Ukraine-Russia war: Zelensky says Scholz has opened ‘Pandora’s box’ after Putin call

Russian forces have captured two villages in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Russian news agencies cited the defence ministry as saying on Saturday.

The villages of Makarivka, just over 100km west of Donetsk city, and Leninskoye, the ministry claims according to Reuters.

It comes as Russia continues to progress in its offensive on the eastern Ukrainian front.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has criticized German chancellor Olaf Scholz for his call with Russian president Vladimir Putin as opening a “Pandora’s box”.

“This is exactly what Putin has been wanting for a long time: it is extremely important for him to weaken his isolation, Russia’s isolation, and to have normal negotiations that will not end in anything,” Mr Zelensky said.

During the first phone call in nearly two years, Mr Scholz urged Mr Putin to withdraw his troops and end the full-scale invasion launched in February 2022.

After months spent occupying a swathe of territory in Russia in the wake of a daring summer assault, Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that Ukraine is now engaged against a force of 50,000 troops amassed by Vladimir Putin in the border Kursk region.

However, Moscow is now pushing to retake the territory. Following reports that thousands of North Korean troops have been stationed in Kursk, Ukraine’s military has claimed that Russia has suffered two consecutive days of record losses – suggesting the fight is gaining a new intensity.

The Independent has spoken to analysts about how the situation may develop in the weeks and months to come:

President Joe Biden is expected to use his final meeting with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to urge him to dissuade North Korea from further deepening its support for Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Today’s talks on the sidelines of the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru will take place just over two months before Biden leaves office and makes way for Republican president-elect Donald Trump.

It will be Mr Biden’s last check-in with Mr Xi — someone the Democrat saw as his most consequential peer on the world stage.

With the final meeting, officials say Biden will be looking for Mr Xi to step up Chinese engagement to prevent an already dangerous moment with North Korea from further escalating.

Mr Biden along with South Korean president Yoon Seok Yul and Japan’s prime minister Shigeru Ishiba yesterday condemned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s decision to send thousands of troops to help Moscow repel Ukrainian forces who have seized territory in Russia’s Kursk border region.

Mr Biden called it “dangerous and destabilising cooperation.”

White House officials also have expressed frustration with Beijing, which accounts for the vast majority of North Korea’s trade, for not doing more to rein in Pyongyang.

Embattled chancellor Olaf Scholz has insisted that the war in Ukraine constitutes a financial emergency for Germany – which would open up the possibility of more spending.

In an interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, Mr Scholz said that, at the start of the war in February 2022, Germany had no idea how long the conflict would last or how long over 1 million Ukrainian refugees would need protection in the country.

“The misjudgement we made back then does not prevent us from doing the right thing today. Russia’s war is an extraordinary event that justifies a financial emergency – and therefore higher spending,” said Scholz, while also calling for a moderate change in the debt rule that currently limits public spending.

“A reform will not solve all of our financial problems, but it will make our path a little easier,” he added.

Japanese foreign minister Takeshi Iwaya landed in the Ukrainian capital today for an unannounced visit in an apparent show of unity with the war-ravaged country.

Mr Iwaya traveled to Kyiv by train from Poland after visiting Peru for a regional economic meeting, the foreign ministry said.

The top diplomat will meet his Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha and hold talks with president Volodymyr Zelensky later in the day, Mainichi reported.

A London-based exiled Russian television chef has been found dead in Serbia.

Alexei Zimin, 52, was an outspoken critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s Crimea annexation. He was found dead in a hotel room in Belgrade earlier this week, according to Russian media. He was travelling to the Serbian capital to promote his new book on Britain, entitled Anglomania.

According to the Serbian authorities, there were “no suspicious circumstances” in Zimin’s death. An autopsy and toxicology investigation was underway, according to BBC News.

Zimin spent his final years in exile in the UK and ran a cookery show on the Russian NTV channel. But the show was stopped after he issued anti-war messages on social media in the wake of Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia’s state-owned natural gas company Gazrom will cut off supplies to Austria’s OMV utility today Austria’s chancellor said.

He added that his country’s underground gas storage was full and that it had alternative, non-Russia supplies.

The cutoff follows OMV’s announcement that it would stop paying for Gazprom gas to its Austrian arm to offset a £192m arbitration award it won over an earlier cutoff of gas to its German subsidiary.

Chancellor Karl Nehammer said yesterday that Austria has a secure supply of alternative fuel and that “no one will freeze this winter, no home will be cold.”

After months spent occupying a swathe of territory in Russia in the wake of a daring summer assault, Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that Ukraine is now engaged against a force of 50,000 troops amassed by Vladimir Putin in the border Kursk region.

The Ukrainian incursion was the largest on Russian soil since the Second World War and succeeded in taking Moscow – and even Kyiv’s closest allies – by surprise.

But despite Ukrainian troops’ success in bedding into positions deep into Kursk, the offensive received a mixed reaction from analysts, with some questioning the wisdom of drawing vital defensive power away from the fight in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, where Mr Putin’s forces have been making steady, grinding gains for months.

Andy Gregory and Tom Watling report.