Ukraine war live: Putin calls conflict a tragedy at G20 despite ordering invasion

Vladimir Putin has said Russia has never abandoned peace negotiations on Ukraine.

“The situation in Ukraine cannot but shock, but the coup in Ukraine and the extermination of the civilian population there and in Palestine is not shocking,” he said, according to state media.

Vladimir Putin has been pictured addressing the virtual G20 summit.

It appears only a handful of countries have tuned in to hear him speak, inlcuding India, Spain Indonesia, and Korea.

Below are some of the latest photos from Ukraine as the first snowfall of the winter covers parts of the country.

Russia has sent the first vessels carrying grain to Africa free of charge, President Vladimir Putin told an online gathering of the Group of 20 leading economies on Wednesday.

Russia pulled out of a United Nations-backed deal in July that had allowed safe passage for Ukrainian grain exports via the Black Sea, but Moscow has since pledged to help developing countries that rely on Russian and Ukrainian grain exports.

In his comments to the G20 meeting, Putin also said a large share of global economic activity was shifting to Asia and Africa, and he called for a bigger role for developing nations in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Vladimir Putin said Russia “stands for restoring the spirit of open and mutually beneficial cooperation in the world”.

Vladimir Putin has finished addressing the G20 virtual summit.

We will continue to post the most newsworthy bits of his speech as they are translated.

The fabric of relations between Russia and the US is extremely thin and risks being torn at any moment, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.

Zakharova told reporters at her weekly briefing that Washington’s actions could lead to “unpredictable consequences”.

Ukrainian troops face “difficult” defensive operations on parts of the eastern front with bitter winter cold setting in, but forces in the south are still conducting offensive actions, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday.

Russian troops launched offensives on different sections of the front line in Ukraine’s east this autumn, trying to advance on the devastated town of Avdiivka and in the northeast between the towns of Lyman and Kupiansk.

“Difficult weather, difficult defence on the Lyman, Bakhmut, Donetsk and Avdiivka fronts. Offensive actions in the south,” Zelenskiy said on Telegram messenger.

Snow and freezing temperatures that stood at about minus 5 degrees Celsius during the day on Wednesday and were expected to drop lower may further complicate operations on the battleground, where fighting is moving to an attritional phase.

Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022, controls nearly a fifth of Ukraine. Kyiv launched a counteroffensive to retake occupied territory this summer, but has not forced a major breakthrough.

Since mid-October, Avdiivka, where the front line has changed little since the first war erupted in 2014 between Kyiv and Russian-backed militants, faced waves of attacks followed by temporary lulls, according to the Ukrainian military.

After one such lull the day before, the head of the “Tavria” military command said on Wednesday that Russian troops had “dramatically increased” the number of assaults and airstrikes.

“Our defenders are steadfastly holding the defence in the Avdiivka direction,” Commander Oleksandr Tarnavskyi said on Telegram. Ukrainian forces continued the offensive on the southeastern Melitopol front, he added.

In their morning readout on the battlefield, the General Staff said troops were also holding onto the bridgeheads secured on the eastern side of the River Dnipro that was occupied by Russian forces in the early days of their invasion.

Vladimir Putin has just begun speaking at the G20 virtual summit, according to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.

The Kremlin declined on Wednesday to comment on a suggestion by White House spokesman John Kirby that Iran may be considering providing Russia with ballistic missiles for use in Ukraine.

“We are developing relations with Iran, including in the field of military-technical cooperation, but we do not comment on this information,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a regular news briefing.

Kirby said the United States would monitor the situation between Iran and Russia, and take appropriate action as needed.

Iran has been a key military support for Russia, supplying the Kremlin with thousands of Shahed kamikaze drones that have been used to target critical Ukrainian infrastructure.