Here is the situation on Sunday, December 1:
Fighting
- A Russian missile attack on a town in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region killed at least four people, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. More than a dozen others were wounded, including a child, while a residential building and shop were damaged.
- Fifteen of Ukraine’s civilian airports have been damaged since Russia invaded the country in February 2022, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said, adding that Ukraine’s port infrastructure has been hit nearly 60 times in the last three months.
Politics and diplomacy
- The EU’s new top diplomat Kaja Kallas and head of the European Council Antonio Costa have arrived in Kyiv in a symbolic show of support for Ukraine on their first day in office.
- Zelenskyy suggested in an interview that offering Ukraine NATO membership while allowing Russia to keep for the moment territory it had captured could be a solution to end the “hot stage” of the 33-month-old war.
- French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed his support for Ukraine and reiterated his condemnation of an escalation in Russia’s attacks against the country in a phone call with Zelenskyy, said the two leaders.
- Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha urged his NATO counterparts to invite Kyiv to a meeting in Brussels next week to join the Western military alliance, according to a letter by Sybiha seen by Reuters on Friday.
- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has told Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov that Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons is the result of direct military intervention by the United States, and Moscow is entitled to fight in self-defence.
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Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told state news agency TASS that a possible resumption of nuclear weapons tests by Moscow remains an open question in view of hostile US.
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Zelenskyy has replaced the commander of the military’s land forces, putting Major-General Mykhailo Drapatyi in charge, as Russia notches up gains in the east and Kyiv’s troops face manpower shortages. Drapatyi replaces Lieutenant General Oleksandr Pavliuk, who took the helm in a major shake-up in February.
- Ukraine’s army chief Oleksandr Syrskii said he would strengthen troops deployed on the eastern front with reserves, ammunition and equipment after he visited two key Ukrainian-held sites in the Donetsk region.
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