Ukraine war live: Zelensky visits Kharkiv frontline as Putin threatens Cold War-style missile crisis

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky visited the frontline in Kharkiv on Monday as Germany hit out at Vladimir Putin’s warning of a Cold War-style missile crisis.

Zelensky visited Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine to pay tribute to Kyiv’s special forces, which have been engaged in bitter fighting with Putin’s forces in the region since May.

“Today, I had the honour to be there to congratulate our Special Forces warriors on their professional day and to present them with state awards,” Zelensky said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping met Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni in Beijing on Monday and called for their two countries to view bilateral relations from a long-term perspective and work together in international affairs.

Meloni said she believed Italy could play an important role in China’s relations with the European Union amid escalating trade tensions between the 27-strong bloc and world’s second-largest economy.

Germany vowed it would “not be intimidated” by Putin’s threat to station long-range missiles in striking distance of the West.

Putin said if Washington deployed long-range missiles in Germany, it would do the same, in a threat echoing the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 which saw Russian nuclear weapons aimed at the US from Cuba.

“We will not be intimidated by such threats,” Germany’s foreign ministry spokesperson said.

Up to 100 people could be injured after a passenger train travelling in Russia’s southern Volgograd region derailed on Monday, Russian news agencies reported.

The Interfax news agency said that eight train cars had been derailed and that emergency crews were at the scene.

Kyiv launched more than two dozen drones on the Russian region of Kursk in several waves of attacks that started Saturday night and damaged an oil depot, Russian officials said on Monday.

Nineteen drones launched from Ukraine were destroyed by Russia’s air defence systems overnight, Russia’s defence ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.

That follows 19 drones that Andrei Smirnov, Kursk’s governor, said defence systems destroyed over the region on Sunday.

Russian president Vladimir Putin warned that Moscow would exit the unilateral moratorium on deploying intermediate-range weapons if Washington begins deployment of such weapons in Germany.

Speaking at a naval parade in St Petersburg, Mr Putin vowed “mirror measures” after the US earlier this month announced that it will start deploying the weapons in 2026.

The US said it was to affirm its commitment to Nato and European defence following Moscow’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“If the US implements such plans, we will consider ourselves free from the previously imposed unilateral moratorium on the deployment of intermediate and shorter-range strike weapons, including increasing the capability of the coastal forces of our navy,” Mr Putin said. He added that Moscow’s development of suitable systems is “in its final stage.”

Both Washington and Moscow have in recent weeks signaled readiness to deploy intermediate-range ground-based weapons that were banned for decades under a 1987 US-Soviet treaty.

The US pulled out of the agreement in 2019, accusing Moscow of conducting missile tests that violated it.