WAR IN UKRAINE: November 29, 2022
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 279
Ukraine's First Lady Olena Zelenska is addressing MPs in the UK Parliament. She is in London to attend a meeting on preventing sexual violence in conflicts. Speaking to the BBC, she said the British people should not forget the "tragedy" of the Russian invasion during the festive season
Zelenskyy tells MPs the world community needs to unite, just as it did in January 1942, to support a special tribunal against Russia's aggression towards Ukraine. "I'm asking you a small favour to become the world leader in the justice efforts," she says. Justice is not just needed for Ukraine, but so that the world could lead its life not by the rule of force, she says. “We need justice so that the world could survive," Zelenska adds - BBC
Meanwhile, Russia's Vladimir Putin is using winter as a weapon of war in Ukraine, Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg says. Moscow is increasing "waves of brutality", he says, at a meeting of Nato foreign ministers in Bucharest. UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly tells reporters Russia is trying to "freeze the Ukrainians into submission.” The Nato defence alliance has promised unwavering support to Ukraine as Russia continues to target Ukraine's infrastructure
Ukraine's first deputy prime minister has claimed that Russian soldiers raped a girl as young as five and a Ukrainian woman aged 76. Yulia Svyrydenko told Sky News she has heard various accounts of Ukrainian girls and women who had been subject to sexual violence during the war. When asked how women had been treated by Russian soldiers, Ms Svyrydenko said: "It's horrible. "We discussed stories of women and children that were raped. The youngest was a story about a five-year-old girl and the oldest woman was 76 years old. And those are horrible stories and the world should know about them and should respond - SKY News
A security and defence analyst has said it looks like Russia is planning "some quite big air attacks" in Ukraine. Speaking about the latest developments on the battlefield, Professor Michael Clarke, the former director-general of RUSI, told Sky News: "It looks as though Russians are preparing some big air attacks. There's a lot of Twitter chat and satellite imagery at air bases… so there may be a lot of air activity. "The Russians are really digging in for winter and preparing trenches. In Kherson, they've got huge defences". It comes after air raid sirens were issued all across Ukraine today
Jens Stoltenberg said the message from the first day of a two-day meeting of foreign ministers is that the alliance will continue to support Ukraine. "We will stand by Ukraine as long as it takes will not back down," he says. "And we realise that it is extremely important that President Putin is not able to win in Ukraine…."That will be a tragedy for Ukraine, but it will also make the world more dangerous and much more vulnerable. So it's in the security interest of Nato allies to support Ukraine." Stoltenberg goes on to say that Nato allies have agreed they should work more closely with Ukraine because the support "is making a huge difference on the battlefield every day” - BBC
The United States has announced $53m (£44m) to support the purchase of power grid equipment to Ukraine to help the country combat Russian attacks targeting its energy infrastructure - which left millions in the dark with no heating. "This equipment will be rapidly delivered to Ukraine on an emergency basis to help Ukrainians persevere through the winter," a US State Department statement said. It added that the package would include distribution transformers, circuit breakers and surge arresters among other equipment.