More than 100,000 soldiers have been killed or wounded on each side of the Ukraine-Russia war, America’s top general has estimated.
General Mark Milley also said as many as 40,000 Ukrainian civilians had most likely been killed, but added the two armies have “probably” suffered a similar level of causalities.
Speaking to the Economic Club in New York, General Milley said initial indicators suggested Russia was following through with its withdrawal from Kherson.
But he cautioned that it could take time to complete.
“There has been a tremendous amount of suffering, human suffering,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday he was open to peace talks with Russia to end the conflict – but only if Russia gives back all of Ukraine’s occupied lands, provides compensation for war damage, and faces prosecution for war crimes.
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The next day, Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu ordered troops to withdraw from near the strategic southern Ukrainian city of Kherson in a major setback for Mr Putin’s forces – and what could be a turning point in the war.
Ukraine remained dubious about the news and Russia’s intentions, noting some of Mr Putin’s forces remained in Kherson and reinforcements were being sent to the region.
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“They are moving out but not as much as would be taking place if it was a full pullout or regrouping,” Oleksiy Arestovych, adviser to President Zelenskyy, said in a video message on Wednesday night.
Russian withdrawal could take weeks
Gen Milley, the highest-ranking US military officer, claimed Russia had amassed 20,000 to 30,000 troops in Kherson and a full retreat could take several weeks.
“The initial indicators are they are in fact doing it. They made the public announcement they’re doing it. I believe they’re doing it in order to preserve their force to re-establish defensive lines south of the (Dnipro) river, but that remains to be seen,” he said.
Kherson was the only regional capital Mr Putin’s forces captured after the invasion. It has since been the focus of a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
Tens of thousands of civilians have been evacuated from Kherson – which controls the only land route to the Crimea peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014 – in recent weeks by Russian-installed officials.
Ukraine strengthening positions
According to Ukrainian military analyst Yuri Butusov, the Ukrainian army’s use of US-supplied high-mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS) had made Dnipro river crossings so dangerous that “the defence of Russian positions here has become impossible”.
He added: “But let’s be clear. The Russian forces will take up defensive positions and will be able to carry out new attacks. It will be able to maintain its positions on the east bank for a time.”
In his nightly address to the nation on Wednesday, President Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces were strengthening their positions “step by step” in the south, warning that “the enemy will make no gifts to us”.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden said Moscow’s order to withdraw from Kherson showed there were “some real problems with the Russian military”.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed the news about Kherson, but warned in an interview with Sky News that “Russia can still inflict a lot of damage”.
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NATO chief speaks to Sky News
On the ground, Russian forces shelled more than 25 towns and villages on the southern front.
Elsewhere, the main bridge on a road out of Kherson was blown up, according to Reuters news agency, while a top Russian official in Ukraine was killed in a car crash, in a further blow to Moscow in the southern Kherson region amid an impending withdrawal of Russian forces.
Ukrainian politician David Arakhamia, who led Kyiv’s delegation to peace talks early in Russia’s invasion, said that a military operation in the Kherson region was underway.
He said Russia’s current situation was critical, adding: “Sooner or later, they will either leave Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Sevastopol (in Crimea) or be destroyed.”
However, the Ukrainians may face numerous booby traps in Kherson and could be targeted by intense Russian artillery barrages.
Representatives of dozens of climate vulnerable islands and African nations have stormed out of high-stakes negotiations over a climate funding goal.
Patience is wearing thin and negotiations have boiled over at the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, which were due to finish yesterday but are now well into overtime.
After two weeks of talks, the more than 190 countries gathered in the capital Baku are still trying to agree a new financial settlement to channel money to poorer countries to both curb and adapt to climate change.
Talks have now run well into overtime at COP29, but a deal now feels much more precarious.
The least developed countries like Mozambique and low-lying island nations like Samoa say their calls for a portion of the fund to be allocated to them have been ignored.
Samoa’s minister of natural resources and environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster is one of the representatives who walked out.
“We are here to negotiate but we have walked out… at the moment we don’t feel we are being heard in there,” he said on behalf of more than 40 small island and developing states, whose shorelines are being lost to rising sea levels.
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Shortly after he made a veiled threat of leaving COP29 altogether, saying: “We want nothing more than to continue to engage, but the process must be INCLUSIVE.
“If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29.”
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Evans Njewa, who chairs a group of more than 40 least developed countries, said the current deal is “unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do.”
The last official draft on Friday pledged $250bn a year annually by 2035.
This is more than double the previous goal of $100bn set 15 years ago, but nowhere near the annual $1.3trn that experts say is needed.
Sky News understands some developed countries like the UK were this morning willing to bump up the goal to $300bn.
Developing countries are angry not just about the finance negotiations, but also on how to make progress on a pledge from last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”.
A group of oil and producing countries, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, have tried to dilute that language, while the UK and island state are among those that have fought to keep it in.
Mr Schuster said all things being negotiated contain a “deplorable lack of substance”.
He added: “We need to see progress and follow up on the transition away from fossil fuels that we agreed last year. We have been asked to forget all about that at this COP, as though we are not in a critical decade and as though the 1.5C limit is not in peril.”
“We need to be shown the regard which our dire circumstances necessitate.”
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
At least 11 people have been killed and 63 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.
Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.
State-run National News Agency (NNA) said the attack “completely destroyed” an eight-storey residential building in the Basta neighbourhood early on Saturday.
Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station also showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.
The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack – the fourth targeting the centre this week.
At least four bombs were dropped in the attack, security sources told Reuters news agency.
The blasts happened at about 4am (2am UK time).
A seperate drone strike in the southern port cuty of Tyre this morning killed one person and injured another, according to the NNA.
The blasts came after a day of bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs and Tyre. The Israeli military had issued evacuation notices prior to those strikes.
Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.
Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.
US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.
Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, Israel has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000.
It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.
President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will ramp up the production of a new, hypersonic ballistic missile.
In a nationally-televised speech, Mr Putin said the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was used in an attack on Ukrainian city Dnipro in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.
Referring to the Oreshnik, the Russian president said: “No one in the world has such weapons.
“Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”
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He added: “We have this system now. And this is important.”
Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities, Mr Putin claimed it is so powerful that using several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.
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General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads – while Mr Putin alleged Western air defence systems will not be able to stop the missiles.
Mr Putin said of the Oreshnik: “There is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production.”
Testing the Oreshnik will happen “in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia“, the president added, stating there is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”.
NATO and Ukraine are expected to hold emergency talks on Tuesday.
Meanwhile Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session as security was tightened following the strike on Dnipro, a central city with a population of around one million. No fatalities were reported.
EU leaders condemn Russia’s ‘heinous attacks’
Numerous EU leaders have addressed Russia’s escalation of the conflict with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the war is “entering a decisive phase [and] taking on very dramatic dimensions”.
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Russia’s new missile – what does it mean?
Speaking in Kyiv, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky called Moscow’s strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe”.
At a news conference, Mr Lipavsky gave his full support for delivering the additional air defence systems needed to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks”.