Ukraine war live: Putin’s red lines ‘must be crossed to help Kyiv’

Germany will provide an additional €100m (£84.2m) in aid for Ukraine this winter, foreign minister Annalena Baerbock announced during a visit to Moldova today.

Berlin has already given approximately €5bn in 2023 and approximately €1.6bn in 2022 in military assistance since the start of the Ukraine war. Another €2.9bn have been committed so far for future deliveries which will reach Ukraine in the years 2025 to 2028, officials had announced last month.

The aid from Germany includes armoured vehicles, air defence systems including Patriot missiles, and artillery.

Russian forces attacked energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region, cutting power in some districts, local authorities said this morning.

The attack caused damage in the Konotop, Okhtyrka and Sumy districts and critical infrastructure facilities were forced to switch to back up power systems, regional officials said. Sumy’s water supply facilities were also affected.

The regional authorities said air defences shot down 16 drones over the region.

Sumy’s acting mayor Artem Kobzar said there were no casualties in the city and that energy workers were dealing with the attack’s aftermath.

The Ukrainian air force said Russia launched 51 drones across five regions overnight and that air defences shot down 34 of them.

Vladimir Putin must be defeated and Nato allies must do more to cross the Russian president’s red lines, Estonian president Alar Karis has said.

“We probably realise now that we have to cross all of these red lines and then start forcing Russia out of Ukraine,” he told the Kyiv Independent, as he backed Volodymyr Zelensky’s calls to strike Russia with West’s long-range missiles.

In May this year, he had accused Russia of forcing “an unjust war upon Ukraine” and Russia was the one escalating the conflict each day.

“We are in a very simple position, we should lift the restrictions on the use of weapons that Ukraine gets from the Western world so we can target these drones where they start (on Russian territory). When this happens, the drones never reach Ukraine, Latvia, or any other country,” he told the Ukrainian news website.

Vladimir Putin has expanded his military by tens of thousands after dozens were injured when a Russian glide bomb hit a high-rise building in northeastern Ukraine.

Mr Putin signed a decree increasing the overall size of the Russian armed forces by 180,000, bringing the total capacity to 2.39million people, Russia state news agency RIA reported.

The last time the staffing level of the Armed Forces was increased was in December 2023. It was raised to 2,209,130 ​​people, including 1,320,000 military personnel.

If Washington was to give Kyiv the go-ahead to use the weapons, despite Vladimir Putin’s warning of war, what Russian targets could Ukraine hit? The Independent takes a look below.

The governor of Russia’s Kursk region Alexei Smirnov on Monday ordered the evacuation of residents of all settlements in the province’s Rylsky and Khomutovsky districts situated within 15km (9.3 miles) of the Ukrainian border.

Kursk region has been the scene of bitter fighting since a Ukrainian incursion in early August seized territory along the frontier. Russian troops have in recent days made efforts to push Kyiv’s forces back.

Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is going “precisely as planned”, as he provided a battlefield update from his commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi.

“We are defending our positions,” he said, referring to the frontline as a whole, in his nightly video message. “We also reviewed the Kursk operation in detail, and each day we are acting precisely as planned.”

Mr Zelensky said Syrskyi provided details of the slow advance of Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, particularly on the rail and logistic hub of Pokrovsk.

He said 100 battles had occurred in the last 24 hours on the eastern front, with the heaviest fighting gripping the Pokrovsk and Kurakhove sectors.

Capturing Pokrovsk would be a significant step towards Russia’s objective of capturing the whole of the Donetsk region.