Ukraine-Russia latest: Flights cancelled as Kyiv strikes southern Russia in major drone and missile attack – UK Times

Ukraine has struck multiple Russian regions in a major drone and ballistic missile attack overnight, Russian officials and media are reporting.

Flight restrictions were imposed in the southern Russian cities of Kazan, Saratov, Penza, Ulyanovsk and Nizhnekamsk, Russia’s aviation watchdog said.

The attack damaged at least two factories and forced schools to close in a major southern Russian city.

The Shot Telegram channel said that Russia had downed more than 200 Ukrainian drones and five US-made ATACMS ballistic missiles.

“The enemy has organised a massive combined strike on the territory of the Russian regions,” the Two Majors war blogger said. Alexander Bogomaz, the governor of the Bryansk region in western Russia, said Ukraine had launched a major missile attack but did not say which missiles had been used.

There was no immediate comment from Kyiv or from the Russian defence ministry.

A mock-up of a missile threatening an attack on the US has been displayed in a public square in St Petersburg.

The dummy projectile was placed on the roof rack of a small car in front of Saint Isaac’s Cathedral in the Russian port city on the Baltic Sea on Sunday.

Writing on the side reads: “Towards Washington – threatening US territory is the path to victory”. It is not immediately clear who organised – or authorised – the display of the missile.

Tensions between Russia and Washington have picked up again as a Kremlin spokesperson accused outgoing president Joe Biden of creating “the risk of triggering a nuclear confrontation with Russia”.

North Korean soldiers are being used as bait by Russian troops to lure out Ukrainian drones on the battlefield, a diary has revealed.

The last written notes of a North Korean soldier described how Pyongyang’s troops are ordered to stand within seven metres of Kyiv’s drones as covering soldiers try to shoot them down.

On one notebook page, a crude drawing shows a stickman soldier breaking cover to attract the attention of a drone, while his two comrades lie in wait to shoot it down.

“When the bait stands still, the drone will stop and it will be shot down,” the soldier wrote in scrawled handwriting, translated by The Wall Street Journal.

The problem was simply how to get a warning to Putin, who hasn’t spoken to Biden since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Nato’s newest member Sweden will test new drone swarm technology developed by defence equipment group Saab and the Nordic country’s armed forces, defence minister Pal Jonson said.

Mr Jonson said the army would test the technology, which was developed over the past year, during the upcoming Arctic Strike exercise.

“We will need to take some risks to build a stronger defence capability faster than we normally do,” Mr Jonson said.

He added that the technology allows swarms of drones of different sizes to form and then solve tasks autonomously.

“With these drone swarms it is possible to conduct both reconnaissance, positioning and identification,” he said.

Nato secretary general Mark Rutte has called on the alliance to solidify Ukraine’s position before any potential peace talks with Russia.

“At this moment, clearly, Ukraine is not there,” Mr Rutte told the European Parliament’s foreign affairs and defence committees yesterday.

“Because they cannot, at this moment, negotiate from a position of strength. And we have to do more to make sure, by changing the trajectory of the conflict, that they can get to the position of strength.”

The peace talks, he said, have to grapple with Ukraine’s future relationship with Nato. “But it’s too early now to exactly sketch out what that exactly will mean, also something we have to discuss with the incoming US administration,” he said. “But let’s hope that we will get to that point as soon as possible.”

His remarks come just a week before US president-elect Donald Trump enters the White House, with questions over continued American support for Kyiv.

“We all want this war to end, but above all, we want peace to last. Peace will not last if Putin gets his way in Ukraine, because then he will press ahead… I am convinced that peace can only last if Ukraine comes to the table from a position of strength,” he said.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said he discussed the battlefield situation and deployment of foreign troops in the Ukraine war with French president Emmanuel Macron over a phone call last night.

“We had a detailed discussion about the situation on the battlefield and the progress of Ukrainian forces in the Kursk operation,” he said in a post on X.

“We also agreed to work closely with key allies on achieving peace and developing effective security guarantees. As one such guarantee, we discussed the French initiative to deploy military contingents in Ukraine. We addressed practical steps for its implementation, potential expansion, and the involvement of other nations in this effort,” Mr Zelensky said.

The French leader has floated the idea of sending Western troops to Ukraine before, including last month when he and Polish prime minister Donald Tusk discussed the possibility of stationing peacekeepers there in the event of a ceasefire.

The outgoing US president Joe Biden took a swipe at Russian president Vladimir Putin as he joked about his Moscow counterpart’s failed ambition to capture Kyiv.

“When Putin invaded Ukraine, he thought he would capture Kyiv in a matter of days. In fact, after the war started, I was the one who visited the centre of Kyiv, not him. Putin did not,” the president joked.

“It was a long train ride, but I’m the only (US) commander-in-chief to visit a war zone not controlled by US forces,” he added, touting the visit as historic.

In response, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Mr Biden’s address confirmed Moscow’s suspicion that the “US support for Kyiv created the risk of triggering a nuclear confrontation with Russia”.

“Today’s statement by Biden is an admission of a deliberately executed provocation,” Ms Zakharova wrote on her Telegram channel. “The Biden administration knew it was pushing the world toward the brink and still chose to escalate the conflict.”

German police have launched an investigation into suspected cases of Russian espionage after drones were spotted over several military installations in Bavaria, according to a statement on Monday.

Against the backdrop of Russia’s war on Ukraine, it could not be ruled out that German military installations and defence companies were being spied on by drones, Bavaria’s State Office of Criminal Investigation said.

The latest incident occurred late on Sunday when a drone was spotted over a military base near Manching, police said, referring to a vast facility where the German forces test new manned and unmanned aircraft.

Donald Trump has said he is going to meet Russian president Vladimir Putin “very quickly” after he takes office next week.

When asked about his strategy to end the war, Mr Trump told Newsmax: “Well, there’s only one strategy and it’s up to Putin and I can’t imagine he’s too thrilled about the way it’s gone because it hasn’t gone exactly well for him either.”

“And I know he wants to meet and I’m going to meet very quickly. I would’ve done it sooner but… you have to get into the office. For some of the things, you do have to be there,” he said.

The American president-elect, who vowed to end the war within a day, did not provide a timeline for the meeting.

If confirmed, this would be the first meeting between leaders from the two countries since Russia’s war with Ukraine started in February 2022.