Ukraine-Russia war latest: UN to hold emergency meeting over hypersonic Oreshnik missile attack

Sir Richard Shirreff, former deputy commander of Nato, cautiously welcomed the pledge, but stressed that any UK deployment must “have the right numbers, the means, and there’s got to be proper capabilities.”

Should the UK follow through on its pledge to Ukraine, or are there limits to what its armed forces can realistically achieve?

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Shortly before Christmas, the new chief of MI6, Blaise Metreweli, made her first public speech since taking charge. She chose as her subject the multifaceted threat posed by Russia, warning of the growing danger from Vladimir Putin’s regime. “We are operating in a space between peace and war,” she said.

The recently appointed “C” said “the front line is everywhere”, explaining that Putin is provoking a new “age of uncertainty” by busily rewriting the unwritten rules of conflict. “The export of chaos is a feature, not a bug, in the Russian approach to international engagement,” said Metreweli.

One woman was killed and at least three other people injured in an overnight Ukrainian drone attack on the city of Voronezh, according to regional governor Alexander Gusev.

Gusev said on Telegram that the strike damaged more than 10 apartment blocks, around 10 private homes, a secondary school, and several administrative buildings.

“Our city was subjected to one of the heaviest drone attacks since the start of the special military operation,” he wrote.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports.

Voronezh lies several hundred kilometres from both Moscow and the Ukrainian border.

Ukraine has acknowledged carrying out strikes inside Russia, saying they are aimed at weakening Moscow’s war effort and responding to repeated missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.

Kyiv’s residents were left huddling in unheated apartments on Saturday as repairs continued after Russian strikes knocked out power, water, and heating across the city.

Galina Turchin, a 71-year-old pensioner living on Kyiv’s eastern bank, said she had not cooked for two days after utilities were cut again. A window in her flat was covered with plastic sheeting after drone debris damaged her building.

“We hope they will give us heat. If not power, then at least heat,” she told Reuters, standing wrapped in layers inside her kitchen as temperatures dropped well below freezing.

City authorities said outages were linked to damage from earlier strikes on the power grid. While some electricity and heating were gradually restored, officials warned the system remains under severe strain as the war enters its fourth winter.

The former head of the RAF has warned that increased defence spending in the UK is being “eaten up by the Ministry of Defence (MoD)’s overdraft” with the UK’s military footprint shrinking at a critical moment.

The intervention by retired Air Marshall Edward Stringer comes just days after Sir Keir Starmer committed sending UK troops to Ukraine as part of the coalition of the willing to protect any peace agreement from Russian aggression.

But it represents the third warning by a former member of the UK’s military top brass in less than a week over how the UK’s commitments to Ukraine and elsewhere are not matched by resources in the armed forces and manpower.

The Russian military fired its hypersonic Oreshnik missile at Kyiv on Friday, killing at least four civilians and leaving 500,000 without power during severe winter conditions.

It is the second time that Russia has used the intermediate-range Oreshnik, a missile which President Vladimir Putin has boasted is impossible to intercept because of its reported velocity of more than 10 times the speed of sound.

Experts say the novel feature of the Oreshnik is that it can carry multiple warheads capable of simultaneously striking different targets – usually associated with longer-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).

Like many Russian weapons systems, it is capable of carrying nuclear as well as conventional warheads, but there was no suggestion of any nuclear component to the overnight attack.

Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said the United Nations Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on Monday to discuss Russia’s latest large-scale attack on Ukraine.

In a post on X, Sybiha wrote: “The meeting will address Russia’s flagrant breaches of the UN Charter. We urge Security Council members to demonstrate unity of purpose by demanding an end to the aggression, protection of civilians, and unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty.

“Russian attacks undermine international security and peace efforts by the United States, European states, and other partners. The international community must act now to ensure accountability, increase pressure on the aggressor, and restore a lasting peace.”

The overnight strike on Friday was one of the most intense in recent weeks, killing four civilians in Kyiv and knocking out heat and power supplies during freezing winter temperatures.

Russia has said the attack was retaliation for Ukrainian strikes inside Russian territory, a claim rejected by Kyiv.

As Ukraine is gripped by a bitter cold snap, more than one million people have been left without heating and electricity as Russia ramps up attacks on energy infrastructure.

Elderly residents and those with vulnerable family members told The Independent they are cold and unable to cook proper meals as they face temperatures as low as -15C.

Despondent and fearing death, many are struggling through the winter as blackouts plunge Ukraine’s cities into darkness, lit up only by the bright flash of Russian drone and missile attacks.

Vulnerable residents tell Alex Croft that life under Russian assault is as difficult as ever.

Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces carried out a drone attack overnight on Saturday on an oil depot in Russia’s Volgograd Oblast, saying the facility was supplying fuel to Russian occupation forces.

In a statement on Facebook published on Saturday, the General Staff said Ukrainian drones hit the Zhutovskaya oil depot in the Oktyabrsky district as part of efforts to weaken Russia’s military capabilities, reported the Kyiv Independent.

Russian authorities separately reported a drone attack in the region that sparked a fire at an oil facility, saying debris from a downed drone fell on the depot. Governor Andrey Bocharov said air defence systems were responding. No casualties were reported.