Tuesday, October 15, 2024

Ukraine Russia war live: Moscow threatens to ‘melt’ Kyiv as it quadruples Kursk army

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Related: Ukraine’s attack is only way to force Russia to negotiating table, Zelensky aide says

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has said Russia could destroy Kyiv in response to the use of Western long-range missiles by Ukraine.

Mr Medvedev said Moscow already had formal grounds to use nuclear weapons since Ukraine‘s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, but could instead use some new weapon technologies to reduce Kyiv to “a giant melted spot” when its patience runs out.

“And that would be it. A giant, grey, melted spot instead of ‘the mother of Russian cities’,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app, referring to Kyiv.

It comes as Russia appears to have quadrupled its forces in the Kursk region in time for a counteroffensive aimed at regaining territory lost during the last six weeks of fighting.

Ukrainian forces stormed over the border and into the Russian region at the start of last month, capturing hundreds of square miles.

After Russia launched a counterattack this week, Vadym Mysnyk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Operational Command “Siversk”, told Ukrainian TV that Moscow had bolstered its forces from 11,000 at the time of the Ukrainian incursion to up to 45,000 this week.

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Ukraine defences down 10 drones and one Russia-launched missile, Ukraine air force says

Ukraine‘s air defence units destroyed 10 out of 14 drones that Russia launched overnight targeting its territory, Ukraine‘s air force has said.

It also said on the Telegram messaging app that Russia launched two Iskander M-ballistic missiles and one Kh-59 guided air missile targeting the southern region of Odesa.

The guided air missile was destroyed, the air force said. It did not say what happened to the Iskander missiles or whether there was any damage as a result of the attack.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that during the past week Russia used about 30 missiles of various types, more than 800 guided aerial bombs and almost 300 attack drones against Ukraine.

Jabed Ahmed15 September 2024 08:14

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UK needs to urgently ‘backfill’ its own stocks due to Ukraine war

The war in Ukraine has created “capability gaps” for UK forces, armed forces minister Luke Pollard has admitted – saying that giving vital equipment to troops fighting Russian invaders meant the UK now needs to “backfill” its own stocks.

The minister insisted that kit had been given to Ukrainian troops “quite correctly” by the previous Tory government, with the backing of Labour.

But he added that this support had resulted in “some capability gaps, especially in the British Army”.

He said the UK had sent “nearly all” of its AS90 mobile artillery units to Ukraine, with Mr Pollard stating: “That has created a capability gap within how we operate.”

Mr Pollard added: “That was the right decision, absolutely the right thing to do. But there is a challenge now about what do we do in the interim period.”

Mr Pollard insisted that the conflict in Ukraine “should be the wake-up call we need to make the case for a stronger defence” as he insisted the review team had not been instructed to make cuts, but would instead seek to “right-size” the UK’s military capability.

Shweta Sharma15 September 2024 07:45

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Ukraine renews calls on the West to approve long-range strikes on Russian territory

Jabed Ahmed15 September 2024 07:18

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Ukraine repels 10 out of 14 Russian drone strikes this morning

Ukraine’s air defence units took down 10 out of 14 drones that Russia launched overnight targeting its territory, Ukraine‘s air force said today.

Russia launched two Iskander M-ballistic missiles and one Kh-59 guided air missile targeting the southern region of Odesa, it said on the Telegram messaging app.

The guided missile was destroyed, the air force said.

It did not say what happened to the Iskander missiles or whether there was any damage as a result of the attack.

Shweta Sharma15 September 2024 07:14

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At least 7 killed as Russia shells 4 Ukraine regions, governors say

At least seven people were killed in four attacks involving Russian shelling on the south, southeast and east of Ukraine yesterday, regional Ukrainian governors said.

In the Zaporizhzhia region in southeast Ukraine, governor Ivan Fedorov said Russian shells struck an agricultural enterprise in the town of Huliaipole, killing three people.

“All the dead are employees of the enterprise,” M r Fedorov said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

A missile attack in the suburbs of the Black Sea port city of Odesa killed a man, 66, and a woman, 62, and injured a 65-year-old woman, Oleh Kiper, the Odesa regional governor, said in a post on Telegram.

(REUTERS)

“A married couple died,” he said, adding that they were found during checks of residential and commercial buildings damaged earlier in the day and that Russian forces had used a prohibited cluster warhead.

Shelling killed a sixth person in the southern region of Kherson, governor Oleksandr Prokudin, said. “A 60-year-old man who suffered serious injuries this afternoon died in hospital,” Mr Prokudin wrote on Telegram.

In Kharkiv region, Russia struck the village of Pisky-Radkivski with the high-speed Tornado-S multiple rocket launch system, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram.

The body of a 72-year-old woman was retrieved from the rubble, and two civilians, a man and a woman, were taken to hospital, he added

Shweta Sharma15 September 2024 06:36

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Russia’s Medvedev threatens to turn Kyiv into ‘giant melted spot’

Senior Russian security official and former president Dmitry Medvedev has said Russia could destroy Ukraine‘s capital Kyiv with non-nuclear weapons in response to the use of Western long-range missiles by Ukraine.

Medvedev said Moscow already had formal grounds to use nuclear weapons since Ukraine‘s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, but could instead use some of its new weapon technologies to reduce Kyiv to “a giant melted spot” when its patience runs out.

“Russia is showing patience. After all, it is obvious that a nuclear response is an extremely difficult decision with irreversible consequences,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

He added: “any patience comes to an end.”

“And then that’s it. A giant gray melted spot on the site of the mother city of Russia [Kyiv]. Holy s**t! It’s impossible, but it happened.”

Kyiv is sometimes referred to as the “mother city of Russia” because of its importance to Orthodox Christians in the region.

Jabed Ahmed15 September 2024 06:19

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Rather than US approval, Britain is seeking American-owned GPS technology

The British government has said they require the approval of both the US and France before allowing the full use of Storm Shadows by Ukrainian forces.

However, that is not absolutely correct, The Times reported, citing sources who said the missile risks being intercepted by Russian air defences or diverted off-course without US GPS technology.

Defence officials said the missiles do not fly straight to their target but are effectively “threaded through the eye of a needle” using GPS and terrain mapping data.

(PA Graphics)
(PA Graphics) (PA Graphics)

“You could absolutely fire it unilaterally, but it probably wouldn’t survive in the contested, electronically jammed environment that the Russians have,” a British defence source said.

“Russian electronic warfare has rendered GPS useless. They jam it. So it has to use another type of data set instead, which is American owned.”

This is classified, but it is likely related to the system’s ground-mapping capabilities.

Shweta Sharma15 September 2024 05:34

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Russian official says West has made up its mind on long-range strikes, reports

Moscow knows that the West has made a decision on whether to allow Ukraine to attack Russia with long-range missiles and has informed Kyiv, the TASS news agency reported citing Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.

Ryabkov did not clarify what the purported decision was, but said that since Moscow’s verbal warnings to the West against further escalation have not worked, Russia would need to switch to sending signals in different ways.

Jabed Ahmed15 September 2024 05:16

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Differences within Biden’s team holding up approval of long range missiles

A split within president Joe Biden’s team regarding Ukraine’s use of British Storm Shadows deep into Russia has delayed a decision, sources in London have said.

Keir Starmer is under pressure in the UK to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles inside Russian territory even without US backing.

The Storm Shadow is a long-range, air-launched cruise missile developed in collaboration with France and Italy which relies on American GPS guidance systems to avoid being intercepted by Russian air defences.

According to insiders, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, who held “Sherpa” talks with Tim Barrow, his opposite number before the White House meeting, is not in favour while Antony Blinken was edging towards authorisation, reported The Times.

“The problem is Sullivan, not Blinken,” a British defence source said. “All the way through it has been Sullivan.”

A political source acknowledged the differences within Washington, noting “it would be fair to say that Antony Blinken was leaning in that direction.”

There are indications that, while Mr Biden may not be ready to publicly approve the move, he is open to authorising the use of US intelligence and targeting systems alongside the Storm Shadow missiles.

Shweta Sharma15 September 2024 04:36

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Allies Starmer and Biden meet in White House to talk future. It might all change in months

Andrew Feinberg looks at how UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer could soon face a president with a drastically different view of Ukraine’s future as the new PM meets with US President Joe Biden in Washington, DC

Jabed Ahmed15 September 2024 04:17

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