The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
UK ramps up Ukraine arms after Kyiv attack
Shapps rushes out air defence missiles after Russia launches biggest assault of war
BRITAIN vowed to send hundreds of air defence missiles to Ukraine yesterday after Russia launched its biggest aerial bombardment since the start of the war.
The Daily Telegraph understands that the announcement by Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary, was brought forward over fears that Moscow could strike again over the New Year holiday weekend.
Western intelligence chiefs believe Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, could be plotting another wave of missiles and drones as part of a winter campaign against civilian targets.
Britain’s pledge of 200 new Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) comes with Western weapons supplies dwindling amid a crisis of support for Ukraine.
Mr Shapps said Russia’s attack was Putin “testing Western resolve”, adding: “Now is the time for the free world to come together and redouble our efforts to get Ukraine what they need to win.”
Joe Biden, the US president, said that “history will judge harshly those who fail” to send more support to Kyiv, with his $61 billion package remaining blocked by Congress. A huge tranche of EU funding has been blocked by Hungary.
Russian forces launched 158 missiles and drones in the early hours yesterday morning, killing at least 30 people and injuring hundreds across Ukraine.
The bombardment came days after Ukraine angered Moscow by sinking a navy vessel in Crimea. Kyiv described the strikes, which left apartment blocks wrecked and blew holes in a maternity hospital, as a wake-up call to the West.
Western and Ukrainian intelligence believe Russia has spent months stockpiling missiles for the winter to overwhelm air defences and draw attention away from the front lines, where they are making incremental gains. The restart of Russia’s aerial campaign is expected to focus on freezing Ukrainians into submission by destroying energy and heating infrastructure across the country.
“We are doing everything to strengthen our air shield,” Andriy Yermak, Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, said yesterday. “But the world needs to see that we need more support and strength to stop this terror.”
Mr Shapps responded with the announcement of more air defence missiles, part of an existing deal brought forward as a result of Russia’s latest bombings. Britain will supply 200 AMRAAM rockets, which are made in the UK and usually launched from aircraft but have been redesigned to be fired by Ukrainian forces from the ground.
Earlier this week, Washington announced that it would ship more surface-to-air munitions to Kyiv as part of a $250 million package, which will be the last unless Mr Biden can find agreement for new funds.
“Unless Congress takes urgent action in the new year, we will not be able to continue sending the weapons and vital air defence systems Ukraine needs to protect its people. Congress must step up and act without any further delay,” the president warned yesterday.
“Putin’s objective remains unchanged. He seeks to obliterate Ukraine and subjugate its people. He must be stopped.”
Ukraine’s air defence forces were said to have successfully downed 87 cruise missiles and 27 kamikaze attack drones yesterday, but around 20 ballistic missiles, including some hypersonics, appear to have got through. At least eight people were killed in Kyiv, where Ukrainian forces have amassed the most air defence systems. The first direct missile hit in months on the Ukrainian capital destroyed a warehouse.
RUSSIA launched a record wave of missile strikes in cities across Ukraine yesterday, blowing holes in apartment blocks and setting maternity wards on fire.
The barrage of missiles and drones was Moscow's biggest such assault since the war began nearly two years ago, killing at least 31 people and injuring more than a hundred others.
In the capital Kyiv, at least seven people were reported dead and dozens more wounded in hits on homes.
Experts believe the assault is part of a winter offensive by Moscow to leverage its strong position on the battlefield and grind down Ukraine amid dwindling supplies of Western weapons.
Videos showed a high-rise building in the capital on fire after it was hit by suspected debris following an attack.
In one clip posted from someone's room, a fire mushrooms across the top of the entire building before leaving a thick black cloud in its wake.
The Lukianivska metro station, which was being used as a shelter, was also damaged by an explosion, while a huge fire engulfed a 3,000 square metre warehouse in the Podilskyi district, the capital military administration said.
By the evening work was still ongoing to rescue people stuck under the rubble of the warehouse in the Shevchenko district in the afternoon, according to the city administration.
In Odessa, CCTV inside a church captured a priest burning incense when a part of the ceiling collapsed behind him, missing him by a few feet.
In the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, more than 20 missiles struck, hitting warehouses, a medical building and an ambulance.
Oleg, 54, a local volunteer, said he was woken up at 6:30am by several loud explosions followed by a brief period of calm.
“We thought it was all over, but after 20 minutes, another six to seven explosions followed one after another,” he said.
“In Kharkiv, we haven't experienced anything like this since last summer so it was very frightening. It was scary considering such a high number of explosions one after another.”
In Kyiv Oleksandr, 32, said he was woken up by the “sound of explosions”, an occurrence he has come to expect as a feature of life in war. Going out onto the balcony to smoke a cigarette, he estimated there was smoke and fire 2km away from his house.
“As an experienced military man who has been on the frontline since the beginning of the Russian invasion, I roughly understood the distance and nature of the explosions, and I didn't hide,” he said.
Maryna, 31, told The Daily Telegraph her home was rocked by nearby blasts.
“There's no understanding of what to do and what is happening because this is a true horror,” she said.
Natalia, a 73-year-old Kyiv resident, said: “This is terror that they are subjecting the whole of Ukraine to, in order to exhaust us.”
Elsewhere in the country, the health ministry said a maternity hospital had been “severely damaged” in Dnipro but the staff and patients had managed to shelter in time.
Six were killed and 28 wounded said Sergiy Lysak, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region where a shopping mall, private houses and administrative buildings were hit.
Mr Lysak said there were 12 women in labour at the maternity hospital and four newborns when it was struck.
In Zaporizhzhia, on the shores on the Dnipro river, governor Yuriy Malashko reported seven dead and 13 wounded.
The unprecedented attacks come as experts warned they could be the start of a long-awaited Russian winter campaign on civilian infrastructure after stockpiling missiles and making incremental gains on the front lines.
The attacks are also believed to be part revenge for the sinking of a Russian navy ship earlier this week in Crimea.
Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesman for Ukraine's air force, called it a "massive attack", adding: “We have never seen so many targets on our monitors at once.”
Kyiv used the bombardment to warn its Western allies that Vladimir Putin was testing their resolve, as support for the country appears to be dwindling.
“Ukraine needs support,” Andriy Yermak, the Ukrainian president's chief of staff, said, with both the European Union and United States struggling to finalise more than £90 billion in support for Kyiv.
“We will be even stronger, we are doing everything to strengthen our air shield.
But the world needs to see that we need more support and strength to stop this terror.”