Friday 30 December 2022
10:13
RUSSIAN-CHINESE MILITARY COOPERATION
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said he wanted to strengthen military cooperation with China in a videoconference meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, praising resistance from Moscow and Beijing in the face of Western “pressure”.
“In the face of unprecedented pressure and provocations from the West, we are defending our positions of principle,” Putin launched, before announcing that he wanted to “strengthen cooperation between the armed forces of Russia and China.”
08:33
RUSSIAN KAMIKAZ DRONES
The Ukrainian army announced on Friday that it repelled a Russian attack by Iranian drones on the country, including Kyiv, the day after overnight Russian bombing.
“On the night of December 29-30, the enemy attacked Ukraine using Iranian-made suicide drones, according to a statement by the Ukrainian Air Force published on social media. A total of sixteen drones were attacked” were destroyed by Ukrainian air defenses, the statement said.
In Kyiv, authorities in the Ukrainian capital announced an air alert at 02:12 (00:12 GMT) that lasted just over two hours. Mayor Vitali Klitschko later said Kyiv was attacked by seven drones, two of which were shot down “on approach” to the capital and five more over the city. There were no injuries, but falling debris damaged the windows of two buildings in a southwestern district of Kyiv, he added.
08:24
RECAP’
Fresh volleys of rockets hit several cities in Ukraine on December 29, killing several people and destroying energy infrastructure. The country’s main cities are again without electricity and the population suffers from the cold, while a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile hits Belarus, Kyiv denounces a Russian “provocation”. We take stock after 310 days of war.
International
Posted today at 7:41am
04:48
FOCUS ON BACHMUT
Russian forces diverted resources to the battle for the town of Bakhmut in eastern Donetsk region, but made no progress, according to Ukrainian military. A military official also said Ukrainian forces were advancing towards the city of Kreminna in the eastern Luhansk region, which fell to the Russians in the spring.
04:33
UKRAINE DETERMINES NO RUSSIAN PROVOCATION
Kyiv “does not rule out a deliberate provocation” by Russia “to draw Belarus into its war” after Minsk previously said it shot down a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry has said.
“The Ukrainian side does not exclude a deliberate provocation by the Russian terrorist state, which has established such a route for its cruise missiles in order to provoke their interception in the airspace over the territory of Belarus,” he told the ministry in a press release, which also states “ready” to participate in an investigation into the circumstances of this “incident”.
04:33
RUSSIA PLOWS UKRAINE IN DARK AND COLD AGAIN
“Most regions” of Ukraine were hit by power outages on Thursday evening after the morning’s fresh Russian barrage of fire targeted the country’s electrical infrastructure, its President Volodymyr Zelenskyy lamented. Lviv, the major city in western Ukraine, was 90% without electricity on Thursday, while in Kyiv 40% of residents were without electricity during the day. ”
In Odessa, Kherson and the surrounding area, in Vinnytsia and Zakarpattia,” cuts are multiplying, while millions of Ukrainian civilians have been living for weeks in the middle of winter with rationed electricity and problems with water and heating. “With each of these missile attacks, Russia is only sinking deeper in a stalemate, he judged, they have fewer and fewer missiles.”
04:29
WELCOME TO THIS LIVE – 301ST DAY OF WAR
Hello and welcome to this live dedicated to real-time coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.