November 26, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

We’ve wrapped up our live coverage for today. You can read more on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine here, or scroll through the updates below.

About $150 million was collected during a summit оn food security under the “Grain from Ukraine” initiative,?Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky?said during a press briefing in Kyiv on Saturday.?

Zelensky said that more than 20 countries showed their support for the initiative, which will export Ukrainian food products to countries in Africa.?

According to Zelensky, Ukraine “plans to send at least 60 ships from Ukrainian ports to the countries most affected by the food crisis.”?

The president added that “one ship with Ukrainian grain provides for the needs of 90,000 people, and 60 ships will be able to prevent at least 5 million people from starvation.”?

Several countries have announced the amount of their financial support to the initiative.

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen in a video message declared her full support for the cause and?“welcomed the extension of the Black Sea Grain Initiative for 120 days.”?

Remember: Early this month, Russia?said it was rejoining the Black Sea agreement, which guarantees safe passage?for ships carrying vital grain exports from Ukraine.

Further support:

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Saturday, November 26.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Belgium’s Prime Minister Alexander De Croo signed a declaration of support for Ukraine’s membership to the European Union and NATO on Saturday during De Croo’s working visit to Kyiv.

“I thank Belgium and the prime minister for the joint declaration signed today. This document testifies Belgium’s support for our movement towards full membership in the European Union and NATO. We will definitely get this important result for us,” Zelensky said.

Zelensky also expressed his gratitude to Belgium for “being ready to provide the necessary power generators and other equipment that is now vitally necessary for Ukrainian society” in the wake of Ukraine’s power outages after Russian missile attacks.

Zelensky also praised Belgium’s freeze on certain Russian assets.

“We appreciate that Belgium is the leader in the volume of frozen Russian assets – €50 billion, even more. It is important that the assets of the terrorist state are directed to compensation for the damage caused by its terror,” he said.?

De Croo said he hopes power generators and supplies sent to Ukraine for hospitals and schools would provide “resilience in these difficult times.”?

The pair also discussed the Grain from Ukraine initiative, and Zelensky thanked Belgium for its early support of the plan.?

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, right, speaks alongside Hungarian President Katalin Novak and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, Ukraine, on November 26.

Russia is cutting off vital infrastructure in its efforts to break Ukraine, Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on a visit to Kyiv Saturday.?

In comments made at the International Summit of Food Security held in Ukraine’s capital, Morawiecki said Russia had “overestimated its own military potential and already knows that victory on the battlefield may not be achievable.”?

“These methods of total warfare have long been in the Russian arsenal,” Morawiecki said, on what is the 90th annual memorial day for victims of the Holodomor, a Soviet-era famine that killed millions of people during the winter of 1932-33.?

Morawiecki’s comments come not only as the world faces a global food crisis escalated by Russia’s war, but as many Ukrainians are deprived of heating, water and electricity amid Russian strikes on civilian infrastructure.

Interior of Invincibility Point in Kyiv, Ukraine.?

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has appealed to local authorities, including in the capital of Kyiv, to do more to build out his government’s much-heralded “Invincibility Points” – which are popup stations offering shelter and services, such as power-charging facilities, internet connections and hot water.

The government announced plans to provide emergency support for civilians struggling without electricity and heating last week, just a couple of days before the latest round of Russian air strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure led to further significant disruptions.

But in his Friday night address, Zelensky criticized the program’s rollout, especially in the capital, where he said only those points deployed at the railway station and at State Emergency Services facilities were working properly.

Visiting the “Invincibility Points”: CNN teams visited three of the government-advertised resource centers in the Ukrainian capital. Two of them, both SES-run facilities, were functioning, while a third located at a school was not.

At one location, in the Obolonskyi district in the north of the city, CNN spoke with Tetiana, who said her apartment had been without power and heat for more than 50 hours. During that time, she had also been without mobile phone service.?

“We saw this (‘Invincibility) Point’ on the map and decided to try it,” she said.?

Tetiana, left, and Larysa inside an Invincibility Point in Kyiv, Ukraine.?

Seated at a simple desk along one side of the roughly 30-square-meter (about 323 square feet) tent, its sides padded for warmth, she told us she was happy she could get online again. Her employer makes souvenirs, and the approaching holiday season is always a busy time, she said. “The internet is great here; I can do my work,” she said.??

Another resident, Larysa, was also impressed with the Wi-Fi available at the same site because it meant she could reconnect with social media.

A resident named Oleksiy told CNN he had also been without power at home for more than two days and was also using the internet provided to look for work.

“I have a wife and two children, aged 5 months old and 9 years old, at home. I will not bring my children here because it’s a long walk, but I will definitely be coming here again,” he said.

Those interviewed for this post declined to provide their last names to CNN.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks in Cottbus, Germany, on Saturday, November 26.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz joined global leaders in marking the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor famine in Ukraine.

“Hunger must never again be used as a weapon,” Scholz said Saturday, speaking on the memorial day for victims of the Soviet-era famine that killed millions of people during the winter of 1932-33.

In a speech in Berlin, Scholz drew comparisons between the Holodomor, or Terror Famine — which was engineered by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin by removing food stocks from Ukrainian peasants — and Russia’s current actions in Ukraine.

“We know that by targeting agricultural infrastructure in Ukraine and blocking Black Sea ports for months, Russia has exacerbated this situation,” Scholz added.?

Scholz said that Germany would provide another $15.62 million for grain shipments from Ukraine in coordination with the World Food Programme.?

“You can count on our support. Each ship that sails under this initiative doesn’t just carry grain. It carries hope for the world’s hungry. And it carries an important message. The message that we are united, that we will overcome this war. And that our joint humanity will prevail,” Scholz added.

Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei attends a press conference in 2019.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Saturday that it was “deeply shocked” by news of the death of Belarusian Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Makei.

Makei died at the age of 64, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said Saturday. On its official Facebook account, the ministry said he “suddenly passed away today” without providing more details about the circumstances surrounding his death.

“As head of the Foreign Ministry, he made a great contribution to the further strengthening of Russian-Belarusian relations,” the Russian ministry said.

“He firmly and effectively defended the interests of the Republic of Belarus on international platforms,” the ministry said, adding that “this is a heavy, irreparable loss.”

Makei was scheduled to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday, according to Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti.

Some context: Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, who expressed his condolences to Makei’s family and friends on Saturday, is an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In October, Belarus announced it would form a joint regional force with Russia and carry out exercises, setting off alarm bells in Kyiv. Makei had accused Ukraine of “impending provocations” against Belarus at that time, which Ukrainian officials vehemently denied.

At the start of the war in late February, Belarusian and Russian forces held joint exercises,?with many of those Russian forces going on to cross the Ukrainian border in their ill-fated drive toward the capital.

CNN’s Tim Lister contributed reporting to this post.

Twelve Ukrainians have been freed in a prisoner exchange with Russia, according to a Ukrainian official.

Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said on Telegram Saturday that the Ukrainians included nine military personnel and three civilians, one of whom had been considered missing.

“The soldiers who defended, in particular, Mariupol, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and Snake Island are going home,” Yermak said.

On the Russian side, the country’s defense ministry said Saturday that nine Russian soldiers had been freed.

“As a result of the negotiation process, nine Russian servicemen who were in mortal danger were returned from the territory controlled by the Kyiv regime,” the ministry said in a statement.

Rescuers work the site of an attack in Dnipro, Ukraine, on November 26.

An attack left at least 13 people wounded in Dnipro on Saturday, according to a local official.

Valentyn Reznichenko, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, described the assault as a “rocket attack” on Telegram.

Four of the injured remain at the hospital, including a 17-year-old boy and a woman who was pulled out from under the rubble and is in serious condition, he said.

He added that seven homes were partially destroyed and that search and rescue operations are underway.

Crews are restoring electricity to the recently liberated city of Kherson in southern Ukraine, where concerns about power supply and ongoing Russian shelling have forced some residents to evacuate.

An official in the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram Saturday that repair work was going “around the clock” to restore electricity.

“First of all, we supply power to the city’s critical infrastructure and then immediately to household consumers,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko said, thanking crews for their efforts.

Ukraine’s deputy minister for energy, Farid Safarov, added Saturday that more than 30 settlements in the Kherson region “have finally received light.”

Six million consumers across the country were without power as of Friday evening, but that the number “is decreasing thanks to the quick work of our energy workers,” Safarov said.

Earlier today, national power supply company Ukrenergo said that 75% of electricity demand is being met across Ukraine.

Millions of Ukrainians have been suffering power cuts across the country in recent weeks amid intensified Russian shelling. Last week saw some of the most devastating attacks yet on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, leaving millions in the dark.

Russia “will pay” for a Soviet-era famine that killed millions of Ukrainians in the 1930s, as well as for its current war in Ukraine, a top Kyiv official said on Saturday.

Saturday marks the 90th anniversary of the 1932-1933 Holodomor, or Terror Famine. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin engineered the famine by removing food stocks from Ukrainian peasants, leading to the deaths of millions of people.

Other leaders around the world — including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Lithuanian President Gitanas Naus?da, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — have marked the anniversary.

Meloni’s office released a statement on Saturday, saying: “On the day of the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor, the starvation of millions of Ukrainians by Stalin’s Soviet regime, our thoughts turn to the millions of Ukrainians, mostly elderly and children, deprived of electricity, water and heating in the middle of winter from the Russian bombings that are deliberately attacking civilian infrastructures.”

United States Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget A. Brink said in a video on Twitter that “Russia continues to weaponize food as it seeks to subjugate the descendants of Ukrainians who survived the forced famine.”

National power supply company Ukrenergo said 75% of electricity demand is being met across Ukraine on Saturday.

However, “another 25% of electricity is still in short supply, so today, there is a consumption restriction regime across Ukraine,” the company said in a statement on Telegram.

Millions of Ukrainians have been experiencing power cuts across the country in recent weeks amid intensified Russian shelling. Last week saw some of the most devastating attacks yet on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, leaving millions in the dark.

A man walks past at a residential building damaged by shelling in Kherson, Ukraine, on November 25.

Fifteen people in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson were killed and 35 were injured, including one child, from Nov. 20 to 25, according to an update from the Kherson Civil Military Administration on Saturday

“The enemy keeps shelling de-occupied territory round the clock,” it said.

The city of Kherson has suffered the highest number of attacks, with hospital patients and patients of the Kherson Regional Institution for Psychiatric Care evacuated.

Authorities in Kherson are urging residents to leave the recently liberated city, much of which remains without power, before temperatures plunge further.???

Russian troops renewed the shelling after Moscow’s troops were forced to retreat from the west bank of the Dnipro River.

The areas of Zmiivka, Beryslav, Tokarivka, Mykilske, Antonivka, Chornobaivka, Bilozerka and Veletenske have also been impacted, Kherson authorities said.

A street without electricity is seen in Kyiv, Ukraine, on November 24.?

Around 130,000 people in the Ukrainian capital remain without electricity supply following emergency shutdowns in the wake of Russian air strikes on Wednesday.

According to an update Saturday morning from the Kyiv City Military Administration, water supply has been restored across all districts with heat supply also being restored.

Cellular connection remains available in nearly all districts,?though power outages may limit access, it said.

In an address on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said more than six million customers are still without power in Ukraine, though that is half the number of those initially cut off.

The regions of Kyiv, Odesa, Lviv, Vinnytsia and Dnipropetrovsk were facing the biggest problems with 600,000 consumers still without power, he said. ?

A tram is seen during a blackout in Kyiv on Thursday.

More than 6 million customers are still without power in Ukraine, though that is half the number initially cut off by Russian air strikes Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Friday address.?

The capital, as well as the regions of Kyiv, Odesa, Lviv, Vinnytsia and Dnipro face the greatest problems with power supply as of Friday, according to Zelensky.?

About 600,000 consumers in Kyiv alone are still cut off, he added. Many residents of the capital have been without electricity for more than 20 or even 30 hours.

A boy waves as he leaves on an evacuation bus in?Kherson on Thursday.

Voluntary evacuations for residents from the recently liberated port city of Kherson are underway, with the first train carrying away 100 people, the Ukrainian government said.

The train is bound for the western city of Khmelnytskyi, according to the country’s Ministry of Reintegration of Ukraine. Among residents who “took advantage of the free evacuation” are 26 children, seven bedridden hospital patients and six people with limited mobility, it said in a statement.

Authorities in Kherson are urging residents to leave the city, which is still mainly without power, before temperatures plunge further. Kherson has also come under renewed shelling since Russian troops were forced to leave the west bank of the Dnipro River.?

Evacuees will receive financial support, accommodations and humanitarian aid once they reach Khmelnytskyi, according to city officials.

Authorities say there are also buses running from the Kherson region to the cities of Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kryvyi Rih, where people will be “accommodated in specially equipped shelters and then evacuated to safer regions of Ukraine by car.”