War latest: Air raid alerts across Ukraine - as Putin ally issues dire warning over invasion of Russia (2024)

An anti-Putin group of Russians fighting on behalf of Ukraine has urged Russian soldiers in Kursk to surrender and fight with Kyiv's army.

In a callout to Russian servicemen on Telegram, the Freedom of Russia Legion paramilitary group said political officers were telling them "to blow yourself up with your own grenade".

"But hundreds of Russian soldiers ignore the criminal order, choosing to live rather than die for a new colonel's medal or another Gerasimov mansion," it said.

The statement called on Russian troops in Kursk to "voluntarily surrender" to Ukraine's army as some of their "comrades" have already done.

"For those who wish to continue fighting for a normal future for Russia, there remains an ironclad option to join the legion," it said.

Kyiv claims hundreds of Russian soldiers have been taken prisoner by Ukrainian forces since the start of the Kursk offensive.

Ukraine's invasion in Kursk has raised the possibility of an armed provocation of Belarus, according to the Belarusian defence minister.

Viktor Khrenin's remarks were quoted by the state-run Belta news agency.

It comes after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a top ally of Vladimir Putin, warned yesterday that Kyiv could attack his country and widen the war.

A British citizen freed in the biggest prisoner exchange with Russia since the Cold War has met with Joe Biden at the White House after returning to the US.

Vladimir Kara-Murza was serving a 25-year sentence for treason and had spent over two years imprisoned in Russia when he was freed along with 23 others at the start of August.

Posting a picture of Mr Kara-Murza, his wife and children, the US president said his family was "whole once more".

The freed dissident told Sky News he had no idea he was part of the prisoner swap and thought he was being led to his death as he was transferred from the Siberian prison where he was being held.

The conviction and sentencing of a US-Russian ballerina over a donation to a charity is "nothing less than vindictive cruelty", White House national security spokesman John Kirby has said.

Ksenia Karelina, 33, was arrested and accused of treason in February after giving £40 to a charity supporting Ukraine.

She was sentenced yesterday to 12 years in a Russian prison after admitting the charge at a closed trial earlier this month.

Mr Kirby said US officials were working to gain consular access to Karelina.

"We're talking about 50 bucks," he said. "To call that treason is absolutely ludicrous."

Karelina, an amateur ballerina, was born in Russia but moved to the US in 2012 and became a citizen in 2021. She had moved to Los Angeles, where she worked in a spa, but was visiting family in Russia when she was arrested.

Russian forces have destroyed a Ukrainian reconnaissance and sabotage group armed with NATO weapons in Kursk, Russian media is reporting, citing claims by unofficial sources.

Sky News cannot independently verify battlefield accounts.

Russian troops have been struggling to drive out Ukrainian forces from the Kursk region since the shock cross-border invasion last week.

Much of Ukraine is under an air raid alert this morning.

The alerts warning of possible attacks - issued several minutes ago - cover several regions and the capital city of Kyiv.

It is "astonishing" that there has been no significant Russian response to the Kursk invasion 10 days on from Ukraine's surprise attack, an ex-UN chief has said.

Mark Malloch Brown, former deputy secretary-general of the organisation, said it's likely Russia will soon launch a major deployment of troops to push back Ukrainian forces - but the invasion has revealed the internal "cumbersomeness" of Russia's "top-down" military.

"[It has] incredible difficulty responding flexibly and quickly to a challenge from any kind of threat," he told Sky News.

"And so it's astonishing that we're into the second week of this, and there hasn't been evidence yet of a major Russian redeployment of troops to push the Ukrainians back."

He added that he was sure such a move would come, but by then the Ukrainians "may have had the opportunity to dig themselves in to a point that it becomes a permanent feature of an otherwise barely moving frontline".

Mr Brown said he also believed Kyiv was "deliberately obfuscating" about what its aim was through the Kursk invasion.

"Is it to permanently hold it? Is it to change the dynamics of any ceasefire and peace negotiation? Is it to penetrate deeper, to put even more of a threat on Moscow? They are very deliberately, I think, not being explicit about this incursion's aims," he said.

Footage has emerged of an armoured vehicle driving towards a Russian border checkpoint from the Ukrainian side and being fired on.

The Kolotilovka checkpoint in the Belgorod region is often used for prisoner exchanges.

The video shows a vehicle driving at full speed towards the checkpoint before appearing to hit a barrier and being shot at shortly after.

Ukraine has shown it is "capable of carrying the fight to the enemy" and the UK should be prepared to give Kyiv its "full support" as the invasion of Kursk continues, a former defence secretary has said.

Lord John Hutton, a Labour peer, said Ukraine's attacks were a "legitimate operation" and "largely defensive".

"I think we should be prepared to give it our full support because it is necessary for the defence of Ukraine," he told Sky News.

Asked what he thought Volodymyr Zelenskyy aim was with the offensive, Lord Hutton said it was "essentially a political mission to put pressure on Putin".

"He's demonstrated that Ukrainian armed forces are still in the fight, and they're capable of carrying the fight to the enemy, and I think it's delivered a much needed morale boost to the Ukrainian people themselves, who've been on the defensive for a long period of time," he said

"I hope that the mission achieves the long term purpose of getting closer to a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian forces from the territory of Ukraine," Lord Hutton added.

Washington is reluctant to let Kyiv's troops use long-range US weapons inside Kursk due to their short supply, according to a report.

Ukraine received several of the long-range ATACMS missiles earlier this year, and has used them to target sites deep inside Russia.

Officials told CNN that the US was hesitant over the use of the missiles in the Kursk invasion, not because of the risk of escalation, but due to their limited supply.

Despite Ukraine gaining ground in the Russian region, "multiple" US and Western officials warned that Kyiv was unlikely to be able to judge the territory for long, adding that it was too soon to say how the invasion would affect the overall outcome of the war.