Traces of explosives found at Nord Stream’s pipelines, Sweden says
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Investigators have found traces of explosives at the site of the damaged Nord Stream pipelines, confirming that sabotage had taken place, a Swedish prosecutor said on Friday. Follow our live blog for the latest developments. All times are Paris time (GMT+1)
9:47 am: Russia ready for high-level talks with US if Washington is willing
Russia is ready for high-level meetings with the United States on strategic stability if Washington is ready, Moscow’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying in state media on Friday.
He also said that Russia does not rule out new contacts with the United States after upcoming talks in Cairo on the New START nuclear weapons agreement.
09:35: Traces of explosives were found at the Nord Stream pipelines, says Sweden
Investigators have found traces of explosives at the site of the damaged Nord Stream pipelines, confirming that sabotage had taken place, a Swedish prosecutor said on Friday.
Swedish and Danish authorities are investigating four holes in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which link Russia and Germany via the Baltic Sea and have become a flashpoint in the Ukraine crisis.
Denmark said last month that a preliminary investigation had shown that the leaks were caused by powerful explosions.
8:32: Russia hopes for prisoner swap in the US including arms dealer Bout
Russia hopes it can do a prisoner swap with the United States that includes convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, known as the “Merchant of Death,” a deputy foreign minister said Friday.
“The Americans are showing some external activity, we are working professionally through a special channel designed for this,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying on Friday by Interfax.
“It is undeniable that Viktor Bout is among those being discussed, and we certainly expect a positive result,” Ryabkov said.
8:14: Where is Putin? Leader leaves bad news about Ukraine to others
As Russia’s top military leader announced in a televised appearance that they were pulling troops out of the key city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, one man missing from the room was President Vladimir Putin.
As Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and General Sergei Surovikin, Russia’s commander-in-chief in Ukraine, harshly recited the reasons for the retreat to the cameras on Nov. 9, Putin was touring a Moscow neurological hospital and watching a doctor perform brain surgery.
Later that day, Putin spoke at another event but made no mention of the withdrawal from Kherson – arguably Russia’s most humiliating withdrawal in Ukraine. In the days that followed, he has not commented publicly on the subject.
Putin’s silence comes as Russia faces mounting setbacks in nearly nine months of fighting. The Russian leader appears to have delegated the delivery of bad news to others – a tactic he used during the coronavirus pandemic.
Kherson was the only regional capital Moscow’s forces had captured in Ukraine and fell into Russian hands in the first days of the invasion. Russia occupied the city and most of the remote region, a key gateway to the Crimean peninsula, for months.
07:07: Pope Francis says the Vatican is ready to mediate at the end of Ukraine’s war
Pope Francis reiterated on Friday that the Vatican was ready to do everything possible to mediate and end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the pope said in an interview with Italian daily La Stampa.
Asked if he believed reconciliation between Moscow and Kyiv was possible, the Pope urged everyone not to give up.
“But everyone must undertake to demilitarize hearts, starting with their own, and then disarm, disarm violence. We must all be pacifists. We want peace, not just a truce that can only serve to rearm. Real peace, which is the fruit of dialogue,” he told the paper.
06:01: The war in Ukraine is also Asia’s problem, says Macron
President of France Emmanuel Macron on Friday urged Asian countries to join the “growing consensus” against the conflict in Ukraine, telling them the war was also “your problem”.
Macron told business leaders on the sidelines of a Pacific summit that France was trying to “create an increasing consensus to say that this war is also your problem, because it will create a lot of destabilization”.
05:40: New wave of Russian strikes hits Ukraine’s grid as first snow falls
Fresh Russian strikes hit cities across Ukraine on Thursday, crippling the nation’s energy infrastructure and throwing millions into the dark as winter sets in and temperatures drop.
Repeated flash floods have disrupted electricity and water supplies across Ukraine, but the Kremlin blamed civilian suffering on Kiev’s refusal to negotiate, rather than Russian attacks.
AFP journalists in several Ukrainian cities said the latest attack coincided with the first snow of the season, after officials in Kyiv warned of “difficult” days ahead.
“Currently, more than 10 million Ukrainians are without electricity,” the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday, adding that Odesa, Vinnytsia, Sumy and Kyiv regions were the most affected.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, Reuters and AP)