Putin slams 'calls of the West to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia'; Zelensky calls for ‘peace through strength’

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday called on European leaders to apply an approach of “peace through strength” to confront the threat posed by Russia.

A Russian guided bomb attack on Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia on Thursday killed four people and wounded 33, destroying houses and damaging an oncology centre, said officials.

Putin says struggle for new world order is under way

President Vladimir Putin condemned the US on Thursday for seeking to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia in Ukraine and said a struggle was under way to shape a new world order as the Western-dominated post-Cold War era crumbled.

“We have come to a dangerous line,” Putin told the Valdai Discussion Club in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, a day after learning that Donald Trump had won the US presidential election.

“The calls of the West to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, a country with the largest arsenal of nuclear weapons, demonstrates the exorbitant adventurism of Western politicians,” said Putin.

The West had arrogantly sought to cast Russia as a defeated power after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, he said, describing the US-led Nato military alliance as an anachronism.

Russia, he said, did not consider Western civilisation to be the enemy despite attempts by the US and its allies to isolate Moscow.

The world was changing in any case, he said, and many powerful countries did not want to isolate Russia.

“The former structure of the world is irrevocably disappearing — we can say it has already gone — and a serious, irreconcilable struggle is unfolding for the formation of a new one,” said Putin.

“The world needs Russia, and no decisions by supposed superiors in Washington or Brussels can change that.”

Zelensky says ‘peace through strength’ is needed now

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday called on European leaders to apply an approach of “peace through strength” to confront the threat posed by Russia.

Zelensky’s appeal comes a day after Trump won another term in the White House, bringing uncertainty about Washington’s future policy after he had criticized the scale of US military and financial support for Kyiv in its war with Russia.

Without going into details, Trump also has vowed to end the war quickly.

Zelensky nevertheless has praised Trump’s “commitment to the ‘peace through strength’ approach in global affairs”.

In Thursday’s address to the European Political Community summit in Budapest, he echoed that comment.

“The concept of ‘peace through strength’ has proven its realism and effectiveness more than once. Now, it is needed once more,” said Zelensky.

He stressed that his country needed firm support from European leaders, some of whom he criticised for advocating concessions to Russia. It was “unacceptable for Ukraine and suicidal for all Europe”, he added.

“And what’s next? Should Europe seek the favour of Kim Jong-un in hopes that he, too, will leave Europe in peace?” said Zelensky in an apparent reference to North Korean troops deployed by Russia to help in its war effort in Ukraine.

“We need sufficient weapons, not just support in talks. Hugs with Putin won’t help,” the Ukrainian leader said in an apparent reference to pictures showing United Nations chief António Guterres hugging  Putin at a summit in Russia.

Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia kills four

A Russian guided bomb attack on Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia on Thursday killed four people and wounded 33, destroying houses and damaging an oncology centre, said officials.

A four-month-old girl and two boys, aged one and 10, were among the wounded, said regional governor Ivan Fedorov on the Telegram messaging app. Two people were in severe condition, he added.

Russia launched six bombs at the city, all of which hit civilian infrastructure, including private houses and a five-storey residential building, according to Fedorov.

A rescue operation was ongoing, with more people likely trapped under the rubble, said officials.

Destroyed buildings, houses with smashed facades and shattered windows could be seen on images from the site posted by Fedorov.

Blood trails and broken glass were visible on the stairs inside the medical facility.

Zelensky said such attacks made a mockery of comments about a lack of negotiations with Russia.

“They take pleasure in killing people,” he said on X.

Russian troops have recently stepped up attacks on Zaporizhzhia and the surrounding region. They carried out almost 11,000 attacks on the region in October alone, according to Fedorov.

Germany’s Ukraine support for 2025 is ‘safe despite coalition break-up’

Germany will be able to provide most of the €4-billion pledged to Ukraine even if the 2025 budget cannot be approved on time following the collapse of the coalition government, sources from the budget committee told Reuters.

The funds are largely committed appropriations and can therefore be disbursed under provisional budget management if the budget is not passed, said four sources.

German aid to Ukraine was cut to €4-billion in 2025 from around €8-billion in 2024, according to the draft of the 2025 budget.

Germany hoped Ukraine would be able to meet the bulk of its military needs with the $50 billion in loans from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets approved by the Group of Seven industrialised nations.

However, the return of Trump to the White House raises concerns in Europe that US support for Kyiv could diminish. Germany’s coalition government collapsed hours after Trump’s victory became clear on Wednesday, when Chancellor Olaf Scholz fired his finance minister, Christian Lindner.

“Politically, the turmoil in the German government is the first sign, the first reaction to Trump’s re-election,” said Gilles Guibout, the head of European equity strategies at AXA Investment Managers in Paris.

A likely delay in next year’s budget means no spending on new projects, though some outlays such as more aid for Ukraine could still pass.

“Launching new funding programmes would require a decision from the budget committee or the Bundestag,” said Economy Minister Robert Habeck on Thursday. “Thus, there is a certain limitation on new programmes, but everything already in place can continue as planned.”

The cabinet agreed on the budget in the summer and it was due for parliamentary approval before year-end, but this now could get pushed back until mid-2025.

Russia hits Ukrainian energy facility in drone attack

Russia hit an energy facility in northern Ukraine during overnight drone strikes that injured at least three people across the country, said Ukrainian officials on Thursday.

Ukraine’s power distribution company Ukrenergo said the energy facility that was hit was located in the northern Zhytomyr region but gave no further details apart from saying the attack resulted in power cuts.

Ukraine’s air force said it had downed 74 of 106 drones launched by Russia across the country and another 25 were “locationally lost”, indicating they did not hit their target.

Fragments from downed drones injured at least two people in the capital, Kyiv, and damaged 10 buildings, including a medical facility, a business centre and apartment blocs, said Serhiy Popko, head of the city’s military administration.

Photos posted by the city authorities showed burnt-out vehicles in ruined garages, and shattered windows and charred walls in another location.

A man was also slightly hurt in the southern city of Odesa, where an 11-storey building, cars and a gas pipe were damaged in the Russian drone attack, said regional governor Oleh Kiper.

Large-scale drone attacks have become a nightly danger for Kyiv residents over the past month as Russia, which began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, increased the number of drones launched against Ukraine.

Russia has repeatedly attacked Ukraine’s power grid and energy infrastructure in what Kyiv says appears to be a concerted effort to degrade the system before winter, when people most need electricity and heating.

Britain hits Russia with new wave of sanctions

The British government said on Thursday it had imposed its biggest sanctions package against Russia for 18 months, targeting people involved in the Ukraine war, African mercenary groups and a nerve agent attack on British soil.

The foreign ministry said it had sanctioned 56 bodies and individuals, aiming to hurt Putin’s war effort and Russia’s “malign activity globally”.

Among them were 10 entities based in China said to be supplying machinery and components for the Russian military.

“Today’s measures will continue to push back on the Kremlin’s corrosive foreign policy, undermining Russia’s attempts to foster instability across Africa and disrupting the supply of vital equipment for Putin’s war machine,” said British Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

Most of the measures were aimed at companies based in Russia, China, Turkey and Kazakhstan accused of aiding the Russian invasion of Ukraine with the supply of machine tools, microelectronics and components for drones.

They include firms that European intelligence sources believe to be part of a Russian attempt to establish a weapons programme in China, according to a Reuters report in September.

Britain also said the latest sanctions would address Russian activity in Libya, Mali and the Central African Republic by targeting three private mercenary groups with links to the Kremlin, including the Kremlin-controlled Africa Corps, and 11 individuals.

Among the individuals sanctioned was Denis Sergeev, whom British police have charged over the murder attempt on former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the southern English city of Salisbury in March 2018.

Sergeev, who Britain said was acting under the alias Sergey Fedotov, was one of three Russians said by Britain to have been GRU military intelligence officers suspected of carrying out the attack.

Last month, a public inquiry into the death of a woman who was accidentally poisoned by the nerve agent heard that Skripal believed Putin himself had ordered the Novichok attack.

Moscow has repeatedly rejected British accusations that it was involved. DM