​The United States announced new military aid to Ukraine on Friday and pledged to cut Russian ties with Iran, which a British official said meant Moscow was seeking hundreds of ballistic missiles and offered unprecedented military support in return.

Highlights of Saturday, the 290th day of the Ukrainian war, LIVETEXT:

11:42 amBanksy has announced that he has made 50 unique screen prints that he will put up for sale to raise funds for a charity that supports the Ukrainian people, writes Agerpres with reference to DPA. Each silkscreen is signed and numbered, featuring a white mouse slithering and scratching the word “fragile” printed on the cardboard box.

A well-known British graffiti artist, whose identity is unknown, announced the project on Instagram in collaboration with the Legacy of War Foundation, which will use the £5,000 raised from each sale to buy vehicles to evacuate civilians from war-torn areas. of Ukraine and provide heating to Ukrainian communities that are experiencing a difficult winter.

10:49 amThe Ukrainian military shot down 10 out of 15 Iranian-made Shahed-136 and Shahed-131 drones over the cities of Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa on the night from Friday to Saturday, the Ukrainian Air Force reports, citing The Kyiv Independent.

10:07 amIran’s support for Russia’s military could increase in the coming months, with Moscow likely to provide Tehran with “unprecedented” levels of military support, according to the latest assessment by the UK Ministry of Defense cited by The Guardian.

Britain’s military says Iran has become one of Russia’s biggest military backers since it invaded Ukraine in February, and Moscow is now seeking more weapons, including hundreds of ballistic missiles. Instead, Russia is likely to provide Iran with an unprecedented level of military and technical support that is transforming their defense relationship.

According to the Ministry of Defense of Great Britain, Russia has most likely used up a significant part of its stockpile of SS-26 Iskander short-range ballistic missiles. If Russia succeeds in fielding a large number of Iranian ballistic missiles, it will likely use them to continue and expand its campaign of attacks on Ukraine’s critical national infrastructure.

Stoltenberg: “The war in Ukraine can turn into a Russia-NATO war”

09:50NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg expressed concern that the fighting in Ukraine could get out of control and turn into a war between Russia and the North Atlantic Alliance, the Associated Press reports.

09:30Russia announced on Friday that it had barred entry to 200 Canadians, including Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos and CIBC President Victor Dodig, in response to similar Canadian sanctions against Russian officials, AFP reported.

08:50Next year, Russia will enter a deep political crisis, which may exacerbate separatist tendencies in some of its regions, which will eventually lead to the collapse of Vladimir Putin’s “empire”, according to researcher Kamil Galeyev.

A quick recap of Saturday morning’s latest events:

• Vladimir Putin has announced the possibility of an agreement to end the war in Ukraine, while maintaining that his “special military operation” is going according to plan. “The settlement process as a whole, yes, will probably be difficult and will take some time – but, one way or another, all participants in this process will have to come to terms with the realities on the ground,” he said. the Russian president. The announcement came just days after he said military action could be a “long-term process”.
• Explosions rang out at the Berdyansk air base in the Zaporizhzhia region. Near the city occupied by Russia on the coast of the Sea of ​​Azov, there were three strong explosions, as well as smaller ones.
• Ukraine says its southern regions are suffering their worst-ever power outages, days after the latest series of Russian attacks on the country’s power grid. The head of Ukrainian energy grid operator Ukrenergo said workers are working hard to restore electricity in the Black Sea areas of Odesa, which was hit hard on Monday, and around the recently recaptured city of Kherson.
• Vladimir Putin has said that Russia may change its military doctrine by introducing a pre-emptive strike option to disarm the enemy, clearly referring to a nuclear strike. Speaking just days after warning that the risk of nuclear war was rising but that Russia would not strike first, Putin said on Friday that Moscow was considering adopting what he called Washington’s concept of a pre-emptive strike.
• Ukraine’s foreign minister said his government is working with the UN nuclear agency to create a safe zone around the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
• Russia claimed that its proposed safe zone around the Zaporizhzhia plant was supposed to “stop Ukrainian bombing.” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also said that the US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was a “destructive” act that created a vacuum and increased risks.
• President Joe Biden said he spoke with basketball star Brittney Griner and that she is in “good spirits” after being released from custody. Russia released Griner on Thursday in a high-profile prisoner swap with notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout, who spent 12 years in a US prison.
• Viktor Bout’s mother thanked Vladimir Putin for releasing her son in exchange for the US. Booth, nicknamed “The Merchant of Death,” is a former Soviet lieutenant colonel who was once named one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers by the U.S. Department of Justice.
• Belarus has informed the United Nations that it will accept the transit of Ukrainian grain through its territory for export from Lithuanian ports without preconditions, the UN spokesman said.
• The US has expressed concern about the “large-scale defense partnership” between Moscow and Tehran, calling it “harmful” for Ukraine, Iran’s neighbors and the world. Western powers have accused Iran of supplying drones to Russia, which Moscow denies as Russian forces attack Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
• The French oil giant TotalEnergies succumbed to international pressure and announced that it plans to “gradually abandon” its investments in Russia. The world’s No. 5 oil company said Friday it would remove two of its representatives from the board of Novatek, Russia’s main private gas exporter.

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Friday’s events were broadcast LIVE on HotNews.ro