Ukraine updates: Russia launches 'massive' missile attack

Between January 1 and October 15, 2024, Germany issued 4,163 export licenses for military equipment and weapons with a total value of €10.9 billion ($11.5bn), setting Berlin on course for a record year.

This is according to an official response from the German ministry for economic affairs to a question submitted by a member of parliament for the left-wing populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) and reported by the German dpa news agency.

The previous record for German arms exports was 2023, when Berlin exported €12.2bn worth of armaments.

A previous ministry response revealed that the German government had authorized €4.9m worth of weapons for Ukraine alone in the first half of 2024, suggesting that Kyiv is the biggest beneficiary of German arms exports.

A Ukrainian drone strike on Russia's Belgorod border region killed one civilian on Sunday, according to local governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.

The attack came two days after a much larger Ukrainian drone attack which targeted several Russian regions, including the border regions of Bryansk (one drone) and Kursk (15 drones), as well as Lipetsk (one) and Oryol (one), deeper inside Russian territory.

On that occasion, Belgorod governor Gladkov had reported smashed windows in an apartment building but no casualties.

Ukraine implemented emergency power cuts as a precautionary measure in several regions on Sunday morning in order to prevent the country's already ailing energy grid from overloading in the event of direct hits from Russian missiles.

The country's largest private energy provider DTEK said in a statement that Russian strikes had "seriously damaged" equipment at thermal power stations, where it said repairs were underway.

Such was the severity of the Russian assault on Sunday morning that neighboring Poland scrambled fighter jets, radar detection systems and air defense units to protect its southeastern border with Ukraine.

The Polish military said that "all necessary forces" had been mobilized for the protection of the state's territory.

Poland is a major European Union and NATO member state, and a close ally of Ukraine with which it shares a common Soviet history.

Sunday's Russian attack came a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, everything should be done "to ensure that this war ends next year."

Zelenskyy said the conflict had to be resolved "by diplomatic means."

Diplomacy between Kyiv and Moscow has at any rate been at a standstill, with Russian President Vladimir Putin saying he will accept talks with Ukraine only if Kyiv surrenders Ukrainian territory that Moscow currently occupies, something Zelenskyy has rejected outright.

The Kremlin said Putin repeated that demand in a phone conversation with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday.

Widespread Russian air strikes killed at least eight people across Ukraine on Sunday morning in what Ukrainian officials described as "one of the largest air attacks" of the war so far.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed the strikes targeted facilities that support Ukraine's defense industry and military enterprises.

But local authorities reported civilian deaths in the southern cities of Mykolaiv and Odesa as well as in the usually quieter western city of Lviv.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said 140 of around 210 missiles and drones launched by what he called "Russian terrorists" had been shot down.

Read DW's full report here.

mf/lo (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)