Russia-Ukraine war live: Putin’s forces hit Moscow-held towns due to fatigue, UK says

Russia plans to begin production of a new glide bomb, Drel, this year, Russian state-run media TASS has reported, citing the Russian state-owned arms manufacturer Rostec.

The bombs are designed to be dropped by jets far from their targets, then use a guided flight path to accurately deliver a payload that Western analysts consider to be a cluster munition.

Russia already has glide bombs in its arsenal and has used them against Ukraine.

The Drel is designed to destroy armoured vehicles, ground-based radar stations, power plant control centres and anti-aircraft missile systems, TASS said.

Military analysts say it is also resistant to jamming and to radar detection, making it difficult to destroy.

Editorial: Vladimir Putin cannot sustain the current level of Russian casualties for long:

Russia’s foreign ministry summoned the Moldovan ambassador on Wednesday and issued a protest against “unfriendly acts” in the latest of a series of jabs exchanged between the Kremlin and the ex-Soviet state’s pro-European authorities.

A ministry statement denounced the “systematic character” of Moldovan actions it said were directed against Russian citizens. These, it said, included “politically motivated persecution” of Russian and Russian-language journalists.

“Moldova’s leadership continues to make aggressive anti-Russian declarations,” the statement said Moldovan ambassador Lilian Darie was told.

Since taking power in 2020, President Maia Sandu has moved to abandon the Soviet legacy of the country lying between Ukraine and Romania and move it into the European mainstream.

She has denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and accused Moscow of trying to interfere in last November’s local elections in Moldova and of trying to foment a coup to remove her.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky says he and officials reached “significant” agreements on joint defence production in meetings with Lithuanian counterparts.

After a visit to Vilnius, he said: “I appreciate the Lithuanian government’s support for Ukraine. It holds great significance for us.”

Nine people have been wounded in a Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, the regional governor has said.

It is the fourth day in a row the city has been targeted.

Kharkiv governor Oleh Synehubov, writing on Telegram, said the strike involved a S-300 missile, but provided no further details. He said emergency crews were at the scene.

There’s no word yet of whether anyone was killed.

The United States would never help Europe if it came under attack and would leave Nato, which is dead, Donald Trump told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in 2020 while he was still president, according to a European Commissioner.

“You need to understand that if Europe is under attack, we will never come to help you and to support you,” Thierry Breton quoted Trump as saying during a meeting he also attended at the World Economic Forum in Davos three years ago.

“By the way, Nato is dead, and we will leave, we will quit Nato,” Trump also said, according to the European Union official.

“And by the way, you owe me $400 billion, because you didn’t pay, you Germans, what you had to pay for defence.”

Trump has offered few clues about what kind of foreign policy he would pursue were he to win the US election, beyond broad claims including ending the Ukraine war in 24 hours, prompting concern in European capitals.

Nato allies have made clear to Ukraine they will continue to provide the country with major military, economic and humanitarian aid, officials have said.

Member states had outlined plans to provide “billions of euros of further capabilities” this year to Ukraine, a statement after the video conference said.

“Nato strongly condemns Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians, including with weapons from North Korea and Iran,” Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said.

“As Moscow intensifies its strikes on Ukrainian cities and civilians, Nato allies are boosting Ukraine’s air defences.”

Russia has intensified attacks over the New Year period and this month pounded Ukraine’s two biggest cities, Kyiv and Kharkiv, in a new wave of heavy air strikes.

A 48-year-old woman has been killed when Russian forces launched two guided aerial bombs on a village, officials have reportedly said.

One bomb hit a residential area in Vilkhuvatka in the Kharkiv region near the Russian border, killing the woman, according to Oleh Syniehubov, head of Kharkiv oblast military administration, on Telegram.

A shop and at least 10 houses were also damaged. The other bomb started a fire in a school, the State Emergency Service reported, according to the Kyiv Independent.

Moscow has been intensifying its military operations in the Kupiansk area, hoping to capture the city, the Ukrainian military warned.

United Nations agencies will next week ask for $3.1 billion to finance aid to Ukraine this year, a senior humanitarian official official told the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

The comment – made by Edem Wosorno, director of the Operations and Advocacy Division for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) – comes as OCHA and the UN refugee agency prepare to launch their response plans for Ukraine on 15 January.

OCHA has said that more than 14.6 million people, or 40 percent of Ukraine’s population, will require humanitarian assistance this year due to Russia’s full-scale invasion. The conflict has also forced some 6.3 million people to flee abroad.

The United States and seven other nations on Wednesday accused Russia of exploiting its position as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council by acquiring North Korean missiles and firing them into Ukraine in violation of Council resolutions.

“A permanent Security Council member that willingly engages in these violations demonstrates a clear exploitation of its position,” said the statement by permanent Council members Britain, France and the United States, non-permanent members Malta, Slovenia and South Korea as well as Japan and Ukraine.