Ukraine-Russia war latest: Nato issues stark winter warning after Kyiv faces hypersonic missile attack

Ukraine’s air force says it shot down 18 Russian drones in an overnight attack between Monday and Tuesday.

Russian forces launched two Iskander-M ballistic missiles and 19 drones in the attack on the southern region of Odesa, the air force said on Telegram.

But after 18 drones were shot down, the last one returned to Russian territory, Reuters reported.

Oleh Kiper, the Odesa regional governor, said a fire broke out on three floors of an apartment building in the city of Chornomorsk. No casualties were reported.

Another fire was extinguished at an administratice and production building, and one drone dropped into an open area without detonating.

On Monday, a Russian missile hit vessel bearing the flag of Palau. One Ukrainian national was killed and five crew members were injured in the second such attack in two days, officials said.

Vladimir Putin’s residence in Sochi has likely been demolished amid fears of a deadly drone attack, an investigative report said.

The Russian president spent a record low number of days at the Bocharov Ruchey residence, which was renovated in 2014 after the Olympics, reported independent investigative outlet Proekt.

Mr Putin “felt a threat to his physical safety” after multiple drone attacks on the Black Sea spot by Ukraine in fall last year, the investigators said, claiming a source close to the Russian president confirmed this theory.

The main building of the Sochi residence was completely demolished at the beginning of the year, the investigation claimed. A new construction project is underway at the same spot, it added.

Ukraine’s armed forces commander General Oleksandr Syrskyi said he discussed the military component of Ukraine’s victory plan during a phone call with Air Force General CQ Brown, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.

General Syrskyi said he also briefed Brown on the battlefield situation and Ukraine’s critical weapons and equipment needs ahead of a meeting at the US Ramstein Air Base this weekend.

Vladimir Putin’s forces launched hypersonic missiles at Ukraine on Monday as Kyiv attacked Moscow’s largest oil depot in occupied Crimea.

Ukrainian troops were forced to down at least two eight-metre long Kinzhal missiles fired at Kyiv while another hit an airfield 170 miles further west in Starokostyantyniv.

The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal is a nuclear-capable, Russian air-launched ballistic missile, revealed as a “next-generation” weapon by Putin in 2018.

Missile debris damaged the roof of a tower-block in Kyiv and a school was also hit by the falling wreckage after it was shot down by Ukrainian air defence. Meanwhile, Kyiv said one missile hit the “area” of the Starokostyantyniv airfield.

Ukraine is investigating another case of alleged Russian abuse and execution of Kyiv’s prisoners of war, officials said.

Dmytro Lubinets, the Ukrainian human rights commissioner, said yesterday he sent letters to the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) over aerial footage allegedly showing Russian forces torturing and executing three unarmed Ukrainian POWs near Niu York, Donetsk oblast.

He accused the highest levels of the Russian military command of allowing war crimes in Ukraine.

Russian forces have executed 93 Ukrainian prisoners of war (POW) on the battlefield since the start of the full-scale invasion and, of these, 80 per cent of the recorded cases occurred in 2024, according to Yuri Bilousov, head of the war crimes department in Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office.

Russia’s attack on Odesa yesterday has damaged two ships in the Black Sea region, endangering food security, Ukrainian officials said.

Ukraine deputy prime minister Oleksiy Kuleba identified the vessel as the Optima and said it arrived in Odesa hours before the attack.

Russia “is attempting in this way to destroy shipping in the Black Sea guaranteeing food security. The consequences can only mean greater instability in sensitive regions dependent on food imports and tension in international relations,” Mr Kuleba said.

Ukraine’s Restoration Ministry identified the ship attacked on Sunday in the nearby port of Pivdennyi as the Saint Kitts and Nevis-flagged Paresa which had a cargo of 6,000 tonnes of corn.

Kamala Harris has said Ukraine will need to be in the room for any peace talks to negotiate a solution to end the Russian invasion. “Ukraine must have a say in the future,” the US Democratic presidential nominee said in her 60 minutes interview with CBS News.

Refusing to sit bilaterally with Russian president Vladimir Putin for peace talks, Ms Harris said: “There will be no success in ending that war without Ukraine and the UN charter participating in what that success looks like.”

She also hit out at her Republican rival Donald Trump and said “Putin would be sitting in Kyiv right now if he were the president. Mr Trump has claimed that he will end the war on day one.

“He talks about, oh, he can end it on day one. You know what that is? It’s about surrender,” the US vice president said.

Russia’s air defence units destroyed 16 Ukrainian drones overnight, the Russian defence ministry said this morning.

Of these, 14 drones were downed over the Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, and two over the Black Sea, the ministry said on its Telegram channel.

Russia-backed authorities evacuated around 300 people from the occupied Crimean city of Feodosia after a fire at a local oil depot yesterday, Russian state news agency TASS reported.

Local officials confirmed the evacuation of locals from the Crimean port city housing the largest oil depot used by Russia.

The Ukrainian military said it had struck the oil depot, and that Moscow uses this terminal to transport petroleum products to the Russian military.

“A Crimea-focused source claimed that the Russian military had deployed a Pantsir-S1 air defence system to the area in June 2024 to protect the Feodosia oil terminal,” the Institute for the Study of War said, confirming that footage showed a fire purportedly at the Feodosia oil terminal.

Ukraine has damaged a Russian minesweeper based in the Baltic Sea in a sabotage operation, the country’s military intelligence agency said yesterday.

The spy agency, known by the acronym GUR, said it was the second attack it has carried out on a Russian warship in the Baltic Sea this year. “The ship, which was based in the city of Baltiysk and was supposed to go on combat duty, was seriously damaged,” it said on Telegram.

It gave no date for the operation but said the engine sustained damage and the vessel was in major repairs after the incident.