EU implements 9th package of sanctions against Russia

The European Union is “stepping up the pressure on Russia” with another package of sanctions, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced on Wednesday.

The package — the EU’s ninth — adds another nearly 200 individuals and entities to its sanctions list. It includes armed forces, members of the Russian parliament and defense industrial companies.

The EU will also sanction three more Russian banks, including a full transaction ban on the country’s regional development bank, “to further dry out Putin’s war chest,” she added.

The measures will also cut Russia’s access to drones, both directly and via third-country suppliers such as Iran, she said.

The bloc will also impose new controls on exports, with a focus on dual-use goods such as chemicals, nerve agents, electronics and IT components, which “could be used by the Russian war machine,” she added.

EU Commission Vice President Josep Borrell said the latest measures are a direct consequence of the weaponization of winter by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“He wants to disrupt electricity, heating, and water supplies for millions of civilians across Ukraine. We are responding with the 9th package of sanctions against those who are instrumental in this brutal war,” he said on Twitter.

Artillery and mortar fire has picked up on both sides of the front lines in the eastern Donetsk region, according to accounts from both the Ukrainian military and authorities in the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic.

On the Ukrainian side, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the president’s office, said that at least eight people were killed and five injured in an attack on the town of Kurakhove.

Kurakhove is west of the city of Donetsk; the shelling may have been in retaliation for Ukrainian fire on the city, which is held by the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, over the last three days.

To the north, in the town of Yampil, according to Tymoshenko, “the occupiers used cluster munitions. The central square of the city and the administrative building came under fire.”

Yampil was liberated in September as Ukrainian forces pushed Russian units back into Luhansk. 

Other impacted areas: The Ukrainian military says that Russian artillery has fired at several settlements in Luhansk and Kharkiv — as Russia consolidates new defensive lines in the east.  

The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War says that Ukrainian forces have “likely made recent gains in north-eastern Kharkiv,” and have probably retaken the settlement of Kyslivka, some 25 kilometers (more than 15 miles) northwest of the strategic hub of Svatove where Russian forces are concentrated. 

The Ukrainian General Staff said Russia was focusing its efforts on assaults toward the cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka in Donetsk, both of which have been under fire for months but remain in Ukrainian hands.

It said Russians continued to bombard Ukrainian settlements in recently liberated parts of Kherson along the west bank of the river Dnipro.

After a lull in the Russians’ use of Iranian-made attack drones, the General Staff said one was shot down Wednesday.

Suspicious packages continue to be sent to Ukrainian diplomatic missions abroad, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a Facebook post on Wednesday. 

“Over the past two days, suspicious packages have been received at the embassies in Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Denmark, as well as the consulate in Gdansk,” said Kuleba. 

According to Kuleba, this brings the total number of threats to 31 cases across 15 countries: Austria (1), Croatia (1), Czech Republic (2), Denmark (1), France (1), Hungary (2), Italy (4), Kazakhstan (1), Netherlands (1), Poland (6), Portugal (2), Romania (2), Spain (5), Vatican (1), and the United States (1).

Some of the packages have included the eyes of animals and others crude explosive charges, he noted.

Kuleba went on to say that all the suspicious packages display the same alleged “sender’s address,” which is a “car dealership in the German town of Sindelfingen.” There is no evidence that the address had anything to do with the packages.

The packages were usually sent from post offices that weren’t equipped with video surveillance systems, and the “attackers” had also avoided leaving traces of DNA, according to Kuleba’s Facebook post.

“This, in particular, indicates the professional level of this action,” he said. “For a week now, Ukrainian embassies and consulates have been operating in the mode of enhanced security measures, police cordons… and forensic experts.”

“The ongoing campaign of terror against Ukrainian diplomats is unprecedented in its scale not only in the context of Ukraine but also at the global level,” said Kuleba. “I do not recall cases in history when so many embassies and consulates of one country were subjected to such massive attacks in such a short period of time. But no matter how hard the enemies try to intimidate the Ukrainian diplomacy, they will fail. We continue to work for victory.”

Belarus, Russia’s closest ally, announced that it is moving troops and military equipment, citing “counter-terrorism threats,” according to state news agency BelTA. 

The announcement comes amid heightened tension along Ukraine’s northern border with Belarus, which was used as a platform by Russian troops during the invasion in February. 

“During this period, it is planned to move military equipment and personnel of the national security forces, temporarily restrict the movement of citizens (transport) along certain public roads and areas of the terrain, and use imitation weapons for training purposes,” BelTA reported, citing Belarus’ Security Council. 

Belarus has also announced the beginning of military drills in line with “the autumn conscription campaign for new recruits to receive basic military training.”

Over the weekend, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Belarus and met with President Alexander Lukashenko — which Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of the Office of President of Ukraine, said “will be added to the indictment’s materials as a distribution of criminal roles.”

Belarusian troops have not taken part in the conflict, a position reiterated by Lukashenko in October.

A Moscow court has postponed a sentencing hearing for the jailed Kremlin critic Ilya Yashin, who is accused of spreading fake news about the Russian army, until Friday, according to a post on Yashin’s official Telegram account.

“The announcement of the verdict was postponed to Friday, December 9, at 12:00 PM Moscow time in the Meshchansky court,” the post said.

Yashin, a prominent opposition leader and former municipal deputy, has been accused of spreading fake information about the Russian army and faces up to nine years in prison. 

Russian investigators say his statements about the killings of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha by Russian forces are a criminal offense under recently introduced Russian legislation, which considers discrediting the Russian armed forces as illegal. 

In a closing statement on Monday, also posted on his Telegram account, Yashin made a statement addressing the judge, President Vladimir Putin and the Russian public:

Yashin, also a close ally of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, came to prominence during the protests between 2011 and 2012, which he helped organize against Putin’s re-election for the third term and unfair elections.

Yashin remained a fierce Putin critic for years and served as a municipal deputy in small Moscow municipality before being barred from running for a public office again.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that he had discussed Ukrainian shelling of settlements in the eastern Donbas region with the Russian-appointed head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin.

“Denis Pushilin called me. Indeed, the strikes are directly hitting the residential areas, no one can be unaware of this, but everyone is silent. As if nothing is happening,” said Putin at a meeting with members of the Council on the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights.

Putin also said that not all students chose to demobilize after authorities announced the demobilization of students in the region, which encompasses the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

“But I must say that not all students of Donbas took advantage of this right to demobilization,” he added.

In late September, Moscow declared it was annexing the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as Russian territory — which is illegal under international law — after holding so-called referendums in the regions that were universally dismissed as “shams” by Ukraine and Western nations.

Local authorities in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region have reported frequent shelling of the city this week, in which several people have been killed and injured.

Russia is looking to temporarily “freeze” the conflict in Ukraine in order to “regroup and then launch a bigger offensive,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday.

Speaking at an event hosted by the Financial Times, Stoltenberg said it was Russia’s intention “to try to have a kind of short break or a short freeze of the conflict so Russia can recover their troops, regroup and then launch a bigger offensive later on, because now Ukraine has the momentum.” 

Stoltenberg said last week that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “failing in Ukraine,” pointing to Ukraine’s success in pushing Russian forces out of territories around Kyiv and Kharkiv, as well as the liberation of Kherson city, which he said was a sign of Russia’s “weakness.”

In an undisclosed location near the Russian border, many newly released Ukrainian prisoners of war were able to speak with their families for the first time in months.

Most of the group is from Mariupol, the southern port city that Ukrainian and Russian troops fiercely fought over — and the soldiers bear both physical and emotional scars, CNN’s Will Ripley reported.

One of two rescued women, a radio intelligence operator, became emotional when she told Ripley that she was subjected to lies from the Russians and forced to pledge loyalty to Russia. Another woman’s 6-year-old child and husband are still in occupied Mariupol, and she has no way of contacting them, she said.

Watch his report here:

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia will continue the “fight for its national interests” by “all means available” if necessary.

“We will proceed from what we have. There can be only one answer from our side — a consistent fight for our national interests. We will continue to do so and let no one count on anything else … First of all, of course, we will focus on peaceful means. But if nothing else remains, then we will defend ourselves with all available means at our disposal,” he said at the Kremlin.

Out of the 300,000 men called up for the partial mobilization, 150,000 are currently in Ukraine, he told a meeting of Russia’s Human Rights Council. “Among them only 77,000 are in combat units, while the rest are in the territorial defense forces or receive additional training,” Putin said.

An additional mobilization does “not make sense” currently, he added, saying there is no need for it from the state of the defense ministry.

Putin also promised to resolve the issue of the equipment shortages for Russian troops in Ukraine.

According to Putin, the so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine is a “long process,” but he described the emergence of new territories and the Sea of Azov as part of the Russian Federation as a “significant result.”