Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev greets Vladimir Putin at Nursultan Nazarbayev International Airport, Astana, November 27, 2024

Wednesday’s Coverage: Biden Asking Congress to Approve $24 Billion in Aid

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1410 GMT:

Ukraine prosecutors say Russian forces had shot dead five Ukrainian soldiers in Moscow’s latest execution of prisoners of war.

Prosecutors said the executions were carried out on Sunday near the village of Novodarivka in the Zaporizhzhia region in southern Ukriane.

Ukraine human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said he has contacted the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

UPDATE 1219 GMT:

At least five civilians have been killed and at least 25 injured by Russian attacks across Ukraine over the past day.

One person was killed and 14 injured in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine. Two men were killed and three injured when a Russian drone hit in the Kharkiv region in northeast Ukraine, and two were slain in the neighboring Donetsk region.

UPDATE 1211 GMT:

A Russian court has sentenced defense lawyer Dmitry Talantov, 63, to seven years in prison.

Talantov, who has represented critics of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, was accused of writing Facebook posts which condemned the actions of Moscow’s invading troops.

UPDATE 1205 GMT:

Emergency blackouts in Ukraine ended just over 2 1/2 hours ago.

State energy company Ukrenergo said it expects “three rounds of blackouts” until the end of the day.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky commented on the early-morning Russian missile and drone strikes.

Several regions reported Kalibr missile strikes with cluster munitions, deliberately aimed at civilian infrastructure. The use of these cluster elements significantly complicates the work of our rescuers and power engineers in mitigating the damage, marking yet another vile escalation in Russia’s terrorist tactics.

Zelensky again called for international assistance to meet the “urgent need for advanced air defense systems in Ukraine — systems that save lives rather than sitting idle in storage depots”.

UPDATE 1151 GMT:

Ukraine launched a drone and missile strike against Sevastopol in Russian-occupied Crimea on Wednesday, targeting the Belbek military airfield and a naval school.

The attack included UK-made Storm Shadow missiles, domestically-produced Neptune cruise missiles, Soviet-style S200 missiles, 40 strike drones, and unspecified ballistic missiles.

UPDATE 1146 GMT:

The US is urging Ukraine to increase the size of its military quickly by drafting more troops and lowering the conscription age to 18, says a senior Biden Administration official.

Two US officials said the Administration is preparing a $725 million weapons package for Kyiv. It will include landmines, drones, Stinger anti-air missiles, and ammunition for HIMARS rocket systems, including GMLRS rockets with cluster warheads. The formal notification to Congress of the weapons package could be made on Monday.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Russia has attacked Ukraine with 91 missiles as Vladimir Putin threatens to use experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile on Kyiv.

The Ukraine military said air defenses downed 79 of the missiles. Of 97 Iran-type attack drones, 35 were intercepted and 35 others were lost to electronic counter-measures.

As the Russians targeted energy infrastructure, power was knocked out to about a million consumers. Energy Minister German Galushchenko said authorities had “urgently introduced emergency power cuts”. Nuclear power units were disconnected from the network.

Trying to intimidate Ukraine and its supporters, Putin blustered that Russia produces ten times more missiles than NATO countries combined. He threatened an attack on he could strike “decision-making centers” in Kyiv with the Oreshnik IRBM.

Moscow deployed the Oreshnik for the first time last week, firing one on Dnipro in south-central Ukraine. The missile, which is capable of carrying nuclear warheads, caused limited damage and injured two people.

Ukraine War, Day 1,003: Putin Fires “Experimental” Ballistic Missile on Dnipro

Speaking at the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) summit in Astana, Putin maintained that he was forced to launch the new missile “in response to the enemy’s actions” — an apparent reference to the US and UK lifting their bans on Ukraine’s firing of missiles inside Russian territory — and postured that there were “no analogues to the Russian Oreshnik in the world”.

He declared that a massive use of the Oreshnik would be comparable to a nuclear weapon. Proclaiming that it reaches a temperature of 4,000 degrees, he said, “The kinetic impact is powerful, like a meteorite falling. We know from history what meteorites fell where, and what the consequences were. Sometimes it was enough for entire lakes to form.”

Not content with that threat, Putin said other new missile systems could appear as Russia continues combat tests of the Oreshnik.