Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin ‘dragging Asia into war’ as North Korea troops join marine and air forces

The Russian defence ministry said its forces had gained control over two settlements, Illinka and Petrivka, in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

It also said that Russian air defences shot down 55 Ukrainian drones in the past 24 hours.

Russian forces hold a little less than 20 per cent of Ukraine’s territory and have advanced through Donetsk region over the past two months at their fastest rate since March 2022, according to open source data.

They are approaching Kurakhove and the town of Pokrovsk to the north, the site of the sole colliery that supplies Ukraine’s steel industry with coking coal.

Volodymyr Zelensky’s suggestion that Ukraine could temporarily cede territory to Russia in exchange for joining Nato would mark a “major concession” to Vladimir Putin, the UK’s former ambassador to Russia has said.

In a significant development on the route to a potential ceasefire after 33 months of conflict, the Ukrainian president indicated for the first time that Kyiv could accept Russian control over some of its territory in order to end the “hot phase of the war”.

With Moscow appearing to ramp up its push for territory in Ukraine’s east ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January, Mr Zelensky told Sky News that peace could be struck if territory he controls is taken “under the Nato umbrella”, allowing him to negotiate the return of the rest later “in a diplomatic way”.

The US is not considering returning to Ukraine the nuclear weapons it gave up after the Soviet Union collapsed, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said yesterday.

Mr Sullivan made his remarks when questioned about a New York Times article last month that said some unidentified Western officials had suggested president Joe Biden could give Ukraine the arms before he leaves office.

“That is not under consideration, no. What we are doing is surging various conventional capacities to Ukraine so that they can effectively defend themselves and take the fight to the Russians, not (giving them) nuclear capability,” he told ABC.

Last week, Russia said the idea was “absolute insanity” and that preventing such a scenario was one of the reasons why Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.

Kyiv inherited nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union after its 1991 collapse but gave them up under a 1994 agreement, the Budapest Memorandum, in return for security assurances from Russia, the United States and Britain.

The head of MI6 has accused Russia of waging a “staggeringly reckless campaign” of sabotage in Europe to undermine support against Vladimir Putin’s push to turn Ukraine into a “vassel state”.

“In 37 years in the intelligence profession I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state. And the impact on Europe, our shared European home, could hardly be more serious,” Sir Richard Moore said, adding that if “Putin is allowed to succeed in reducing Ukraine to a vassal state he will not stop there.”

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Russia’s drone attack on Ukraine’s western city of Ternopil hit a residential building, killing one person and injuring several others, Ternopil’s military administration said this morning.

“A residential building was damaged,” Viacheslav Negoda, the head of the military administration of Ternopil region, said. “Unfortunately, there are casualties: one person has died, there are seriously wounded.”

Serhiy Nadal, the head of the regional defence headquarters in Ternopil, said via Telegram that as result of the attack, a fire engulfed several flats on the top floor of a five-storey apartment building.

He said that residents from several apartments were evacuated and that emergency services were working at the scene. Social media videos showed flames bursting out of the windows of a multi-storey apartment building in the darkness.

The city of Ternopil and its surrounding region were under air raid alerts for a couple of hours starting soon after midnight today, according to data provided by Ukraine’s air force.

British defence secretary John Healey has warned that the UK’s defence industry needs to be more integrated in order to strengthen the country’s security and economy.

Unveiling plans for the first British defence industrial strategy since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Mr Healey said: “Our defence sector should be an engine for jobs and growth, strengthening our security and economy.

“That requires a defence industry that is better and more integrated – one that can keep our armed forces equipped, innovating at a wartime pace, and ahead of our adversaries.

“We will develop this new defence industrial strategy with industry, with innovators and with workers. We will mobilise the private sector to help face down global threats, direct more public investment to British businesses and create jobs and growth in every nation and region of the UK.

“National security is the foundation for national stability and growth. We are sending a signal to the market and to our adversaries: with a strong UK defence sector we will make Britain secure at home and strong abroad.”

British defence firms will be prioritised for UK government money under a new strategy due to be announced on Monday.

Defence secretary John Healey will launch the defence industrial strategy and pledge to increase jobs in the sector across the UK, with investors and unions among those set to be invited to offer views on the sector.

Officials are also exploring how to make the defence supply chain more resilient, with the industry due to take part in a “war game” exercise which will test how firms and the Ministry of Defence could maintain supplies to the front line if they were faced with fighting and supply chain disruption.

This will be the first defence industrial strategy since Russia invaded Ukraine, with the last version published in 2021, and it is expected to be published in the first half of 2025, with consultation open until the end of February.

Ukraine is entering a “potentially decisive phase” in Russia’s war which will be crucial for Britain’s future security and prosperity, the UK’s former representative to Nato has said.

Speaking to Sky News in the wake of Volodymyr Zelensky’s interview discussing how to end the “hot phase” of the war, Sir Adam Thomson said: “This is a very significant statement by President Zelensky.

“With a new US administration coming in, we’re entering a potentially decisive phase in the Ukraine war that’s going to be crucial for the UK’s security and prosperity for years to come.

“Zelensky is addressing his own domestic audience, and is preparing them for compromises, but above all in this interview he is making opening moves in what’s likely to be an extended negotiation with the incoming Trump administration about what line Washington is going to take with the Kremlin.

“He’s moving Ukraine to a much more realistic position. Still not necessarily an achievable one, but more realistic.

“About three quarters of Nato allies, I would say, privately think that if it could be done Nato membership would be the least bad outcome in the sense of being the least expensive and the most stable outcome. But it couldn’t be done without the US president being wholly behind it and persuading two thirds of the US senate and quite a number of doubting allies.”

Desertion is starving the Ukrainian army of desperately needed manpower and crippling its battle plans at a crucial time in its war with Russia, which could put Kyiv at a clear disadvantage in future ceasefire talks.

Facing every imaginable shortage, tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops, tired and bereft, have walked away from combat and front-line positions to slide into anonymity, according to soldiers, lawyers and Ukrainian officials. Entire units have abandoned their posts, leaving defensive lines vulnerable and accelerating territorial losses, according to military commanders and soldiers.

Some take medical leave and never return, haunted by the traumas of war and demoralized by bleak prospects for victory. Others clash with commanders and refuse to carry out orders, sometimes in the middle of firefights.

Russia has raised the threat of using nuclear weapons more than 200 times since invading Ukraine, the UK’s former representative to Nato has said.

Sir Adam Thomson told Sky News: “If Ukraine were actually inside Nato it would have the US nuclear guarantee. And this has been a very nuclear conflict.

“Over 200 times Moscow has threatened its nuclear capability as a way of deterring Western countries from helping Ukraine, and it’s perfectly logical therefore that the best way of stabilising this is giving Ukraine the Nato nuclear guarantee.”

He added: “The whole Russian behaviour and use of nuclear threat is extraordinarily dangerous because Putin is actually bluffing until he isn’t, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell when that moment comes.

“But clearly at present Russia is not in a desperate situation where it would contemplate the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine and its bluff in that sense has been called by its use of British and American missiles deeper into Russian territory.”