Russia has not used its “premier air launched cruise missiles” from its heavy bomber fleet for nearly two months, likely allowing it to build up a substantial stock of these weapons, the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said in its latest intelligence update.
The German defence minister, Boris Pistorius, has arrived in Kyiv for an unannounced visit, Agence France-Presse is reporting. He arrived by train and will hold talks with his Ukrainian counterpart as well as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Two people were killed and six wounded in overnight Russian missile attacks and shelling in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Kharkiv regions, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday. Missiles hit a hospital in the Donetsk town of Selydove and a coalmine, the interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, said on the Telegram messaging service.
Ukraine sacked two senior cyber-defence officials, a government official said, as prosecutors announced an investigation into alleged embezzlement in the government’s cybersecurity agency. Yurii Shchyhol, the head of the state service of special communications and information protection of Ukraine (SSSCIP), and his deputy, Viktor Zhora, were dismissed by the government, senior cabinet official Taras Melnychuk wrote on Telegram.
Ukrainian forces were engaged in containing increasing Russian attacks on Monday around the shattered eastern town of Bakhmut, which was seized by Moscow in May, military officials said. Volodymyr Fityo, a spokesperson for Ukrainian ground forces, said Russian troops focused attacks on Klishchiivka, a nearby village on heights retaken by Ukrainian forces in September.
Russia barred entry to a number of officials from Moldova on Monday and complained about moves by its pro-European government to block Russian media outlets ahead of local elections earlier this month. The moves were the latest in a series of acerbic exchanges between the two sides and allegations by Moldova that Russia has been exerting pressure on the ex-Soviet state’s affairs and President Maia Sandu’s drive to join the EU.
Zelenskiy met the Fox Corp CEO, Lachlan Murdoch, in the Ukrainian capital in what Kyiv said on Monday was a “very important signal” of support at a time when global media attention has shifted from the war in Ukraine. Media titan Rupert Murdoch’s eldest son is a leading figure in media with a US Republican-leaning audience. His visit comes as concern in Ukraine mounts over the future of vital American military and economic aid with the war with Russia showing no end in sight.
Russia has placed a Ukrainian singer who won the 2016 Eurovision song contest on its wanted list, state news agencies reported on Monday. The reports said an interior ministry database listed the singer Susana Jamaladinova, known as Jamala, as being sought for violating a law adopted last year that bans spreading so-called fake information about the Russian military and the fighting in Ukraine.
Two people were killed early on Monday after Russian forces shelled a parking lot in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, authorities said. Regional prosecutors opened a war crimes investigation into the artillery strike, which injured one other person, the regional prosecutor’s office said.
An elderly woman was also killed and a man injured in a Russian artillery strike on the town of Nikopol, in the central region of Dnipropetrovsk, the regional governor said. “A power line and a gas pipeline were damaged,” Serhiy Lysak said on Telegram.
