Ukraine Russia war: Trump offers to ‘settle’ war as Biden calls Putin ‘war criminal’ at presidential debate

Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov has ordered the army’s General Staff to come up with proposals on how to promptly deal with “provocations” by U.S. strategic drones operating over the Black Sea, the defence ministry said on Friday.

The ministry said in a statement that it had noted increased activity in the area from U.S. drones which it said were carrying out reconaissance and gathering targeting information for high-precision Western weapons used by Ukraine to strike Russian facilities.

“This demonstrates the increasing involvement of the United States and NATO countries in the conflict in Ukraine on the side of the Kyiv regime,” the defence ministry said.

“Such flights multiply the likelihood of airspace incidents with Russian aircraft, which increases the risk of a direct confrontation between the (NATO) alliance and the Russian Federation.”

It said that NATO countries would be responsible for any such incidents.

The statement did not mention Crimea, the Black Sea region which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. But Russian military facilities in Crimea have been repeatedly targeted by Ukrainian forces, including with Western missiles.

As an investigative journalist, then an activist, and later a lawmaker, Yehor Soboliev sought to expose corruption in business and government as a way to defend Ukraine’s budding democracy.

Now, as a soldier battling Russia, he’s had to put those aims on hold as he fights alongside some of the people he once tried to bring down.“Till the victory, we are on the same side,” said Soboliev, a lieutenant in a front-line drone unit.

“But maybe — definitely — after the victory, we should separate ourselves from each other. And we should continue that fight in making our country more honest, more responsible, more serving to its citizens.”

Ukraine has spent years trying to build a Western-style democracy, although not without some bumps along the way as it shed habits from its Soviet past.

To beat back Russia and remain a democracy it has felt compelled to temporarily suspend or restrict some democratic ideals.

Elections have been postponed, a once-robust media has been restrained, corruption-fighting has slipped down the agenda, and freedom of movement and assembly have been curbed by martial law.

And as Russia pounds Ukraine’s cities and makes battlefield gains, the unity sparked by the invasion — and the sense of common purpose crucial to defending democracy — have come under growing strain.

At least 1,170 Russian forces have been killed and wounded in invasion in Ukraine in the past day, officials of the Ukrainian military said this morning. This comes as the battlefield clashes in the war-hit nation surged.

In the past 24 hours, the frontline saw 119 combat clashes, the General Staff of the Ukraine Armed Forces said, naming Toretsk, Pokrovsk and Kurakhove as the hottest sections of the front throughout the day.

“During the day, the enemy launched six missile strikes on Ukrainian territory (a total of eight missiles), 43 airstrikes (56 guided aerial bombs dropped), and 458 kamikaze drones. They also fired 2,863 times on our troops’ positions and settlements using a variety of weapons,” the statement update this morning read.

The Russian navy missile cruiser Varyag has carried out drills in the Mediterranean Sea, the state-owned TASS news agency reported on Thursday, citing the navy command.

The drills focused on repelling a mass sea drone attack, the navy command said.

It also involved simulated engagements with an enemy vessel and a submarine.

Earlier this month a Russian naval frigate conducted drills in the Atlantic Ocean searching for submarines while on its way to Cuba.

Russian defence minister Andrei Belousov has ordered the general staff to take measures to address increased activity of United States drones over the Black Sea, the RIA news agency cited the ministry as saying today.

The ministry said such activity increased the risk of incidents involving Russian aircraft and could cause direct confrontation between Russia and Nato.

The Kremlin said that Russia is considering a possible downgrading of diplomatic relations with the West due to the deeper involvement of the United States and its allies in the Ukraine war, though no decision has yet been made.

“The issue of lowering the level of diplomatic relations is a standard practice for states that face unfriendly or hostile manifestations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked about the possibility of such a move.

“Due to the growing involvement of the West in the conflict over Ukraine, the Russian Federation cannot but consider various options for responding to such hostile Western intervention in the Ukrainian crisis.”

Mr Peskov said that no decision had yet been made on the matter and that Russia was considering different ways to respond to the West.

Donald Trump has suggested Russia never would have attacked Ukraine if the US had a “real president” been in office.

“If we had a real president, a president that knew that was respected by Putin, he would have never he would have never invaded Ukraine,” he said as the former president squared off with Joe Biden at the first presidential debate on CNN.

“He knew not to play games with me,” Mr Trump said referring to the Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The former president said that he will have the war settled between Mr Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky if he is the president-elect. “Before I take office on 20 January, I’ll have that war settled,” he said.

However, Mr Biden called Mr Putin a “war criminal” and warned that if Russia is allowed to succeed in its war, Putin would not stop at Kyiv. “He wants all of Ukraine. That’s what he wants,” Mr Biden said.

“He’s killed thousands and thousands of people,” the US president said.

Mr Biden also shot back at him for claims of pushing European allies to spend more money intro defence. “This is a guy who wants to pull out of Nato,” Mr Biden said, adding that he “got 50 other nations” to support Ukraine against Russia’s invasion.

However, the Republican face Mr Trump denied his acceptance of Mr Putin’s conditions to end the war in Ukraine. “Look, this is a war that never should have started if we had a leader,” Mr Trump said.

Russia claims it has carried out missile strikes on Ukrainian airfields which it believes have been designated to host Western military aircraft, Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Thursday.

Russia used sea-based long-range precision weapons, the Kinzhal hypersonic missile and drones in the attack, it said.

All designated targets were hit, the ministry added, without naming the list of targets.

Russia is considering a possible downgrading of relations with the West due to the deeper involvement of the United States and its allies in the Ukraine war, but no decision had yet been taken, the Kremlin said yesterday.

Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told the Izvestia newspaper that ambassadors fulfilled a difficult but important job that allowed a channel of communication to operate in troubled times.

But Mr Ryabkov also said that a possible downgrading of ties with the West was being studied.

When asked about the possibility of such a move, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that given the West’s current approach to Russia it was one of several options that was being considered, though no decision had yet been made.

“The issue of lowering the level of diplomatic relations is a standard practice for states that face unfriendly or hostile manifestations,” Peskov said.

“Due to the growing involvement of the West in the conflict over Ukraine, the Russian Federation cannot but consider various options for responding to such hostile Western intervention in the Ukrainian crisis.”

A downgrading of relations – or even breaking them off – would illustrate the gravity of the confrontation between Russia and the West over Ukraine after an escalation in tensions over the war in recent months.

Even during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Cold War is thought to have come closest to nuclear war, Russia did not sever relations with the United States, though Moscow did break off ties with Israel over the 1967 Middle East war.

Ukraine’s military said its forces had forced Russian troops out of a district in the town of Chasiv Yar on the war’s eastern front seen as Moscow’s next target in its slow advance through the area.

Russian forces are slowly pushing their way across parts of eastern Ukraine, capturing several villages since seizing the key city of Avdiivka in February.

Chasiv Yar stands on high ground 20km (12 miles) to the west of Bakhmut, a town Russian forces captured a year ago after months of battles. Both sides see Chasiv Yar as a potential staging point for Russia to advance on the key cities of the eastern Donetsk region, including Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

Nazar Voloshyn, a spokesman for Ukraine’s southern group of forces, told the Ukrinform news agency that Russian forces had moved out of Chasiv Yar’s “Kanal” district along the Siverskyi Donets-Donbas canal that runs along the town’s eastern edge.

“Ukrainian defenders have indeed squeezed Russian forces out of the Kanal district in Chasiv Yar in Donetsk region,” Ukrinform quoted Voloshyn as saying. “The enemy army is no longer there.”

Voloshyn told other Ukrainian media outlets that Russian troops were shelling Kyiv’s forces in more than 200 incidents over 24 hours, mostly on the town’s southern approaches.

The Ukrainian military’s General Staff, in a late evening report yesterday, said Russian troops had tried to push back Ukrainian forces six times near Chasiv Yar. Three attacks were repelled and fighting still gripped the area.

An unverified Russian report said Moscow’s forces had destroyed a communications tower near the town and made further headway.