Andrew Sparrow

As we briefly mentioned earlier, the UK has announced additional support for Ukraine. My colleague Andrew Sparrow has more detail:

Keir Starmer has announced £35m in emergency support for Ukraine to help it repair its energy grid.

In an announcement released as Starmer was attending the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) leader’s summit in Estonia, Downing Street also unveiled fresh sanctions against the “shadow fleet” of oil tankers used by Russia to sell its oil. No 10 said:

The UK has provided £35m of emergency support to help Ukraine repair its energy grid and support the most vulnerable through a third winter of war, the prime minister has announced today.

It comes as the UK also reinforces its iron-clad support for Ukraine by launching fresh sanctions targeting Russia’s energy sector. Today’s sanctions target 20 shadow fleet ships carrying illicit Russian oil, including Ocean Faye, Andaman Skies and Mianzimu, which have each carried more than four million barrels of Russian oil in 2024.

Key lynchpins in enabling the trading of Putin’s precious oil, 2Rivers DMCC and 2Rivers PTE LTD have also been slapped with sanctions. These new measures will further drain Putin’s war chest, by clamping down on the oil revenues he so desperately needs to fuel his illegal war and put those who enable Russia’s oil exports on notice.

And Starmer said:

As Putin’s oil revenues continue to fuel the fires of his illegal war, Ukrainian families are enduring cold, dark nights, often without heating, light or electricity, targeted by Russia’s relentless missile attacks.

But these systematic attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure will not grind Ukraine down. It will only deepen our resolve and support.

• A Russian general in charge of radiation, chemical and biological protection forces has been killed in an explosion in Moscow, the country’s investigative committee has said. Lt Gen Igor Kirillov was killed outside an apartment building on Ryazansky Prospekt, which starts 7 km (4.35 miles) south-east of the Kremlin. The explosion was caused by a device hidden inside an electric scooter, according to the committee.

• Kirillov’s assistant also died in the blast, which was triggered by an explosive device placed in a scooter, officials said. Russian investigators have opened a case into the two deaths, the committee’s spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said.

• Sources in Kyiv have confirmed that Ukraine’s SBU carried out the killings in Moscow.“We were involved in the operation,” the source told the Guardian.

• Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said on Tuesday that the Ukrainian leadership would face imminent revenge for the killing of a top Russian general, RIA news agency reported. “Realising the inevitability of its military defeat, it launches cowardly and despicable strikes in peaceful cities,” he said.

• Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday appealed to allies to sanction Russia’s so-called shadow fleet carrying illicit oil. Zelenskyy commented on an oil spillage caused by Russian tanker in the Black Sea on Sunday, calling it an “environmental disaster”.

• Britain on Tuesday sanctioned 20 ships it said had been carrying illicit Russian oil. “As [Russian president Vladimir] Putin’s oil revenues continue to fuel the fires of his illegal war, Ukrainian families are enduring cold, dark nights, often without heating, light or electricity, targeted by Russia’s relentless missile attacks,” British prime minister Keir Starmer said.

• The Ukrainian air force said on Tuesday it had downed 20 Russia-launched drones. It said on the Telegram messenger that Russia launched a total of 31 drones and an additional 10 did not reach their targets. One was still in the air.

• Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Vershinin held talks with Rebeca Grynspan, the head of the UN Trade and Development agency, his ministry said on Tuesday, saying he raised the issue of western barriers to Russian food exports. The “organisation of donations of Russian grain and fertilisers with the assistance of the UN,” was also discussed, the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement.

• Russian forces have taken control of the settlement of Hannivka in eastern Ukraine, Russia’s state RIA news agency reported on Tuesday, citing the defence ministry. Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield report.

• Russia is boosting its ballistic arsenal with new strategic missile systems, plans maximum-range launches and may increase testing in response to growing external threats, a senior Russian military commander said on Monday. In a clear warning that Russia will respond if it deems its security is threatened, Sergei Karakayev, the commander of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces, said the country plans maximum-range test launches as part of testing new systems, Reuters reported.

• The United States hit North Korea and Russia on Monday with new sanctions targeting Pyongyang’s financial and military support to Moscow as well as its ballistic missile program. The sanctions, which list North Korean banks, generals and other officials, as well as Russian oil shipping companies, are the latest US measure aimed at disrupting North Korea’s support to Russia’s war in Ukraine, Reuters reported.

Ukraine’s SBU tells Guardian it was responsible for killing of Russian general

Luke Harding

Sources in Kyiv have confirmed that Ukraine’s SBU carried out the killings in Moscow.

“We were involved in the operation,” the source told the Guardian.

Pjotr Sauer

Kirillov’s assassination is the latest in a series of targeted attacks on Russian military personnel and pro-Kremlin figures.

However, the significance of his rank and influence is likely to send shockwaves through Russia’s political and military elites.

“The killing of a lieutenant general will be a shock for many,” said a former senior Russian defence official speaking on conditions of anonymity.

The former official added that other senior defence figures are now likely to face enhanced security measures, potentially including round-the-clock protection by members of Russia’s special forces.

“This will definitely cause a stir,” the former official said.

The killing of a senior Russian military official, Igor Kirillov, in Moscow on Tuesday was a “special operation” by Ukraine’s SBU security service, a source inside the agency told both the AFP and Reuters news agencies.

“The liquidation of Lt Gen Igor Kirillov, chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ radiation, chemical and biological defence troops is a special operation by the SBU,” the source told AFP.

The Guardian has not independently verified this claim.

Kirillov’s assistant also died in the blast, which was triggered by an explosive device placed in a scooter, officials said.

Russian investigators have opened a case into the two deaths, the committee’s spokesperson Svetlana Petrenko said.

“Investigators, forensic experts and operational services are working at the scene,” she said in a statement. “Investigative and search activities are being carried out to establish all the circumstances around this crime.”

Kirillov was sentenced in absentia by a Ukrainian court on 16 December for the use of banned chemical weapons in Ukraine during Russia’s military operation in Ukraine that started in February 2022.

Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU, said that they had recorded more than 4,800 uses of chemical weapons on the battlefield since February 2022, particularly K-1 combat grenades.

Welcome to our coverage of the war in Ukraine.

A Russian general in charge of radiation, chemical and biological protection forces has been killed in an explosion in Moscow, the country’s investigative committee has said.

Lt Gen Igor Kirillov was killed outside an apartment building on Ryazansky Prospekt, which starts 7 km (4.35 miles) south-east of the Kremlin.

The explosion was caused by a device hidden inside an electric scooter, according to the committee. His assistant was also killed, it said.

It comes a day after Ukrainian prosecutors charged the general with using banned chemical weapons in Ukraine, according to the Kyiv Independent.

In other developments:

• President-elect Donald Trump on Monday suggested he may reverse Joe Biden’s recent decision to allow Ukrainian forces to use American long-range weapons to strike deeper into Russian territory. Trump called the decision by Biden “stupid”. Asked if he would consider reversing the decision, Trump responded: “I might. I think it was a very stupid thing to do.” The White House pushed back, noting that the decision was made after months of deliberations that started before last month’s election. The White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said: “All I can assure you is that in the conversations we’ve had with them since the election, and we’ve had at various levels, we have articulated to them the logic behind it, the thinking behind it, why we were doing it.”

• North Korean troops have been killed during combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region, according to Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and the Pentagon. The deaths are the first reported since the US and Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost three-year war. The news came as the White House said it now believed North Korean troops were on the “front lines” of Russia’s war and were “actively engaged in combat operations” against Ukraine.

• The German defence minister, Boris Pistorius, said on Monday his country would likely play a role in securing a future ceasefire deal between Russia and Ukraine but that it was far too early to tell what a peacekeeping force might look like. “If there is a ceasefire, then of course the western community, Nato partners, potentially the United Nations and the European Union will have to discuss how such a peace, such a ceasefire can be secured,” he said. “And it is obvious that Germany, as Europe’s biggest economy, would play a role there.” He underlined it also needed to be clear that both Ukraine and Russia accepted such a mandate but “there are far more questions than answers right now”.

• A Russian military court on Monday sentenced 23-year-old Vasily Zharkov to 19 years in prison after finding him guilty of treason, attempted sabotage on strategic infrastructure as well as joining a terrorist group, Russian media reported. Prosecutors said Zharkov, arrested in November 2023, spoke to a representative of a banned unit of Russians fighting for Ukraine, the Freedom of Russia Legion, and had acted on its orders, entering a military base outside Moscow with plans to start a fire but instead being arrested.

• Ukraine has called on the international community to take action against Russia’s sanctions-busting oil fleet, after an ageing tanker sank in the Black Sea, causing an environmental disaster. Luke Harding writes that the Russian cargo ship, Volgoneft-212, broke in half during a heavy storm off the coast of occupied Crimea on Sunday. A second tanker, Volgoneft-239, got into difficulties in the same area. It eventually ran aground near the port of Taman at the south end of the Kerch strait.

• Keir Starmer is to visit British troops serving on Russia’s border after saying that Ukraine will require more funding and capability. The prime minister was speaking at the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) conference in Estonia, where he met leaders of other Baltic states, writes Nadeem Badshah. Asked what else could be done to support Ukraine, Starmer said: “There is an ever-increasing demand for more capability. That is understandable, and Ukraine needs all the capability that it can get, so I think all of us have put in more capability into Ukraine by way of equipment.”

• A senior Russian military commander has claimed Russia is boosting its ballistic arsenal with new strategic missile systems, plans maximum-range launches and may increase testing in response to growing external threats. “In terms of range, there is no place where our missiles cannot reach,” Russia’s RIA state news agency cited Sergei Karakayev as telling a Russian defence ministry newspaper. He claimed Russia was developing a new intercontinental ballistic missile system, the Osina. Vladimir Putin has said Russia will soon start mass-producing the Oreshnik ballistic missile – apparently backtracking from his earlier suggestions that it was already in production and could be fired again at a time of Russia’s choosing. Russia struck Ukraine in November with an Oreshnik.

• A former FBI informant on Monday admitted to making up a story that Joe Biden and his son Hunter had taken $5m in bribes from a Ukrainian energy firm. Alexander Smirnov, 44, pleaded guilty to creating a false record in a federal investigation, as well as three counts of tax evasion for failing to pay taxes and penalties on $2.1m in income for 2020 to 2022. Russian-born Smirnov, a dual US-Israeli citizen, faces up to six years in prison under a plea deal. He is due to be sentenced on 8 January.