Russian strikes on two cities in southeastern Ukraine have killed 12 and injured more than 40, local officials have said.
A strike on a car repair shop in Zaporizhzhia turned the facility into a giant fireball and killed 10 people, the regional governor said. Some 24 people were injured, including two children, a local official said.
Some settlements experienced power supply problems after the attack, the governor added.
In Kryvyi Rih, president Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, also in the southeast, a missile strike on an administrative building killed two people.
It comes as Ukraine showed off a new locally-produced “rocket-drone” which it said could fly 700 km – more than twice the longest range attributed to missiles supplied by Western allies.
The unmanned craft, called “Peklo” – which means hell in Ukrainian – is the second “rocket drone” unveiled by Kyiv as it tries to increase its ability to strike deep into Russia.
Ukraine‘s arms production minister told Reuters in November the “rocket-drone” could be viewed as something akin to a cruise missile, which flies low on a guided path to its target, usually below the speed of sound.
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Russia says it has taken another village in Ukraine’s Donetsk region
Russia’s Defence Ministry has said that its forces had taken Berestky, a small village close to the embattled town of Kurakhove in Ukraine‘s eastern Donetsk region.
The Independent could not verify this claim.
Pictured: Zelensky arrives at Paris’s Elysee Presidential Palace
Russian gains in eastern Ukraine accelerate through the Autumn
Russian forces have increased the pace at which they are taking territory in eastern Ukraine, as Kyiv’s troops struggle to hold back a much larger and more heavily armed military.
Along the 1,000 km frontline, Moscow has focused its attacks on towns and villages around the transport hub of Pokrovsk, the seizure of which could severely disrupt Ukraine’s ability to supply its forces.
Pasi Paroinen, an analyst from the Finland-based Black Bird Group, which studies footage and satellite images from the frontline, told Reuters that Russian gains in Ukraine had accelerated in recent months.
He estimated the following monthly territorial gains by Russia:
- August – 403 sq km
- September – 422 sq km
- October – 491 sq km
- 1-18 November – 363 sq km
In Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched an incursion in August, Kyiv now holds approximately 500 sq km of territory, Paroinen estimated, down from a maximum of around 1,200 sq km.
Trump to hold three-way meeting with Macron, Zelensky in Paris
US President-elect Donald Trump will hold three-way talks in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday, the Elysee said.
What Russia’s invasion has cost Ukraine after more than 1,000 days of war
Devastating human and material losses continue to mount, leaving Ukraine more vulnerable than at any time since the early days of the war.
As of 31 August, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine had documented at least 11,743 civilians killed and 24,614 wounded in Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Ukrainian prosecutors have said 589 Ukrainian children had been killed by 15 November.
Western countries believe Russia has suffered far worse casualties than Ukraine, sometimes losing more than 1,000 soldiers killed per day during periods of intense fighting in the east.
But it is Ukraine, with around a third of Russia’s population, that is likely to be facing the more severe manpower shortages arising from battles of attrition.
Russia now occupies and claims to have annexed around a fifth of Ukraine, an area around the size of Greece.
The draft 2025 budget envisages that about 26% of Ukraine’s GDP, or 2.2 trillion hryvnias ($53.3 billion), would go on defence. Ukraine has already received more than $100 billion from its Western partners in financial aid.
What is ATACMS? The US missiles being used inside Russia
There are several variants of Army Tactical Missile Systems, a long-range missile system that often carries varying amounts of cluster bomblets.
Ukrainian forces used the US-supplied long-range ATACMS missiles for the first time in October 2023, with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy saying the weapons had “proven themselves.”
Ukraine likely has what are known as M39A1 Block IA ATACMS that are guided in part by Global Positioning System and have a range of 40 to 190 miles. They can carry a payload of 300 bomblets. The M39 Block IA were used in Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to Army documents, and were added to the US arsenal in 1997.
What is Russia’s ‘Oreshnik’ missile?
Vladimir Putin said Russia had struck Ukraine with a new hypersonic medium-range ballistic missile in response to Kyiv’s use of US and British missiles against Russia.
On 21 November, he said Russia had launched an “Oreshnik”, one of its newest intermediate-range missiles, at a defence enterprise in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
Putin said it travelled at 10 times the speed of sound and could not be intercepted. It has a range of around 3,100 miles allowing Russia to strike most of Europe, according to experts.
It appears to have multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles: separate warheads able to hit different targets.
Anatoly Matviychuk, a Russian military expert, said it could carry six to eight conventional or nuclear warheads, and was probably already in service.
Source: independent.co.uk