Ukraine-Russia war latest: Russians told not to travel to West as Putin could use new missile in ‘coming days’
Oreshnik missile is ‘just another attempt by Russia to terrorise Ukraine, which will fail’, says US official
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Your support makes all the difference.Russia has urged its citizens not to travel to the West, especially the US, during the Christmas holidays.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the warning came “in the context of the increasing confrontation in Russian-American relations, which are teetering on the verge of rupture”.
The statement from the Russian foreign ministry, which referred to America “and its allied satellite states”, came after the Pentagon said Vladimir Putin could strike Ukraine again with its new intermediate-range ballistic missile in “the coming days”.
Vladimir Putin has claimed that the Oreshnik, or hazel tree, is impossible to intercept and that it has destructive power comparable to that of a nuclear weapon, even when fitted with a conventional warhead.
On the battlefield, “exceptionally fierce” fighting has erupted near the eastern city of Pokrovsk as Russian troops destroyed or captured several Ukrainian positions near the important strategic hub, Kyiv’s military said last night.
Russia is “throwing all available forces forward, attempting to break through our troops’ defences,” Ukraine’s top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said.
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Ukraine loses ground near Pokrovsk with Russian force within 3 km of strategic hub
Russian troops destroyed or captured several Ukrainian positions near the eastern city of Pokrovsk, Kyiv’s military has said, as Moscow bears down on the strategic logistics hub that is home to a unique Ukrainian coking mine.
After months of accelerating advances towards Pokrovsk, Moscow’s forces are now as close as 3 kilometres (1.9 miles) from the southern outskirts of the city, according to Ukraine‘s DeepState, which maps the front lines using open sources.
“As a result of prolonged clashes, two of our positions were destroyed, one was lost. Currently, measures are being taken to restore positions,” Nazar Voloshyn, Ukraine‘s military spokesman for the eastern front, said in televised comments.
Pokrovsk, situated about 18 kilometres (11 miles) from the boundary of Ukraine‘s Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, has for months been the area of the fiercest battles in Russia’s 33-month-old full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In October and November, the Russian military advanced towards the city at its fastest rate since the early months of the war, analysts said. Ukraine, which has been on the back foot since its failed 2023 counteroffensive, says Russia has been sustaining some of its heaviest losses of the war to date.
Russia teams up with BRICS to create AI alliance, Putin says
President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia would develop artificial intelligence with BRICS partners and other countries, a bid to challenge the dominance of the United States in one of the most disruptive technologies of the 21st Century.
“I am confident that the international alliance of national associations and development institutes in the field of AI of BRICS countries and other interested states will give a significant boost to such cooperation,” Putin told an AI conference in Moscow.
“We will launch this alliance today,” he said.
Russia’s largest lender Sberbank said that the new AI Alliance Network would include national AI associations from China, ranked as one of the world’s top two AI powers, along with Russia, India, Brazil and South Africa, in a partnership.
Russia tells its citizens to avoid travel to the West
Russia has asked its citizens to not visit the United States, Canada and some EU countries in coming weeks over increasingly “confrontational” ties.
Russians abroad risk being “hunted” down by US authorities, officials in Moscow claimed yesterday.
“In the context of the increasing confrontation in Russian-American relations, which are teetering on the verge of rupture due to the fault of Washington, trips to the United States of America privately or out of official necessity are fraught with serious risks,” Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry, told a news briefing.
“We urge you to continue to refrain from trips to the United States of America and its allied satellite states, including, first of all, Canada and, with a few exceptions, European Union countries, during these holidays,” she said.
Both Moscow and Washington say their citizens have been wrongfully imprisoned and their diplomats harassed increasingly as relations soured, though they both defend convictions by their own justice systems.
Russian and US diplomats say the bilateral relationship is worse than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the two Cold War superpowers came closest to nuclear war.
Photos: Residents in Pokrovsk live under Russian threat as war escalates
Zelensky says Nato protections could be applied to only Ukraine-controlled territory at first
Volodymyr Zelensky has said an invitation to join Nato should be issued for all of Ukraine but the alliance’s norms – such as mutually assured protections from attack – could initially apply only to government-controlled territory, with subsequent extensions to other areas if they are eventually recovered from Russia.
Talking to the US network CBN News, Mr Zelensky said that the invitation, which Ukraine has urged Nato to extend as soon as possible, should be formally “issued for all Ukraine - its internationally recognised borders”.
Why is Russia racing to capture Ukraine’s strategic hub Pokrovsk?
After months of accelerating advances towards Ukraine’s eastern city of Pokrovsk, Moscow’s forces are now as close as 3km from its outskirts in the south, the latest battlefield reports show.
Senior Ukrainian military officials said the battles being fought in the region were “exceptionally fierce”.
Pokrovsk, situated about 18km (11 miles) from the boundary of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, has for months been the area of the fiercest battles in Russia’s 33-month-old full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
But why is Russia aiming to capture this territory in Ukraine’s east?
The fall of Pokrovsk, an important logistics centre for the Ukrainian military, would amount to the biggest military setback for Kyiv in months. The city also hosts a mine which is Ukraine’s only domestic coking coal supplier for its once-giant steel industry.
In October and November, the Russian military advanced towards the city at its fastest rate since the early months of the war, analysts said. Ukraine, which has been on the back foot since its failed 2023 counteroffensive, says Russia has been sustaining some of its heaviest losses of the war to date.
The fall of Assad shows Russia can be defeated – but that won’t deter Putin in Europe
The fall of the Assad regime in Syria has led to questions over Russia’s ability to sustain its military adventures abroad. Russia had supported Assad militarily for over a decade, building on long-standing ties between Moscow and Damascus. But the rapid advance of anti-government forces this month saw Russia apparently powerless to influence the situation beyond a number of airstrikes (as always, apparently mostly delivered on civilian targets) in support of government forces.
That has inevitably led people to draw conclusions about Russia’s ability to project power overseas, and what it may mean for the course of the war in Ukraine.
But hasty comparisons should be avoided. There is a world of difference between a distant operation in support of a friend of Moscow clinging to power and a major war on Russia’s own borders for territory which Vladimir Putin has declared should be Moscow’s to rule.
The fall of Assad shows Russia can be defeated – but that won’t deter Putin in Europe
The end of Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Syria has led to many asking questions about Russia’s ability to project power overseas, and what it may mean for the course of the war in Ukraine. Here, Keir Giles explains why we should be wary of any hasty conclusions
Politico lists Yermak, Zelensky among Europe’s most influential people
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy and chief of staff Andriy Yermak have been listed amongst Politico’s annual list of the most influential people in Europe.
The list was divided into “dreamers”, “doers” and “disrupters”.
Mr Zelenskyy topped the dreamers for “changing the course of history.... with the power of words” and Mr Yermak as a runner-up doer as “the mastermind behind Kyiv’s push to engage with developing countries”.
Ukrainian operatives 'helped Syrian rebels' to hurt Putin
Syrian fighters received about 150 drones as well as other covert support from Ukrainian intelligence operatives last month, weeks ahead of the rebels’ advance that toppled Bashar al-Assad over the weekend, according to the Washington Post.
Citing unnamed sources familiar with Ukrainian military activities, the Post late on Tuesday said Ukrainian intelligence sent about 20 drone operators and about 150 first-person-view drones about four to five weeks ago to aid Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
Ukrainian intelligence is keeping eyes open for other fronts where it can bloody Russia’s nose and undermine its clients, the Post reported.
While Kyiv’s aid played “only a modest role in overthrowing Syrian president Bashar al-Assad”, it was a “notable as part of a broader Ukrainian effort to strike covertly at Russian operations in the Middle East, Africa and inside Russia itself”, the report added.
Russia’s foreign ministry had earlier said, without providing evidence, that the rebels had received drones from Ukraine and training in how to operate them, an accusation that Ukraine‘s foreign ministry at the time said it “categorically” rejected.
A former al Qaeda affiliate, HTS has moved to install an interim administration after Syria’s 13-year civil war tore apart a country that has existed as one of the most oppressive police states in the Middle East under five decades of Assad family rule.
Two women pulled alive from rubble seven hours after missile strike
Rescue crews working through the night have pulled two Ukrainian women from rubble more than seven hours after a Russian missile struck a private medical clinic in southern Zaporizhzhia city, killing six people and injuring 22 others, Ukraine’s emergency services said.
The women called rescue services on their mobile phones to say they were buried under the rubble after the attack late on Tuesday.
Deadly Russian strikes on civilian areas have been a feature of Vladimir Putin’s almost three-year war.
Ukraine’s western allies are sending more aid to help it keep fighting Russia’s invasion, but Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said the Zaporizhzhia strike showed that his country still needs more air defence systems.
Two women pulled from rubble 7 hours after airstrike by Putin’s forces on Ukraine
The women called rescue services on their mobile phones to say they were buried
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