Ukraine-Russia war – live: Toddler’s body pulled from rubble as air strikes death toll rises

Clowns Without Borders UK has sent about 20 clowns to refugee centers in Europe to provide “emotional first aid” to Ukrainian children.

The children’s charity has sent 19 clowns to European countries, including Poland and Romania to try and ease the mental health strain of the children displaced by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The clowns were reportedly deployed as part of Project Laughter – a mission that has supported 1,850 Ukrainian refugee children since September.

“The point is that you get to say to a little child, through play, I see you, and I care about what’s happening to you,” Samantha Holdsworth, chief of Clowns Without Borders UK, told PA.

CIA director Bill Burns told PBS NewsHour that Russian president Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has been a failure for the invading country, whose military, he said, “has performed poorly and suffered huge losses”.

“The Russian economy has suffered long-term damage. Most of the progress that the Russian middle class has made over the last 30 years is being destroyed,” he said yesterday.

“The Russian population seems increasingly uneasy about the costs of war as well,” the CIA director added.

A series of over 70 Russian missiles attacking critical infrastructure in at least four Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, triggered blackouts across the country.

While 60 of the 76 missiles were reportedly intercepted, the attacks left at least three people dead and several injured.

Russia hit energy facilities in several Ukrainian oblasts, leaving several cities without power.

Strikes targeting such critical energy infrastructure have been part of Russia’s strategy since mid-October in an attempt to freeze Ukrainians.

You can read more about the missile attacks here:

The West is right to give Zelensky a blank cheque to defend his land, because the cost of a new Russian domination of Eastern Europe would inevitably be far greater.

Russia’s targeted, strategic missile attacks are aimed at taking out power stations.

If Russia cannot win the war by defeating Ukraine’s military, it will instead try by crushing Ukraine’s civilian population.

But in 2023 events could swing Ukraine’s way as there are rumours about President Putin’s health, and as Russians realise their country’s “special military operation” hasn’t gone well.

Read the full piece here:

Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko has said the Ukrainian capital city’s water supply is back a day after targeted attacks on the country’s critical water and energy infrastructure by Russian air strikes.

Russia fired over 70 missiles yesterday in one of its biggest attacks since it invaded Ukraine in February.

While Ukraine reportedly intercepted 60 of the 76 missiles, the attack left at least three dead and several injured.

The capital city’s mayor said today that heating has been restored to half the city, adding that electricity is returned to two-thirds.

Vladimir Putin has sought proposals from his armed forces commanders on how they think Russia’s military operation in Ukraine should proceed, according to Russian news agency reports.

Putin took soundings from them on Friday during a visit to the headquarters of Russia’s joint task force on military operations in Ukraine, TASS and Interfax reported.

“We will listen to the commanders in each operational direction, and I would like to hear your proposals on our immediate and medium-term actions,” TASS quoted Putin as saying.

Putin spent the whole of Friday at the headquarters, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Interfax.

Russian forces have updated the number of missiles fired in the latest attack to 98, Ukraine’s military leadership says.

The onslaught Friday, which pummeled many parts of central, eastern and southern Ukraine, involved one of the biggest attacks yet on the capital.

Kyiv came under fire from about 40 missiles on Friday, authorities said, though air defenses intercepted 37 of them.

Utility crews were scrambling to patch up damaged power and water systems.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported Saturday that two-thirds of homes had been reconnected to electricity and all had regained access to water. The subway system also resumed service, after serving as a shelter the day before.

In Kryvyi Rih, 596 miners stuck underground because of missile strikes were all rescued, Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul reported late Friday.

Ukrainian rockets have killed three civilians in the Russian-controlled town of Shchastia in Ukraine’s Luhansk province, according to Russian-appointed regional authorities.

In a posting on Telegram, Russian-backed Luhansk officials at what they call the Joint Centre of Control and Coordination said U.S.-made HIMARS rockets had killed three people, wounded five more, and destroyed four houses.

A 36-year-old man has been killed inside his car after Russian forces shelled the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, the regional governor said.

Yaroslav Yanushevych wrote on his Telegram channel that Russian troops had struck a western district of the city with artillery and multiple rocket launchers, also injuring a 70-year-old woman.

Ukrainian forces liberated the city from Russian occupation on 11 November but officials say Kremlin forces have continued shelling it from positions on the other side of the Dnipro River.

The governor of another Ukrainian region said earlier on Saturday that rescue workers had recovered the body of a one-year-old boy from the rubble of Russian strike on a residential building Friday morning.

One of Ukraine’s most senior military officers has said the country is ‘preparing’ for the likelihood of Russian attacks on the north.

Major General Andrii Kovalchuk spoke to Sky News, where he warned that the worst could be yet to come, but he’s confident that Ukraine will come out on top.

“We are considering a possible offensive from Belarus at the end of February, maybe later,” he said.

“It will no longer be the case that they [the Russians] will simply walk in, as was the case on 24 February.”