Ukraine-Russia war latest: Zelensky says Patriot missiles could ‘close our skies’ but are just gathering dust

The Kremlin has played down the damage to Russian influence in the Middle East from the fall of Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad, saying that its focus was Ukraine and that Moscow was in contact with the new rulers of Syria.

When Russia intervened in the Syrian Civil War in 2015, it helped tip the balance in Assad’s favour, so his fall from power dealt a serious setback to both Russia, which is fighting a major land war in Ukraine, and to Iran, which is battling US-backed Israel across the Middle East.

“You know, of course, that we are in contact with those who are currently in control of the situation in Syria,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Asked how much the fall of Assad had weakened Russia’s influence in the region, Peskov said that Moscow maintained contacts with all countries in the region and would continue to do so.

Moscow’s priority, Peskov said, was the war in Ukraine, which President Vladimir Putin calls a “special military operation”.

Moscow has supported Syria since the early days of the Cold War, recognising its independence in 1944 as Damascus sought to throw off French colonial rule. The West saw Syria as a Soviet satellite.

President Joe Biden is pushing US national security agencies ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration to devise new strategies to tackle the risky, deepening ties among Russia, Iran, North Korea and China, according to US officials.

In exchange for Iran's help with the Russian war effort in Ukraine, Moscow is giving its ally fighter aircraft, missile defence and space technology, Biden concluded in a national security memorandum issued on Tuesday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is giving North Korea fuel, money and technology, and is recognizing it as a de facto nuclear state. Russia is conducting joint patrols with China in the Arctic, the administration said.

The classified document was described in general terms to reporters. Russia, China, Iran and North Korea have disputed similar assessments in the past and accused Washington of destabilizing behaviour.

Biden's new document orders various arms of the U.S. government to restructure groups currently organized by region to better focus on issues linking the four countries that span Europe and Asia.

The document's strategies and policy suggestions could be implemented - or rejected altogether - by President-elect Trump, a Republican who takes office on 20 January.

Kazakhstan pipeline operator Kaztransoil said on Wednesday that the Druzhba oil pipeline, which brings Russian and Kazakh oil to Europe, was not damaged during Ukrainian overnight attacks on Russian targets.

A cat sanctuary rescuing lions from war-torn Ukraine has successfully met its fundraising target to help provide “forever homes” for the animals.

The Big Cat Sanctuary is a Kent-based charity behind the Big Cats in Crisis campaign, and reached its fundraising target of £500,000 to help rescue five lions, Yuna, Rori, Vanda, Amani and Lira, from Ukraine to the Lion Rescue Centre in Smarden.

The money will help towards transportation costs, veterinary treatment and a new habitat, which the sanctuary started creating in July and expects to finish in the new year.

African lioness Yuna was taken to the Lion Rescue Centre, a journey spanning six countries and lasting more than four days, in August, after she suffered shell shock and psychological issues from heavy bombing.

She was found cramped in a concrete enclosure with an aggressive male, and the continued shelling left her unable to stand or walk, according to the Big Cat Sanctuary.

The three-year-old lioness has seen grass for the first time, after being rescued by the sanctuary.

The sanctuary thanked people for their donations.

A Ukrainian overnight attack on an oil depot in Russia's Bryansk region did not affect oil transit to Europe via Ukraine, a Ukrainian industry source has said.

Ukraine's military said on Wednesday the depot is a part of Druzhba oil export pipeline and that a "massive fire" broke out following the strike.

"The attack does not concern oil transit, as it is a facility that works to ensure the supply of diesel fuel and petroleum products. Everything is going on as planned with transit," the source told Reuters.

Ukraine struck a southern Russian port on the Azov Sea with missiles and triggered a fire at an oil depot in the Bryansk region of western Russia with drones, according to officials and media reports.

The extent of the damage and the exact weapons used in the attack was unclear, though Russia has repeatedly cautioned that Ukraine's use of U.S. ATACMS to strike sovereign Russian territory risks triggering a wider war.

Russia's defence ministry said its air defence units destroyed 14 Ukrainian drones overnight over the Bryansk region that borders Ukraine. It did not say what was hit.

Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz said on his Telegram channel that a production facility caught a short-lived fire as result of the attack. He did not say what facility was damaged.

Ukraine's military said it had caused a "massive fire" at an oil depot with a strike on the Bryansk region.

The Soviet-built Druzhba oil pipeline, which pumps oil from the fields in Western Siberia and the Caspian Sea to the markets of Europe, runs through the Bryansk region, as does the Baltic Pipeline System (BPS) which runs to the Baltic Sea.

About 750 km (465 miles) south, the Russian port of Taganrog was hit by missiles from Ukraine, damaging an industrial facility and numerous cars, the acting governor of Rostov region said.

“According to preliminary information, no one was hurt,” Yuri Slyusar said on the Telegram messaging app.

Slyusar said 14 cars had caught fire, but he did not disclose details on what else was hit or how big the attack was.

Ukraine's military has said that it struck an oil depot in Russia's Bryansk region overnight.

The Ukrainian military said that a "massive fire" broke out following the strike, in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

Russia has claimed Ukraine's armed forces launched a series of strikes on a convoy of cars on Tuesday, which had been used to transport experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

IAEA Director General Mariano Grossi said that a drone hit and severely damaged an official vehicle of the agency on the road to Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on Tuesday.

President Volodymyr Zelensky used his first meeting with Donald Trump since the US election to explain Ukraine's need for security guarantees in any negotiated end to the war with Russia, two sources familiar with the 7 December discussions said.

French President Emmanuel Macron hosted the meeting in Paris, during which Ukraine's leader sought to build a rapport with Trump, whose promise to end the conflict swiftly has raised concerns in Kyiv that it could be largely on Moscow's terms.

The three leaders, who talked for 35 minutes without advisers, did not discuss specific details of any vision for peace, but Trump repeated that he wanted an immediate ceasefire and negotiations to end the war quickly, four of the people said.

The meeting offered some early clues as to how negotiations on ending the conflict might play out, although the process that would involve Russian President Vladimir Putin is fraught with difficulty and the role of the United States as yet unclear.

Trump behaved in a friendly, respectful and open manner and appeared to be in listening mode, one of the sources said. Trump's team did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this article.

Neither Trump nor officials close to him dealing with Ukraine have been forthcoming on how exactly they envisage a solution to the war and to Ukraine's insistence that it has to receive security guarantees as part of any settlement.

That has created a mounting sense of uncertainty in Kyiv that has been compounded by months of steady Russian territorial gains in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region and nightly drone attacks on cities far behind the front lines.

"Some key points were mentioned during the meeting, for example, it was said that peace needs guarantees because a ceasefire alone isn't enough, Putin could break it again, as he has done before, without proper guarantees," a source in the Ukrainian president's office said.

Asked how that was received, the source said, referring to Trump, "He's thinking about all the details."