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7.28am Rescuers work in the rubble after Russian missile strikes Kramatorsk4:07amPhotos show city devastation

Russia’s forces in Ukraine are planning to launch a new offensive on February 24 on the one-year anniversary of the invasion, Ukraine’s defence minister has warned.

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ByAndrea Hamblin and Arthur Scott-Geddes

Russia now has twice as many troops in Ukraine as in the initial invasion, say Ukrainian spies

Russia now has twice as many troops in Ukraine than it did during the initial invasion, Ukrainian intelligence officials believe.

As many as 320,000 Russian troops are now inside Ukraine’s borders, the New York Times reported.

Around 150,000 troops are believed to have taken part in the invasion almost a year ago.

Western officials believe Russia may have as many as 250,000 soldiers in reserve, either training to fight in Ukraine or stationed near the border.

Russia will overshadow Ukraine invasion anniversary events, says Lavrov

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow had plans to overshadow pro-Ukrainian events arranged by Western and allied countries around the world to mark the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

Mr Lavrov said Russian diplomats were working on something to ensure Western-led events in New York and elsewhere were “not the only ones to gain the world’s attention”, without providing details.

Lavrov: ‘Russia does not need help from former Soviet allies in Ukraine’

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow does not any need help from its ex-Soviet allies for its military campaign in Ukraine.

Lavrov said Russia had everything it needed for the conflict, and had not asked members of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) – a Moscow-led alliance that includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – to provide material support for what Russia calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Russia’s Lavrov says the United States was involved in Nord Stream explosions 

The United States was directly involved in explosions that severely damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea last year, Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, has said.

Mr Lavrov provided no evidence for his claim. President Vladimir Putin has previously accused Britain of blowing up the pipelines, accusations it has denied.

In an interview on state TV on Thursday, Mr Lavrov also said the West was lying about Russia’s refusal to negotiate over Ukraine and was trying to turn Moldova, Georgia and former Soviet states in Central Asia against Moscow.

EU’S von der Leyen arrives in Kyiv for talks

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has arrived in Kyiv for meetings intended to highlight support for Ukraine as the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion nears.

“Good to be back in Kyiv, my 4th time since Russia’s invasion. This time, with my team of Commissioners,” she wrote on Twitter under a photo of her arriving at a Kyiv railway station.

“We are here together to show that the EU stands by Ukraine as firmly as ever. And to deepen further our support and cooperation.”

Members of the executive European Commission will meet members of the Ukrainian government later today.

On Friday, von der Leyen and the chairman of the 27 European Union national leaders, Charles Michel, will meet President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Austria expels four Russian diplomats

Austria is expelling four Russian diplomats, including two accredited with the United Nations in Vienna, the foreign ministry has said.

The diplomats are alleged to have acted “in a manner incompatible with their diplomatic status,” the ministry said.

Diplomatic expulsions are rare in neutral Austria, which enjoyed close ties with Russia before Moscow invaded Ukraine.

Seven dead in construction site fire in Crimea

At least seven people died in a fire in Crimea after flames ripped through temporary accommodation housing construction workers, Russian-installed officials have said.

Citing local law enforcement agencies, the state-run TASS news agency said the fire, which broke out overnight on the outskirts of the city of Sevastopol, was the result of an electrical appliance short-circuiting.

Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-appointed governor, said the fire had broken out in a two-storey dormitory housing construction workers for the Tavrida highway, a new road linking the Crimean cities of Sevastopol and Simferopol.

At the time of the fire, 185 people were inside the small two-storey building, the RIA news agency reported, citing the local emergency services.

Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said it had opened an investigation into the cause of the blaze and that investigators were working on the site.

Russia will ‘begin new offensive’ on invasion anniversary, says Ukraine

Russian forces are planning to begin a new offensive on February 24, the one-year anniversary of the initial invasion, Ukraine’s defence minister has warned.

Speaking to France’s BFMTV on Wednesday night, Oleksii Reznikov said: “We think that, given that they [the Kremlin] live in symbolism, they will try to try something around February 24.”

Mr Reznikov said it was possible Russian forces would attempt to advance along two axes, from the east and the south.

“We tell our partners that we too must be ready as soon as possible,” he said, repeating calls for more weapons.

Rescuers work in the rubble after Russian missile strikes Kramatorsk

The missile might have had a specific target – perhaps one of the government and administrative buildings in the streets in Kramatorsk’s small grid-pattern centre, writes Roland Oliphant.  

Instead, it hit a yellow-painted, four-storey block of flats. One witness said three families lived in the building.

Hundreds of rescuers including local civilians, police, soldiers and firemen spent hours moving the rubble brick-by-brick in a bid to dig out survivors.

About an hour after the strike a group of rescuers carried an adult out on a stretcher and laid it down on a grass verge across the road from the ruins.

Then they covered the patient with a foil blanket and walked away. They waited until most of the crowd was preoccupied elsewhere before putting the body, a woman, into a body bag.

The rescuers regularly called for silence and switched off generators and car engines so they could listen for voices beneath the rubble.

Several times they said they heard someone. People muttered to one another that it might be a woman. A group of female volunteers wondered aloud whether whoever was buried might have tried to call on a mobile phone if they had one.

Then the shout would go up “ok let’s work”. The lights came back on and the frantic human chains resumed passing bricks hand to hand to clear the pile.

Two men who climbed down from the pile after two hours of work told the Telegraph they did not know how many if any people were trapped.

Asked if they could hear voices in the ruins they said: “You could hear them at the beginning.”

By 1am, three hours after the strike, the regional governor said the death toll stood at three killed and 20 injured. It would take hours more digging to establish if there were more victims.

Meanwhile, police took notes for a criminal case. In short order fragments of missile had been collected and photographed.

Authorities later said it was an Iskander-K, one of Russia’s main ballistic missiles.