All current developments on the war in Ukraine.
Orban claims Ukraine ‘cannot win on the battlefield’
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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has insisted that Ukraine cannot defeat Russia and that the EU should therefore prepare a Plan B to deal with the conflict.
In an interview with Hungarian state radio, the nationalist leader said the EU’s strategy in the Ukraine war had “failed.”
“Today everyone knows, but dares not say it out loud, that this strategy has failed. Obviously that won’t work. “Ukrainians will not win on the battlefield,” he said, explaining that there was no reason to spend Hungarian taxpayers’ money on aid to Ukraine.
Western aid is widely seen as crucial to Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russian invasion, although some politicians in Europe and the United States are growing weary of providing more support.
Hungary’s Oxford-educated leader is considered an ally of Putin. He has blocked the release of EU funds to Ukraine since Kiev added Hungary’s OTP bank to its list of international war sponsors.
Earlier today, Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nausėda said Orban must stop “flirting” with Russia, citing his meeting with Putin in mid-October.
“It is really more than strange to see that we are starting to flirt with the regime that is getting involved […] “Very cruel atrocities on the territory of Ukraine,” he said in Brussels.
“It sends a completely wrong message to everyone, first of all to the international community and also to Ukraine.”
Russia is suffering “significant losses” in Ukraine, the White House says
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday that Moscow had suffered “significant losses” in its new offensive in Ukraine.
Kirby added that the Russian army lost at least 125 armored vehicles and more than a battalion’s worth of equipment around the Ukrainian town of Avdiivka in the eastern Donetsk region.
“It is not surprising that the Russian armed forces are suffering from low morale,” he said at a White House news conference.
Moscow has recently stepped up its battlefield attacks to advance the front before winter.
Still, the U.S. official warned that Putin’s troops still had some offensive capability despite expected further Russian attacks, adding that they may make some tactical progress in the coming months.
On Thursday, Russian lawmakers also approved their draft budget for 2024-2026, which includes a 68 percent increase in military spending.
According to the government’s proposal, the new military budget will exceed all social spending by more than 25 percent for the first time in Russia’s history.
Belarus calls for talks on “land and peace” in Ukraine
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko called for an immediate cessation of hostilities in Ukraine and the start of negotiations “on land and peace.”
“I believe that there are enough smart people in Ukraine. It is necessary to sit down at the negotiating table and negotiate,” Lukashenko was quoted as saying by Russian state news agency TASS.
“As I said before: no prerequisites are necessary. The most important thing is to issue a stop order. To say: Let us stop at midnight, no troops are allowed to move, no one is to shoot, no one is to withdraw reserves, no communication is to take place.” restored. We stop and negotiate. About land and about peace.
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Belarus’ autocratic prime minister said negotiations had to begin because Washington had suggested that US aid to Kiev was “not limitless.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently signed a formal decree that explicitly rules out the prospect of talks with Putin but leaves the door open to talks with Russia in a different form.
After 18 months of bitter conflict, Ukrainians remain determined to win the war with Russia.
An October Gallup poll shows that three in five want to keep fighting until they win, although 31% want the war to end as quickly as possible.