Live blog: Russia says advancing on all fronts in Ukraine

Friday, December 1, 2023

2055 GMT — Russia has said its troops were advancing in every section of the Ukrainian front, despite observers seeing little movement.

"Our servicemen are acting competently and decisively, occupying a more favourable position and expanding their zones of control in all directions," Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said.

In a briefing with Russia's top military brass, Shoigu said his men were "effectively and firmly inflicting fire damage on the Ukrainian armed forces, significantly reducing their combat capabilities".

Despite Moscow's insistence, its forces were making headway, President Vladimir Putin issued a decree Friday that would boost troop numbers by 15 percent.

"The increase in the full-time strength of the army is due to growing threats to our country linked with the special military operation and the continuing expansion of NATO," the army said, adding that some 170,000 soldiers would join the force as a response to the "aggressive activity of the NATO bloc".

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1356 GMT — 'Very difficult' to approve $55B aid for Ukraine this month — EU

It is going to be "very difficult" to agree at a Dec.14-15 summit of European Union leaders on a proposal to grant Ukraine $55 billion) (50 billion euros) of budget aid through 2027, a senior official with the bloc said.

The senior official, who is involved in preparing the summit and spoke under condition of anonymity, said the EU was still committed to supporting Ukraine, suggesting some assistance could be expected even if the plan falls through.

1609 GMT –– One killed as Russia launched 25 drones overnight: Ukraine

Russia launched 25 drone attacks on Ukraine overnight, killing one person and damaging a warehouse and farm equipment, the Ukrainian military said on Friday, adding that it had downed 18 of the drones, all but two of them in southern Ukraine.

One civilian was killed and another injured in attacks on the southern Kherson region, where a culture centre was damaged, Ukraine's Southern Military Command said on the Telegram messenger app.

In the neighbouring region of Mykolaiv, a warehouse, a hangar and agricultural machinery were damaged, it said.

The Ukrainian Air Force said the drones had been launched from southwestern Russia and Russian-occupied Crimea, as well as two missiles from the occupied part of Kherson region. It added that one of those missiles had been destroyed.

1543 GMT –– US issues fresh sanctions over shipment of Russian oil above price cap

The United States imposed additional sanctions related to the price cap on Russian oil, targeting three entities and three oil tankers as Washington seeks to close loopholes in the mechanism designed to punish Moscow for its war in Ukraine.

The US Treasury Department in a statement accused those targeted of using price cap coalition services while carrying Russian crude oil above the agreed price cap.

It marks Washington's latest sanctions action cracking down on the shipment of oil above the Russian price cap as the United States seeks to enforce the punitive measures it has imposed on Russia over the war in Ukraine, which has killed or wounded tens of thousands and reduced cities to rubble.

1446 GMT –– Ukrainian spy agency stages train explosions on a Russian railroad in Siberia, Ukrainian media say

Ukraine's spy agency staged two successive explosions on a railroad line in Siberia that serves as a key conduit for trade between Russia and China, Ukrainian media reported. The attacks underscored Moscow’s vulnerability amid the war in Ukraine.

Ukrainska Pravda and other news outlets claimed the Security Service of Ukraine conducted a special operation to blow up trains loaded with fuel on the Baikal-Amur Mainline, which runs from southeastern Siberia to the Pacific Ocean in the Russian Far East.


The media cited unidentified sources in Ukrainian law enforcement agencies, a regular practice in claims of previous attacks in Russia. The security service, which is known in Ukrainian as SBU for short, has not confirmed the reports.

The first explosion hit a tanker train in the Severonomuisky tunnel in Buryatia early Thursday, causing a fire that took hours to extinguish, Russian news outlets said.


The 15.3-kilometer (9.5-mile) tunnel in southern Siberia is the longest in Russia.

A second explosion hours later hit another train carrying fuel as it crossed a 35-meter (115-foot) high bridge across a deep gorge while travelling on a bypass route, according to Ukrainian media.

Russian railways confirmed the tunnel explosion but didn't say what caused it.

Russian daily business newspaper Kommersant cited investigators saying an explosive device was planted under one of the train's carriages.


There was no comment from Russian authorities on the second explosion.

1303 GMT –– EU chairman says bloc already has "strategic partnership" with Ukraine

The European Union already has an association agreement with Ukraine, the bloc's chairman said when asked to comment about Hungary's call to sign a "strategic partnership" with Kyiv before starting membership talks.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called for the "strategic partnership" instead of allowing Ukraine to advance on its path to an eventual EU membership.

His comments come ahead of a Dec.14-15 summit of EU leaders where unanimity of all the bloc's 27 member states is needed to agree to start accession negotiations with Ukraine once it meets final conditions.

Orban's comments threaten to upset that decision and deny Kiev a coveted prize as the country struggles to push back against a Russian invasion launched in February, 2022.

Asked to comment on Orban's remarks, the chairman of the EU summits - European Council President Charles Michel - told Reuters on the sidelines of the COP28 summit in Dubai:

"We have an association agreement with Ukraine, which offers a lot of possibilities for close cooperation with Ukraine."

"In December, we'll have an in-depth debate with the 27 colleagues to assess what decision we'll make."

1237 GMT –– Russia's Lavrov insists goals in Ukraine are unchanged as he faces criticism at security talks

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said his government was not prepared to “review its goals” in Ukraine — delivering a blunt and confrontational message to Western leaders on a rare trip to a NATO member state.

“We aren’t seeing any signals from Kiev or its masters about their readiness to seek any kind of political settlement,” Lavrov told reporters while attending a security conference in North Macedonia.

“We see no reason to review our goals,” he said.

North Macedonia, which joined NATO in 2020, waived a flight ban on Russian officials so that Lavrov could attend the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, prompting the foreign ministers of Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to skip the meeting in protest.

Speaking at a news conference in Skopje, Lavrov accused Western countries of showing cowardice by refusing to meet with him.

“They probably want to emphasize their intention to isolate Russia but I think they just chickened out,” Lavrov said during the briefing that lasted over an hour.

“They’re afraid of any honest conversation,” he said. “It’s cowardice, simple cowardice.”

While in Skopje, Lavrov held several bilateral meetings including talks with the foreign ministers of Armenia and North Macedonia as well as with Peter Szijjarto, the foreign minister of Hungary which has maintained close ties with Moscow despite European Union sanctions.

1121 GMT –– Swiss have frozen $8.8B of Russian assets

Switzerland has frozen an estimated 7.7 billion Swiss francs ($8.81 billion) in financial assets belonging to Russians, the government said on Friday, under sanctions designed to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.

The figure, a provisional estimate, represented a slight increase from the 7.5 billion francs the Swiss government said it had blocked last year after the neutral country adopted European Union sanctions.

1023 GMT –– Russia assumes Western sanctions will last for many years: Kremlin

Russia is working on the assumption that sanctions against it by the United States and its allies will last for many years, but that US influence on the world economy is waning, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Peskov was commenting on an interview in which US Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources Geoffrey Pyatt told the Financial Times that Washington was aiming to halve Russia's oil and gas revenues by the end of the decade.

"We have no doubt that these sanctions will last for many years.

Even without statements from the respected (US) representative, we already knew this. We assume this when formulating our line," Peskov told reporters.

Russia frequently boasts that its economy has proved more resilient than expected in the face of unprecedented Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine.

On the other hand, it faces persistent inflation and shortages of labour, and its economic growth, which stood at 5.0 percent year-on-year in October - has mainly been based on a massive increase in military production.

"We also have no doubt that the United States will continue to try to put pressure on Russia and the entire system of trade and economic relations, essentially destroying the format of these relations," Peskov said.

To compensate for the decline in trade with the West, Russia is turning to China, India and other markets in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America.

"The world economy is not limited to the US economy," Peskov added, saying China was catching up with the United States. "The world is much more diverse than the United States, so the American-centric world is ending, and a period of diversity is beginning, including in international economic relations."

1000 GMT — Russian military begins advancing on all fronts in Ukraine

Russia has said its troops were progressing in all areas of the Ukrainian front, despite observers seeing little movement more than a year and a half after Moscow launched a full-scale assault on Ukraine.

"Our servicemen are acting competently and decisively, occupying a more favourable position and expanding their zones of control in all directions," Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said, as his troops intensified assaults on the eastern front.

Despite the frontlines having barely shifted in 2023, fighting has remained intense, with the nearly encircled industrial town of Avdiivka the latest major flashpoint.

Russia launched a renewed bid to capture the war-battered town in October, and analysts suggest Moscow's forces have made incremental gains, though at an enormous human cost.

"Russian troops are effectively and firmly inflicting fire damage on the Ukrainian armed forces, significantly reducing their combat capabilities," Shoigu said.

0727 GMT — Ukraine says Russia attacked with 25 drones, missiles overnight

Ukraine said that Russian forces had launched more than two dozen Iranian-designed attack drones and two missiles on the south and east of the country, in Moscow's latest aerial barrage.

"In total, the enemy used two X-59 missiles and 25 Shahed-136/131 attack drones," the air force said on Friday, claiming to have downed 18 of the drones and one missile over southern regions.

0552 GMT — Russia destroys uncrewed Ukrainian navy vessel heading for Crimea - defence ministry

Russia's navy destroyed an uncrewed Ukrainian navy vessel heading towards Crimea, the defence ministry said.

"At about 08:00 Moscow time, an unmanned Ukrainian navy boat was discovered in the western Black Sea heading towards the Crimean Peninsula," the defence ministry said on Friday.

"The discovered target was destroyed."

Reuters was unable to immediately verify battlefield reports from either side.

0503 GMT — Russia-Ukraine conflict enters new phase with winter — Zelenskyy

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the war with Russia is in a new stage, with winter expected to complicate fighting after a summer counteroffensive that failed to produce desired results due to enduring shortages of weapons and ground forces.

Despite setbacks, however, he said Ukraine won't give up.

“We have a new phase of war, and that is a fact,” Zelenskyy said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press in Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine after a morale-boosting tour of the region. “Winter as a whole is a new phase of war.”

Asked if he was satisfied by the results of the counteroffensive, he gave a complex answer.

“Look, we are not backing down, I am satisfied. We are fighting with the second (best) army in the world, I am satisfied,” he said, referring to the Russian military.

But he added: “We are losing people, I’m not satisfied. We didn’t get all the weapons we wanted, I can’t be satisfied, but I also can’t complain too much.”

Zelenskyy also said he fears Israel's war on Gaza threatens to overshadow the conflict in Ukraine, as competing political agendas and limited resources put the flow of Western military aid to Kiev at risk.

For our live updates from Thursday (November 30), click here.