Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin’s Ukraine plans ‘not affected by Trump’ as Kyiv denies nuclear weapons report

Russia has deployed up to 200 military instructors to Equatorial Guinea in recent weeks to protect the presidency, sources told Reuters, showing Moscow is expanding its footprint in West Africa despite a recent defeat in Mali.

The sources said the Russians were training elite guards in the two main cities of the tiny oil-exporting country of 1.7 million people, where US energy firms invested billions of dollars in the first decade of the century before scaling down.

The deployment fits into a wider pattern of waning Western influence and increasing Russian interventions in West and Central Africa, where Moscow has sent thousands of mercenaries to protect military regimes and help them fight insurgents.

For Russia, the assignments are a way to make money from government fees and economic opportunities in mining or energy, while defying the West as part of a global geopolitical confrontation playing out most dramatically in Ukraine.

The unit commander who goes by the callsign Kit, or “cat,” pilots the tiny uncrewed aircraft from a basement room he jokingly calls their Airbnb.

Guided by the drone’s night-vision camera, he drops the 10kg (22-pound) packages one by one as close as he can to the position where as many as five infantrymen battle Russian forces in the late autumn chill. The delivery will hold them for two or three days.

That’s about as far as Kit dares look into the future. He knows that the reelection of Donald Trump will change something in his life, but as far as he and other Ukrainian soldiers on the front are concerned, trying to figure out how is a game for politicians.

For him, all that matters is the distance he measures in the meters (yards) that Russian forces advance or retreat in the front-line sector that is his responsibility.

Donald Trump may look to rekindle a conversation with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “sooner rather than later”, an analyst has suggested.

With reports of 10,000 North Korean troops being deployed to Russia, as both nations ratified a new military pact, Bulent Gokay, professor of international relations at Keele University, suggested the US president-elect could also soon look to reopen a dialogue with the pariah state.

Professor Gokay said: “Since Trump last met with Kim, the North has greatly expanded its military arsenal, in particular massive intercontinental ballistic missiles and hypersonic and short-range weapons that could deliver nuclear warheads against the US mainland or military bases in the region.

“Despite this, Trump may feel that his engagement worked well during his first presidency in that he feels that he can ‘solve’ the North Korean nuclear issue without any violent encounter. So, he may look to rekindle a conversation with Kim sooner or later.”

Donald Trump is expected to appoint a Ukrainian peace envoy tasked with negotiating an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, reported Fox News.

One of the sources aware of the matter said the diplomatic appointment will happen “in short order”.

“You’re going to see a very senior special envoy, someone with a lot of credibility, who will be given a task to find a resolution, to get to a peace settlement,” the sources said.

During his campaign, the US president-elect repeatedly said he could quickly end the fighting in Ukraine but did not offer details of how he would accomplish that. The Kremlin earlier welcomed Mr Trump’s claim that he could negotiate an end to the conflict in Ukraine “in 24 hours” but emphasised that it will wait for concrete policy steps.

Ukraine has denied media reports suggesting it is “months away” from developing a nuclear bomb, saying that it has no intention of acquiring nuclear weapons.

“Ukraine is committed to the NPT (the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons); we do not possess, develop or intend to acquire nuclear weapons,” foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said on X.

His remarks come after The Times reported on a briefing document apparently prepared for the Ukrainian defence ministry, detailing how Kyiv could develop a rudimentary atomic bomb, similar to those used against Japan in 1945, if US military assistance under the incoming Trump administration were to stop.

Mr Tykhyi added that Ukraine “works closely with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and is fully transparent to its monitoring, which rules out the use of nuclear materials for military purposes”.

The Biden administration is determined in its final months to help ensure that Ukraine can keep fighting off Russia’s full-scale invasion next year, sending it as much aid as possible so that it might hold Russian forces at bay and possess a strong hand in any potential peace negotiations, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said.

“President Biden has committed to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and 20 January,” when president-elect Donald Trump is due to be sworn in, Mr Blinken said.

Nato countries must focus their efforts on “ensuring that Ukraine has the money, munitions and mobilized forces to fight effectively in 2025, or to be able to negotiate a peace from a position of strength,” Mr Blinken said during a visit to Brussels.

The US will “adapt and adjust” with the latest equipment it is sending, Mr Blinken said, without providing details.The almost three-year war has shown no signs of winding down.

Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said he was “cautiously optimistic” after discussing with US secretary of state Antony Blinken the possibility of conducting strikes deep inside Russia as well as Euro-Atlantic integration.

“We discussed issues of long-range strikes and Euro-Atlantic integration. And here we also are cautiously optimistic,” Mr Sybiha said in televised comments.

His talks with Mr Blinken in Brussels come at a turbulent time, just one week after Donald Trump won the US presidential election.

Trump has long criticised the scale of US financial and military aid to Ukraine and has vowed to end the war quickly, without explaining how.

Kyiv has long been lobbying for Western allies to allow long-range attacks on military targets inside Russia, while also pressing for an invitation to join the Nato alliance.

Allies including the US have been unwilling to permit long-range attacks for fear of further escalating the conflict, and some are opposed to inviting Ukraine to join Nato.

Mr Sybiha said his talks in Brussels had also touched on military aid. “We have a clear picture - a clear timeframe, clear volumes – of what will be delivered to Ukraine by the end of the year. This helps us strategically to plan our actions on the battlefield,” he said.

The assistance, he added, would include weapons and funds for arms production deals.

The European Union must back Ukraine against Russia for as a long as it takes and persuade the United States that its strategic interests in China are tied up in the outcome of the war, the woman nominated as the bloc’s top diplomat for the next five years said Tuesday.

Questions have been raised about whether the 27-nation EU’s commitment to Ukraine would remain firm with Russia appearing to have an edge in the war, which began on Feb. 24, 2022, and following the reelection of Donald Trump, who has vowed to end the conflict as U.S. president.

“Ukraine’s victory is a priority for us all. The situation on the battlefield is very difficult,” Estonia ex-Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told EU lawmakers during a hearing she must pass to be appointed as foreign policy chief.

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A senior Russian naval officer was killed in a bomb attack claimed by Kyiv in occupied Crimea’s Sevastopol.

According to a Kyiv security source, the bomb attack was a Ukrainian hit on one of its highest-ranking targets to date.

A source in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) told Reuters that the explosion had killed Valery Trankovsky, a Russian naval captain and the chief of staff of the 41st brigade of Russia’s missile ships in the Black Sea.

The operation was carried out by the SBU, which saw him as a “legitimate” target in line with the laws of war because of “war crimes” he committed, the source said.

The source said he had ordered missile attacks that hit civilian targets in Ukraine, including a deadly strike on the city of Vinnytsia in July 2022.

Russia’s state Investigative Committee, which handles probes into serious crimes, said in a statement that an improvised explosive device had detonated in an act of terrorism, killing a serviceman whom it did not identify.

Several pro-war Russian figures have been assassinated since the start of the war in operations blamed by Moscow on Ukraine, including journalist Darya Dugina, war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky and former submarine commander Stanislav Rzhitsky.