Ukraine-Russia war live: Anger in Moscow at Putin’s war spending as Russia closes in on key frontline city
Russian forces have reached Vuhledar which has resisted repeated Russian assaults since Moscow’s full-scale invasion
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Vladimir Putin’s plans to hike defence spending to the highest level on record have sparked outrage among some people in Russia as the war with Ukraine drags into the third year.
Russia is expected to allocate over 40 per cent of its total budget to defence and security, committing to prolonging the invasion of Ukraine and confronting the West.
Several in Russia objected to the spending which was more than the money allocated for education and social welfare sectors in the country.
It’s a “shame and a disgrace”, Irina, a 70-year-old pensioner said to AFP. She said the government is spending on war when the “country has no money to treat its own children”.
It comes as Russian forces have made frontline gains in eastern Ukraine. Russian forces have reached the centre of Vuhledar in eastern Ukraine, a bastion on strategic high ground in the industrial Donbas region, according to Ukraine’s regional governor Vadym Filashkin.
Vuhledar has resisted repeated Russian assaults since Moscow’s full-scale invasion but now risks falling into Putin’s hands. Footage posted to social media showed Russian soldiers waving a flag from atop a bombed-out multi-storey building and unfurling another flag on a metal spire on a roof.
Nato’s new chief Mark Rutte makes Ukraine support a top priority
The new Nato chief Mark Rutte has vowed to strengthen Western support for war-ravaged Ukraine as he takes charge of the alliance.
The former Dutch prime minister officially replaced Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday as Nato secretary general after his predecessor spent a decade in the job.
Mr Rutte’s appointment comes at an important time for Nato, with the US election just weeks away, he will soon be working with a new president.
The secretary general said during a press conference on Tuesday that he could work with either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris and appreciates that Ukraine will be his top priority.
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The former Dutch PM also says he will work with whoever wins the US election
Russia’s FSB detains nearly 40 people for support to ‘Ukrainian terrorist’ groups
Russia’s security agency, the Federal Security Service (FSB), said it detained 39 individuals, including teenagers, accused of supporting “Ukrainian terrorist” groups.
The FSB accused the arrested individuals of “inciting children and adolescents to commit violent acts against representatives of state bodies, classmates and teachers”.
“Thirty-nine radicals aged 14 to 35, supporters of Ukrainian terrorist organizations banned in Russia, were detained,” the FSB said in a statement.
It claimed that nine teenagers were involved in planning “armed attacks on educational and religious institutions” in Russia.
It alleged that they were communicating with “Ukrainian handlers” online.
Ukraine says it downed 11 drones during Russia’s overnight attack
Ukraine’s forces took down 11 out of 32 Russian attack drones launched overnight, Ukraine‘s air force said today.
Another four drones left Ukrainian airspace in the direction of Russia and 10 drones were lost in northern and central Ukrainian regions as a result of electronic warfare countermeasures, it said.
Russian drones attacked the Ukrainian Izmail district near the Danube river in the southern Odesa region, local governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram.
“The Russians targeted the port and border infrastructure,” Kiper said, adding that two lorry drivers, including a Turkish citizen, were injured.
He said the Ukrainian-Romanian crossing of Orlivka had temporarily suspended operations due to the shelling.
Putin’s forces are in ‘complete control’ of Vuhledar, Russian bloggers claim
Vladimir Putin’s forces are in complete control of the strategic Ukrainian frontline town of Vuhledar, the SHOT Telegram channel and pro-Russian war bloggers said.
The Russian defence ministry has not yet claimed the town’s capture.
On Tuesday, a regional Ukrainian official said Russian troops had reached the town centre, a bastion on strategic high ground that has resisted Russian assaults for more than two years.
Images of Russian forces waving their flag on the roof of an administrative building on Tuesday in the town centre showed a structure which had been reduced to rubble in parts and whose blackened windows had all been blown out.
Vuhledar is a coal mining town that lies at the intersection of the eastern and southern battlefields, giving it added importance to supplying both sides’ troops.
Moscow has long sought to capture Vuhledar, which had a pre-war population of around 14,000, as a key stepping stone to incorporating the entire Donetsk region into Russia.
Vuhledar also sits close to a railway line connecting Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, to Ukraine’s industrialised Donbas region, which comprises Donetsk and the eastern region of Luhansk, most of which Moscow controls.
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Putin’s plans to boost defence budget draw ire from some Russians
Vladimir Putin’s plans to boost its defence budget next year and prolong the war have drawn backlash from some quarters of the Russian public.
Russia is set to increase its spending on defence by 25 per cent next year, taking it to the highest level on record.
The newly proposed increase in spending will push Russia’s defence budget to a record 13.5 trillion rubles (£109bn) by 2025, according to draft budget documents released on Monday on the parliament’s website.
The spending on defence and security combined will account for 40 per cent of Russia’s total budget. Irina, a pensioner, called it an “outrage” and said “we need to end this war”, reported AFP. She said increasing spending on war is a “crime”.
Another pensioner called it a “shame and a disgrace” in a country that has no money to treat its own children.
Russia to conduct nationwide emergency public warning tests
Russia will run a nationwide test of its emergency public warning systems on Wednesday, letting sirens wail and interrupting television and radio broadcasts in a twice-yearly initiative amid the war in Ukraine.
At around 10.30am in most of Russia’s 11 time zones, sirens will sound for a minute, with loudspeakers broadcasting an “Attention everyone!” call, the emergency ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.
The exercise aims to check the warning systems, the readiness of those responsible for launching them and to raise public awareness, the ministry said, adding, “Don’t panic - everything is according to a plan.”
The frequency of rehearsals was doubled from last year, following the first event held in 2020.
It comes amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, which Moscow started in 2022, triggering the deepest crisis in its relations with the West since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
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Death toll rises to six in Ukrainian supermarket strike
At least six people were killed and three were injured in an alleged Russian artillery strike in a busy market in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson yesterday.
The attack came on the same morning Ukrainians across the country were observing a minute’s silence for their military and war dead.
The strike happened as shoppers made their way between stalls at the city centre market, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.
He published a video showing the blurred corpses of people in civilian clothes lying near a stall with tomatoes and other vegetables.
Ukraine’s general prosecutor’s office said the strike was “most likely” carried out by Russian artillery and hit close to a public transport stop.
It initially reported that seven people were killed but later corrected that toll to six, saying a severely wounded person thought to be dead was in intensive care at a local hospital.
Zelensky confirms successful test of ballistic missile
Ukraine successfully tested its own ballistic missile and has exponentially ramped up domestic ammunition production, president Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Addressing Ukraine’s second international defence industry forum, Mr Zelensky said Ukraine produced 25 times more artillery and mortar ammunition so far this year than in the entire year of 2022.
“The total number of drones we are now capable of producing annually in Ukraine is 4 million, with more than 1.5 million already contracted,” he said.
Mr Zelensky also touched on the advancement of long-range weaponry, highlighting Ukraine’s Palianytsia missile-drone and domestically developed ballistic missile.
“Our new ballistic missile has successfully completed flight tests,” he announced.
He had initially revealed that Ukraine tested its own ballistic missile in late August, though specific details of the project remain undisclosed.
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