Ukraine updates: Russia attacks with record number of drones

NATOSecretary-General Mark Rutte said the alliance should deliver more support for Ukraineafter a massive Russian drone attack during the night.

According to Rutte, NATO should "go further to change the trajectory of the conflict," while also adding that the alliance's support was critical for upholding Ukraine's defense.

Rutte emphasized the importance of supporting Kyiv by stating that Russia gets "North Korean weapons and troops, Iranian drones and Chinese dual-use goods for its defense industry."

The foreign ministers of the Group of Seven (G7) leading industrialized democracies have expressed their support for Ukraine and condemned what they described as Russia's "irresponsible and threatening nuclear rhetoric."

The ministers, meeting in the Italian town of Fiuggi, also warned that North Korean support for Russia marked a dangerous expansion of the conflict. 

"Russia's use of an intermediate-range ballistic missile on 21 November is further evidence of its reckless and escalatory behavior," they said in a statement at the conclusion of their meeting.

"Our support for Ukraine's territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence will remain unwavering," they added.

The joint statement also warned of the serious consequences for European and Indo-Pacific security and called on China to act against its long-standing ally, North Korea.

Moscow's troops have been making a major push along the frontlines in Ukraine's east, where Russian forces have won some of their biggest territorial gains since 2022.

The ministers added that they hoped to start distributing funds from a $50 billion loan package yielded from frozen Russian assets by the end of the year. 

The Group of Seven industrialized nations includes the UK, Canada, Germany, France, Japan, host Italy, and the US.

Russian authorities have confirmed that a British citizen was captured in Russia's western Kursk region while fighting alongside Ukrainian troops over the weekend.

The Leninsky District Court in the city of Kursk has ordered James Scott Rhys Anderson, a former private in the British Army, to be remanded in custody, pending an investigation and trial.

Anderson is alleged to have "participated in armed hostilities on the territory of the Kursk region."

The hearing took place on Monday but was only reported by Russia's TASS state news agency on Tuesday.

The Russian Defense Ministry says its forces have captured another village in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region.

Quoted by the Russian Interfax news agency, the ministry said "military units ... have liberated the settlement of Kopanky" — a village just south of the Ukrainian-held city of Kupiansk.

Kopanky was previously captured by Russian forces at the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022 before being re-taken by Ukraine later that year.

The front line in the region had been relatively stable until a series of incremental recent Russian advances.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy says the UK is not sending troops into Ukraine after a news report suggested Britain and France were discussing the option.

French newspaper Le Monde reported on Monday that France and the UK were "not ruling out" sending personnel and private defense companies to Ukraine, citing unnamed sources.

Tensions between Russia and the West have significantly escalated in the past days.

That comes after US President Joe Biden allowed Ukraine to use US-supplied longer-range missiles to attack targets inside Russia.

Le Monde said a debate about sending troops to Ukraine had been revived after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer's visit to France for the November 11 Armistice commemoration.

But when he was asked about the report in an interview, Lammy said Britain's longstanding position not to send troops on the ground in Ukraine had not changed.

"We are very clear that we stand ready and continue to support the Ukrainians with training particularly, but there has been a longstanding position that we are not committing UK troops to the theater of action," Lammy told newspapers La Repubblica, Le Monde and Die Welt at the G7 foreign ministers' meeting in Italy on Tuesday.

"That is certainly the UK position, and remains the UK position at this time."

A Russian court has ordered the arrest of France24 news channel reporter Catherine Norris Trent on a charge of crossing illegally into its western Kursk region.

Russian state news agency TASS on Tuesday said the journalist had entered the region with the Ukrainian military to file her report.

Russia has launched criminal cases against several Western journalists who have reported from Kursk since Ukrainian troops broke across the border on August 6.  The proceedings have been launched in absentia. 

President Vladimir Putin's foreign intelligence chief has said Russia is opposed to freezing the conflict in Ukraine because Moscow needs a "solid and long-term peace."

Sergei Naryshkin, the head of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), said that Russia wanted a solution that resolves the core reasons for the crisis to allow for long-term peace. Naryshkin said Russia was open for talks.

Ambassadors from Ukraine and NATO's 32 members are meeting in Brussels to discuss Russia's firing last week of an experimental hypersonic intermediate-range missile.

Moscow conducted the strike, which Russian President Vladimir Putin said was a test of its new Oreshnik missile, on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro last Thursday.

The Kremlin leader said the missile attack was a response to Ukraine firing weapons supplied by the US and UK into Russia.

Putin warned that Moscow felt now "entitled" to hit military facilities in nations that permitted Kyiv to use their weapons against Russia. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the strike on Dnipro "the latest bout of Russian madness." He appealed for updated air defense systems to meet the new threat.

Ukraine has said it hopes for "concrete and meaningful outcomes" after calling the meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council. 

However, NATO diplomats and officials have played down expectations for any major results from the consultations at the alliance's Brussels headquarters on Tuesday afternoon.

It is expected that NATO will merely repeat an earlier insistence that Russian deployment of the new weaponry will not "deter NATO allies from supporting Ukraine."

A NATO official said the meeting provided "an opportunity to discuss the current security situation in Ukraine and will include briefings from Ukrainian officials via video link." 

Ukraine's air force says Russia launched a record 188 drones against the country on Tuesday, amid growing international tensions over Russian missile threats.

Both Moscow and Kyiv have been escalating their drone and missile attacks, with Ukraine recently firing US long-range missiles at Russia. The Kremlin responded to that by launching an experimental hypersonic missile last week.

"During the night attack, the enemy launched a record number of Shahed strike unmanned aerial vehicles and unidentified drones," the air force said, referring to Iranian-designed drones and putting the overall number fired at 188.

Ukraine's air force says it shot down 76 Russian drones in 17 regions, while another 95 were either lost from their radars or downed by electronic jamming defensive systems. 

The air force did not specify what happened to the remainder. It added that Moscow had also launched four Iskander-M ballistic missiles.

"Unfortunately, critical infrastructure facilities were hit, private and apartment buildings were damaged in several regions," a statement said.

rc/nm (Reuters, AFP, AP, dpa)