Summary
Here is a round-up of the key events today.
Moscow continues to consider Taiwan an integral part of China, a spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry has said after voters elected Lai Ching-te from the ruling pro-sovereignty party. The president-elect said it was a “victory for the community of democracies”.
Russia has lost 369,160 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its invasion almost two years ago, according to Ukraine’s armed forces. The Russian military is on course to lose 500,000 personnel within the next year, according to a statement by the UK’s Ministry of Defence last week – the average daily casualty numbers, which today stood at about 700, have risen by nearly 300 during the course of 2023.
France and Ukraine have agreed to “scale up” their defence cooperation, Ukraine’s foreign minister has said after a meeting with his counterpart. France’s show of continuing support will be welcome news to Ukraine, which fears backing for the country is waning as the war nears its second year and critical aid packages remain stuck in Brussels and Washington.
Russia launched 40 attacks against regions across Ukraine on Saturday morning using weapons including hypersonic missiles, according to local authorities and the Ukrainian air force. According to Ukraine, 37 were missiles and three were drones. Eight were downed, and 20 failed to hit targets.
Russia has said it has destroyed its targets in a series of strikes on facilities producing ammunition and drones in Ukraine. Its ministry of defence said Russia said it had targeted facilities producing shells, gunpowder and unmanned aerial vehicles, saying “all designated facilities were hit”.
A warehouse in St Petersburg owned by one of Russia’s biggest online retailers has gone up in flames, Reuters reports Russia’s ministry of emergency situations as saying, as firefighters battled a huge blaze on Saturday.
We’ll be closing this blog now – thanks for following along.
Updated
A man has been wounded following Russian shelling of a district in the Kherson region on Saturday, according to the local authority.
Russian troops shelled the Beryslav area at around 4.30 pm, according to the state news agency Ukrinform.
“A 42-year-old man was sent to the hospital. He has a shrapnel wound to his back. Now medics are operating on the victim,” the local authority said on Telegram.
It comes follows other injuries reported in Kherson on Saturday, when a 54-year-old resident was injured as a result of a drone attack on Saturday, and police rescued a 74-year-old woman from the rubble of a building.
