British Storm Shadow missiles used inside Russia for first time: Ukraine war latest

Donald Trump has chosen loyalist and former acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker as his nominee for the post of US ambassador to Nato, amid fears the US president-elect could choose to abandon the Western military alliance.

“Matt is a strong warrior and loyal Patriot, who will ensure the United States’ interests are advanced and defended. Matt will strengthen relationships with our Nato Allies, and stand firm in the face of threats to Peace and Stability – He will put AMERICA FIRST,” Mr Trump said.

The United States expects its embassy in Kyiv to return to normal operations on Thursday after a security threat, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller has said.

The embassy was closed on Wednesday and embassy employees were instructed to shelter in place, a day after Ukraine used American missiles to hit a target inside Russia in what Moscow described as an escalation in the war.

At least 200 Belarusians have been given prison sentences and hundreds more arrested for showing solidarity with Ukraine, human rights activists have warned, amid a sweeping crackdown by authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, who is a key ally of Vladimir Putin.

At least 1,671 Belarusians have so far been detained for their anti-war stance or for expressing solidarity with Ukraine, and at least 200 of them have been given prison sentences ranging from one to 25 years on charges of “extremism” and “conspiracy against the state”, according to the group Viasna.

In addition to the arrests, convictions and prison sentences, the report alleged that people were tortured, held in inhumane conditions and given fines, with some subjected to forced psychiatric treatment.

Viasna warned that the crackdown has escalated in recent weeks, with hundreds arrested in raids targeting relatives and friends of political prisoners and participants in online chats organised by residents of apartment buildings in various cities.

At the same time, Mr Lukashenko has pardoned some political prisoners in an apparent signal that he is open for dialogue with the US and the European Union, which imposed sanctions because of his crackdowns on dissent.

Mr Lukashenko’s office announced on Wednesday that another group of 32 political prisoners have been freed, adding to the 146 who were pardoned since July. Those freed had health problems, wrote petitions for pardons and said they repented.

“There have been contradictory signals from the government, with repressions intensifying, and at the same time small numbers of little-known people granted pardon,” said Viasna’s Pavel Sapelka.

Speaking to reporters during a trip to Laos, US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said Washington’s shift in policy to allow Ukraine to deploy US-supplied anti-personnel landmines follows changing tactics by the Russians.

He said Russian ground troops are leading the movement on the battlefield, rather than forces more protected in armoured carriers, so Ukraine has “a need for things that can help slow down that effort on the part of the Russians”.

Mr Austin added: “The land mines that we would look to provide them would be land mines that are not persistent, you know, we can control when they would self-activate, self-detonate and that makes it, you know, far more, safer eventually than the things that they are creating on their own.”

Anti-personnel land mines have long been criticised by charities and activists because they present a lingering threat to civilians. Non-persistent land mines generally require batteries, so over time they become unable to detonate, making them safer for innocent civilians than those that remain deadly for years.

Mr Austin noted that Ukraine is currently manufacturing its own anti-personnel land mines. The US already provides Ukraine with anti-tank land mines. Russia has routinely used land mines in the war, but those do not become inert over time.

In this opinion piece for Independent Voices, historian and author Mark Almond writes:

The announcement that the US embassy in Kyiv – and some EU embassies – are shutting for fear of Russian airstrikes adds to the mood of growing crisis over Ukraine.

If the Kremlin was to deliberately target foreign embassies in Ukraine, it would be a huge breach in the taboos protecting diplomatic installations even in wartime. Diplomatic immunity is not the only taboo that could fall.

More immediately and widely effective is Washington’s decision to send anti-personnel landmines to Ukraine to slow Russia’s slow but steady advances across the front in eastern Ukraine.

One thing the US has in common with Russia – not to mention China and the world’s “pariah” regimes like Iran, or states without functioning governments like Libya – is its refusal to join the 1997 anti-personnel landmine treaty. The treaty bans their use by most of the world, including the UK and America’s European allies and even Ukraine itself.

Russia, of course, broke the taboo against aggression – in force since Nuremberg in 1945 – by invading Ukraine in the first place. But if Kyiv reneges on its treaty obligation – arguing military necessity – it will be another nail in the coffin of well-meaning attempts to limit the horrors of war.

What is the next shibboleth to fall? How long before WMD become battlefield necessities justified by the actual state of the war on the ground?

Staff at the Irish embassy in Ukraine have been told to work from home as tensions continue to escalate – after the US shut its Kyiv embassy because of a “potential significant air attack” by Russia.

Irish premier and defence minister Micheal Martin said that “for the purpose of precaution”, Ireland’s embassy staff are working from home and not in the embassy building in Kyiv.

“That follows consultations between different embassies across Ukraine at the moment, but there’s no plans of withdrawing staff from the embassy,” Mr Martin said.

“This is an abundance of caution here, but obviously the situation is escalated, and we believe Russia should stop this war. The amount of carnage in this war hasn’t got the proper headlines, but it’s absolutely unacceptable.

“I spoke to somebody who came back working with an NGO yesterday. He said to me that the level of fatalities of young soldiers on both sides is enormous, and it’s just an appalling lack of any moral compass that leaders can preside and President Putin can preside over such carnage and it should stop.”

A survivor of the atomic bomb attack on Japan’s Nagasaki during the Second World War has warned Vladimir Putin that he has no idea of the destruction and pain such weapons cause as he threatens the West with the prospect of nuclear war.

Terumi Tanaka, one of a diminishing number of survivors of the US attacks on Japan in 1945, said the use of nuclear weapons would spell “the end of the human race” and that leaders like Mr Putin “don’t realise the extent of the damage that can be done”.

Mr Tanaka’s warning, made during a sit-down interview with The Independent in campaign group Nihon Hidankyo’s small but bustling Tokyo office, came at a time of escalating nuclear sabre-rattling from the Russian leadership.

Mr Tanaka, 92, said civilisation as we know it faces an “imminent danger” and a nuclear war appears to be “not far away”, adding: “I’m very scared about it.”

The Independent’s Asia editor Adam Withnall has the full exclusive report:

The Netherlands has delivered the final two of 18 promised F-16 fighter jets to a training facility in Romania, where Ukrainian pilots and ground staff are being taught to fly and maintain the planes in battle.

The Netherlands has been one of the driving forces behind an international coalition to supply Ukraine with F-16s to strengthen its air defence against Russia’s invasion, and the training of Ukrainian pilots in Romania began in September.

The UK government’s decision to axe two former Royal Navy flagships, a frigate and 14 Chinook helicopters shows “just how tight resources must be” in the Ministry of Defence, an analyst has said.

Matthew Savill, military sciences director at RUSI, the world’s oldest defence think-tank, said: “These are mostly capabilities that are approaching retirement anyway, have been at low levels of readiness or aren’t worth further refits or investment.

“But the fact that Defence either can’t crew them, or is prepared to cut them to make very modest savings over five years in the current international environment is an indication of just how tight resources must be in the MOD right now.

“In particular, the Defence Review will be under pressure to set out the future role of the Royal Marines; how the Navy will bring into service and sustain more escorts, which are the workhorses of the fleet; and the impact upon helicopter capacity and procurement.”

Russian military bloggers have posted images purporting to show fragments of British-made Storm Shadow missiles fired by Ukraine into Russia’s Kursk region.

Both Bloomberg and the Financial Times cited an unnamed Western official as saying that Ukraine had fired the long-range missiles into Russian territory for the first time.

Downing Street declined to comment on the reports and said it would not comment on operational matters.