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The UK says Russia may be firing missiles stripped of nuclear warheads
Russia has so depleted its stockpile of long-range missiles that it may be removing nuclear warheads from old nuclear cruise missiles and firing unarmed rockets at Ukraine, the UK Ministry of Defense says.
Its latest intelligence update said the images showed the wreckage of an AS-15 Kent cruise missile – apparently shot down – which was designed “specifically as a nuclear delivery system” in the 1980s.
The ministry tweeted:
The weapon was probably substituted for ballast. Although such a passive system would still produce some damage through the missile’s kinetic energy and any unspent fuel, it would be unlikely to achieve reliable effects against intended targets.
Russia almost certainly hopes that such missiles will act as decoys and divert Ukrainian air defenses.
Whatever Russia’s intentions, this improvisation reflects the level of decline in Russia’s stockpile of long-range missiles.
Major events
Volodymyr Zelensky They went to the town of Vyshorod, north of Kiev, on Friday to see a four-story building damaged by a Russian missile.
The Ukrainian president also visited one of several emergency centers set up to provide heat, water, electricity and mobile communications, Reuters reported.
Zelensky said in an earlier video statement:
Together we can get through this tough road for our country. We will overcome all challenges and definitely win.

Photograph: Press Service of the President of Ukraine/Reuters
Ukrainian authorities are slowly restoring power, aided by the reconnection of the country’s four nuclear plants, but millions were still in the dark after Friday’s deadliest Russian airstrike of the war.
Reuters reported to the president Volodymyr Zelensky Urged Ukrainians to use less energy.
If there is electricity, it does not mean that you can turn on several powerful electrical appliances at once.
Zelensky also said in his nightly video address that the 6 million people still without power were about half the immediate aftermath of Wednesday’s Russian attack.
The attacks caused the worst damage so far in the conflict, leaving millions without electricity, water or heat even as temperatures dropped below zero.
The national power grid operator, Ukrainergo, said several hours earlier that 30% of electricity supplies were still out, and asked people to reduce their energy consumption.
He said in a statement on Telegram:
Repair personnel are working around the clock.

Photograph: Mykola Tice/Sopa Images/Rex/Shutterstock
The UK says Russia may be firing missiles stripped of nuclear warheads
Russia has so depleted its stockpile of long-range missiles that it may be removing nuclear warheads from old nuclear cruise missiles and firing unarmed rockets at Ukraine, the UK Ministry of Defense says.
Its latest intelligence update said the images showed the wreckage of an AS-15 Kent cruise missile – apparently shot down – which was designed “specifically as a nuclear delivery system” in the 1980s.
The ministry tweeted:
The weapon was probably substituted for ballast. Although such a passive system would still produce some damage through the missile’s kinetic energy and any unspent fuel, it would be unlikely to achieve reliable effects against intended targets.
Russia almost certainly hopes that such missiles will act as decoys and divert Ukrainian air defenses.
Whatever Russia’s intentions, this improvisation reflects the level of decline in Russia’s stockpile of long-range missiles.
summary
Welcome back to the Guardian’s continuing live coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war. Here’s an overview of the latest developments in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, as of 9 a.m.
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More than six million households in Ukraine are still affected by power cuts, two days after Russian strikes targeted the country’s energy infrastructure, President Volodymyr Zelensky said. “As of this evening, blackout continues in most regions [of Ukraine] And in Kiev. In total, more than 6 million subscribers,” Zelensky said in his nightly address on Friday. The number of homes affected has been “halved” since Wednesday. He said about 600,000 people were experiencing power cuts in the capital Kyiv, with Odessa, Lviv, Vinnytsia and Dnipropetrovsk regions also among the worst affected as temperatures neared freezing.
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15 civilians have been killed in Russian shelling of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson On Friday, officials said, engineers across the country tried to restore heat, water and electricity in major cities. City official Galina Lugova said 35 people, including a child, were injured and several “private houses and high-rise buildings” were damaged. The shelling of Kherson, a key eastern city recently recaptured by Ukrainian forces, was the deadliest Russian bombardment in recent days. The head of the Kherson military administration, Yaroslav Yanushovich, said Russian forces “fired at the residential area with multiple rocket launchers”.

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The European Union will step up efforts to support Ukraine to restore and maintain power and heatingThe head of the European Commission said on Friday. Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement after a phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky that the EU executive arm was preparing the delivery of a large donation to Ukraine from EU countries and the EC’s reserves.
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Hungarian President Katalin Novak is on his way to Kiev to meet Volodymyr Zelensky, its Ukrainian counterpart, website index.hu, reported on Friday, adding that Novak will travel via Poland by train. The Hungarian presidential office said it would neither deny nor confirm the information. Novak, a close ally of nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, will be the highest-ranking Hungarian politician to visit Zelenskiy since Russia’s invasion in February.
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Pope Francis said Ukraine’s leaders must be “far-sighted” to secure peace, suggesting that Kiev would have to make concessions to end the war with Russia. In an open letter released Friday to mark the nine-month anniversary of the war, the pontiff praised the strength of Ukrainians to withstand the onslaught. “The world has known a brave and strong people, a people who suffer and pray, weep and struggle, resist and hope: a noble and martyred people.”
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Four of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants have been reconnected to the national power grid After completely losing off-site power earlier this week, the International Atomic Energy Agency said. All facilities were disconnected from the grid on Wednesday for the first time in Ukrainian history after the latest wave of Russian airstrikes on critical infrastructure. In a statement on Friday, the nuclear watchdog said Ukraine had informed it on Friday that its Rivne, South Ukraine and Khmelnitsky plants had been reconnected. Ukraine reconnected its massive Zaporizhia plant on Thursday, Kiev said earlier.
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Armenia asks French President Emmanuel Macron to chair peace talks with Azerbaijan In a new challenge to Vladimir Putin’s increasingly loose grip on Russia’s regional allies following the war in Ukraine. The snub to Putin from a traditional ally comes on the heels of his disastrous summit with six former Soviet states.
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European Union diplomats were meeting Friday night to try to reach a deal on price levels to limit Russian oil exports., as reported by Bloomberg. European governments have so far failed to find an agreement before the December 5 deadline. The G7 proposal for a limit of $65-$70 per barrel is seen as too high by some and too low by others.
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Angela Merkel insisted that her status as a lame duck in the last months of her time in office made it more or less impossible for her to influence Vladimir Putin’s behavior.. The former German chancellor appeared defensive and quietly protested about her inability to take the Russian president’s decision on the invasion of Ukraine, telling the German news magazine Spiegel that she felt she had the ability to negotiate with Putin. It was minimal because it was known that she would not stand for a fifth term.
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The head of the Russian mercenary organization Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has claimed that a former US Marine general works for the group.. In response to a request for comment from the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomet, Prigozhin said on Friday: “There are not many Finnish citizens in the Wagner PMC, about 20 people … they are fighting in a British battalion. [as part of Wagner PMC] Which is commanded by a US citizen, a former general of the Marine Corps,” Prigozhin said, as quoted by the press service of his company Concorde.
With contributions from Reuters and Agence France-Presse
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