US to provide $425m of additional military aid to Ukraine; Russia-appointed governor says nine dead in Ukraine missile attack in Kherson

The US will provide $425m worth of additional arms and equipment to Ukraine for its ongoing fight against Russia’s invasion, the Biden administration announced on Friday. The package uses the last of the funds in the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), a more than $18bn fund that allowed the Biden administration to buy weapons from industry, rather than pull from US weapons stocks.

A Ukrainian missile attack on Friday on an employment centre in a Russian-occupied town in the southern region of Kherson killed nine people and injured nine, the region’s Russia-appointed governor was quoted as saying.

A handful of Ukrainian troops who have reached the occupied side of the Dnipro River are clinging to a foothold in Russian-controlled territory in the south of the country despite a fierce bombardment. The marines have secured a beachhead that could allow Ukraine to reclaim more of the Kherson region that lies between Ukrainian territory and Crimea, seized by Russia in 2014.

Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is considering the “pros and cons” of holding presidential elections next spring, his foreign minister said. “We are not closing this page. The president of Ukraine is considering and weighing the different pros and cons,” Dmytro Kuleba told a briefing, adding that holding elections during the war with Russia would entail “unprecedented” challenges.

Russia launched its largest drone attack on Ukraine for weeks on Friday, hitting critical infrastructure in the west and south of Ukraine and destroying private houses and commercial buildings in Kharkiv.

Russia intends to stick to a nuclear test ban moratorium despite withdrawing its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban treaty, the foreign ministry said.

A Russian court sentenced Pyotr Verzilov, an activist linked to the Pussy Riot group, to eight and a half years in prison for breaching Russia’s strict censorship laws. The 36-year-old was sentenced “in absentia” as he has not lived in Russia since 2020, reported MediaZona, an opposition news site that he founded.

The Kremlin has dismissed a new package of US sanctions, saying Russia had learned to “overcome” such economic hurdles since the Ukraine conflict began. Washington yesterday sanctioned several Russian energy and finance companies it said were supporting Russia’s offensive against Ukraine.

The chief of Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) has said the timing of a sale or spin-off of its extensive operations in Russia is largely out of his control. Russia made up 45% of RBI’s profit in the first nine months of the year, though it reported a 30% decline in the volume of its loans in Russia in the third quarter from a year earlier.

The Russian Orthodox church called for an apology from Alla Pugacheva, the country’s most renowned pop singer who returned home this week, over her criticism of Russia’s war in Ukraine.