Russia-Ukraine war live: Russia to hold presidential election in annexed Ukrainian regions; new Russian offensive on Avdiivka | Ukraine

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Russia to hold presidential election in four annexed Ukrainian regions

Russia will hold its presidential election in four annexed regions of Ukraine, Interfax news agency quoted the country’s central election commission as saying.

Russia claimed last year to have annexed the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, though it does not control all their territory.

Vladimir Putin confirmed last Friday that he will run again for president in the election due in March 2024.

Key events

Vladimir Putin has travelled to a shipyard to attend the commissioning of new nuclear submarines, the Associated Press reports.

The Russian president’s trip to the Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk, in Russia’s northwestern Archangelsk region, comes three days after he declared his intention to seek another six-year term.

Monday’s visit to Sevmash involved Putin raising the navy’s flag on the newly built Emperor Alexander III and the Krasnoyarsk nuclear submarines.

The Emperor Alexander III is the seventh Borei-class atomic-powered submarine to enter service. Each of them is armed with 16 nuclear-tipped Bulava intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Putin reportedly announced that three more such submarines are under construction. They are part of Russia’s nuclear triad, which also includes land-based nuclear missiles and nuclear-armed strategic bombers.

Vladimir Putin visits the newest frigate "Admiral of the fleet Kasatonov" during a flag-raising ceremony for newly built nuclear submarines at the Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk.
Vladimir Putin visits the newest frigate “Admiral of the fleet Kasatonov” during a flag-raising ceremony for newly built nuclear submarines at the Sevmash shipyard in Severodvinsk. Photograph: AP

New Amnesty International research has revealed how the war in Ukraine has affected the education of those living under Russian occupation.

Amnesty Ukraine wrote on X:

In the words of a regional education official, teachers, students and parents turned into “partisans digging holes in their gardens to hide laptops and mobile phones or hiding in the attics and old sheds to catch the mobile signal”.

A teacher from the occupied Berdiansk community in Zaporizhzhia region told Amnesty how the children are now forced to learn and sing the Russian national anthem. Those refusing are threatened with being taken away from their parents for “re-education in Russian orphanages”.

At the same school, a notice, seen by our researchers, was distributed to all students which said: “Look around you. You can see that Ukraine has destroyed Kharkiv, Mariupol and other cities. If you do not want Ukraine to kill you, tell us everything you see and know about it.”

You can read the research in full here.

Ukraine may need to cede land to Russia in order to end the Russian invasion there, the Republican US senator JD Vance said on Sunday.

The comments underscore how a bloc of GOP lawmakers are staunchly opposed to extending US support for Ukraine nearly two years on from when the world rallied around it after Russia’s invasion of its borders.

“What’s in America’s best interest is to accept Ukraine is going to have to cede some territory to the Russians and we need to bring this war to a close,” Vance, of Ohio, said on CNN’s State of the Union.

“The idea that Ukraine was going to throw Russia back to the 1991 border was preposterous – nobody actually believed it.”

You can read the full story by my colleague, Sam Levine, here:

EU member states have added six people and five entities to their Iran sanctions list, regarding their support for Russia in the war against Ukraine.

Those being sanctioned include the company Shakad Sanat Asmari, its chief executive, deputy chief executive and chief scientist, and companies involved in the manufacturing of drones, Reuters reports.

Russian president Vladimir Putin attended a televised flag-raising ceremony on Monday for two nuclear-powered submarines that he said would start patrols in the Pacific, Reuters reports.

Putin travelled to the northern city of Severodvinsk to inaugurate the vessels, the Krasnoyarsk and Emperor Alexander the Third.

“Soon the Alexander the Third and Krasnoyarsk will start keeping watch in the Pacific Ocean,” Putin said.

Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, met his Latvian counterpart, Krišjānis Kariņš, on Monday where, according to Kuleba, the pair “agreed that opening accession talks with Ukraine serves the best interests of the EU”.

I met with @KrisjanisKarins to thank Latvia for its solidarity and unwavering support for Ukraine.

We both agreed that opening accession talks with Ukraine serves the best interests of the EU.

We also focused on Ukraine’s military needs, including ammunition and FPV-drones. pic.twitter.com/Uf86ovmHFp

— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) December 11, 2023

Summary of the day so far…

  • Russia will hold its presidential election in four annexed regions of Ukraine, Interfax news agency quoted the country’s central election commission as saying.

  • Russian forces have unleashed a major offensive on Avdiivka, with 610 artillery shellings reported near the eastern Ukrainian town over the past day, according to the Ukrainian military.

  • Britain has said it delivered two mine-hunting ships to Ukraine. The mine hunters, originally HMS Grimsby and HMS Shoreham, were renamed Chernihiv and Cherkasy in Glasgow in June, and will help Ukraine to maintain a critical route for merchant shipping travelling across the Black Sea.

  • Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has said that it had cracked a network of Ukrainian agents in Crimea who were involved in attempts to assassinate pro-Russian figures, Reuters reported. The FSB said that, overall, it had prevented 18 “terrorist attacks” this year in Crimea.

  • Officials have said Russia attacked Kyiv with eight long-range ballistic missiles before dawn on Monday. Four people were reportedly injured by debris. The strike – at about 4am – marked the first major attack on the Ukrainian capital in recent months using ballistic missiles.

Russia to hold presidential election in four annexed Ukrainian regions

Russia will hold its presidential election in four annexed regions of Ukraine, Interfax news agency quoted the country’s central election commission as saying.

Russia claimed last year to have annexed the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, though it does not control all their territory.

Vladimir Putin confirmed last Friday that he will run again for president in the election due in March 2024.

A new decree comes into force today giving some Russians five days to hand over their passports.

Sky News reports:

The Russian decree states authorities can impose a travel ban on conscripts, employees of the Federal Security Service (FSB), convicts, or people who have access to state secrets or “information of special importance,” among others.

Once notified, people have five days to surrender their documents.

The returned passport will be stored by the authorities that issued it, such as the interior ministry or the foreign ministry authorities.

Ukraine downed eight Russian missiles targeting the capital, Kyiv, on Monday and another 18 attack drones over the rest of the country, AFP cited the air force as saying.

Officials in Kyiv said air defences had downed the missiles at about 4am local time but falling debris over the Darnytskyi district injured four people (see earlier post at 08.26).

“Medics provided them with help at the scene,” said the Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, on social media.

“Also, a missile fragment was found on the territory of a warehouse in Darnytskyi district. There was no fire or damage to the building.”

The EU’s foreign policy chief has urged the bloc to ramp up its backing for Ukraine, AFP reports.

“I hope that European unity will not be broken, because this isn’t the moment to weaken our support to Ukraine,” Josep Borrell said ahead of a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers.

The EU’s 27 leaders will hold a crunch meeting on Thursday at which Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, is threatening to block billions in aid and delay EU membership talks for Kyiv.

Finland’s foreign minister, Elina Valtonen, called Hungary’s position “very, very deplorable”.

“It is crucial that we keep on aiding Ukraine for as long as it’s needed, and it’s not only for the cause of Ukraine, but also for our own cause,” she said.

Some European diplomats think Orbán is stalling support for Ukraine to pressure Brussels to release billions of euros of EU support to Budapest frozen over a rule-of-law dispute.

Slovak truckers will restart a partial blockade of the country’s sole freight road crossing with Ukraine at 3pm on Monday, a hauliers’ association has said.

Slovak and Polish truckers have been demanding restrictions on access by Ukrainian trucking firms to the EU that were removed after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.

“Entry to Slovakia will be blocked for truck traffic. Personal traffic will not be restrained in any way,” the UNAS trucking association said.

The blockade will be at the Vysne Nemecke/Uzhhorod crossing, it said, according to Reuters.

In Poland, truckers have been blocking crossings since 6 November. Hungarian truckers also planned to start a protest on a Hungary-Ukraine border crossing on Monday.

The protesters want to end Ukrainian truckers’ permit-free access to the EU, saying Ukrainian drivers are undercutting their prices.





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