Live: Aftonbladet’s live reporting on the war in Ukraine

On Saturday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi in Kyiv.

“I am proud of how the UK has stood with Ukraine since the beginning of the war and I am here today to say that the UK and our allies will continue to support Ukraine as they fight to end this barbaric war,” said he afterwards according to Sky News.

After the meeting, Volodymyr Zelenskyy published a post on Telegram in which he praised the countries’ cooperation.

– Since the first day of this war, Ukraine and Great Britain have been strong allies, says the president.

The Russian mobilization of troops to Ukraine continues even though Putin has declared it to be over, states the American ISW, Institute for the Study of War.

Pro-Russian military bloggers are spreading information that general mobilization will soon begin. In addition, on Friday they published a subpoena that a resident of Saint Petersburg should have received until January 2023, notes ISW.

Residents of Ukrainian Odesa have begun to protest against the electricity rationing introduced in the city, reports the newspaper Strana.

Electricity is only available for a few hours a day.

For the past two days, a few tens of city residents have therefore protested against the electricity rationing by standing at pedestrian crossings and blocking car traffic.

Russia accuses Ukraine of executing Russian prisoners of war, according to the news site Current Time.

Two video clips circulated on pro-Russian Telegram channels in support of the allegations. In one video Russian soldiers are seen surrendering, in the other they are apparently dead.

But in another video that is being circulated in Ukrainian Telegram channels, a Russian soldier is reportedly seen opening fire on the Ukrainian soldiers at the scene.

The Russian investigative committee – the equivalent of the prosecutor’s office in Sweden – has started an investigation into war crimes.

Ukrainian authorities have not commented on the data.

Mykhailo Podolyak, political adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is pushing back against rumors that Ukraine is about to give up the war.

“Any conspiracy theories about Ukraine’s capitulation or the West’s secret negotiations with Putin do not take into account small details,” he writes on Twitter.

He says such rumors are false.

“Such arrangements cannot be implemented. Ukraine will not bow to the Russians. It is not a matter of politics. It is a question of our existence,” he writes.

In an interview with Sky News, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Volodymyr Havrylov says that the war in Ukraine may be over by spring.

– Of course, the war will take time. But my feeling is that by the end of spring this war will be over, he says.

He also talked about the Russian nuclear threat, saying the risk of a nuclear bomb is low.

– There would be drama, he says.

In the interview, he also talked about the Ukrainian forces being able to enter Crimea at the end of December.

– Possible, possible. It is not out of the question that it will be like that, he says.

Read more here.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy does not want to see a “short truce” with Russia.

Speaking at the Halifax International Security Forum, the president says a ceasefire would make the situation worse.

– Russia wants a short truce, a respite to regain strength. Some would perhaps call it the end of the war, but such a respite would only worsen the situation, he says according to TT.

John Kirby, spokesman for the US National Security Council, has previously said that a future decision on peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia is in Zelensky’s hands.

– We all agree that a diplomatically negotiated peace is the second best solution to the conflict, second only to Putin withdrawing his soldiers. We have also said that Zelensky himself can decide when and if he is ready for negotiation and what it should look like. There is no one from the US trying to push him to the table, says Kirby.

If Ukraine continues to claim that the robot that crashed into the country on Tuesday did not come from Ukraine, it could lead to serious damage to the country’s relationship with Poland and the rest of NATO, representatives of the Polish Foreign Ministry say.

“It is not a conflict today, but it has the potential to become a conflict. But we hope that in the coming days we will be able to save our relationship,” said Łukasz Jasina, spokesperson for the Polish Foreign Ministry, to Swedens radio.

The Guardian reports that Russia looks set to carry out another mass attack on Thursday morning.

President Zelensky’s administration has confirmed that there were attacks on critical infrastructure in Odessa and Dnipro. There are also supposed to have been attacks on facilities with gas production and on a robot factory in Dnipro.

Several explosions also took place in Kyiv, according to Reuters.

63 people murdered by Russian soldiers have been found in the Kherson region, reports The Insider magazine referring to Ukraine’s Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky.

– But we have to realize that the searches have only just begun, we will find even more places where people were buried and more tortured, says Monastyrsky.

The southern region of Odessa was hit by a Russian robot attack on Thursday morning, AP reports.

Governor Maksym Marchenko says via Telegram that it is an attack on infrastructure.

The attack on Odessa is the first in weeks.

At the same time, there are unconfirmed reports of attacks from several parts of the country, including Kyiv and Dnipro, and that 50 robots may have been fired at.

The governor of the Kiev region urges residents via Telegram to stay in the shelters and writes that there is information about “a rain of rockets” over the region.

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg speaks at a press conference regarding yesterday’s explosion.

Stoltenberg said, among other things, that the explosion occurred in connection with Russia carrying out several rocket attacks around Ukraine.

– An investigation is underway and we have to wait for the results. But we have no indications that Russia is planning an attack on NATO, says Jens Stoltenberg at a press conference.

Stoltenberg was also asked if yesterday’s explosion might have been the most tense situation for NATO since the war in Ukraine started.

– I am always careful in ranking different situations and incidents. This shows that the war in Ukraine continues to create dangerous situations, says Stoltenberg.

Poland states that it was probably a Ukrainian robot that was launched and hit Poland yesterday, Reuters reports.

– There is nothing to indicate that it was a deliberate attack on Poland, says the country’s President Andrzej Duda at a press conference together with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, reports Polish TVN24.

The president says there is currently no evidence that it was a rocket fired by Russian forces.

– We are in direct contact with our allies all the time, says Andrzej Duda.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki says that the activation of Article 4 is not necessary but that the tool is at their disposal.

It is an article that a member state can invoke if they feel that their own security is threatened.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has responded to the incident in Poland where a robot crashed into a village near the Ukrainian border, killing two people.

The Ministry of Defense describes in a meeting with NATO – where Poland invoked NATO’s Article 4 – the issue as “very sensitive”, reports CNBC.

– It is too early to give any definitive answers and it is very dangerous to draw any hasty conclusions, says Yuriy Sak, adviser to the Ukrainian Defense Minister.

The statement comes after information from the United States that Ukrainian capabilities should have fired the robot.

– I want to point out that the President of Poland has said that there is no definitive evidence of what happened. Joe Biden was also careful in his statement because everyone understands that this is a very sensitive issue. Before any conclusions are drawn, an investigation must be done. That is where we stand, he says.

US President Joe Biden has informed NATO and the G7 that the explosion in Poland was caused by a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile, a NATO source told Reuters.

The mercenary in the Wagner group who was beaten to death with a sledgehammer for “deserting” voluntarily agreed to a prisoner exchange to Russia, according to The Insider newspaper.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Michail Podoljak claims that the mercenary, convicted murderer Yevgeny Nuzhin, had signed a voluntary agreement to the prisoner exchange.

Nuzhin said during his captivity in Ukraine that he joined the Wagner group in order to get out of prison and surrender to the Ukrainians.

Wagner group owner Yevgeny Prigozhin justified the execution of Nuzhin by saying that he was a traitor.

Read more here.

Aircraft alarms sound in several Ukrainian cities during the morning, several media reports.

On Tuesday, Russia carried out one of the largest air strikes against Ukraine since the start of the war.

Around 100 rockets were fired at Ukrainian cities.

Poland has requested an emergency NATO meeting to be held at 10:00 a.m. in Brussels on Wednesday.

The NATO ambassadors and Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg will participate.

Ulf Kristersson will participate in the meeting, they tell Aftonbladet.