Russia Ukraine war latest: Putin launches massive drone strike on Kiev as Brit won battle for Ukraine

Russia’s air defense systems destroyed 39 Ukrainian drones over seven regions overnight, the Russian Defense Ministry said this morning.

Of these, 24 drones were destroyed over the Rostov region in the southern part of Russia, the ministry said on its Telegram channel.

Russian forces have advanced at their fastest pace since the early months of the war in Ukraine, exploiting vulnerabilities among Kievan forces, analysts said yesterday.

“Russian forces have been advancing significantly faster recently than in all of 2023,” said analysts at the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War.

The report noted recent confirmed Russian victories on the battlefield near Vuhledar and Velyka Novosilka, which are located in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, and said Putin’s forces entered the strategic city of Kurakhove.

The Russian army captured almost 235 square kilometers in Ukraine last week, a weekly record for 2024, according to a report published by the independent Russian news group Agentstvo.

Agentstvo analyzed data from Deep State, a group with close ties to the Ukrainian military that studies battle footage and provides frontline maps.

“The advance of Russian forces in southeastern Ukraine is largely the result of the discovery and tactical exploitation of vulnerabilities in Ukrainian lines,” ISW analysts said in their report.

In the summer of 2015, three Syrian girls, who had barely survived an airstrike a few weeks earlier, stood before Tulsi Gabbard with horrific burns all over their bodies. Gabbard, then a U.S. congresswoman visiting the Syria-Turkey border as part of her Foreign Affairs Committee duties, had a question for them.

“How do you know it was Bashar al-Assad or Russia who bombed you, and not Isis?” she asked, according to Mouaz Moustafa, a Syrian activist who translated her conversation with the girls.

It was a revealing insight into Gabbard’s conspiratorial views on the conflict, and it shocked Moustafa that he remained silent. He knew, as did even the young children, that Isis had no fighter jets to carry out airstrikes. It was such an absurd question that he chose not to translate it because he didn’t want to upset the girls, the eldest of whom was twelve.

“From that moment on, I regret to say that I was inaccurate in my translations of everything she said,” Moustafa said. The independent. “It was more like, how do I get these girls away from this devil?”

Even before Gabbard left the Democratic Party, ingratiated herself with Donald Trump and secured his appointment as Director of National Intelligence, she was known as a prolific peddler of Russian propaganda.

In almost every foreign conflict in which Russia had a hand, Gabbard supported Moscow and railed against the US. Her past promotion of Kremlin propaganda has provoked significant opposition to her nomination from both sides of the aisle.

My colleagues Richard Hall And Andreas Feinberg have more analysis here:

Ukrainian boxing icon Wladimir Klitschko has condemned American podcast host Joe Rogan for promoting Russian propaganda.

“You talk about sending American weapons to Ukraine that you think will lead to World War III. Putin’s Russia is in trouble, so Putin wants to scare you and people like you. His war would last three days. It lasted three years thanks to the heroism and sacrifice of Ukrainians,” former heavyweight champion Klitschko said on X.

His comments come after Rogan on Friday criticized President Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to attack Russia with US-supplied long-range missiles, which he said would trigger World War III.

Mr Klitschko has also challenged Rogan to invite him for an interview.

According to reports yesterday, the Russian military has captured a British national who fought with Ukrainian forces who have occupied part of Russia’s Kursk region. The Briton was identified by state news agency Tass and other media as James Scott Rhys Anderson.

Tass quoted him as saying that he had served as a signalman in the British army for four years and then joined the International Legion of Ukraine, formed early in Russia’s nearly three-year war against its neighbor.

His capture is believed to be one of the first known cases of a Western citizen being captured on Russian soil while fighting for Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin has signed a bill banning the adoption of Russian children by citizens of countries where gender transition is legal.

The Kremlin leader also approved legislation banning the distribution of material encouraging people not to have children.

The bills, previously approved by both houses of Russia’s parliament, follow a series of laws that have oppressed sexual minorities and strengthened so-called traditional values.

The US has seen no signs of North Korean troops in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine or moving in that direction, the Pentagon said.

Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokesperson, told a briefing that the U.S. Department of Defense “has no indication that there are North Korean soldiers in Ukraine,” referring to North Korea’s official name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“There are no indications that there are North Korean soldiers in Ukraine. What we have said is that we see that they are positioned around the Kursk region, but they are not moving to Ukraine at this time,” she said last night.

The Europeans will step up military support to Ukraine, Germany’s defense minister vowed after talks with his British, French, Italian and Polish counterparts on how to boost defense efforts as Donald Trump is set to return to White House.

“Our aim must be to enable Ukraine to act from a position of strength,” Boris Pistorius told reporters in Berlin after hosting a meeting of the Group of Five leading European defense countries.

His comments were echoed by Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, who pledged more aid to Kiev.

“Europe must coordinate its efforts more, it must harmonize its actions, it must aim higher, to also be a good partner for the United States,” he said.

“We are obliged today to say it clearly: Europe must increase its efforts when it comes to helping Ukraine, but above all… when it comes to its own security. Without higher spending, without consciousness in every European society of the time we live in, everything is nothing,” he said.

The election of Mr Trump – who has been skeptical of US support for Ukraine – has increased pressure on Europe to step up its role in arming Kiev should Washington, the biggest donor yet, cut its aid.

Kiev is being hit by an ongoing Russian drone attack, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said early today.

“The UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) attack on the capital continues,” Klitschko said on his Telegram channel. “Air defense forces are operating in different parts of the city. (Drones) enter the capital from different directions.”

Witnesses described a series of explosions in what appeared to be air defense systems in operation, Reuters reported.

Kiev, the surrounding region and the vast majority of Ukrainian territory were under air raid alert. In Kiev, the air raid sirens started around 7pm GMT.