Russia Ukraine war live: 26 injured as Ukrainian councillor detonates grenades at meeting, police say

Patriarch Kirill is now “an individual in hiding from the bodies of pre-trial investigation”, according to a post of Ukraine’s interior ministry’s wanted list. Kyiv’s security services accused him of stoking the war.

A few hours previously, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky had celebrated the EU finally agreeing to open up membership talks, a deal which was achieved after Mr Orban agreed to leave the room when the rest of the 26 nations voted. However, Mr Orban told Hungarian state TV on Friday that he could still block the years-long process of Kyiv’s admittance to the bloc further along the line if he believes it undermines Budapest’s interests.

“If we don’t want Ukraine to be a member of the European Union, then the Hungarian parliament votes it down. And until the issue gets to the parliaments, it’s a very, very long process, and as they counted and I did, there are about 75 occasions when the Hungarian government can stop this process,” Mr Orban said.

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Ukraine’s fate in the war against Russia was in the hands of its allies on both sides of the Atlantic this week – and the result was one symbolic victory and one monumental headache.

Ukraine received a terrific morale boost when the European Union voted to begin membership talks with Kyiv at a summit in Brussels. That was a smack in the face for Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who on the same day had tried to gloat that all-important military and financial support for Ukraine was fading in the West.

The decision in Brussels came after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban left the room, taking his objections with him, while the agreement was sealed, seemingly having agreed to do so. In that way, he could say he had no part in it. Moldova was given a green light at the same time.

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Kyivstar CEO Oleksandr Komarov said on Thursday that the company might need several weeks to reinstate all its services after the attack.

Tuesday’s attack on Kyivstar, which counts more than half of Ukraine‘s population as mobile subscribers, knocked out services and damaged IT infrastructure and air raid alert systems in several regions. Komarov said customer data was not compromised.

On Wednesday, a group called Solntsepyok, believed by Ukraine‘s security service SBU to be affiliated with Russian military intelligence, said in a post on the Telegram messenger app that it carried out the attack.

Kyivstar’s CEO said the hackers used an employee’s compromised account for the attack but how exactly they got access to it is being investigated.

Ukraine‘s biggest mobile operator, hit by a mass cyberattack this week, said on Friday that it had restored mobile internet throughout Ukraine and restored international roaming.

In a statement on Facebook, Kyivstar said it was working on restoring SMS text messaging. The network, it said, was operating on all standards, including 4G.

“This means that the quality of all communications will soon improve, even if it is now working at reduced speed,” the statement said.

“In some localities, there could still be short-term difficulties with communications. But our specialists are eliminating them quickly.”

Kyivstar’s Dutch-based parent company Veon Ltd. had in an earlier statement announced the resumption of services.

Explosions resounded through the Ukrainian capital early on Saturday as air defence units engaged Russian drones, witnesses HAVE said.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the anti-aircraft units had gone into action as groups of drones flew near the city. There were no immediate reports of casualties or serious damage.

The witnesses reported a series of loud blasts just after midnight. They said air raid sirens went off on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, but on the opposite bank police warned residents of the air raid alert through loudspeakers.

After an initial set of explosions, air defence units again went into operation on the Dnipro’s eastern bank. Klitschko said anti-aircraft activity was focused on the Darnytskyi district east of the river.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday he would still consider talking to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin if it helps create a sustainable peace between Ukraine and Russia.

Mr Macron and Mr Putin enjoyed a good working relationship before Russia invaded its neighbour in February 2022. In the weeks preceding the start of hostilities, Mr Macron’s diplomatic efforts failed to stop the war but he then kept open a line of communication with the Russian president for months.

Their diplomatic and personal links deteriorated badly as the war dragged on. Earlier this year, Mr Macron weighed the possibility of stripping Mr Putin of France’s highest medal of honour.

Mr Putin was asked on Thursday during his year-end news conference by a journalist from the French channel TF1 about his views on France and Mr Macron.

Mr Putin said: “At some point the French president stopped the relationship with us. We didn’t do it, I didn’t. He did. If there’s interest, we’re ready. If not, we’ll cope.”

Speaking in Brussels at the end of a summit where EU leaders decided to open membership negotiations with war-torn Ukraine, Mr Macron said he remained open to dialogue with Mr Putin on finding a peaceful solution if the Russian leader reaches out to him.

“I didn’t start the war unilaterally, breaking the treaties I’d agreed to. And it wasn’t France that decided to commit war crimes in the north of Ukraine, making discussions virtually impossible,” Mr Macron said. “Well, we have to be serious, so I have a very simple position. I haven’t changed my number.”

Ukraine has agreed dozens of contracts for joint production or technology exchanges with Western partners, Kyiv said on Friday, as it strives to reduce its dependence on military supplies from the West and to boost domestic output.

The effort to ramp up production at home has become critically important as the future of large-scale military aid from the United States and European Union appears more uncertain and Western stockpiles have become more depleted.

“We have dozens of new contracts between companies on joint production or technology exchange,” Ukraine‘s Defence Minister Rustem Umerov said in a Facebook post.

He pointed to an international defence industry forum hosted by Kyiv in September with more than 250 Western weapons producers, followed by a joint Ukraine-U.S. defence conference in Washington in December.

“We signed a memorandum with the United States on joint production and technical data sharing,” Umerov said.