Ukraine-Russia war: Russian Black Sea fleet forced back, says Zelensky

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Russian shelling in and around the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson has killed two people and injured at least five others, the region’s governor has said.

Kherson was recaptured by Ukrainian forces last year but has been shelled relentlessly since by Russian forces from the opposite bank of the adjoining Dnipro river.

“The Russian army has been hitting the Korabelny district of Kherson,” regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on social media.

He said a 68-year-old man died in the shelling while a 54-year-old woman was taken to the hospital with shrapnel wounds.

Russian shelling in the town of Bilozerka, about eight kilometres (five miles) west of Kherson, also killed one person and injured four others, he later said.

“Rescuers pulled the body of the deceased man from the rubble of a house,” he said.

Britain will back Ukraine for “as long as it takes,” Lord Cameron has said, in a warning to Russia as he visited Kyiv for the first time as Foreign Secretary.

The former UK Prime Minister, who became Foreign Secretary on Monday, promised Volodymr Zelensky that the UK will help to keep the world focussed on the war in Ukraine.

“Russia thinks it can wait this war out, and that the West will eventually turn its attention elsewhere,” adding that, “this could not be further from the truth,” he said.

He said he made clear that the UK and our partners would support Ukraine and its people “for as long as it takes for them to achieve victory”.

In a video of their meeting, Mr Zelensky said “the world is not focussed on the situation on our battlefields,” which “really doesn’t help”.

Ukraine has seized the initiative from Russia in the Black Sea and forced Russia’s naval fleet and warships to pull back, thanks to Kyiv’s use of naval drones, Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

“For the first time in the world, it was in the Black Sea that a fleet of naval drones began to operate - a Ukrainian fleet,” Mr Zelensky wrote on Telegram.

“We managed to seize the initiative from Russia in the Black Sea...” he said.

The Ukrainian leader said that, since the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow had blocked the Ukrainian Black Sea ports and damaged port and grain export infrastructure, disrupting global food markets.

Yet over the course of the war Ukraine had shifted the balance of power, he said.

Switzerland said that it had pledged support for the establishment of a special tribunal to address the crime of aggression against Ukraine by Russia.

“Switzerland is firmly convinced that the aggression against Ukraine must not go unpunished,” the Swiss department of foreign affairs said in a statement.

Over recent months, the initiative has garnered support from 38 countries, including France, Germany, Norway, Guatemala, Japan and Canada, according to the statement.

Switzerland officially joined the core group at a meeting in Berlin on Thursday, it added.

David Cameron has travelled to the Ukrainian port city of Odesa on the second day of his visit to the country, the foreign office said.

The city has been the target of waves of attacks by Russian drones and missiles, seeking to disrupt the flow of grain through the Black Sea.

Slovak truckers will stage a symbolic one-hour blockade of the country’s main crossing with Ukraine to support Polish calls for restrictions on the number of Ukrainian trucks entering the EU.

Haulers’ union UNAS said on Facebook the blockade would be at the Vysne Nemecke crossing, from 1PM on Thursday.

“Our aim is support of Polish colleagues as well as all freight haulers in the EU,” UNAS said.

“We will request that the European Commission... immediately introduces licences for shipments for Ukrainian vehicles, because European companies are falling on their mouth and cannot compete,” UNAS said.

Polish drivers have been blocking roads to three crossings with Ukraine for over a week, citing government inaction over a loss of business to foreign competitors since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. They insist on the return of a limited number of licenses for Ukrainian truckers, a demand Kyiv said it would not consider.

Russia has stepped up attacks on the Ukraine’s shattered eastern frontline town of Avdiivka, its mayor has said.

The industrial town near the Russian-held regional stronghold of Donetsk has been under fierce attack for more than a month.

“It is very hot. Indeed, in the last few days, the enemy has become more active,” Avdiivka’s mayor Vitaliy Barabash said on national television.

Russian troops are using armoured vehicles, targeting the industrial zone and hitting positions in the town “around the clock” to strike high-rise buildings, Mr Barabash said.

Lord Cameron’s head is “absolutely in the right place” on Ukraine, James Cleverly has said.

Prior to the reshuffle, Mr Cleverly, the new Home Secretary, said he was due to travel to Ukraine.

Lord Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, travelled to wartime Kyiv and met President Volodymyr Zelensky for talks on his first working trip abroad.

Mr Cleverly told LBC that he knows the Foreign Secretary’s head is “absolutely in the right place” on Ukraine.

Foreign Secretary Lord Cameron said:

As Foreign Secretary, supporting Ukraine against Putin’s aggression is vital, which is why I am pleased to make this my first visit as Secretary of State. 

 Russia thinks it can wait this war out, and that the West will eventually turn its attention elsewhere. This could not be further from the truth. In my first discussions with President Zelensky in my new role, I made clear that the UK and our partners will support Ukraine and its people for as long as it takes for them to achieve victory.

 As winter approaches, we continue to stand with the Ukrainian people as they resist Putin’s illegal invasion. In the last three months, they have pushed Russia back in the Black Sea and are opening vital sea trade routes for the Ukrainian economy and global food supplies.

Denys Shmyhal, the Ukrainian Prime Minister, said:

Alicia Kearns, the Tory chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, has voiced her support for Lord Cameron’s visit to Ukraine.

More details of Lord Cameron’s trip to Ukraine are emerging.

Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said the talks proved that Ukraine and the UK are “determined to work together toward victory.”

He added that the UK remains “steadfast” in providing Ukraine with weapons, increasing their co-production, and ridding the Black Sea of Russian threats.

Lord Cameron has told Volodymr Zelensky that Boris Johnson’s support for Ukraine was the “finest thing that he and his government did.”

Speaking in his first working trip as Foreign Secretary, he told the Ukrainian president: “I had some disagreements with my friend Boris Johnson - we’ve known eachother for 40 years - and his support for you is the finest thing that he and his government did.” 

The former UK Prime Minister, who was named Britain’s new Foreign Secretary on Monday, said in a video posted by Zelensky’s office that he wanted to underscore London’s support for Ukraine.

Lord Cameron has said that Britain will support Ukraine for as long as it takes, as he made his first visit as Foreign Secretary.

He told Volodymr Zelensky: “I admire the strength and determination of the Ukrainian people.

“We will continue to give you the moral support, the diplomatic support, the economic support, but above all the military support you need - not just this year and next year but for however long it takes.” 

The United States could be nearing the end of the road on support for Ukraine without more funding, the White House has warned.

John Kirby, the White House National Security spokesman, said the US could soon lose the ability to support Ukraine’s defences without approval for more US military assistance from Congress.

“They’re coming near the end of the road ... and Ukraine continues to be involved in an active dynamic fight all along that front,”he said, adding, “it’s an active battle front, and our ability to continue to support Ukraine is increasingly at jeopardy if we don’t get the supplemental funding.”

Joe Biden’s request for a $60 billion (£48.8 billion) package for Ukraine was removed from a spending resolution in the House of Representatives on Monday, risking weeks more delays before the next tranche of funding can be released.

The White House faces opposition to arming Ukraine from House Republicans, who argue that the US has already spent too much money on Kyiv’s latest counteroffensive, without clear results

Russia is “highly likely” to be guilty of war crimes following its “systematised weaponisation” of Ukrainian grain supplies, international lawyers have found. 

Since the beginning of the war in February, a Kremlin-linked network of grain extraction has been methodically built up in occupied eastern Ukraine, pointing towards a carefully planned campaign of a “criminal nature,” said human rights law firm Global Rights Compliance (GRC) in a newly-published study.

Russia used large carrier ships purchased before the war to transport grain, seized train tracks and the local means of storage, and set up shipping operations in Ukrainian port facilities to export products into Russia, the report showed.

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