Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin threatens to target Kyiv with new missile after energy grid attack
Russia’s second big attack on Ukraine’s energy system this month left 1 million without power
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Your support makes all the difference.Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to strike “decision-making centres” in Kyiv with Moscow’s new intermediate-range ballistic missile.
Putin boasted Moscow’s production of advanced missile systems exceeds that of the NATO military alliance by 10 times, as he vowed to respond to the use of Western missiles by Ukraine.
Russian attacks have not so far struck government buildings in the Ukrainian capital. Kyiv is heavily protected by air defences, but Putin says Russia’s Oreshnik hypersonic missile is incapable of being intercepted.
“At present, the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff are selecting targets to hit on Ukrainian territory,” Putin told the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) in Kazakhstan.
“These could be military facilities, defence and industrial enterprises, or decision-making centres in Kyiv.”
It comes as Russia’s “massive” aerial attack on energy infrastructure across Ukraine left at least one million people without power.
In Russia’s second big attack on Ukraine’s energy grid this month, damage to the energy and other critical infrastructure was reported by officials across the country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia used cruise missiles with cluster munitions in Thursday’s attack, calling it a “vile escalation”.
Russia downs 25 Ukrainian drones overnight
Russia’s air defence systems destroyed 25 Ukrainian drones overnight over four regions, its defence ministry said this morning.
Of these, 14 drones were destroyed over the Krasnodar region, six over the Bryansk region, three over Moscow-annexed Crimea and two over the Rostov region, it said.
Krasnodar’s regional governor, Veniamin Kondratyev, wrote on Telegram that two districts in the southern Russian region were subjected to a “massive drone attack” overnight. One civilian was injured, he said.
A local Telegram channel published footage showing an object crashing into a building in the town of Slavyansk-na-Kubani, followed by a loud boom and fireball.
Analysis: Tulsi Gabbard’s history with Russia is even more concerning than you think
In the summer of 2015, three Syrian girls who had narrowly survived an airstrike some weeks earlier stood before Tulsi Gabbard with horrific burns all over their bodies.
Gabbard, then a US congresswoman on a visit to the Syria-Turkey border as part of her duties for the foreign affairs committee, had a question for them.
“How do you know it was Bashar al-Assad or Russia that bombed you, and not Isis?’” she asked, according to Mouaz Moustafa, a Syrian activist who was translating her conversation with the girls.
Richard Hall and Andrew Feinberg write:
Tulsi Gabbard’s history with Russia is even more concerning than you think
One expert says her views are ‘so wildly fringe that her potential appointment as DNI is genuinely alarming’, Richard Hall and Andrew Feinberg write
Russian official claims Ukraine peace can only be agreed on Putin’s terms
A senior Russian official has said any peace deal on the war in Ukraine will have to be made on Vladimir Putin’s terms, the latest display of bravado from the Kremlin amid strong Russian territorial gains in the Donbas.
Peace in Ukraine can be negotiated if the United States and the West recognise that there are no alternatives to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s offer, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said today, according to the state-run RIA news agency.
Mr Putin’s offer is the only option to end the war, he said.
His remarks comes a day after Ukraine’s former foreign minister said Vladimir Putin will not accept a peace deal pushed by US president-elect Donald Trump, because the Russian president is “obsessed” with “crushing” Ukraine and exposing the weakness of the West.
Full story: Russia expels British diplomat after accusing him of spying
Russian authorities on Tuesday ordered a British diplomat to leave the country on allegations of spying as tensions soar over the conflict in Ukraine.
Russia’s Federal Security Service, the top domestic security and counterintelligence agency, said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies that the diplomat, identified as Edward Pryor Wilkes, had provided false personal data while seeking permission to enter the country.
The agency, known under its Russian acronym FSB, alleged that he has worked for British intelligence under diplomatic cover, replacing one of the six British diplomats who were expelled from Russia in August. The FSB alleged that Wilkes was involved in “intelligence and subversive activities that threatened the security of the Russian Federation.”
Read the full story here:
Russia expels British diplomat after accusing him of spying
Russian authorities have ordered a British diplomat to leave the country on allegations of spying as tensions soar over the conflict in Ukraine
Russian cruise missiles hit power infrastructure across Ukraine
Russia has targeted energy infrastructure in several Ukrainian cities in a “massive” overnight attack using cruise missiles, Ukrainian officials said this morning.
Explosions were heard in the cities of Odesa, Kropyvnytskyi, Kharkiv, Rivne and Lutsk this morning, Ukrainian news outlets Zerkalo Tyzhnya and Suspilne said.
“Energy infrastructure is once again targeted by the enemy’s massive strike,” Ukrainian energy minister Herman Halushchenko said on Facebook.
“The enemy continues to attack Kharkiv with missiles,” that city’s mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on the Telegram channel. Odesa regional governor Oleh Kiper urged residents to stay in shelter in a separate message.
Residents try to repair shattered lives in Russian-held eastern Ukraine
In the shattered Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, which Russian forces took in February this year, some of the few residents left said they were trying to rebuild their lives, though the scars of war – and the tears they provoke – remain.
Reuters footage, some of the first visuals by an international media organisation, showed destroyed buildings and vast amounts of rubble dusted with snow. Abandoned family pictures and clothes littered ruined apartments.
In a newly renovated apartment building in the city, Florida Troshina, a Russian-speaking Ukrainian, wept over the death of her daughter, killed just two days before Russian troops arrived.
Others told of the deprivations of living in a ruined city, which is known as Avdeyevka by Russian speakers.
"I just wanted to get out of the basement," Tatiana Golovina said in Russian, adding that she was pleased to be moving back above ground.
"It is hard there. There is no light, the lighting is bad, we have battery-powered lamps there - at least it is warm here," Golovina said.
Avdiivka, once a city of more than 37,000, was largely abandoned during the fighting though some residents endured the war and stayed.
"I think, starting from next year we will have the opportunity to approach in detail how and at what pace, what Avdiivka will look like in a post-military period, how it will be linked to the development of Donetsk," said Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed head of the surrounding Donetsk region.
Trump’s Ukraine aid cut would be ‘death sentence’ for Kyiv’s military, says Russia
Any decision by Donald Trump’s incoming administration to cut support for Ukraine would be a “death sentence” for the Ukrainian army, Russia’s deputy UN ambassador said.
“Even if we’re to lay to one side the prediction that Donald Trump will cut assistance to Ukraine, which for the Ukrainian army would essentially be a death sentence, it is becoming clearer that he and his team will, in any case, conduct an audit of the assistance provided to Kyiv,” said Dmitry Polyanskiy, the deputy UN envoy said, speaking at the UN security council.
Mr Polyanskiy said Volodymyr Zelensky was terrified of the return of Trump in January, and had reason to be so.
He also accused the outgoing Biden administration of trying through its increased support to Ukraine to create a “mess, both in Russia and with the new team in the White House.”
Ex-MI6 chief says we are in ‘actual war’ with Russia
Europe is no longer in a “pre-war situation” with Russia, but “an actual war”, the former head of MI6 said.
“I think we have to face up to the fact that the Russians think they’re in a state of war with us,” Sir Richard Dearlove told tonight’s Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge as he disagreed with Polish prime minister Donald Tusk’s remarks of Europe being in a pre-war era.
“Donald Tusk has referred to it as a pre-war situation. I think he’s wrong. I think it’s an actual war. We’ve seen already quite clearly some very aggressive moves on the part of the Russians in various European countries,” he told Sky News.
The UK should be on alert for possible acts of sabotage, he warned.
Trump picks longtime adviser Keith Kellogg as special envoy for Ukraine and Russia
President-elect Donald Trump has picked Keith Kellogg, a highly decorated retired three-star general, to serve as his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.
Mr Trump made the announcement on his Truth Social account, and said “He was with me right from the beginning! Together, we will secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, and Make America, and the World, SAFE AGAIN!”
Mr Kellogg, who is one of the architects of a staunchly conservative policy book that lays out an “America First” national security agenda for the incoming administration, will come into the role as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its third year in February.
The 80 year-old retired Army lieutenant general has long been Mr Trump’s top adviser on defence issues, served as national security adviser to vice president Mike Pence, was chief of staff of the National Security Council and then stepped in as an acting security adviser for Mr Trump after Michael Flynn resigned.
As special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Mr Kellogg will have to navigate an increasingly untenable war between the two nations.
Ukraine should lower fighting age to 18 against Russia, says US
Ukraine should consider lowering the age of military service for its soldiers to 18 from 25, a senior US administration official said.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the official said Ukraine was not mobilising or training enough new soldiers to replace those lost on the battlefield, according to Reuters. “The need right now is manpower,” he said.
“The Russians are in fact making progress, steady progress, in the east, and they are beginning to push back Ukrainian lines in Kursk... Mobilisation and more manpower could make a significant difference at this time as we look at the battlefield today.”
However, a source in president Volodymyr Zelensky’s office said the country did not have what it needed to equip the troops it was mobilising now.
“Right now, with our current mobilisation efforts, we don’t have enough equipment, for example armoured vehicles, to support all the troops we are calling up,” the source said. “We cannot compensate for our partners’ delays in decision-making and supply chains with the lives of our soldiers and of the youngest of our guys.”
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