Ukraine-Russia latest: Biden approves another US weapon to slow Russian army as Putin ramps up nuclear threat

Ukraine’s air defence units were trying to repel a Russian air attack on Kyiv early today, the military administration of the Ukrainian capital said.

Reuters’ witnesses heard multiple blasts in what sounded like air defence units in operation.

Ukrainian forces defending the eastern region of Donetsk are heading into the “moment of maximum tension” as Russian forces rush to take territory across Ukraine ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration next year, war monitors have claimed.

Mr Trump’s comprehensive victory in the US election, which came off the back of his promises to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, has brought into sharp relief the difficult situation on the frontline for Kyiv.

Russian forces have continued to make gains in the eastern region of Donetsk, advancing along several fronts towards the city of Pokrovsk, a linchpin of the wider area’s defence.

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Russian air defence units destroyed 42 Ukrainian drones in at least eight southern and central regions last evening, including 32 in Bryansk region on the border and two in Moscow region, officials said.

Russia’s defence ministry gave the tally of 42 drones, saying they had been destroyed between 9pm and 11.55pm (1800 to 2055 GMT). It gave no details of damage.

The ministry said 32 of the drones had been destroyed in the border region of Bryansk.

Ukraine has long deployed drones over long distances to hit targets deep inside Russian territory, including airfields and sites associated with energy.

But the use of dozens of drones dispatched over a short period of time was unusual.

Bryansk regional governor Alexander Bogomaz reported air defences in action in a series of posts on the Telegram. He reported no casualties or damage.

The defence ministry said two drones had been destroyed in Moscow region around the Russian capital, with another downed in Smolensk region, near the border with Belarus.

The ministry also reported one drone downed each in central Oryol region and in the border regions of Rostov and Kursk.

A special emergency hotline between the Kremlin and the White House is not currently in use, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, told RIA state news agency in remarks published this morning.

The emergency call line was created after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. It is seen as the most famous of the US-Russia hotlines, formally known in the US as the Washington–Moscow Direct Communications Link.

In a secret factory in central Russia, engineers are manufacturing hundreds of decoy drones meant to overwhelm Ukrainian defences as they try to protect against a horrific new weapon.

The plant in Russia’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone recently started churning out thermobaric drones alongside the decoys, an Associated Press investigation has found. The thermobaric warheads create a vortex of high pressure and heat that can penetrate thick walls. They suck out all the oxygen in their path, and have a fearsome reputation because of the injuries inflicted even outside the initial blast site: Collapsed lungs, crushed eyeballs, brain damage.

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President Joe Biden has approved providing anti-personnel land mines to Ukraine, a US official told Reuters.

Ukraine had committed to not using the mines in densely populated areas, an unnamed official told the Washington Post, which first reported the development.

Liz Truss is one of the western politicians to blame for starting the conversation about using nuclear weapons, Russian foreign minster Sergei Lavrov said.

In a press conference, Lavrov accused western politicians of provoking Russia, and cited Liz Truss saying she was “ready” to press the red button to fire nuclear weapons, according to the BBC’s Ione Wells.

He also claimed that Russia’s new nuclear doctrine “doesn’t have anything different” to the US doctrine, and that Russia is “in favour” of not allowing nuclear war.

Russia is ready to normalise its relations with the United States, but will not “tango alone”, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told TASS state news agency in remarks published on Tuesday.

“Russia, as our president has said, is open to normalisation,” TASS cited Mr Peskov, a close aide of Vladimir Putin, as saying. “But we cannot tango alone. And we are not going to do it.”

Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are eating into US stockpiles of air defences, the top US admiral overseeing American forces in the Asia-Pacific region has warned.

“With some of the Patriots that have been employed, some of the air-to-air missiles that have been employed, it’s now eating into stocks and to say otherwise would be dishonest,” said Admiral Sam Paparo.

“Inherently, it imposes costs on the readiness of America to respond in the Indo Pacific region, which is the most stressing theater for the quantity and quality of munitions, because the PRC is the most capable potential adversary in the world,” he said, using an acronym for the People’s Republic of China.