Latest news on Russia and the war in Ukraine

Britain’s Ministry of Defense said the high, daily number of Russian casualties that Ukraine has claimed to have inflicted on Russian forces recently is “plausible.”

“The last six weeks have likely seen some of the highest Russian casualty rates of the war so far. The heavy losses have largely been caused by Russia’s offensive against the Donbas town of Avdiivka,” the defense ministry said.

Ukraine’s General Staff reported throughout November that Russian casualties were running at a daily average of 931 per day, the ministry noted in its latest intelligence assessment on Monday.

“Previously, the deadliest reported month for Russia was March 2023 with an average of 776 losses per day, at the height of Russia’s assault on Bakhmut,” the ministry said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Although Defence Intelligence cannot verify the methodology, taken as a total including both killed and wounded, the figures are plausible,” it said.

Both Russia and Ukraine are highly secretive about their own losses while both routinely claim to have inflicted high losses on each other. The chaotic nature of war and accounting for the dead and injured, as well as attempts at propaganda and disinformation, makes it impossible to reach an accurate figure of the true losses experienced by both sides.

— Holly Ellyatt

Severe weather in Ukraine has made conditions “extremely difficult” in a large part of of the country, with snowstorms causing widespread power cuts.

Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said Sunday that 386 settlements in 10 regions were disrupted by extreme weather conditions, including snowstorms that trapped motorists, cars and trucks and brought down trees on major roads.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday evening that “weather conditions are extremely difficult in a large part of our country” and that southern regions were experiencing considerable problems, Zelenskyy said in his nightly address.

“I ask all citizens of Ukraine in areas where bad weather prevails: please be as careful as possible … As soon as possible, our power engineers will restore electricity supply to all cities and villages that are currently experiencing a temporary blackout due to bad weather,” he said.

Poor weather is already affecting conditions on the battlefield but fighting remains intense, Zelenskyy said.

“Intense fighting does not stop for a single hour in the Donetsk directions, in the Kharkiv region – the Kupyansk direction. Our soldiers are also holding positions in the south of the country: this is the Zaporizhzhia region, this is our Kherson region,” he said.

— Holly Ellyatt

The model of globalization created by Western countries has outlived its usefulness, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday

“It is obvious that the model of globalization, which was formed largely by Western states — naturally, in their own interests — has outlived its usefulness and is in a deep crisis,” Putin said in a message to participants of the Primakov Readings, an international forum taking place in Moscow on Monday.

“A well-known group of countries, accustomed to dominating the world, stops at nothing to maintain their waning influence and practices outright blackmail and forceful pressure,” Putin added, in comments reported by news agency Interfax.

“Such a destabilizing line provoked both the crisis situation around Ukraine and the tragic escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” he said.

Russia has blamed the West for the war in Ukraine, despite Russia’s invasion in 2022, and for creating the conditions for the war between Israel and Hamas.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russian authorities on Sunday claimed that Ukraine tried to attack Moscow with dozens of drones overnight, just a day after Russia launched its most intense drone attack on Kyiv since the beginning of its full-scale war in 2022, according to Ukrainian officials.

Russian air defenses brought down at least 24 drones over the Moscow region — which surrounds but does not include the capital — and four other provinces to the south and west, the Russian Defense Ministry and Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported in a series of Telegram updates. Neither referenced any casualties.

Andrei Vorobyev, governor of the Moscow region, wrote on Telegram that the drone strikes damaged three unspecified buildings there, adding that no one was hurt.

Ukrainian officials did not acknowledge or comment on the strikes, which came a day after Russia targeted the Ukrainian capital with over 60 Iranian-made Shahed drones. 

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— Reuters