Angry Putin lashes out at minister over lack of warplanes

Here a few top stories from today.

• Vladimir Putin accused a minister of "fooling around" and "not trying hard enough" to acquire more military and civilian aircraft for the war in Ukraine.
• Ukraine claimed that Russian troops are advancing over the bodies of their fallen comrades as the battle for Soledar rages.
• German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said Germany should not stand in the way of other countries' military support for Ukraine, in reference to a Polish push to send German-built Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine.

Please follow us tomorrow for all the latest updates on Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine have not reached a new prisoner exchange agreement during talks in Turkey, Moscow's envoy told AFP on Thursday, saying her earlier remarks about a swap were misinterpreted.

Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova held rare talks in Ankara on Wednesday with her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Lubinets.

Turkish state media later quoted her as telling reporters that they had agreed to exchange "more than 40 prisoners" from each side.

But Moskalkova told AFP that those comments referred to the number of people the sides had already exchanged in the past.

"Someone misunderstood something," Moskalkova said on the sidelines of an international conference in the Turkish capital.

A congress of Ukrainian judges on Thursday appointed the last of eight new members to an important judicial oversight body, a move experts and officials have said is critical to Kyiv's push to reform its judiciary.

The European Union made cleaning up the courts one of its main recommendations when it offered Ukraine the status of candidate member last June, four months after Russia's invasion.

The selection of the new members to the High Council of Justice (HCJ) means the body can resume its work overseeing the appointment, dismissal and disciplining of judges.

"Looking forward to the reformed HCJ showcasing rule of law and integrity in practice," the EU's ambassador to Ukraine, Matti Maasikas, wrote on Twitter.

The world witnessed a “sea of human suffering” last year but also power shifts that opened up new ways to resist abusive leaders and states, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

A new 712-page “World Report” by the global rights group documents the torrent of human rights crises that emerged in 2022, from the Ukraine war to China’s crackdown in Xinjiang and the Taliban’s crushing of women’s rights in Afghanistan.

But the report, which documents the state of human rights in close to 100 countries, also offers a glimmer of hope that the rise of repression has triggered a stronger pushback against it.

Read more about the report from our Asia Correspondent Nicola Smith here

Ukraine said its troops were holding out despite heavy fighting on a battlefield littered with bodies in a salt mining town in eastern Ukraine, where Russian mercenaries have claimed Moscow's first significant gain in half a year.

The ultra-nationalist contract militia Wagner, run by an ally of President Vladimir Putin outside the main chain of military command, claims to have taken Soledar after intense fighting that it said had left the town strewn with Ukrainian dead. But Moscow has held off officially proclaiming victory.

"At the moment, there are still some small pockets of resistance in Soledar," Andrei Bayevsky, a Russian-installed local politician, said in an online broadcast.

Ukraine has acknowledged Russian advances but Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar told a briefing on Thursday that fighting was still fierce.

Labour's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper MP said the summary provided by Ms Braverman was a "totally inadequate response to very serious corruption and criminality concerns about the Government's golden visas".

Ms Cooper said: "Ministers have finally recognised and admitted that 10 of those sanctioned following Russia's invasion of Ukraine had come to the UK on golden visas.

"But they have provided no answers to the most basic questions Labour raised a year ago, including how many golden visas have been revoked, how many recipients have been granted citizenship and what is the security threat arising from serious and organised criminals who used the route to enter the UK.

"It is disgraceful for the Home Secretary to dodge scrutiny in this way. She should come to Parliament at the earliest opportunity and must publish a far more detailed report setting out the answers to the national security questions arising from this."

Downing Street has said reports that one of the two British men missing in Ukraine has been found dead have yet to be verified.

The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "I think those are speculative reports at the moment.

"The reports we have had today are deeply concerning. They have been reported by the Wagner Group as the source of that, so I would urge caution in reporting that until any such claims are verified."

Germany should not stand in the way of other countries' military support for Ukraine, German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said on Thursday, in reference to a Polish push to send German-built Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine.

"Germany should not stand in the way of other countries taking decisions to support Ukraine, independent of which decisions Germany takes," Habeck said in Berlin in response to a reporter's question on the initiative.

The British government said that a small number of people who had obtained so-called "golden visas" for rich investors might have obtained their wealth through corruption or other illicit financial activity.

The government scrapped the visas last year, which had offered a route to residency for those investing at least 2 million pounds ($2.43 million), in the days before the invasion of Ukraine amid concerns about the inflow of illicit Russian money.

A review was first commissioned by the government in 2018 after the poisoning of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in Britain, and details of that investigation were only released to parliament on Thursday.

Vladimir Putin yesterday told a deputy prime minister that he was “fooling around” after criticising him for not ordering enough military and civilian aircraft. 

The Russian leader’s angry outburst, rare for a politician who is regarded as being cool and unflappable, betrays his frustration at the progress of his war in Ukraine and the impact of Western sanctions on the Russian economy. 

“When will there be contracts? Directors have told me that they have no contracts,” said Mr Putin on a video conference call with his top government ministers. He later raised his voice and said: “Why are you fooling around?” 

The target of Mr Putin’s anger was Denis Manturov who is in charge of Russia’s aviation and hi-tech policies. 

As Mr Manturov delivered his report, Mr Putin looked distracted and unimpressed, fidgeting and making notes before delivering the rare public rebuke. 

Mr Manturov tried to defend himself but this just appeared to irritate Mr Putin further. Mr Putin cut Mr Manturov short several times and appeared to mock him by constantly asking what he was waiting for. “You are not trying hard enough,” he said, getting angry. 

“You need to get this sorted out in the next month.” Mr Putin only delivers public rebukes when he is seriously irritated. He usually prefers his deputies to make it clear to officials when he is unhappy with their performance.

A Russian court sentenced a 24-year-old professional soldier to five years in prison for refusing to fight in Ukraine, officials said on Thursday.

The soldier, "not wanting to take part in a special military operation", did not report for duty in May 2022, said the press service for courts in the region of Bashkortostan in the southern Urals.

Law enforcement located the man, Marsel Kandarov, in September, the statement added.

Separately, a military tribunal said it sentenced Kandarov to five years behind bars for evading military service during mobilisation for more than a month.

Russia announced the mobilisation of 300,000 men in late September to buttress Russian troops on the ground in Ukraine.

Russia questioned whether Sweden had "something to hide" over explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines last year, as it slammed Stockholm for not sharing information in the ongoing investigations into the blasts.

Swedish and Danish authorities are investigating four holes in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines which link Russia and Germany via the Baltic Sea and have become a flashpoint in the Ukraine crisis.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Sweden's refusal to engage with Russian prosecutors was "confusing" and said Moscow had a right to know the details of the probe into the explosions, which occurred last September.

Moscow proposed to Stockholm the establishment of a joint investigation into the blasts, which could see three of the four lines of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas projects put permanently out of use. But both Sweden and Denmark have rejected the idea of Russian participation.

Vladimir Putin clearly believes that he has a limitless pool of manpower that he can draw on as he attempts to regain the initiative in the Ukraine conflict. 

But he also needs to be aware of one of the lessons of Russian history – that the wanton loss of Russian lives on the battlefield can have disastrous consequences for the ruling regime in Moscow.

More than a century ago, the appalling losses that the Tsar’s soldiers suffered during the First World War precipitated the Russian revolution and the 1917 overthrow of Nicholas II, whose incompetent leadership had resulted in Russian forces suffering hundreds of thousands of casualties.

Read from Con Coughlin here

Britain is planning to provide tanks to Ukraine, Downing Street confirmed for the first time on Wednesday.

A No10 spokesman said Rishi Sunak had instructed Ben Wallace, his Defence Secretary, to “work with partners” to go “further and faster with our support for Ukraine including the provision of tanks”.

The apparent confirmation comes after reports that Britain is considering delivering Kyiv’s armed forces with around 12 Challenger II tanks.

If a deal is done to supply Ukraine with a number of the British Army’s main battle tanks, it would be the first time a Western country has supplied such heavy armour to Kyiv.

Read the full story by Joe Barnes and Matthew Day here

Vladimir Putin’s decision to put Gen. Valery Gerasimov in overall command of Russia’s war on Ukraine – only three months after putting Gen. Sergei Surovikin in the same chair – is only the latest iteration of the Kremlin’s command-and-control structure. 

None of those changes, however, have made much difference to Russia’s military fortunes, and this one is unlikely to buck that trend.

Read more about why Putin's command shake-up is doomed to fail from Sam Greene here

A majority of Republicans would want their member of Congress to oppose aid funding for Ukraine, a new poll has found.

52 per cent of Republicans want their Congress member to oppose further funding, polling from CBS News/YouGov revealed.

Kevin McCarthy reportedly agreed to spending caps that would limit future aid to Ukraine as part of the deal with ultraconservatives that enabled him to finally be elected as House speaker on Saturday.

Read: Kevin McCarthy 'agreed to cut aid to Ukraine' to secure US speaker role

More than 80 Russian civilians hired to dig trenches in Russia-occupied eastern Ukraine were killed in a Ukrainian Himars missile strike last month, according to a new investigation.

Survivors hired to work in the Luhansk region said that Ukrainian shelling on the village of Lantrativka last month destroyed the local school where the workers were staying, killing at least 84 people.

“There were three rockets at 3am, and two more rounds five seconds later,” the man whose identity Radio Free Europe withheld said.

Read the full story by Nataliya Vasilyeva here 

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday urged governments to show the same concern for civilians caught up in other conflicts after hailing the international response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

"Amongst the fog of war and the darkness that we have seen in this war in Ukraine, there has been a shining light," acting executive director, Tirana Hassan, told AFP in London.

"That has been the international response and the commitment to international justice," she said as HRW released its annual report on rights worldwide.

In the report, HRW urged governments to "replicate the best of the international response in Ukraine" and "scale up the political will to address other crises".

The body of one of the two British aid workers missing in Ukraine was discovered on Wednesday, forces from Russia’s private Wagner militia claimed.

The group shared photographs of passports belonging to both Andrew Bagshaw, 48, and Christopher Parry, 28, that they say were found on the body of one of the pair.

“Today the body of one of them was found. Documents for both Britons were discovered with him,” said the Wagner statement. It did not give details on where the body was found.

Read the full story by Josie Ensor here

Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Russian military firm Wagner Group and a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said his forces had captured all of Soledar and killed about 500 Ukrainian soldiers after heavy fighting.

"I want to confirm the complete liberation and cleansing of the territory of Soledar," Mr Prigozhin said in a statement.

"The whole city is littered with the corpses of Ukrainian soldiers."

Volodymyr Zelensky shut down the claim and US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters he could not corroborate reports that Soledar was in Russian hands.

The Russian general commanding the Ukraine invasion has been demoted after just three months amid criticism that his campaign of bombing the Ukrainian power grid had failed.

Gen Sergei Surovikin, known as General Armageddon for his destruction of Aleppo in 2016, has been replaced as commander of Russian forces in Ukraine by Gen Valery Gerasimov, the head of the Russian army.

Gen Surovikin will now serve as Gen Gerasimov’s deputy.

Read the full story by Nataliya Vasilyeva and Roland Oliphant here