Ukraine war latest: Russian strikes kill 12 as Zelensky hopes to meet Trump in Paris

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky will travel to Paris to attend the re-opening of Notre-Dame cathedral on Saturday, and could use the trip to hold talks with US President-elect Donald Trump, two diplomatic sources said.

There were efforts to arrange the meeting between Zelensky and Trump, who is also attending the celebrations, the two sources said. The plans would probably not come together until the last minute and any talks would be discreet, they added.

A Ukrainian delegation met on Wednesday with senior Trump aides, two sources familiar with the meeting said, as Ukraine seeks support from the incoming US team for its war to repel Russia’s invasion.

Volodymyr Zelensky slammed Vladimir Putin over strikes that at least 12 in southeastern Ukraine.

At least 10 people were killed in Zaporizhzhia, while two were killed in Zelensky’s hometown Kryvyi Rih, regional officials said.

“Thousands of such strikes carried out by Russia during this war make it absolutely clear that Putin does not need real peace,” Zelensky said in a post on Telegram. “Only by force can we resist this. And only through force can real peace be established.”

Russia is open to talks with US President-elect Donald Trump but will use “any means” to prevent Washington and its allies from defeating it in Ukraine, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told US journalist Tucker Carlson.

In an 80-minute interview released late on Thursday, Mr Lavrov spoke positively of Mr Trump, who returns to the White House next month, despite urging the West to take Russia’s “red lines” seriously.

Mr Lavrov said Mr Trump was “a very strong person, a person who wants results” and said he saw no reason why the two countries could not “cooperate for the sake of the universe”.

Mr Lavrov’s comments were part of a pattern of Russian signals designed to deter Washington from further escalation in support of Ukraine while displaying openness to negotiations.

Read more on the interview here:

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Belarus on Friday to sign a treaty offering security guarantees for Moscow’s closest ally, including the possible use of Russian nuclear weapons to help repel an aggression.

The signing of the document follows the publication of a revised version of Russia’s nuclear doctrine, which for the first time placed Belarus under the Russian nuclear umbrella amid the tensions between Moscow and the West over the Ukrainian conflict.

Speaking alongside Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko, Putin emphasized that the new document includes the potential use of Russian tactical nuclear weapons deployed to Belarus in response to an aggression.

“I’m sure that the treaty will ensure the security of Russia and Belarus,” Putin said in televised remarks.

After the two leaders signed the security pact, Lukashenko asked Putin to deploy more advanced weapons in Belarus, including the Oreshnik intermediate range ballistic missile that Russia used for the first time last month against Ukraine.

“I would like to publicly ask you to deploy new weapons systems, primarily Oreshnik, to Belarus,” Lukashenko said. “It will help calm some heads.”

A leading Estonian defence firm has said it will start testing anti-drone missiles in Ukraine in 2025.

The tests intend to check the system’s effectiveness in real combat conditions, Frankenburg Technologies said.

Recognised as Europe’s top technology startup, Frankenburg Technologies has developed missiles to intercept Iranian Shahed drones at altitudes of two kilometres using artificial intelligence for autonomous targeting.

“The technology is promising, and we will start testing it in Ukraine in the new year,” the company’s CEO Kusti Salm told Estonia’s public broadcaster ERR.

Production will start increase from a few dozen units per week to hundreds by the third quarter of 2025.

Russia’s top diplomat said in an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson released on Friday that Moscow doesn’t want a war with the United States but will use “all means” to defend its interests.

Sergey Lavrov argued that while Russia and the U.S. are officially not at war, Washington’s permission for Ukraine to use American longer-range missiles for strikes on Russian territory marked a dangerous escalation.

“It is obvious that the Ukrainians would not be able to do what they’re doing with long-range modern weapons without direct participation of the American servicemen. And this is dangerous, no doubt about this,” he said, adding that the Western belief that Russia’s red lines could be “moved again and again” is “a very serious mistake.”

Read the full report here.

MI5 will be forced to turn focus away from terrorism and towards Russia and other hostile states as a result of the security agency’s “finite capacity”, its boss has said.

The agency will have to make “uncomfortable choices” in the face of “much more aggression from nation states”, said Ken McCallum, the director general of MI5.

“In effect, we had the 20 to 30-year holiday from that kind of big player, sophisticated states in serious conflict with each other. It’s back, I’m afraid,” he said in an interview recording obtained by The Times.

In a speech in October, the UK’s top security boss warned that Russia wanted to cause “mayhem” on British streets and that Iranian-backed plots which pose “lethal threats” to Britons are being ramped up at an “unprecedented pace and scale”.

Ukraine showed off a new locally-produced “rocket-drone” on Friday which it said could fly 700 km – more than twice the longest range attributed to missiles supplied by Western allies.

The unmanned craft, called “Peklo” – which means hell in Ukrainian – is the second “rocket drone” unveiled by Kyiv as it tries to increase its ability to strike deep into Russia.

Ukraine‘s arms production minister told Reuters in November the “rocket-drone” could be viewed as something akin to a cruise missile, which flies low on a guided path to its target, usually below the speed of sound.

The Russian rouble has rebounded past 100 to the US dollar, trading at 99.50 on Friday, after a decree by president Vladimir Putin which opened new payment options for European buyers of Russian gas, allowing foreign currency flows to resume.

The rouble strengthened by 1.5 per cent against the dollar, according to bank data.

Putin’s decree meant that European buyers of Russian gas, including Hungary and Slovakia, who previously used Gazprombank for their transactions, could now convert their currency into roubles in other banks that are not under sanctions.

The US sanctions imposed on Gazprombank on November 22 disrupted Russia‘s foreign currency market, leading to a 15 percent fall in the rouble exchange rate against the dollar.