Ukraine-Russia war latest: Poland scrambles Nato jets as Putin’s forces launch mass rocket attack on Ukraine
Putin ‘is trying to crush our freedom and way of life’, Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte says
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Your support makes all the difference.Poland has been forced to scramble fighter jets to “ensure the security of Polish airspace” after Russia launched a massive aerial attack against Ukraine.
The Polish military said ground-based air defences and radar reconnaissance systems reached the highest state of readiness during the attack overnight on Friday.
Russia fired 93 missiles and almost 200 drones overnight, with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky describing it as one of the heaviest bombardments of the country's energy sector since Russia's full-scale invasion almost three years ago.
Ukrainian defenses shot down 81 missiles, including 11 cruise missiles that were intercepted by F-16 warplanes provided by Western allies earlier this year, Mr Zelensky said.
Russia is “terrorizing millions of people” with such assaults, he said on his Telegram channel, renewing his plea for international unity against Russian president Vladimir Putin.
“A strong reaction from the world is needed: a massive strike - a massive reaction. This is the only way to stop terror,” Mr Zelensky said.
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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”.
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