Ukraine war latest: US announces new $1bn weapons package for Kyiv

Canada said Thursday it is outlawing another 324 firearm varieties — guns the public safety minister said belong on the battlefield, not in the hands of hunters or sport shooters.

Ottawa also said it is working with the government of Ukraine to see how the guns can be donated to support the fight against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The move follows the May 2020 ban of 1,500 makes and models of firearms, a number that grew to more than 2,000 by November of this year as new variants were identified.

The Ukrainian air force said on Sunday its air defence units shot down 28 of 74 drones launched by Russia overnight targeting Ukraine.

The air force said on Telegram that 46 of the Russian drones were “lost”, likely neutralised by electronic warfare.

Ukraine showed off a new locally-produced “rocket-drone” on Friday which it said could fly 700 km – more than twice the longest range attributed to missiles supplied by Western allies.

The unmanned craft, called “Peklo” – which means hell in Ukrainian – is the second “rocket drone” unveiled by Kyiv as it tries to increase its ability to strike deep into Russia.

Ukraine‘s arms production minister told Reuters in November the “rocket-drone” could be viewed as something akin to a cruise missile, which flies low on a guided path to its target, usually below the speed of sound.

President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia could deploy its new Oreshnik intermediate-range hypersonic missile on the territory of its ally Belarus in the second half of next year.

Putin was responding to a request from Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko at a summit in Minsk, where the two leaders signed a mutual defence pact.

“… since we have today signed an agreement on security guarantees using all available forces and means, I consider the deployment of such systems as the Oreshnik on the territory of the Republic of Belarus to be feasible,” Putin said.

“I think this will become possible in the second half of next year, as serial production of these systems in Russia increases and as these missile systems enter service with the Russian strategic forces,” he added in televised comments.

Russia first fired the Oreshnik at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on 21 November, in what Putin cast as a response to Ukraine’s first use of US ATACMs ballistic missiles and British Storm Shadows to strike Russian territory with Western permission.

Vladimir Putin said Russia had struck Ukraine with a new hypersonic medium-range ballistic missile in response to Kyiv’s use of US and British missiles against Russia.

On 21 November, he said Russia had launched an “Oreshnik”, one of its newest intermediate-range missiles, at a defence enterprise in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

Putin said it travelled at 10 times the speed of sound and could not be intercepted. It has a range of around 3,100 miles allowing Russia to strike most of Europe, according to experts.

It appears to have multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles: separate warheads able to hit different targets.

Anatoly Matviychuk, a Russian military expert, said it could carry six to eight conventional or nuclear warheads, and was probably already in service.

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Belarus on Friday to sign a treaty offering security guarantees for Moscow’s closest ally, including the possible use of Russian nuclear weapons to help repel an aggression.

Russia’s top diplomat said in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson released Friday that Moscow doesn’t want a war with the United States but will use “all means” to defend its interests.

Sergey Lavrov argued that while Russia and the US are officially not at war, Washington’s permission for Ukraine to use American longer-range missiles for strikes on Russian territory marked a dangerous escalation.

Ukrainian naval drones have struck and destroyed surveillance systems on Russian-controlled gas platforms in Crimea, vice-admiral Oleksii Neizhpapa said.

“The hunt for the enemy in the Black Sea continues. The occupiers will not stay on our territory — we will get them everywhere,” Neizhpapa said on Saturday in a post on Facebook.

“Naval (drones) delivered precise strikes on Russian targets.”

Recent weeks have seen intensified attacks on Russian assets in Crimea. Strikes have targeted radar stations, and explosions were also reported in Sevastopol and near the Belbek airbase in November.