Ukraine-Russia war latest: Suspect in attack on Putin’s general is extradited to Moscow from Dubai

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said he was imposing sanctions on some foreign manufacturers of components for Russian drones and missiles used against Ukraine.

"Producing this weaponry would be impossible without critical foreign components, which the Russians continue to obtain by circumventing sanctions," Zelensky said on X.

"We are introducing new sanctions precisely against such companies – component suppliers, as well as missile and drone manufacturers. I have signed the relevant decisions."

According to two decrees published by the Ukrainian presidency, the targets of the sanctions include several Chinese companies as well as companies from the former Soviet Union, the United Arab Emirates and Panama.

Ukrainian and Russian leaders need to meet in person to hash out the hardest remaining issues in peace talks, Kyiv’s foreign minister has said, adding that only US president Donald Trump has the power to bring about an agreement.

"Only Trump can stop the war," Sybiha told Reuters in his office in Kyiv, close to the Dnipro river.

From a 20-point peace plan that has formed the basis of recent trilateral negotiations, only "a few" items remain outstanding, Sybiha said.

"The most sensitive and most difficult, to be dealt with at the leaders' level."

Sybiha said Ukraine wants to accelerate the efforts to end the four-yer-old war and capitalise on the momentum in the US-brokered talks before other factors come into play, such as campaigning for the US Congressional mid-term elections in November.

Russian president Vladimir Putin thanked his UAE counterpart Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan for help with the detention of a man suspected of shooting a Russian military intelligence officer in Moscow.

The two leaders spoke over the phone on Saturday evening, said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.

“Vladimir Putin thanked Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan for ensuring effective cooperation between the two countries' security agencies and for the assistance of the Emirati side in apprehending the suspect in the assassination attempt on General Vladimir Alekseyev,” a statement said.

In addition, the leaders had a further discussion of the issues raised during the President of the UAE's recent visit to Moscow.

A Ukrainian-born Russian citizen has been extradited to Moscow from Dubai on suspicion of gravely injuring Vladimir Alexeyev, deputy head of Russia's vast GRU military intelligence service.

A Russian airstrike on a residential area in eastern Ukraine killed one person and wounded two, officials said on Sunday.

The attack on the city of Kramatorsk in Ukraine's Donetsk region caused a fire in a nine-story apartment block, according to Ukraine's State Emergency Service.

Russia also struck energy infrastructure in Ukraine's Poltava region overnight into Sunday, Serhii Koretskyi, chief executive of Ukraine's state-owned gas company Naftogaz said.

Russia has hammered Ukraine's power grid, especially in winter, throughout the nearly 4-year-old war. It aims to weaken the Ukrainian will to resist in a strategy that Kyiv officials call "weaponising winter”.

A Ukrainian-born Russian citizen has been extradited to Moscow from Dubai on suspicion of gravely injuring one of Russia's most senior military intelligence officers, Russian security officials and investigators said on Sunday.

The Federal Security Service (FSB), the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said in a statement that a Russian citizen named Lyubomir Korba was detained in Dubai on suspicion of carrying out the shooting.

Russian investigators said Korba, born in the Ternopil region of Soviet Ukraine in 1960, was tasked by Ukrainian intelligence to carry out the shooting. Russia said Ukraine was behind the shooting, a charge Kyiv has denied.

Russian media showed masked FSB officers escorting a blindfolded man from a small jet in Russia in the dark.

The FSB said it had identified two accomplices, also Russian citizens. One, Viktor Vasin, was detained in Moscow, while another, Zinaida Serebritskaya, escaped to Ukraine, Russian investigators said.

Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, deputy head of Russia's vast GRU military intelligence service, was shot three times on Friday with a Makarov pistol equipped with a silencer in an apartment block on the Volokolamsk highway in northern Moscow, the investigators said.

Russia has claimed to have captured two settlements in eastern Ukraine on Sunday.

The country’s defence ministry said its forces had captured the settlements of Hlushkivka in Ukraine's eastern Kharkiv region and Sydorivka in Sumy region.

The Independent could not independently verify the battlefield report.

Ukraine has backed calls for a ceasefire during the Winter Olympics.

The idea was proposed by Pope Leo under what he said was the tradition of the Olympic truce. Ukraine responded to the suggestion and backed the proposal.

“We are interested in a ceasefire and if Russia once again rejects, ‌it will once again confirm who is the obstacle for peace and who ​wants to continue this war,” Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha told Reuters.

The top Russian military general reportedly shot in an alleged attempted assassination outside his Moscow apartment has been accused of being involved in the 2018 Salisbury poisonings.

Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev is deputy head of the GRU, Russia's military intelligence arm.

Mr Alexeyev is believed to have been behind the deadly Salisbury poisonings that caused the tragic death of mother-of-three Dawn Sturgess, 44, according to reports. The EU imposed sanctions on him over the poisoning of former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury in 2018.

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