Ukraine latest updates: UN calls on Russia to pay reparations

Ukrainian national energy company Ukrenergo has said Russia destroyed key energy infrastructure before retreating from the western bank of the Dnieper River last week.

“The energy facility that provided power supply to the entire right bank of the Kherson region and a significant part of the Mykolaiv region, is practically destroyed,” Ukrenergo chief Volodymyr Kudrytskyi said in a post on Facebook, adding these were the “consequences the powerless anger of the occupiers before fleeing”.

The United Nations General Assembly has called for Russia to be held accountable for its invasion of Ukraine, approving a resolution recognising that Russia is responsible for reparations in the country.

The resolution, supported by 94 of the assembly’s 193 members, recognises that Russia must be held accountable for violations of international law in or against Ukraine and “must bear the legal consequences of all of its internationally wrongful acts, including making reparation for the injury, including any damage, caused by such acts”.

General Assembly resolutions are non-binding, but they carry political weight.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy triumphantly walked the streets of the newly liberated city of Kherson, hailing Russia’s withdrawal as the “beginning of the end of the war,” but also acknowledging the heavy price Ukrainian troops are paying in their grinding effort to push back the Russians.

In Kherson, Zelenskyy awarded medals to soldiers and posed with them for selfies while striking a defiant note.

“This is the beginning of the end of the war,” he said. “We are step by step coming to all the temporarily occupied territories.”

But he also grimly noted that the fighting “took the best heroes of our country”.

Zelenskyy’s trip to Kherson was another in a series of unexpected visits to front-line areas at crucial moments of the war. This one was laden with both symbolism and the common touch – clearly aimed at boosting the morale of soldiers and civilians alike.

The European Union and its member states have provided weapons and military equipment worth at least 8 billion euros ($8.27bn) to Ukraine, the bloc’s top diplomat says.

This sum amounts to about 45 percent of what the United States has supplied to Kyiv, Josep Borrell told reporters after a meeting with his EU counterparts in Brussels.

The US has imposed new sanctions aimed at disrupting the Russian military’s supply chains, rolling out measures against 14 people and 28 entities that it said were part of a transnational network that procures technology to support Moscow in its invasion of Ukraine.

The US Treasury also designated family members of Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov as well as individuals that it said worked as financial facilitators in Suleiman’s network.

“The United States will continue to disrupt Russia’s military supply chains and impose high costs on President Putin’s enablers, as well as all those who support Russia’s brutality against its neighbor,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

The Kremlin has confirmed that talks between US and Russian intelligence officials were held in Ankara on Monday.

“Such negotiations really took place. It was the initiative of the American side,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by Russia’s TASS news agency as saying.

Peskov’s remarks followed reports that said US Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns had travelled to Turkey to speak to his Russian counterpart, Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service.

Burns reportedly warned Naryshkin of the consequences Russia would face if it used nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

Canada will provide Ukraine with another $500m in military assistance and has placed sanctions on nearly two dozen more Russians, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office has announced.

The additional funding adds to the $3.4bn of Canadian assistance to Kyiv so far for its defence against Russia’s invasion and will help fund military, surveillance and communications equipment; fuel; and medical supplies, Trudeau’s office said in a statement.

Monday’s sanctions target 23 Russians “involved in gross and systematic human rights violations against Russian opposition leaders”, including police officers, prosecutors, judges and prison officials, the statement said.

For some people in Ukraine, football has become a welcome distraction from the endless air raid sirens, Russian missile attacks and other harsh realities of war.

And while interest in the 2022 World Cup might be more muted than usual, committed fans are looking forward to the tournament. Many say they will support Kyiv’s international allies.

Read more here.

Poland will take over Russian energy giant Gazprom’s Polish assets, its development ministry says.

The move means the Polish government will seize Gazprom’s 48 percent stake in Europolgaz, which owns the Polish section of the Yamal gas pipeline.

Waldemar Buda, Poland’s development minister, told the Reuters news agency that the seizure would ensure security of critical infrastructure used for gas transit.

In September, Poland imposed sanctions on Gazprom and said its assets would be frozen. Five months earlier, it had sanctioned 50 Russian oligarchs and companies, including Gazprom, to increase pressure on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has described reported talks between US and Russian intelligence chiefs in Turkey as a “very positive” development.

“It’s very positive that the US and Russia are having talks because that is an extremely relevant development in relation to the future, but we are not involved,” Guterres told reporters in Indonesia when asked about the reported meeting between William Burns and Sergey Naryshkin.

Guterres was in Indonesia to attend the G20 summit on Tuesday and Wednesday.

US Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns has travelled to Turkey to speak to his Russian counterpart and warn Moscow of the consequences of any use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, according to several reports citing an unnamed White House official.

The Reuters news agency quoted the White House official as saying that Burns, a former US ambassador to Russia, was not conducting negotiations of any kind on Monday with Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service.

Ukraine was briefed in advance about Burns’s trip to Turkey, the official added.

The official provided no details regarding the timing of Burns’s meeting, and it was not immediately clear whether his talks with Naryshkin had already concluded.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency also reported the meeting, citing unnamed intelligence sources as saying it was being hosted by Turkish intelligence officials.

Ukraine expects to receive about $4.8bn in financing from abroad in November and another $3bn in December, its finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko, has told a news briefing.

Kyiv has relied heavily on foreign economic and military aid since Russia launched its full-scale invasion on February 24.

Biden and Xi reiterated “their agreement that a nuclear war should never be fought” during their first in-person meeting since the US president took office, according to a readout of the meeting released by the White House.

“President Biden raised Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine and Russia’s irresponsible threats of nuclear use,” the White House said about the meeting in Bali.

“President Biden and President Xi reiterated their agreement that a nuclear war should never be fought and can never be won and underscored their opposition to the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine,” it added.

Xi and Biden are in Bali to attend the Group of 20 summit of large economies on Tuesday and Wednesday.

A Zambian student who had been jailed in Russia was killed in fighting in Ukraine, Zambia’s foreign minister says.

Stanley Kakubo said in a statement that Lemekhani Nathan Nyirenda, who had been serving a prison sentence in Moscow, had died on September 22 in Ukraine.

Kakubo said the 23-year-old had died “at the battlefront” and demanded an explanation for his death from the Kremlin. There was no immediate response from Moscow.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says it is up to Ukraine to decide what terms are acceptable for negotiations with Russia to bring an end to the war.

“It is for Ukraine to decide what kind of terms are acceptable,” Stoltenberg said during a news conference with members of the Dutch government in The Hague. “It is for us to support them.”

“We should not make the mistake of underestimating Russia,” he said. “… They still control large parts of Ukraine. … What we should do is strengthen Ukraine’s hand.”

Russia’s foreign minister has dismissed a report that he was taken to hospital with a heart condition and has scolded Western journalists for what he called false reporting.

The Associated Press news agency cited Indonesian officials when it reported on Monday that Lavrov had been taken to hospital after arriving on the island of Bali for Tuesday and Wednesday’s G20 summit.

Read more here.

A draft of what would be the third resolution by the board of the United Nations nuclear watchdog on the war in Ukraine calls on Russia to cease all actions against Ukraine’s nuclear facilities, including the largest nuclear power plant in Europe at Zaporizhzhia, the Reuters news agency reports, citing a version of the text it has seen.

“[The board] calls upon the Russian Federation to abandon its baseless claims of ownership of the Zaporizhzyha Nuclear Power Plant, to immediately withdraw its military and other personnel from the plant, and to cease all actions against, and at, the plant and any other nuclear facility in Ukraine,” Reuters quoted the text as saying.

The draft resolution was reportedly circulated by Canada to other countries on the 35-nation Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency ahead of a meeting this week.

Ukraine’s president has described his visit to the recently liberated city of Kherson as a joyous occasion.

“I’m really happy, you can tell by the reaction of the people, their reaction is not staged,” Zelenskyy told reporters after arriving in Kherson on a sunny but cold day.

“The people were waiting for the Ukrainian army, for our soldiers, for all of us,” he said in front of the regional administrative building in the city’s main square.

Zelenskyy said it was important to visit Kherson to show support for residents who endured about eight months of Russian occupation and to demonstrate to them that “we are really returning, we really raise our flag”.

Asked where Ukrainian forces might advance next, he replied: “Not Moscow … We’re not interested in the territories of another country.”

The Kremlin has said that work to renew the Black Sea grain export deal is ongoing and described talks with the United Nations last week over the agreement as “fairly constructive”.

Senior UN officials met a Russian delegation in Geneva on Friday to discuss Moscow’s grievances about the grains export initiative, which aims to ensure the safe passage of grain from Ukrainian ports despite the conflict in Ukraine.

“We are actually still a week away from the extension date [November 19], so work is ongoing,” the Kremlin said.

The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence says the winter months ahead “will bring a change in conflict conditions for both Russian and Ukrainian forces” and result in “more static” front lines.

“Changes to daylight hours, temperature and weather will present unique challenges for fighting soldiers,” the ministry said in its latest daily intelligence update.

“Daylight will reduce to fewer than 9 hours a day, compared to 15-16 in the height of summer. This results in fewer offensives and more static defensive frontlines,” it added.

“The average high temperature will drop from 13 degrees Celsius through September to November, to zero through December to February. Forces lacking in winter weather clothing and accommodation are highly likely to suffer from non-freezing cold injuries.”

Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 14 November 2022

Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/XkaDUtCMFV

🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/HyQ3c9kxSv

— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) November 14, 2022