Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump says ‘Putin is afraid of the US but not Europe’ in latest attack on allies

The former head of the RAF has warned that increased defence spending in the UK is being “eaten up by the Ministry of Defence (MoD)’s overdraft” with the UK’s military footprint shrinking at a critical moment.

The intervention by retired Air Marshall Edward Stringer comes just days after Sir Keir Starmer committed sending UK troops to Ukraine as part of the coalition of the willing to protect any peace agreement from Russian aggression.

But it represents the third warning by a former member of the UK’s military top brass in less than a week over how the UK’s commitments to Ukraine and elsewhere are not matched by resources in the armed forces and manpower.

The Russian military fired its hypersonic Oreshnik missile at Kyiv on Friday, killing at least four civilians and leaving 500,000 without power during severe winter conditions.

It is the second time that Russia has used the intermediate-range Oreshnik, a missile which President Vladimir Putin has boasted is impossible to intercept because of its reported velocity of more than 10 times the speed of sound.

Experts say the novel feature of the Oreshnik is that it can carry multiple warheads capable of simultaneously striking different targets – usually associated with longer-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

Like many Russian weapons systems, it is capable of carrying nuclear as well as conventional warheads, but there was no suggestion of any nuclear component to the overnight attack.

Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said the United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss Russia’s latest large-scale attack on Ukraine.

In a post on X, Sybiha wrote: “The meeting will address Russia’s flagrant breaches of the UN Charter. We urge Security Council members to demonstrate unity of purpose by demanding an end to the aggression, protection of civilians, and unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty.

“Russian attacks undermine international security and peace efforts by the United States, European states, and other partners. The international community must act now to ensure accountability, increase pressure on the aggressor, and restore a lasting peace.”

The overnight strike on Friday was one of the most intense in recent weeks, killing four civilians in Kyiv and knocking out heat and power supplies during freezing winter temperatures.

Russia has said the attack was retaliation for Ukrainian strikes inside Russian territory, a claim rejected by Kyiv.

As Ukraine is gripped by a bitter cold snap, more than one million people have been left without heating and electricity as Russia ramps up attacks on energy infrastructure.

Elderly residents and those with vulnerable family members told The Independent they are cold and unable to cook proper meals as they face temperatures as low as -15C.

Despondent and fearing death, many are struggling through the winter as blackouts plunge Ukraine’s cities into darkness, lit up only by the bright flash of Russian drone and missile attacks.

Vulnerable residents tell Alex Croft that life under Russian assault is as difficult as ever.

Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces carried out a drone attack overnight on Saturday on an oil depot in Russia’s Volgograd Oblast, saying the facility was supplying fuel to Russian occupation forces.

In a statement on Facebook published on Saturday, the General Staff said Ukrainian drones hit the Zhutovskaya oil depot in the Oktyabrsky district as part of efforts to weaken Russia’s military capabilities, reported the Kyiv Independent.

Russian authorities separately reported a drone attack in the region that sparked a fire at an oil facility, saying debris from a downed drone fell on the depot. Governor Andrey Bocharov said air defence systems were responding. No casualties were reported.

Russian authorities say an overnight Ukrainian drone attack injured at least four people and damaged residential buildings in the southern city of Voronezh.

The governor of the Voronezh region, Alexander Gusev, said on Telegram on Sunday that an emergency services facility, seven apartment blocks, and six houses were hit.

Reuters said it could not independently verify the claims.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on Saturday that the UN Security Council would hold an emergency meeting on January12 to discuss Russia’s latest large-scale attack, which used an Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile.

“The meeting will address Russia’s flagrant breaches of the U.N. Charter,” Sybiha wrote on X.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the country’s lead negotiator Rustem Umerov spoke with representatives of the United States on Saturday as Kyiv and Washington seek to agree on a framework to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“We continue to communicate with the American side on practically a daily basis,” Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram app.

A Ukrainian drone strike sparked a fire at an oil depot in Russia’s southern Volgograd region, regional authorities said on Saturday.

There were no immediate reports of casualties, the regional governor was quoted as saying in a Telegram post published on the channel of the local administration.

The post did not specify the damage, but said that people living near the depot may have to be evacuated.

Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes on Russian energy sites aim to deprive Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to pursue its full-scale invasion. Russia wants to cripple the Ukrainian power grid, seeking to deny civilians access to heat, light and running water in what Kyiv officials say is an attempt to “weaponize winter.”

Saturday’s attack came the day after Russia bombarded Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles overnight into Friday, according to Ukrainian officials, killing at least four people in the capital.

For only the second time in the nearly four-year-old war, it used a powerful, new hypersonic missile that struck western Ukraine on Friday in a clear warning to Kyiv’s NATO allies.