The Kremlin has said Patriot missile defence systems would be a legitimate target if sent to Ukraine to intercept the barrage of incoming Russian missiles that have crippled the war-torn country's power infrastructure. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday warned NATO against equipping Kyiv with Patriot missile batteries. It is likely the Kremlin will view the move as an escalation. The comments come as Moscow said no "Christmas ceasefire" was on the cards after nearly 10 months of the war in Ukraine, even as the release of dozens more prisoners, including a United States national, showed some contact between the two sides remained. Russia and Ukraine are not currently engaged in talks to end the fighting, which is raging in Ukraine's east and south while Moscow has carried out missile and drone strikes on power and water facilities across the country, including the capital city Kyiv.

Libya's UN-supported government launched a counterattack on Sunday against a strategic military base used by renegade commander Khalifa Haftar to pound the capital Tripoli with rocket fire. The response came after a missile barrage damaged Tripoli's main airport and set fuel tanks and several aircraft ablaze, with at least six civilians killed in surrounding residential areas in the attacks on Saturday. Meanwhile, Turkey - the Government of National Accord's (GNA) main ally defending Tripoli against Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) - threatened to step up its attacks against the eastern-based LNA, which has attempted to seize the capital for more than a year. "The forces of war criminal [Haftar] fired more than a hundred rockets and missiles at residential areas in the centre of the capital," the GNA said in a statement on Facebook. The airport was badly damaged and came under renewed rocket fire on Sunday morning, it said.