Ukraine-Russia war latest: Moscow expels British diplomat for ‘spying’ and summons ambassador as row erupts

Ukraine hit Russia with US-produced ATACMS missiles twice over the last three days and Russia is preparing retaliatory measures, Russia’s defence ministry said on Tuesday.

It said both strikes targeted air defence positions in the Kursk region and on both occasions either one or two missiles reached their targets, while most were shot down.

A court in Russia’s Kursk region has ordered a British national fighting with Ukraine to be held in detention pending an investigation and trial.

The ruling on the Briton, identified by state news agency Tass and other media as James Scott Rhys Anderson, was announced Tuesday by court officials, who said in an online statement that it was handed down the previous day.

The hearing took place behind closed doors in the Leninsky District Court in the city of Kursk. It wasn’t clear from the statement what charges Anderson is facing and whether he is considered a prisoner of war by the Russian authorities.

The Briton reportedly was captured in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces have seized territory following a lightning offensive in August.

The Russian advance is threatening important supply routes in Donetsk, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War has warned.

Ukraine’s General Staff said on Tuesday that over the past 24 hours roughly half of the clashes along the about 1,000-kilometer (600 mile) frontline occurred near Pokrovsk and Kurakhove in the Donetsk region.

Ukraine has a critical manpower problem on the frontline, and though the Russian army’s gains have been incremental its momentum is adding up as the Ukrainians yield ground.

Ukrainian defenses in Donetsk are not in danger of being overrun, however, the think tank said late on Monday. It also noted that Russia would need to capture more than 8,000 square kilometers (3,000 square miles) of territory to achieve the Kremlin’s goal of seizing the whole of Donetsk.

Russia has expelled a British diplomat, accusing him of espionage, the Interfax news agency cited Russia’s FSB security service as saying on Tuesday.

The TASS news agency cited Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as saying that the ministry had summoned the British ambassador.

According to the FSB, the British diplomat was a replacement for one of six UK diplomats expelled in August, also on espionage charges. It said the diplomat had provided false information on his documents and carried out espionage and sabotage activities.

There was no immediate comment from Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. The British embassy in Moscow did not respond to a request for comment.

Ukraine faces a difficult winter, with worries about the reliability of the electricity supply amid Russia’s attacks and how much US support it can count on next year after President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.

Russia has been hammering civilian areas of Ukraine with increasingly heavy drone, missile and glide bomb attacks since the middle of the year.

At the same time, Russia’s army has largely held the battlefield initiative for the past year and has been pushing hard in the eastern Donetsk region where it is making significant tactical advances, according to Western military analysts.

Norway has agreed to raise its planned fiscal support for Ukraine next year to 30 billion crowns ($2.7 billion) from 27 billion crowns this year, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said on Tuesday, reversing an earlier proposal to cut the spending.

The minority centre-left government had last month proposed allocating just 15 billion crowns to Ukraine in 2025, triggering criticism from opposition parties.

The government has said it wants a broad coalition to support the country’s Ukraine donations. The opposition Conservative Party has proposed spending 45 billion crowns in 2025.

Norway’s income from oil and natural gas soared in the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine as energy prices jumped, boosting the size of the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund.

A Russian court has ordered the arrest of Catherine Norris Trent, a reporter for the France24 news channel, on a charge of crossing illegally into its western Kursk region, state news agency TASS said on Tuesday.

It said she had entered the region with the Ukrainian military in order to file a report.

Russia has launched criminal cases against a number of Western journalists who have reported from Kursk, where Ukrainian troops broke across the border on Aug. 6 and have carved out a slice of Russian territory.

The proceedings have been launched in absentia, and the orders mean the reporters would be arrested if they set foot inside Russia.

Over the past 24 hours, roughly half of the clashes along the about 600-mile (1,000km) frontline occurred near Pokrovsk and Kurakhove in the Donetsk region, Ukraine’s General Staff said on Tuesday.

Ukraine has a critical manpower problem on the front line and, though the Russian army’s gains have been incremental, its momentum is adding up as the Ukrainians yield ground.

The Russian advance is threatening important supply routes in Donetsk, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said late on Monday.

Ukrainian defences in Donetsk are not in danger of being overrun, however, the think tank said.

It also noted that Russia would need to capture more than 3,000 square mile (8,000 sq km) of territory to achieve the Kremlin’s goal of seizing the whole of Donetsk.

Russian forces have captured the village of Kopanky in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, the Interfax news agency cited Russia’s defence ministry as saying on Tuesday.

The ministry also said Russian forces had downed three Ukrainian drones near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine.