Ukraine-Russia battle newest: UN to carry emergency assembly over hypersonic Oreshnik missile assault | EUROtoday

Britain is discussing with Nato allies the way it may help beef up safety within the Arctic to counter threats from Russia and China, a authorities minister stated.

Transport secretary Heidi Alexander stated the talks are “business as usual” fairly than a response to latest threats by US president Donald Trump to take over Greenland.

Trump has stated that he wish to make a deal to accumulate Greenland, a semiautonomous area of Nato ally Denmark, to stop Russia or China from taking it over.

He stated on Sunday evening that making a deal for Greenland could be “easier” and insisted the US wanted to accumulate it. “One way or the other, we’re going to have Greenland,” he advised reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew again to Washington.

The UK agrees with Trump that Russia and China are more and more turning into extra aggressive within the Arctic Circle, Alexander stated.

“Whilst we haven’t seen the appalling consequences in that part of the world that we’ve seen in Ukraine, it is really important that we do everything that we can with all of our Nato allies to ensure that we have an effective deterrent in that part of the globe against (Russian president Vladimir) Putin,” Alexander told the BBC.

Ukraine’s energy ministry said on Sunday that Russian forces had attacked the country’s power system again during the night, briefly cutting off electricity to the south-eastern Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.

“Not a single day passed this week without attacks on energy facilities and critical infrastructure. A total of 44 attacks were recorded,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on Telegram.

Svyrydenko said the restoration of heat and electricity supplies was proceeding at a record pace, noting significant improvements in Kyiv would require time but could be reached by Thursday

More than 1,000 apartment buildings in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv were still without heating following a devastating Russian attack earlier this week, local authorities said on Sunday.

Russia has intensified bombardments of Ukraine’s energy system since it invaded its neighbour in 2022.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia had launched 1,100 drones, more than 890 guided aerial bombs and over 50 missiles, including ballistic, cruise and medium-range weapons, against Ukraine over the past week.

On Friday, a missile strike on Kyiv left virtually the entire city without power and heating amid a sharp cold snap, and it was not until Sunday that authorities restored water supplies and partially restored electricity and heating.

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 stated.

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.

This week has seen the cementing of the axis between the UK, France and Germany with the promise of troops on the ground to monitor peace in Ukraine, a move that is bound to antagonise Putin. Concerns about Russian retaliation are growing still further following the boarding of a tanker in Russia’s “shadow fleet” by US forces off the British coast. The involvement of the Royal Navy will have been noticed and noted in Moscow. The hostility continues to ramp up in intensity.

The British government said on Sunday that it will develop a new deep-strike ballistic missile for Ukraine to use.

Under the project, named Nightfall, the British government said it has launched a competition to rapidly develop ground-launched ballistic missiles that could carry a 200 kg (440 lb) warhead over a range of more than 310 miles.

Defence Secretary John Healey MP stated: “The attacks overnight on Thursday just go to show how Putin thinks he can act with impunity, targeting civilian areas with advanced weaponry.

“Instead of seriously negotiating a peace, he’s seriously escalating his illegal war.

“We were close enough to hear the air raid sirens around Lviv on our journey to Kyiv, it was a serious moment and a stark reminder of the barrage of drones and missiles hitting Ukrainians in sub-zero conditions.

“We won’t stand for this, which is why we are determined to put leading edge weapons into the hands of Ukrainians as they fight back.”

The UK is working with Nato allies to bolster security in the Arctic, a Cabinet minister said following reports British troops could be sent to Greenland.

US President Donald Trump has insisted he wants control over Greenland and has not ruled out the prospect of using military force to seize the semi-autonomous Danish territory.

Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said discussions about securing the High North against Russia and China were part of Nato’s “enterprise as common” rather than a response to the US military threat.

The Sunday Telegraph reported that military chiefs are drawing up plans for a possible Nato mission to Greenland which could involve British soldiers, warships and planes being deployed to the island.

But Ms Alexander told BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg the report “probably reads one thing extra into enterprise as common discussions amongst Nato allies than there really are”.

She said the UK agreed with President Trump that the Arctic Circle “is turning into an more and more contested a part of the world with the ambitions of (Vladimir) Putin and China”.

“Whilst we have not seen the appalling penalties in that a part of the world that we have seen in Ukraine, it’s actually essential that we do all the pieces that we are able to with all of our Nato allies to make sure that we’ve an efficient deterrent in that a part of the globe towards Putin.”

The Russian military said it had fired its hypersonic Oreshnik missile at a target in Ukraine in response to what it described as an attempted Ukrainian drone strike on one of President Vladimir Putin’s residences, something Kyiv has called a lie.

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.

The missile is capable of carrying nuclear warheads as well as conventional ones, but there was no suggestion that the one used in the overnight attack had been fitted with anything other than a conventional warhead.

A Ukrainian drone strike killed one person and wounded three others in the Russian city of Voronezh, local officials said.

A young woman died overnight in a hospital intensive care unit after debris from a drone fell on a house during the attack on Saturday, regional governor Alexander Gusev said on Telegram.

Three other people were wounded and more than 10 apartment buildings, private houses and a high school were damaged, he said.

He added that air defences shot down 17 drones over Voronezh, a city that is home to more than one million people and lies some 155 miles (250km) from the Ukrainian border.