Kyiv says Russia has hit Ukraine with North Korean-supplied missiles for the first time; US official warns of diminishing time to resupply aid to Ukraine

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Russia hit Ukraine with missiles supplied by North Korea for the first time during its invasion, a senior Kyiv official said, corroborating an earlier assertion by the White House. Grant Shapps, the British secretary of state for defence, said that “we’ll make sure North Korea pays a high price for supporting Russia”.

President Joe Biden’s top budget official warned of the rapidly diminishing time that lawmakers have to replenish US aid for Ukraine, as the fate of that money to Kyiv remains tied up in congressional negotiations over immigration where a deal has so far been out of reach. Shalanda Young said that while the Pentagon had some limited authority to help Kyiv, “that is not going to get big tranches of equipment into Ukraine”.

Micheál Martin, Ireland’s foreign minister, said the international community must “remain firm in its resolve to support” Ukraine.

Russian air defence units downed missiles and drones in a series of night-time attacks over the Crimea peninsula and the western part of the Black Sea, Russia’s defence ministry said early on Saturday. There was no report on the incident from the Ukrainian military, which does not consistently disclose its actions in Crimea.

The government of Nepal has banned its citizens from travelling to Russia or Ukraine for employment after 10 young men were killed and dozens more reported missing while fighting, predominately in the Russian military. More than 200 Nepali soldiers are believed to have enlisted in the Russian army since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Nepal’s foreign ministry has said.

A British defence intelligence update on Ukraine noted that “over the last week, ground combat has continued to be characterised by either a static frontline or very gradual, local Russian advances in key sectors”.

Russian officials in the southern border city of Belgorod offered to evacuate residents, after waves of fatal Ukrainian attacks. Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov’s offer came a day after overnight shelling wounded at least two people and knocked out glass from high-rise buildings.

Ukraine released images of what it said was a Russian Kinzhal ballistic missile, which it claimed earlier in the week to have downed using the US Patriot anti-aircraft system. The Guardian was not able to verify the claim.

Both sides release more than 200 troops in first exchange since August after UAE-mediated negotiations

Ukraine and Russia have announced the largest exchange of prisoners since the start of the war, involving the return of more than 200 soldiers from each side in a deal mediated by the United Arab Emirates.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on Wednesday in a message on social media, along with images of some of the freed PoWs: “230 of our people. Today, 213 soldiers and sergeants, 11 officers, and six civilians returned home.”

Radosław Sikorski says allies must deliver long-range missiles to Ukraine following barrage of strikes by Russia

The Russian military has said it shot down 12 Ukrainian missiles over the southern Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, as Kyiv’s forces seek to embarrass President Vladimir Putin and puncture his argument that life in Russia is going on as normal despite the 22-month war.

The Belgorod governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said the situation in the regional capital, also called Belgorod, remained tense. The city came under two rounds of shelling on Wednesday morning, Gladkov wrote on Telegram.

At least five people die in wave of Russian strikes on Kyiv and Kharkiv; Russia accidentally bombs its own city

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Russian missile and drone strikes on Kyiv and the north-eastern city of Kharkiv killed at least five people on Tuesday and injured dozens of others, Ukrainian officials said. The attacks caused widespread damage and hit power supplies, Ukraine’s authorities said.

Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said gas pipelines had been damaged in Kyiv’s Pecherskyi district, while electricity and water had been cut off in several districts of the capital. Heating and water supplies were damaged in Kharkiv, said its mayor, Ihor Terekhov.

Russia said it had accidentally bombed a village in its own southern Voronezh region near Ukraine. In a statement quoted by Russian news agencies, the Russian army said “an abnormal discharge of aircraft ammunition occurred over the village of Petropavlovka in the Voronezh region. There are no casualties.”

Turkey said it would not allow two British minehunter ships to transit its waters en route to the Black Sea for use by Ukraine. Turkey is enforcing an international pact under which it can block passage of military ships of warring parties through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits. It exempts naval ships that are returning to home bases.

One man was killed and seven people were injured on Tuesday in a Ukrainian attack on the city and region of Belgorod, near Russia’s border with Ukraine, the Russian defence ministry and regional officials claimed.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, urged faster supplies of air defence systems, combat drones and long-range missiles. His ministry said Kuleba called on Ukraine’s western partners to respond to a new Russian strike on Ukraine by “accelerating the supply of additional air defence systems, combat drones of all types, long-range missiles with a range of 300+ km”.

Lithuania’s president, Gitanas Nausėda, and Latvia’s president, Edgars Rinkēvičs, also called for more air defence systems for Ukraine.

Moscow shows bullish determination, draining western-supplied air defences and talking of Kyiv’s total capitulation

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Scenes of devastation have greeted Ukrainians in the first days of 2024, as Russia launches some of its heaviest missile and drone barrages since the start of the war.

The strikes, which began on 29 December and have killed dozens of civilians, offer an early and grim taste of what may lie ahead, as Moscow signals it has the capacity for a long and brutal war in Ukraine.

New Year’s address made almost no direct reference to the situation on the 1,000-km front line or the limited success of a counteroffensive

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has vowed in his New Year’s address to unleash “wrath” against Russian forces in 2024, saying Ukraine had become stronger as the war moves toward its second year.

But Zelenskiy’s slick 20-minute video message, delivered from his Kyiv office, made almost no direct reference to the situation on the 1,000-km (600-mile) frontline or the limited success of a counteroffensive launched in June.

Wave of drone and missile strikes that wounded dozens was retaliation for ‘terrorist attack’, says Moscow

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Moscow has said the wave of drone and missile strikes that wounded at least 28 people in Ukraine’s second-biggest city late on Saturday was launched in retaliation for the “terrorist attack” on the Russian border city of Belgorod earlier the same day that reportedly killed 24 people.

Ukraine’s national police said on Sunday that at least six Russian missiles had reached Kharkiv on Saturday night, injuring more than two dozen people and hitting 12 apartment buildings, 13 residential houses, a hotel and a kindergarten.

Russia launches overnight air assault targeting Kyiv, Ukraine says; Moscow reports 21 dead after Ukrainian strike on Belgorod

Russia launched a bombardment on Ukrainian regions in the hours leading into New Year’s Eve, targeting Kyiv and inflicting damage on residential areas of the city of Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said. Ukraine’s air defence systems in the region surrounding Kyiv were engaged in repelling Russia’s drone attack, the military administration of the region said on Telegram.

The Kharkiv mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said the drone attack came in several waves, hitting residential buildings in the city centre and starting fires. “All relevant emergency services are already on the site. Information about potential casualties is being clarified.”

Ukraine carried out a series of strikes on the Russian border city of Belgorod, the day after an 18-hour aerial barrage across Ukraine killed at least 41 civilians. Russian officials said the shelling in the centre of Belgorod on Saturday killed 21 people, including three children, and injured 110 more. Ukrainian media – citing law enforcement agencies – said the attacks only hit military targets and were retaliation for Friday’s mass bombardment of Ukrainian cities.

The Belgorod attack came a day after Ukraine said a barrage of Russian missile strikes on several cities killed at least 40 people, wounding dozens more.

Russia experienced a sharp rise in the number of killed and wounded troops in 2023, due to “degradation” of military quality, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence.

In its daily intelligence briefing, the MoD said the average daily number of Russian casualties (killed and wounded) had risen by almost 300 a day compared with 2022. “The increase in daily averages, as reported by the Ukrainian authorities, almost certainly reflects the degradation of Russia’s forces and its transition to a lower quality, high quantity mass army since the ‘partial mobilisation’ of reservists in September 2022.”

Moscow would not give an explanation for a missile in Polish airspace unless provided with “hard evidence” it was Russian, said Andrei Ordash, Russia’s chargé d’affaires in Poland, after being summoned to the Polish foreign ministry. Poland’s armed forces said an unknown airborne object, which they identified as a Russian missile, entered Polish airspace from the direction of Ukraine for less than three minutes. “Until hard evidence is provided, we will not give any explanations, because these accusations are unfounded,” Ordash said.