Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy says war will ‘end sooner’ once Trump enters White House

US president-elect says the war has got to stop' as German chancellor urges Putin to start talks with Kyiv in rare phone call. What we know on day 997

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Russia's war against his country will end sooner" than it otherwise would have once Donald Trump becomes US president next year.

In a radio interview aired on Saturday, the Ukrainian president conceded that the battlefield situation in eastern Ukraine was difficult and Russia was making advances. He said his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, was not interested in agreeing to a peace deal.

Zelenskyy criticised a phone call between the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and Putin, saying it opened a Pandora's box" by undermining efforts to isolate the Russian leader. Now there may be other conversations, other calls. Just a lot of words," Zelenskyy said in his evening address on Friday. And this is exactly what Putin has long wanted: it is extremely important for him to weaken his isolation and to conduct ordinary negotiations." According to Reuters, Zelenskyy and other European officials had cautioned Scholz against the move.

Scholz said Donald Trump privately held a more nuanced position than is often assumed" on Ukraine. Trump's re-election in last week's US presidential vote has raised concerns he could withdraw Washington's significant support for Ukraine once back in the White House. Scholz, who spoke to Trump by phone on Sunday, told the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper on Friday his call with the president-elect was perhaps surprisingly, a very detailed and good conversation". Asked by the paper whether Trump would make a deal over the head of the Ukrainians, Scholz said Trump gave no indication" that he would. Germany, for its part, would not accept a peace by diktat", Scholz said.

Scholz urged Putin to pull Russian forces out of Ukraine and begin talks with Kyiv that would open the way for a just and lasting peace", in the first phone conversation between the two leaders in nearly two years. The Kremlin said the conversation on Friday had come at Berlin's request, and that Putin had told Scholz any agreement to end the war in Ukraine must take Russian security interests into account and reflect new territorial realities". A German government spokesperson said Scholz stressed Germany's unbroken determination to back Ukraine in its defence against Russian aggression for as long as necessary".

Russian air defence units intercepted a series of Ukrainian drones in several Russian regions, officials said, many of them in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops launched a major incursion in August. Russia's defence ministry said air defences downed 15 drones in Kursk region on the Ukrainian border. It said units downed one drone each in Bryansk region, also on the border, and in Lipetsk region, farther north. The ministry said one drone was downed in central Oryol region. And the governor of Belgorod region, a frequent target on the Ukrainian border, said a series of attacks had smashed windows in a block of flats and caused other damage, but no casualties were reported.

Russia will suspend gas deliveries to Austria via Ukraine on Saturday. Russia's gas export route to Europe via Ukraine is set to shut at the end of this year. Ukraine has said it will not extend the transit agreement with Russian state-owned Gazprom, in order to deprive Russia of profits that Kyiv says help to finance the war against it. The Austrian chancellor, Karl Nehammer, said Gazprom's notice of ending supplies was long expected and Austria has made preparations, but the Ukrainian foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said Russia's action showed it once again uses energy as a weapon".

Russia's leading tanker group, Sovcomflot, said on Friday that western sanctions on Russian oil tankers were limiting its financial performance, as it reported falling revenues and core earnings. The US imposed sanctions on Sovcomflot in February, part of Washington's efforts to reduce Russia's revenues from oil sales that it can use to finance its war in Ukraine. Sovcomflot reported a 22.2% year-on-year drop in nine-month revenue to $1.22bn and said its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation slumped by 31.5% to $861m.