Russian losses around Avdiivka probably the worst of 2023, says UK Here are today’s casualty numbers, from Ukraine’s armed forces. The figures have not been independently verified. Ukraine’s armed forces claimed on Saturday that Russia had lost 298,420 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion last year. It said Russia suffered 740 casualties in the last day. And here is the UK’s ministry of defence’s intelligence update from earlier this morning, where it said that Russia’s forces around the Donetsk oblast town of Avdiivka have “likely suffered” some of its highest casualty rates of 2023 so far. In his opening remarks at the talks on Ukraine’s peace plan in Malta, the foreign minister, Ian Borg, said the high attendance by officials from 65 countries was a “vote of confidence in Malta as a peace broker”, reiterating the country’s support for Ukraine. “Although we are a neutral state, we cannot remain silent in the face of injustice, atrocities and abuse of power in this region,” Borg said. “Malta believes in multilateralism under the auspices of international law and the UN charter.” Round-up Here’s a quick summary to get you up to speed if you’re just joining us, or need a refresher on today’s developments. Russia’s forces around the Donetsk oblast town of Avdiivka have “likely suffered” some of its highest casualty rates of 2023 so far, according to the UK Ministry of Defence’s intelligence update. The report follows the Ukrainian president’s claims on Friday that Russian forces lost at least a brigade’s worth of troops attempting to advance on Avdiivka. The Malta summit began on Saturday, with the head of the office of the president of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, arguing that more countries are signing up to its “peace plan” and that Russia will have to submit to the international community. Yermak also praised Qatar’s role in facilitating the return of four Ukrainian children earlier this month, who had been taken by Russia. Ukraine and the Netherlands began talks on a bilateral agreement on security guarantees in Malta, Yermak announced. It is the sixth country to start bilateral negotiations with Ukraine on security guarantees. Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, Mykola Tochytskyi, has pointedly accused Russia of having a history of “provoking” and “stoking” hybrid conflicts across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. “We warned that turning a blind eye to [Russian] violation of international peace and security would fuel conflicts in the world,” Tochytskyi said, amid the Israel-Hamas war. For context, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has previously expressed fears that the aftermath of Hamas’s attack on Israel could threaten military support for Ukraine. Meanwhile, Hamas is looking for eight dual citizens identified by Russia as potentially being among the hostages in Gaza and is ready to free them, a Hamas politburo member, Abu Marzouk, has told the Russian state news agency RIA, Reuters reports. A Ukrainian drone crashed into a nuclear waste storage facility at the Kursk nuclear power plant in western Russia on Thursday, damaging its walls, according to Russia’s foreign ministry. Three people have died in a storm in Ukraine, which has left hundreds of thousands without power amid mounting fears about the country’s energy security as winter approaches. “Three people have been killed by the bad weather – two in Kyiv and one in the Kyiv region,” Oleksiy Kuleba, the deputy head of the presidential office, said, adding that several more have been injured. Kuleba said that about 300,000 people in 14 regions were without power, with the western Khmelnytskyi region worst affected. Last year Russian forces repeatedly hit Ukraine’s energy grid, leaving millions without electricity, heating and water for long periods. Kyiv has warned that it may face another campaign of Russia targeting its energy grid this winter. Russia’s foreign ministry has called on other governments to condemn Kyiv following the drone strike at the Kursk nuclear plant, reports Reuters (see post at 13.10). “We call on all governments to issue a strong condemnation of Kyiv’s barbaric actions, which are extremely dangerous and could lead to irreparable consequences,” said ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova. Zakharova said one explosive-packed drone had damaged the nuclear waste facility’s walls while another two had hit an administrative building complex. “According to preliminary data, the drones used in the attack on the nuclear power plant used components supplied by western countries,” she said, adding that such an attack must have had the permission or possibly of Ukraine’s allies or possibly been ordered by them. The Kursk plant said after the attack that there were no casualties and that radiation levels and operations were normal. Ukraine generally declines to confirm or deny military operations inside Russian territory. Thursday night’s incident came a day after the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said a Russian drone attack in Ukraine’s western Khmelnytskyi region had probably targeted the area’s nuclear power station. The UN nuclear watchdog said the attack destroyed “numerous windows” at the site but did not affect the Ukrainian plant’s operations or its connection to the electricity grid. Reuters says it was unable to independently confirm either incident. A Ukrainian drone crashed into a nuclear waste storage facility at the Kursk nuclear power plant in western Russia on Thursday, damaging its walls, Russia’s foreign ministry said on Saturday, Reuters reports. The ministry said in a statement that Kyiv must have known that its actions could have caused a full-scale nuclear catastrophe. Moscow said on Friday that it had thwarted the drone attack in the country’s south, where two news outlets said an explosion had damaged the facade of a warehouse storing nuclear waste. Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister, Mykola Tochytskyi, has accused Russia of having a history of “provoking” and “stoking” hybrid conflicts across Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Tochytskyi, who is also at the summit in Malta, called on countries to unite and “build a new secure world order”. “We warned that turning a blind eye to [Russian] violation of international peace and security would fuel conflicts in the world,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has previously expressed fears that the aftermath of Hamas’s attack on Israel could threaten military support for his country. The first session at Malta has wrapped up – and Andriy Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, has said that Russia “will have to give in to the international community” and agree to Ukraine’s peace settlement demands. Yermak praised the participation of Qatar for earlier this month facilitating the return of four Ukrainian children who had been taken by Russia. “Thousands more remain hostage to Russia, but this success shows that together we can do it,” Yermak wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. Kyiv has said about 20,000 children have been taken from Ukraine to Russia or Russian-held territory without the consent of family or guardians. Russian losses around Avdiivka probably the worst of 2023, says UK Here are today’s casualty numbers, from Ukraine’s armed forces. The figures have not been independently verified. Ukraine’s armed forces claimed on Saturday that Russia had lost 298,420 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its full-scale invasion last year. It said Russia suffered 740 casualties in the last day. And here is the UK’s ministry of defence’s intelligence update from earlier this morning, where it said that Russia’s forces around the Donetsk oblast town of Avdiivka have “likely suffered” some of its highest casualty rates of 2023 so far. As the summit brings together dozens of national security and policy advisers globally, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Andriy Yermak, said that international support for the Ukraine’s plans for peace is growing. Yermak wrote on Telegram: Ukraine’s diplomatic efforts are paying off, as international support for the Ukrainian peace formula is growing. The large number of countries from the global south involved in the recent meeting is proof that the world is interested in justice and Ukraine’s victory.” He said that five of the 10 points would be discussed at the talks: nuclear security, energy security, food security, the release of prisoners of war and deportees, and the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. As the talks kick off in Malta today – with Russia conspicuously absent – here are the 10 key points that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has outlined for Ukraine’s “peace formula”, first announced last October. Radiation and nuclear safety Food security Energy security Release of all prisoners of war and deportees Restoring Ukraine’s territorial integrity Withdrawal of Russian troops and cessation of hostilities Justice Protection of the environment Preventing escalation of the conflict Confirmation of the war’s end Russia’s campaign of strikes targeting Ukraine’s energy system damaged about 70 large facilities last autumn and winter, the head of the country’s state grid operator Ukrenergo has said. In an interview with the Voice of America, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi said about half of Ukraine’s power system was damaged in the campaign, with many facilities hit. “If we count the big [facilities], it is close to, I think, the 70s [that were damaged]. … Many lower-level facilities were damaged in frontline areas by artillery strikes, small transformer points or regional substations. There are probably hundreds, thousands of them,” Kudrytskyi said in the interview. Kudrytskyi said that in order to protect its critical energy facilities from further attacks this winter, Ukraine had been restoring its plants’ capacity to generate power, as well as benefiting from what he described as a strengthened air force. Ukraine is turning to methods used by US authorities against the Italian mob in the 1980s in order to oust Russian actors from its gambling sector. After a decade-long ban, the country had legalised gambling shortly before Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, but started to revoke licences in September 2022. It has been a profitable way for Russia to make money and collect personal data. Here is the Guardian’s chief reporter, Daniel Boffey, on the way Ukraine is looking to the emulate actions taken by US regulators in the casinos of Las Vegas in the 1980s: Ukraine shot down three out of the four Iskander cruise missiles that Russia launched overnight at Dnipropetrovsk oblast in south-eastern Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian air force. The air force wrote on Telegram that the launches were carried out from the Dzhankoi district of Russian-occupied Crimea and that the remaining missile did not reach its target. Explosions were heard around 1am. No casualties have been reported, according to the Kyiv Independent. Hello, I’m Clea Skopeliti and I’ll be updating the blog for the next few hours, bringing you the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war. The time in Kyiv is 10.50am. Ukraine-backed peace talks open in Malta – without Russia A third round of Ukrainian-backed peace talks opens in Malta today with representatives from more than 50 countries. Moscow has oddly denounced it as “a blatantly anti-Russian event”. Volodymyr Zelenskiy has a 10-point plan to end the war. There were similar summits in Jeddah and Copenhagen this summer. National security and policy advisers from more than 50 countries plus international institutions are expected – more than the roughly 40 at the Saudi summit in August. “This meeting is a powerful signal that unity is preserved around Ukraine,” Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said this week. Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the Malta talks have “nothing to do with the search for a peaceful resolution”. Zelenskiy’s peace plan calls for Russia to withdraw all its troops from within Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders, including from the territory of Crimea, which it annexed in 2014. Russia – which illegally claimed to annex the four Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in September 2022 – has rejected any settlement that would involve giving up land. Participants include the US, the EU and Britain, as well as Turkey, which has offered itself as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia. Also attending are South Africa, Brazil and India – members of the Brics bloc that includes Russia. China has been treading carefully about Russia’s war on Ukraine, and as we post this it’s unclear whether it will participate in the Malta summit. Summary Hello, and welcome to this latest instalment in the Guardian’s live coverage of the Russian war against Ukraine. Let’s get you up to speed. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, claimed that Russian forces had lost at least a brigade’s worth of troops attempting to advance on Ukraine’s eastern town of Avdiivka. Russia began a renewed push to encircle the embattled town in mid-October, trying to overwhelm Ukrainian positions with constant barrages of artillery and waves of troops and fighting vehicles, according to reports. Russian forces have heavily shelled the centre of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, injuring a number of people and damaging at least 10 buildings, a senior local official and emergency workers said. The European Council has outlined plans to seize the profits from frozen Russian assets and direct billions of euros to support Ukraine. In a set of formal public conclusions after the culmination of the EU leaders’ summit, it said that “extraordinary revenues held by private entities stemming directly from Russia’s immobilised assets” could be directed to support Ukraine and its recovery. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has condemned the Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán’s recent meeting and handshake with Vladimir Putin. “In the situation we are in with Russia, we should not use these bilateral contacts to negotiate things about ourselves that would weaken our unity [on Ukraine],” Macron said after a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels. Russia’s top investigative body has said it had opened a criminal inquiry into the attempted murder of former Ukrainian lawmaker Oleg Tsaryov, a pro-Russian figure who was reported to have been lined up by Moscow to lead a puppet administration in Kyiv after Russia’s invasion. He is in intensive care after being shot, a Russian official said. The wives and family of enlisted Ukrainian soldiers have gathered at Independence Square in Kyiv to call for the right to voluntarily demobilise after 18 months. “Our servicemen are strong, but they are not robots,” protesters shouted during the rally. The new Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico, has told other EU leaders that €50bn in EU aid to Ukraine should include guarantees that the funds would not be misappropriated, his office said. “Ukraine is among the most corrupt countries in the world,” he claimed.