Russia has reopened a major front in its war with Ukraine in a move that will stretch Kyiv’s already undermanned and outgunned forces as they wait for Western weapons.
The Russian military unleashed a ferocious barrage of artillery and airstrikes in the early hours of Friday morning as ground troops attempted the most significant incursion into northeastern Ukraine – territory that shares a long border with Russia – in two years.
Fierce fighting raged into the weekend in different locations along a 45-mile strip of the frontier in the Kharkiv region.
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Explosions ‘in town under attack’
Moscow claimed to have seized five villages, while Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, said battles were taking place around seven villages.
In a sign of the seriousness of the challenge, Ukraine is deploying reserve forces to help repel the Russian assault and a senior commander has been appointed to lead the effort.
The timing of the attack could not be worse for Kyiv – which presumably is why Russia decided to act.
Russian troops are already slowly gaining ground in the eastern Donbas region – a prime focus of the war – closing in on the hilltop town of Chasiv Yar.
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Should that Ukrainian stronghold fall, it would give the invading troops a vantage point to strike more easily into the rest of the Donbas, putting key cities like Kramatorsk at risk.
By stepping up attacks in the Kharkiv direction, Russia could force Ukrainian commanders to divert resources from the East to the northeast, weakening their defensive line in the Donbas, which is already under huge strain.
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Making the situation even more critical, delays in the delivery of additional weapons and ammunition from Western allies to the frontline have left Ukrainian forces exposed.
The United States – by far Kyiv’s most important military donor – took six months to approve a $61bn (£49bn) package of assistance.
It was finally passed by Congress in April and supplies are starting to arrive.
But over the period of limbo, Ukraine’s British and other European partners were unable to make up for the US shortfall because their respective militaries lack sufficiently deep stockpiles, while efforts to step up the production of new munitions are taking too long.
This is despite the urgency of a crisis that threatens security for the whole of Europe, not just Ukraine.
Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, only announced he was putting the UK defence industry on a war footing last month – more than two years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
In addition, Lord Cameron, the foreign secretary, told Sky News more than a week ago that Britain would be appointing an envoy to oversee the acceleration and expansion of weapons production – but that appointment has yet to be made either.
By contrast, Russian President Vladimir Putin put his entire economy on a war footing from day one. Russian production lines are delivering new supplies in defiance of western sanctions, while states such as Iran and North Korea have sold huge quantities of munitions to Moscow.
The Russian military has also benefitted from Soviet-era stockpiles of weapons that might not be particularly reliable or accurate but are better to fight with than nothing at all.
The material imbalance, coupled with Russia’s ability to throw far more men into the fight than Ukraine, yet again gives the invading forces an advantage that they are exploiting.
While Mr Putin has not declared his intent, Kharkiv remains a clear target.
The regional capital was a key target of the president’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
His forces seized swathes of Kharkiv region, but never managed to conquer the city.
A Ukrainian counteroffensive in the late summer of 2022 pushed the Russians out, but – thanks to their shared border – they never disappeared.
Instead, Russia started launching intermittent artillery and drone strikes against nearby Ukrainian villages and towns as well as longer-range missile strikes against the regional capital.
The aggression had escalated in recent weeks before erupting into Friday’s ground assault.
Representatives of dozens of climate vulnerable islands and African nations have stormed out of high-stakes negotiations over a climate funding goal.
Patience is wearing thin and negotiations have boiled over at the COP29 climate talks in Azerbaijan, which were due to finish yesterday but are now well into overtime.
After two weeks of talks, the more than 190 countries gathered in the capital Baku are still trying to agree a new financial settlement to channel money to poorer countries to both curb and adapt to climate change.
Talks have now run well into overtime at COP29, but a deal now feels much more precarious.
The least developed countries like Mozambique and low-lying island nations like Samoa say their calls for a portion of the fund to be allocated to them have been ignored.
Samoa’s minister of natural resources and environment Toeolesulusulu Cedric Schuster is one of the representatives who walked out.
“We are here to negotiate but we have walked out… at the moment we don’t feel we are being heard in there,” he said on behalf of more than 40 small island and developing states, whose shorelines are being lost to rising sea levels.
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Shortly after he made a veiled threat of leaving COP29 altogether, saying: “We want nothing more than to continue to engage, but the process must be INCLUSIVE.
“If this cannot be the case, it becomes very difficult for us to continue our involvement here at COP29.”
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Evans Njewa, who chairs a group of more than 40 least developed countries, said the current deal is “unacceptable for us. We need to speak to other developing countries and decide what to do.”
The last official draft on Friday pledged $250bn a year annually by 2035.
This is more than double the previous goal of $100bn set 15 years ago, but nowhere near the annual $1.3trn that experts say is needed.
Sky News understands some developed countries like the UK were this morning willing to bump up the goal to $300bn.
Developing countries are angry not just about the finance negotiations, but also on how to make progress on a pledge from last year to “transition away from fossil fuels”.
A group of oil and producing countries, spearheaded by Saudi Arabia, have tried to dilute that language, while the UK and island state are among those that have fought to keep it in.
Mr Schuster said all things being negotiated contain a “deplorable lack of substance”.
He added: “We need to see progress and follow up on the transition away from fossil fuels that we agreed last year. We have been asked to forget all about that at this COP, as though we are not in a critical decade and as though the 1.5C limit is not in peril.”
“We need to be shown the regard which our dire circumstances necessitate.”
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.
At least 11 people have been killed and 63 injured in an Israeli strike on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.
Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.
State-run National News Agency (NNA) said the attack “completely destroyed” an eight-storey residential building in the Basta neighbourhood early on Saturday.
Footage broadcast by Lebanon’s Al Jadeed station also showed at least one destroyed building and several others badly damaged around it.
The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack – the fourth targeting the centre this week.
At least four bombs were dropped in the attack, security sources told Reuters news agency.
The blasts happened at about 4am (2am UK time).
A seperate drone strike in the southern port cuty of Tyre this morning killed one person and injured another, according to the NNA.
The blasts came after a day of bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs and Tyre. The Israeli military had issued evacuation notices prior to those strikes.
Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.
Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.
US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.
Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, Israel has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and wounded more than 15,000.
It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.
President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will ramp up the production of a new, hypersonic ballistic missile.
In a nationally-televised speech, Mr Putin said the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was used in an attack on Ukrainian city Dnipro in retaliation for Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.
Referring to the Oreshnik, the Russian president said: “No one in the world has such weapons.
“Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”
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He added: “We have this system now. And this is important.”
Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities, Mr Putin claimed it is so powerful that using several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.
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General Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s strategic missile forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with either nuclear or conventional warheads – while Mr Putin alleged Western air defence systems will not be able to stop the missiles.
Mr Putin said of the Oreshnik: “There is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production.”
Testing the Oreshnik will happen “in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia“, the president added, stating there is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”.
NATO and Ukraine are expected to hold emergency talks on Tuesday.
Meanwhile Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session as security was tightened following the strike on Dnipro, a central city with a population of around one million. No fatalities were reported.
EU leaders condemn Russia’s ‘heinous attacks’
Numerous EU leaders have addressed Russia’s escalation of the conflict with Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying the war is “entering a decisive phase [and] taking on very dramatic dimensions”.
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Russia’s new missile – what does it mean?
Speaking in Kyiv, Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavsky called Moscow’s strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe”.
At a news conference, Mr Lipavsky gave his full support for delivering the additional air defence systems needed to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks”.