Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin’s forces suffer ‘second day of record casualties’ as Kursk fight intensifies
Ukraine’s military claims Russia suffered nearly 2,000 casualties in past 24 hours as fighting rages on
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Your support makes all the difference.Russia has suffered record losses for a second consecutive day, Ukraine has claimed, as Vladimir Putin’s forces seek to advance in Donbas and repel Kyiv’s incursion into Kursk.
Just 24 hours after Ukraine claimed Russia had suffered a record 1,770 losses, Kyiv’s military claimed this grim total had been surpassed by 1,950 casualties on Monday – which would mark Russia’s worst single day since launching its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The totals given by Ukraine’s military do not specify between troops killed, wounded or captured. Ukraine now claims to have inflicted a total of 712,610 casualties upon Russia – which is broadly in line with estimates given by Ukraine’s Western allies. Neither Moscow nor Kyiv provide statistics on their own losses.
Russia appears to be stepping up its efforts to claw back territory in Kursk, after Ukraine’s daring cross-border raid in August. With reports of North Korean troops also being deployed to the Russian region, war monitors said on Monday that both Kyiv and Moscow appeared to have made recent gains in the region.
Russia says it downs 13 Ukrainian drones overnight
Russian air defence systems destroyed 13 Ukrainian drones overnight, the Russian defence ministry said today.
All of the drones were downed over regions bordering Ukraine, the defence ministry said.
Starmer and Macron vow to put Ukraine ‘in strongest possible position’ before Trump becomes president
Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron have vowed to put Ukraine in the “strongest possible position” going into winter, in a boost in support before Donald Trump returns to the Oval Office.
In a show of European solidarity days after Trump’s election win, the two leaders held talks in Paris to mark Armistice Day and consider how best to continue supporting the war-torn country.
It comes amid suggestions that the UK and France could seek to persuade Joe Biden to permit Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles to strike into Russia before he leaves the White House.
There have been concerns over Mr Trump’s approach to the war, with the president-elect criticising Washington’s provision of tens of billions of dollars worth of aid to Ukraine since it was invaded by Russia, as well as expressing scepticism towards Nato and accusing European countries of free-riding on America’s promise of protection.
Ukraine will be ‘in strongest position’ before Trump takes office, say UK and France
Donald Trump has been critical of the tens of billions of dollars worth of aid given to Kyiv by the Biden administration
Museum tanks and trench systems enhance Ukraine training, EU commander says
Old Soviet tanks have been borrowed from museums to help train Ukrainian troops on what a commander of the EU training mission for Kyiv says are booby-trap tactics used by Russian soldiers on the battlefield.
Instructors from 17 nations have trained some 18,000 Ukrainian troops in Germany to operate high-spec tanks or precision air defence systems and passed on their skills to snipers, engineers, paramedics and for drone warfare.
But with the Russian and Ukrainian armies blasting thousands of shells at each other every day in grinding combat that echoes the trench warfare of World War One, Ukraine has also sought training in circumstances more representative of the battlefield reality as well as on some older equipment.
So the German military has dug trench systems according to Russian standards and borrowed museum piece Soviet tanks to enhance the on-the-ground experience at some of its training sites.
“These (museum) systems are in use on the Russian side, and they sometimes plant booby traps in abandoned gear,” Lieutenant-General Andreas Marlow, head of the EU’s Special Training Command near Berlin, told Reuters.
“Providing such vehicles in the training makes it easier to demonstrate where to be cautious to make sure that you don’t trigger an explosion if you find them on the battlefield and open the door.”
Photos: Ukraine fortifies Donetsk region with dragon’s teeth
Russian attacks kills at least two, injure 19 in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region
Russian attacks have killed at least two people in Ukraine’s central-east Dnipropetrovsk region and injured at least 19, with more people likely trapped under the rubble, officials said.
Shelling by artillery killed two people in Nikopol and injured five more, damaging a medical facility, a cafe and shops, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said.
Separately, at least 14 people were wounded after Moscow’s troops launched a missile at a residential building in Kryvyi Rih in the morning, according to Lysak. Rescuers were looking for a woman with three children likely trapped under the rubble, he added. A 10-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy were among the injured.
Russian glide bombs, drones and a ballistic missile kill 6, injure 30 in Ukraine
Russian glide bombs, drones and a ballistic missile smashed into cities in southern and eastern Ukraine yesterday, officials said, killing at least six civilians and injuring about 30 others.
Ukraine resident Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia has recently intensified strikes that have long tormented civilian areas, in an apparent effort to unnerve Ukrainians and wear down their willingness to keep up a war that is approaching its 1,000-day milestone.
“Every day, every night, Russia commits the same terror,” Mr Zelensky said.
“Except that an increasing number of civilian objects are becoming targets.”Both Russia and Ukraine are waiting to see how Washington will change its policy on the war after Donald Trump takes office as the US president in January.
The US is the biggest provider of military help to Ukraine, but Mr Trump has chided the Biden administration for giving Kyiv tens of billions of dollars of aid.
North Korea ratifies major defence treaty with Russia
North Korea ratified a major defence treaty with Russia stipulating mutual military aid, the North’s state media reported today, as the US, South Korea and Ukraine say North Korea has sent thousands of troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine.
Russia had completed the ratification of the treaty last week after it was signed by Russian president Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June. It is considered both countries’ biggest defence deal since the end of the Cold War.
North Korea’s rubber-stamp parliament, the Supreme People’s Assembly, has the right to ratify treaties but Kim can unilaterally ratify major ones, according to South Korea’s Unification Ministry.
The treaty requires both countries to use all available means to provide immediate military assistance if either is attacked. Some observers speculate the treaty’s ratification in both countries could signal North Korea could formally enter the Russia-Ukraine war soon.
The Comprehensive Strategic Partnership treaty will take effect when both sides exchange documents on the ratification, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said.
North Korea ratified the treaty through a decree signed Monday by the country’s president of state affairs, KCNA said, using one of Mr Kim’s titles.
Fire reported as Ukraine attacks Russia’s fuel depot in Belgorod
A Ukrainian drone attack triggered a fire in Russia’s southern Belgorod region and firefighters quickly brought the blaze under control, the regional governor said early today.
Vyacheslav Gladkov said one of the tanks at the depot had caught fire in the Starkooskolsky District near the Ukrainian border. At least 10 fire crews were dispatched to the site and put out the blaze.
ICYMI: Zelensky reveals Ukraine's 'good conversations' with Donald Trump in new video address
British family pays tribute to ‘brave’ 22-year-old son who died fighting in Ukraine
A British family has paid tribute to their “brave” son who has been killed while fighting in Ukraine.
Callum Tindal-Draper, 22, from Gunnislake, Cornwall, was killed in action while serving with the foreign volunteer platoon in the country’s struggle against Russia. In an interview with the BBC, his father Steven Draper said he begged his son not to travel to Ukraine, but he told him he was “not frightened of bullies”.
“We begged and begged and begged him not to go,” his father said. “But Callum said ‘dad, I’m not frightened of bullies and what’s going on in Ukraine is awful and someone needs to stand up for these people’.”
In a tribute, his mother Caroline Tindal wrote: “He fought till he could no longer hold them off any more and his platoon are calling him a ‘hero’ and ‘As brave as they come’. 22 is a young age. But you lived and died following your heart, soul and morals.”
British family pays tribute to ‘brave’ 22-year-old son who died fighting in Ukraine
Callum Tindal-Draper was killed in action while serving with the foreign volunteer platoon
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