Ukraine-Russia war latest: Zelensky accuses Scholz of opening ‘Pandora’s box’ after call with Putin

Ukraine’s SBU security service has detained a special operations forces unit commander accused of disclosing plans of operations behind enemy lines to Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency.

“The aggressor was most interested in intelligence on sabotage and reconnaissance raids by Ukrainian special forces behind the front line in the Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimean directions,” the SBU said in a statement.

The alleged “mole”, whose rank corresponded to lieutenant colonel, had access to information on planned routes, weapons and targets, according to the statement. Russian forces planned to use the intelligence to eliminate special forces soldiers on the front line and in the Russian-occupied south.

The SBU said Russia’s military intelligence “activated” the unit commander in the spring of this year but that he was recruited prior to Moscow’s invasion in February 2022 through his acquaintances in Russia.

Ukraine’s top military leadership aided with the case and the suspect could face life in prison on treason charges, according to the SBU.

Donald Trump has said his administration would focus on ending Russia’s war against Ukraine.

“We’re going to work very hard on Russia and Ukraine. It’s gotta stop. Russia and Ukraine’s gotta stop,” he said during an event in Florida.

The US president-elect expressed regret over the deaths caused by the war, “whether they’re soldiers or they’re people sitting in towns”. “We’re going to work it.”

During his campaign, Mr Trump repeatedly said he could quickly end the fighting in Ukraine but did not offer details of how he would accomplish that.

Any further Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy system could trigger another wave of mass displacement as winter approaches, the UN’s humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine has warned.

Civilians are now more vulnerable than at any other winter during the conflict due to Russian strikes on its energy system and donor fatigue, warned Matthias Schmale, who said that around two thirds of Ukraine’s domestic energy production is currently offline due to Russian strikes.

“The real concern is if they were to target the energy sector again, this could be a tipping point...for further mass movements, both inside the country and outside the country,” Mr Schmale told reporters in Geneva.

Any further displacement would add to the 3.6 million that are currently displaced within Ukraine and the more than 6 million who have fled across its borders to escape the conflict since February 2022.

Hungary’s Viktor Orban has claimed that European Union sanctions against Russia will “destroy” the bloc’s economy.

Mr Orban, widely seen as having the warmest relations with the Kremlin in the EU, has broken with the majority of European leaders and vocally opposed such sanctions.

Speaking on state radio on Friday, the hard-right leader claimed the EU’s sanctions regime “should be reviewed, because with such a policy of sanctions, energy prices will not come down”.

He added: “It will be painful for those who argued for sanctions. Not for us, because we will see this as a victory, but the other camp has to change because otherwise it will destroy the European economy.”

A senior Russian naval officer has been killed in a car bombing in occupied Crimea – the latest in a series of targeted attacks on Russian military personnel.

Russian investigators said an unnamed serviceman was killed when an improvised explosive device detonated on Wednesday in the port city of Sevastopol – the primary headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet – and that the killing was being treated as terrorism.

In what will be a blow to the morale of Russian military leaders, a source in Ukraine’s SBU security service said shortly after the blast that the explosion had killed naval captain Valery Trankovsky – in a hit orchestrated by the SBU.

Describing the hit as legitimate and in line with the customs of war, the source called Trankovsky “a war criminal” for ordering missile strikes on Ukrainian civilian targets, including repeated attacks on Odesa and a missile strike that killed 29 people and injured more than 200 others in the city of Vinnytsia in July 2022.

On Wednesday, Moscow’s forces – including soldiers disguised as Ukrainian troops – attacked the Kharkiv city of Kupiansk in four waves, but were repelled, Ukraine’s general staff said.

“They partially entered the suburbs, the industrial zone, and were destroyed by our troops,” Mr Besedin said. “There were assault actions using heavy armoured vehicles, there were attempts to bring in infantry.”

A map updated daily by Ukrainian war monitor DeepState, known to have close ties to the defence ministry, appears to corroborate these claims. It shows the entire city under Ukrainian control with Russian forces pushing towards its northern outskirts.

Our foreign affairs reporter Tom Watling has more details:

With Ukraine’s claims to be facing 50,000 troops in Kursk indicating that Russia is going to attempt to crush the salient with a “hammer blow” prior to any potential negotiations forced by Donald Trump, an analyst has suggested that Kyiv’s prospects depend on the morale, quality and cohesion of the troops stationed there.

Dr Patrick Bury, a former Nato analyst now at the University of Bath, told The Independent: “If they stand and fight they do have some pretty good defensive positions and they’ve got some of the riverbanks to defend on.

“So if they are able to, you’d expect it to be bloody and costly and the Russians to make incremental gains.

“If they are overwhelmed or their morale cracks, then it could be more rapid. But – if the past is an indicator of the present – usually we’ve seen attritional, heavy battles with Russians taking lots of losses but slowly grinding the Ukrainians back.”

Read more analysis here:

Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s pick for US secretary of defence, previously faced accusations of sexual misconduct that were investigated by police, according to a report.

Mr Trump’s newly-appointed White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles was briefed on Wednesday evening about an allegation that Mr Hegseth engaged in sexual misconduct in Monterey, California seven years ago, according to Vanity Fair.

Ms Wiles and Mr Trump’s lawyers spoke to Mr Hegseth after learning about the alleged incident, Vanity Fair added. The Fox News host reportedly said the incident was consensual.

My colleague Katie Hawkinson reports:

Dr Patrick Bury, a former Nato analyst now at the University of Bath, has suggested that Volodymyr Zelensky’s comments about a 50,000-strong force in Kursk tie in with Ukrainian officials’ insistence that they are drawing in Russian forces that would otherwise be deployed elsewhere.

“The double-edged sword is the Russians may have a five-to-one advantage in manpower, if that’s correct, and they are maybe facing a major offensive there,” Dr Bury told The Independent.

He added: “Unfortunately, although it’s certainly put those resources there, it hasn’t resulted in [eastern] front lines being weakened massively in the way that the Ukrainians may have hoped.”