Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin’s forces fire intercontinental ballistic missile for first time, Kyiv claims
Russia claims to have shot down two British long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles
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Your support makes all the difference.Russia has fired an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time, Kyiv has claimed as two British-made Storm Shadow missiles are shot down in Russian airspace.
Russia had threatened to strike Kyiv with a “massive” new missile in retaliation for Ukraine using Western weapons.
The Russian military could be readying to launch RS-26 Rubezh missile, an intermediate ground-based missile which has not been deployed in the Ukraine war before from a site in the city of Astrakhan by the Caspian Sea, reported a Moscow-based newspaper Moskovky Komsomolets.
This comes as Russian air defences shot down two British Storm Shadow cruise missiles, Russia’s defence ministry said as momentum builds in the West’s military support for Kyiv’s war effort.
The British-made missile – which Kyiv has been lobbying to use beyond Russia’s borders for months – was fired at Russia on Wednesday, with images published by Russian military bloggers purporting to show Storm Shadow fragments in Russia’s Kursk region, beyond Ukraine’s northeastern border.
US defence secretary sets out reasoning for U-turn on anti-personnel landmines in Ukraine
Speaking to reporters during a trip to Laos, US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said Washington’s shift in policy to allow Ukraine to deploy US-supplied anti-personnel landmines follows changing tactics by the Russians.
He said Russian ground troops are leading the movement on the battlefield, rather than forces more protected in armoured carriers, so Ukraine has “a need for things that can help slow down that effort on the part of the Russians”.
Mr Austin added: “The land mines that we would look to provide them would be land mines that are not persistent, you know, we can control when they would self-activate, self-detonate and that makes it, you know, far more, safer eventually than the things that they are creating on their own.”
Anti-personnel land mines have long been criticised by charities and activists because they present a lingering threat to civilians. Non-persistent land mines generally require batteries, so over time they become unable to detonate, making them safer for innocent civilians than those that remain deadly for years.
Mr Austin noted that Ukraine is currently manufacturing its own anti-personnel land mines. The US already provides Ukraine with anti-tank land mines. Russia has routinely used land mines in the war, but those do not become inert over time.
Irish embassy staff in Ukraine told to work from home as tensions escalate
Staff at the Irish embassy in Ukraine have been told to work from home as tensions continue to escalate – after the US shut its Kyiv embassy because of a “potential significant air attack” by Russia.
Irish premier and defence minister Micheal Martin said that “for the purpose of precaution”, Ireland’s embassy staff are working from home and not in the embassy building in Kyiv.
“That follows consultations between different embassies across Ukraine at the moment, but there’s no plans of withdrawing staff from the embassy,” Mr Martin said.
“This is an abundance of caution here, but obviously the situation is escalated, and we believe Russia should stop this war. The amount of carnage in this war hasn’t got the proper headlines, but it’s absolutely unacceptable.
“I spoke to somebody who came back working with an NGO yesterday. He said to me that the level of fatalities of young soldiers on both sides is enormous, and it’s just an appalling lack of any moral compass that leaders can preside and President Putin can preside over such carnage and it should stop.”
Netherlands delivers final two promised F-16’s for training Ukrainian pilots
The Netherlands has delivered the final two of 18 promised F-16 fighter jets to a training facility in Romania, where Ukrainian pilots and ground staff are being taught to fly and maintain the planes in battle.
The Netherlands has been one of the driving forces behind an international coalition to supply Ukraine with F-16s to strengthen its air defence against Russia’s invasion, and the training of Ukrainian pilots in Romania began in September.
Pictures purport to show fragments of Storm Shadow missiles in Kursk
Russian military bloggers have posted images purporting to show fragments of British-made Storm Shadow missiles fired by Ukraine into Russia’s Kursk region.
Both Bloomberg and the Financial Times cited an unnamed Western official as saying that Ukraine had fired the long-range missiles into Russian territory for the first time.
Downing Street declined to comment on the reports and said it would not comment on operational matters.
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