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It crashed in Russia’s western Lipetsk region, about 190 miles from Ukraine’s eastern border.
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A Russian MiG-31 fighter jet crashed while attempting to land in the western Lipetsk region near the border with Ukraine, the Russian defence ministry said.
The aircraft reportedly crashed in an uninhabited area in Lipetsk, which is about 300km (190 miles) from Ukraine’s eastern border.
“A MiG-31 aircraft crashed during its landing approach after completing a scheduled training flight,” the Russian defence ministry said on Thursday, according to Russia’s Tass news agency.
“The aircraft’s crew ejected, there is no threat to the pilots’ lives.”
The cause of the crash remains unclear. It occurred shortly before Russia launched a large-scale overnight drone and missile attack against Ukraine on Friday.
A seven-year-old boy was killed when his home was hit in the southeast and at least 20 people were injured, Reuters reported.
Ukrainian officials said much of the capital, Kyiv, experienced power outages as a result of the attack.
Russian forces have focused on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in recent weeks as winter again approaches in the more than three-and-a-half-year-old war. A massive missile and drone attack last week hit several of Ukraine’s main gas production facilities, causing considerable damage.
Twenty-three Ukrainian children and adolescents have been brought out of Russian-occupied areas of the country to territory under Kyiv’s control, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff said on Thursday.
Andriy Yermak, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said the rescue was carried out under the president’s “Bring Kids Back UA” programme aimed at bringing to safe areas children deported to Russia or confined to Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.
Yermak said those returning included two sisters who refused a demand to attend Russian schools made by Russia-installed authorities who had threatened to remove the girls from their mother’s care.
Another teenage boy similarly refused to attend Russian school and one child and her mother were refused permission to leave occupied areas as one of their relatives was serving in the Ukrainian military.
Ukraine says Russia has illegally deported or forcibly displaced more than 19,500 children to Russia and Belarus in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
Research by Yale’s School of Public Health suggested in September that the number could be closer to 35,000.
Donald Trump‘s administration has proposed an order banning Chinese airlines from flying through Russian airspace on routes to and from the US.
The move is yet another escalation in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies after Beijing on Thursday tightened controls for rare earths exports crucial for some US industries.
Russian airspace remains off-limits for many Western airlines and flag-carriers. Russia barred American airlines from using its airspace in retaliation for Washington banning Russian flights over the US in March 2022 after Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine.
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Belarus has begun inspecting the combat readiness of its military, the defence ministry said on Saturday.
As part of the checks, “a number” of units will redeploy to unspecified “designated areas” and carry out undisclosed activities, the ministry said.
It did not disclose any details about the timing, scope, or scale of the inspection.
Such inspections are not uncommon in Belarus. However, this one follows the “Zapad” joint strategic exercises with Russia in September, which included rehearsals for the launch of Russian tactical nuclear weapons and featured the Oreshnik hypersonic missile.
Eight Ukrainian children who were kidnapped from their families and held captive in Russia have been returned to Ukraine following back-channel negotiations between Melania Trump and Russian representatives, the First Lady said on Friday.
Trump, a former model who was born in what is now Slovenia when that country was part of what was then Yugoslavia, made the stunning announcement in the Grand Foyer of the White House. She told reporters that “much [had] unfolded” since she sent a letter in August to Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the fate of the thousands of children who have been taken to Russia after being seized by Russian forces during the invasion of Ukraine.
She said Putin had responded in writing to signal a “willingness to engage” with the First Lady “directly”, and provided her with “details regarding the Ukrainian children residing in Russia.”
“Since then, President Putin and I have had an open channel of communication regarding the welfare of these children,” she said.
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Power has been restored to more than 800,000 residents in Kyiv a day after major attacks by Russia on the Ukrainian power grid caused blackouts across much of the country.
Ukraine’s largest private energy company DTEK said on Saturday that “the main work to restore the power supply” had been completed, but that some localised outages were still affecting the Ukrainian capital following Friday’s “massive” Russian attacks.
Russian drone and missile strikes wounded at least 20 people in Kyiv, damaged residential buildings and caused blackouts across swathes of Ukraine early on Friday.
Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko described the attack as “one of the largest concentrated strikes” against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Russia’s defence ministry on Friday said the strikes had targeted energy facilities supplying Ukraine’s military.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has criticised the Nobel Peace Prize committee, saying its recent decisions have undermined the credibility of the award as he praised Donald Trump for his efforts in ending wars around the world.
“There have been instances in the past where the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to people who did nothing for peace,” Putin said. “In my view, by making such decisions, they significantly undermined the credibility of the award.”
He went on to praise Trump, saying the American leader “is really doing a lot to resolve complicated crises, which have been there for years and even decades.”
Putin added that Trump “genuinely seeks” to end the conflict in Ukraine and said that if his plan for Gaza is implemented, “it will be a historic moment.”
The Russian leader also mocked the Nobel Committee for ignoring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, saying: “I think the Nobel Committee was hardly interested in the opinion of the Kiev regime’s leader. Second, it’s ridiculous to link the Nobel Peace Prize with weapons supplies.”
It came as the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize to Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, even as Trump jockeyed for the honour, claiming credit for ending multiple wars and hostilities.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has said that he and U.S. president Donald Trump did not reveal all the details of their discussions during the Alaska summit, reported Tass.
“We did not disclose everything that had been discussed in Anchorage,” Putin said.
“We simply said that in general, both the United States and the Russian Federation share a vision on how to proceed and where to look in order to end the conflict, all through peaceful means. These are difficult issues.”
He added that both countries continue to follow the agreements reached during the summit, noting: “We continue to stick to the framework of the discussions we had in Anchorage.”
Trump and Putin met in August at the Joint Base Elmendorf–Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska to discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Both sides agreed to continue working within the framework established during the summit, signalling ongoing dialogue despite continued fighting in Ukraine.
The Alaska talks also touched on broader security and diplomatic issues, including arms control, sanctions, and regional stability.
UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky have agreed that additional sanctions on Russia will be introduced “in the coming days and weeks” to increase pressure on Moscow, No 10 said.
According to a readout from Downing Street, the leaders discussed Russia’s “systematic attacks on Ukraine’s critical national infrastructure in the lead up to winter,” saying it further demonstrated that President Vladimir Putin was “not serious about peace.”
Starmer emphasised that it was vital Ukraine received the military equipment it needed to defend itself from continued Russian aggression.
He also reflected on talks with the leaders of France and Germany earlier on Friday, noting that all three countries were united in efforts to unlock the full value of immobilised Russian sovereign assets to help end the war and secure a just and lasting peace.
“Further sanctions in the coming days and weeks would also add to the pressure on Russia,” the readout said, signalling a coordinated push by Western allies to respond to ongoing attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure.
The announcement comes amid rising international concern over winter energy supplies and the humanitarian impact of Moscow’s continued military strikes.
At least four people have been killed and 18 are injured across Ukraine after the Russian drone and missile strikes targeting the energy grid in the past 24 hours.
Ukrainian air defences intercepted 54 out of the 78 Shahed-type attack drones and other drones launched by Russia overnight, according to the Ukraine Air Force.
Just 21 drone strikes were recorded across six locations.
A child was also killed in separate attacks in the south-east of the country.
In the heart of the Ukrainian capital, rescue crews pulled more than 20 people out of a 17-storey apartment building as flames engulfed the sixth and seventh floors.
Ukraine’s energy minister Svitlana Hrynchuk said Russia “continues to use cold and darkness as a tool of terror.”
In a post on Facebook, she said the overnight attack on Friday marked exactly three years since Ukraine’s energy system survived one of the first mass attacks from Russia.
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