Ukraine Update…Day 971….Ukraine President Zelensky ain’t a happy camper

Ukraine will begin calling up another 160,000 people to serve in its military, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, Oleksandr Lytvynenko, has told parliament. A security source separately told Agence France-Presse the recruitment would take place over three months.

Nine people were injured, several apartments set on fire and a kindergarten damaged as Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 62 drones over Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning. Air defence units destroyed 33 of them over Kyiv and other regions, with 25 unaccounted for, the military said.

Ukraine and Russia have discussed stopping strikes on each other’s energy infrastructure, the Financial Times reported. Discussions were said to be in preliminary stages. Russian strikes have severely affected Ukraine’s electrical grid; Ukraine has done substantial damage to oil and fuel refineries and depots in Russia.

Russia claimed on Tuesday to have taken full control of the mining hub of Selydove, about 18km (10 miles) south-east of Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region. There was no confirmation from the Ukrainian side, but the Kyiv Independent cited analysts and experts in reporting that the capture of Selydove was “all but confirmed”. Russia also claimed to control the nearby villages of Bogoyavlenka, Girnyk and Katerynivka. Pokrovsk is a major war objective.

Joe Biden has said Ukraine should strike back if North Korean troops cross into Ukraine. “I am concerned about it,” said the US president when asked about the troops’ presence in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces hold territory. “If they cross into Ukraine, yes,” Biden said, when asked if the Ukrainians should strike back.

Maj Gen Pat Ryder, Pentagon spokesperson, said a “small number” of North Koreans had been deployed in Kursk, with “a couple thousand more that are either almost there or due to arrive imminently”. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, spoke with South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, on Tuesday about the troop deployment and they agreed on deeper cooperation. “The conclusion is clear: this war is becoming internationalised, extending beyond two countries,” Zelenskyy told the South Korean leader, according to a summary of their call.

Yoon said the involvement of North Korean troops in the Ukraine conflict was “unprecedented and dangerous” and warned about the potential transfer of military technology and combat experience from Moscow to Pyongyang. Ukraine will host a delegation from South Korea soon to discuss the escalation. Prompted by the North Korean deployment, South Korea is considering sending arms to Ukraine.

The White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, met on Tuesday with Zelenskyy’s top adviser, Andriy Yermak. Officials said Sullivan briefed Yermak on Joe Biden’s plans to send additional artillery systems, ammunition, hundreds of armoured vehicles, and other materiel including Patriot and Amraam missiles to Ukraine before Biden leaves office in January.

The Finnish president, Alexander Stubb, said he told his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, that North Korea sending arms and personnel to Russia was an escalation and provocation in a message on behalf of Nato and the EU during talks in Beijing on Tuesday. “We had a good discussion about this,” Stubb told reporters.

Russia has expanded its use of torture at home and abroad since invading Ukraine – making it “a tool for stifling the civic space, for silencing all anti-war or dissidents, anybody who disagrees with the policies and the Russian authorities”, Mariana Katzarova, the UN human rights monitor for Russia, said on Tuesday. The Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison andArtem Mazhulin report from Kyiv on Russian captors’ systematic sexual torture of their Ukrainian prisoners.

Vladimir Putin on Tuesday launched an exercise of Russia’s nuclear forcesfeaturing missile launches in a simulation of a retaliatory strike. According to the defence ministry, the military test-fired a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile, submarines test-fired ICBMs, and Tu-95 strategic bombers carried out practice launches of long-range cruise missiles.

South Africa’s coalition government has been rocked over a deal to grant visa-free access for Ukrainians holding diplomatic, official and services passports.
The arrangement announced by Leon Schreiber, the home affairs minister from the Democratic Alliance, was repudiated by the office of the president, Cyril Ramaphosa, and his African National Congress. It comes after the Democratic Alliance leader, John Steenhuisen, earlier denounced Ramaphosa for calling Vladimir Putin a “valuable ally and friend”. “The Democratic Alliance (DA) … rejects this characterisation in no uncertain terms. The Democratic Alliance does not consider Russia, or Vladimir Putin, to be an ally of our nation,” Steenhuisen said. Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya, responded that the president was responsible for foreign policy and would implement it without pressure from the DA.

The US aerospace company Aerojet Rocketdyne has doubled its monthly production of motors for GMLRS rockets that are heavily used in Ukraine, a company executive said on Tuesday, as demand surges to supply the Ukrainians, replenish US stockpiles and meet demand from other customers. Aerojet produces about half of all the rocket motors propelling US military missiles, rockets and other projectiles. The guided multiple launch rocket system, also known as GMLRS, can fire about 72km (45 miles).