Latest news from Russia and the war in Ukraine

Russia is planning “some quite big air attacks” in Ukraine, according to a leading security and defense analyst.

“It looks as though Russians are preparing some big air attacks. There’s a lot of Twitter chat and satellite imagery at air bases… so there may be a lot of air activity,” Michael Clarke, professor and former director-general of RUSI, told Sky News late Tuesday.

“The Russians are really digging in for winter and preparing trenches. In Kherson, they’ve got huge defenses,” Clarke added.

The analyst noted that Russian forces appear to be advancing in Donetsk, around the city of Bakhmut where fighting has been going on for weeks.

“The Russians have been pounding away at Bakhmut for about four weeks and they’re trying to attack it from the east, the north and it looks as though they’ve made some progress from the south of Bakhmut.”

He said fighting there will still be “very ferocious” and that it is the “one place where they are making progress.”

— Holly Ellyatt

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the situation at the front as difficult, with intense fighting in the east, northeast and south of Ukraine, where he said Russian forces are “planning something.”

“The situation at the front is difficult. Despite extremely large Russian losses, the occupiers are still trying to advance in Donetsk region, gain a foothold in Luhansk region, move into Kharkiv region, they are planning something in the south,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram Tuesday night.

He said Ukraine’s defenses are holding, however, preventing Russia from advancing.

“They said that they would capture Donetsk region – in spring, summer, fall. Winter is already starting this week. They put their regular army there, they lose hundreds of conscripts and mercenaries there every day, they use barricades there.”

He said Russia would lose 100,000 of its soldiers and additional mercenaries while “Ukraine will stand.”

— Holly Ellyatt

Moscow has postponed a round of nuclear arms control talks with the United States set for this week because of stark differences in approach and tensions over Ukraine, a senior Russian diplomat said Tuesday.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the decision to put off the talks that were scheduled to start Tuesday in Cairo was made at the political level. The postponement marked another low point in badly strained U.S.-Russian relations and raised concerns about the future of the last remaining nuclear arms control pact between the two powers.

“We faced a situation when our U.S. colleagues not just demonstrated their reluctance to listen to our signals and reckon with our priorities, but also acted in the opposite way,” Ryabkov told reporters in Moscow.

Ryabkov claimed the U.S. wanted to focus solely on resuming inspections under the New START treaty and stonewalled Moscow’s request to also discuss specifics related to the weapons count under the strategic arms reduction pact.

This week’s meeting of the Bilateral Consultative Commission established under the treaty would have been the first in more than a year. The timing of the talks was intended to show that Russia and the U.S. remain committed to arms control and keeping lines of communication open despite soaring tensions over Ukraine.

— Associated Press

Western governments want to set a maximum purchase price for Russian oil on the world market to limit Moscow’s ability to raise money for its war on Ukraine.

The plan is meant to punish Russia while at the same time keeping its vast petroleum exports flowing to energy-starved global markets to tamp down inflation.

But so far, the countries have failed to agree on what the price limit should be, reflecting divisions over how badly the scheme should seek to hurt Moscow.

If they can’t reach a deal by Dec. 5, an outright ban on Russian imports into the European Union will take effect, crimping supplies heading into peak winter heating season.

— Reuters

Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new $53 million assistance package from the United States to help repair Ukraine’s electrical grid, which has been decimated by Russian shelling.

The package will include distribution transformers, circuit breakers, surge arresters, disconnectors, vehicles and other key equipment, according to a State Department fact sheet.

The announcement comes as millions of Ukrainians remain without power, and many without water, as a result of Russia’s coordinated bombing campaign.

 The new U.S. assistance is on top of $55 million that has already been committed to emergency energy sector support.

— Christina Wilkie

Political analysts from Russia say anxiety is rising in Moscow as the country’s forces face what’s likely to be months more fighting and military losses, and even starts to consider it may be defeated.

That would be catastrophic for Putin and the Kremlin, who have banked Russia’s global capital on winning the war against Ukraine, analysts said, noting that anxiety was rising in Moscow over how the war was progressing.

“Since September, I see a lot of changes [in Russia] and a lot of fears,” Tatiana Stanovaya, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and founder and head of political analysis firm R.Politik, told CNBC.

“For the first time since the war started people are beginning to consider the worst case scenario, that Russia can lose, and they don’t see and don’t understand how Russia can get out from this conflict without being destroyed. People are very anxious, they believe that what is going on is a disaster,” she said Monday.

Read the whole story here: ‘Losing is not an option’: Russia analysts fear a ‘desperate’ Putin as Ukraine war drags on