Ukraine updates: Wagner troops in Belarus — Minsk

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Russian authorities said on Saturday they had foiled an attempt to assassinate two high-profile journalists as part of an alleged Ukrainian plot.

The alleged victims were Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the pro-Kremlin international broadcaster RT, and leading TV anchor Ksenia Sobchak.

Russia's FSB security agency said it arrested seven people who were allegedly "motivated by national hatred" to kill the two women.

It claimed they were members of a neo-Nazi group called "Paragraph-88."

According to the Interfax news agency, the detainees told the FSB that Ukraine had promised them 1.5 million roubles ($16,600; €14,800) for each person.

Kyiv did not immediately respond to the claims, which have not been independently verified.

Simonyan, who is a fervent supporter of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, posted a message on Telegram telling authorities to "keep on working, brothers!"

Sobchak, who has criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin in the past and ran against him at the 2018 presidential election, struck a slightly different tone.

"If this is all true, then thanks to all the services involved for their work," she wrote on Telegram.

"If not, and if the point was simply to put me in the same sentence as Simonyan, then this is just plain mean."

Ukraine lost as much as 20% of the weaponry it sent to the battlefield in the first two weeks of the counteroffensive, the New York Times reported.

Unnamed US and European officials told the paper that the startling rate of losses dropped to about 10% in the ensuing weeks.

The toll included some of the formidable Western fighting machines, including tanks and armored personnel carriers, that Ukrainians were banking on to fight Russian forces.

Western supply of billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment — some of it high-tech and top-of-the-line — to Ukraine had raised expectations about when it would be used and to what effect against dug-in Russian lines.

Ukraine launched a counteroffensive to take back territories occupied by Russia in June, but the effort has slowed down, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged  earlier this month.

Zelenskyy has also asked Western allies for weapons to be delivered more quickly.

Russian missiles and cruise missiles frequently contain parts from Germany and other Western countries despite extensive sanctions, according to Vladyslav Vlasiuk, the Ukrainian president's sanctions commissioner.

"Every day people are killed by projectiles in our country," Vlasiuk told Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper. Many of the them, he continued, "contain components from Western countries."

According to Ukrainian data, the largest share of smuggled parts came from the US, accounting for 81%. Switzerland follows with 8%, while Germany and Japan tie third on the list with 3.5%.

German components allegedly were used in the Kh-101 cruise missile and in the 9M728 and 9M729 variants of the Iskander cruise missile. The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal hypersonic missile is also said to contain German-made components.

According to Ukraine, a total of 16 German companies provided material and services for these weapons. This is only possible because Western sanctions against Russia are circumvented via other countries, such as China and Turkey, but also via Central Asia and the Caucasus.

The German Foreign Office was quoted as saying by FAS that they take "reports from our Ukrainian colleagues about the use of sanctioned components in Russian missiles very seriously," and were examining this information "very closely."

South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol pledged to "expand the scale" of his country's humanitarian and non-lethal military assistance to Ukraine, after a summit with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv.

Seoul "will expand the scale of supplies from last year, when we provided materials such as helmets and bullet-proof vests," he said at a press briefing after the two leaders met. Yoon added that humanitarian aid would be increased to $150 million (€133 million) in 2023, from $100 million last year.

"Ukraine now reminds me of South Korea of the past," Yoon added, hailing the international assistance that allowed his country to "pull off a miraculous victory" over the North and eventually rise to become one of the world's major economies.

South Korea, the world's ninth-largest arms exporter, has sent humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. However, it has a long-standing policy of not providing weapons to active conflict zones, which it has stuck to despite repeated requests for more help from the United States, European allies and Ukraine itself.

Russian President Vladimir Putin held a phone call with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa in which the two leaders discussed the Black Sea grain deal and an African peace initiative on Ukraine, the Kremlin said.

On the grain deal, which expires on Monday, Putin reiterated to Ramaphosa that commitments to remove obstacles to Russian food and fertilizer exports had not yet been fulfilled, the Kremlin said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Putin has agreed to extend the Black Sea grain deal. However,  the Kremlin spokesperson did not confirm Erdogan's claims.

More than 32 million metric tons of corn, wheat and other grains have been exported by Ukraine under the arrangement. 

Valery Zaluzhny, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian forces, has admitted Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil, in an interview with the US newspaper Washington Post.

"This is our problem, and it is up to us to decide how to kill this enemy. It is possible and necessary to kill on [the enemy's] territory in a war," he told the newspaper in an article first published on Friday.

Zaluzhny said that he uses weapons made in Ukraine for the frequent strikes across the border. "If our partners are afraid to use their weapons, we will kill with our own," he said, referring to the conditions imposed by Western allies that the weapons supplied should not be used to attack Russian territory.

"To save my people, why do I have to ask someone for permission what to do on enemy territory?" Zaluzhny asked. 

The Ukrainian general said he wanted to take back the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea that Russia annexed back in 2014. "As soon as I have the means, I'll do something. I don't give a damn — nobody will stop me," Zaluzhny said.

South Korea's president, Yoon Suk Yeol, was visiting Ukraine for the first time for talks with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Yonhap news agency said, citing the South Korean presidential office.

 "The president first toured the Bucha city massacre site near the capital Kyiv and the city of Irpin, where missile attacks were concentrated on civilian residential areas," the office said, adding he would meet Zelenskyy later in the day.

The surprise trip came after Yoon attended a NATO summit in Lithuania and visited Poland this week, where he expressed solidarity with Ukraine and explored ways to support its fight against Russia's invasion.

A US ally and rising arms exporter, South Korea has faced renewed pressure to provide weapons to Ukraine, which Yoon's administration has resisted in favor of humanitarian and financial aid, wary of Russia's influence over North Korea.

A Russian man is to appear in federal court in New York on espionage-related charges.

Vadim Konoshchenok  faces charges of conspiracy and other counts related to global procurement and money laundering on behalf of the Russian government, the US Attorney's Office said.

The office called him "a critical participant in a scheme to provide sensitive, American-made electronics and ammunition in furtherance of Russia's war efforts and weapons development."

If convicted, he could spend up to 30 years in prison.

Konoshchenok was arrested in Estonia in October on a US warrant and was extradited to the US on Thursday.

He was allegedly trying to smuggle "35 different types of semiconductors and electronic components, including several US-origin and export-controlled items" when he was detained in Estonia.

Republican US presidential hopefuls attended a Christian conservative forum in Iowa, with the war in Ukraine being one of the major points of contention.

"Let me tell you, if Vladimir Putin overruns Ukraine, I have no doubt that the Russian military is going to cross the border of a NATO country that our armed forces will have to defend," former Vice President Mike Pence said.

He made the comments as moderator Tucker Carlson, who had previously worked at Fox News, asserted that the US lacked a national interest in the war in Ukraine.

Also defending support for Kyiv, Tim Scott, a Senator for South Carolina, said: "Everything that we do that degrades the Russian military is good for America."

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that Washington needed to define clearer objectives in Ukraine.

"They are doing a blank-check policy without telling us when we have achieved our objective," DeSantis said, adding that the ultimate goal for the US should be a "sustainable peace in Europe."

Meanwhile, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy called for an immediate end to the war and for Russia to maintain territorial gains in southern and eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Russian forces were consolidating their efforts to prevent Kyiv's counteroffensive from advancing.

"We must all understand very clearly, as clearly as possible, that Russian forces in our southern and eastern lands are doing everything they can in order to stop our soldiers," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

"And every thousand meters we advance, every success of every combat brigade deserves our gratitude."

General Oleksander Tamavskyi, commander of the Ukrainian forces in the south, said after a meeting with Zelenskyy and other top commanders that his troops were "systematically moving the enemy out of their positions.

Belarus' Ministry of Defense says that soldiers of the Wagner private paramilitary have arrived in the country.

The ministry said that the Russian group was training Belarusian forces.

Wagner forces are working as instructors at a camp in Osipovichi, around 100 kilometers (62 miles) southeast of Minsk.

Belarus mediated the deal that lead to Wagner chief Yevgeniy Prigozhin to call off a mutiny last month.

Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko offered Wagner troops the possibility of relocating to Belarus if they refused to serve in the Russian military.

sdi/lo (AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa)