Ukraine Russia war latest: Putin ‘gearing up for new push on Kyiv’ as airstrikes pound Kharkiv

Two people have lost their lives and a further five people, including two children, have been injured after a missile hit a residential building in Kryvyi Rih in the Dnipro region of Ukraine.

The injured people are being treated in hospital.

The Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspline tweeted: “2 people died as a result of hitting a house in #KryvyiRih, the head of RMA Reznichenko said.

“At least 5 people were injured, including two children. An apartment block is destroyed.”

Russia has launched a second missile attack on Ukraine within a matter of days, causing damage to critical infrastructure and now power outages too.

The purpose of the attacks is to destroy Ukraine’s power grid, making it easier for Putin and his army to make gains, according to authorities.

Authorities in Kharkiv and Poltava, in eastern and central Ukriane respectively, have reported power outages on Friday.

Oleh Syniehubov, governor of Kharkiv said energy infrastructure in the area had been hit while public broadcasts Suspilne said there were power outages in the area.

Sounds of air defence could also be heard in many other regions across Ukraine, including Donetsk, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, Kivrohrad, Ternipol, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia and Khmelnytskyi.

Ukrainian officials are reporting that Russia launched a fresh wave of missiles at Ukraine today.

Air defence systems across the country have launched into action.

Local officials say key infrastructure has been hit in the eastern city of Kharkiv and in the Black Sea region of Odesa.

Witnesses for Reuters say they heard explosions in Kyiv, but it’s uncertain if these were caused by missiles getting through defences at this stage. No casualties have been reported at this stage, and there are no details about what has been hit.

The governor of Sumy in the north says missiles have caused power outage in his area today.

AFP news agency reports that President Putin is set to visit Belarus on Monday.

It comes as the UK Ministry of Defence has warned Belarus is reporting holding ‘readiness exercises’.

Russia has also reportedly sent extra units of mobilised reservists into Belarus.

But the MoD says troops from Belarus are unlikely to be a force big and capable enough of carrying out a successful assault on northern Ukraine.

Russian forces have continued to expend considerable effort to construct extensive defensive positions along the frontline, the British defence ministry said today citing imagery from the recent weeks.

“They have likely prioritised the northern sector around the town of Svatove,” the ministry noted.

It added: “The Russian constructions follow traditional military plans for entrenchment, largely unchanged since the Second World War. Such constructions are likely to be vulnerable to modern, precision indirect strikes.

“The construction of major defensive lines is further illustration of Russia’s reversion to positional warfare that has been largely abandoned by most modern Western militaries in recent decades,” the defence ministry said.

Russia will double the number of test launches of its intercontinental ballistic missiles in 2023 to eight from four in 2022, Moscow’s commander of strategic rocket forces said today.

The eight test flights will be scheduled from two launch sites – one near Murmansk in the north, the other near Volgograd in the south, Sergei Karakayev told military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda.

He added that four launches had taken place this year and “confirmed the high reliability of the missile systems”.

Ukrainian shelling has killed at least eight people and injured another 23 in the village of Lantrativka in the Russia-controlled Luhansk region this morning, Russian state TASS news agency reported.

Further details of the attack are awaited.

Russian forces fired four missiles, 23 airstrikes and 78 MLRS attacks against Ukraine in the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian general staff said today.

In return, at least 22 strikes were fired on the areas of concentration of personnel, weapons and military equipment by Ukrainian aviation along with three strikes on Russian positions of anti-aircraft missile systems, the top military office said.

Two Orlan-10 type drones were also shot down by Ukrainian forces.

The US is looking to expand its support for Ukraine amid the ongoing Russian invasion as officials in Kyiv present eveidence that Moscow will have another go at the Ukrainian capital in early days of 2023, reported Politico, citing six people aware of the developments.

The Biden administration is contemplating sending other weapons like joint direct attack munition kits, which convert unguided aerial munitions into smart bombs, ground-launched small diameter bombs which will help Ukraine majorly extend its strike range, two US officials and another person familiar with the talks said.

Experts have predicted a slow burning conflict in the winter battle in Ukraine with Russia prolonging the offensive with little gains but by deploying reservists.

Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Russian forces shelled Kherson more than 16 times yesterday as the invading forces continued their “brutal large-scale offensive” in the eastern Donbas region.

The shelling killed two people in the centre of Kherson, said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the president’s office. The attack also knocked out the recaptured city’s power grid, officials said.

On the front line in the east, Russia’s main focus remained on the eastern cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, the Ukrainian military general staff said. Russia is also trying to get a stronger foothold in the Zaporizhzhia region in southern Ukraine, the top military official said.