“Ukraine – Russia”

‘Cuckoo’ comes from a proud tradition of Ukrainian snipers — and Putin is sending poorly trained men into her crosshairs

From her stakeout a kilometre away, the Ukrainian sniper trained her rifle on the gap blasted through the colliery’s concrete perimeter, waiting for the Russians to reappear.

The 47th Brigade markswoman had fired ten .338 calibre bullets at the wall behind which five men were sheltering. One had collapsed, apparently injured, before rousing himself and limping ­towards cover, minus his gun. The Russian raiding party, part of a wider assault on Avdiivka, was in disarray.

LVIV — The Japanese have a concept of forest bathing for health. Joe Rogan promotes daily ice baths for a little shock to get you going in the morning. But in Ukraine, people often experience missile-and-drone baths, and so it was in the early hours of last Friday, when Russia launched what seems to have been its biggest ever sky assault upon Ukrainian cities. It was the first major Russian attack upon Ukrainian since the summer, when Ukraine disrupted Moscow’s missile-launching Black Sea Fleet.

Since then, it’s been a brutal New Year.

British defence stocks have risen to a record high as tensions in the Middle East and the war in Ukraine continue to stoke global demand for military hardware.

The UK benchmark for defence and aerospace companies surged 1.4pc to 8,710.43 points on Tuesday, the highest figure on record.

Among the winners were Babcock International, BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce, which jumped 3.5pc, 1.8pc and 1.9pc respectively in early Tuesday trading.

Britain and other European countries are “cranking through the gears” trying to ensure they can help Ukraine win its war against Russia without the US should Donald Trump get into power, according to a senior Whitehall source.

Ministers are desperately trying to ramp up manufacturing capabilities across the continent so they can send weapons and ammunition to the front line and keep Vladimir Putin at bay for at least another year, irrespective of US support.

The saboteurs managed to place four explosives on a Russian freight train carrying diesel and jet fuel, roughly 3,000 miles from the Ukrainian border. But more important than the destruction of the train, Ukrainian intelligence officials said, was the timing of the blast.

They needed it to blow up as the 50 rail cars were traveling through the nine-mile-long tunnel through the Severomuysky mountains, the longest train tunnel in Russia.

Russia says it has destroyed dozens of missiles and drones fired at its territory from Ukraine. Local officials reported four people, including three children, were killed in attacks.

The Russian defence ministry said 13 missiles and 32 drones were shot down over several Russian regions.

A child was reported killed in Bryansk, while a man and two children in Belgorod are also said to have died.

The attacks follow strikes on Ukraine which killed 39 people.

Western air defences saved many Ukrainians from the Kremlin’s missiles but with 18 dead and support from its allies wavering, Kyiv is in no mood to celebrate

President Putin once boasted that Russia’s hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, which were among the 158 fired at targets across Ukraine on Friday, were “indestructible”.

Russia launched a wave of hypersonic, ballistic and cruise missiles as well as kamikaze drones at cities including Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro and Odesa.

The ease with which Ukraine was able to swat them away is testament to the power of its western air defences.

The conflict in Ukraine is about to enter its third calendar year. The front lines have hardly moved in the last few months but could the course of the war change in 2024?

President Volodomyr Zelensky has admitted his country’s spring offensive has not been the success he hoped. Russia still controls about 18% of Ukraine.

We asked three military analysts how they think events may unfold in the coming 12 months.

Western defence is too fragmented, too slow to respond, and will be attacked by Putin’s Russia if it doesn’t do more to help Ukraine, their foreign minister says in a rebuke of Europe’s response to the Russian invasion.

Apologies for this seasonal downer. Had the website such a listing, this column would surely soar to number one in The Spectator’s “Least Popular” roster. For just now, few topics are a bigger turn-off than Ukraine.

Following Russia’s invasion, I got caught up in the same waves of emotion that washed over most western publics, and I say that with no regret. After relentlessly battling the prevailing cultural winds these past few years, I was relieved to feel a sense of solidarity for once. Most of us were revulsed by the gratuitous aggression, allied with an underdog whose bite proved surprisingly fierce, thrilled by a former comedian’s unexpected rise to his nation’s occasion and consumed by a weirdly addictive loathing for Vladimir Putin. Kyiv’s repelling Russia’s clumsy invasion of the capital was exhilarating. Like so many of you, in those early months I read about Ukraine every day.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has said his troops have seized the key town of Mariinka in eastern Ukraine.

Mr Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin assault units had taken the “powerfully fortified” area just outside Donetsk, a Russian-held regional capital.

The commander of Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi said Ukrainian forces had moved to the outskirts of Mariinka.

Mariinka – seen as a gateway to Donetsk – has been almost completely destroyed.

Mariinka

🐘 T-64BV bursts into the northwestern outskirts of the city and destroys the positions of the Russians at close range. pic.twitter.com/TKBDmUpxkl

— GWAR69 🇩🇰🇺🇦 (@GwarWorin) December 26, 2023

Today, Russian media is rejoicing, boasting that the Russian army has, after 22 months, finally taken the town of Mariinka.

Here's what's left of Mariinka after Russians spent billions in artillery and 15,000 Russian lives there to "take" it. pic.twitter.com/vkB9v9FxPA

— Jay in Kyiv (@JayinKyiv) December 25, 2023

Russia has confirmed one of its warships has been damaged in a Ukrainian attack on a Black Sea port.

The airstrike took place at Feodosiya in Russian-occupied Crimea early on Tuesday morning.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said the large landing ship Novocherkassk was struck by Ukrainian aircraft carrying guided missiles.

The head of the Ukrainian Air Force said earlier its warplanes had destroyed the ship.

Heavy casualties suffered by both sides in the Ukraine war have ignited a race to replenish vehicles lost in combat and protect those that remain operational.

With Ukraine’s supply of Western-donated vehicles beginning to dry up after its counter-offensive failed to produce a breakthrough, and with Russia losing hundreds of tanks in failed eastern assaults, engineers are using every means at their disposal to plug the gaps in their forces.

Modern warfare is just a series of proxy wars.

The war in Ukraine is a proxy war. Ukraine is the proxy of America and NATO. To stem a Russian invasion, America and its NATO allies are helping Ukrainians defend their country against the invaders in every way save by putting “boots on the ground.” The question is just how long America and its allies will persevere and whether respective elected governments can, over time, convince their electorates that the benefits of continued support for Ukraine outweigh the costs, in this case almost entirely financial.

President Vladimir V. Putin’s confidence seems to know no bounds.

Buoyed by Ukraine’s failed counteroffensive and flagging Western support, Mr. Putin says that Russia’s war goals have not changed. Addressing his generals on Tuesday, he boasted that Ukraine was so beleaguered that Russia’s invading troops were doing “what we want.”

“We won’t give up what’s ours,” he pledged, adding dismissively, “If they want to negotiate, let them negotiate.”

But in a recent push of back-channel diplomacy, Mr. Putin has been sending a different message: He is ready to make a deal.