Russia-Ukraine war live: Kyiv says ‘sick’ packages sent to its embassies following letter bomb in Madrid | Ukraine

Isobel Koshiw

You can read Isobel Koshiw’s report here for more in-depth reporting regarding the price cap of Russian oil.

“G7 countries and Australia have agreed to cap the price of Russian seaborne oil, with the aim of reducing Moscow’s income and limiting its ability to finance its war in Ukraine.

But critics, including Ukraine, say the cap of $60 a barrel is still higher than the current market price for Russian crude oil and is unlikely to affect the KremlinRussia’s war coffers.

In a statement on the deal, the UK chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, described the country’s support for Ukraine as unwavering and said it would “continue to look for new ways to clamp down on [the Russian president, Vladimir] Putin’s funding streams wherever we can”.

The cap on the price of Russian oil transported by sea is designed to affect the country’s exports worldwide, in addition to the EU-wide embargo on Russian crude oil, which comes into force on 5 December, which the UK is also adopting.

Andrey Kurkov

Andrey Kurkov has written an opinion piece, arguing that Ukrainians enjoying the festive season and a local chess championship is an “act of defiance for our country’s future”.

“While Ukraine lives in fear of the next mass bombing of its energy infrastructure by Russian missiles and Iranian drones, and constantly monitors the actions of troops located in Belarus, there are still small forms of normalcy, small forms of resistance. A blitz chess championship was recently held in Zhytomyr, a city 140km west of Kyiv and a regular target of missile attacks.

“Blitz chess – because slow chess is impossible in today’s Ukraine, where everything has to be done quickly or very quickly. The games were played according to the Swiss system, and with nine rounds in which players have only three minutes a move. If in peacetime a person appreciates every hour of tranquility, during a war we appreciate every minute.”

You can read the full article here:

The Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has said that 17 Ukrainian embassies or diplomatic missions around the world have received letter bombs or packages containing animal parts, including cows eyes, in recent days.

In an interview with CNN, he said: “It started with an explosion at the embassy of Ukraine in Spain,” Kuleba said. “But what followed this explosion was more weird, and I would even say sick.”

A letter bomb at the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid left a staff member with minor injuries on Wednesday. Others have been sent to the Spanish prime minister, the deputy prime minister and the US embassy.

Ukraine’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Oleg Nikolenko, said that embassies in Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Croatia, Italy and Austria are among those to receive the packages.

When asked who he thought was behind the letters, Kuleba told CNN said: “I feel tempted to say, to name Russia straight away, because first of all you have to answer the question, who benefits?

“Maybe this terror response is the Russian answer to the diplomatic horror that we created for Russia on the international arena, and this is how they try to fight back while they are losing the real diplomatic battles one after another.”

Russia has denied any responsibility for the packages in Madrid. On Wednesday, its embassy in Spain said: “Any terrorist threat or act, even more so directed against a diplomatic mission, is totally reprehensible.”

A total of 7,042 explosive items have been “removed and neutralised” from Kherson oblast, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.

Work to rid the area of mines and other traps has been going on since the Russian retreat from the city last month.

Ukrainian emergency workers say they have surveyed almost 700ha of open territory, 60km of railway tracks and 326 households.

Authorities are urging anyone who returns to Kherson or the area around it to be extremely careful.

Last month, the Guardian reported that ridding Kherson of mines could take years.

The UK Ministry of Defence has released an update on Russia’s military efforts in Ukraine.

Russian forces continue to invest a large part of their overall firepower on an approximately 15km-long sector of entrenched frontline around the Donetsk oblast town of Bakhmut, the defence ministry says.

In recent days, Russia has likely made small advances on the southern axis of this assault and is likely to be planning to encircle the town.

Russia has prioritised Bakhmut as its main offensive effort since early August 2022. The capture of the town would have limited operational value although it would potentially allow Russia to threaten the larger urban areas of Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

The statement from the ministry adds that the campaign has been disproportionately costly, relative to these possible gains.

There is a realistic possibility that Bakhmut’s capture has become primarily a symbolic, political objective for Russia.

The G7 and Australia have agreed to cap the price paid for Russian seaborne crude oil at $60 a barrel, hours after EU members overcame internal resistance to reach the same decision earlier in the day.

The EU agreed the price after holdout Poland gave its support, paving the way for formal approval over the weekend.

In a statement, the Group of Seven leading economies and Australia said the price cap would take effect on 5 December or very soon after.

The price cap aims to reduce Russia’s income from selling oil, while preventing a spike in global oil prices after an EU embargo on Russian crude oil takes effect on 5 December.

Poland had pushed in EU negotiations for the cap to be as low as possible in order to squeeze Russian revenues and limit Moscow’s ability to finance its war in Ukraine.

The final deal includes a mechanism to keep the oil price cap at least 5% below the market rate.

US officials said the deal was unprecedented and demonstrated the resolve of the coalition opposing Russia’s war.

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said the price cap would significantly reduce Russia’s revenues.

Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Jonathan Yerushalmy and I’ll be with you for the next while.

The G7, EU and Australia have agreed to cap the price of Russian seaborne crude oil at $60 a barrel, in a move that could result in Russian oil output falling by 500,000 barrels a day by early 2023.

The decision by the Group of Seven nations and Australia followed an earlier announcement from the EU that the bloc had overcome internal resistance to a $60 a barrel price.

The G7 and Australia said in a statement the price cap would take effect on 5 December or very soon thereafter.

More on this shortly. In the meantime, here are the other key recent developments:

• The US president, Joe Biden, said on Thursday that he was prepared to speak to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, if he was looking for a way to end the war but that Putin had not yet indicated that. Putin is open to talks on a possible settlement in Ukraine but the refusal of the United States to recognise annexed territories as Russian is hindering a search for any potential compromise, the Kremlin said.

• Up to 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Russia invaded in February, according to Kyiv’s presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak. At certain points in the war, Ukraine said that between 100 and 200 of its forces were dying a day on the battlefield, making Podolyak’s estimate seem conservative. Speaking to Ukraine’s 24 Kanal, Podolyak said they were official figures from Ukraine’s general staff.

• Three people were killed and seven wounded in Russian shelling of the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson over the past 24 hours, the regional governor said.

• Russian-installed authorities in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region said that they would start evacuating some people with reduced mobility from the Russian-occupied town of Kakhovka, on the east bank of the Dnipro River. The evacuations were set to start on Saturday, they said in a Telegram post on Friday.

• Russian troops in Ukraine are deliberately attacking the country’s museums, libraries and other cultural institutions, according to a report issued by the US and Ukrainian chapters of the international writers’ organisation PEN.

• The Finnish prime minister, Sanna Marin, has called for Europe to build its own defence capabilities in the wake of the war in Ukraine, saying that without US help Europe is not resilient enough.

• The International Atomic Energy Agency hopes to reach an agreement with Russia and Ukraine to create a protection zone at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant by the end of the year, the head of the UN atomic watchdog was quoted as saying. The nuclear plant, Europe’s biggest, provided about a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity before Russia’s invasion, and has been forced to operate on backup generators a number of times, Reuters reported.