Frontline troops experiencing "exceptional levels of rat and mice infestation" Both Ukrainian and Russian troops are suffering from “exceptional levels of rat and mice infestation” in some sectors of the frontline, according to UK intelligence. The Ministry of Defence says rodent populations have risen due to milder temperatures in recent months and plenty of food. It said: This year’s mild autumn, along with ample food from fields left fallow due to the fighting, have likely contributed to the increase in the rodent population. As the weather has become colder, the animals are likely seeking shelter in vehicles and defensive positions. Rodents will add further pressure to frontline combatants’ morale. In addition, they pose a risk to military equipment by gnawing through cables – as recorded in the same area during the second world war. Unverified reports also suggest Russian units starting to suffer from increased sickness cases which the troops attribute to the pest problem. Closing summary Former TV journalist Yekaterina Duntsova has said she will challenge in the supreme court the decision to disqualify her from running in the Russian presidential election next year, calling it unjustified and undemocratic. Fighting age Ukrainian men in Estonia could be extradited to their home country and forced to join the war effort amid a shortage of soldiers. Estonia’s public broadcaster ERR reports that the Baltic nation stands ready to support Ukraine in its proposals to conscript Ukrainian men abroad for military service. The Communist party of Russia, the second largest party in parliament, has selected a 75-year-old candidate, Nikolai Kharitonov, who won just under 14% of the national vote when he stood against Putin in 2004, to stand in the presidential polls. The assassination of the Wagner mercenary army chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was approved by a close ally of Vladimir Putin, the Wall Street Journal has reported after conversations with western intelligence officials and a former Russian intelligence officer. Financial institutions that support the Russian military-industrial complex are to be blacklisted in the US after president Joe Biden signed an executive order yesterday to deny banks under sanctions access to the American financial system. Protesting Polish truckers have unblocked the key border crossing of Shehyni-Medyka between Poland and Ukraine, Kyiv’s economy minister Yulia Svyrydenko announced, hailing an “important improvement”. Some of the latest images coming out of Ukraine and Russia. Former TV journalist Yekaterina Duntsova has said she will challenge in the supreme court the decision to disqualify her from running in the Russian presidential election next year, calling it unjustified and undemocratic. Members of the central electoral commission on Saturday voted unanimously to reject her candidacy, citing “numerous violations” in the papers she had submitted in support of her bid. “With this political decision, we are deprived of the opportunity to have our own representative and express views that differ from the official aggressive discourse,” she said on Telegram. Abbas Gallyamov, a former Kremlin speechwriter now labelled by the authorities as a “foreign agent”, said Putin had not wanted to risk the same scenario as Alexander Lukashenko. The Belarusian leader clung to power in 2020 only with the help of what the opposition and western governments said was large-scale ballot rigging to claim victory over opposition candidate Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. “The Tsikhanouskaya effect is absolutely possible, and in the Kremlin they understand that,” Gallyamov wrote on Telegram. Meanwhile the Communist party, which has finished a distant second to Putin at every election since 2000, named 75-year-old Nikolai Kharitonov as its candidate. Tass news agency quoted him as saying he would not find fault with the Kremlin leader. “He is responsible for his own cycle of work, why would I criticise him?” Kharitonov said. In a separate development, Russian news outlets said Boris Nadezhdin, an opposition politician who has been critical of Putin and the war, was put forward as a candidate today by the centre-right Civic Initiative party. One of the nominal opposition parties in parliament, the A Just Russia – For Truth party, said it would support Putin at the election, state news agency RIA reported. Ukraine will officially celebrate Christmas on Monday, 25 December, for the first time since 1917 as part of the continued attempt to wipe out Moscow’s influence in the country. Russia celebrates Christmas on 7 January, in accordance with the Julian calendar. The adoption of the western Gregorian calendar shows the Ukrainian government’s increasing desire to align with Europe. “Unfortunately for many people in the world, Ukraine is linked to Russia. And Ukraine is always viewed in the context of being a neighbour of Russia,” Father Andriy told the BBC in the Church of St Andrew’s, in Kyiv. “But I think that we are more a neighbour of Europe. And the fact that we’ve now changed the calendar is not shifting away from Russia. It is us returning back to Europe, where we belong.” The Communist party of Russia, the second largest party in parliament, has selected a 75-year-old candidate to stand in the presidential polls against Vladimir Putin. At a party congress in the Moscow region, the members held a single-candidate vote backing Nikolai Kharitonov. He won just under 14 percent of the national vote when he stood against Putin in 2004. “Kharitonov’s candidacy was supported by an overwhelming majority of congress participants in a secret ballot,” said fellow party member Alexander Yushchenko, quoted by Interfax news agency. The ballot paper had just one name on it: Kharitonov’s. The Russian Communist party, led since 1993 by Gennady Zyuganov, fielded an alternative candidate in 2018 presidential polls. On paper the party is in opposition, but in practice it backs up Putin’s party, United Russia. A fan of martial arts, Kharitonov worked as a collective farm manager in Siberia in the Soviet era. He later became a member of the Agrarian party, an offshoot of the Communists. This week at a party conference, Kharitonov praised the Soviet forced collectivisation of agriculture as a “correct reform that allowed us to resolve the food problem on the eve of a great war”. He said today that “our task is to consolidate the people during the election campaign so that there is victory, victory on all fronts”. Fighting age Ukrainian men in Estonia could be extradited to their home country and forced to join the war effort amid a shortage of soldiers. Estonia’s public broadcaster ERR reports that the Baltic nation stands ready to support Ukraine in its proposals to conscript Ukrainian men abroad for military service. “If Ukraine needs it, Estonia can search for this person and extradite him to Ukraine. In general, we know where these people are and what they do. The majority go to work and have a place of residence in Estonia,” minister of internal affairs Lauri Läänemets said. ERR reported that there has been no formal request from Ukraine regarding the extradition of citizens liable for military service, but Estonia previously offered Kyiv information about refugees from Ukraine. Läänemets said there are about 7,500 Ukrainian men of fighting age in Estonia who have registered with the authorities. Current Estonian legislation dictates that foreigners can only be extradited to their home countries in the event of criminal prosecution. Ukrainian defence minister Rustem Umerov said on Friday that Ukrainians aged 25 to 60 in Germany and other countries were “invited” to report to conscription centres. Protesting Polish truckers have unblocked the key border crossing of Shehyni-Medyka between Poland and Ukraine, Kyiv’s economy minister Yulia Svyrydenko has announced, hailing an “important improvement”. The truckers had been blocking several crossings with Ukraine since 6 November demanding the EU reinstate a system whereby Ukrainian companies need permits to operate in the bloc, and the same for European truckers seeking to enter Ukraine. They were later joined by farmers who demanded government subsidies for corn and no hikes in taxes. But truckers said they would continue blockades at three other crossings over Christmas and will allow even fewer trucks to pass than earlier. According to data from Poland’s customs office, the wait at the Dorohusk crossing was 77 hours today. “We are intensifying the protest, [allowing only] one truck every three hours,” Edyta Ozyga’a, one of the leaders of the trucker’s protest in Dorohusk, told Reuters, adding that the transport of humanitarian assistance and military equipment was not being blocked. Summary Former TV journalist Yekaterina Duntsova has been barred from running against Vladimir Putin in Russia’s presidential election in March because of “mistakes” in her application to register as a candidate, her campaign team has claimed. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and military officials said the country’s forces shot down three Russian Su-34 fighter-bomber aircraft on the southern front yesterday. Air force spokesperson Yuri Ihnat described it as a “brilliantly planned operation”. Both Ukrainian and Russian troops are suffering from “exceptional levels of rat and mice infestation” in some sectors of the frontline, according to UK intelligence. The Ministry of Defence said rodent populations have risen due to milder temperatures in recent months and plenty of food. The assassination of the Wagner mercenary army chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was approved by a close ally of Vladimir Putin, the Wall Street Journal has reported after conversations with western intelligence officials and a former Russian intelligence officer. Financial institutions that support the Russian military-industrial complex are to be blacklisted in the US after president Joe Biden signed an executive order yesterday to deny banks under sanctions access to the American financial system. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, announced his support for a plan to send vehicles with poor emissions standards that would otherwise be scrapped to Ukraine for use in the war effort. The assassination of the Wagner mercenary army chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was approved by a close ally of president Vladimir Putin, the Wall Street Journal has reported after conversations with western intelligence officials and a former Russian intelligence officer. The Kremlin has denied involvement in Prigozhin’s death, and Putin offered the closest thing to an official explanation for the plane’s fiery crash, suggesting a hand grenade had detonated onboard. None of that was true. Hours after the incident, a European involved in intelligence gathering who maintained a backchannel of communication with the Kremlin and saw news of the crash asked an official there what had happened. “He had to be removed,” the Kremlin official responded without hesitation. In the beginning of August, as most of Moscow went on vacation, [the secretary of Russia’s security council, Nikolai] Patrushev, in his office in central Moscow, gave orders to his assistant to proceed in shaping an operation to dispose of Prigozhin, said the former Russian intelligence officer. Putin was later shown the plans and didn’t object, western intelligence agencies said. Several weeks later, following his tour through Africa, Prigozhin was waiting at a Moscow airport while safety inspectors finished a check on the plane. It was during this delay that a small bomb was placed under the wing, said western intelligence officials. The International Committee of the Red Cross last night reported that it had been able to facilitate an exchange of parcels for prisoners of war which included letters from their families. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has announced his support for a plan to send vehicles with poor emissions standards that would otherwise be scrapped to Ukraine for use in the war effort. The move was reported as a U-turn, after Khan signalled his opposition towards an initiative which would see the vehicles – typically 4x4s and pickup trucks – be sent to the war zone instead of being scrapped under the capital’s ultra-low emission zone rules. He previously said the scheme would not benefit Londoners. But now, in a joint letter written with Ben Wallace, the former defence secretary, Khan urged the transport secretary, Mark Harper, to make it “possible for Londoners, and others across the country, to donate suitable vehicles to Ukraine through scrappage schemes”. The Telegraph reported the letter as saying: This could be most-quickly done by altering the national regulations for the Certificate of Destruction, which is required as proof that a vehicle has been permanently scrapped, to instead enable the export of suitable vehicles to Ukraine via a registered charity or national scheme. We are optimistic you will work with us to enable Londoners and others around the country to receive money for taking polluting vehicles off our cities’ streets while providing vital support towards the people of Ukraine.”