Putin calls new US sanctions an ‘unfriendly act’ but claims they won’t affect Russian economy – as it happened

• Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that new US sanctions were an attempt to put pressure on Russia, adding that they would not affect the Russian economy, state news agency RIA reported. He said that Moscow’s response to strikes deep into Russia will be very serious and overwhelming, adding that Russia would never bow to pressure from abroad.

• President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday that Ukraine should be able to use Russia’s frozen assets for domestic weapons production and to purchase European and US weapons. He went on to say that discussion with European leaders today had been good but emphasised that using the money from frozen Russian assets was not simple.

• Zelenskyy also said that land swaps with Russia are “not acceptable” when asked whether he felt US president Donald Trump would change his mind on the issue again. He said that any money should be used on weapons, not just humanitarian aid, for Ukraine.

• The US has announced new sanctions against Russia’s two largest oil companies, signalling a major shift in Donald Trump’s approach to ending the war in Ukraine. The measures taken against Rosneft and Lukoil mark the first time the US has sanctioned Russia since Trump’s return to office in January.

• China said Thursday it opposes recent sanctions slapped by the US on the two largest Russian oil companies over Moscow’s war in Ukraine, saying they had “no basis in international law”. China, a major Russian trading partner, has said it takes a neutral stance on the war and has refrained from condemning Moscow’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

• Kyiv’s forces struck Russia’s Ryazan oil refinery overnight, Ukraine’s general staff said on Thursday. The attack caused a massive fire at the plant critical for Russian military supplies, it said on Telegram. Ukrainian drones also hit an ammunition depot in Belgorod region, according to the general staff.

• Russian engineers have reconnected the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to external electrical power from Ukraine, ending a month-long emergency that had plunged the future of the six-reactor site into doubt. Ukrainian sources told the Guardian that Russian technicians had hoped to connect Europe’s biggest nuclear plant – which had been relying on backup generators since its last external power line was cut in September – to power from the Russian grid on 7 October as a birthday present for Vladimir Putin.

• Moscow has handed over the bodies of 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers and has received 31 bodies of its own fallen soldiers in return, Russian RBC news outlet reported on Thursday. “Repatriation measures took place today. One thousand bodies, which according to the Russian side belong to Ukrainian servicemen, were returned to Ukraine,” Ukraine’s agency responsible for prisoners of war said on social media.

• A Russian drone killed two Ukrainian journalists in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, their news outlet confirmed to AFP on Thursday. Freedom TV, a state-funded news organisation, confirmed initial reports of the attack published by the Donetsk regional governor, who posted images of the charred remains of the reporters’ car.

• The European Union on Thursday imposed a travel ban and asset freeze on the head of a top Moscow university who earlier this year started a master’s course on how to circumvent EU sanctions, the EU’s official journal showed. The EU measures against Nikita Anisimov, the rector of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, are part of a much wider, 19th package of sanctions against Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

• Six men have appeared for sentencing on Thursday over their involvement in an attempt to burn down a London building in a Russian spy plot. In October 2024, the ringleaders, Dylan James Earl and Jake Reeves, pleaded guilty to breaching the National Security Act and aggravated arson, after an attack on two industrial units in Leyton in March 2024 belonging to businesses with links to Ukraine.

• A network linked to Russian spies enlisted British companies to unwittingly help build president Putin’s Arctic submarine defences for nearly a decade, a Times investigation has found. The findings have emerged from Russian Secrets, an investigation by The Times, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and 11 other outlets.

• Thousands of Hungarians congregated on the streets of Budapest in a show of force on behalf of their prime minister, Viktor Orbán, who looks set to face the most competitive ballot in his 15 years in power at parliamentary elections in April. The gathering, dubbed a “peace march” by organisers, came on Hungary’s 23 October national holiday, a remembrance of a failed anti-Soviet uprising in 1956 that was crushed by the Red Army, AP reports.

• Britain’s King Charles and Pope Leo prayed together in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel on Thursday, in the first joint worship including a head of the Church of England and a Catholic pontiff since King Henry VIII broke away from Rome in 1534. Latin chants and English prayers echoed through the chapel, where Leo was elected the first US pope by the world’s Catholic cardinals six months ago.

• Spanish authorities on Thursday said they had found the body of a 56-year-old man who died after being swept away in floods in the eastern Valencia region last year, the country’s deadliest such disaster in decades. DNA analysis confirmed that a corpse found on Tuesday in the Turia river belonged to one of three people reported missing since the 29 October 2024 tragedy that killed more than 230 people, a Valencia court said in a statement.

• A British army veteran has been found not guilty of murder in relation to Bloody Sunday, when the Parachute regiment shot dead 13 civil rights protesters in Derry in 1972. Soldier F was on trial for two murders and five attempted murders during a defining event of Northern Ireland’s Troubles.

Ukraine’s government has allocated $200 million (£150 million) in emergency aid to the state-owned energy firm Naftogaz for gas imports amid Russian attacks on the Ukrainian gas sector, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on Thursday.

Russia has sharply increased the number and intensity of attacks on the Ukrainian energy system in recent weeks, targeting both power plants and gas facilities.

The World Trade Organization backed the European Union on Thursday in the latest chapter in its case against Colombia over import duties imposed on frozen fries from Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.

The EU won the case in December 2022, with the arbitrators faulting Colombia for the way it calculated the tariffs, and determining the duties breached global trade rules.

But the EU asked a WTO compliance panel last year to re-examine the case, charging that Colombia had failed to implement the initial decision.

In its report published Thursday, that panel found that Colombia had indeed failed to fully comply with the earlier ruling, potentially opening the door for Brussels to win the right to retaliate.

Nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Thursday accused the European Union of wanting to impose a “puppet” government on Hungary and presented next year’s election as a choice between peace or going to war to “die for Ukraine.”

“This is why they want to squeeze Ukraine into the EU at any price…to bring war into Europe, and take money to Ukraine,” Orban told a rally in front of parliament in Budapest.

Orban, who has opposed the EU’s policy of providing military aid to Kyiv, has long cast Ukraine as a threat to Hungarians, saying its potential EU membership would destroy agriculture and put Hungarian jobs and even pensions at risk. He reiterated his stance on Thursday, saying Ukraine must not be allowed to join the bloc.

The STOXX 600 index closed at a record high on Thursday, led by gains in energy stocks after the US imposed new sanctions on Russia, while investors also gauged the health of corporate Europe from a batch of earnings reports.

The continent-wide benchmark index ended 0.37% higher at 574.43 points.

Energy stocks gained 2.7% and marked their strongest session since mid-April as crude prices soared 5% after the US slapped sanctions on major Russian suppliers over Moscow’s intensifying war with Ukraine.

“On the face of it, the announcement of sanctions by the US on Rosneft and Lukoil is a major escalation in the targeting of Russias energy sector and could be a big enough shock to flip the global oil market into a deficit next year,” said David Oxley, chief climate and commodities economist at Capital Economics.

“That said, the lasting impact on the oil market and oil prices will depend on how long any sanctions remain in place, and how effectively they are enforced.”

Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that a sharp decline in the amount of Russian oil on the market would lead to price increases, Russian state news agency TASS reported.

Putin said he had discussed with US president Donald Trump the impact of the situation with Russian oil supplies on global prices, including in the United States, RIA news agency reported.

Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that new US sanctions were an attempt to put pressure on Russia, adding that they would not affect the Russian economy, state news agency RIA reported. He called them an “unfriendly act” that doesn’t strengthen its relations with the US.

He said that Moscow’s response to strikes deep into Russia will be very serious and overwhelming, adding that Russia would never bow to pressure from abroad.

Putin added that Russia’s energy sector felt “confident”, although the new US sanctions would lead to some losses.

Six men have appeared for sentencing on Thursday over their involvement in an attempt to burn down a London building in a Russian spy plot.

In October 2024, the ringleaders, Dylan James Earl and Jake Reeves, pleaded guilty to breaching the National Security Act and aggravated arson, after an attack on two industrial units in Leyton in March 2024 belonging to businesses with links to Ukraine.

The court heard Earl was taking instructions from the Wagner group, proscribed as a terror organisation in the UK.

Co-defendants Jakeem Rose, Ugnius Asmena and Nil Mensah were found guilty on 8 July of aggravated arson, while Ashton Evans was convicted of failing to disclose information about terrorist acts. Paul English and Dmitrijus Paulauskas were found not guilty.

Russian engineers have reconnected the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to external electrical power from Ukraine, ending a month-long emergency that had plunged the future of the six-reactor site into doubt.

Ukrainian sources told the Guardian that Russian technicians had hoped to connect Europe’s biggest nuclear plant – which had been relying on backup generators since its last external power line was cut in September – to power from the Russian grid on 7 October as a birthday present for Vladimir Putin.

But the effort was foiled by Ukrainian partisans, who attacked substations behind the lines in the occupied Zaporizhzhia region, damaging a newly completed high-voltage connection that ran from the plant to Mariupol and the Russian grid.

As a result, the sources said, Russia had little choice but to repair a 750-kilovolt line that runs from the plant – controlled by Russia since March 2022 – across the Dnipro River and the frontlines into Ukrainian-held territory to restore the supply of external electricity.

Similar comments were made earlier this month by Volodymyr Omelchenko, an energy expert at Ukraine’s Razumkov Centre thinktank, in an interview with Ukraine’s Espresso TV. He said the plant’s Russian occupiers had wanted to “make a gift” to Putin but the guerrilla operation on 6 October prevented that from taking place.

On 7 October, Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russian-appointed governor of the occupied Zaporzhzhia region, reported power cuts across “all settlements” in the area after what he described as a terrorist attack by enemy drones.

Prior to its reconnection, the nuclear power plant had been relying on backup diesel generators to supply electricity necessary for cooling for a period well beyond the standard three-day safety limit, after the 750kv line was cut on 23 September.

Zelenskyy also said that land swaps with Russia are “not acceptable” when asked whether he felt US president Donald Trump would change his mind on the issue again.

He went on to say that discussion with European leaders today had been good but emphasised that using the money from frozen Russian assets was not simple.

He emphasised that any money should be used on weapons, not just humanitarian aid, for Ukraine.

Zelenskyy goes on to say that any plan for peace should start with a ceasefire, with further negotiations to follow.

He says Ukraine’s domestically produced long-range missiles can reach as far as 3,000km but appeared to express doubt over whether the US would provide it with Tomahawk missiles.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday that Ukraine should be able to use Russia’s frozen assets for domestic weapons production and to purchase European and US weapons.

He is currently speaking at a press conference after meeting EU leaders in Brussels this afternoon.

Here are some photos from Budapest, Hungary, of people taking part in a demonstration organised by the opposition Tisza party.

The march is part of events marking the 69th anniversary of the Hungarian uprising of 1956.

However, people have also been turning out in the capital in their thousands as a show of support for the prime minister, Viktor Orbán…