Biden’s shift in policy added an uncertain, new factor to the conflict on the eve of the 1,000-day milestone since Russia began its full-scale invasion in 2022.

It also came as a Russian ballistic missile with cluster munitions struck a residential area of Sumy in northern Ukraine, killing 11 people and injuring 84 others. Another missile barrage sparked apartment fires in the southern port of Odesa, killing at least 10 people and injuring 43, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said.

Washington is easing limits on what Ukraine can strike with its American-made Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMs, U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Sunday, after months of ruling out such a move over fears of escalating the conflict and bringing about a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.

The Kremlin was swift in its condemnation.

“It is obvious that the outgoing administration in Washington intends to take steps, and they have been talking about this, to continue adding fuel to the fire and provoking further escalation of tensions around this conflict,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

The scope of the new firing guidelines isn’t clear. But the change came after the U.S., South Korea and NATO said North Korean troops are in Russia and apparently are being deployed to help Moscow drive Ukrainian troops from Russia’s Kursk border region.

Biden’s decision almost entirely was triggered by North Korea’s entry into the fight, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, and was made just before he left for the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru.

Russia also is slowly pushing Ukraine’s outnumbered army backward in the eastern Donetsk region. It has also conducted a devastating aerial campaign against civilian areas in Ukraine.

Peskov referred journalists to a statement from President Vladimir Putin in September in which he said allowing Ukraine to target Russia would significantly raise the stakes.

It would change “the very nature of the conflict dramatically,” Putin said at the time. “This will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia.”

Peskov claimed that Western countries supplying longer-range weapons also provide targeting services to Kyiv. “This fundamentally changes the modality of their involvement in the conflict,” he said.

Putin warned in June that Moscow could provide longer-range weapons to others to strike Western targets if NATO allowed Ukraine to use its allies’ arms to attack Russian territory. After signing a treaty with North Korea, Putin issued an explicit threat to provide weapons to Pyongyang, noting Moscow could mirror Western arguments that it’s up to Ukraine to decide how to use them.

“The Westerners supply weapons to Ukraine and say: ‘We do not control anything here anymore and it does not matter how they are used,’” Putin has said. “Well, we can also say: ‘We supplied something to someone — and then we do not control anything.’ And let them think about it.”

Putin has also reaffirmed Moscow’s readiness to use nuclear weapons if it sees a threat to its sovereignty.

Biden’s move will “mean the direct involvement of the United States and its satellites in military action against Russia, as well as a radical change in the essence and nature of the conflict,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said.

President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office Jan. 20, has raised uncertainty about whether his administration would continue military support to Ukraine. He has also vowed to end the war quickly.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave a muted response Sunday to the approval that he and his government have been requesting for over a year, adding, “The missiles will speak for themselves.”

“The longer Ukraine can strike, the shorter the war will be,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Monday ahead of a U.N. Security Council meeting marking the 1,000th-day milestone.

Asked whether the United Kingdom would follow the United States in authorizing use of its longer-range missiles, U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who chaired the meeting, declined to comment. He said doing so would risk “operational security and can only play into the hands of Putin.”

Consequences of the new policy are uncertain. ATACMS, which have a range of about 300 kilometers (190 miles), can reach far behind the about 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line in Ukraine, but they have relatively short range compared with other types of ballistic and cruise missiles.

The policy change came “too late to have a major strategic effect,” said Patrick Bury, a senior associate professor in security at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom.

“The ultimate kind of impact it will have is to probably slow down the tempo of the Russian offensives which are now happening,” he said, adding that Ukraine could strike targets in Kursk or logistics hubs or command headquarters.

Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, agreed the U.S. move would not alter the war’s course, noting Ukraine “would need large stockpiles of ATACMS, which it doesn’t have and won’t receive because the United States’ own supplies are limited.”

On a political level, the move “is a boost to the Ukrainians and it gives them a window of opportunity to try and show that they are still viable and worth supporting” as Trump prepares to take office, said Matthew Savill, director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

The cue for the policy change was the arrival in Russia of North Korean troops, according to Glib Voloskyi, an analyst at the CBA Initiatives Center, a Kyiv-based think tank.

“This is a signal the Biden administration is sending to North Korea and Russia, indicating that the decision to involve North Korean units has crossed a red line,” he said.

Russian lawmakers and state media bashed the West for what they called an escalatory step, threatening a harsh response.

“Biden, apparently, decided to end his presidential term and go down in history as ‘Bloody Joe,’” lawmaker Leonid Slutsky told Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

Vladimir Dzhabarov, deputy head of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of parliament, called it “a very big step toward the start of World War III” and an attempt to “reduce the degree of freedom for Trump.”

Russian newspapers offered similar predictions of doom. “The madmen who are drawing NATO into a direct conflict with our country may soon be in great pain,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta said.

Some NATO allies welcomed the move.

President Andrzej Duda of Poland, which borders Ukraine, praised the decision as a “very important, maybe even a breakthrough moment“ in the war.

“In the recent days, we have seen the decisive intensification of Russian attacks on Ukraine, above all, those missile attacks where civilian objects are attacked, where people are killed, ordinary Ukrainians,” Duda said.

Easing restrictions on Ukraine was “a good thing,” said Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna of Russian neighbor Estonia.

“We have been saying that from the beginning — that no restrictions must be put on the military support,” he told senior European Union diplomats in Brussels. “And we need to understand that situation is more serious (than) it was even maybe like a couple of months ago.”

But Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico, known for his pro-Russian views, described Biden’s decision as “an unprecedented escalation” that would prolong the war.

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The sternly worded final communiqué, approved by the 32 NATO members at their summit in Washington, makes clear that China is becoming a focus of the military alliance. The European and North American members and their partners in the Indo-Pacific increasingly see shared security concerns coming from Russia and its Asian supporters, especially China.

Beijing insists that it does not provide military aid to Russia but has maintained strong trade ties with its northern neighbor throughout the conflict. It also accuses NATO of overreaching and inciting confrontation in the Indo-Pacific region.

In the communiqué, NATO member countries said China has become a war enabler through its “no-limits partnership” with Russia and its large-scale support for Russia’s defense industrial base.

“This increases the threat Russia poses to its neighbors and to Euro-Atlantic security. We call on the PRC, as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council with a particular responsibility to uphold the purposes and principles of the U.N. Charter, to cease all material and political support to Russia’s war effort,” read the communiqué, which referred to China by the abbreviation of its official name, the People’s Republic of China.

“The PRC cannot enable the largest war in Europe in recent history without this negatively impacting its interests and reputation,” the document says.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said China provides equipment, microelectronics and tools that are “enabling Russia to build the missiles, to build the bombs, to build the aircraft, to build the weapons they use to attack Ukraine.”

He said it was the first time all NATO allies have stated this so clearly in an agreed document.

The Chinese embassy in Washington on Wednesday said China is neither a creator of nor a party to the Ukraine crisis. “China does not provide weapons to the parties to the conflict and strictly controls the export of dual-use articles, which is widely applauded by the international community,” said Liu Pengyu, the embassy spokesman.

He said China’s normal trade with Russia is “done aboveboard” and “beyond reproach.”

Danny Russel, a former assistant secretary of state for Asia, called the new wording by NATO “an extraordinary step,” particularly because it was coupled with the warning that Beijing continues to pose “systemic challenges” to European interests and security.

“It is a mark of how badly Beijing’s attempt to straddle Russia and Western Europe has failed and how hollow its claim of neutrality rings,” said Russel, who is vice president for international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “China’s attempts at divide-and-conquer have instead produced remarkable solidarity between key nations of the Euro-Atlantic and the Asia-Pacific regions.”

Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the statement is “highly significant” because it signals to China that Europe, just like the U.S., also condemns support to Russia.

“The U.S. believes that Europe has influence in Beijing, and that while China will not pay any attention to U.S. condemnation, they will pay attention to European condemnation because just because Europe trades with China, China also trades with Europe,” Bergmann said.

In this year’s final declaration, NATO member countries reiterated their concerns that China poses “systemic challenges” to Euro-Atlantic security. It was first raised in 2021.

The alliance said China has been behind sustained, malicious cyber and hybrid activities, including disinformation and expressed concerns over China’s space capabilities and activities. It also raised alarms that China is rapidly expanding and diversifying its nuclear arsenal with more warheads and a larger number of sophisticated delivery systems.

Liu, the Chinese embassy spokesman, said China handles such issues “in a responsible manner with transparent policies.”

“Hyping up the so-called ‘China threat’ is completely futile,” Liu said, adding Beijing firmly opposes NATO’s use of regional hotspot issues to smear China and incite a new Cold War.

In Washington, where leaders of NATO nations are convening this week to mark the coalition’s 75th anniversary, President Joe Biden said the alliance must not fall behind Russia, which is ramping up weapon production with the help of China, North Korea and Iran.

Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea have sent their leaders or deputies to the NATO summit in Washington this week. They are partners, not members, of the alliance.

In the final declaration, NATO members affirmed the importance of the Indo-Pacific partners to the alliance and said they were “strengthening dialogue to tackle cross-regional challenges.”

NATO and the Indo-Pacific partners plan to launch four projects to support Ukraine, bolster cooperation on cyber defense, counter disinformation and work on artificial intelligence. The NATO members said these projects would “enhance our ability to work together on shared security interests.”

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Russia’s main domestic intelligence agency has arrested a woman with dual U.S. and Russian citizenship on charges of treason, accusing her of collecting money for the Ukrainian military.

The Federal Security Service said in a statement early Tuesday that the Los Angeles resident was arrested in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg, about 1,100 miles (1,770 kilometers) east of Moscow. She had returned to Russia to visit family.

Authorities did not name the woman, but her longtime employer in California identified her as Ksenia Khavana.

Here is what is known about Khavana and Russia’s case against her:

WHO IS KHAVANA?

Khavana, 33, is a citizen of the U.S. and Russia.

The independent Russian news outlet Mediazona identified her as Ksenia Karelina, her maiden name, and said that she had received U.S. citizenship after marrying an American.

Isabella Koretz, owner of Ciel Spa at the SLS Beverly Hills where Khavana has worked for eight years, told The Associated Press that Khavana, a ballet dancer, came to the U.S. to study at the University of Maryland in Baltimore before relocating to Los Angeles.

She said Khavana is divorced and does not have any relatives in the U.S. Koretz said she has grown close to Khavana over the years and treats her like “she’s family.”

According to Koretz, Khavana tried to see her family in Russia at least once a year, usually around Christmas and New Year’s. This year, Koretz said, Khavana flew into Russia from Istanbul in early January for a two-week trip to spend time with her 90-year-old grandmother, parents and younger sister.

Koretz grew concerned when Khavana stopped returning her messages and phone calls after entering Russia. She said panic set in when Khavana ultimately did not return from her trip in mid-January as planned.

“This girl is like an angel,” Koretz said. “You have to understand that she wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

WHAT IS SHE ACCUSED OF?

Russia’s Federal Security Service alleges that Khavana had been “proactively” raising funds for a Ukrainian organization since February 2022 — money that it says was “subsequently used to purchase tactical medicine, equipment, weapons and ammunition by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.”

The agency said she also took part in “public actions” in the U.S. in support of Kyiv. It did not provide further details about the allegations.

Koretz said Khavana actually was collecting funds for humanitarian aid and had made a donation to Razom for Ukraine, a U.S.-based nonprofit that says it provides medical kits and disaster relief to those affected by Russia’s invasion of the country.

“We’re talking about diapers and formula, that’s what she was collecting money for,” Koretz said. “We’re not talking about money for weapons.”

In its own statement Tuesday, the nonprofit’s CEO said she was appalled by media reports of the arrest but did not name Khavana or confirm whether the woman had previously donated to the charity.

The organization said in an email to The Associated Press that it does not disclose the identities of its donors to protect their privacy.

“Razom calls on the U.S. government to continue to do everything in its power to demand that President Putin release all those unjustly detained by Russia and to hold Russia’s political and military leadership accountable for their unprovoked invasion of Ukraine,” Dora Chomiak said in her statement.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said that the White House and the State Department were aware of reports of the arrest and added that “we are trying to get more information and to secure some consular access to that individual.”

WHERE IS SHE NOW?

The Federal Security Service says that she has been ordered detained as a “preventative measure” while it continues its investigation.

Koretz said that Khavana, meanwhile, has been communicating with her colleagues at the spa through letters and has asked them to help her sell her belongings in Los Angeles, including her car.

“She doesn’t want to leave anybody with her debts,” Koretz said.

If convicted of treason under article 275 of the Russian Criminal Code, Khavana faces up to 20 years in prison.

News on Tuesday of Khavana’s arrest came the same day a court in the Russian capital ruled to keep Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in custody pending his trial on espionage charges that he denies.

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MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia would prefer to see U.S. President Joe Biden win a second term, describing him as more experienced than Donald Trump.

Speaking in an interview with a correspondent of Russian state television, Putin declared that he will work with any U.S. leader who is elected, but noted unequivocally that he would prefer Biden’s victory when asked who would be a better choice from the point of view of Russia.

“Biden, he’s more experienced, more predictable, he’s a politician of the old formation,” Putin said. “But we will work with any U.S. leader whom the American people trust.”

Asked about speculation on Biden’s health issues, Putin responded that “I’m not a doctor and I don’t consider it proper to comment on that.”

Biden’s team worked to alleviate Democratic concerns over alarms raised by a special counsel about Biden’s age and memory. They came in a report determining that Biden would not be charged with any criminal activity for possessing classified documents after he left office.

Putin noted that the talk about Biden’s health comes as “the election campaign is gaining speed in the U.S., and it’s taking an increasingly sharp course.”

He added that allegations of Biden’s health problems were also circulating at the time when they met in Switzerland in June 2021, adding that he witnessed the contrary and saw the U.S. leader in a good shape.

“They talked about him being incapacitated, but I saw nothing of the kind,” Putin said. “Yes, he was peeking at his papers, to be honest, I was peeking at mine, not a big deal.”

At the same time, Putin noted that he sees the Biden administration policy as wrong.

Russia-West ties have plunged to their lowest levels since the Cold War era after Putin sent his troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

“I believe that the position of the current administration is badly flawed and wrong, and I have told President Biden about that,” Putin said.

Putin has claimed that he has sent troops into Ukraine to protect Russian speakers there and to prevent a threat to Russia’s security posed by Ukraine’s bid to join NATO. Ukraine and its Western allies have denounced Moscow’s action as an unprovoked act of aggression.

Putin argued that Moscow was forced to act after Ukraine and its allies refused to fulfill a 2015 agreement to grant more powers to separatist territories in eastern Ukraine, where Moscow-backed separatists launched a rebellion in 2014.

“We only can regret that we didn’t act earlier, thinking that we are dealing with decent people,” Putin said.

Asked about Trump’s statement on Saturday, in which he said he once warned he would allow Russia to do whatever it wants to NATO member nations that are “delinquent” in devoting 2% of their gross domestic product to defense, Putin responded that it’s up to the U.S. to determine its role in the alliance.

Trump’s statement sharply contrasted with Biden’s pledge “to defend every inch of NATO territory,” as the alliance commits all members to do in case of attack. It shocked many in Europe, drawing a pledge from Poland, France and Germany to bolster Europe’s security and defense power.

Putin noted that Trump’s statement followed his policy during his first term when he prodded NATO allies in Europe to increase their defense spending.

“He has his own view on how relations with allies should develop,” Putin said about Trump. ”From his point of view, there is some logic in this, while from the point of view of the Europeans, there is no logic at all, and they would like the U.S. to keep carrying out some functions they have fulfilled since the formation of NATO free of charge.”

He described NATO as a “U.S. foreign policy tool,” adding that “if the U.S. thinks that it no longer needs this tool it’s up to it to decide.”

Asked about his impressions from his last week’s interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Putin said he expected Carlson to be more aggressive. Putin used the interview to push his narrative on the fighting in Ukraine, urge Washington to recognize Moscow’s interests and press Kyiv to sit down for talks.

“I expected him to be aggressive and ask the so-called tough questions, and I wasn’t only ready for it but wanted it because it would have given me a chance to respond sharply,” Putin said.

Carlson didn’t ask Putin about war crimes Russian troops have been accused of in Ukraine, or about his relentless crackdown on dissent.

“He didn’t allow me to do what I was ready for,” Putin said, describing Carlson as a “dangerous man.”

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WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Donald Trump, the front-runner in the U.S. for the Republican Party’s nomination this year, says he once warned that he would allow Russia to do whatever it wants to NATO member nations that are “delinquent” in devoting 2% of their gross domestic product to defense.

Trump’s comment on Saturday represented the latest instance in which the former president seemed to side with an authoritarian state over America’s democratic allies. It also adds to evidence that the 77-year-old either does not understand how NATO works or is distorting the truth for political gain.

WHAT DID TRUMP SAY?

Speaking at a rally in Conway, South Carolina, Trump recalled how as president he told an unidentified NATO member that he would withhold U.S. help and “encourage” Russia to do as it wishes with allies that do not contribute enough to military spending.

“‘You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent?’” Trump recounted saying. “‘No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You gotta pay. You gotta pay your bills.’”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg shot back with an unusually strong statement saying that Trump was threatening the security of the entire trans-Atlantic alliance.

“Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the U.S., and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk,” Stoltenberg said.

President Joe Biden, who is on track toward a rematch against Trump in November, also issued a statement criticizing Trump.

“Donald Trump’s admission that he intends to give Putin a green light for more war and violence, to continue his brutal assault against a free Ukraine, and to expand his aggression to the people of Poland and the Baltic States are appalling and dangerous,” Biden said.

WHAT DID TRUMP GET WRONG?

NATO members don’t pay to belong and don’t owe the organization anything other than contributions to a largely administrative fund. Trump clearly wasn’t referring to those administrative payments.

His frequent complaint during his presidency, and now, has been how much NATO countries put into their own military budgets.

U.S. presidents before him raised that concern. In fact, it was in 2014, during the Barack Obama administration, that NATO members agreed to move “toward” spending 2% of GDP on national defense by 2024. Stoltenberg also has said members needed to invest more in their militaries.

At their last summit, in Lithuania in July, NATO leaders adjusted that pledge by agreeing to spend at least 2% of GDP on their military budgets. No target date was set for meeting the goal.

The 2% is a benchmark that each member should spend on its own defense in order to be able to contribute to the joint defense of the alliance. However, the goal is voluntary, and there is no debt or “delinquency” involved.

The countries don’t pay the money to NATO but invest it in their own armed forces.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine almost two years ago has given them further impetus to beef up their armies.

WHAT IS NATO?

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was founded after World War II in an attempt to stop the expansion of Soviet control in Europe as the eastern part of the continent was coming under the Kremlin’s firm grip.

The alliance’s first secretary-general, the British Gen. Hasting Ismay, said the goal was “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” The often repeated comment highlights how a fear of Russia’s expansion has been part of the alliance’s DNA from the beginning.

The collapse of the Soviet Union led some to question whether NATO still had a purpose. Russia, for its part, has observed the military alliance’s eastward growth with anger. President Vladimir Putin for years has warned that Moscow views NATO’s expansion into what the country views as its historical sphere of influence as a threat.

Putin tried to justify his war against Ukraine in part by citing NATO’s enlargement, though Ukraine had no immediate prospects of joining the alliance when Russian troops entered the neighboring country in February 2022. However, NATO leaders have said that Ukraine will join the alliance at some point in the future.

NATO currently has 31 members. Finland became the newest member last year, breaking with decades of non-alignment after Russia invaded Ukraine. Sweden is hoping to join, too, but is still waiting for approval from Hungary, the only member that has not ratified the Scandinavian country’s bid.

WHAT ELSE HAS TRUMP SAID ON THE ISSUE?

Trump has a history of misrepresenting NATO or suggesting that the United States might not honor its commitment to allies. Former national security adviser John Bolton said in a memoir that Trump was close to pulling the U.S. out of NATO in 2018.

Trump spoke that year about NATO as if it were a business going bankrupt until he came along. “I went to NATO. And NATO was essentially going out of business ’cause people weren’t paying and it was going down, down, down,” he said.

He also bemoaned that Americans were “the schmucks that are paying for the whole thing.” U.S. defense spending, while well above 2%, has actually been decreasing for years.

While Trump’s hectoring of allies to spend more on defense during his presidency might have spurred some into doing so, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been a greater catalyst in pushing them to make much larger investments.

WHEN HAS NATO COME TO AN ALLY’S DEFENSE?

On the ground, NATO has helped to keep peace in the Balkans and helped to provide security in Afghanistan after a U.S. led coalition invaded the country. The U.S. triggered NATO’s common defense clause, known as Article 5, for the first and only time in the alliance’s history after the Sept. 11, 2001 attack.

“Poland then sent an army brigade to Afghanistan for a decade and we did not send an invoice to Washington for it. Alliances also strengthen the United States,” Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski said on Monday.

Sikorski said he if he had a chance to speak with Trump he would tell him that the North Atlantic alliance “is not a contract with a security company.” But he also said he prefers to remember Trump as a president who sent Javelins and American anti-tank missiles to Ukraine even before Putin’s attack on Ukraine.

Even during his presidency, Trump threatened not to come to the aid of allies who might be under attack if they had not paid their dues.

His presidency raised questions about whether the U.S. would remain committed to the West’s collective defense, fears returning in anticipation of a likely rematch between him and Biden.

A defense policy bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives in December includes provisions that say the president must get the advice and consent of the Senate or an act of Congress before withdrawing the U.S. as a member of NATO.

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UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia’s foreign minister clashed with the United States and Ukraine’s supporters at a U.N. meeting Monday where Moscow ruled out any peace plan backed by Kyiv and the West, and China warned that further global chaos could impact the slowing global economy.

Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s top diplomat, claimed that Ukrainian forces have been “a complete failure” on the battlefield and are “incapable” of defeating or weakening Russia.

He told the U.N. Security Council that Moscow is always ready to negotiate peace, but he claimed peace plans presented by Ukraine and its Western “masters” are “only used as cover to continue war and continue getting money from Western taxpayers.”

“All of these formulas are a road to nowhere, and the sooner Washington, London, Paris and Brussels realize this the better for Ukraine and the West,” he said, warning that their “crusade against Russia has already created new, clear, reputational and existential risks.”

U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood dismissed Lavrov’s claims as “just blatant disinformation” and countered that it was Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine that started the war, and it is President Vladimir Putin ‘s “single-minded pursuit of the obliteration of Ukraine and subjugation of its people that is prolonging it.”

“Russia’s imperialist designs are obvious,” and “for Russia, anything other than capitulation — total capitulation by Ukraine is the only solution, and that’s just not acceptable to the international community,” Wood said. stressing that the war could end tomorrow if Moscow withdrew hundreds of thousands of troops in Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory.

Russia called the council meeting to again sharply criticize Western military aid to Ukraine. Just before it started, diplomats from more than 40 countries surrounded Ukraine’s U.N. Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya who read a joint statement underscoring Russia’s “hypocrisy” in criticizing lawful arms transfers to help Ukraine defend itself.

Ukraine’s supporters called Monday’s meeting another Russian attempt “to distract from its war of aggression,” and they condemned military support to Moscow — drones from Iran and ballistic missiles from North Korea — in violation of U.N. sanctions, as well as military equipment from Belarus.

The council heard many calls for stepped up peace efforts, and there was growing concern from Russia’s ally, China, about the increasing threat to global security from the ongoing war in Ukraine at the same time that Israel and Hamas are at war in Gaza following the militant group’s surprise attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7.

“We must spare no effort to stem the spillover of the (Ukraine) crisis at a time when the Palestinian-Israeli conflict drags on, and some hotspot issues are at the risk of flaring up,” China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun said. “The world cannot afford to see further spreading of geopolitical clashes at the same time the global economy is slowing down.”

Zhang told the council “the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries must be respected,” which Ukraine has insisted on and which Russia has violated by annexing four Ukrainian regions. But the Chinese ambassador criticized Ukraine for seeking to join NATO and warned Kyiv, without naming Russia, that this would deepen Moscow’s security concerns.

Zhang urged the resumption of direct Russia-Ukraine negotiations as soon as possible. He did not mention the peace plan China issued in February 2023 that called for a ceasefire, negotiations and an end to sanctions against Russia but he did focus on the war’s disruption to the world economy.

“The negative impacts of the Ukraine crisis and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have added snow to the icy cold global economy,” Zhang said. “Countries with significant influence should … refrain from politicizing, instrumentalizing or weaponizing the world economy, and should instead work together to maintain global food, energy and financial security as well as the stability and smooth functioning of industrial and supply chains.”

China was the third speaker from the 15-member council and Lavrov left immediately after Zhang spoke, giving his seat to a deputy. Lavrov didn’t hear Wood but he did hear Malta’s U.N. Ambassador Vanessa Frazier who echoed the U.S. call for Russia to withdraw its forces and accused Moscow of violating its duty to maintain international peace and security, the Security Council’s primary mission.

“Today’s meeting is yet another attempt to justify the unjustifiable and seek to provide a narrative where the victim is the aggressor and the aggressor the victim,” Frazier said, decrying the killing of 10,200 Ukrainian civilians, including 575 children, and injuries to more than 19,300 others in Russian attacks since the war began, according to the U.N. human rights office.

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Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war in the biggest single release of captives since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Ukrainian authorities said that 230 Ukrainian prisoners of war returned home in the first exchange in almost five months. Russia’s Defense Ministry said that 248 Russian servicemen have been freed under the deal sponsored by the United Arab Emirates.

The UAE’s Foreign Ministry attributed the successful swap to the “strong friendly relations between the UAE and both the Russian Federation and the Republic of Ukraine, which were supported by sustained calls at the highest levels.”

The UAE has maintained close economic ties with Moscow despite Western sanctions and pressure on Russia after it launched its invasion in 2022.

Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said it was the 49th prisoner exchange during the war.

Some of the Ukrainians had been held since 2022. Among them were some of those who fought in milestone battles for Ukraine’s Snake Island and the Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

Russian officials offered no other details of the exchange.

Also Wednesday, Russia said it shot down 12 missiles fired at one of its southern regions bordering Ukraine, as Kyiv’s forces seek to embarrass the Kremlin and puncture President Vladimir Putin’s argument that life is going on as normal despite the fighting.

The situation in the border city of Belgorod, which came under two rounds of shelling on Wednesday morning, “remains tense,” said regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov, writing on Telegram.

“Air defense systems worked,” he said, promising more details about possible damage after inspecting the area later in the day, part of a New Year’s holiday week in Russia.

Ukraine fired two Tochka-U missiles and seven rockets at the region late Tuesday, followed by six Tochka-U missiles and six Vilkha rockets on Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

The Soviet-built Tochka-U missile system has a range of up to 120 kilometers (75 miles) and a warhead that can carry cluster munitions. Ukraine has received some cluster munitions from the United States but the Tochka-U and Vilkha can use their own cluster munitions.

The Russian side of the frontier has come under increasingly frequent attack in recent days. Throughout the war, border villages have sporadically been targeted by Ukrainian artillery fire, rockets, mortar shells and drones launched from thick forests where they are hard to detect.

Lately, as Russia fired missiles and drones at Ukrainian cities, Kyiv’s troops have aimed at Belgorod’s regional capital, which is about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.

Belgorod, with a population of about 340,000, is the biggest Russian city near the border. It can be reached by relatively simple and movable weapons such as multiple rocket launchers.

On Saturday, shelling of Belgorod killed 25 people, including five children, in one of the deadliest strikes on Russian soil since Moscow’s full-scale invasion. Another civilian was killed Tuesday in a new salvo.

Hitting Belgorod and disrupting city life is a dramatic way for Ukraine to show it can strike back against Russia, whose military outnumbers and outguns Kyiv’s forces.

The tactic appeared to be having some success, with signs the attacks are unsettling the public, political leaders and military observers.

On Monday, Putin lashed out against the Belgorod attacks by Ukraine. “They want to intimidate us and create uncertainty within our country,” he said, promising to step up retaliation.

Answering a question from a soldier who asked him about civilian casualties in Belgorod, Putin said: “I also feel a simmering anger.”

Many Russian military bloggers have expressed regret about Moscow’s withdrawal from the border area in September 2022 amid a swift counteroffensive by Kyiv, and they have argued that more territory must be seized to secure Belgorod and other border areas.

Russia describes Ukrainians as “terrorists” who indiscriminately target residential areas while insisting Moscow only aims at depots, arms factories and other military facilities — even though there is ample evidence that Russia is hitting Ukrainian civilian targets.

Ukrainian officials rarely acknowledge responsibility for strikes on Russian territory.

In another Russian border region on Wednesday, the city of Zeleznogorsk was briefly cut off from the power grid after Ukrainian shelling, local officials said.

Authorities were forced to temporarily shut down an electricity substation in the city of 100,000 people in the Kursk region to repair the damage from an aerial attack, Kursk Gov. Roman Starovoit said on Telegram.

Residents were without power or heat, he said, although electricity was restored in most of the city about two hours later, he said.

Russia has recently intensified its long-range attacks on Ukrainian cities, including using Kinzhal missiles which can fly at 10 times the speed of sound. The Kremlin’s forces appear to be targeting Ukraine’s defense industry, the U.K. Defense Ministry said Wednesday.

The onslaught has prompted Kyiv officials to ask its Western allies to provide further air defense support.

NATO announced Wednesday that it would help member nations buy up to 1,000 surface-to-air Patriot guided missiles in a deal possibly costing about $5.5 billion. That could allow alliance members to send more of their own defense systems to Ukraine.

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For President Vladimir Putin, winning reelection will probably be the easy part. His sweeping grip on Russia’s political scene has virtually assured him another six-year term that would extend his two dozen years in power.

More daunting will be the thorny challenges that lie ahead.

The stalemated war in Ukraine, unyielding Western pressure that compounds Russia’s economic problems, and intensifying infighting among the ruling elite will loom over Putin’s next term and erode his pledges of stability.

THE WAR IN UKRAINE

What Putin expected to be a quick campaign in 2022 to establish Kremlin control over its neighbor has turned into a grinding war of attrition that has incurred massive personnel losses and drained Russia’s resources.

While Russia has prevented Ukraine’s army from making any significant gains during its summer counteroffensive, the Kremlin doesn’t have enough manpower and equipment to mount any major campaigns of its own.

The resulting stalemate sets the stage for months of positional fighting during the winter, when the weather hampers any large moves and likely will make both sides focus on protecting their gains.

Putin expects that continuing warfare will gradually exhaust Ukrainian resources and undermine Western support for Kyiv, but a protracted conflict also exacerbates Russia’s economic woes, deepens social problems and fuels divisions within the ruling elite.

Tatiana Stanovaya of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center pointed to a widening gap between technocrats holding top administrative jobs and hard-liners who are eager to extend their sway and push an even more hawkish course.

“The longer uncertainty remains around the outcome of the war, the louder the voices of the revisionists will grow,” Stanovaya wrote in an analysis. “Instability, military setbacks, escalation, and Russia’s deteriorating position in the war all serve to empower the revisionists and undermine the administrators.”

TENSIONS WITH THE WEST

Despite Moscow’s hopes that Western assistance for Ukraine will dwindle amid growing fatigue with the war and election campaigns in the U.S. and other Western countries, Washington and its allies have vowed to continue supporting Kyiv for as a long as necessary. Both the U.S. and the European Union also pledge that the Israel-Hamas war will not distract them from helping Ukraine.

While bruising U.S. and EU sanctions have failed to deal a knockout blow to the Russian economy and force the Kremlin to halt its invasion as some in the West have expected, the restrictions have curtailed revenue from oil, gas and other key exports and sharply limited access to Western technology.

Adding to the pain, 300 billion euros of Russian Central Bank reserves have been blocked in the West.

Putin has sought to counter the sanctions by strengthening ties with China, which has become a key market for Russian oil and gas and a source of high-tech imports. Some observers have noted that the growing dependence on China will likely cement Russia’s role as a junior partner in the alliance and limit Putin’s room for maneuvering.

Amid Western efforts to block sources of weapons and military technology, Moscow has turned to Iran for drones to attack Ukrainian energy systems and other vital infrastructure. In September, Putin hosted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for talks on expanding ties, a meeting that the U.S. said resulted in a deal that saw Pyongyang deliver munitions to Russia for the war.

Despite Putin’s efforts to offset crippling Western sanctions, they will continue to weaken the Russian economy, reduce Moscow’s war potential and dash any hopes for recovery. The U.S. and the EU have worked methodically to tighten their implementation and close any loopholes, targeting companies in third countries that have helped Moscow bypass the restrictions.

OTHER ECONOMIC CHALLENGES

Shifting energy exports to China and India has helped offset losing access to lucrative European markets, and Russian industries have found new import channels to circumvent U.S. and EU restrictions on technology.

Russia’s economic output fell by 2.1% last year under Western sanctions, but it’s officially forecast to expand by 2.8% this year, a performance that Putin hailed as a sign it was on the road to recovery. The growth has been driven mostly, however, by a sharp increase in government spending, predominantly linked to the war. Next year, defense allocations will increase by more than 70% and account for about a third of total government spending.

The mobilization of 300,000 reservists in fall 2022 and the recruitment of nearly 400,000 contract soldiers will weigh heavily on the economy, and the exodus of hundreds of thousands more who fled the country will compound labor shortages that stymie prospects for longer-term growth.

At the same time, the depreciation of the ruble, which has lost a third of its value this year, has fueled inflation, forcing the Russian Central Bank to raise the key interest rate to 15%. The Cabinet also has tried to boost the ruble by tightening demand for exporters to convert their hard currency earnings.

The fundamental economic problems will remain, with little potential for growth as European markets remain shut and the oversized military spending steals resources from other sectors.

POLITICAL TURMOIL AND DYSFUNCTION

Opinion polls show Putin’s approval ratings around 80%, reflecting the lack of competition in the tightly controlled political system and rallying around the flag amid the war.

But even though Putin has eradicated most dissent and built top-down control devoid of any checks and balances and political competition, that seemingly total command proved illusory during June’s mutiny by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. His Wagner contractors swept over military headquarters in southern Russia and mounted a quick march toward Moscow without any serious resistance. The brief uprising marked the most serious challenge to Putin’s rule since his ascent to power, badly denting his authority.

Despite denials of government involvement, the death of Prigozhin and his top lieutenants in a mysterious plane crash in August was widely seen as an act of vengeance that helped restore Putin’s credibility among the elites. But the fragility of the Kremlin’s controls has become all too apparent.

Another blow to the Kremlin’s carefully cultivated notion of total control was the riot at an airport in the Russian province of Dagestan, targeting a flight from Israel. The mob rushed onto the tarmac, chased passengers and threw stones at police. It challenged the narrative that ethnic and religious groups co-exist in harmony in Russia and weakened Putin’s claim that Moscow wasn’t taking sides in the Israel-Hamas war.

Observers saw the riot as yet more proof of the Kremlin’s inability to maintain control over an increasingly restive political scene and was a harbinger of more upheaval.

“We have seen a striking dysfunction of law enforcement agencies and the whole of the federal government,” political scientist Ekaterina Schulmann observed in a commentary. “Like in the case with Prigozhin, a sudden threat and rapidly unfolding developments have left the system in complete paralysis.”

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MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, in a ranting speech before a presidential election campaign, cast Moscow’s military action in Ukraine as an existential battle against purported attempts by the West to destroy Russia.

Putin, who has been in power for more than two decades and is the longest-serving Russian leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, is expected to soon declare his intention to seek another six-year term in a presidential election next March.

“We are defending the security and well-being of our people, the highest, historical right to be Russia — a strong, independent power, a country-civilization,” Putin said, accusing the U.S. and its allies of trying to “dismember and plunder” Russia.

Ukraine and its Western allies have condemned the Russian action against Ukraine as an unprovoked act of aggression.

“We are now fighting for the freedom of not only Russia, but the whole world,” Putin said in a speech to participants of a meeting organized by the Russian Orthodox Church.

He denounced what he described as Western “Russophobia,” claiming that “our diversity and unity of cultures, traditions, languages, and ethnic groups simply don’t fit into the logic of Western racists and colonialists, into their cruel scheme of total depersonalization, disunity, suppression and exploitation.”

“If they can’t do it by force, they will try to sow strife,” he said, vowing to block “any outside interference, provocations with the aim of causing interethnic or interreligious conflicts as aggressive actions against our country, as an attempt to once again foment terrorism and extremism in Russia as a tool to fight us.”

Russian authorities have intensified their crackdown on dissent amid the fighting in Ukraine, arresting and imprisoning protesters and activists and silencing independent news outlets.

Putin said that the U.S.-dominated global order has become increasingly decrepit, declaring that “it is our country that is now at the forefront of creating a more equitable world order.”

“And I want to emphasize: without a sovereign, strong Russia, no lasting, stable world order is possible,” he said.

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Russia has added the spokesman of U.S. technology company Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, to a wanted list, according to an online database maintained by the country’s interior ministry.

Russian state agency Tass and independent news outlet Mediazona first reported that Meta communications director Andy Stone was included on the list Sunday, weeks after Russian authorities in October classified Meta as a “terrorist and extremist” organization, opening the way for possible criminal proceedings against Russian residents using its platforms.

The interior ministry’s database doesn’t give details of the case against Stone, stating only that he is wanted on criminal charges. Meta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

According to Mediazona, an independent news website that covers Russia’s opposition and prison system, Stone was put on the wanted list in February 2022, but authorities made no related statements at the time and no news media reported on the matter until this week.

In March this year, Russia’s federal Investigative Committee opened a criminal investigation into Meta. It alleged that the company’s actions following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022 amounted to inciting violence against Russians.

After Russian troops moved into Ukraine, Stone announced temporary changes to Meta’s hate speech policy to allow for “forms of political expression that would normally violate (its) rules, like violent speech such as ‘death to the Russian invaders.’”

In the same statement, Stone added that “credible calls for violence against Russian civilians” would remain banned.

Mediazona on Sunday claimed that an unspecified Russian court issued an arrest warrant earlier this month for Stone on charges of “facilitating terrorism.” The report didn’t specify the source of that information, which couldn’t be independently verified.

Western social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram and X — formerly known as Twitter — were popular with young Russians before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but have since been blocked in the country as part of a broad crackdown on independent media and other forms of critical speech. They are now only accessible via VPN.

In April 2022, Russia also formally barred Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg from entering the country.

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