Ukraine war: Russia follows nuclear threat by downing 50 Ukrainian drones
Russia said it had shot down 50 Ukrainian drones shortly after Ukraine had fired a US long-range missile inside Russia’s borders for the first time.
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Russia said it had shot down 50 Ukrainian drones overnight over regions bordering Ukraine.
Russian systems “destroyed or intercepted 44 Ukrainian aerial drones,” according to a statement from the Russian Defense Ministry.
The majority were neutralised over the Novgorod region, according to the ministry.
Other drones were shot down in Kursk, Belgorod and Briansk, as well as over the Moscow region.
In addition, six Ukrainian drones were shot down Wednesday morning over the Samara, according to the regional governor, Vyacheslav Fedorishchev.
The attack did not cause any injuries or damage, he said on Telegram. Russia announces almost daily that it has destroyed Ukrainian drones launched against its territory.
Kyiv says it carries out these strikes, which often target energy sites, in response to Russian bombings of its territory.
It comes as North Korea has sent additional shipments of artillery and rocket launchers to Russia to support its war against Ukraine as its troops enter combat, a South Korean lawmaker said on Wednesday.
Seoul has accused the North of sending thousands of soldiers and container-loads of weapons to Russia as military ties between the two countries have grown closer, despite rafts of sanctions on both.
The South’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) “has confirmed that the North has shipped 170mm self-propelled artillery and long-range 240mm rocket launchers”, Lee Seong-kweun, who serves on a parliamentary intelligence committee, said after an NIS briefing.
Pyongyang has also dispatched additional personnel to maintain and repair the new weapons, as they are not part of Russia’s conventional arsenal, he added, without providing details.
The United States will also soon provide Ukraine with antipersonnel land mines to shore up its defenses against Russian forces, a US official said.
The decision comes as President Joe Biden works to boost Ukraine’s war effort in the final months of his administration, before Ukraine aid critic Donald Trump takes power in January.
On Sunday Biden gave Ukraine the green light to fire US-supplied long range missiles into Russian territory.
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RUSSIA’S NUCLEAR THREAT AFTER UKRAINE FIRES US MISSILE
Russia warned it would respond after Ukraine fired US long-range missiles at its territory for the first time, as the Kremlin issued a nuclear threat.
The missile attack, which Ukrainian officials confirmed to RBC Ukraine was one of America’s Army Tactical Missile Systems, targeted an ammunition store in Karachev, in Russia’s Bryansk region which is about 120km from the Ukrainian border on Tuesday.
Russia’s Defence Ministry confirmed six missiles were shot at the facility, five of which they shot down.
However the sixth missile made contact in spectacular fashion with video of the strike quickly going viral.
🚨🇺🇦🇷🇺UKRAINE USES U.S MISSILES TO HIT RUSSIAN AMMO DEPOT
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) November 19, 2024
A huge explosion lit up the night sky around 77 miles from the nearest Ukrainian border at an ammunition store in Karachev, in Russia's Bryansk region.Â
Eyewitnesses reported that the ammo dump was targeted by missiles,… https://t.co/QYFP5cn1Ozpic.twitter.com/6nPf1bb67D
The fiery events occurred as Ukraine marked the grim milestone of 1000 days at war with Russia.
News of the launch came just minutes after Russia publicly announced they had updated their nuclear doctrine.
“The use of Western non-nuclear rockets by the Armed Forces of Ukraine against Russia can prompt a nuclear response,” the new doctrine reads.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Tuesday that Russia had made the decisive change to its policy.
“The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression with the use of conventional weapons against it,” Mr Peskov said.
Mr Peskov added the change was “necessary to bring our principles in line with the current situation.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the attack showed Western countries wanted to “escalate” the conflict.
“We will be taking this as a qualitatively new phase of the Western war against Russia. And we will react accordingly,” Lavrov told a press conference at the G20 summit in Brazil.
It came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issued a stark five-word warning to Vladimir Putin as he told the Russian President: “Missiles will speak for themselves”.
ZELENSKYY’S FIVE WORD WARNING
US President Joe Biden, who has long snubbed Mr Zelenskyy’s pleas for Western-supplied weapons, gave the go-ahead for American-supplied ATACMS missiles to be used to strike inside Russian territory.
Mr Zelenskyy said: “There’s a lot of talk in the media about us receiving permission for respective actions.
“But strikes are not carried out with words. Such things are not announced. Missiles will speak for themselves.”
With President-elect Donald Trump due to enter the White House in January, it is unclear whether he will uphold Mr Biden’s policy.
Mr Trump has vowed to end the war between Russia and Ukraine when he is formally sworn into office next year.
In an earlier statement on X, Donald Trump Jr slammed Mr Biden’s move.
“The Military Industrial Complex seems to want to make sure they get World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives,” he wrote.
CHILLING WARNING TO SWEDES; UNDERSEA CABLE CUT
Swedish citizens have been provided with terrifying war survival guides as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine escalates.
Millions of pamphlets have been delivered to Swedish homes eerily titled: “If Crisis or War Comes,” while other Nordic nations issued their own advice.
Stockholm has urged Swedes to prepare for conflict, while neighbouring Finland has published its own chilling advice online to prepare “for incidents and crises”.
Meanwhile, Russian sabotage is being blamed after a vital undersea internet cable that connects Finland to Germany was mysteriously cut.
The fault in the undersea C-Lion1 cable has disrupted communication services between both countries, and comes just days the US warned that it had detected increased Russian military activity around key cables.
The cable, which links Helsinki to Rostock in Germany, was built and is operated by Cinia, a state-controlled Finnish company, The Sun reports.
PUTIN CRITIC DANCER FALLS TO DEATH
A Russian ballet dancer who was an outspoken critic of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has mysteriously plunged to his death from the fifth floor of a building.
Vladimir Shklyarov, the highest-ranking dancer for the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, fell to his death from a building on the weekend.
Russian authorities initially blamed the death of the 39-year-old father of two on painkillers he was taking before a complex spinal surgery, The New York Post reports.
However, he joins numerous other Putin critics of who have met untimely ends, including a famed exiled chef Alexei Zimin, dubbed Russia’s Jamie Oliver, who was found dead in a Serbian hotel room.
Ballet dancer Shklyarov, who was married to fellow ballet dancer Maria Shirinkina, had posted a series of anti-war -comments on Facebook in 2022
FRANCE, CHINA RESPOND TO MOVE
France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Monday that Paris remained open to allowing Ukraine to use French long-range missiles to strike military targets inside Russia, after the United States cleared Kyiv to use American missiles for the same purpose.
Washington’s policy shift – long demanded by Ukraine – came in response to North Korea deploying troops to help Moscow’s war effort, US officials have said. The move is likely to lead European allies to review their stances.
Mr Barrot recalled that French President Emmanuel Macron had already said in May that Paris was open to consider greenlighting the use of its missiles to strike on Russian soil.
“We openly said that this was an option that we would consider if it was to allow to strike targets from where Russians are currently aggressing Ukrainian territory,” Mr Barrot told reporters in Brussels.
“Nothing new under the sun,” he added ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in the Belgian capital.
China, which has presented itself as a neutral party to the Ukraine war, urged a peaceful settlement.
“An early ceasefire and a political solution serve the interests of all parties,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a regular briefing, when asked about the US decision.
“The most urgent thing is to promote the cooling down of the situation as soon as possible,” he said.
MASSIVE RUSSIAN AIR ATTACK POUNDS UKRAINE
Russia’s missile attack on Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odessa killed 10 people and wounded 44.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram that a Russian ballistic missile had hit a residential neighbourhood, and that an apartment building, a university building and an administrative building had been damaged.
“These are not random strikes – these are show strikes. After calls and meetings with Putin, after all the false gossip in the media about supposedly ‘refraining’ from strikes. Russia is showing what it is really interested in: only war,” he said.
The hit on the populous Ukrainian seaport targeted a multistorey building, car parks and a shopping centre, Ukraine’s state emergency service said.
Hundreds of missiles and drones streaked across Kyiv's skies as Russia’s invasion dragged past its one thousandth day, leaving more than 20 people wounded as well as the dead and damaging the country's already beleaguered energy grid.
Two workers were also found dead following strikes in Ukraine’s central Dnipro region.
Missiles directly hit the local rail depot leaving another three people wounded.
Harrowing images from a metro station in the Ukraine capital of Kyiv show scared civilians forced to stay underground as air sirens sounded across the city.
People were seen sleeping on the floor and even holding their pets as the sounds of blasts pulsated nearby.
Emergency blackouts hit Kyiv as well as two other regions in the east.
Kyiv’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha described Putin as a “war criminal” for ordering the attacks.
He described the assault as “one of the largest” of the war so far.
“Russia launched one of the largest air attacks: drones and missiles against peaceful cities, sleeping civilians, critical infrastructure,” he said.
“This is war criminal Putin’s true response to all those who called and visited him recently.
“We need peace through strength, not appeasement.”
The foreign minister made the comments after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz phoned Mr Putin in a widely condemned move.
After the first attacks, Poland, Ukraine’s NATO neighbour, scrambled several fighter jets to patrol its airspace.
Romania is also said to have deployed jets of their own.
Reports also claim that some of Mr Putin’s weaponry ended up “very close to Hungary”.
Moscow’s rocket attacks reached the Zakarpattia Oblast region which is one of the furthest away from Russia, Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko said.
– with AFP
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