Ukraine war latest: Zelensky appeals to Nato ‘sceptics’ for membership bid

Russia’s air defence systems destroyed 15 Ukrainian drones over several Russian regions overnight, the state-run RIA news agency reported this morning, citing the defence ministry.

Vladimir Putin’s youngest daughter is an occasional DJ who has lived in Paris under a pseudonym, according to reports.

While the Russian president officially has two daughters with his ex-wife, who has remarried as Lyudmila Ocheretnaya after she and Putin were divorced in 2014, he is also alleged to have had a daughter with a woman named Svetlana Krivonogikh.

Her daughter Elizaveta has now been reported in Ukrainian media to haved lived in Paris under the name Elizaveta Olegovna Rudnova, and to have studied at the ICART international school of art management.

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German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock has accused China of providing Russia with weapons for its war against Ukraine and threatening peace in Europe and the Indo-Pacific.

“Instead of taking responsibility for peace and security in the world as a permanent member of the UN security council, China is opposing our core European interests with its economic and weapons aid to Russia,” Ms Baerbock said in a statement ahead of a visit to Beijing.

The German foreign minister will travel to China next week, where she will meet with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi to discuss issues including the war in Ukraine. “Putin’s brutal war of aggression against Ukraine is a direct threat to our peace,” Ms Baerbock said. “I will also speak in Beijing about the fact that we cannot simply ignore this in our relations with China.”

She noted that the war in Ukraine shows how security in Europe is inextricably linked with that in Asia.

“If North Korea sends soldiers and weapons against Ukraine, while Russia supports Pyongyang’s nuclear programme, then this jeopardises peace both here and in the Indo-Pacific,” Ms Baerbock said.

Explosions were heard across the country as damage to the energy and other critical infrastructure was reported by officials in cities in the west, south and centre of the country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia used cruise missiles with cluster munitions in Thursday’s attack, calling it a “vile escalation”.

In this article, The Independent takes a look at why Russia is launching so many strikes and the likely impact of them on Ukraine.

The Russian defence ministry said its forces had gained control over two settlements, Illinka and Petrivka, in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

It also said that Russian air defences shot down 55 Ukrainian drones in the past 24 hours.

Russian forces hold a little less than 20 per cent of Ukraine’s territory and have advanced through Donetsk region over the past two months at their fastest rate since March 2022, according to open source data.

They are approaching Kurakhove and the town of Pokrovsk to the north, the site of the sole colliery that supplies Ukraine’s steel industry with coking coal.

In a significant development on the route to a potential ceasefire after 33 months of conflict, the Ukrainian president indicated for the first time that Kyiv could accept Russian control over some of its territory in order to end the “hot phase of the war”.

With Moscow appearing to ramp up its push for territory in Ukraine’s east ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January, Mr Zelensky told Sky News that peace could be struck if territory he controls is taken “under the Nato umbrella”, allowing him to negotiate the return of the rest later “in a diplomatic way”.

The US is not considering returning to Ukraine the nuclear weapons it gave up after the Soviet Union collapsed, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said yesterday.

Mr Sullivan made his remarks when questioned about a New York Times article last month that said some unidentified Western officials had suggested president Joe Biden could give Ukraine the arms before he leaves office.

“That is not under consideration, no. What we are doing is surging various conventional capacities to Ukraine so that they can effectively defend themselves and take the fight to the Russians, not (giving them) nuclear capability,” he told ABC.

Last week, Russia said the idea was “absolute insanity” and that preventing such a scenario was one of the reasons why Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.

Kyiv inherited nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union after its 1991 collapse but gave them up under a 1994 agreement, the Budapest Memorandum, in return for security assurances from Russia, the United States and Britain.

The head of MI6 has accused Russia of waging a “staggeringly reckless campaign” of sabotage in Europe to undermine support against Vladimir Putin’s push to turn Ukraine into a “vassel state”.

“In 37 years in the intelligence profession I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state. And the impact on Europe, our shared European home, could hardly be more serious,” Sir Richard Moore said, adding that if “Putin is allowed to succeed in reducing Ukraine to a vassal state he will not stop there.”

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Russia’s drone attack on Ukraine’s western city of Ternopil hit a residential building, killing one person and injuring several others, Ternopil’s military administration said this morning.

“A residential building was damaged,” Viacheslav Negoda, the head of the military administration of Ternopil region, said. “Unfortunately, there are casualties: one person has died, there are seriously wounded.”

Serhiy Nadal, the head of the regional defence headquarters in Ternopil, said via Telegram that as result of the attack, a fire engulfed several flats on the top floor of a five-storey apartment building.

He said that residents from several apartments were evacuated and that emergency services were working at the scene. Social media videos showed flames bursting out of the windows of a multi-storey apartment building in the darkness.

The city of Ternopil and its surrounding region were under air raid alerts for a couple of hours starting soon after midnight today, according to data provided by Ukraine’s air force.

British defence secretary John Healey has warned that the UK’s defence industry needs to be more integrated in order to strengthen the country’s security and economy.

Unveiling plans for the first British defence industrial strategy since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Mr Healey said: “Our defence sector should be an engine for jobs and growth, strengthening our security and economy.

“That requires a defence industry that is better and more integrated – one that can keep our armed forces equipped, innovating at a wartime pace, and ahead of our adversaries.

“We will develop this new defence industrial strategy with industry, with innovators and with workers. We will mobilise the private sector to help face down global threats, direct more public investment to British businesses and create jobs and growth in every nation and region of the UK.

“National security is the foundation for national stability and growth. We are sending a signal to the market and to our adversaries: with a strong UK defence sector we will make Britain secure at home and strong abroad.”