Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 280 of the invasion | Ukraine

The EU will try to set up a court, backed by the UN, to investigate and prosecute war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine, according to the European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen. In a video statement, she said: “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought death, devastation and unspeakable suffering. We all remember the horrors of Bucha. It is estimated that more than 20,000 civilians and more than 100,000 Ukrainian military officers have been killed so far.”

Moscow has promoted the chief engineer of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Yuriy Chernichuk, to become its head, according to Russia’s nuclear agency Rosenergoatom. The position has been vacant since October, when Kyiv says the plant’s boss Ihor Murashov was abducted by Russian authorities.

Oleksandr Starukh, the head of Zaporizhzhia regional military administration, said on Telegram early on Wednesday morning that Russian strikes in the region overnight hit a gas distribution point, causing a fire that has since been extinguished. There were no injuries or casualties.

Ukraine claims to have killed another 500 Russian soldiers in the last 24 hours, bringing the total it says have died in combat since 24 February to about 88,880. The general staff of the armed forces said it had taken out three more tanks, and another six armoured personnel carriers.

Ukrainian forces have downed three Russian reconnaissance drones in the last 24 hours, according to its armed forces. In an early morning bulletin from Ukraine, the spokesperson for the general staff of the armed forces, Alexander Štupun, said Ukraine had been subjected to a number of missile attacks from planes and artillery, including on Kivsharivka in Kharkiv and Sloviansk in Donetsk. Both are in Ukraine’s east.

Five Ukrainian civilians were killed by Russian forces on Tuesday, according to a senior government official. Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the president’s office, posted on Telegram that the five were all killed in Donetsk, with 15 people also injured. The Donetsk region has continued to face shelling by Russian troops. Others were wounded in the Kharkiv, Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Russia’s defence minister has said it will focus on nuclear arms infrastructure in 2023, including facilities to accommodate new missile systems. Sergei Shoigu told a meeting of the board of the department on Wednesday that it would be a priority for Russia next year. “When preparing the list of major construction facilities for 2023, special attention will be paid to construction in the interests of the strategic nuclear forces,” Shoigu was quoted by RIA news agency as saying.

The head of Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office, Andriy Yermak, spoke to Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Wednesday morning. They discussed the US’s support for the Grain from Ukraine scheme, which is running to get grain out of the port of Odesa, and its support for Ukraine over the winter months.

The UK’s Ministry of Defence has highlighted Russia’s new foreign agents act in its daily update, which the MoD says will be used to crack down on critics and dissidents. Vladimir Putin has changed the existing 2012 law to mean that the personal details, including the address, of designated “foreign agents” can be published – meaning they could become targets of harassment. It will come into force on Thursday.

The European Commission gave an update on Wednesday on its plans to freeze and confiscate Russian assets. “We have blocked €300bn of the Russian Central Bank reserves and we have frozen €19bn of Russian oligarchs’ money,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EU’s executive.

Nato doubled down on Tuesday on its commitment to one day include Ukraine, a pledge that some officials and analysts believe helped prompt Russia’s invasion this year. The world’s largest security alliance also pledged to send more aid to Ukrainian forces locked in battle with Russian troops.

Ukraine’s supplies of spare parts for its battered electricity grid are running out amid sustained Russian bombing. European companies are being asked to urgently donate surplus kit to help the country get through the winter, after the latest step in Russian bombings targeting power plants and substations resulted in power cuts lasting 48 hours or more across the country.

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev warned Nato against providing Ukraine with Patriot missile defence systems and called the alliance a “criminal entity”. “If, as [Nato secretary general Jens] Stoltenberg hinted, Nato were to supply the Ukrainian fanatics with Patriot systems along with Nato personnel, they would immediately become a legitimate target of our armed forces,” Medvedev wrote on Telegram.

Ukrainian forces struck a power plant in multiple attacks on Russia’s Kursk region on Tuesday, causing some electricity outages, the local governor said. “In total, there were about 11 launches. A power plant was hit,” Roman Starovoyt, the governor of the Kursk region, said on the Telegram messaging app. Ukraine has not claimed responsibility and made no immediate comment.