Russia Ukraine war latest: Nato members call for long-range strikes on Russia as drones target Kyiv

A number of people were killed and at least 14 were injured in the eastern town of Kupiansk, Kharkiv Oblast, officials said.

Kupyansk, which is located 22 miles (35 km) from the border with Russia, was hit in the afternoon, damaging a hotel, residential buildings, cars, shops and other civilian infrastructure.

“There was a strike with a guided aerial bomb on Kupyansk – right in the city centre, people were under the rubble. Unfortunately, there are fatalities,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address.

He did not confirm the number of deaths.

Several explosions were heard in Kyiv this morning amid an air raid alert, and drone debris fell on a playground.

Ukraine’s air defences have been active in the capital and the wider Kyiv Oblast, officials said, according to Kyiv Independent.

Debris from the drones fell on a playground in the capital’s Dniprovskyi district, but no one has been injured, mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

Some Nato member countries have called for clearing restrictions on the use of long-range missiles against Russia, according to reports.

The Nato-Ukraine Council met yesterday and Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said: “Allies today reaffirmed they are stepping up their military aid to Ukraine.

“We must continue to provide Ukraine with the equipment and munitions it needs to defend itself against Russia’s invasion. This is vital for Ukraine’s ability to stay in the fight,” he said.

Several Nato countries called for allowing Ukraine to use weapons supplied by western allies, specifically long-range missiles, a diplomatic source told AFP.

Poland’s foreign minister Radosław Sikorski highlighted that Russia was using long-range weapons against Ukraine.

He urged allies to “let Ukraine fight with whatever it has, with whatever we have delivered them and let’s deliver them more”.

The US restricts the use of long-range ballistic missiles it provides to Ukraine, which wants to aim them at military targets inside Russia.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, in his latest address, called on the West to lift restrictions on long-range airstrikes by Ukraine.

“We continue to insist that decisiveness now, removing restrictions on Ukraine for long-range strikes now, will help us end the war as quickly as possible in a just manner for Ukraine and the entire world,” he said.

Russia said its forces had defused unexploded US-supplied munitions fired by Ukraine that were shot down just 5 km (3 miles) from Russia’s Kursk nuclear power plant, which Moscow has accused Ukrainian forces of trying to strike.

The announcement was made by Russia’s National Guard and accompanied by a video of the unexploded munitions and of sappers blowing them up.

It came a day after Rafael Grossi, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, inspected the plant, which he said was vulnerable due to a lack of a protective dome that could shield it from missiles, drones or artillery.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on the purported Russian find, and Reuters could not independently verify the location of the video.

Russia’s foreign ministry has banned 92 American citizens including journalists, lawyers, and the heads of what it said were key military-industrial firms from entering Russia over Washington’s Russophobic stance, it said.

The list, published on Telegram by the ministry, included 14 Wall Street Journal employees, five senior journalists from the New York Times and four from the Washington Post.

The Wall Street Journal, whose journalist Evan Gershkovich was freed this month in a prisoner exchange after 16 months in Russian detention, described the bans as “laughable” and part of attacks on free press.

Russia’s foreign ministry said it was targeting editorial staff and reporters from “leading liberal-globalist publications” involved in producing and disseminating what it described as “fakes” about the Russian armed forces.

It said the bans were in response to the Biden administration’s “Russophobic course”, a key part of which has been sweeping sanctions on Russian politicians, business figures, scientists and journalists.

“We remind the current US authorities about the inevitability of punishment for hostile actions, whether it is direct encouragement of (Ukrainian President Volodymyr) Zelensky and his henchmen to commit acts of aggression and terrorist attacks, or attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of the Russian Federation,” the ministry said.

In a statement, a Wall Street Journal spokesperson said: “The Putin regime is farcically consistent in its all-out assault on free press and truth. This laughable list of targets is no exception.”

Ukrainian forces shot down a Russian Su-25 jet aircraft in the Kramatorsk sector in Donetsk Oblast, the Khortytsia group of forces reported.

Anti-aircraft units of the 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade reportedly downed the plane with a Man-Portable Air-Defence System (MANPADS) as it was attempting to fire at Ukrainian troops.

The Soviet-designed Su-25, nicknamed “Frogfoot” by NATO, is a heavily armored ground-attack aircraft. It has seen extensive use by both sides in Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.

Sir Keir Starmer and Olaf Scholz have said the UK and Germany’s support for Ukraine remains “unyielding”.

Speaking at a joint news conference in Berlin, the prime minister said Ukraine was not just fighting to defend itself from Russian aggression but also “for all the people across Europe”.

Mr Scholz, the German chancellor, said both countries would continue to lend “financial, economic, political and military support” for “as long as this is necessary”.

Moscow has vowed to carry on fighting in Ukraine and dismissed Volodymyr Zelensky’s suggestion Kyiv was submitting a plan to Washington outlining how to end the war.

Mr Zelensky previously said Russia’s invasion would eventually end in dialogue, but that Kyiv had to be in a strong position and that he would present a plan to US President Joe Biden and his two potential successors.

“This is not the first time that we have heard such statements from representatives of the Kyiv regime,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

“We are aware of the nature of this Kyiv regime. We are continuing our special military operation and will achieve all of our goals.”