These were the key developments on the 1,009th day of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Here is the situation on Friday, November 29:
Fighting
- Russia unleashed its second major attack this month on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, triggering severe power cuts that affected at least one million people across three western regions. The attacks cut power to 523,000 consumers in the Lviv region, 215,000 in the Volyn region and 280,000 in the Rivne region, regional governors reported.
- Ukraine’s air force said Russia used 91 missiles and 97 drones in the attack, with 12 hitting their targets, most of which were energy and fuel facilities.
- President Vladimir Putin said Moscow had struck in response to Ukraine’s attacks on Russian territory with US medium-range ATACMS missiles. He warned future targets could include “decision-making centres” in Kyiv using its new Oreshnik hypersonic missile – which Moscow claims is incapable of being intercepted.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of a “despicable escalation”, saying it had used cruise missiles with cluster munitions in the attack. Zelenskyy said he was speaking to Western leaders – including NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz – to forge a response to the Russian attempt to “drag out the war”.
- US President Joe Biden labelled Moscow’s attack “outrageous”, saying it serves as “another reminder of the urgency and importance of supporting the Ukrainian people in their defence against Russian aggression”.
- Russian air defences destroyed or downed 30 Ukrainian drones in the southern Rostov region early on Friday, Regional Governor Yuri Slyusar said.
- Fragments from downed Russian drones struck buildings in two Kyiv districts and injured one person late on Thursday, officials said.
- Explosions were heard in Odesa on Thursday morning amid reports of a cruise missile attack in the Ukrainian Black Sea port city.
Finances, politics and diplomacy
- President Zelenskyy has signed into law Ukraine’s first wartime tax increases, with Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko saying the bill is vital to ensure smooth funding for the Ukrainian defence sector. The changes, which will take effect from December 1, will see the war tax on personal income rise from 1.5 percent to 5 percent.
- Ukraine has urged its partners to speed up military aid, saying quicker delivery of critical battlefield equipment is more important than drafting more men, after a senior US administration official urged Kyiv to reduce the conscription age from 25 to 18.
- Ukraine is ready to host a second global summit aimed at ending Russia’s invasion in the “nearest future”, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, has said. Ukraine held its first “peace summit” in Switzerland in June.
- France, which is under pressure over its stance claiming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is immune from an International Criminal Court arrest warrant, has declined to say whether it would be prepared to arrest President Putin under a similar warrant.
- Putin said during a news conference in Kazakhstan that Russia would use “precisely all means of destruction available” against Ukraine if Kyiv were to acquire nuclear arms, adding that he would be “watching their every move”.
- Putin added that there were no conditions to start talks with Ukraine on a possible peace settlement, but that terms he set out in June, including Kyiv dropping its NATO ambitions, remained unchanged.
- Germany has offered to re-deploy Patriot air defence missiles to NATO ally Poland at the start of the new year, the German Defence Ministry said.
- A Russian court has sentenced lawyer Dmitry Talantov, who has represented critics of Moscow’s war in Ukraine, to seven years in prison after convicting him of spreading false information about the Russian army and “inciting hatred”.
- Russia and Ukraine have agreed to each return a total of nine children to be reunited with family members, in the latest humanitarian exchange agreed upon following mediation by Qatar.
