Ukraine war latest: Four dead in Kyiv as Putin’s forces launch barrage of missiles

North Korean troops have suffered an estimated 92 casualties every day since significant fighting in Russia’s border Kursk region began in early December, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said in early January that 3,800 North Korean soldiers had been killed or wounded in Kursk, where Russia is trying to reclaim territory following Kyiv’s lightning offensive last August and a second push late last year.

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Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said windows were broken in the city’s Shevchenkivskyi district, and there was smoke at the entrance of a residential building.

A water supply pipeline was also damaged, he added.

The Lukyanivska metro station was closed after the attacks damaged its glass entrance, but was later reopened.

Drones and missiles were also shot down across numerous regions in Ukraine, including Poltava, Sumy, Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Kyiv, Khmelnytskyi, Zhytomyr, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson and Donetsk.

Ten people were injured when a Russian missile struck the regional centre of Zaporizhzhia, damaging residential buildings and private vehicles, local governor Ivan Fedorov said.

Eight people aged between 28 to 69 were taken to hospital, including a 48-year-old woman in a serious condition, he wrote in a statement.

The UK sending peacekeeping troops to Ukraine is “highly risky”, a former security adviser to Gordon Brown has warned, arguing the “grotesquely underfunded” armed forces do not have the resources to do so.

But a number of senior military figures have expressed concerns at the plan. Among them is Lord West of Spithead, retired admiral of the Royal Navy and Mr Brown’s former advisor.

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The Kyiv City Military Administration said three people were killed and three more injured in the attack.

A fourth victim had been assumed dead but the administration said later the case has yet to be confirmed.

The known victims are two men aged 43 and 25, and a 41-year-old woman, officials said.

The office of Ukraine’s general prosecutor said in a statement that the casualties included a security guard at a food establishment and people who were in a minibus on the street.

The cost of the conflict between Israel and Hamas has been monstrous and tragic. As we hope that this phase of it will start to come to an end on Sunday, we have tried to sum up the price in lives lost, the suffering of hostages, civilian victims and their families – and the destruction of property, livelihoods and hope.

Our aim is nothing sophisticated. It is not news that war is terrible, but it is worth remembering that wars always bring more death and destruction in their wake than intended – and that they nearly always last longer than expected.

The Independent has, since its founding, been resolute in its support of human rights, self-determination and national security. It has always argued that democracies must be prepared to take military action as a last resort in defence of those principles. We supported – with reservations – the aerial campaign against Slobodan Milosevic’s forces to protect the people of Kosovo from “ethnic cleansing”. And we opposed the US-British invasion of Iraq because we thought the cost would be too high for any good that removing Saddam Hussein would do.

Today, we stand with the Ukrainian people in their brave resistance against Vladimir Putin’s aggression, and we welcome Sir Keir Starmer’s visit to Kyiv to express that solidarity in person. But there are limits to that support: we are not prepared to commit British troops to the defence of Ukraine and, while we believe that the Ukrainians should be supplied with long-range missiles, we are wary of anything that looks as if Nato members are being drawn into direct conflict with Russian forces.

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Ukraine on Saturday claimed a pair of attacks on oil depots in western Russia, the latest salvo in Kyiv’s air campaign against strategic targets on Russian soil.

Kyiv’s General Staff said its forces had struck storage facilities overnight in the Kaluga and Tula regions. Damages were still being assessed, it said in statements on each attack, adding that the depots supported Moscow’s war effort in Ukraine.

Kaluga’s regional governor, Vladislav Shapsha, said on Telegram that a fire had broken out after an industrial site was hit in the city of Lyudinovo.

He later said seven drones had been downed, with one landing in a “non-residential area”.

Tula’s regional governor, Dmitry Milyaev, said on Telegram that a fuel and lubricant tank had caught fire at a facility in the region as result of a Ukrainian drone attack.

Ukrainian forces have stepped up strikes inside Russia, primarily oil depots and military production facilities, as they struggle to hold back steady Russian advances on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine.

On Friday, a Russian missile strike on the city of Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s hometown, killed four people and partially destroyed an educational facility, officials said.

“All those who assist the Russian state in this war must face pressure as impactful as these strikes,” Zelenskiy wrote on social media in response to Saturday’s attack.

Russia has carried out regular air strikes on towns and cities far behind the front line since the start of its almost three-year-old invasion of Ukraine, targeting critical infrastructure in particular.

Russian forces unleashed a combined drone and missile strike on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv early on Saturday, killing three people in a central district, officials said.

Explosions boomed across the pre-dawn sky as air defences repelled the attack, which also wounded three others, according to city military administration chief Timur Tkachenko.

A shopping mall, business centre, metro station and water pipe were also damaged, he said.

“Russian forces initially launched drones and then a ballistic-missile strike,” parliamentary ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets wrote on social media. “These acts merely underscore the enemy’s ruthlessness and barbarity.”

Rescue workers plodded through a flooded street as they sifted through debris. The charred remains of a van were visible in front of the station, whose facade was marked by twisted metal and blown-out windows.

As daylight broke, they could be seen examining missile fragments and loading a body bag into a truck.

Air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat told Ukrainian media that both missiles that had been aimed at Kyiv were destroyed, but that one of them was shot down at a low altitude, resulting in heavy damage.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow, which has denied deliberately targeting civilians.

When outgoing president Joe Biden was asked if he or Donald Trump deserved credit for the Gaza ceasefire deal struck in Qatar he shot back: “Is that a joke?” It wasn’t. Trump’s claim of having secured the “EPIC” deal was comic, but his contribution was real.

Biden’s team worked in tandem with Trump’s incoming administration – and his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff – to deliver the agreement which had taken many months to thrash out.

It was no accident that it was struck in the dying days of the Biden years, less than a week before Trump was due to move back into the White House. Israel’s prime minister knew that involving Trump would set him up to warm relations with the 47th president.

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Russian forces took control of the settlements of Petropavlivka and Vremivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Saturday.

It also said Russian forces hit Ukraine’s military facilities with high-precision weapons in response to an Ukrainian attack on Russia’s southern Belgorod region with U.S.-made ATACMS missiles.

The battlefield reports have not been independently verified.