Ukraine war briefing: 10% away from peace, Zelenskyy tells Ukrainians

SOURCE:The Guardian UK|BY:Warren Murray and agencies

US intelligence officials persuade Donald Trump that Ukrainians did not target Putin with drones – reports. What we know on day 1,408 Ukraine was “10%” away from a peace deal, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday, and his country wanted an end to the war but not at “any cost”. The Ukrainian president, in his New Year’s Eve address, said any agreement needed strong security guarantees. “The peace agreement is 90% ready, 10% remains. And that is far more than just numbers.” As the Russian ruler, Vladimir Putin, pushes for full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region as part of any deal, Zelenskyy said he did not believe Russia would stop there. “Pull out from the Donbas, and it will all be over. That is how deception sounds when translated from Russian – into Ukrainian, into English, into German, into French, and, in fact, into any language in the world.” Zelenskyy said he would not sign a “weak” peace agreement that would only prolong the war. “What does Ukraine want? Peace? Yes. At any cost? No. We want an end to the war but not the end of Ukraine … Are we tired? Very. Does this mean we are ready to surrender? Anyone who thinks so is deeply mistaken.” European leaders and allies meeting in Paris on 6 January will make firm commitments towards protecting Ukraine after any peace deal with Russia is brokered, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Wednesday during his New Year Eve’s speech. Ukrainian long-range drones struck the Temp oil depot in the Russian city of Rybinsk, sparking a large fire, an official from Kyiv’s SBU domestic security service said on Wednesday. In Ukraine, a Russian drone attack hit apartment buildings and the power grid in Odesa, injuring six people, including children. Officials said Wednesday that four apartment buildings were damaged and the power company DTEK reported significant damage to two energy facilities. US and European officials agree that Ukraine did not target Putin and his house with drones. Donald Trump on Monday appeared to give the Russian claim credence, but on Wednesday the US president shared a New York Post editorial accusing Russia of blocking peace. A source familiar with the issue said on condition of anonymity that Trump had reposted the editorial after being briefed by the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, on the drone attack allegations. US national security officials including the CIA determined that the attack did not happen, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday. On Wednesday, as it tried to shore up its claims, Russia’s defence ministry released video including a Russian serviceman standing next to fragments of a device that he said was a downed Ukrainian Chaklun-V drone carrying a 6kg explosive device that had not detonated. “This is laughable,” said Heorhii Tykhyi from Ukraine’s foreign ministry, “both the fact that it took them two days to produce this, and the fact that the things they try to present as evidence basically shows that they are not serious even about fabricating the story. We are absolutely confident that no such attack took place.” Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat, called Russia’s claims “a deliberate distraction … No one should accept unfounded claims from the aggressor who has indiscriminately targeted Ukraine’s infrastructure and civilians since the start of the war.” Reuters said that a Ukrainian briefing paper noted that in the hours after the alleged attack, various Russian officials made extremely similar and likely coordinated comments in public. Residents of a town near Putin’s Novgorod residence heard no sounds of air defences on the night of the alleged attack. Kim Jong-un hailed North Korean troops fighting in an “alien land” in a new year message to soldiers, state media reported on Thursday. Without mentioning the Ukraine war, the dictator addressed personnel in what state-run KCNA described as “overseas operations units”. North Korea has sent thousands of troops to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to South Korean and western intelligence agencies, with at least 600 killed and thousands more injured – all having fought under instructions to kill themselves rather than be taken prisoner. The US has granted the majority Russian-owned Serbian oil company NIS a reprieve until 23 January from sanctions targeting Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, a Serbian minister said on Wednesday. Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS) was forced in early December to shut down Serbia’s sole oil refinery, which supplied about 80% of Serbia’s fuel needs. Washington imposed sanctions on NIS demanding the complete exit of Russian shareholders and preventing the refinery from receiving supplies. But talks over its sale have dragged on. Continue reading...

US intelligence officials persuade Donald Trump that Ukrainians did not target Putin with drones – reports. What we know on day 1,408

Ukraine was “10%” away from a peace deal, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday, and his country wanted an end to the war but not at “any cost”. The Ukrainian president, in his New Year’s Eve address, said any agreement needed strong security guarantees. “The peace agreement is 90% ready, 10% remains. And that is far more than just numbers.”

As the Russian ruler, Vladimir Putin, pushes for full control of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region as part of any deal, Zelenskyy said he did not believe Russia would stop there. “Pull out from the Donbas, and it will all be over. That is how deception sounds when translated from Russian – into Ukrainian, into English, into German, into French, and, in fact, into any language in the world.”

Zelenskyy said he would not sign a “weak” peace agreement that would only prolong the war. “What does Ukraine want? Peace? Yes. At any cost? No. We want an end to the war but not the end of Ukraine … Are we tired? Very. Does this mean we are ready to surrender? Anyone who thinks so is deeply mistaken.”

European leaders and allies meeting in Paris on 6 January will make firm commitments towards protecting Ukraine after any peace deal with Russia is brokered, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Wednesday during his New Year Eve’s speech.

Ukrainian long-range drones struck the Temp oil depot in the Russian city of Rybinsk, sparking a large fire, an official from Kyiv’s SBU domestic security service said on Wednesday. In Ukraine, a Russian drone attack hit apartment buildings and the power grid in Odesa, injuring six people, including children. Officials said Wednesday that four apartment buildings were damaged and the power company DTEK reported significant damage to two energy facilities.

US and European officials agree that Ukraine did not target Putin and his house with drones. Donald Trump on Monday appeared to give the Russian claim credence, but on Wednesday the US president shared a New York Post editorial accusing Russia of blocking peace. A source familiar with the issue said on condition of anonymity that Trump had reposted the editorial after being briefed by the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, on the drone attack allegations. US national security officials including the CIA determined that the attack did not happen, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, as it tried to shore up its claims, Russia’s defence ministry released video including a Russian serviceman standing next to fragments of a device that he said was a downed Ukrainian Chaklun-V drone carrying a 6kg explosive device that had not detonated. “This is laughable,” said Heorhii Tykhyi from Ukraine’s foreign ministry, “both the fact that it took them two days to produce this, and the fact that the things they try to present as evidence basically shows that they are not serious even about fabricating the story. We are absolutely confident that no such attack took place.”

Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat, called Russia’s claims “a deliberate distraction … No one should accept unfounded claims from the aggressor who has indiscriminately targeted Ukraine’s infrastructure and civilians since the start of the war.” Reuters said that a Ukrainian briefing paper noted that in the hours after the alleged attack, various Russian officials made extremely similar and likely coordinated comments in public. Residents of a town near Putin’s Novgorod residence heard no sounds of air defences on the night of the alleged attack.

Kim Jong-un hailed North Korean troops fighting in an “alien land” in a new year message to soldiers, state media reported on Thursday. Without mentioning the Ukraine war, the dictator addressed personnel in what state-run KCNA described as “overseas operations units”. North Korea has sent thousands of troops to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to South Korean and western intelligence agencies, with at least 600 killed and thousands more injured – all having fought under instructions to kill themselves rather than be taken prisoner.

The US has granted the majority Russian-owned Serbian oil company NIS a reprieve until 23 January from sanctions targeting Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, a Serbian minister said on Wednesday. Petroleum Industry of Serbia (NIS) was forced in early December to shut down Serbia’s sole oil refinery, which supplied about 80% of Serbia’s fuel needs. Washington imposed sanctions on NIS demanding the complete exit of Russian shareholders and preventing the refinery from receiving supplies. But talks over its sale have dragged on.

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Ukraine war briefing: 10% away from peace, Zelenskyy tells Ukrainians