{"id":119543,"date":"2024-12-20T15:52:52","date_gmt":"2024-12-20T15:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-russia-war-latest-putins-forces-launch-deadly-kyiv-ballistic-missile-and-drone-attack-the-independent\/"},"modified":"2024-12-20T15:52:52","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T15:52:52","slug":"ukraine-russia-war-latest-putins-forces-launch-deadly-kyiv-ballistic-missile-and-drone-attack-the-independent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-russia-war-latest-putins-forces-launch-deadly-kyiv-ballistic-missile-and-drone-attack-the-independent\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin\u2019s forces launch deadly Kyiv ballistic missile and drone attack – The Independent"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Putin says he is open to talks with Donald Trump, saying \u2018we will have things to discuss\u2019
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Russia<\/a> has launched dozens of missiles and drones against Ukraine<\/a> as at least one person was killed in the capital of Kyiv<\/a> in the attack.
Ukraine\u2019s air force said Russia had fired 60 drones overnight, though 20 were downed well before they reached their target, and five ballistic missiles at towns and cities across the country.
At least one person was killed after missiles hit Kyiv at around 7am local time this morning, while a high-rise building was badly damaged. The capital\u2019s St Nicholas Church was also damaged.
Five people were also injured in a separate Russian missile strike that damaged a two-storey residence in Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky<\/a>\u2019s hometown, Kryvyi Rih.
Meanwhile, Russian president Vladimir Putin<\/a> has said he should have invaded Ukraine earlier as he used an end-of-year press conference to double down on his decision to start the war.
Despite the toll his war has taken on Russia\u2019s finances and the lives of its young men, Putin claimed that sending troops into Ukraine in 2022 has boosted his country\u2019s military and economic power.
A Russian general assassinated by Ukraine was buried with full military honours on Friday as Moscow launched an apparent revenge attack on what it said was a Ukrainian intelligence service command centre in Kyiv.
Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, who was chief of Russia\u2019s Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops, was the most senior Russian officer to be killed inside Russia by Ukraine.
He was killed outside his Moscow apartment building on Tuesday along with his assistant when a bomb attached to an electric scooter went off in an attack for which Ukraine\u2018s SBU security service took responsibility.
State news agency RIA said Kirillov was buried in a ceremony outside Moscow attended by Defence Minister Andrei Belousov and Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia\u2019s Security Council.
It said the ceremony had taken place at a Defence Ministry memorial complex called the Pantheon of the Defenders of the Fatherland.
Video footage of the funeral showed an honour guard carrying a coffin draped in the national flag and Kirillov\u2019s cap on top of it as solemn music played. The honour guard then fired shots into the air in a snow-covered cemetery as the national anthem played and mourners looked on.<\/p>\n

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Pyongyang claimed on Thursday that its alliance with Russia was \u2018normal\u2019 and \u2018very effective\u2019, despite international alarm about the deployment of North Korean troops to the war in Ukraine
Ukraine has claimed that Russian forces suffered more than 2,000 casualties on Thursday, the highest alleged losses in a day since the start of the full-scale invasion.
The Independent <\/em>was not able to verify these numbers, though British intelligence recently suggested that Russian losses were notably high as Moscow\u2019s troops advanced on Donetsk. They put the average figure over recent months between 1,000 and 1,200.
The Ukrainian military said on Friday its forces had pulled back from the area around Uspenivka and Trudove villages in the eastern region of Donetsk to avoid being encircled by advancing Russian troops.
With the war now in its 33rd month, the Ukrainian forces are engaged in intense defensive battles and are stretched thin as the Russians press forward along the front line.
\u201cThe Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has decided to withdraw the units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces from the area in question to avoid encirclement,\u201d Ukraine\u2018s Khortytsia group of forces said on Telegram.
Military units had avoided being surrounded and would continue to operations in the Kurakhove-Konstantinopolske area, a statement said.
Ukraine\u2018s General Staff reported 18 battles on the Kurakhove front in the past day with Russian forces attempting to advance to the north of the town.
The Russian Defence Ministry said on Friday its forces had taken control of two more settlements in Donetsk region, Uspenivka and Novopustynka. It claimed control of Trudove on Wednesday.
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Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged inPutin says he is open to talks with Donald Trump, saying \u2018we will have things to discuss\u2019Independent PremiumWant to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":119544,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-119543","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}