Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv marks 1,000 days of invasion as Moscow vows response to Biden’s missile move
Ukraine crosses grim mark of 1,000 days of Russian invasion today
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Your support makes all the difference.A furious Russia has vowed to respond to president Joe Biden’s decision to let Ukraine strike targets inside Russia with US-supplied longer-range missiles, saying Washington is adding “fuel to the fire” of the war as it clocked its 1,000th day today.
“It is obvious that the outgoing administration in Washington intends to take steps, and they have been talking about this, to continue adding fuel to the fire and provoking further escalation of tensions around this conflict,” spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
Mr Peskov referred journalists to Vladimir Putin’s previous remarks where the Russian president said such a move “will mean Nato countries – the US and European countries – are at war with Russia”.
This comes as Kyiv crossed the grim mark of 1,000 days of war today since Russia’s full-scale invasion, with weary troops battling on numerous fronts, Ukrainian cities besieged by frequent drone and missile strikes, and officials preparing for Donald Trump to reclaim the White House in January.
Military losses have been catastrophic, although they remain closely guarded secrets. Public Western estimates based on intelligence reports vary widely, but most say hundreds of thousands have been killed or wounded on each side.
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Ukrainian air force shoots down 51 drones overnight
The Ukrainian air force said it show down 51 out of 87 drones launched by Russia overnight on Tuesday.
It lost track of the remaining 30 drones on its radars, and one was still flying in Ukrainian airspace, the force added.
Listen: Kremlin says US authorisation for Ukraine to strike inside Russia ‘adding fuel to the fire’
Ukraine's military says it struck Russian arsenal in Bryansk region
Ukraine’s military said it struck a Russian arsenal near the city of Karachev in Bryansk region overnight.
The Ukrainian general staff said it recorded 12 secondary explosions and detonations in the target area.
Britain will ‘help keep the lights of Ukraine on’, says Lammy
Britain will “help keep the lights of Ukraine on in the face of Putin’s aggression”, David Lammy said, as Kyiv marks a “grim milestone” of 1,000 days since Russia’s invasion.
Speaking alongside his Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha, the foreign secretary condemned Moscow’s recent attack on Ukraine, adding: “It was designed not only to kill Ukrainians, but to take out effectively Ukraine’s power infrastructure and to cause blackouts.”
“Putin wants to plunge Ukraine into darkness. But today, standing here with my friend, the Ukrainian foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, the UK is showing our support to Ukraine is ironclad.
“We will help keep the lights of Ukraine on in the face of Putin’s aggression, and that matters not just for Ukraine’s security, Britain’s security or indeed Europe’s security.”
Putin’s silence hangs over Biden’s move to allow missile strikes inside Russia
Vladimir Putin has maintained a cold silence over Washington allowing Ukraine to strike with Russia with its American-made Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMs.
However, early signals from the Kremlin warned that Mr Biden is adding “fuel to the fire” of the war and would escalate international tensions even higher.
Mr Biden’s decision almost entirely was triggered by North Korea’s entry into the fight, according to a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, and was made just before he left for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru.
“This is a signal the Biden administration is sending to North Korea and Russia, indicating that the decision to involve North Korean units has crossed a red line,” according to Glib Voloskyi, an analyst at the CBA Initiatives Center, a Kyiv-based think tank.
Russian attack kills six, including a child, on 1,000th day of war
Six people were killed, including a child, in Russia’s drone attack on Ukraine’s northeastern region of Sumy, regional officials said this morning.
At least 12 people were injured in the drone attack on a residential dormitory in the small town of Hlukhiv, the military administration of the Sumy region, which borders Russia, said on the Telegram channel.
Lammy responds to question over implications of Trump presidency for Ukraine
David Lammy said “one president at a time” when asked how concerned he was about the implications of Donald Trump’s presidency for the war in Ukraine.
Speaking to press after a meeting of the UN security council, the foreign secretary said: “I’ve studied in this country, I’ve worked in this country, and I know that there’s a simple rule: one president at a time.
“We’re dealing with President Biden and we are committed to putting Ukraine in the strongest possible position.”
Photos: Navalny’s wife and Russian opposition leaders condemn Putin’s 1,000 days of war
24 hours in Ukraine: A single day shows the reality of life as war hits 1,000 days
The clock on her wall stopped almost as soon as the day began, its hands frozen by the Russian bomb that hit the dormitory serving as home for Ukrainians displaced by war.
It was 1.45am in an upstairs room in the eastern city of Zaporizhzhia, Natalia Panasenko’s home for just shy of a year after the town she thinks of as her real home came under Russian occupation. The explosion blasted a door on top of her, smashed her refrigerator and television and shredded the flowers she’d just received for her 63rd birthday.
“The house was full of people and flowers. People were congratulating me ... and then there was nothing. Everything was mixed in the rubble,” she said. “I come from a place where the war is going on every day. We only just left there, and it seemed to be quieter here. And the war caught up with us again.”
24 hours in Ukraine: A single day shows the reality of life as war hits 1,000 days
The Associated Press fanned out across Ukraine to chronicle a typical 24 hours of life just as the country was about to mark 1,000 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022
At last Biden is taking real steps to help Ukraine – but is it too little too late?
What took you so long, Joe?” President Biden’s belated decision to allow Ukrainian armed forces to deploy a key US-supplied missile system deeper into Russian territory will be a welcome boost to morale in Kyiv, as well as being of some material help.
It should also prompt the British and French to follow suit and to generally encourage other allies to boost their support for Ukraine.
However, it is painful to reflect on how much more effective this change in tactics would have been had the move been made, say, a year or two ago. In hindsight, President Vladimir Putin’s veiled threats about escalation proved to be empty – and now no one thinks he’s about to bomb New York, Paris or London in revenge for the West giving the Ukrainians more firepower.
As it is, in the dying days of the Biden administration, it seems unlikely to be the kind of “game changer” that President Zelensky and his long-suffering people have been virtually begging from the West since the earliest days of this conflict.
Biden is now taking real steps to help Ukraine – but is it too little too late?
Editorial: The US president sends a signal on his way out and although President-Elect Trump has a distaste for America’s involvement in the Ukraine war, that doesn’t mean he will bow down to Putin
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