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Ukraine reiterates it will not negotiate until all Russian troops leave its territory, including Crimea
Isobel Koshiw
Ukraine said its position on negotiations with Russia had not changed and it is not being asked to negotiate by its allies, after reports by the Washington Post that its main ally and backer, the US, had asked Kyiv to signal that it is open to negotiations amid worry among allies in parts of Europe, Latin American, and Africa about a protracted war.
On Monday, Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper said Ukraine’s Nato allies reportedly envisage negotiations beginning after Ukraine has retaken the Kherson region, so that Kyiv will start from a point of strength.
The Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podalyak, told Radio Svoboda, that Ukraine will only negotiate with Russia once Russian troops have left all of Ukraine’s territory, including those it occupied in 2014.
Podalyak said the US treats Ukraine as an equal and there is no coercion. He said Ukraine is winning and therefore to sit down at the negotiating table now would be “nonsense”.
“No one is forcing Ukraine into an unprofitable negotiation process, or rather, into accepting Russia’s ultimatum,” said Podalyak.
Podalyak said Russia has only offered Ukraine ultimatums and Ukraine believes that any truce created by these ultimatums will be temporary. He said Russia will simply use a truce to rearm and modernise its army and then “give the same ultimatum”.
For the US, said Podalyak, it is “extremely beneficial” for Ukraine to win the war firstly because it will signal to other authoritarian leaders that if they attack another country, international law will be upheld, and secondly, because the US and its allies have invested too much to let Russia win.
“If Ukraine does not win the war … then … despite the large and powerful financial, economic, military, and advisory assistance from Nato countries, above all the US, Russia won. You understand what will be proven in that case! That Russia’s military … is much better, Russia really has the ‘second army in the world’ (and) Russia can dictate conditions.”
When asked if the newspaper reports were therefore false, Podalyak asserted that the newspaper may be obtaining their information from pro-Russian politicians, though refrained from rejecting the reports as false altogether.
“All these conversations and publications about the fact that someone is forcing to negotiate, to some position and so on, to something else, this is the information program of the Russian Federation.”
Key events
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, has visited Kyiv today, where among other things she has met Ukraine minister of infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrako.
She has also visited the KyivMlyn flour mill, where she met workers and was accompanied by the US ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink.
Thomas-Greenfield said on Twitter of the visit “Ukraine has long been a breadbasket to the world. And today, I had the chance to visit a facility that stores and processes grain in Kyiv. This site has taken on added importance because Russian forces have attacked so many of Ukraine’s other grain facilities.”
The Russian state-owned RIA Novosti news agency is reporting that Russia’s deputy foreign minister Andrei Rudenko has said that only Ukraine is holding back the prospect of negotiations. RIA quotes him saying:
There are no preconditions on our part, except for the main condition – for Ukraine to show goodwill.
Rudenko highlighted that Ukraine had passed a law forbidding negotiations, and said: “We have always declared our readiness for such negotiations, which were interrupted through no fault of ours.”
Russia began its latest invasion of Ukraine on 24 February this year, having annexed Crimea in 2014. In September, the Russian Federation declared that it had annexed four regions of Ukraine.
Edward Helmore
Another American volunteer has died in combat in Ukraine, a spokesperson for the country’s International Legion confirmed on Monday, bringing the number of US fighters killed in the war against Russia to at least six.
Timothy Griffin, from New York state, had been fighting alongside Ukrainians as part of their counteroffensive on the eastern front when his unit came under attack. The legion’s spokesperson, identified as “Mockingjay” to NBC News, said Griffin was “killed in action”.
“We are in contact with the family and the International Legion, and the armed forces of Ukraine are handling the repatriation process, in coordination with the family, following their wishes and instructions,” the spokesperson said.
Details of Griffin’s Ukrainian volunteer history are scarce, but people with knowledge of his death told NBC he had been fighting in the Kharkiv region.
The US state department said it was “aware of these unconfirmed reports” of an American citizen killed in Ukraine but had no further comment “due to privacy considerations”.
Read more of Edward Helmore’s report here: Another American dies in combat as part of Ukraine’s international legion
A Ukrainian soldier of a artillery unit fires towards Russian positions outside Bakhmut on 8 November.
Peter Beaumont
Russia is stepping up its efforts to build substantial obstacle barriers to slow the advance of Ukrainian forces in key locations it is defending, including around the devastated city of Mariupol, the UK Ministry of Defence has said.
Its intelligence assessment on Tuesday said the Russian military was using two plants in occupied Mariupol to produce large numbers of “dragon’s teeth” – pyramidal concrete blocks designed to slow advancing military vehicles.
The production and placement of the blocks in conjunction with razor wire and mines is the latest indication of how Russia’s struggling forces are increasingly attempting to transition to more defensive warfare, not least on the key southern Kherson front on the east bank of the Dneiper River.
“Dragon’s teeth have likely been installed between Mariupol and Nikolske village; and from northern Mariupol to Staryi Krym village. Mariupol forms part of Russia’s ‘land bridge’ from Russia to Crimea, a key logistics line of communication. Dragon’s teeth have additionally been sent for the preparation of defensive fortifications in occupied Zaporizhzhia and Kherson,” the intelligence assessment said.
“This activity suggests Russia is making a significant effort to prepare defences in depth behind their current frontline, likely to forestall any rapid Ukrainian advances in the event of breakthroughs.”
The Institute for the Study of War thinktank also noted the continuing efforts by Russia to improve its defences in the south. “Geolocated satellite imagery from 29 October, 3 November and 4 November shows Russian defensive lines in Kakhovka, 43 miles (70km) east of Kherson city, Hola Prystan, 5 miles south-west of Kherson city, and Ivanivka, 37 miles south-west of Kherson city – all of which lie on the east bank of the Dneiper River,” it said.
Ukraine doubled down on its tough stance on negotiations with Russia on Tuesday, saying talks could resume only once the Kremlin relinquished all Ukrainian territory, and that Kyiv would fight on even if it was “stabbed in the back” by its allies.
The remarks come days after a US media report that Washington had encouraged Kyiv to signal willingness for talks, and seemed aimed at rebuffing such pressure, at a time when US mid-term elections could test western support for Ukraine.
In an overnight address before he was due to address world leaders at a climate summit, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Russia must be pushed into “genuine” negotiations, Reuters reported.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine had repeatedly proposed such talks, but “we always received insane Russian responses with new terrorist attacks, shelling or blackmail”.
“Once again – restoration of territorial integrity, respect for the UN charter, compensation for all damages caused by the war, punishment of every war criminal and guarantees that this will not happen again. These are completely understandable conditions.”
The US national security adviser has said the White House is keeping open the lines of communication with Moscow to avert the possibility of a nuclear catastrophe.
“We have done so when it’s been necessary to clarify potential misunderstandings and try to reduce risk and reduce the possibility of catastrophe like the potential use of nuclear weapons,” Jake Sullivan said on Monday in a discussion at the Economic Club of New York.
A damaged Ukrainian armoured personnel carrier (APC) with flowers placed on it by local people in memory of the Ukrainian soldiers who died at this checkpoint in the recently recaptured territory of the Kupiansk district, Kharkiv region, north-eastern Ukraine.
Summary of the day so far …
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Ukraine says its position on negotiations with Russia has not changed and it is not being asked to negotiate by its allies, after reports by the Washington Post that its main ally and backer, the US, had asked Kyiv to signal that it is open to negotiations amid concerns among allies in parts of Europe, Latin American, and Africa about a protracted war. The Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podalyak, told Radio Svoboda Ukraine would only negotiate with Russia once Russian troops had left all of Ukraine’s territory, including parts it occupied in 2014. Podalyak said the US treated Ukraine as an equal and there was no coercion. He said Ukraine was winning the war and therefore to sit down at the negotiating table now would be “nonsense”.
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The secretary of Ukraine’s security council said on Tuesday the “main condition” for the resumption of negotiations with Russia would be the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Oleksiy Danilov said Ukraine also needed the “guarantee” of modern air defences, aircraft, tanks and long-range missiles.
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Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has claimed his forces are gradually pushing back Russian troops in some parts of the east and south. “We are gradually moving forward,” he said in his Monday evening address. Zelenskiy added that Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region remained the centre of Ukraine’s bloodiest battles, claiming Russians “die by the hundreds every day”.
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One of the Russian-imposed leaders in the occupied Kherson region of Ukraine, Kirill Stremousov, has claimed on Telegram: “The situation in the morning is unchanged along the entire frontline. We do not see any kind of mass offensive. At this stage, everything is unchanged and without difficult moments for our region.”
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The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, will join next week’s G20 leaders summit “if the situation is possible”, his Indonesian counterpart Joko Widodo, the meeting’s host, said on Tuesday, adding that Putin could attend virtually instead. On Monday, the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Putin would decide by the end of the week if he was attending the summit.
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Zelenskiy will take part in the G20 summit in Bali next week, most likely attending virtually, his spokesperson told the Suspilne public broadcaster on Tuesday. Previously, the Ukrainian position was that Zelenskiy would not appear if Putin did.
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Ukrainians continue to brace for further blackouts after the country’s grid operator told consumers to expect power outages in Kyiv and other regions on Monday and Tuesday as it seeks to reduce the strain on energy infrastructure damaged by Russian missile and drone attacks. Rolling blackouts are becoming increasingly routine after a wave of Russian attacks since 10 October on power facilities damaged 40% of energy infrastructure.
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Mikhail Razvozhayev, the governor of Sevastopol in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, said this morning that air defences in the city shot down a Ukrainian drone.
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Russia and the US are discussing holding talks on strategic nuclear weapons for the first time since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reports, citing at least three sources familiar with the discussions.
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The Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, will seek Turkey’s approval for his country’s bid to join Nato during talks later on Tuesday in Ankara with president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
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A further 30 Ukrainian service personnel who were captured from Ukraine’s Zmiinyi (Snake) Island have been released from Russian captivity, according to the Ukrainian parliament’s commissioner for human rights.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, on Ukraine for now. I am off to cover the US midterm elections live for a couple of hours, but I will be back later on. I am handing you over to Tom Ambrose.
Zelenskiy aide says Ukraine’s president will take part in G20 meeting in Bali
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, will take part in the G20 summit in Bali next week, most likely attending virtually, his spokesperson told the Suspilne public broadcaster on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
Zelenskiy had said last week he would not take part if Vladimir Putin attended the summit in Indonesia, which is scheduled to take place on 15-16 November. Serhiy Nykyforov, the spokesperson, did not say whether Zelenskiy had changed his position.
Putin has not yet confirmed if he will attend.
Dmytro Zhyvytskyi, governor of Sumy region in the north-east of Ukraine, has warned that there will be unscheduled power outages today. He told residents in a message via the Telegram app:
In addition to scheduled hourly power outages, emergency outages are used in the region. Unfortunately, due to the cold weather, electricity consumption is increasing. This leads to an increase in the load on the equipment and a shortage of electricity. There is a threat of accidents, no less difficult than those that happened due to enemy fire. Therefore, additional restrictions are necessary. Please do not forget about the need to consume electricity sparingly.
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