Ukraine Russia war latest: US warns Putin could use lethal new ballistic missile in ‘coming days’ against Kyiv

Russian troops destroyed or captured several Ukrainian positions near the eastern city of Pokrovsk, Kyiv’s military said yesterday, as Moscow bears down on the strategic logistics hub that is home to a unique Ukrainian coking mine.

Ukraine’s top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said he had visited a marine unit in the Pokrovsk sector and noted the conditions servicemen faced against “an enemy superior, primarily, in terms of manpower”.

“Unconventional decisions must be made to enhance the resilience of our defence and ensure more effective destruction of the occupiers,” he wrote on Facebook, without mentioning when the visit took place.

“The battles are exceptionally fierce. The Russian occupiers are throwing all available forces forward, attempting to break through our troops’ defences.”

After months of accelerating advances towards Pokrovsk, Moscow’s forces are now as close as 3km (1.9 miles) from the southern outskirts of the city, according to Ukraine’s DeepState, which maps the frontlines using open sources.

“As a result of prolonged clashes, two of our positions were destroyed, one was lost. Currently, measures are being taken to restore positions,” Nazar Voloshyn, Ukraine’s military spokesperson for the eastern front, said in televised comments.

Just over 44 per cent of Ukrainians trust US president-elect Donald Trump, around 10 points less than president Joe Biden, a survey by New Europe Center showed.

In comparison, a separate June poll by the Pew Research Center suggested that Hungaraians trusted Mr Trump the most at 37 percent, followed by Britain at 30 per cent and then France with 16 per cent of the population trusting him.

“This high level of support is likely due to the expectation of a clearer and more decisive policy towards Ukraine from the new US administration,” New Europe Center researchers said.

Just over 70 per cent of Ukrainians support gradual Nato accession akin to West Germany’s model, a survey by the Kyiv-based New Europe Center found.

This invitation would cover Ukraine, but the alliance’s defensive umbrella would only extend to occupied territories after liberation.

Different Nato accession pathways are gaining traction in both the West and Kyiv as Russia holds a military advantage on the battlefield and the prospect of liberating occupied territories militarily remains slim.

Russian forces have increased the pace at which they are taking territory in eastern Ukraine, as Kyiv’s troops struggle to hold back a much larger and more heavily armed military.

Along the 1,000 km frontline, Moscow has focused its attacks on towns and villages around the transport hub of Pokrovsk, the seizure of which could severely disrupt Ukraine’s ability to supply its forces.

Pasi Paroinen, an analyst from the Finland-based Black Bird Group, which studies footage and satellite images from the frontline, told Reuters that Russian gains in Ukraine had accelerated in recent months.

He estimated the following monthly territorial gains by Russia:

• August – 403 sq km
• September – 422 sq km
• October – 491 sq km
• 1-18 November – 363 sq km

In Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces launched an incursion in August, Kyiv now holds approximately 500 sq km of territory, Paroinen estimated, down from a maximum of around 1,200 sq km.

Devastating human and material losses continue to mount, leaving Ukraine more vulnerable than at any time since the early days of the war.

As of 31 August, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine had documented at least 11,743 civilians killed and 24,614 wounded in Ukraine since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Ukrainian prosecutors have said 589 Ukrainian children had been killed by 15 November.

Western countries believe Russia has suffered far worse casualties than Ukraine, sometimes losing more than 1,000 soldiers killed per day during periods of intense fighting in the east.

But it is Ukraine, with around a third of Russia’s population, that is likely to be facing the more severe manpower shortages arising from battles of attrition.

Russia now occupies and claims to have annexed around a fifth of Ukraine, an area around the size of Greece.

The draft 2025 budget envisages that about 26% of Ukraine’s GDP, or 2.2 trillion hryvnias ($53.3 billion), would go on defence. Ukraine has already received more than $100 billion from its Western partners in financial aid.

There are several variants of Army Tactical Missile Systems, a long-range missile system that often carries varying amounts of cluster bomblets.

Ukrainian forces used the US-supplied long-range ATACMS missiles for the first time in October 2023, with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy saying the weapons had “proven themselves.”

Ukraine likely has what are known as M39A1 Block IA ATACMS that are guided in part by Global Positioning System and have a range of 40 to 190 miles. They can carry a payload of 300 bomblets. The M39 Block IA were used in Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to Army documents, and were added to the US arsenal in 1997.

Vladimir Putin said Russia had struck Ukraine with a new hypersonic medium-range ballistic missile in response to Kyiv’s use of US and British missiles against Russia.

On 21 November, he said Russia had launched an “Oreshnik”, one of its newest intermediate-range missiles, at a defence enterprise in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

Putin said it travelled at 10 times the speed of sound and could not be intercepted. It has a range of around 3,100 miles allowing Russia to strike most of Europe, according to experts.

It appears to have multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles: separate warheads able to hit different targets.

Anatoly Matviychuk, a Russian military expert, said it could carry six to eight conventional or nuclear warheads, and was probably already in service.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has criticised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for his call with Russian leader Vladimir Putin to discuss Ukraine.

“No one should boost personal image at the expense of unity… There can be no discussions about the war that Russia wages against Ukraine without Ukraine,” he said on X.

The Kremlin said earlier on Wednesday that Putin had told Orban in a phone call that Kyiv’s policy continued to exclude the possibility of a peaceful settlement of the conflict. It did not say when the call took place.