Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin’s forces ready for ‘large missile attack’

The Biden administration is determined in its final months to help ensure that Ukraine can keep fighting off Russia’s full-scale invasion next year, sending it as much aid as possible so that it might hold Russian forces at bay and possess a strong hand in any potential peace negotiations, US secretary of state Antony Blinken said.

“President Biden has committed to making sure that every dollar we have at our disposal will be pushed out the door between now and 20 January,” when president-elect Donald Trump is due to be sworn in, Mr Blinken said.

Nato countries must focus their efforts on “ensuring that Ukraine has the money, munitions and mobilized forces to fight effectively in 2025, or to be able to negotiate a peace from a position of strength,” Mr Blinken said during a visit to Brussels.

The US will “adapt and adjust” with the latest equipment it is sending, Mr Blinken said, without providing details.The almost three-year war has shown no signs of winding down.

Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said he was “cautiously optimistic” after discussing with US secretary of state Antony Blinken the possibility of conducting strikes deep inside Russia as well as Euro-Atlantic integration.

“We discussed issues of long-range strikes and Euro-Atlantic integration. And here we also are cautiously optimistic,” Mr Sybiha said in televised comments.

His talks with Mr Blinken in Brussels come at a turbulent time, just one week after Donald Trump won the US presidential election.

Trump has long criticised the scale of US financial and military aid to Ukraine and has vowed to end the war quickly, without explaining how.

Kyiv has long been lobbying for Western allies to allow long-range attacks on military targets inside Russia, while also pressing for an invitation to join the Nato alliance.

Allies including the US have been unwilling to permit long-range attacks for fear of further escalating the conflict, and some are opposed to inviting Ukraine to join Nato.

Mr Sybiha said his talks in Brussels had also touched on military aid. “We have a clear picture – a clear timeframe, clear volumes – of what will be delivered to Ukraine by the end of the year. This helps us strategically to plan our actions on the battlefield,” he said.

The assistance, he added, would include weapons and funds for arms production deals.

The European Union must back Ukraine against Russia for as a long as it takes and persuade the United States that its strategic interests in China are tied up in the outcome of the war, the woman nominated as the bloc’s top diplomat for the next five years said Tuesday.

Questions have been raised about whether the 27-nation EU’s commitment to Ukraine would remain firm with Russia appearing to have an edge in the war, which began on Feb. 24, 2022, and following the reelection of Donald Trump, who has vowed to end the conflict as U.S. president.

“Ukraine’s victory is a priority for us all. The situation on the battlefield is very difficult,” Estonia ex-Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told EU lawmakers during a hearing she must pass to be appointed as foreign policy chief.

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A senior Russian naval officer was killed in a bomb attack claimed by Kyiv in occupied Crimea’s Sevastopol.

According to a Kyiv security source, the bomb attack was a Ukrainian hit on one of its highest-ranking targets to date.

A source in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) told Reuters that the explosion had killed Valery Trankovsky, a Russian naval captain and the chief of staff of the 41st brigade of Russia’s missile ships in the Black Sea.

The operation was carried out by the SBU, which saw him as a “legitimate” target in line with the laws of war because of “war crimes” he committed, the source said.

The source said he had ordered missile attacks that hit civilian targets in Ukraine, including a deadly strike on the city of Vinnytsia in July 2022.

Russia’s state Investigative Committee, which handles probes into serious crimes, said in a statement that an improvised explosive device had detonated in an act of terrorism, killing a serviceman whom it did not identify.

Several pro-war Russian figures have been assassinated since the start of the war in operations blamed by Moscow on Ukraine, including journalist Darya Dugina, war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky and former submarine commander Stanislav Rzhitsky.

Ukrainian forces repelled an attempt by Russian troops to pierce defences near the northeastern city of Kupiansk, Ukraine’s General Staff said.

The city of Kupiansk was seized by Russian troops in the early days of their February 2022 invasion and recaptured by Ukrainian troops in a lightning counter-offensive months later. Russian forces have returned in the area and caused an upsurge in combat activity.

The General Staff report said Russian forces attacked in four waves and deployed about 15 pieces of equipment, including tanks, armoured vehicles and a mine-clearing system.

“With skilful and decisive actions, our defenders stopped the enemy, destroyed all of its armoured vehicles and eliminated a significant portion of its personnel,” the report said last night.

Some of the Russian forces, it said, had, donned uniforms resembling those of the Ukrainian military, a practice it characterised as amounting to a war crime.

DeepState, a popular Ukrainian military blog, said two columns of Russian men and equipment had entered Kupiansk after dark. Russian servicemen scattered through the town, but Ukrainian forces struck armoured vehicles in the town and in surrounding forests and destroyed part of the group.

A bomb planted under a car blew up and killed a senior Russian naval officer in occupied Crimea’s city of Sevastopol on Wednesday, in what a Kyiv security source said was a Ukrainian hit on one of its highest-ranking targets to date.

Russia’s state Investigative Committee, which handles probes into serious crimes, said in a statement that an improvised explosive device had detonated in an act of terrorism, killing a serviceman whom it did not identify.

A source in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) told Reuters that the explosion had killed Valery Trankovsky, a Russian naval captain and the chief of staff of the 41st brigade of Russia’s missile ships in the Black Sea.

Ukraine was one of the topics discussed by US president-elect Donald Trump and president Joe Biden, longtime political rivals, in a seemingly cordial meeting at the White House designed to begin the smooth transfer of power.

The two leaders sat side by side before a roaring fire in the White House Oval Office, a peaceful scene after many months of bitter disagreements leading up to the election.

Mr Biden argued support for Ukraine was good for US national security because a strong and stable Europe would keep America from being dragged into war, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told journalists.

Mr Trump has pledged to end the Russia-Ukraine war quickly, without saying how he would do so.

“They discussed important national security and domestic policy issues facing the nation and the world,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters. “It was indeed very cordial, very gracious, and substantive.”

The meeting lasted roughly two hours, she said.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed his gratitude to rescue officials in Ukraine responding to daily Russian attacks.

In a post on X, Mr Zelensky said: “No rescue service has ever faced challenges like those our rescuers, police, medics, and everyone helping them tackle every day – often under fire or under threat of renewed Russian attacks. Every day, there is a necessary and immediate response, no matter the challenges.

“I thank everyone who saves lives after Russian strikes, clears rubble, provides first aid, extinguishes fires, and eliminates the consequences to save people’s lives.”

The United States is concerned by Russia’s growing relationship with North Korea and by what technology the two countries may be exchanging, the top US arms control official said on Wednesday.

Speaking to Reuters in Bucharest at a forum on preventing nuclear and radiological terrorism, Under Secretary of State Bonnie Jenkins said the US was working with Japan and South Korea to address those countries’ concerns about North Korea.

She echoed remarks by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken who said in Brussels on Wednesday that Moscow’s relationship with Pyongyang was a two-way street, and that there was deep concern about what Russia was or may be doing to strengthen “North Korea’s capacity”, including its nuclear capacity.

“We don’t have anything definitive … in terms of nuclear technology going from Russia to the DPRK (North Korea), but obviously we have an overall concern about the developing relationship between the two countries,” Jenkins said in an interview in the Romanian capital.

“Not only because of what technology could be being transferred, but also just the growing relationship and the fact that the DPRK is assisting Russia, not only with their developing defense industrial base, but also obviously with the 10,000 troops or so that are in Russia right now.”