December 29, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine has moved here.

Russia’s latest attacks on Ukraine damaged power facilities and left key regions with limited electricity supply Thursday evening, a top Ukrainian official said in an update.

Even though the country’s air defenses shot down many missiles from the Russian barrage, “some of them hit several power facilities,” said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine.

“We will not specify the locations of these objects, but because of these hits, we have limited power supply capacities in some regions,” he continued.

Engineers are working to restore electricity across Ukraine, with capacity limitations remaining in Lviv, Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa, he said.

Tymoshenko said he was hopeful that the situation in Kyiv would improve Friday.

He praised the efforts of engineers who worked through the past week to stabilize supply in the capital city, saying that their hard work was realized on Christmas weekend, “when practically all households in Kyiv had electricity supply.”

“I believe that now our power engineers will work a few more hours in such a mode and there will be a normal power supply to the city of Kyiv,” Tymoshenko said.

Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, the CEO of the Ukrainian utility Ukrenergo, also reported that disruptions to energy supply persisted Thursday evening.

“At the moment, a significant part of the generating capacities in the system has been restored, but there is significant damage to the network and some power plants. That is related to the fact that it was not one missile attack, but in fact a series of attacks,” he said.

Repairs are ongoing, but due to significant network damage, “it is difficult for us to supply electricity in regions of Kharkiv, Kyiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kherson and Lviv,” he said.

Residents in Kyiv were woken up Thursday by air raid sirens and the sound of explosions as Russia unleashed what Ukraine has called one of Moscow’s largest missile barrages since the war started. At least three people were killed and seven were injured in the attacks.

Here are the war’s latest developments:

Missile interception: The Ukrainian military said the majority of cruise missiles fired at the country Thursday were intercepted, with its defense forces shooting down 54 of 69, according to preliminary data.

Power outages: The wave of missile attacks left several Ukrainian regions without power, particularly hitting the major cities of Lviv, Kyiv and Odesa. Kyiv’s mayor earlier said 40% of the city was without power, while 90% of Lviv was left in the dark, according to the western city’s mayor. Engineering crews are racing to restore services as the New Year’s holiday approaches this weekend.

Focus on Bakhmut: Russian forces have diverted resources to the battle for the city of Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region but have made no advances, according to the Ukrainian military. A military official also said Ukrainian forces have made gradual progress toward the city of Kreminna in the eastern Luhansk region, which fell to the Russians in the spring.

Belarus missile claims: The Belarusian Ministry of Defense said Thursday that fragments from a Ukrainian guided missile landed on its territory close to the border. Kyiv said it would investigate the Belarusian missile claims, adding that it had not ruled out a Russian false flag operation aimed at placing blame on Ukraine. CNN has not been able to independently verify the ministry’s report and has reached out to the Ukrainian military for comment.

The Ukrainian military says Russian forces have diverted resources to the battle for the key city of Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region but have made no advances.

Brig. Gen. Oleksii Hromov, deputy chief of the General Staff’s main operational directorate, told a briefing Thursday that the situation in the east remained difficult for Ukrainian forces, as the Russians conducted offensive actions on several fronts, including Bakhmut, Avdiivka and toward Kupyansk, which was liberated in September.

“The main efforts of the enemy concentrated on the Bakhmut direction,” Hromov said. “Around Bakhmut, the defenders of Ukraine are resisting up to 20 attacks of the enemy daily, which is persistently attacking the positions of our troops under the cover of artillery fire.”

“In order to concentrate artillery fire around Bakhmut, the enemy has deliberately reduced the number of attacks on the positions of our troops in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia directions in recent weeks, with ammunition being delivered to the Bakhmut and Lyman directions,” Hromov said.

Lyman is another settlement in Donetsk liberated by Ukrainian forces at the end of September.

“More than 40% of the enemy’s artillery attacks along the contact line from Kupyansk to Mariinka are in the Bakhmut direction,” Hromov said.

Other advancements: Hromov said that Ukrainian forces had made gradual progress towards the city of Kreminna in the eastern Luhansk region. The city fell to the Russians in the spring.

Ukrainian units had advanced up to 2.5 kilometers (more than 1 mile) in the direction of Kreminna this week, Hromov said. The area has been heavily mined by the Russians, according to Ukrainian officials.

Hromov also claimed that Russia was beginning to prepare defensive lines around the city of Luhansk “in case the Ukrainian Defense Forces break through the defensive borders of the Russian occupation troops on the Svatove-Kreminna line and, accordingly, move the hostilities closer” to the area.

Hromov said that following Russia’s partial mobilization, trained units continued to be moved to occupied territories of Ukraine. He said that in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia, units of the Russian territorial reserve had been deployed.

“We are tracking the movement of enemy units. Currently, there is no significant threat of offensive grouping in the Zaporizhzhia sector.”

The Belarusian Ministry of Defense said Thursday that fragments from a Ukrainian S-300 anti-aircraft guided missile landed on its territory in an area close to the border with Ukraine.  

“Today, at around 10 o’clock, an air target was hit by the forces of the air defense,” the ministry said in a statement. “Its fragments were found in an agricultural field near the village of Gorbakha, Ivanovo district, Brest region.” 

CNN has not been able to independently verify the ministry’s report and has reached out to the Ukrainian military for comment.

What Ukraine is saying: Kyiv said Thursday that it would investigate the Belarusian missile report, adding that it had not ruled out a Russian false flag operation aimed at placing blame on Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said in a statement that it was “aware of the Kremlin’s desperate and persistent efforts to drag Belarus into its aggressive war against Ukraine.”

“In this regard, the Ukrainian side does not rule out a deliberate provocation on the part of the terrorist state of Russia, which laid such a route for its cruise missiles to provoke their interception in the airspace over the territory of Belarus,” the update continued. 

Ukraine said it would conduct an investigation and was also prepared to invite “reputable experts” from states not affiliated with Russia to participate.

Russia’s currency hit an eight-month low Thursday, adding to sharp declines in December as global oil prices fell and western sanctions targeted Russia’s energy sector.

The ruble hovered below 72 to the dollar, down 18% from the start of the month — its weakest level since late April.

After almost halving in value in the first weeks of the war, the ruble has held up remarkably well for most of the year, trading within a narrow range. The ruble has been helped by measures from Russia’s central bank, which more than doubled interest rates at the start of the war, introduced capital controls, and forced exporters to convert 80% of their earnings into rubles, artificially creating demand for the currency. It later rolled back some of those policies as the exchange rate stabilized.

But with the price of oil, Russia’s biggest export, down by about a third from its June peak, and an EU embargo on seaborne oil, plus Western price cap mechanisms now in place, Russia’s oil export revenues are likely to fall. This means there will be less foreign currency to prop up the ruble.

The International Energy Agency said this month that Russian oil export revenues fell by $700 million in November because of falling prices.

Read more here.

The Russian strikes that killed three people on Thursday were aimed at Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure, knocking out power in several regions and sending engineering crews racing to restore services as the New Year’s holiday approaches this weekend.

Authorities have been cautioning for days that Russia was preparing to launch an all-out assault on the power grid to close out 2022, plummeting the country into darkness as Ukrainians attempt to ring in the New Year and celebrate the Orthodox Christmas holiday on Jan. 7.

“Russian terrorists have been saving one of the most massive missile attacks since the beginning of the full-scale invasion for the last days of the year,” Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said in a statement on Twitter Thursday. “They dream that Ukrainians will celebrate the New Year in darkness and cold. But they cannot defeat the Ukrainian people.”

Ukraine’s Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said that Lviv, Kyiv and Odesa were particularly hard-hit, and the cities are experiencing emergency power outages – which is when the electricity is protectively turned off to diminish damage from the grid shorting out.

Forty percent of Kyiv residents were without power as of mid-morning local time, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko, while in western Ukraine, Lviv Mayor Andrii Sadovyi said 90% of the city was without power.

Residents in Kyiv told CNN that they are planning to celebrate the new year despite possible power outages or blackouts.

“We have already become perfectly oriented on how to survive in such conditions. Anyway, we will celebrate the New Year and hope for the best,” Kyiv resident Halyna Hladka said.

Read more here.

At least three people were killed and seven were injured in nationwide missile attacks, according to the latest figures provided by the Ukrainian State Emergency Service.

The service’s press officer, Oleksandr Khorunzhyy, told CNN that two people were killed in the northeastern Kharkiv region, while one person was killed in the eastern Donetsk region.

In the Kyiv region, four people were injured in the attacks, while two were injured in the Kharkiv region and one was injured in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region. 

“As of 16:00 [4 p.m. local time], 41 objects including 21 residential buildings were damaged,” he said. 

Earlier, a local official said one of the the two people killed in Kharkiv was a man who died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.

“Incoming hits of enemy missiles were recorded in the region. All of them were targeted at our critical infrastructure facilities,” the head of the regional military administration, Oleh Syniehubov, said on his Telegram account.

Placing Bulgarian investigative journalist Christo Grozev on Russia’s “wanted” list is an unacceptable “attack on freedom of speech,” acting Bulgarian Prime Minister Galab Donev said Thursday.

“I would like to note that Bulgaria has not been informed through the established channels by the Russian side about the charges against Mr. Grozev,” Donev said as he opened a government meeting. “For us this act is unacceptable, it represents an attack on freedom of speech and an attempt to intimidate a Bulgarian citizen.”  

On Monday, Russia placed Grozev, who is the lead Russia investigator at the journalism group Bellingcat, on its “wanted” list, according to Russia’s Interior Ministry. Information published on the ministry’s website said he was “wanted under an article of the Criminal Code,” without specifying the exact article. 

Russian ambassador Eleonora Mitrofanova has been summoned to the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs “for an explanation on the case,” Donev said, adding that it will “express official protest” against the search warrant and insist on receiving more information.

After meeting Bulgarian officials Thursday, Mitrofanova told journalists she had no information why Grozev was wanted. She said he is wanted only in Russia and not other countries, according to Bulgarian state broadcaster BNT.  

The “Russian ambassador says she doesn’t know why I am on Russia’s ‘Wanted’ list, but that ‘we won’t chase him around the world, and this just means that one more time we are telling him he’s not wanted here,’” Grozev tweeted Thursday. “So.. they ‘want’ me, to tell me they not ‘want’ me?” 

After Mitrofanova’s comments to reporters, the Russian Embassy in Bulgaria’s capital of Sofia released a statement.

It said that Moscow had “clarified the situation with H. Grozev, emphasizing that a violation of Russian legislation leads to corresponding legal consequences, independent of the type of activity of the accused/suspect person or his citizenship,” according to BNT.

The embassy also said “it is not about intimidation of the journalist or any threat to his life,” according to the Bulgarian state media outlet.

As Russia carried out a large attack on Ukraine, Kyiv residents who were woken up by air raid sirens and sounds of explosion remained defiant. 

Thirty-four-year-old Anastasiia Hryn woke up to the sound of air raid sirens in the Ukrainian capital. She went down to the basement shelter in her building along with her son when she heard the first explosion. 

“I expected this kind of attack before the New Year. There were reports in the news that something like that was being prepared… That’s why I wasn’t particularly surprised by the shelling…. If there is an alarm, you monitor whether there are missiles launches. If yes, you go down to the basement of the house to the bomb shelter,” she told CNN. 

After the sirens gave the all clear, life went back to normal, Hyrn said. Parents took their children to school and kindergarten, people went to their offices. “In the elevator I met my neighbors with their child who were in hurry to get to the cinema for the new Avatar movie on time,” she said. 

Anna Kovalchuk is determined not to have Russians ruin upcoming New Year’s celebrations. “I’m more worried that most likely the will be no electricity on New Year’s Eve and the holiday will have to be spent in the dark. But I began to prepare myself for such a scenario in advance, stocked up on garlands, power banks, so the blackout would upset us, but not stop us,” she said. 

Roman Grischuk, a member of parliament, woke up to messages from his wife asking if he was okay. “I read that there were several hits in Kyiv. I quickly got water in case the water ran out and went to a safe place,” he told CNN. After ten months of war, it is hard to describe the feeling, he added. “The first thought is no one should die. But even that unfortunately the Russian attacks have turned into a routine,” he said. 

Halyna Hladka’s stocked up on water as soon as the sirens sounded and quickly made breakfast for her family so they would have something to eat. After nearly two hours, they heard the sounds of explosions.

“It seemed to me that they were really close to our area but it turned out to be air defense,” she told CNN. “Not a single attack will cancel the fact that we will celebrate the new year with the family. In every person there is something stronger than dependence on electricity and water. Moreover, we have already become perfectly oriented on how to survive in such conditions. Anyway, we will celebrate the New Year and hope for the best,” she said.

The Ukrainian military said that the majority of cruise missiles fired at Ukraine on Thursday were intercepted, with its defense forces shooting down 54 of 69, according to preliminary data.

Zaluzhnyi said the Russians had launched air and sea-based cruise missiles, as well as anti-aircraft guided missiles such as the S-300 at energy infrastructure facilities. The Ukrainian military also shot down 11 Iranian Shahed drones, which are designed to detonate on impact.

There were conflicting reports on the scale of the missile attacks on Thursday. An adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mykhailo Podolyak, said in an earlier post that Russia had launched more than 120 missiles in the barrage, without offering further details. He said the intent of the attack was to “destroy critical infrastructure and kill civilians en masse.”

Explosions rattled villages and cities across Ukraine on Thursday in what Kyiv has called one of Moscow’s largest missile barrages since the war began. The strikes have left several regions across Ukraine without power, with Lviv, Kyiv and Odesa hardest hit, officials said.

Here are the latest headlines:

Explosions rattled villages and cities across Ukraine on Thursday in what the government has said was one of Russia’s largest missile barrages since the war began.

“Russian terrorists have been saving one of the most massive missile attacks since the beginning of the full-scale invasion for the last days of the year,” Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said in a statement on Twitter. “They dream that Ukrainians will celebrate the New Year in darkness and cold. But they cannot defeat the Ukrainian people.”

According to preliminary data, Ukraine’s Air Force said that Russian forces had launched 69 cruise missiles and that it had downed 54 of those, along with Ukraine’s Defense Forces. The Air Force said that it had also repelled attacks from Iranian-made Shahed drones, which are designed to explode on contact with their targets.

Earlier on Thursday, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, said in a post on Twitter that Russia had launched more than 120 missiles in the attack, without giving more details. He said the focus of the onslaught was to “destroy critical infrastructure and kill civilians en masse.”

The war has reached a stalemate, with neither Ukraine nor Russia able to make any substantial gains, Ukrainian intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov has said, as Kyiv awaits more weapons from the United States and other Western allies.

Since Ukrainian forces reclaimed the southern city of Kherson in November, much of the fiercest fighting has raged around Bakhmut, in the eastern Donetsk region, where Budanov visited frontline positions earlier in the week. Both sides have been locked in brutal battle there since Russian forces launched their siege on the city in earnest in May.

The freezing winter conditions have slowed advances and Russian forces are “now completely at a dead end” after heavy losses, Budanov said. But he added that Ukrainian troops were unable to progress either without more resources, particularly weapons supplies.

Budanov also poured cold water on the idea that Russian forces might launch another attack from Belarus, where Moscow has been holding joint military exercises with Minsk. “As of now, I don’t see any signs of preparations for an invasion of Kyiv or northern areas from Belarus,” he said.

Russian missiles struck an energy facility in Ivano-Frankivsk, according to the head of the region’s military administration, as western Ukraine reeled from attacks on its power grid.

“The enemy hit one of the energy facilities in the region, resulting in a fire on the total area of 50 square meters. As of 11.25, the fire was localized, there were no casualties,” she said.  

“Another missile damaged a private residential building in the territory of Tlumach community, but did not explode. There were no people in the house at the time of the missile hit. Fortunately, no one was injured,” Onyshchuk added. 

Some background: Ukraine’s Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said that electrical infrastructure in the country’s west, as well as Kyiv and Odesa, were particularly hard hit in the wave of strikes on Thursday.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba described the latest wave of Russian missile attacks as “senseless barbarism” on Thursday.

“Senseless barbarism. These are the only words that come to mind seeing Russia launch another missile barrage at peaceful Ukrainian cities ahead of New Year,” Kuleba said on Twitter, adding that there could be “no neutrality” in the face of such attacks.

The barrage of Russian missiles, one of the largest waves of attacks, hit several Ukrainian cities Thursday, damaging civilian infrastructure and knocking out power.

Another wave of Russian missile strikes left several Ukrainian regions without power on Thursday, with crews across the country racing to restore power as the New Year holidays approach.

Ukraine’s Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said that infrastructure in Kyiv, in north central Ukraine, and Odesa, in the south, had been damaged in the barrage and were experiencing emergency power outages – when the electricity is protectively turned off to diminish damage from the grid shorting out.

Forty percent of Kyiv residents were without power, mayor Vitali Klitschko said Thursday, adding that this was due to security measures taken by power engineers during the air raid alarm and that they were now working to restore services. “The city is supplying heat and water in normal mode,” Klitschko said on the messaging platform Telegram.

Authorities in Odesa, in southern Ukraine, said that emergency power outages had been rolled out amid the missile attacks. “They are introduced due to the threat of missile attacks to avoid significant damage if the enemy manages to hit energy facilities,” DTEK, a utility company, said in a statement.

In western Ukraine, Lviv Mayor Andrii Sadovyi said that 90% of the city was without power, cautioning that the city’s waterworks could also to stop working.

Ukrainian air defenses intercepted 16 missiles over Kyiv, the capital’s mayor said Thursday, amid a fresh barrage by Russia targeting civilian infrastructure. 

At least three people, including a 14-year-old, were injured and two people pulled from a damaged home, Klitschko said earlier.

Homes, an industrial facility and a playground in the capital have been damaged in the barrage, according to the Kyiv city military administration.

Moscow views Kyiv’s proposed peace plan as “another PR campaign from Washington” as Ukraine and the West proliferate “striking but unreliable statements,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday. 

Her comments came after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow would not negotiate with Kyiv under the terms set out in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s 10-point peace formula.

“We assess the latest nonsensical idea as another PR campaign from Washington, which has recently tried to present the Kyiv regime as a peacekeeper,” Zakharova said during a regular briefing. “They tried sufferers, they tried liberal democrats, who else, fighters for the freedom of Europe, and now peacekeepers.”

Zakharova also claimed that Kyiv’s plans to hold a peace summit only if Russia fully capitulates “tells us they are starting to signal they don’t have any strength left.”

Some background: Ukraine’s 10-point peace formula was presented by Zelensky to world leaders at the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, in November. The steps include a path to nuclear safety, food security, a special tribunal for alleged Russian war crimes, and a final peace treaty with Moscow.

Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region and its main Kharkiv city are “under attack of enemy rockets,” the regional military chief said in a Telegram post Thursday. 

Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv regional military administration said four rockets had hit the city — likely S300s.

Search and rescue efforts were ongoing, he added, saying “the danger has not passed yet” and urging residents to stay in shelters.

Kharkiv’s mayor earlier said a series of explosions had been heard.

Russia captured swathes of Kharkiv in the early days of its invasion, before Ukrainian forces retook most of the bordering region in an offensive in the fall.

At least three people were injured in Kyiv Thursday, including a 14-year-old child, after Russia fired missiles at the capital, Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said.

Two people were rescued from the debris of a damaged home, Klitschko said in an update on Telegram.

“Missile fragments damaged a car on one of the central streets,” he said.

Search and rescue operations are ongoing, Klitschko added.

Lviv Mayor Andrii Sadovyi said 90% of the western city is without power and also warned of water disruptions as a result of Russian attacks Thursday.

“90% of the city is without electricity. We are waiting for more information from the power engineers. Trams and trolleybuses are not running in the city. There may be interruptions in water supply. We are switching to diesel generators at critical infrastructure facilities,” Sadovyi said on Telegram. 

In the capital Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Kitschko earlier warned residents of possible power and water outages after the Russian strikes.

Air defense systems were activated across Ukraine Thursday morning after Russia fired more than 120 missiles at a number of cities, according to Ukrainian officials.

Russia’s attack on Ukraine’s capital Thursday damaged homes, an industrial facility and a playground, according to the Kyiv city military administration.

“Two private houses in Darnytskyi district were damaged by the fragments of the downed missiles. An industrial enterprise in Holosiivskyi district and a playground in Pecherskyi district were also damaged,” the administration said on Telegram.

Air defenses are still working and authorities were working to clarify information on casualties, the administration said.

Russia fired more than 120 missiles at cities across Ukraine on Thursday, according to Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak. 

Air raid sirens sounded around Ukraine Thursday morning as officials reported missile strikes and air defense systems being activated in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Zhytomyr and Poltava among other cities.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Kitschko warned residents of possible power and water outages after Russian missile attacks against the Ukrainian capital on Thursday. 

“There may be power outages in Kyiv. Charge your phones and other devices. Make a supply of water,” he said in a post on Telegram. 

Ukraine was hit with a new round of Russian missile attacks on Thursday, with blasts heard by CNN’s team in Kyiv.

Air raid sirens have also sounded in several cities as officials reported missile strikes and air defense systems being activated, including Kharkiv in the northeast, Mykolaiv in the south, as well as Zhytomyr and Poltava in central Ukraine.

Russia has carried out a “massive missile attack” on Ukraine Thursday morning, according to a statement by the head of Odesa’s regional state administration Maksym Marchenko on Telegram.

Emergency power outages were further introduced in Odesa, Ukraine’s largest energy group DTEK said in a statement on Telegram.

“They are introduced due to the threat of missile attacks to avoid significant damage if the enemy manages to hit energy facilities,” the statement said.

Explosions were heard Kyiv Thursday, according to CNN’s team on the ground, while air defense systems have been activated in the capital region, said Oleksii Kuleba, head of the Kyiv regional military administration.

“After the night attack of self-exploding drones, the enemy is attacking Ukraine from various directions with air and sea-based cruise missiles from strategic aircrafts and ships,” the Ukrainian Air Force said. 

Air raid sirens have also sounded in several cities as officials reported missile strikes and air defense systems being activated. 

A series of explosions were also heard in Kharkiv, the city’s mayor Ihor Terekhov said, adding that according to preliminary reports incoming rocket hits were recorded.

“Information on which targets were hit and whether there were any casualties is still being clarified,” Terekhov said.

In the Mykolaiv region in the south, five missiles have been intercepted over the sea, the head of the region’s military administration Vitaliy Kim said. 

In central Ukraine, missiles have also been recorded in the Zhytomyr region and air defense systems were activated, according to Vitalii Bunechko, head of its regional military administration.

In Poltava region, east of the Dnipro river, explosions have also been heard and air defense systems were activated, Dmytro Lunin, said the head of Poltava regional military administration. 

A statue of Russian Empress Catherine II was removed on Wednesday from a square in Odesa, in what authorities in the Ukrainian port city said was “a truly historic event.”

“I am grateful to the residents of Odesa who expressed their position that the Russian imperial heritage has no place in a modern Ukraine that is democratic and follows the rule of law,” the Odesa regional administration said on Telegram. 

Catherine II, more commonly known as Catherine the Great, ruled from 1762 to 1796 and remains a controversial figure in Ukraine for her imperialist views.

The Odesa statue was erected in the 1900s during the Russian empire but was dismantled in 1920 under Soviet rule. It was restored in 2007 by the Odesa city council. 

Last month, the council voted to remove the statue, Reuters reported.

The monument will move to the Odesa Art Museum, according to the council.  

Moscow will not negotiate with Kyiv on the basis of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s proposed peace formula, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, according to state-media on Thursday.

Lavrov told state-run RIA Novosti that Zelensky’s idea of driving Russian troops out from the Donbas, Crimea, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson with help from the West was “an illusion.”

He also dismissed the idea that Kyiv would achieve reparations or that Russia would appear in international courts.

Lavrov stressed however, that Russia remains open to diplomatic solutions to end the war. 

Peace plan: Zelensky presented Ukraine’s 10-point peace formula to world leaders at the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, in November.

The steps includes a path to nuclear safety, food security, a special tribunal for alleged Russian war crimes, and a final peace treaty with Moscow. He also urged G20 leaders to use all their power to “make Russia abandon nuclear threats” and implement a price cap on energy imported from Moscow.

During his speech to the US Congress last week, Zelensky claimed US President Joe Biden had endorsed the plan.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his annual address Wednesday to the Ukrainian Parliament that the war Russia has waged on his country has strengthened Europe’s unity, and that “no one in the West is afraid and will ever be afraid of Russia.”

“It was Ukraine that united the European Union. Turned out, it is possible,” Zelensky said from the parliament’s floor. “And now Europe protects itself. Europe overcomes crises. And this is despite the enormous resources thrown by Russia to wreck our continent.
“For the first time in history, some European countries have reconsidered the notion of staying neutral and are resisting aggression together with us, together with Ukraine.
“We helped Europe and most of the world to feel that to be neutral now is, I’m sorry, but to be immoral.”

Zelensky went on to say that countries are no longer interested “in whether Russia will hear them,” but rather “what else to expect from Ukraine, what else Ukraine can give to Europe, what else we can give to the world.”

Zelensky also thanked Ukrainian servicemen, calling them “heroes” and said the powerful weapons Ukraine has received have strengthened its advantage. 

“And let me remind you — a year ago it seemed impossible that our state would have ‘Patriot’ air defense systems. But now we do have such an agreement,” he said. “This is a special sign of trust to Ukraine. This is a true alliance with the United States of America. We have achieved this.”

As fighting near the key Ukrainian city of Kreminna in the eastern Luhansk region continues, Russian civilians who had come to the city have stopped their work and left, Serhiy Hayday, head of the Luhansk region military administration, said Wednesday in a television interview. 

“The military command has indeed moved [from Kreminna] to other settlements. All the Russians who came to work, the civilians — doctors, repair teams — they have all stopped their work, all left for the Russian Federation, and all the work that was started is now frozen,” Hayday said. 

Why Kreminna matters: If the Ukrainian military is able to dislodge the Russians from Kreminna, it could then proceed in two directions, Hayday said. 

“There are two prospects. The first is to go to Starobilsk, which is the logistics center of Luhansk region. Whoever controls Starobilsk will be able to control the entire logistics of the Luhansk region with firepower. In other words, there will be almost no roads left along which the enemy could quietly move either personnel or equipment,” Hayday said. 

“The second direction is towards Rubizhne and Severodonetsk. This is in order to break the grouping, which is now constantly, round the clock, advancing towards Bakhmut. It could be split in two and, accordingly, make the defense for the military who are defending Bakhmut easier.” 

Some background: Kreminna has been occupied since the spring and lies on a key north-south road from Svatove, which Russian troops had been using for resupplies. Losing Kreminna would limit Russia’s ability to resupply its troops in the key city of Severodonetsk.

The electricity deficit in the Ukrainian power grid grew on Wednesday due to shelling of gas infrastructure in eastern Ukraine, according to the latest update from state power utility Ukrenergo.

“As of Dec. 28, the electricity deficit in the system has increased. This is due to the stop of some units of power plants due to the shelling of gas infrastructure in the eastern region,” Ukrenergo said in a statement.

Ukraine has been facing a wide assault on critical infrastructure and power sources since early October. 

The deficit did not mean further power restrictions because of “relatively warm weather,” Ukenergo said, but added: “the available capacity in the system is not enough to meet all the needs of consumers in the country. In this regard, all regions were informed about consumption limits, the excess of which leads to the need for emergency outages.”

In the past three months, the power grid has suffered nine missile and 12 Russian UAV attacks, according to Ukrenergo.

“As a result, generation facilities and transmission systems suffered large-scale and complex damage. Their restoration requires significant resources and time. Repair teams of Ukrenergo, electricity producers and distribution system operators are working continuously,” the statement said.

Russian soldiers taking part in the war on Ukraine will be eligible for free sperm freezing and storage in cryobanks, state news agency TASS reported, citing a lawyers union.

“The families of those called up for military service as part of the partial mobilization will receive free access to fertility treatment and the storage of biomaterial in a cryobank,” said Igor Trunov, president of the Russian Union of Lawyers, which represents several couples where the husband has been mobilized and the family has asked for assistance, according to TASS.

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