Ukraine-Russia War Latest: No 10 Denies Spying Claims Against UK Diplomat As Kyiv Recalls Faulty Shells
Related: Vladimir Putin hints at strikes on West
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Downing Street has rejected Russia’s “baseless” allegations that an expelled British diplomat in Moscow was a spy.
The Russian FSB security service named the diplomat, whose photo was splashed across TV news bulletins, as Edward Wilkes and alleged he had intentionally provided false information when he entered Russia – a claim disputed by the UKForeign Office as “malicious and baseless”.
“To be clear, we refute these allegations. They’re baseless. We’re now considering our response,” a No 10 spokesperson said. According to the FSB, the British diplomat was a replacement for one of six UK diplomats expelled in August, also on espionage charges.
On the war front, Ukraine is withdrawing around 100,000 faulty 120mm mortar shells from the frontline after multiple reports of them misfiring. The supply of defective shells is being investigated by an interdepartmental commission, Ukraine’s defence ministry said.
Russian forces are advancing in Ukraine at the fastest rate since the early days of the 2022 invasion, taking an area half the size of London over the past month, analysts and war bloggers said.
Russian drone attack injures three in KyivA Russian drone attack on Kyiv wounded three people, two of whom were hospitalised, officials in the Ukrainian capital said today.
Falling debris from a destroyed drone damaged a non-residential building in Kyiv’s Dniprovskyi district, mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said that air defence units were operating in the city after midnight.
The scale of the attack was not immediately clear. The strikes come after Russia launched a record number of drones targeting Ukraine yesterday, cutting power to much of the western region of Ternopil and damaging residential buildings in the Kyiv region.
Arpan Rai27 November 2024 05:13
Recap: Watch live firing of British Army’s new Archer Mobile Howitzer close to Russia borderLive firing of British Army’s new Archer Mobile Howitzer close to Russia borderTara Cobham27 November 2024 05:00
Kyiv withdraws 100,000 mortar rounds after troops report failuresUkraine is withdrawing faulty 120mm mortar shells from the frontline after multiple reports of them misfiring, officials said.
The supply of defective shells is being investigated by an interdepartmental commission, Ukraine’s defence ministry said, which said around 100,000 Ukraine-made 120mm rounds had to be recalled from the battlefield.
Several complaints and videos shared on social media showed the mortar shells not exploding or failing to hit their targets. Ukraine’s defence ministry confirmed the withdrawal of the batches of ammunition and said it will now provide Ukrainian forces with imported shells.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian soldiers said the rounds did not explode, remained stuck in the launcher or fell off target.
Arpan Rai27 November 2024 04:17
Russia expels British diplomat for ‘spying’ after launching record drone attack on UkraineIn a statement issued yesterday, the FSB said: “During counterintelligence work, the Russian Federal Security Service has discovered an undeclared British intelligence presence under the cover of the national embassy in Moscow.
Arpan Rai27 November 2024 04:13
Putin’s new missile fired at Ukraine carried warheads without explosivesA new ballistic missile fired by Russia at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro last week carried multiple warheads but no explosives, two senior Ukrainian government sources said. The deadly missiles caused little damage upon hitting targets in Ukraine’s east, they said.
Vladimir Putin said the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile strike was a successful test and that it reached its target – a missile and defence enterprise in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
Their comments appeared to confirm the Kremlin’s own description of the weapon’s use last Thursday as a warning to the West after the United States and Britain allowed Ukraine to fire their missiles into Russia.
The two sources provided more details about the new weapon as Western experts try to learn more about what US officials say was an experimental intermediate-range missile.
Intermediate-range ballistic missiles are typically meant to be used for long-range nuclear strikes on targets thousands of kilometres away. One of the sources said the missile was carrying dummy warheads and described the damage caused as “quite small”.
The second source said: “In this case, (the missile) was without explosives… There were no types of explosions like we expected. There was something, but it was not huge.”
Arpan Rai27 November 2024 03:28
Russia advances at fastest rate in Ukraine’s eastRussian forces are advancing in Ukraine at the fastest rate since the early days of the 2022 invasion, taking an area half the size of London over the past month, analysts and war bloggers said.
Russian troops swept through swathes of Ukraine in early 2022 before being pushed back to its east and south. The 1,000km (620-mile) frontline has been largely static for two years, until the latest, smaller-scale advances that began in July.
“Russia has set new weekly and monthly records for the size of the occupied territory in Ukraine,” independent Russian news group Agentstvo said in a report.
The Russian army captured almost 235 sq km (91 sq miles) in Ukraine over the past week, a weekly record for 2024, it said.
Russian forces had taken 600 sq km (232 sq miles) in November, it added, citing data from DeepState, which studies combat footage and provides front line maps.
The war is entering what some Russian and Western officials say could be its most dangerous phase, with Russia reported to be using North Korean troops in Ukraine and Kyiv now using Western-supplied missiles to strike back inside Russia.
Moscow, which like North Korea has not confirmed or denied the presence of the troops, used a hypersonic intermediate-range missile on Ukraine last week and Ukraine reported the biggest Russian drone attack on its territory so far yesterday.
The thrust of the advance has been in Donetsk region, with Russian forces pushing towards the town of Pokrovsk and into the town of Kurakhove. Russia has increasingly encircled territory and then pummelled Ukrainian forces with artillery and glide bombs, according to Russian analysts.
Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, said yesterday that Russia held the complete strategic initiative on the battlefield.
Neither side publishes accurate data on their own losses though Western intelligence estimates casualties to number hundreds of thousands killed or injured, while swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine have turned into wastelands.
Arpan Rai27 November 2024 03:12
Ukrainian officials in Seoul to ask for weapons aidA Ukrainian delegation led by defence minister Rustem Umerov is visiting South Korea to ask for weapons to use in its war with Russia, according to media reports.
The delegation had met with South Korea’s national security adviser Shin Won-sik to exchange views on the conflict in Ukraine, the DongA Ilbo newspaper reported today, without giving a source.
Volodymyr Zelensky has said Kyiv will send a detailed request to Seoul for arms support including artillery and air defence systems, according to his remarks in an interview with South Korean broadcaster KBS in October.
The South China Morning Post also reported this week that a Ukrainian delegation was due to visit South Korea to request weapons aid, citing an informed source.
The group was expected to meet South Korean counterparts as early as today, according to the report.
South Korea’s foreign minister Cho Tae-yul, asked earlier this month whether Seoul would send weapons to Ukraine in response to North Korea aiding Russia, said all possible scenarios were under consideration and Seoul would be watching the level of participation by North Korean troops in Russia and what Pyongyang received from Moscow in return.
Arpan Rai27 November 2024 03:00
Moscow obtained Shahed drones by circumventing international sanctions, says ZelenskyUkraine President Volodymyr Zelensky noted that each Shahed drone that Russia launched at his country overnight on Monday has 85 foreign components and that Moscow obtained them by circumventing international sanctions.
He said on the Telegram messaging app that “we need more joint effort so that the sanctions work and force Russia to stop this war”.
A Ukrainian officer shows a thermobaric charge of a downed Shahed drone launched by Russia in a research laboratory in an undisclosed location in Ukraine earlier in November (AP)Tara Cobham27 November 2024 03:00
Air raid alert in Kyiv region overnight Monday lasted more than seven hoursAs Russian Shahed drones spread out across Ukraine late on Monday, the air raid alert in the Kyiv region overnight lasted more than seven hours.
Russia is trying to unnerve civilians and wear down their will to resist in the war, military analysts say.
Tara Cobham27 November 2024 02:00
Analysis: Tulsi Gabbard’s history with Russia is even more concerning than you thinkIn the summer of 2015, three Syrian girls who had narrowly survived an airstrike some weeks earlier stood before Tulsi Gabbard with horrific burns all over their bodies.
Gabbard, then a US congresswoman on a visit to the Syria-Turkey border as part of her duties for the foreign affairs committee, had a question for them.
“How do you know it was Bashar al-Assad or Russia that bombed you, and not Isis?’” she asked, according to Mouaz Moustafa, a Syrian activist who was translating her conversation with the girls.
Richard Hall and Andrew Feinberg write:
Tara Cobham27 November 2024 01:00