Ukraine war latest: Putin ‘not Trump’s friend’, says Ukrainian MP; Kyiv claims another record day for Russian losses

A Russian court sentenced a Moscow paediatrician to five and a half years in a penal colony today, after the mother of one of her patients publicly denounced her over comments about Russian soldiers in Ukraine.

Prosecutors had last week asked for a six-year sentence for Nadezhda Buyanova for spreading “fakes” about the Russian army after the mother recorded a video in which she denounced the 68-year-old doctor over the remarks, which Buyanova has denied making.

More than 1,000 people have been criminally prosecuted in Russia for speaking out against the war, according to rights project OVD-Info, and over 20,000 have been detained for protesting.

Buyanova’s case is part of a trend in which more people in Russia are denouncing others for alleged political crimes.

OVD-Info has recorded 21 such criminal prosecutions since the conflict in Ukraine began in February 2022.

Eva Levenberg, a lawyer for the rights group, said a further 175 people had faced lower-level administrative cases for “discrediting” the Russian army as a consequence of people informing on them, and 79 of these had been fined.

The Russian Justice Ministry has been asked to commed on the OVD-Info data and the use of denunciations to support prosecutions, including Buyanova’s.

Her supporters, some wearing T-shirts with her face printed on, packed the courtroom to hear the sentencing.

“I can’t get my head around it,” Buyanova, her grey hair closely cropped, told reporters before the verdict.

As Judge Olga Fedina pronounced her guilty, the courtroom erupted in protest.

Several cried “Shame!”, according to Russian media.

“The sentence is monstrously cruel,” Buyanova’s lawyer, Oscar Cherdzhiev, was quoted as saying by news outlet Mediazona.

The case was prompted by complaint by Anastasia Akinshina, who had taken her seven-year-old son to see Buyanova at her clinic.

The boy’s father, from whom Akinshina was divorced, had been killed fighting for Russia in Ukraine.

Akinshina recorded a video in which she said Buyanova had referred to her child’s father as a “legitimate target of Ukraine”.

The video was posted by Mash, a Telegram channel with over three million subscribers that is close to Russian security services.

Buyanova, who denied making the statement, was placed in pre-trial detention in April.

A group of Russian doctors wrote an open letter in Buyanova’s defence, calling the denunciation a “disgrace”. A petition for her release has garnered over 6,000 signatures. 

Ukraine is battling around 50,000 Russian and North Korean troops in Russia’s Kursk region as Vladimir Putin attempts to recapture the region.

Ukraine’s armed forces commander general Oleksandr Syrskyi said he had travelled to the front in Russia’s Kursk region where a surprise Ukrainian incursion carved out a chunk of land in August that Volodymyr Zelenskyy said could be used as a bargaining chip.

“(Russian forces) are trying to dislodge our troops and advance deep into the territory we control,” he said on Telegram.

Ukraine says Russia has deployed 11,000 North Korean troops
to the Kursk region and that they have already been involved in
clashes.

Moscow neither denies nor confirms their presence.

It is believed by NATO allies that Putin is hoping to recapture the territory before Trump’s inauguration on 20 January, The Telegraph reports.

A British defence intelligence assessment seen by the newspaper also shows that in the coming days Russia is likely to ramp up kamikaze drone attacks on Ukrainian positions.

What happened to Kursk?

In August, around 1,000 Ukrainian troops penetrated several miles into Russia’s Kursk region in a move which caught the Russian military by surprise.

It was Ukraine’s first such deployment into Russian territory since Moscow launched its February 2022 invasion.

By Deborah Haynes, security and defence editor

The two men billed as Donald Trump’s likely picks for secretary of state and national security advisor signal a much harder line on China and Iran under the new administration as well as a shift away from US troops, weapons and cash underpinning European security.

Marco Rubio, the senator of Florida, is widely tipped in US media reports as the president-elect’s choice for his top diplomat, though this is not yet confirmed.

It is also being reported that Michael Walz, a Republican congressman and former special forces soldier, will be Mr Trump’s new top security adviser.

Both men are seen as foreign policy hawks who regard Beijing as the biggest threat to the US and would like to see more US resources redirected from Europe to the Asia-Pacific.

Neither of the men support an open-ended commitment by Washington to provide weapons and money to Ukraine to fight Russia’s war, favouring instead a deal with Vladimir Putin.

Rubio has made clear that he is “not on Russia’s side”.

But he told NBC in September: “Unfortunately the reality of it is that the way the war in Ukraine is going to end is with a negotiated settlement.”

Interestingly – especially if he is confirmed as the next national security adviser – Walz co-wrote an article in the Economist that laid out his view of how this could be done: either by offering to ease sanctions or threatening greater assistance to Kyiv.

“America can use economic leverage, including lifting the pause on exports of liquefied natural gas and cracking down on Russia’s illicit oil sales, to bring Mr Putin to the table,” he wrote in the 2 November piece, co-authored with Matthew Kroenig, a former Pentagon strategist.

“If he refuses to talk, Washington can, as Mr Trump argued, provide more weapons to Ukraine with fewer restrictions on their use. Faced with this pressure, Mr Putin will probably take the opportunity to wind the conflict down.”

Walz, a decorated Green Beret who served multiple tours in Afghanistan, does not want Moscow to be able to declare its actions in Ukraine a victory.

Instead he wrote that requiring Putin to accept a deal whereby Ukraine remains an independent state, closely tied to the West “would be a strategic defeat for the Russian leader and seen as such in Beijing”.

Should he become secretary of state, Rubio would echo Trump’s frustration at the reliance of European NATO allies on the United States to protect them.

The senator, who serves as vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, will take a very hard line on Iran – much more so than Anthony Blinken, the outgoing secretary of state.

Russia’s ties with North Korea, Iran and China “threaten peace” around the world, NATO chief Mark Rutte has said.

In a news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron, the secretary-general said Russia was continuing its “onslaught against Ukraine”, all the while “drawing ever closer to its allies – China, Iran and North Korea”.

“After delivering ammunition and missiles, North Korea has now sent troops to fight and die alongside Russia in its illegal war,” he said.

“In return, Russia provides North Korea with funding and missile technology. This is very concerning.

“These missiles present a direct threat to the US mainland, Europe, the Indo-Pacific region and to the wider Euro Atlantic.”

Mr Rutte said Ukrainians are wounded and killed every day by Shahed drones “provided by Iran”.

“At the same time China backs Russia’s economy and enables its defence industry and amplifies its narrative on the world stage,” he added.

“Russia working together with North Korea, Iran and China not only threatens Europe, it threatens peace and security, yes, here in Europe, but also in the Indo-Pacific and in North America.”

He went on to say the support for Ukraine must continue as “Ukraine prepares to face what could be their harshest winter since 2022”.

Russian attacks on the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih killed a mother and her three children, Ukraine’s justice minister Olga Stefanishyna has said.

Earlier we reported that a woman’s body had been pulled from under the rubble of a residential building hit in Kryvyi Rih and that regional governor Serhiy Lysak had warned her children could still be trapped (see post at 9.46am).

However, Ms Stefanishyna’s statement now confirms they have died.

The attack yesterday morning destroyed a five-storey apartment building.

Sir Keir Starmer is pressing for face-to-face talks with Joe Biden and will urge him to release a $20bn (£15.5bn) aid package for Ukraine next week, The Telegraph reports.

Ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the prime minister is hoping to speak with the outgoing president and attempt to persuade him to step up help to Ukraine.

This includes allowing Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia’s territory with Western-supplied Storm Shadow missiles.

Yesterday, Sir Keir and French President Emmanuel Macron also discussed putting Ukraine in the “strongest possible position going into winter”.

The meeting came amid suggestions that the UK and France could seek to persuade Biden to grant Ukraine permission to use Storm Shadow missiles to strike into Russia before he leaves the White House. 

What are Storm Shadow missiles?

The Storm Shadow was originally developed as a project between the UK and France in the early 1990s.

It was used in Iraq in 2003, while France, Italy and the UK used it in Libya in 2011.

The missiles have also been used to bomb Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pleaded with Western nations for these types of missiles for months – but the requests have been denied, especially by the US.

The missile has a strike capability of nearly 200 miles (300km) – meaning it would potentially allow Ukraine to hit further into Russian territory.

Donald Trump has expressed “interest” in two points of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s so-called “victory plan”, according to a report.

The plan outlines five key points – two of which were laid out with Trump specifically in mind, people involved in drawing it up have told the Financial Times.

One idea would see some US troops stationed across Europe replaced with Ukrainian forces when the war ends. The other offers a Western role in developing Ukraine’s critical natural resources.

Trump was “interested” in the two points, the FT reports.

The plans were presented to the president-elect when Zelenskyy met him in New York in September.

Russia launched a huge barrage of 110 drones at Ukraine overnight and less than half were intercepted, Ukraine’s military has said.

The air force said it shot down 46 of the drones, while 60 were “lost in various regions of Ukraine” and two more left towards Belarus.

Moscow’s forces also used missiles and guided aerial bombs during the attack, it said.

Oleh Syniehubov, governor of the northeastern Kharkiv region, said a late night attack in Kharkiv city yesterday injured three people and damaged 20 residential buildings.

Debris fell in a central area of the Kyiv region, damaging 10 private homes, while there were also blasts in the central region of Cherkasy, according to officials.

Ukraine claims Russia has lost a record number of troops for the second day in a row.

According to the latest update from the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces, Moscow lost 1,950 men yesterday – surpassing the previous day’s record of 1,770.

Before that, the last record loss of 1,740 had been reported in May.

The figures do not distinguish between killed or wounded troops, though the overall consensus is that it includes dead, wounded, missing, and captured soldiers.

The Kremlin does not announce the number of dead and injured.