A summit is set to be held next weekend in Saudi Arabia, where representatives from 30 countries were invited to discuss peace ideas as Europe and Washington try to bolster support for Kyiv, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
Ukraine’s military did not specify where the barrage of attacks occurred, but Russia has in recent days targeted populated areas in southern Ukraine as Kyiv ramps up its counteroffensive. “The threat of missile and airstrikes remains high across Ukraine,” the military warned.
The summit in Saudi Arabia is expected to have representatives from Ukraine, Britain, South Africa and the European Union in attendance, but Russia will not be joining them, the Journal reported. Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week, regarding another peace initiative, that Russia “cannot cease fire when we are under attack,” referencing the Ukrainian counteroffensive, which is seeking to take back territory illegally occupied by Russia since its invasion last year.
Ukraine will be able to meet heating needs this winter, the country’s energy minister said. Speaking in a televised interview, German Galushchenko said Ukraine is using new ways to add power to its grid but did not specify how, according to Reuters. Russian attacks crippled Ukraine’s power grid last winter.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law moving the date for Christmas from Jan. 7 to Dec. 25, as part of an effort to “renounce Russian heritage.” The government said that Christmas is a Christian holiday, integral to Ukraine, and that observing the Julian calendar, which celebrates Christmas on Jan. 7, had long been imposed on the Ukrainian people.
Russia said it thwarted an alleged Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow early Sunday. One drone was struck down in the air over Odintsovo, southwest of the capital, and two more that were disabled electronically crashed within Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a Telegram post.
More than 100 Wagner mercenaries in Belarus have moved close to the border with Poland, said Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. The mercenaries were near the Suwalki Gap, Morawiecki said Saturday, referencing a strategic corridor bridging the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and Belarus. “Now the situation becomes even more dangerous,” Morawiecki said in comments reported by Polish public broadcaster TVP.
Ukrainian troops have been using North Korean artillery seized from a ship by a “friendly” country, soldiers told the Financial Times, which was shown the rockets. The munitions are not reliable and “do crazy things sometimes,” a soldier told the publication. Ukraine’s use of artillery from North Korea — which has aligned itself with Russia — shows that the country is using all of the resources available to it, as it warns the West that it is in dire need of more ammunition to be successful in its counteroffensive.
The International Olympic Committee invited Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan to compete at next year’s Paris Olympics after she was disqualified from the Fencing World Championships in Milan for refusing a mandatory handshake with Russian opponent Anna Smirnova. “As a fellow fencer, it is impossible for me to imagine how you feel at this moment,” the president of the IOC wrote in a letter, which Kharlan shared on Instagram.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused Russia’s defense minister of visiting North Korea to secure weapons. “I strongly doubt he’s there on holiday,” Blinken told reporters, according to Agence France-Presse. “We’re seeing Russia desperately looking for support, for weapons, wherever it can find them,” Blinken was quoted as saying on a trip to Australia that ended Saturday. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Pyongyang this week as the city marked the 70th anniversary of the Korean War armistice.
In repeat bombings of Odessa, Putin deepens economic war on Ukraine: Since Russia terminated the U.N.-brokered grain deal that allowed Ukrainian exports from the Black Sea, Russia has intensified attacks on Odessa, one of Ukraine’s major port regions, John Hudson and Anastacia Galouchka report.
As a result of the strikes, “Odessa’s grain industry suffered tens of millions of dollars in damage,” they write. “The attacks destroyed at least 60,000 tons of grain, enough to feed more than 270,000 people for a year, according to the U.N. World Food Program.”