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This is the CNBC blog that follows the evolution of the war in Ukraine. See below for the latest updates.
As the war between Russia and Ukraine drags on into autumn and winter, the economic repercussions for both countries and the rest of the world are clearer.
Data released Wednesday through Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development showed the country’s slowdown continued in September with an apparent contraction.
Russia has insisted its economy can cope with the typhoon of foreign sanctions, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted this week that “no one can stop” the Russian economy.
Russia’s economic and political isolation is not absolute, and it recently made it wonderful to return to the Black Sea grain initiative, an agreement negotiated with Ukraine through Turkey and the UN to allow the export of important agricultural products such as corn and wheat, of which Russia and Ukraine are the main producers.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that despite Russia returning to the deal, which it withdrew last weekend, accusing Ukraine of attacking its Black Sea fleet in Crimea, Moscow “reserves the right to withdraw” if Ukraine’s promises are not respected.
Grain shipments to African countries with severe food shortages, such as Somalia and Sudan, will be prioritized now that the deal has been revived, the Turkish president said.
The UN has expressed fear over reports that North Korea will move weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine.
“Our feeling is that we don’t need to see more weapons in this theater,” Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the U. N. secretary-general, told a briefing.
Dujarric’s comments follow White House allegations that North Korea agreed to deliver weapons to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We don’t think it’s going to replace the course of the war,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on a conference call.
“In fact, it may not replace our calculation,” Kirby said, adding that the United States and its allies will continue to supply more weapons to Kyiv.
Kirby said the U. S. also has indications that Iran will send Russia more drones and surface-to-surface missiles.
Iran and Russia have strongly denied reports that Tehran has provided Moscow with a fleet of drones for use in Ukraine, and the Kremlin has denied that it uses Iranian-made drones to target residential and civilian areas.
—Amanda Macias
Ukraine is confident that Elon Musk will continue to offer access to the web through his rocket company’s SpaceX satellite formula despite a swing last month, but it is also for other suppliers, one of its deputy prime ministers said.
Mykhailo Fedorov, in Portugal for Europe’s largest generation conference, the Lisbon Web Summit, said Ukraine had discussed Starlink directly with Musk and assured that the head of Tesla and Twitter would not shut down the service in Ukraine.
Starlink has “worked, is operating and will work in Ukraine,” Federov, who heads Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation, told a news conference in response to a query about the Reuters service. “Elon Musk has spoken publicly about it and we’ve had a verbal exchange with him about it, so we don’t see a challenge in that regard,” Fedorov said.
“One of the reasons I came here to Web Summit is also to look for new partners and continue to expand and interact with new partners,” he said.
SpaceX activated Starlink over Ukraine after Russia’s invasion in February and has since provided Kyiv with thousands of terminals, allowing Ukrainians to connect to entrances beyond the success of the national telecommunications system. The links are used by both civilians and Ukrainians. military.
— Reuters
According to the British Ministry of Defense, Russian infantrymen fighting in Ukraine are very likely to be frustrated at being forced to serve in old infantry fighting vehicles.
In its most recent intelligence update, the ministry said troops refer to those cars as aluminum cans and that Russia is wasting armored cars at an immediate rate.
“In mid-October, in the face of Ukrainian offensives, losses of Russian armored vehicles rose to more than 40 in one day: roughly the equivalent of a battalion,” the ministry said on Twitter.
“In recent weeks, Russia has resorted to obtaining at least a hundred more tanks and infantry fighting cars from Belarusian reserves. “
Armoured arrays and artillery are at the centre of Russia’s mode of warfare, the UK said, and Russian forces “were now suffering due to difficulties in obtaining artillery munitions and sufficient usable replacement armoured vehicles. “
—Holly Ellyatt
A Russian official in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region said Thursday that the Russian armed forces will most likely leave the western bank of the Dnipro River, where Moscow has evacuated citizens in recent weeks.
“It is very likely that our units, our soldiers, will go to the left (east) bank,” Kirill Stremousov, the deputy civil administrator of the Kherson region installed across Russia, said in an interview with Solovyov Live, a pro-Kremlin online media outlet.
The city of Kherson, the only major Ukrainian city that Russian forces captured intact, is on the western bank of the Dnieper. The damage done to major river crossings means that Russian groups threaten to be trapped in front of the river through the advancing Ukrainian army.
Stremousov suggested the remaining civilians in the city leave immediately, saying they were risking their lives. Russia has transported thousands of others across the river in recent weeks, which Kyiv says amounts to a forced eviction.
However, Ukrainian troops on the front line last week said they had noticed no evidence that Russian forces were fleeing and said they were strengthening their positions.
— Reuters
Russia and Ukraine are expected to exchange 214 prisoners of war on Thursday to a Russian-backed official.
Denis Pushilin, the Russian-backed administrator of the occupied parts of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, said Thursday on Telegram that the two sides would exchange 107 prisoners.
“Today we are collecting 107 of our fighters from Ukrainian dungeons. We are giving Ukraine the same number of prisoners,” he said, adding that 65 of the prisoners arrived here from the self-proclaimed Russian-backed “Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Forces. “Republics. “
Ukraine and Russia carried out several prisoner exchanges during the war, the last of which took position in late October. Ukraine and Russia refer to captured infantrymen as replenishment of their respective “exchange funds. “
—Holly Ellyatt
The Kremlin said it had not yet made a decision on whether to make a larger grain export deal with Ukraine, making the decision on Wednesday to resume participation in the “Black Sea Grain Initiative. “
The existing deal is set to expire on Nov. 19 unless Russia and Ukraine renew the deal, which has exported more than nine million tons of grain and food from the war-torn country. The deal was negotiated through the UN and Turkey and is monitored through their officials, as well as those of Russia and Ukraine.
Russia suspended its participation in the deal last Saturday, according to Ukraine’s humanitarian lounge set up for military purposes, but relapsed on Wednesday saying it had won Ukraine’s promises.
Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday that Moscow’s renewed involvement in the deal necessarily meant it would be renewed.
“Of course, we still have to officially talk about the extension factor, the deadline has not yet expired, it still works. . . But until the 19th, before making the decision to continue, it will be to compare the effectiveness of the implementation of the agreement. And only then can a resolution be made.
Peskov said Turkey had earned Moscow’s promises that the room would not be used for military purposes, a tax Ukraine denies in any case, and praised Ankara’s contributions to the deal, noting that “Turkey’s involvement in this is the most important thing about trust. “”
—Holly Ellyatt
South Korea has expressed fear over evidence of an arms deal between North Korea and Russia, after the White House accused the Pyongyang regime of secretly sending artillery shells into Russia.
Seoul’s Foreign Ministry told NBC on Thursday that the government “is involved in circumstantial evidence pointing to the North Korea-Russia arms deal. “. “
“Any arms industry with the NK is prohibited by United Nations Security Council Resolution No. 1718,” the ministry added.
On Wednesday, U. S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the White House believes North Korea secretly supplies a “significant amount” of artillery shells to Russia for use in Ukraine, NBC News reported.
“We’re going to monitor to see if shipments are received,” Kirby said. “It’s not an insignificant amount of shells, but we don’t think they’re in such quantity that they replace the momentum of war,” he added. .
Hampered by foreign sanctions, Russia appears to rely on countries like Iran and North Korea for weapons, such as explosive-laden Iranian drones, to continue its war against Ukraine. North Korea and Iran deny having arms deals with Russia.
—Holly Ellyatt
Russia summoned the British ambassador on Thursday over Moscow’s claim that the British military corps of workers was involved in a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Black Sea fleet in Crimea.
Ambassador Deborah Bronnert arrived at the Foreign Office shortly after 10:30 local time (07:30 GMT) as a small crowd chanted anti-British slogans and held banners reading “Britain is a terrorist state. “
Bronnert was inside the ministry for about 30 minutes, a Reuters reporter at the scene said. There was no indication from Russia or Britain on the main points of what was discussed.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Wednesday that the ambassador will have to be summoned following Saturday’s drone strike in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Britain says the claims are false. After the drone strike, Russia suspended its participation in a UN-brokered Black Sea grain deal.
Russia presents Britain as a treacherous Western force that, according to President Vladimir Putin, is plotting to destroy Russia and seize its vast herbal resources.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, Britain, along with the United States and the European Union, imposed some of the toughest sanctions in history and provided weapons to Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the British military corps of workers blew up the Nord Stream pipelines, a claim London said was false and designed to distract attention from the Russian military’s messes in Ukraine.
— Reuters
The Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine is running on diesel turbines after being disconnected from Ukraine’s power grid following a Russian bombing, Ukraine’s nuclear power company said on Thursday.
In a message on Telegram, Energoatom said shelling by Russian forces on Wednesday broke the last two high-voltage lines connecting the plant to the Ukrainian grid, and that Russia was seeking to connect the plant to the Russian grid.
“At 11:04 p. m. , the forced plant went into full blackout mode. All 20 diesel turbines work,” Energoatom said. Although the plant’s six reactors are closed, electrical power is still needed for cooling and protection. operations.
Energoatom said it has 15 days of fuel to run the diesel turbines while the plant is in blackout mode.
“The countdown has begun. Due to the plant’s profession and the interference of representatives of Rosatom [Russia’s state-owned nuclear power company] in its operation, the Ukrainian side’s chances of keeping the ZNPP running are particularly limited,” he added. . Said.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, occupied by Russian forces earlier this year, has been a pawn in the war, with both sides accusing each other of bombing and endangering the plant, which is Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. International atomic force experts have warned that the threat of crisis is heightened given the active hostilities around and near the plant.
—Holly Ellyatt
On Wednesday, Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska called on Western leaders to offer more military as the country continues to guard against Russia’s onslaught.
Zelenska suggested to the foreign network not to tire of the war, saying that allied countries will have to fight the aggressor together.
“I understand that these are not the tasks of the first ladies, but we are already out of the general protocols because of the war,” Zelenska told CNBC’s Karen Tso, according to a translation.
“Ukraine wants more weapons, more assistance from the army,” he said, in particular calling for air defense missiles.
—Karen Gilchrist
Russia’s monthly economic slowdown continued in September, with gross domestic product falling five percent year-on-year, according to the latest knowledge from Russia’s Ministry of Economic Development, reported through the official Interfax news agency.
The fall in economic output in September was 4% year-on-year in August and 4. 3% in July.
According to the ministry, Russia’s GDP drop in the third quarter of 2022 amounted to 4. 4% in annual terms, following a 4. 1% drop in the current quarter and a 3. 5% expansion in the first quarter.
Russia bore the brunt of foreign sanctions against key sectors, corporations and Americans for months after its invasion of Ukraine, though it was subject to other economic sanctions before the war for other reasons, adding to alleged U. S. election interference. The U. S. military, cyberattacks and the annexation of Crimea. in 2014.
Russian consumers face abundant living prices, as inflation remains high, at 12. 9% in October, and has gradually declined (inflation stood at 14. 3% in August) after the central bank raised interest rates to cope with emerging prices.
Russia has insisted that its economy is able to circumvent the demanding situations posed by sanctions and, as a major exporter of oil and gas, has been able to earn profit streams from exports of those products to economic partners in Asia, namely India and China.
However, Western agencies such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the IMF and the World Bank expect Russia’s economic decline to be significant this year. to only about 9% in the worst case.
For its part, the Russian ministry forecast that Russia’s economic output will decline to 2. 9 in 2022 and 0. 8 in 2023, before developing to 2. 6 in 2024 and 2025, Interfax reported.
—Holly Ellyatt
CNBC’s Shep Smith examines reports that Russian military leaders have recently discussed the option of a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said that despite Russia’s return to the Black Sea Grain Initiative, it “reserves the right to withdraw” from the deal if Ukraine’s promises are not respected.
Russia suspended its participation in the grain deal over the weekend, after claiming a Ukrainian drone had struck its Black Sea fleet in Crimea. Ukraine claimed responsibility for the attack, which some Ukrainian officials attributed to Russian infantrymen mishandling their own weapons.
“We demand guarantees and promises from Ukraine that nothing like this will return in the future,” Putin told an assembly with permanent members of Russia’s Security Council.
“I have given the Ministry of Defense to resume our full participation in this work,” he added. “At the same time, Russia reserves the right to withdraw from those agreements if those safeguards are violated through Ukraine. “
Early in the war, Russia relied on its Black Sea fleet to launch missiles deep in Ukraine, the fleet retreating to a defensive position after a series of embarrassing attacks this spring through Ukrainian forces.
Before last weekend’s drone attack, analysts noted that Russia already appeared to be laying the rhetorical groundwork for pulling out of the deal, before backtracking this week.
The grain is to feed other people in some of the world’s poorest countries, and a return to a complete lockdown may have starved millions of others in Asia and the Middle East.
Putin also pledged to deliver “free” the “total volume” of grain he delivered from Ukraine to poorer countries, if Russia withdraws from the deal in the future.
—Rocio Faber
Video credit: Burak Kara | fake images
Bulk carrier Asl Tia is shown transiting the Bosphorus Strait in Turkey, carrying 39,000 tons of sunflower cake from Ukraine on Wednesday. The shipment is headed to China.
Russia on Tuesday joined a deal giving way to grain shipments from Ukraine, which Russia invaded in February. Russia has severely affected Ukraine’s agricultural production and, before the deal, blocked departing ships. The deal was negotiated through Turkey and the UN.
The Kremlin said it abandoned the deal over the weekend after Ukraine attacked warships in its Black Sea fleet. But the loaded ships set sail anyway and Moscow joined the deal on Wednesday.
Ukraine is one of the largest grain exporters in the world, with countries from Asia, Africa and counting on its food shipments.
—Ted Kemp
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a phone call to step up diplomatic efforts to end the war.
“President Erdogan said that on the basis of an agreement that will lead to the full recovery of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, diplomatic efforts will be intensified to end the war with a just solution,” reads a message from the Turkish president’s official Twitter account. .
Erdogan also stressed the importance of grain exports from Ukraine and Russia, stressing the importance of the Black Sea Grain Initiative. On the same call, Zelenskyy thanked Erdogan for his “active participation in preserving the ‘grain deal'” in a Telegram article.
Turkey played a role in negotiating the UN-backed deal in July and ended Russia’s suspension of the deal this week.
—Rocio Faber
Russia resumes participation in grain export agreement; Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure ‘seriously damaged’
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