Russia-Ukraine war live news: Zelenskiy aide reveals up to 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed; Russian missiles hit Zaporizhzhia, mayor says

Three people were killed and seven wounded in Russian shelling of the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson over the past 24 hours, the regional governor said.

Governor Yaroslav Yanushevych wrote on the Telegram messaging app that Russian troops had bombarded the city of Kherson and other parts of the region 42 times in the same period.

The city of Kherson was liberated by Ukrainian forces in mid-November after months of Russian occupation, but has been under fire since then from Russian troops who retreated to the opposite side of the River Dnipro.

The city has also suffered problems with its power supply, Reuters reported. Yanushevych said yesterday that power had been lost again after recently being restored.

Russian-installed authorities in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region said that they would start evacuating some people with reduced mobility from the Russian-occupied town of Kakhovka, on the east bank of the Dnieper River.

The evacuations were set to start on Saturday, they said in a Telegram post on Friday.

The International Atomic Energy Agency hopes to reach an agreement with Russia and Ukraine to create a protection zone at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant by the end of the year, the head of the UN atomic watchdog was quoted as saying.

The nuclear plant, Europe’s biggest, provided about a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity before Russia’s invasion, and has been forced to operate on back-up generators a number of times, Reuters reported.

Repeated shelling around the Russian-held plant has raised concern about the potential for a grave accident just 300 miles from the site of the world’s worst nuclear accident, the 1986 Chornobyl disaster.

Grossi did not rule out meeting Russian president Vladimir Putin, as well as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

“Our goal is to avoid a nuclear accident, not to create a military situation that would favour either one party or the other”, Grossi said.

Germany is aiming to deliver seven Gepard tanks that had been destined for the scrap pile to Ukraine this spring, adding to 30 of the air-defence tanks that are already being used to fight against the Russian army, Der Spiegel magazine reported on Friday.

The seven tanks, which are now being repaired by Munich-based arms manufacturer Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW), are meant to help Ukraine in protecting its cities and infrastructure against Russian shelling, reported Der Spiegel.

The German government also aims to send more ammunition for the Gepards along with the additional tanks, it reported.

Supply of ammunition for the Gepard has proven problematic as Switzerland, which has stocks of ammunition, refuses to supply it, citing its neutral status, Reuters reported.

The archbishop of Canterbury has said there must be “no way we force peace” in Ukraine.

Justin Welby added that the need for support is going to be “very long term”, the Press Association reported.

Asked what he learned from his visit to the war-torn country, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

First of all, the need for solidarity and support for Ukraine.

And secondly, that there must be no way in which we force peace on Ukraine or they’re put under pressure. Third, that the need for support is going to be very long term.

Pressed on whether he meant, in some cases, war is the right course, he said:

Peace is always better than war. But there are times when justice demands that there is the defeat of what we call, the archbishop of York and I called when it started, an evil invasion. And I don’t regret saying that.

Ukraine is the victim here, we can’t slip back to a 1938 Czechoslovakia, sort of people far away of whom we know little situation. There has to be real resilience.

Russia tested a new missile defence system rocket, its defence ministry said today.

The missile was launched from the Sary Shagan testing range in Kazakhstan.

Other than saying the test was successful, the ministry gave few other details.

The Belarusian media outlet Nexta has published a series of images purportedly showing the aftermath of Russian strikes on the south-eastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia early this morning.

The city’s mayor, Anatoly Kurtev, earlier announced the attack on Telegram, saying Russia intended to destroy the industrial and energy infrastructure of the city.

Russia’s withdrawal from the west bank of the Dnipro River last month has provided the Ukrainian armed forces with opportunities to strike additional Russian logistics nodes and lines of communication, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has suggested.

This threat has highly likely prompted Russian logisticians to relocate supply nodes, including rail transfer points, further south and east, the latest British intelligence report reads.

“Russian logistics units will need to conduct extra labour-intensive loading and unloading from rail to road transport. Road moves will subsequently still be vulnerable to Ukrainian artillery as they move on to supply Russian forward defensive positions,” the report adds.

“Russia’s shortage of munitions (exacerbated by these logistics challenges) is likely one of the main factors currently limiting Russia’s potential to restart effective, large scale offensive ground operations.”

The chief economic adviser to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called on BP to exit Russia entirely after the fossil fuel firm was offered a £580m dividend by the oil giant Rosneft.

Oleg Ustenko has written to BP’s chief executive, Bernard Looney, to demand the British company cuts ties with the state-controlled Russian firm nine months after announcing its intention to leave the country.

BP has a 19.75% stake in Rosneft, one of the Kremlin’s most important oil assets. The FTSE 100 company vowed to end its shareholding in late February after Russia invaded Ukraine.

BP took a £18.7bn hit by writing off the shareholding from its books, but still owns the stock. Last month Rosneft’s boss, Igor Sechin, said the British company should reconsider that position and that it had put aside a dividend, in a Russian account, for BP.

In a letter to Looney, seen by the Guardian, Ustenko wrote: “BP was among the first of the oil majors to announce its intention to exit Russia by selling its stake in Rosneft, the Kremlin’s oil company.

“Yet after nine months of Russian aggression, war crimes and the bombardment of civilian infrastructure, all funded and fuelled by Russian oil, gas and coal, BP remains a shareholder in Rosneft.”

Ustenko cited Global Witness analysis that showed the dividend for the first nine months of 2022 was worth an estimated £580m, or the equivalent of a third of the UK’s direct aid to Ukraine this year.

“No accounting mechanisms or statements from BP will change this fact. This is blood money, pure and simple,” he said.

The Finish prime minister, Sanna Marin, has called for Europe to build its own defence capabilities in the wake of the war in Ukraine, saying that without US help it is not resilient enough.

“We should make sure that we are stronger,” Marin said in Sydney on Friday. “And I’ll be brutally honest with you, Europe isn’t strong enough. We would be in trouble without the United States.”

Marin insisted Ukraine must be given “whatever it takes” to win the war, adding that the United States had been pivotal in supplying Kyiv with the weapons, finance and humanitarian aid necessary to blunt Russia’s advance.

“We have to make sure that we are also building those capabilities when it comes to European defence, the European defence industry, and making sure that we could cope in different kinds of situations,” she said.

Marin said when Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, the priority of most Finns changed “overnight” to security.

Until Russia invaded Ukraine, Finland’s priorities were to have working bilateral relations with Russia and be close partners with members Nato, but not be a member, she said. “That was the best way to secure our nation.”

The United States is reportedly working with two Middle Eastern countries to shift advanced Nasams air defence systems to Ukraine in the next three to six months.

Weapons manufacturer Raytheon Technologies CEO Greg Hayes told Politico late Thursday:

There are Nasams deployed across the Middle East, and some of our Nato allies and we [the US] are actually working with a couple of Middle Eastern countries that currently employ Nasams and trying to direct those back up to Ukraine.”

He spoke a day after the Pentagon awarded a $1.2bn contract to Raytheon for six Nasams expected to be built in late 2025.

“Just because it takes 24 months to build, it doesn’t mean it’s going to take 24 months to get in country,” Hayes said.

He declined to name the Middle Eastern countries that would send the systems to Ukraine, but Defence Security Cooperation Agency records cited by Politico list Oman and Qatar as its purchasers.

Kyiv received two of the eight approved deliveries of Nasams in early November.

Nasams, or national advanced surface-to-air missile systems, have a longer range than other western-supplied air defence systems in Ukraine.

US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron presented a united front on Ukraine with Biden saying he would talk to Russian President Vladimir Putin if he is willing to end the war and only in consultation with Nato allies.

I’m prepared to speak with Mr Putin if in fact there is an interest in him deciding he’s looking for a way to end the war. He hasn’t done that yet,” Biden told a news conference at the White House with Macron on Thursday.

Macron said he would continue to talk to Putin to “try to prevent escalation and to get some very concrete results” such as the safety of nuclear plants.

Biden and Macron pledged to hold Russia accountable for “widely documented atrocities and war crimes” in Ukraine.

At the East Room press conference, Biden said he had been shocked by Russia’s brutality in Ukraine but insisted that Vladimir Putin was “not going to succeed”, adding: “President Macron and I have resolved that we’re going to continue working together to hold Russia accountable for their actions and to mitigate the global impacts of Putin’s war on the rest of the world.”

“Intentionally targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure constitutes war crimes whose perpetrators must be held accountable.”

Taking questions from reporters, Biden added:

There’s one way for this war to end – the rational way. Putin to pull out of Ukraine … it’s sick, what he’s doing … I’m prepared to speak with Mr Putin if in fact there is an interest in him deciding he’s looking for a way to end the war.”

Macron said they discussed initiatives “to keep supporting and strengthen our support to the Ukrainian troops and enable them to resist”.

Russian forces reportedly struck the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia overnight.

Zaporizhzhia mayor Anatoly Kurtev announced the attack on Telegram early this morning.

As a result of the enemy attack, the building of the infrastructure object is on fire. The blast wave blew out windows in nearby houses.”

Kurtev said emergency services are on the scene and casualties are not yet known.

Zaporizhzhia administrative head Oleksandr Starukh posted an update to Telegram this morning, writing:

Tonight, the enemy once again launched a rocket attack on Zaporizhzhia. Its goal was the destruction of the industrial and energy infrastructure of the regional centre. As a result, a fire broke out. According to available data, there are no victims.”

Ukraine’s armed forces have lost somewhere between 10,000 and 13,000 soldiers so far in the war against Russia, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told a Ukrainian television network on Thursday.

We have official figures from the general staff, we have official figures from the top command, and they amount to [between] 10,000 and 12,500 to 13,000 killed,” Podolyak told the Kanal 24 channel.

Zelenskiy would make the official data public “when the right moment comes”, he added.

Top US general Mark Milley last month said more than 100,000 Russian military personnel have been killed or wounded in Ukraine, with Kyiv’s forces likely suffering similar casualties.

Those figures - which could not be independently confirmed - are the most precise to date from the US government.

Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. I’m Samantha Lock and I’ll be bringing you all the latest developments as they unfold over the next few hours.

Ukraine’s armed forces have lost somewhere between 10,000 and 13,000 soldiers so far in the war against Russia, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told a local television network on Thursday.

Meanwhile Russian forces reportedly struck the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia overnight. City mayor Anatoly Kurtev announced the attack on Telegram early this morning. “As a result of the enemy attack, the building of the infrastructure object is on fire. The blast wave blew out windows in nearby houses,” he said.

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