These were the key developments on the 1,003rd day of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Here is the situation on Saturday, November 23:
Military
- Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised more combat test-firing of an experimental hypersonic missile – the Oreshnik – which was launched at Ukraine on Thursday.
- Ukraine is seeking updated air defence systems from its allies in response to the new threat from Russian hypersonic missiles, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
- Experts believe the Oreshnik can fly at 10 times the speed of sound and may be able to strike targets up to 5,500km (3,400 miles) away.
- General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with nuclear or conventional warheads.
- China’s Foreign Ministry repeated calls for “calm” and “restraint” in the war after Russia confirmed it had fired a new ballistic missile at Ukraine.
- Zelenskyy said in his nightly address that Russia’s escalation of the conflict was making a mockery of international calls for de-escalation. “From Russia, this is a mockery of the position of states such as China, states of the Global South, some leaders who call for restraint every time,” he said.
- Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressed the alarm felt by some over the latest development in Russia’s war on Ukraine. “The war in the east is entering a decisive phase. We all know this,” he said. “The events of the last several dozen hours show that the threat is very serious and real when it comes to global conflict.”
- German Chancellor Olaf Scholz described the use of the hypersonic missile as a “terrible escalation, just like the use of North Korean soldiers, who are now being deployed and dying in this war for Putin’s imperial dream.”
- NATO and Ukraine will hold emergency talks on Tuesday after Russia launched an attack with the experimental, hypersonic ballistic missile.
- In Kyiv, parliament cancelled its usual Friday questions to the government over fears of an attack. Several members of parliament said they were working remotely and that Friday’s session had been scrapped.
Fighting
- Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces have captured the settlement of Novodmytrivka in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, their latest gain in what Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov described as an accelerated advance.
- Ukraine’s General Staff said the settlement was among eight villages where Russian forces were engaged in fighting and trying to advance.
- A source in the Ukrainian military said Russian forces are advancing by “200-300 metres a day” near the Ukrainian hub of Kurakhove in the eastern Donetsk region. The source described the situation as “worse” than around the town of Pokrovsk, also a key prize for Russia.
- The United States expects that thousands of North Korean troops massing in Russia will “soon” enter combat against Ukraine, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said. About 10,000 North Korean soldiers were believed to be based in the Russian border region of Kursk, Austin said, where they were being “integrated into the Russian formations”.
- Authorities in the northeastern Ukrainian region of Sumy said two people were killed and a further 12 injured in a Russian drone attack. The area is a key supply route for the Ukrainian troops that have occupied part of the Kursk region in western Russia.
Diplomacy
- Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Russia’s threat of more strikes with new weapons should be taken seriously, warning “there will be consequences”. Orban said that Russia “bases its policy and its place in the world on military force” and cherishes its status as “one of the most powerful militaries in the world, with some of the most modern and destructive weapons”.
- US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron have discussed the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, the White House said in a statement.
- US President-elect Donald Trump is considering tapping Richard Grenell, his former intelligence chief, to be a special envoy for the Russia-Ukraine conflict, according to four sources familiar with the transition plans. Grenell, who served as Trump’s ambassador to Germany and was acting director of national intelligence during Trump’s 2017-2021 term, would play a key role in Trump’s efforts to halt the war in Ukraine if he is ultimately selected for the post, according to reports.
- Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick for attorney general, was a member of Trump’s legal team during his first impeachment trial, when he stood accused of threatening to withhold military aid from Ukraine unless it agreed to launch a corruption probe into Trump’s Democratic rival, now-President Joe Biden.
Regional security
- The leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania gathered in the Lithuanian capital city of Vilnius on Friday for the Baltic Council of Ministers meeting where they discussed common defence and security issues and the threat of hybrid warfare by unfriendly states, according to reports.
- “The recent damages to the Lithuania-Sweden and Finland-Germany cables in the Baltic Sea have once again highlighted the importance of protecting our critical undersea infrastructure,” Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal said after the meeting.
- A Norwegian student in his 20s was arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia and Iran while working as a guard at the US embassy in Oslo, authorities in Norway have said. The man, who has not been identified, was ordered to be held in custody for four weeks. He runs a security company jointly with a dual national of Norway and an unspecified Eastern European country, according to Norwegian public broadcaster NRK.
- The Swiss government said it is barring exports to a Polish military hardware supplier after concluding that some 645,000 rounds of Swiss-made small-calibre ammunition ended up in Ukraine in violation of Swiss law. The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs said exports to the Polish company will be barred because “the risk of diversion to Ukraine is assessed as being too high”. Swiss law bans exports of Swiss-owned or Swiss-made military hardware to countries in conflict.
- A man pleaded guilty in a UK court to an arson attack on a Ukrainian-linked business in London, which prosecutors say was carried out on behalf of Russia’s paramilitary Wagner group. Jake Reeves, 23, admitted aggravated arson and accepting cash from a foreign intelligence service as he appeared via video-link at London’s Woolwich Crown Court. He is one of six people charged over the March blaze at an industrial unit in Leyton, east London, which required 60 firefighters to put it out.
Humanitarian
- Ukraine will shortly receive $4.8bn from the World Bank for social and humanitarian purposes, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said. In total, Ukraine has already received more than $100bn in foreign funding since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.
- Dozens of residents from the Russian border region of Kursk have been returned to Russia from Ukraine following rare and “painstaking” talks between Moscow and Kyiv. It was not clear why the residents had been transported into Ukraine, and there was no immediate comment from Kyiv. “Today, 46 residents of the Kursk region returned to Russia from Ukraine as a result of a negotiation process with the Ukrainian side,” Russian human rights ombudsman Tatyana Moskalkova said.
