Russia-Ukraine war latest: Kyiv says Putin’s experimental missile carried dummy warheads

Ukraine’s air defences downed 36 of 89 Russian drones launched overnight, the Ukrainian military said this morning.

The military said on Telegram it had lost track of 48 drones, and another five had left the territory of Ukraine to Russia and Belarus.

The overnight attack comes a day after Russia fired its biggest aerial attack with 188 drones on Kyiv yesterday.

Nato’s new secretary general Mark Rutte said the alliance “needs to go further” to support Ukraine in its fight against a Russian invasion and accused Moscow of dangerously escalating the conflict by bringing in thousands of North Korean troops.

“In pursuing its illegal war in Ukraine, Russia makes use of North Korean weapons and troops, Iranian drones and Chinese dual use goods for its defense industry,” Mr Rutte said while on a visit to Greece yesterday. “This is a dangerous expansion of the war and a challenge to global peace and security.”

Mr Rutte, a former Dutch prime minister who took over as Nato chief last month, met Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Athens and thanked him for Greek support for Ukraine that includes weapons and ammunition, as well as training for F-16 pilots and technicians.

Russia has been hammering civilian areas of Ukraine with increasingly heavy drone, missile and glide bomb attacks since the middle of the year.

At the same time, Russia’s army has largely held the battlefield initiative for the past year and has been pushing hard in the eastern Donetsk region where it is making significant tactical advances, according to Western military analysts.

Ukraine faces a difficult winter, with worries about the reliability of the electricity supply amid Russia’s attacks and how much US support it can count on next year after President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.

Russian air defence systems destroyed 22 Ukrainian drones overnight, Russia’s defence ministry said this morning.

Of these, 10 of the drones were destroyed over the territory of the southern Rostov region, while the rest were in the Belgorod, Voronezh, Kursk, Bryansk, and Smolensk regions, the ministry said on Telegram.

Dozens of British soldiers have been drafted in to help the US find out who is responsible for flying more mystery drones over three air bases in England.

A small number of drones were spotted overnight flying over RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk and RAF Feltwell in Norfolk, United States Air Force (USAF) confirmed on Tuesday.

Sources told the PA news agency around 60 troops have been deployed to help USAF in its investigation of the incident.

Nato members reaffirmed their support for Ukraine during talks with the country’s officials yesterday, held in response to Russia’s launch of an experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile.

“The chief of the defence intelligence of Ukraine and acting commander of the air force joined the meeting online and briefed the allies on the details of the attack and its possible consequences,” Nataliia Galibarenko, Ukraine’s ambassador to Nato, said in a statement.

Ambassadors representing Nato’s 32 member countries were briefed by senior Ukrainian officials after Kyiv called a meeting of the Nato-Ukraine Council, a forum for cooperation.

“They emphasised to the partners that this outrageous attack was a blatant demonstration of force by Russia and a fruitless attempt to intimidate the allies,” she added.

Vladimir Putin said Moscow struck a Ukrainian military facility with a new intermediate-range, hypersonic ballistic missile in response to the US and UK’s allowing Kyiv to strike Russian territory with advanced Western weapons.

Locals in Kyiv go about their days, shortly after Russia launched 188 drones against most regions of Ukraine in a nighttime blitz.

The Ukrainian air force said it was a record number of drones deployed in a single attack. Many of the drones were intercepted, according to the air force, but apartment buildings and critical infrastructure such as the national power grid were damaged.

No casualties were immediately reported in the 17 targeted regions.

A Russian drone attack on Kyiv wounded three people, two of whom were hospitalised, officials in the Ukrainian capital said today.

Falling debris from a destroyed drone damaged a non-residential building in Kyiv’s Dniprovskyi district, mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said that air defence units were operating in the city after midnight.

The scale of the attack was not immediately clear. The strikes come after Russia launched a record number of drones targeting Ukraine yesterday, cutting power to much of the western region of Ternopil and damaging residential buildings in the Kyiv region.

Ukraine is withdrawing faulty 120mm mortar shells from the frontline after multiple reports of them misfiring, officials said.

The supply of defective shells is being investigated by an interdepartmental commission, Ukraine’s defence ministry said, which said around 100,000 Ukraine-made 120mm rounds had to be recalled from the battlefield.

Several complaints and videos shared on social media showed the mortar shells not exploding or failing to hit their targets. Ukraine’s defence ministry confirmed the withdrawal of the batches of ammunition and said it will now provide Ukrainian forces with imported shells.

Earlier this month, Ukrainian soldiers said the rounds did not explode, remained stuck in the launcher or fell off target.