17 Ukrainian diplomatic missions receive suspicious packages after letter bomb
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.”
Eighteen Ukrainian diplomatic missions in 12 countries have received bloody packages, including animal parts, in what Ukraine has described as a “campaign of terror and intimidation”. Oleg Nikolenko, a spokesperson from Ukraine’s foreign ministry, said the packages were simultaneously sent from one European country, which he could not disclose while the investigation was ongoing.
Ukrainian authorities in Kherson have urged people on the east of the Dnieper River to evacuate. The governor, Yaroslav Yanushevych, said that authorities would help people to evacuate during the daytime of Saturday to Monday, according to the Kyiv Independent.
The west should consider how to address Russia’s need for security guarantees if Vladimir Putin agrees to negotiations about ending the war in Ukraine, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said. He said Europe needed to address Putin’s fear that “NATO comes right up to its doors”, and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia, as Europe prepares its future security architecture, Reuters reports.
More than 7,000 explosives have been removed from around Kherson, the Ukrainian state emergency service said.
The Ukrainian army has recaptured 13 settlements in the Luhansk region, the eastern-most oblast in the country, according to the head of the regional administration, Serhiy Haidai. He said that artillery was still being fired at the villages by Russian forces. Doctors are due to visit next week and firewood is being organised for residents, Haidai posted on Telegram.
Russian forces are concentrating most of their strength on taking the town of Bakhmut in Donetsk, according to the British ministry of defence.
The price cap on Russian seaborne oil has been adopted by the G7 and Australia, after it was agreed by EU countries. Poland had held out on a lower amount than the $60 a barrel that was agreed. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia would “not accept this ceiling”.
Another 510 Russian troops were killed on Friday according to Ukraine, bringing the total killed since the invasion in February to 90,600. A tank and eight drones were also lost by the Russians.
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.
One person was killed and six were injured in Russian attacks on Ukraine on Friday. Zelenskiy aide Kyrylo Tymoshenko said one civilian was killed and four injured in the Donetsk region, one was injured in Kharkiv and another in Kherson.
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 Dnieper River. The evacuations were 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 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.
Ukraine has detained eight people over the theft of a mural painted by the elusive British street artist Banksy from a wall in the Kyiv suburbs, authorities said. The stencil image of a person in a nightgown and gas mask holding a fire extinguisher next to the charred remains of a window in the town of Hostomel went missing on Friday, they said.
Around mid-October, almost a month after Vladimir Putin called for the partial mobilisation of Russian citizens to fight the war in Ukraine, there was a knock at the door of the Moscow flat that is registered as my official residence in the country.
The family friends who reside there opened the door and were greeted by two officers from the Russian military administration, who asked them whether I was at home. They said I had not been home in more than 20 years.
The mobilisation was declared by Putin on the 21 September, after half a year of strategic failures, senseless deaths and humanitarian atrocities at the hands of the Russian army in Ukraine. There are an estimated 356,520 Russian casualties to date, close to 40% of the entire Russian armed forces.
The west should consider how to address Russia’s need for security guarantees if Vladimir Putin agrees to negotiations about ending the war in Ukraine, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said in remarks broadcast on Saturday.
Macron said Europe needed to address Putin’s fear that “NATO comes right up to its doors” and the deployment of weapons that could threaten Russia as Europe prepares its future security architecture, Reuters reports.
Russia has rejected a price cap on its oil after the Group of Seven nations plus Australia joined the EU in adopting a $60-a-barrel price cap on seaborne Russian oil.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Moscow “will not accept this cap”, according to the RIA news agency.
He said Russia would conduct a rapid analysis of the agreement and then respond.
Moscow’s permanent representative to international organisations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, warned the cap’s European backers would regret their decision.
“From this year, Europe will live without Russian oil,” Ulyanov tweeted.
“Moscow has already made it clear that it will not supply oil to those countries that support anti-market price caps. Wait, very soon the EU will accuse Russia of using oil as a weapon.”
Moldova’s deputy prime minister, Andrei Spinu, has announced an energy deal he said would reduce the risk of large-scale electricity outages.
Spinu said state utilities firm Energocom would buy enough electricity from Cuciurgan, the country’s largest power station, to cover all of Moldova’s needs for December when combined with existing imports from Romania, Reuters reports.
Moldova, one of Europe’s poorest countries, has suffered from widespread power outages amid a reduced flow of natural gas from Russia and Kremlin air strikes on energy infrastructure in neighbouring Ukraine.
The power station, located in Transnistria, a breakaway territory loyal to Moscow, depends on Russian gas dispensed by the Moldovan government in Chișinău. The Cuciurgan station had stopped providing electricity to the rest of Moldova after Russian state energy giant cut flows by 40%.
Moldova has since relied on more expensive Romanian electricity but has still suffered blackouts linked to Russian strikes on Ukraine.
Spinu said the power station, which sits across the Dniester River, would receive 5.7m cubic meters of gas a day in exchange for selling electricity for $73 a megawatt per hour.
“This contract is a reasonable compromise to ensure the citizens on both banks of the Dniester [have] electricity and gas,” Spinu wrote on his Telegram channel.
After Britain’s National Crime Agency arrested a “wealthy Russian businessman” on suspicion of money laundering and other offences, the Russian embassy in London has demanded information from the UK’s Foreign Office on the reasons and circumstances of the detention of the unidentified businessman and the conditions in which he is being held, Russian news agencies said.
Andrii Nebytov, the chief of the Kyiv regional national police, stands next to the work of street artist Banksy that a group of people tried to steal from a wall of a residential building in the town of Hostomel, heavily damaged during Russian invasion, at a police office in the town of Boiarka, Kyiv region, Ukraine. Photograph: Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters
Service members with the Ukrainian Army's 24th Mechanized Brigade of King Danylo fire an artillery piece, as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues, near Bakhmut in Ukraine. Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters
Ukraine has detained eight people over the theft of a mural painted by the elusive British street artist Banksy from a wall in the Kyiv suburbs, the authorities said.
The stencil image of a person in a nightgown and gas mask holding a fire extinguisher next to the charred remains of a window in the town of Hostomel went missing on Friday, they said.
“A group of people tried to steal a Banksy mural. They cut out the work from the wall of a house destroyed by the Russians,” the Kyiv governor, Oleksiy Kuleba, said in a post on Telegram.
He attached the image of a gaping hole in the wall where the image once stood.
Moldova’s deputy prime minister, Andrei Spînu, announced an energy deal on Saturday he said would reduce the risk of “massive electricity outages” in the former Soviet republic, Reuters reports.
Moldova has had widespread power outages amid Russian airstrikes on energy infrastructure in neighbouring Ukraine and a reduced flow of natural gas from Russian state energy giant Gazprom.
The Ukrainian army has recaptured 13 settlements in the Luhansk region, the eastern most oblast in the country, according to the head of the regional administration, Serhiy Haidai.
He said that artillery was still being fired at the villages by Russian forces. Doctors are due to visit next week and firewood is being organised for residents, Haidai posted on Telegram.
As it approaches 5pm in Kyiv, here’s a roundup of today’s news so far.
Eighteen Ukrainian diplomatic missions in 12 countries have received bloody packages, including animal parts, in what Ukraine has described as a “campaign of terror and intimidation”. Oleg Nikolenko, a spokesperson from Ukraine’s foreign ministry, said the packages were simultaneously sent from one European country, which he could not disclose while the investigation was ongoing.
Ukrainian authorities in Kherson have urged people on the east of the Dnipro River to evacuate. The governor, Yaroslav Yanushevych, said that authorities would help people to evacuate during the daytime of Saturday to Monday, according to the Kyiv Independent.
More than7,000 explosives have been removed from around Kherson, the Ukrainian state emergency service has said.
Russian forces are concentrating most of their strength on taking the town of Bakhmut in Donetsk, according to the British Ministry of Defence.
The price cap on Russian seabourne oil has been expanded to the G7 and Australia, after it was agreed by EU countries. Poland had held out on a lower amount than the $60 a barrel that was agreed.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia would “not accept this ceiling”.
Another 510 Russian troops were killed on Friday according to Ukraine, bringing the total killed since the invasion in February to 90,600. A tank and eight drones were also lost by the Russians.
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.
One person was killed and six were injured in Russian attacks on Ukraine on Friday. Zelenskiy aide Kyrylo Tymoshenko said one civilian was killed and four injured in the Donetsk region, one was injured in Kharkiv and another in Kherson.
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 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.
