Ukraine troops show blown-up hangar ‘turned into mass grave’ for Russian soldiers
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The fresh missile salvo launched by Russia yesterday is set to plunge about half of the Kyiv region into darkness in the coming days, officials said, after Moscow targeted energy plants in central Ukraine, Odesa in the south and Sumy in the north.
Volodymyr Zelensky said his air forces had downed most of the Russian ordnance flown in Ukraine’s direction yesterday afternoon.
Vladimir Putin’s forces unleashed a new barrage of more than 70 missiles, sending citizens to shelters across the country and air defences springing into action.
Residents of the capital were seen taking cover in the city’s underground rail stations, as air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv and across Ukraine.
Elsewhere, top Russian officials have said Moscow’s exit from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, or even transferring control to another entity, is “out of the question”.
Zaporizhzhia has been shelled every day since mid-September and the region has been the site of fierce fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces since the first week of the invasion.
Latvia 'cancels license of Russian independent television station’
The Latvian broadcasting regulator has cancelled the license of the Russian independent television station TV Rain, said the regulator’s chairman.
“In connection with the threat to the national security and public order, (the regulator) has made a decision this morning to annul the broadcast license of TV Rain”, Ivars Abolins said on Twitter, adding the broadcasts will cease on Thursday.
Kyiv ‘repels seven Russian attacks on Donetsk in 24 hours’
Kyiv claims it repelled Russian missile attacks in seven different settlements across the Donetsk region over the past 24 hours.
According to the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, barrages were repelled near Verkhnokamianske, Bakhmut, Andriivka, Yakovlivka, Soledar, Kurdiumivka, and Krasnohorivka in Donetsk.
It said Vladimir Putin’s forces launched 17 airstrikes and 38 MLRS attacks against Ukraine over the past day. Kyiv claimed it hit two command centres and eight Russian concentrations of military equipment and personnel over the same period.
Nine civilians injured in Donetsk, governor reports
President Vladimir Putin’s troops injured a total of nine civilians in Donetsk on 5 December, the regional governer says.
Pavlo Kyrylenko reports that four people were injured in Ivanivske, three in Bakhmut, one in Maksymilianivka, and one in Toretsk.
He added that it remained impossible to determine the exact number of victims in Mariupol and Volnovakha.
Kremlin may punish officers who failed to avert attack on Engels airbase - MoD
The Russian chain of command will probably seek to identify and impose severe sanctions on Russian officers deemed responsible for allowing multiple explosions at its Engels airbase yesterday, the British defence ministry said today.
The explosions were reported from Russia’s Saratov Oblast, and at Dyagilyaevo airfield near Ryazan, south-east of Moscow as well.
Two Tu-95 BEAR heavy bombers were reportedly damaged at Engels and three people were killed when a fuel tank exploded at Dyagilyaevo, the ministry said, assessing Russia’s damages.
“The causes of the explosions have not been confirmed. However, if Russia assesses the incidents were deliberate attacks, it will probably consider them as some of the most strategically significant failures of force protection since its invasion of Ukraine,” the defence ministry said.
According to the MoD, these sites are “much deeper inside Russia than previous similar explosions: Engels is over 600km from Ukrainian-controlled territory.”
Engels is the main operating base of Russia’s Long Range Aviation (LRA) within western Russia and is home to more than 30 heavy bombers, it noted.
“These aircraft contribute to Russia’s nuclear deterrent and have also frequently been used to launch conventional cruise missiles at Ukraine. The LRA is likely to respond by temporarily moving bombers to dispersal airfields,” the ministry said.
Russian forces continue to push offensive in Bakhmut - report
Bakhmut, Russia’s next target for capturing in Ukraine, saw success for Moscow’s troops in the last 24 hours who managed to penetrate through Kyiv’s defences, according to the latest intelligence update from the Institute for the Study of War.
“Russian forces continued to make incremental gains around Bakhmut but have not yet surrounded the city, and conducted offensive operations in the Avdiivka-Donetsk City area. Ukrainian sources claimed that small Russian assault groups of 15-20 personnel are attempting to penetrate Ukrainian lines,” it said today.
Vladimir Putin’s forces continued to defend their positions along the Svatove-Kreminna line against Ukrainian attacks, it added.
The institute said that the Russian troops are continuing the forceful transfer of Ukrainian children from occupied territories in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts to Russia under the guise that the children require special medical care.
Putin drives across Crimea bridge badly damaged in October bomb attack
Vladimir Putin took to the wheel to drive a vehicle across a bridge to Crimea that was badly damaged by a truck bomb attack in the Autumn.
Mr Putin, accompanied by deputy prime minister Marat Khusnullin, was shown on Russian state TV yesterday driving a Mercedes across the bridge that links Russia’s mainland with the Crimean Peninsula, annexed by Moscow from Ukraine in 2014.
The symbolic journey came on the same day as Kyiv said Russia had destroyed homes in the southeast and knocked out power in many areas with a new round of missile attacks.
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Putin also seen walking across the bridge
Drone attack on oil tank at airfield in Russia’s Kursk
A fire broke out in Russia’s Kursk region today after a drone attack struck an airfield and an oil storage tank, a local governor said.
The Kursk region falls on the border Russia shares with Ukraine.
“There were no casualties. The fire is localised. All emergency services working at the site,” Roman Starovoyt, the governor of the region, said on the Telegram messaging app.
Half of Kyiv without electricity in coming days
About half of the Kyiv region, excluding the capital, will be left without electricity in the coming days, the regional governor said hours after a Russian barrage of missiles hit energy plants in Kyiv and Vinnytsia in central Ukraine.
The capital region had a population of about 1.8 million before the war began in February.
Russian missiles hit energy plants in central Ukraine, Odesa in the south and Sumy in the north, officials said.
Just yesterday, Volodymyr Zelensky had announced the war-hit country’s – especially the capital region – return to scheduled power outages instead of emergency blackouts from this week.
Mr Zelensky said his air forces had downed most of the Russian ordnance flown in Ukraine’s direction yesterday afternoon.
“The main result – 70 Russian missiles were launched, most of them were shot down. Kalibr, Kh-101, etc. I am grateful to all our warriors of the air commands “East”, “South” and “Center”. Well done!” he said in his nightly address.
He said that he is grateful to Ukraine’s partners for the air defence systems currently being used.
“Every downed Russian missile is concrete proof that terror can be defeated. But, unfortunately, we still cannot ensure complete security to our sky – there were several hits,” Mr Zelensky said.
Ukraine’s air force said it downed more than 60 of the 70+ missiles fired.
Two killed in Russian missile strikes on Zaporizhzhia
At least two people were killed and several houses destroyed after Russian missiles struck Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the presidential office.
Visuals from the attack showed a damaged car in Novosofiivka and two bodies covered with blankets in the east of Zaporizhzhia city.
The two civilians were seeing off their kids, said their neighbour.
“Both of my neighbours were killed. They were standing by the car. They were seeing off their son and daughter-in-law,” 62-year-old Olha Troshyna said.
Canada to give Ukraine C$15 million for demining
Canada is ready to help Ukraine demine its formerly occupied territory left sprinkled with landmines by Russian forces and will provide C$15m (£9.05m), officials said yesterday.
This will help Ukrainian authorities fund detection and clearance of landmines, unexploded explosive ordnance and other explosive remnants of war.
“The Ukrainian authorities now estimate that landmines are found in 30 per cent of the country,” Canadian foreign minister Melanie Joly said at Carleton University in Ottawa.
The country is also providing bomb suits to Ukraine for its deminers and also funding advanced remote-control demining systems to clear large areas like farmlands.