Ukraine war briefing: Russia launches ‘double tap’ missile attack on a small town near Kharkiv | Russia

Russian launched a “double tap” missile attack on a small town near Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, killing two people, an emergency services official and a police officer, officials said. Officials also reported four dead in a series of attacks in Donetsk region to the south-east and two more in southern Kherson region. Prosecutors said the mid-afternoon missile attack targeted the railway station in Budy, south-west of Kharkiv. After rescue teams arrived, a second missile hit the area. Twenty-five people were injured in the incidents, including two children. Interior minister Ihor Klymenko said the head of the Kharkiv district emergency services was killed, along with a police officer from a rapid reaction unit. Among the injured were three emergency workers, a policeman and about 20 civilians.

The Kremlin warns that the stationing of long-range US missiles in Germany could make European capitals targets for Russian missiles in a repeat of cold war-style confrontation. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov spoke of a “paradox” in which “Europe is a target for our missiles, our country is a target for US missiles in Europe”, reports Agence France-Presse. “We have enough capacity to contain these missiles but the potential victims are the capitals of these countries,” Peskov said, speaking to Russian state television. Peskov also hinted that such a confrontation could undermine Europe as a whole – in the same way that the cold war ended with the Soviet Union’s collapse. “Europe is coming apart. Europe is not living its best moment. In a different configuration, a repeat of history is inevitable,” he said. The US announced during this week’s Nato summit that it would periodically station long-range weapons including Tomahawk cruise missiles in Germany from 2026 as a deterrent. Russia had already criticised the move and accused Washington of taking a step towards a new cold war and of directly participating in the conflict in Ukraine.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has played down US president Joe Biden’s recent gaffe at a Nato summit where he introduced the Ukrainian leader as Russian “president Putin”, saying it was a “mistake” that could now be forgotten. “It’s a mistake. I think [the] United States gave a lot of support for Ukrainians. We can forget some mistakes, I think so,” Zelenskiy told reporters after touching down at Ireland’s Shannon airport. Zelenskiy is visiting Irish leader Simon Harris on his way back from the summit in Washington. Zelenskiy’s meeting with Harris is expected to cement Ireland’s support for Ukraine’s bid towards European Union membership.

Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko says tensions had subsided at his country’s border with Ukraine and extra troops deployed there were being sent back to their bases. A close ally of Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, Lukashenko said Belarusian intelligence determined that Ukraine had withdrawn troops from sensitive areas, according to the official BelTA news agency. “That means that those [Ukrainian] troops which had been brought in as reinforcements are now gone … There are now no difficulties with the Ukrainians and I hope there will be none,” Lukashenko said. Belarus’s defence ministry said late last month that it was reinforcing its border after a security incident and in response to a Ukrainian troop buildup. A spokesperson for Ukraine’s border guards, in a statement posted online, dismissed the notion of an extra deployment.

European leaders will meet at the upcoming European Political Community (EPC) to discuss Ukraine and the “arc of conflict and instability” threatening Europe’s borders. UK prime minister Keir Starmer warned that “Europe is at the forefront of some of the greatest challenges of our time”, highlighting “Russia’s barbaric war” that “continues to reverberate across our continent”. Starmer has reiterated the UK’s “ironclad” support for Ukraine and is expected to use the meeting to push for continued international military and financial support ahead of what is expected to be a “difficult winter”. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy is expected to travel to the UK next week to address European leaders at the EPC.

Germany said it “won’t be intimidated” over its support for Ukraine after reports of an alleged assassination attempt on the head of a leading defence company. This week, CNN reported that US intelligence services had foiled a plot to kill Armin Papperger, the CEO of Rheinmetall, which has provided large amount of armaments to Ukraine. The report, which cited numerous US and western officials, said the plot was one of several Russian government plans to kill defence industry executives in European countries that have supported Ukraine’s war effort. German interior ministry spokesperson Maximilian Kall declined to comment on the reports, but said Germany takes the “significantly increased threat from Russian aggression very seriously”. “We know that Putin’s regime wants above all to undermine our support for Ukraine in its defence against the Russian war of aggression, but the German government won’t be intimidated,” Kall said. Asked about the reports, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that they “do not contain any serious arguments and are based on anonymous sources”. “It’s all presented in the style of another fake story. Therefore, such reports cannot be taken seriously.” Peskov said.