Image source, Getty Images

Ukraine's foreign minister says he hopes emergency talks with Nato in Brussels next Tuesday will lead to "concrete and meaningful outcomes" against Russia.

His comments come after Russia launched a new type of ballistic missile on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro yesterday, days after Kyiv used US-supplied missiles on Russian soil for the first time.

On Russia's attack yesterday, Andriy Sybiga told a press conference in Kyiv: "This is a serious scaling up of the war, a serious escalation of Russian aggression".

"Next week's meeting will be held in the Nato-Ukraine format, and we hope for concrete and meaningful outcomes."

The governor of Russia's Kursk border region has said that 46 Russian civilian residents of Kursk, who were been held by Ukraine, have been returned to Russia following negotiations.

Alexei Smirnov said the civilians, including 12 children, had been moved by Ukrainian troops into Ukraine, after Kyiv staged a cross-border incursion into the western Russian region in August.

A Ukrainian army source told AFP that Kyiv still controls over 800 sq km in Russia's Kursk region, despite Russian attempts to dislodge them.

The source added that there are no immediate plans to withdraw and they would stay in the region "for as long as it is appropriate."

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said that the war could "end today if Putin stopped being aggressive”.

In a round of interviews with regional BBC journalists the PM was asked if the UK is "at war" with Russia over its conflict with Ukraine.

Starmer replied: “No, we’re not at war, but Ukraine certainly is, because Ukraine has been invaded by Russia, and that war has now been going on for just over 1,000 days.

“That’s 1,000 days of aggression from Russia and 1,000 days of sacrifice for Ukraine, and that is why we’ve said consistently that we stand by Ukraine. We cannot allow Putin to win this war.”

Russia unlikely to have mass produced new missile - expertpublished at 14:31 Greenwich Mean Time

14:31 GMT

A former British military officer has told the BBC it is unlikely that Russia has mass produced the new Oreshnik missile, which President Vladimir Putin says was used to strike Ukraine on Thursday.

A Pentagon spokesperson said on Thursday evening that the missile was based on a variant of the RS-26 Rubezh.

Justin Crump, CEO and founder of the risk advisory company Sibylline, told the BBC that the weapon was likely to be a "limited or experimental" missile - similar to other recent military advances made by Russia.

He noted that the launch was possibly a "demo" of Moscow's capabilities.

But Crump added that Moscow likely used the strike as a warning, noting that the missile - which is faster and more advanced that others in its arsenal - has the capacity to seriously challenge Ukraine's air defences.

"Russia’s short range ballistic missiles have been one of the more potent threats to Ukraine in this conflict," he said. "Faster, more advanced systems would increase that an order of magnitude."

The Biden administration's decision in recent days to allow Ukraine to use US-made long-range missiles on Russian soil for the first time came "too late", says a Ukrainian military journalist.

Speaking from the Kharkiv region close to the border with Russian troops, Andriy Tsaplienko says that while US president Joe Biden's decision is a "positive sign", it has "come too late".

The "worst thing", he tells the BBC World Service's Newsday programme, is that Biden's decision was made public, meaning Russia was able to prepare for a possible attack.

On Russia's attack on Ukraine yesterday with an intercontinental ballistic missile, Tsaplienko says Ukrainian soldiers are unfazed by Moscow's move.

"We don't see any signs of despair among Ukrainian troops," he says, adding "the use of such missiles will change nothing here".

Image source, Getty Images

The US and Ukraine revealed earlier this month that North Korean troops had engaged in combat with Ukrainian soldiers for the first time, and satellite images show Pyongyang receiving oil from Moscow in return.

The number being deployed - originally put at around 11,000 by the Pentagon - has been debated. According to Bloomberg, unnamed sources believe Pyongyang may actually deploy as many as 100,000 troops.

It's hard to say how effective these troops have been. The secretive kingdom may have one of the world’s largest militaries, with 1.28 million active soldiers, but - unlike Russia’s military - the Korean People's Army (KPA) has no recent experience of combat operations.

To find out more about the troops, why North Korea is getting involved and what South Korea thinks, read our explainer.

Image source, Korean Central News Agency

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un says "never before" has the threat of a nuclear war been greater, blaming the US for its "aggressive and hostile" policy towards Pyongyang.

"Never before have the warring parties on the Korean peninsula faced such a dangerous and acute confrontation that it could escalate into the most destructive thermonuclear war," he said at a military exhibition yesterday, according to state media KCNA.

He said North Korea has "already gone as far as we can" in its talks with the US, accusing it of having a "thorough stance of power and aggressive and hostile policy towards us that can never change".

Kim's comments come amid growing concern over deepening ties between Russia and North Korea, and as we reported earlier, Russia is estimated to have supplied North Korea with more than a million barrels of oil this year in exchange for weapons and troops Pyongyang has sent Moscow to fuel its war in Ukraine.

Vitaliy Shevchenko
BBC Monitoring

Image source, Suspilne Sumy

Russia has used a drone equipped with shrapnel munitions against a building in the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy, local authorities say.

This is the first reported use of such a weapon in the war.

Shrapnel munitions work by releasing large numbers of fast-travelling metal pellets designed to kill enemy soldiers. These weapons have been criticised because of their indiscriminate nature which can pose a threat to civilians.

"This is done to kill as many people as possible. This is pure genocide," the head of the regional administration, Volodymyr Artyukh, said.

According to him, two people have been killed in the attack and 13 injured.

Paul Adams
Diplomatic correspondent, reporting from Dnipro, Ukraine

Image source, Reuters

Rarely in this war has the use of a single weapon generated such widespread anxiety and debate.

The deafening explosions that shook Dnipro in the early hours of yesterday morning continue to reverberate.

With Moscow still threatening further responses to what it calls the reckless decision of Britain and America to let Ukraine fire their missiles into Russia, the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, says the war is entering a decisive phase. The threat of a global conflict, he said this morning, is serious and real.

Meeting his Ukrainian counterpart in Stockholm, Sweden’s Defence Minister, Pål Jonson, said efforts to discourage the West from supporting Ukraine would not work.

While in China, which supports Russia’s war effort, a foreign ministry spokesman called on all parties to stay calm and exercise restraint.

Fearing further, similar attacks, Ukraine is on edge. A session of parliament in Kyiv was cancelled today, amid fears of an attack on the city’s government district.

Image source, Reuters

Nato secretary general and former Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte is expected to meet with US president-elect Donald Trump to discuss Ukraine, according to reports from Dutch and US media.

Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reports that Rutte has flown to Florida and will visit Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach.

Ukrainian news agency Interfax also reports the possible meeting, citing sources from the Washington Post, saying the pair are expected to discuss how to achieve long-term peace between Moscow and Kyiv.

The development comes as Nato and Ukraine have scheduled emergency talks on Tuesday in Brussels after Russia used a new type of ballistic missile in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro yesterday.

Russia claims to have captured a village near the Ukrainian town of Kurakhove, where Moscow's armed forces have been closing in, after months of advances.

The Russian defence ministry said it had "liberated" the frontline village of Novodmytrivka, which is about 10 kilometres (6 miles) north of Kurakhove and near to the key logistical hub of Pokrovsk in Donetsk region.

The Global Story has just published its latest podcast, which has taken a look at a week of escalations in Ukraine, and what it means for President Volodymyr Zelensky’s commitment to reach a peace deal next year.

The BBC’s diplomatic correspondent Paul Adams, in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, tells presenter Lucy Hockings that while Ukraine has so far been determined not to cede any territory to Russia in a peace deal, people there are growing frustrated as the war drags on.

Listen on BBC Sounds, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Vitaliy Shevchenko
BBC Monitoring

Ukrainian military intelligence service HUR suggests the ballistic missile used by Russia against Dnipro yesterday may have been intercontinental and was likely a Kedr (“Cedar”) missile – which official Russian news agency TASS in 2021 said was a new intercontinental ballistic missile which Russia was planning to start developing in 2023-2024 to replace the Yars ICBM.

It took the missile 15 minutes to reach Dnipro after being launched from the Astrakhan region, according to HUR.

HUR also says the missile had six warheads each equipped with six submunitions.

On approach to the target, the missile was travelling at the speed of Mach 11, or 13,583 km/h (8,440mph).

If you're just joining us, or are in need of a recap, here's the latest:

• Reactions have been coming in to Russia hitting Ukraine with a new intermediate-range ballistic missile on Thursday
• The Kremlin said the strike was in response to Ukraine's use of American and British long-range weapons, and was a warning that Washington had understood
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the strike as a “clear and severe escalation” and said the “world must respond”
• The UK and France have said they will do "everything that is necessary" to support Ukraine and achieve lasting peace
• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says Russia's use of a new intermediate-range ballistic missile in Ukraine is a "dangerous escalation"
• China has called for all parties to "remain calm and exercise restraint"

• Nato and Ukraine will hold emergency talks in Brussels next week

Stay with us as we bring you the latest updates.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to scare Western allies with escalation, former US Ambassador to Nato, Ivo Daalder, tells the BBC's Newsday programme.

“It’s something he’s been doing for quite a while. He’s constantly trying to find new ways to scare the West into not taking the actions they need to take in order to defend Ukraine, hoping to deter in some ways Western countries from continuing to support Ukraine," Daalder says.

He says now Putin is trying to scare Ukrainians, Europeans and Americans by emphasising the conflict is not just fought in Ukraine but has the potential of spreading well beyond Ukraine.

“These threats should be taken seriously," Daalder says, "at the same time we shouldn’t be cowed by those threats or changes in doctrine... We should remember that Vladimir Putin is doing that from weakness, not because of strength."

Daalder deplores the fact that the US decision to allow Ukraine to use longer-range missile into Russia came so late. He adds that US President-elect Donald Trump could also revoke that decision, along with a number of other actions that could make life for Ukrainians "much, much worse".

The Kremlin says that a strike on Ukraine using a newly-developed hypersonic ballistic missile was designed to warn the West that Moscow will respond to their "reckless" decisions and actions in support of Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow had fired the new missile, which is capable of carrying nuclear warheads, at a Ukrainian military facility and there was "no doubt" that Washington had understood the warning from Putin.

"The main message is that the reckless decisions and actions of Western countries that produce missiles, supply them to Ukraine and subsequently participate in strikes on Russian territory cannot remain without a reaction from the Russian side."

Peskov also said that Russia had not been obliged to warn the US about the strike, but had informed them 30 minutes before the launch anyway.

President Putin remained open to dialogue, Peskov added.

Image source, Getty Images

The UK and France will do "everything that is necessary" to support Ukraine and achieve lasting peace, Foreign Secretary David Lammy has said in a newspaper piece co-written with his French counterpart, Jean-Noel Barrot, external.

It comes in response to Putin's allegation the UK and US have escalated the war by allowing Ukraine to use their missiles to strike inside Russia.

Instead, the pair say it was Russia's "unprovoked full-scale war" that escalated the "largest war on the European continent since the Second World War".

They also hold Putin responsible for the "annihilation of the global architecture that has been the cornerstone of international peace and security for generations".

Ukraine's parliament has cancelled Friday's session, citing the risk of a Russian missile attack on the district of Kyiv where government buildings are located.

"The hour of questions to the government has been cancelled," an MP from the ruling party told AFP.

"There are signals of an increased risk of attacks on the government district in the coming days", Yevgenia Kravchuk said.

Russia's use of a new intermediate-range ballistic missile in Ukraine is a "dangerous escalation", German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says.

The latest escalation shows "how dangerous this war is" Scholz says, according to German newspaper Die Zeit.

Speaking at a political event on Friday morning, the chancellor also says Germany is a staunch supporter of Ukraine, but adds Germany won't send them Taurus cruise missiles and that a confrontation between Nato and Russia had to be be avoided.

Russia's defence minister Andrei Belousov says its forces have "derailed" Ukraine's military plans for the rest of the year.

His comments come after Russia launched a new type of ballistic missile on Ukrainian targets yesterday.

Belousov made the remarks during a visit to a "north fighting group", saying Russian troops had "accelerated" its advances into Ukraine and "ground down" Ukraine's best units.

For months, Russia's efforts have been firmly focused on eastern Ukraine, where much of the fighting has focused on since Moscow's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

This part of Ukraine has been contested territory since 2014 when Russian-backed fighters seized large swathes of the eastern Donestsk and Luhansk regions.

You can see how much territory Russia has taken in the map below.

• Ukraine in maps: Tracking the war with Russia