Russia-Ukraine war live news: drone strike on Kyiv; UK to announce new artillery package | Ukraine

Russian troops that had been moved to Belarus in October to turn into a part of a regional formation will conduct battalion tactical workouts, the Russian Interfax information company reported on Monday, citing the Russian defence ministry.

Interfax cited the ministry’s assertion as saying:

The ultimate evaluation of the fight functionality and fight readiness of the items might be given by the command on the ultimate stage of coordination – after the battalion tactical workouts have been carried out.”

It was not instantly clear when and the place in Belarus the workouts might be carried out.

Belarus defence ministry stated in October that 9,000 Russian troops had been shifting to the nation as a part of a “regional grouping” of forces to defend its borders.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is ready to fly to Belarus on Monday amid fears he intends to stress the previous Soviet ally to be a part of a new floor offensive in opposition to Ukraine and open a new entrance.

His go to for talks with the Belarusian chief, Alexander Lukashenko, might be his first to Minsk since 2019. Ukrainian joint forces commander Serhiy Nayev stated:

During (these talks) questions might be labored out for additional aggression in opposition to Ukraine and the broader involvement of the Belarusian armed forces within the operation in opposition to Ukraine, specifically, in our opinion, additionally on the bottom.”

Ukraine’s prime common, Valery Zaluzhniy, instructed the Economist final week that Russia was making ready 200,000 contemporary troops for a significant offensive that might come from the east, south and even from Belarus as early as January, however extra seemingly in spring.

There has been fixed Russian and Belarusian navy exercise for months in Belarus. Russia additionally used its ally as a launch pad for an abortive assault on Kyiv in February.

Moscow and Minsk have since arrange a joint regional unit of forces in Belarus and held quite a few navy workouts. Three Russian warplanes and an airborne early warning and management plane had been deployed to Belarus final week.

Foreign diplomats say Lukashenko, a pariah within the west who depends closely on Russian help, understands it might be a deeply unpopular step at dwelling for him to commit troops to Ukraine. But he has already supported Russia’s war extensively.

Some navy analysts see the manoeuvring as a ploy to make Ukraine commit forces to its north so it’s extra uncovered to Russian assaults elsewhere.

The UK is ready to announce a significant new artillery package for Ukraine as British prime minister Rishi Sunak prepares to meet with his Nordic, Baltic and Dutch counterparts in Riga, Latvia, on Monday.

According to a press release issued by the prime minister’s workplace and as cited by Agence France-Presse, he’ll announce Britain’s intention to provide “hundreds of thousands of rounds of artillery ammunition next year under a £250m ($304m) contract that will ensure a constant flow of critical artillery ammunition to Ukraine throughout 2023”.

The prime minister will journey to Latvia for the leaders’ gathering of Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) international locations, together with Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania and the Netherlands, which might be addressed by Ukraine’s president, Volodomyr Zelenksiy.

From the Arctic Circle to the Isle of Wight, the UK and our European allies have been in lockstep in our response to the invasion of Ukraine, and we stay steadfast in our ambition for peace in Europe as soon as once more,” Sunak stated forward of the go to.

But to obtain peace, we should deter aggression and our deployments throughout the area collectively are very important in guaranteeing we’re ready to reply to the gravest of threats. I do know this Joint Expeditionary Force summit will solely underline our shut friendships and unwavering help for Ukraine.”

No 10 stated the assembly would additionally talk about intelligence sharing between JEF international locations, threats to infrastructure and hybrid threats posed by Russian aggression and bolstering help to Finland and Sweden forward of their accession to Nato. Further bulletins on joint navy workouts are additionally anticipated.

Sunak is then anticipated to fly on to Estonia, the place he’ll meet UK and Nato troops serving on the navy alliance’s japanese flank on the Russian border.

New data printed by Ukrainian authorities means that Russia’s earlier drone assault on Kyiv broken essential infrastructure and injured two folks.

Kyiv’s regional governor, Oleksiy Kuleba, wrote on Telegram this morning:

Infrastructure objects and personal homes had been broken because of an evening drone assault within the Kyiv area … two victims. People are given assist – they’re underneath the supervision of medical doctors.”

Russian navy proxy group Wagner continues to take a significant position in attritional fight round Bakhmut in Ukraine’s japanese Donetsk area, the UK Ministry of Defence has stated.

In latest months, the group has developed offensive techniques to make use of the big variety of poorly skilled convicts it has recruited, the ministry notes in its newest intelligence report.

Individual fighters are seemingly issued a sensible telephone or pill which exhibits the person’s designated axis of advance and assault goal superimposed on industrial satellite tv for pc imagery.

At platoon degree and above, commanders seemingly stay in cowl and provides orders over radios, knowledgeable by video feeds from small un-crewed aerial automobiles (UAVs).

Individuals and sections are ordered to proceed on the preplanned route, usually with fire-support, however much less usually alongside armoured automobiles. Wagner operatives who deviate from their assault routes with out authorisation are seemingly being threatened with abstract execution.

These brutal techniques goal to preserve Wagner’s uncommon property of skilled commanders and armoured automobiles, on the expense of the extra available convict-recruits, which the organisation assesses as expendable.”

At least two highly effective explosions rocked Ukraine’s capital within the early hours of Monday morning, as officers declare the town was hit by a sequence of Russian drones.

Multiple native information sources reported the blasts in central Kyiv. Several loud blasts had been additionally heard within the metropolis’s surrounding areas, Reuters witnesses reported. A fireplace was additionally reported in Kyiv’s central Shevchenkivskyi district.

Ukraine’s armed forces first sounded the alarm in a Telegram alert about 2am native time, saying the navy had despatched air defences to defend the capital from drone assaults.

The Kyiv metropolis state administration additionally despatched an alert urging residents to search shelter.

It later added that greater than 20 Iranian-made drones had been detected over Kyiv’s air area and no less than 15 of them had been shot down.

Oleksiy Kuleba, head of the Kyiv regional navy administration, stated air defence works had been working within the area and claimed the town was underneath a drone assault.

The drone assault continues,” he said.

Kyiv’s navy administration later stated that 9 Iranian-made Shahed drones had been shot down in Kyiv’s airspace. In a Telegram replace, the administration stated:

Air alert continues in Kyiv. The enemy is attacking the capital with ‘Shahed’ barrage ammunition. Air defence is being at work.”

It was not instantly clear whether or not the blasts had been air defence techniques destroying the drones or hitting targets.

Hello and welcome again to the Guardian’s live protection of the war in Ukraine. I’m Samantha Lock and I’ll be bringing you all the newest developments as they unfold over the following few hours.

A sequence of explosions have rocked Ukraine’s capital Kyiv within the early hours of this morning, in accordance to regional officers.

Meanwhile, the UK is ready to announce a significant new artillery package for Ukraine as British prime minister Rishi Sunak prepares to meet with his Nordic, Baltic and Dutch counterparts in Riga, Latvia, on Monday.

For any updates or suggestions you want to share, please be happy to get in contact by way of e-mail or Twitter.

If you have got simply joined us, listed here are all the newest developments:

• The UK is ready to announce a significant new artillery package for Ukraine as British prime minister Rishi Sunak prepares to meet with his Nordic, Baltic and Dutch counterparts in Riga, Latvia, on Monday. According to a press release issued by the prime minister’s workplace and as cited by Agence France-Presse, he’ll announce Britain’s intention to provide “hundreds of thousands of rounds of artillery ammunition next year under a £250m ($304m) contract that will ensure a constant flow of critical artillery ammunition to Ukraine throughout 2023”.

• Ukraine stated Russian shelling focused the southern metropolis of Kherson on Sunday, which has confronted repeated assaults since Kyiv’s forces recaptured it final month. “Another blow was delivered to the city centre. Three people were injured. They received shrapnel wounds, one wounded is in a serious condition,” deputy head of the president’s workplace Kyrylo Tymoshenko stated. Regional governor Yaroslav Yanushevich stated on Sunday that Moscow’s troops had carried out 54 assaults on Kherson area with artillery, a number of launch rocket techniques, tanks and mortars over yesterday, leaving three useless and wounding six others.

• Four folks within the southern Russian border area of Belgorod had been reportedly wounded by shelling on Sunday, the governor stated. Witnesses reported loud blasts within the regional capital.

• Ukraine’s forces are holding on to the heavily contested eastern city of Bakhmut, in accordance to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. “The Bakhmut direction is key,” he stated in his newest nationwide address. “We keep the city, although the occupiers are doing everything so that not a single undamaged wall remains there.”

• Power has been restored to three million extra Ukrainians after the newest Russian assaults on infrastructure, bringing the full to 9 million after two days, Ukraine’s president has stated. “Electricity supplies have been restored to a further three million Ukrainians,” Volodymyr Zelenskiy stated in his Sunday night video address. “That means after the terrorist strikes on Friday, we have results already for nine million of our people.” Heating has also been fully restored to Kyiv, the town’s mayor stated.

• Protecting Ukraine’s borders is a “constant priority” because the nation readies for all doable eventualities with Russia and its ally Belarus, Zelenskiy added. “Protecting our border, both with Russia and Belarus – is our constant priority,” he stated in his nightly video deal with. “We are preparing for all possible defence scenarios.” Zelenskiy additionally issued a new enchantment to western nations to present Ukraine with efficient air defences.

• Russia will reportedly deploy musicians to Ukraine’s frontlines in a bid to enhance morale, in accordance to its defence ministry. The “frontline creative brigade” might be tasked with sustaining “a high moral, political and psychological state [among] the participants of the special military operation,” Russian outlet RBC information cited the ministry as saying. UK defence officers stated the new unit is in step with the historic use of “military music and organised entertainment” to enhance morale as low morale continues to be a “significant vulnerability across much of the Russian force”.

• Iran’s international ministry has stated it won’t “seek permission from anyone” to increase relations with Russia, dismissing US considerations over a rising navy partnership between Tehran and Moscow. Iran has been accused of supplying drones to Russia, allegedly used to assault Ukraine. CIA chief William Burns stated the navy cooperation between Iran and Russia “poses real threats” to US allies within the Middle East. Nasser Kanani, spokesperson for Iran’s international ministry, known as the feedback “baseless” including that Tehran “acts independently in regulating its foreign relations and does not seek permission from anyone”.

• Veteran US diplomat Henry Kissinger believes the time is approaching for a negotiated peace in Ukraine. “The time is approaching to build on the strategic changes which have already been accomplished and to integrate them into a new structure towards achieving peace through negotiation,” Kissinger wrote in The Spectator journal. “A peace process should link Ukraine to Nato, h owever expressed. The alternative of neutrality is no longer meaningful,” he added. Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak dismissed the feedback as amounting to “appeasing the aggressor” and stated there might be no deal involving ceding territory. “Any agreement with the devil – a bad peace at the expense of Ukrainian territories – will be a victory for Putin and a recipe for success for autocrats around the world,” he stated in a statement on Telegram.