Ukraine updates: Cameron visits Kyiv on first foreign trip

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said deliveries of artillery ammunition to his country have slowed down after fighting erupted between Israel and Hamas militants.

"Our deliveries have decreased," Zelenskyy told reporters. He said delivery of 155-millimeter shells that are widely used in the eastern and southern frontlines has "really slowed down."

 "It's not like the US said: We don't give Ukraine any. No! It's just that everyone is fighting for [stockpiles] themselves," he told reporters. "This is life. I'm not saying that this is positive, but this is life, and we have to defend what's ours."

Ukraine has repeatedly asked Western allies for greater supplies of artillery shells as it burns through ammunition in the war against Russian forces.

Russian shelling killed one and injured at least four in an attack on critical infrastructure in southern Ukraine's Kherson region, a local governor said.

An afternoon attack targeted the village of Bilozerka. The body of a man was found under the rubble, a man and three women were hospitalized, Oleksandr Prokudin, the local governor, said.

"A critical infrastructure object was also destroyed. Now Bilozerka and surrounding villages are without electricity," Prokudin said on the Telegram messaging app.

Russian troops abandoned Kherson and the western bank of the Dnipro River late last year, but now regularly shell those areas from positions on the eastern bank.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Germany's numerous donations and aid to Ukraine are crucial to the reconstruction of the war-torn country. 

"Germany will host the reconstruction conference next year, which will be organized internationally," Scholz said in Teltow, south of Berlin. "But it will only work if there are many partnerships like the one we see here." 

The chancellor was attending a ceremony to deliver aid, including ambulances and a school bus, from the town of Teltow, in his constituency, to the Ukrainian twin town of Khotyn.

Scholz said he was very impressed to see that cooperation between Germany and Ukraine was "very successful on many levels." 

The mayor of Khotyn, Andriy Dranchuk, praised the aid. What Ukraine and Germany have in common is support and solidarity between peoples, he said.

Russian troops have recently made progress in the battle for the eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka, the British Ministry of Defense said in its daily intelligence update.

"Russia is almost certainly attempting a pincer movement to encircle the town," the ministry wrote. "Recent advances have likely brought Russian forces close to the Ukrainian-held Avdiivka Coke and Chemical Plant," it continued.

The sprawling industrial complex, which produced coke fuel and various chemicals, occupies a strategically important position in the north of the town on an important main road. If Russian troops were to capture the plant, this would make it more difficult to supply the Ukrainian defense forces, the statement said.

"However, the industrial facility provides Ukraine with a localized defensive advantage and Russian forces will probably suffer significant personnel losses if they attempt to assault the facility," the ministry added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week described Avdiivka as one of the "hottest" areas on the frontline. The industrial town has been under fierce attack for more than a month.

The Kremlin said the Czech Republic's decision to freeze Russian state-owned property was illegal and that Moscow could retaliate against what it called a hostile move.

The Czech government said on Wednesday it had frozen Russian state-owned property on its territory, expanding sanctions imposed over Moscow's war in Ukraine.

The government press office said the EU country widened its national sanctions list to include a Russian company, which is controlled by the Russian presidential administration, and is in charge of managing Russian assets abroad. It did not name the company in the statement.

In the Czech Republic, the Russian company manages a number of real estate properties, the Czech government said. "Its income from operations serves directly for financing of the Putin regime," the government said in a statement.

Diplomatic missions are excluded from the sanctions, news agency CTK quoted Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky as saying.

Ukraine's military said its air defenses had shot down 16 of 18 attack drones launched by Russia, as well as one missile, in overnight strikes.

Authorities also said that civilian infrastructure in the eastern Kharkiv region had been damaged by S-300 missiles, but that no deaths or injuries had been reported.

Ukraine is concerned that Russia may step up its campaign of strikes on energy infrastructure as winter approaches, and warned that Kyiv would strike back at Russian oil and gas infrastructure. 

A Russian artist who replaced supermarket price tags with messages calling for an end to Moscow's war in Ukraine was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Critics say the case of 33-year-old Alexandra Skochilenko is part of a crackdown on anyone who speaks out against Russia's "special military operation" that has led to nearly 20,000 arrests and more than 800 criminal cases.

Her supporters in the courtroom shouted "shame" after the judge Oksana Demiasheva read out the verdict.

Skochilenko has admitted that on March 31, 2022, she replaced price tags in a supermarket in her native St. Petersburg with small pieces of paper calling for an end to the war and criticizing the authorities.

But Skochilenko, who has already spent more than a year and a half in prison, denies the formal charge of knowingly spreading false information about the Russian army.

Her lawyers told the court that their client had only acted out of conscience, had committed no crime, and would not survive in prison because of pre-existing health problems.

Russia said that it repelled several Ukrainian drone attacks over its own territory. A total of five unmanned missiles were shot down by Russian air defenses over the western region of Bryansk and off the annexed Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, according to the Defense Ministry.

Russia has been waging a war against Ukraine for more than 20 months. In its defense against the Russian invasion, Ukraine has repeatedly fired on Russian territory.

Howevere, the scale of damage is miniscule compared to the destruction caused by Russia's bombardment of Ukrainian cities and towns since they began their invasion in February 2022.

Britain's Foreign Secretary David Cameron  met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for talks on his first working trip abroad, the Ukrainian leader said Thursday.

Former Prime Minister Cameron, who was appointed Britain's new foreign secretary on Monday, said in a video released by Zelenskyy's office that he wanted to underscore London's support for Ukraine.

Zelenskyy said he was grateful for the gesture, which comes amid a conflict in the Middle East that he said has drawn global attention away from Ukraine's war with Russia, now in its 21st month with no end in sight.

"The world is not so focused on the battlefield situation in Ukraine, and this dividing of the focus really does not help," he said.
Britain has been a close ally of Ukraine throughout the full-scale war launched by Russia in February 2022.

"What I want to say by being here is that we will continue to give you the moral support, the diplomatic support... but above all the military support that you need not just this year and next year, but however long it takes," Cameron said.

He added that Britain would work with its allies "to make sure the attention is here in Ukraine."

Cameron also met with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who wrote that the talks "proved that Ukraine and the UK are determined to work together toward victory." 

On Thursday, the second day of his visit to Ukraine, Cameron travelled to Odesa, the country's major Black Sea port. "In the last three months, they (Ukraine's forces) have pushed Russia back in the Black Sea and are opening vital sea trade routes for the Ukrainian economy and global food supplies," Cameron said.

dh/rt (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)