Ukraine Russia latest news: Putin rules out peace talks as Kremlin says more US weapons will worsen war

Volodymyr Zelensky has told the US Congress that aid to Ukraine is an investment in democracy, not charity – as he sought to soften Republican concerns over the size of funding handed to Ukraine since the war began, before they assume control of the House of Representatives in a fortnight.

“Your money is not charity. It is an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way,” the Ukrainian president told a joint session of the House and Senate.

The world was too interconnected to allow any country to stand aside and feel safe, he added.

It is likely that Belarus has recently begun “discreetly” training thousands of newly mobilised Russian reservists, with Moscow’s reliance upon forces it typically deems inferior to its own a sign of “overstretch” in Ukraine, the UK has claimed.

“The likely use of Belarusian instructors is an attempt to partially remediate the lack of Russian military trainers, many of whom are deployed in Ukraine or have become casualties,” said the British Ministry of Defence, in an “intelligence update” in the wake of Mr Putin’s visit to Minsk on Monday.

“Although Russia and Belarus have an extensive background of military co-operation, the training of mobilised Russian personnel by Belarusians represents a role reversal.

“Belarusian forces have traditionally been considered by Russia as inferior to Russian forces and their employment as trainers is an indication of overstretch within the Russian military system.”

The United States has unveiled new curbs on technology exports to Russia’s Wagner military group, in a bid to further choke off supplies to the contractor over its role in Vladimir Putin’s war.

The Wagner group, added to a trade blacklist in 2017 after Russia illegally annexed Crimea, will now be labelled a military end user and face tough new curbs on access to technology made anywhere in the world with US equipment.

“The Wagner Group is one of the most notorious mercenary organisations in the world and is actively committing atrocities and human rights abuses across Ukraine,” said US under-secretary of commerce for industry and security Alan Estevez.

“Today we are sending a clear message to non-state actors seeking to pick up the baton of brutality from Putin’s faltering military that the Department of Commerce will not hesitate to act against them.”

Fighting has continued to batter Ukraine’s east amid Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Washington as Russian attacks targeted the Zaporizhzhia region.

Russian forces have pushed their offensive near the battered eastern front line in Bakhmut and Avdiivka — regions currently being hotly contested in Ukraine — and made the towns and villages the focal point of fighting in Donetsk, Ukraine’s military said last evening.

“Each day, there are anywhere from seven to 10 attempts to storm our positions. And it’s the same at night,” the commander of Ukraine’s “Freedom” battalion Petro Kuzyk said.

“They won’t be able to take Bakhmut, but if they take the heights above it and set up their artillery and cut our logistical arteries, that will make the situation much more difficult,” Mr Kuzyk said.

Mr Zelensky, dressed in cargo pants and his signature miltary-style jacket, was greeted by the president and First Lady Jill Biden, who quickly escorted him through the executive mansion’s diplomatic entrance.

Mr Zelensky’s arrival in the US marked the first moment since Russia invaded his country 300 days ago that the ground under his feet was foreign soil.

Andrew Feinberg has the story.

The massive $1.85b package by the Biden administration for Ukraine will, in big ways and small, expand the abilities of Volodymyr Zelensky’s troops to take out incoming Russian airstrikes and continue counter-offensives to push back against the invading troops.

Zelensky visited Washington yesterday as Ukraine enters the thick of the winter with no respite from Russian strikes and the prospect of the war being dragged on through winter.

But the Ukrainian president’s visit, followed by the package will allow the US president to deliver on his commitment to one of Mr Zelensky’s most urgent battlefield requests — a Patriot missile battery.

Here’s a look at some of the weapons systems the US is providing Ukraine:

Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s dramatic visit to Washington was a moment for the White House to demonstrate to Russia’s Vladimir Putin that the United States would sustain its commitment to the war for “as long as it takes.”

It also provided the Ukrainian president, dressed in military green, the opportunity in the grand setting of the U.S. Capitol to thank Congress for the billions of dollars that are sustaining his country in the fight.

“As long as it takes” is powerful rhetoric, but it now collides with a formidable question: How much more patience will a narrowly divided Congress — and the American public — have for a war with no clear end that is battering the global economy?

The majority of Americans, polls show, continue to support aid for Ukraine as it has managed to repel a Russian military that military analysts — and some U.S. government officials — believed at the start of the war would quickly overwhelm Ukrainian forces.

Aamer Madhani and Lisa Mascaro have the full story.

Russia has lost 100,000 soldiers, including mobilised troops, during the war in Ukraine, the country’s defence ministry said.

This is more than the Soviet lost in Afghanistan and more than the US did in the entire Vietnam war.

The Ukrainian defence ministry took a jibe at Russian defence minister’s announcement of awarding as many soldiers for fighting in the full-scale invasion.

“100,000 soldiers have been recognized with awards in 10 months of the full-scale war – russian #DefMin Sergei Shoigu. What an amazing coincidence,” the ministry said today, calling the elimination of a hundred thousand troops a ‘grim jubilee’.

A Republican congressman contended ahead of Volodymyr Zelensky’s speech to Congress on Wednesay that Joe Biden was the biggest hurdle standing in between Capitol Hill and Washington approving more aid to Ukraine.

In an interview with The Independent, Rep Brian Mast of Florida argued that it was not his party that presented the greatest resistance to sending more aid to Ukraine, but rather faulted a supposed lack of strategy from the Biden administration.

“There’s a half-a**ed approach going on…what’s going on here?” Mr Mast remarked. “The president is doing the sort of, the guise of saying, ‘we don’t want to be escalatory.’ And that’s a very real thing when you’re talking about a situation where nobody can say that there’s a zero per cent chance of nuclear war.”

“But he’s fooling himself if he thinks Patriot [missile] batteries are not escalatory, or isolating Russia is not escalatory, or arming [Ukraine] with anything from a 5.56 to a 7.62 round is [not escalatory],” the congressman continued.

John Bowden has the details.

Ukrainian authorities have found the bodies of seven civilians, including a teenage girl, in a mass grave in the Pravdyne village in Kherson, the country’s defence minister said.

The southern city was recaptured by Ukrainian troops in November from the Russian forces.

“They simply kill,” Oleksii Reznikov said.

As of yesterday, bodies of about 500 civilians who died during the Russian occupation have been found in the northeastern Kharkiv province.