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

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.”

Poland’s premier Donald Tusk has travelled to his country’s border with the Russian region of Kaliningrad to inspect progress in the construction of military fortifications along the eastern frontier, calling it “an investment in peace.”

Vanessa Gera and Rafal Niedzielski have more details in this report:

Volodymyr Zelensky’s suggestion that Ukraine could temporarily cede territory to Russia in return for Nato assurances are “quite smart” but it is unlikely that Vladimir Putin would accept such an arrangement, an expert has suggested.

Asked about the Ukrainian president’s recent remarks on ending the “hot phase” of Russia’s war, James Nixey, of the Chatham House think-tank, told The Independent in emailed remarks: “It’s quite smart.

“Because territory can be regained – even militarily if need be (and the Ukrainians could switch to ‘deniable’ subversive warfare). Or it could be re-acquired under a post-Putin regime. It’s hard to see Ukraine ever giving up on it forever.

“However, it’s even harder to see Putin going for it,” said Mr Nixey, adding: “Putin wants control, not territory. That’s why he hasn’t invaded Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan etc. He controls them ‘enough’ and they have not been so wayward.

“So Ukraine – any part of it – in Nato as part of a deal would be unacceptable.”

Asked whether Ukraine ceding territory in a peace deal would hand a form of victory to Vladimir Putin, the UK’s former representative to Nato Sir Adam Thomson told Sky News: “The outcome that Zelensky is suggesting is agreement to disagree over who owns a chunk of Ukraine currently owned by Russia.

“Russia would claim it as its own. Zelensky is making the crucial point that this would not be internationally legally recognised – it would just be a de facto control that could change at some future stage through diplomacy.

“Putin would have seized some territory, he would have done it at extraordinary cost – billions and billions of dollars, two new Nato members already, a thousand or more Russian soldiers being killed or wounded every day at the moment.

“It’s in that sense a compromise. He’s got some territory under his control, it’s not recognised, and it’s an outcome that means he’s lost the rest of Ukraine and alienated Europe for a generation.”