Ukraine-Russia war – latest news: Putin ally says Russia at war with UK and US, ‘not Kyiv’

The parents of one of the British volunteers missing in Ukraine have spoken of feeling “very raw” following their son’s disappearance in the war-torn country.

They were heading to the town of Soledar in the eastern Donetsk region of the country, where fighting has been fierce in recent days. The pair have not made contact with anyone since leaving Kramatorsk at 8am on January 6.

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A Ukrainian serviceman carries his injured comrade evacuated from the battlefield into a hospital in Donetsk region, Ukraine.

It comes as Russian forces are escalating their onslaught against Ukrainian positions around the wrecked eastern city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian officials said, bringing new levels of death and devastation in the months-long conflict.

Pictures show debris of a building purported to be Russian soldiers’ temporary accommodation destroyed in a Ukrainian missile strike in Makiivka.

Russia is “not at war with Ukraine” but is fighting Britain and the US, one of Vladimir Putin’s closest allies has said.

Nikolai Patrushev, the Russian security council secretary, told the Argumenti i Fakti newspaper: “The events in Ukraine are not a clash between Moscow and Kyiv – this is a military confrontation between Russia and Nato, and above all the United States and Britain.”

He added that Russia is “not at war with Ukraine” because Russians “cannot have hatred for ordinary Ukrainians”.

His comments come as Putin’s defence minister vowed on Tuesday to build a deeper arsenal of weapons, bolster aviation technology to better evade air defences and improve drone production after a series of battlefield humiliations in Ukraine.

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Ukraine and the West had reacted “cynically” to a 36-hour ceasefire proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin to mark Orthodox Christmas.

“We met with a cynical reaction from Kyiv and a number of Western leaders,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a daily briefing.

Russia says the truce was announced for humanitarian purposes so that Orthodox Christians could celebrate Christmas, but Ukraine says Russian troops shelled dozens of positions and settlements along the front line on Saturday, when the truce was meant to be in effect.

Russia has appointed Colonel-General Alexander Lapin as chief of staff of the country’s ground forces, state-owned news agency TASS reported on Tuesday, citing sources close to the defence ministry.

Italy intends to supply Ukraine with a missile defence system to help protect it against Russia attacks but must deal with technical issues before it can be dispatched, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Tuesday.

Tajani was speaking after Italian newspaper la Repubblica reported on Monday that a decision on the supply of new arms to Ukraine had been delayed until next month due to political tensions, cost considerations and equipment shortages.

Two weeks ago Ukraine‘s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Rome was considering supplying air defences after a phone call with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in which she reaffirmed her government’s “full support” for Ukraine.

Shortly afterwards, Defence Minister Guido Crosetto struck a cautious tone on whether Italy would be able to supply Ukraine with air defence systems such as the Franco-Italian SAMP/T.

Tajani said Italy was working with the French to resolve issues prior to deployment of the SAMP/T.

“There is no brake on…but it takes time because there are technical problems to make the instruments work, the military commands are working on this,” he told Italian radio.

Citing unspecified sources, la Repubblica reported on Monday that Meloni, who is a firm supporter of Kyiv, was facing resistance on the approval of a decree to send arms to Ukraine from her right-wing allies Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi.

Both politicians have longstanding ties with Moscow.

But sources from their respective political parties – Salvini’s League and Berlusconi’s Forza Italia – on Monday denied having any problems with the decree.

Another issue holding back the decision is concern about depriving the Italian army of air defence systems, la Repubblica wrote, as two of its five missile batteries are already committed to Kuwait and Slovakia.

One of president Vladimir Putin’s closest allies said on Tuesday that Russia was now fighting the U.S.-led NATO military alliance in Ukraine and that the West was trying to rip Russia apart and ultimately wipe it from the political map of the world.

“The events in Ukraine are not a clash between Moscow and Kyiv – this is a military confrontation between Russia and NATO, and above all the United States and Britain,” Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said.

“The Westerners’ plans are to continue to pull Russia apart, and eventually just erase it from the political map of the world,” Patrushev told the Argumenti i Fakti newspaper.

Patrushev, a former Soviet spy who has known Putin since the 1970s, is a hardline ally and seen as one of the few people able to influence the Russian president.

Russia‘s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine has triggered one of the deadliest European conflicts since World War Two and the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

A Russian warship armed with hypersonic cruise weapons has held exercises in the Norwegian Sea, the defence ministry said on Tuesday.

“The crew of the frigate ‘Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov’ conducted an air defense exercise in the Norwegian Sea,” the ministry said.

“The crew… conducted an exercise to repel the means of an air attack of a simulated enemy in the Norwegian Sea.”

Last week, President Vladimir Putin sent the frigate to the Atlantic Ocean armed with new generation hypersonic cruise missiles, a signal to the West that Russia will not back down over the war in Ukraine.

The frigate is armed with Zircon missiles which Russia says fly at nine times the speed of sound and have a range of over 1,000 km (620 miles).

Russia sees the weapons as a way to pierce increasingly sophisticated U.S. missile defences which Putin has warned could one day shoot down Russian nuclear missiles.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev

last week warned the United States that the hypersonic missiles would soon be close to NATO’s shores.

Two British nationals helping evacuate civilians in Ukraine have gone missing in the Donetsk region.

The men, aged 28 and 48, were last seen on 6 January heading to the town of Soledar, where fighting has been especially fierce in recent days. There has been no contact with the pair since they left Kramatorsk at 8am on Friday.

The two missing men have been identified to The Independent as Andrew Bagshaw, 48, and Christopher Parry, 28.

A Ukrainian friend and former flatmate of Mr Parry in east Ukraine said that the pair received a call to help evacuate civilians on Friday.

Bel Trew and Emily Atkinson report: