of spying for Russian intelligence between 2011 and 2021. Payam Kia, 35, and his brother Peyman Kia, 42, could face life sentences if found guilty.