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Storms bring chaos and death to Ukraine and Russia; NATO says victory for Moscow would be a ‘tragedy'

Mikhail Mordasov | Afp | Getty Images

This was CNBC's live blog tracking developments on the war in Ukraine. See here for the latest updates. 

Storms continue to batter Ukraine, Russia and Russian-occupied Crimea Monday, leaving three people dead and causing chaos on roads and widespread power cuts.

In other news, drone warfare between Russia and Ukraine intensified over the weekend, with both sides targeting each other's capital cities with dozens of drones.

Russian authorities claimed Sunday that Ukraine had targeted Moscow with dozens of drones on Saturday night, just hours after Russia launched its most intense drone attack on Kyiv since the beginning of its full-scale war in 2022, Ukrainian officials said.

Russian air defenses brought down at least 24 drones over the Moscow region and four other provinces to the south and west, the Russian Defense Ministry said. Ukrainian officials have not commented on the strikes.

The alleged attacks came a day after Russia targeted the Ukrainian capital Kyiv with over 60 Iranian-made Shahed drones. The attack began hitting different districts of Kyiv in the early hours of the morning, with more waves coming as the sun came up, Reuters reported. The air raid warning lasted six hours.

In other news, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the model of globalization created by Western countries has outlived its usefulness.

Addressing an international forum Monday, Putin said "it is obvious that the model of globalization, which was formed largely by Western states — naturally, in their own interests — has outlived its usefulness and is in a deep crisis."

Read CNBC's latest live Ukraine coverage here:

Winter storms batter Russia and Ukraine, wreaking havoc, death and destruction ... but war continues

Photos show storms in Ukraine and Russia

Storms have brought flooding and heavy snowfall to parts of Ukraine, Russian-occupied Crimea and Russia in recent days. Multiple casualties as well as road and infrastructure chaos have been reported.

A rescuer carries a cat and helps a woman during an evacuation of residents of the flooded village of Pribrezhnoe in Crimea on November 27, 2023, following a storm.
Stringer | Afp | Getty Images
A rescuer carries a cat and helps a woman during an evacuation of residents of the flooded village of Pribrezhnoe in Crimea on November 27, 2023, following a storm.
Waves crash against a seafront in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi during a storm on November 27, 2023.
Mikhail Mordasov | Afp | Getty Images
Waves crash against a seafront in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi during a storm on November 27, 2023.
A warship is seen docked in the port of the Black Sea resort city of Sochi during a storm on November 27, 2023.
Mikhail Mordasov | Afp | Getty Images
A warship is seen docked in the port of the Black Sea resort city of Sochi during a storm on November 27, 2023.
A tree, broken in half by storm-force winds, is lying on the ground in Odesa, southern Ukraine, on November 26, 2023.
Ukrinform | Nurphoto | Getty Images
A tree, broken in half by storm-force winds, is lying on the ground in Odesa, southern Ukraine, on November 26, 2023.

— Sophie Kiderlin

Russia is willing to put a lot of effort into this war, NATO warns

Wars tend to last longer than people expect, NATO's secretary general told CNBC, warning that Russia's invasion of Ukraine had shown Moscow had no intentions of capitulating.

"What we have seen is that Russia is willing to put a lot of effort into this war. They're ramping up [weapons] production and they're also sacrificing soldiers in large numbers," Jens Stoltenberg told CNBC's Silvia Amaro in Brussels on Monday.

"We need to be prepared for the long haul," he added. "Yes, it has a price, but the price of not supporting Ukraine is much higher than the price of supporting Ukraine."

— Holly Ellyatt

A win for Putin would be a 'tragedy' for Ukrainians, NATO chief says

NATO's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told CNBC it would be a "tragedy" for Ukrainians if Russian President Vladimir Putin wins the war.

Victory would also send a dangerous message to other authoritarian leaders, he warned.

Speaking as NATO foreign ministers meet on Monday to discuss developments in the war and what further support Ukraine needs, Stoltenberg said it would "be a tragedy for Ukrainians if President Putin wins but also dangerous for us."

"The message sent to authoritarian leaders, in Moscow but also in Beijing, would be that when they use military force and invade another country, they get what they want. Therefore we will be more vulnerable if President Putin wins so it's in our security interests to support Ukraine," he told CNBC's Silvia Amaro in Brussels.

Concerns have grown recently that public support for continued military funding for Ukraine has declined. Political shifts in Europe have also heralded new leadership in a number of countries that is more skeptical about continued support for Kyiv.

Stoltenberg said bipartisan support for Ukraine remained strong in the U.S., despite some rumblings of Republican discontent over military aid. The U.S. has committed around $44.2 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of Russia's unprovoked invasion in February 2022.

"I'm absolutely confident that the United States understands that it's dangerous for the United States if President Putin wins in Ukraine," he said.

— Holly Ellyatt

Three dead as storm hits Crimea and Russia's Black Sea coast

Waves crash against a seafront in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi during a storm on November 27, 2023. (Photo by Mikhail Mordasov / AFP) (Photo by MIKHAIL MORDASOV/AFP via Getty Images)
Mikhail Mordasov | Afp | Getty Images
Waves crash against a seafront in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi during a storm on November 27, 2023. (Photo by Mikhail Mordasov / AFP) (Photo by MIKHAIL MORDASOV/AFP via Getty Images)

Fierce storms killed three people on the Russian and Crimean Black Sea coast on Monday, with hundreds evacuated.

State news agency TASS reported that one person had been killed in the resort city of Sochi, another on the Russian-held Crimean peninsula, and a third person onboard a vessel in the Kerch Strait, which separates Crimea from the Russian mainland.

Storms have been raging in the Black Sea since Friday.

Video published online showed large waves sweeping over the seafront in Sochi, and carrying away cars. In the Crimean town of Yevpatoriya, streets were flooded.

The Russian-installed governors of Crimea and Sevastopol, both of which Moscow seized and unilaterally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, declared states of emergency.

Russia's emergency services ministry said it had evacuated more than 350 people. And the Energy Ministry said bad weather had left about 1.9 million people without electricity on Monday morning in the southern Russian regions of Dagestan, Krasnodar and Rostov, as well as Crimea and the regions of Ukraine that Russia unilaterally said it had annexed last year.

In the Russian port of Novorossiysk, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium and Russia's Transneft state oil pipeline company announced a halt to loadings due to weather conditions.

— Reuters

Storm chaos continues across Ukraine, south hit worst

Sergei Supinsky | Afp | Getty Images
A communal worker cleans snow at the memorial of Maidan activists, also known as "Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred," referring to the people killed in the anti-government demonstrations of 2013-2014, in Kyiv on Nov. 22, 2023.

Heavy snowstorms continue to rage across Ukraine, with the southern port of Odesa seeing some of the most extreme weather and 1.5 meters of snow.

The Kyiv-Odesa highway is closed, a 100-meter-long pipe of a boiler-house collapsed in the city and 71 car accidents took place in the region over the past 24 hours, NBC News reported.

Over the past 24 hours, Ukraine's State Emergency Service reported the following:

  • 892 vehicles had to be towed
  • 103 fallen trees were removed
  • Traffic is blocked on 14 highways
  • 2,019 settlements are currently experiencing power blackouts
  • There are about 1,370 cargo vehicles in temporary parking areas
  • 1,525 rescuers and 402 pieces of equipment are at work on the ground

— Holly Ellyatt

High death toll figures reported for Russian forces are 'plausible,' UK says

Britain's Ministry of Defense said the high, daily number of Russian casualties that Ukraine has claimed to have inflicted on Russian forces recently is "plausible."

"The last six weeks have likely seen some of the highest Russian casualty rates of the war so far. The heavy losses have largely been caused by Russia's offensive against the Donbas town of Avdiivka," the defense ministry said.

Ukrainian forensics experts carry the body of a Russian soldier exhumed in the village of Zavalivka, west of Kyiv, before it is stored in a refrigerated rail car stacked with the Russian dead on May 11, 2022.
Sergei Supinsky | AFP | Getty Images
Ukrainian forensics experts carry the body of a Russian soldier exhumed in the village of Zavalivka, west of Kyiv, before it is stored in a refrigerated rail car stacked with the Russian dead on May 11, 2022.

Ukraine's General Staff reported throughout November that Russian casualties were running at a daily average of 931 per day, the ministry noted in its latest intelligence assessment on Monday.

"Previously, the deadliest reported month for Russia was March 2023 with an average of 776 losses per day, at the height of Russia's assault on Bakhmut," the ministry said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

"Although Defence Intelligence cannot verify the methodology, taken as a total including both killed and wounded, the figures are plausible," it said.

Both Russia and Ukraine are highly secretive about their own losses while both routinely claim to have inflicted high losses on each other. The chaotic nature of war and accounting for the dead and injured, as well as attempts at propaganda and disinformation, makes it impossible to reach an accurate figure of the true losses experienced by both sides.

— Holly Ellyatt

Bad weather grips Ukraine, causing power cuts and traffic chaos

Severe weather in Ukraine has made conditions "extremely difficult" in a large part of of the country, with snowstorms causing widespread power cuts.

Ukraine's State Emergency Service said Sunday that 386 settlements in 10 regions were disrupted by extreme weather conditions, including snowstorms that trapped motorists, cars and trucks and brought down trees on major roads.

An aerial view of the Podol district after fresh snowfall on Nov. 22, 2023, in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Libkos | Getty Images News | Getty Images
An aerial view of the Podol district after fresh snowfall on Nov. 22, 2023, in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday evening that "weather conditions are extremely difficult in a large part of our country" and that southern regions were experiencing considerable problems, Zelenskyy said in his nightly address.

"I ask all citizens of Ukraine in areas where bad weather prevails: please be as careful as possible ... As soon as possible, our power engineers will restore electricity supply to all cities and villages that are currently experiencing a temporary blackout due to bad weather," he said.

Poor weather is already affecting conditions on the battlefield but fighting remains intense, Zelenskyy said.

"Intense fighting does not stop for a single hour in the Donetsk directions, in the Kharkiv region – the Kupyansk direction. Our soldiers are also holding positions in the south of the country: this is the Zaporizhzhia region, this is our Kherson region," he said.

— Holly Ellyatt

Putin says the Western model of globalization has 'outlived its usefulness'

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks after signing bilateral documents with his Kazakh counterpart Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Nov. 9, 2023.
Turar Kazangapov | Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks after signing bilateral documents with his Kazakh counterpart Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Nov. 9, 2023.

The model of globalization created by Western countries has outlived its usefulness, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday

"It is obvious that the model of globalization, which was formed largely by Western states — naturally, in their own interests — has outlived its usefulness and is in a deep crisis," Putin said in a message to participants of the Primakov Readings, an international forum taking place in Moscow on Monday.

"A well-known group of countries, accustomed to dominating the world, stops at nothing to maintain their waning influence and practices outright blackmail and forceful pressure," Putin added, in comments reported by news agency Interfax.

"Such a destabilizing line provoked both the crisis situation around Ukraine and the tragic escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," he said.

Russia has blamed the West for the war in Ukraine, despite Russia's invasion in 2022, and for creating the conditions for the war between Israel and Hamas.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russia says it downed dozens of Ukrainian drones headed for Moscow, following mass strike on Kyiv

An explosion of a drone is seen in the sky over the city during a Russian drone strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 25, 2023.
Gleb Garanich | Reuters
An explosion of a drone is seen in the sky over the city during a Russian drone strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 25, 2023.

Russian authorities on Sunday claimed that Ukraine tried to attack Moscow with dozens of drones overnight, just a day after Russia launched its most intense drone attack on Kyiv since the beginning of its full-scale war in 2022, according to Ukrainian officials.

Russian air defenses brought down at least 24 drones over the Moscow region — which surrounds but does not include the capital — and four other provinces to the south and west, the Russian Defense Ministry and Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported in a series of Telegram updates. Neither referenced any casualties.

Andrei Vorobyev, governor of the Moscow region, wrote on Telegram that the drone strikes damaged three unspecified buildings there, adding that no one was hurt.

Ukrainian officials did not acknowledge or comment on the strikes, which came a day after Russia targeted the Ukrainian capital with over 60 Iranian-made Shahed drones. 

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— Reuters

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