Experts are alarmed over changes in the North Korean missiles being used by Russia in attacks in Ukraine. Follow the latest on the Ukraine war.
Thursday 6 February 2025 14:45, UK
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Vladimir Putin has today been hosting a Kremlin reception with winners of the 2024 Science and Innovation Prize for Young Scientists.
Discussions during the event covered a range of scientific topics, which at one point moved on to that of Mars and the prospect of travel there.
The Russian president said during the meeting that there was no chance of exploring the planet today, but that doing so was possible in the future.
And in comments reported by state news agency RIA, he proceeded to make what appears to have been a bizarre joke while asking the young scientists whether modern radiation-protective materials would allow living beings to reach Mars.
“Tell me, will today’s modern radiation-protective composites allow, say, cows to fly to Mars and back? Or rabbits, or cats, or dogs?” Putin said.
You can watch video of the exchange below:
Kyiv has recieved new fighter jets from its Western allies.
Ukraine received its first French Mirage 2000 fighter jets today, France’s defence minister said online.
The French have tweaked the jets to make them more suitable for air-to-ground combat, rather than air-to-air as they had been designed.
Ukrainian defence minister Rustem Umerov later announced the Netherlands had delivered US-made F-16 fighters.
The aircraft, along with French Mirage jets, “will soon begin carrying out combat missions, strengthening our defence”, Umerov said on Facebook.
The UK government has announced it will revoke the accreditation of a Russian diplomat, in retaliation to a similar move made by Moscow last year.
Russia said in November that it was expelling a British diplomat for spying, an accusation denied by London.
But Britain’s Foreign Office said in a statement today that it had summoned the Russian ambassador to announce its decision, saying it was in response to “Russia’s unprovoked and baseless decision to strip the accreditation of a British diplomat in Moscow in November”.
“Any further action taken by Russia will be considered an escalation and responded to accordingly,” the statement added.
In our previous post, we discussed the ongoing Ukrainian incursion into the Russian region of Kursk, which was launched six months ago today.
Russia’s defence ministry has said this afternoon that Ukrainian troops had attempted a counterattack in the west of the region, but that they were repelled by Russian forces.
The ministry said Ukrainian troops and armoured vehicles had launched several waves of attacks near the villages of Ulanok and Cherkasskaya Konopelka, but that they were beaten back and the settlements were under Russian control.
The battlefield report could not be independently confirmed, but the fact that Ukrainian forces are still capable of launching significant attacks in Kursk region highlights the stiff challenge that Russia faces to dislodge them.
Ukraine’s foothold in Kursk has shrunk significantly since the immediate aftermath of the 6 August incursion but provides Kyiv with a useful bargaining chip in potential peace talks.
Today marks six months since Ukrainian forces launched an audacious incursion into the Russian region of Kursk.
Ukrainian troops swept across the border in a shock offensive in August, claiming control of almost 500sqm (around 1,300sqkm) and taking hundreds of prisoners of war.
The Kremlin has since taken back significant swathes of its own land but struggled to fully expel the invading troops, even deploying thousands of North Korean soldiers in the area.
Ukraine then launched a new offensive in Kursk last month.
Analysts have suggested that the initial raids were designed to distract Russia and draw troops away from more strategically important areas inside Ukraine, on the basis that the seizure of Russian land would be hugely embarrassing for Vladimir Putin.
However, they have since reported that the Kremlin appears to have resisted falling in to such a trap, and has not focused huge resources in rapidly re-establishing control in the region.
These maps show the latest situation on the ground in Kursk, based on the most recent battlefield updates:
A senior Russian politician has suggested a meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin could come as soon as this month.
“They (contacts) are absolutely probable, the probability of these contacts is 100%, the leaders of the two largest powers on the planet must stay in close cooperation with each other,” Leonid Slutsky said after a meeting with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.
“The work requires serious preparation, which, I will not give away a secret, is currently at an advanced stage,” he added.
“February or March – let’s not guess and give the leaders the opportunity to prepare for it competently and comprehensively. But it will be soon.”
Slutsky, the leader of Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party, ran against Putin in the last presidential election but was widely considered to have been a candidate approved by the Kremlin.
Photographs issued this morning show the aftermath of a Russian strike that hit the main market building in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
The attack reportedly damaged around 100 market stalls.
Despite the damage, there were no injuries reported, according to the local governor.
In a field in northwest Germany, a man takes his position in the grass. He is lying on his front, almost flat to the earth.
The ground beneath him is cold.
Any other day it would be uncomfortable, but today he barely notices. Instead, he is focused on the gun in his hands – a G36 assault rifle. His eyes are fixed on the target he has been trained to hit.
Unblinking, he squeezes the trigger.
This time last week he was working in an office; today he’s practising how to defend his country.
Read Sky News’ full report on Germany’s preparation for future wars:
Russia has withdrawn accreditation from Le Monde’s Moscow correspondent after Paris refused to issue a visa to a Russian reporter.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman said Moscow had repeatedly warned that it would retaliate over France’s refusal to accredit a journalist from Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.
Maria Zakharova said Benjamin Quenelle had been the casualty not because of any “political subtext” but because his accreditation had required a “technical extension”.
It’s been suggested that France believes that some Russian journalists refused visas by Paris were in fact working for Russian intelligence.
Le Monde condemned what it said was the “covert expulsion of our journalist”. It leaves the newspaper without a presence in Moscow for the first time since the 1950s.
Diplomats and journalists say that Russia is now a tougher environment for them to work in than at any time since at least the era of Nikita Khrushchev, who succeeded Josef Stalin.
Russia has been practising stealth manoeuvres of intercontinental ballistic missiles, the country’s defence ministry said today.
The ministry published video of Yars missile launchers moving through a snowy forest in its Volga region.
The Yars is a nuclear-capable missile that can be moved around on truck carriers or deployed in silos.
Russia staged similar manoeuvres last year as a nuclear warning to the West at a time of heightened confrontation over the war in Ukraine.
The ministry said that the missiles were being deployed on “combat patrol routes” under camouflage, moving in the field over distances of up to 100 km (62 miles).
Troops were practising defence against sabotage groups and spy patrols of a mock enemy, it said.
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