Russia targeted energy infrastructure in several Ukrainian cities in a “massive” overnight attack using cruise missiles, Ukrainian officials said Thursday morning.
Explosions were heard in the cities of Odesa, Kropyvnytskyi, Kharkiv, Rivne and Lutsk that morning, Ukrainian news outlets Zerkalo Tyzhnya and Suspilne said.
“Energy infrastructure is once again being targeted by the enemy,” Ukrainian energy minister Herman Halushchenko said on Facebook.
“The enemy continues to attack Kharkiv with missiles,” that city’s mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on the Telegram channel. Odesa regional governor Oleh Kiper urged residents to stay in shelters.
Other key developments on the 1,008th day of the Russia-Ukraine war are as follows:
• Russian forces have taken control of the settlement of Nova Illinka, close to the embattled Donetsk region town of Kurakhove in eastern Ukraine, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense.
• A Russian drone attack on Kyiv has wounded three people, two of whom were hospitalized, officials in the Ukrainian capital said.
• Russia is pressing ahead to put its Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile – part of its strategic nuclear arsenal – on combat duty, according to state-run news agency TASS.
• Ukraine’s air defenses downed 36 of 89 Russian drones launched in attacks overnight Thursday, while Russian air defense systems destroyed 22 Ukrainian drones, both sides reported.
Kuleba: Putin ‘won’t accept any Trump peace deal’ as he is ‘obsessed’ with crushing Ukraine
Vladimir Putin will not accept a peace deal pushed by US president-elect Donald Trump, because the Russian president is “obsessed” with “crushing” Ukraine and exposing the weakness of the West, Ukraine’s former foreign minister has warned.
Dmytro Kuleba – who resigned in September – warned that Mr. Trump instead risks collapsing Ukraine’s front lines if his administration decides to starve Kyiv of military aid.
Warning that Putin still believes he “can snuff out Ukrainian statehood,” he told Politico: “Ukraine is a personal obsession for Putin, but crushing Ukraine is also a means to accomplish his grand goal – to show the world how the West is incapable of defending itself or what it stands for.”
It came as Ukrainian officials said an experimental new ballistic missile fired by Russia at Dnipro last week carried multiple dummy warheads but no explosives. Mr Putin has called the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile strike a successful test and claimed it reached its target – a missile and defense facility.
Ukraine should lower fighting age to 18, says US
Ukraine should consider lowering the age of military service for its soldiers to 18 from 25, a senior US administration official said.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the official said Ukraine was not mobilizing or training enough new soldiers to replace those lost on the battlefield, according to Reuters. “The need right now is manpower,” he said.
“The Russians are in fact making progress, steady progress, in the east, and they are beginning to push back Ukrainian lines in Kursk… Mobilization and more manpower could make a significant difference at this time as we look at the battlefield today.”
However, a source in president Volodymyr Zelensky’s office said the country did not have what it needed to equip the troops it was mobilizing now.
“Right now, with our current mobilization efforts, we don’t have enough equipment, for example armored vehicles, to support all the troops we are calling up,” the source said. “We cannot compensate for our partners’ delays in decision-making and supply chains with the lives of our soldiers and of the youngest of our men.”
Trump picks longtime adviser Keith Kellogg as special envoy for Ukraine and Russia
President-elect Donald Trump has picked Keith Kellogg, a highly decorated retired three-star general, to serve as his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.
Trump made the announcement on his Truth Social account, and said “He was with me right from the beginning! Together, we will secure PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH, and Make America, and the World, SAFE AGAIN!”
Mr. Kellogg, who is one of the architects of a staunchly conservative policy book that lays out an “America First” national security agenda for the incoming administration, will come into the role as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine enters its third year in February.
The 80 year-old retired army lieutenant general has long been Trump’s top adviser on defense issues, served as national security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, was chief of staff of the National Security Council, and then stepped in as an acting security adviser for Mr Trump after Michael Flynn resigned.
Biden readies $725m arms aid package for Ukraine
The Biden administration is preparing a $725m weapons package for Ukraine, two US officials told Reuters yesterday, as the outgoing president seeks to bolster the government in Kyiv before leaving office in January.
An official familiar with the plan says the Biden administration plans to provide a variety of anti-tank weapons from US stocks to blunt Russia’s advancing troops, including land mines, drones, Stinger missiles and ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).
Compiled by Ana Dumbadze
