December 5, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Russian forces have launched a fresh set of missiles towards Ukraine, according to Ukrainian officials.

There may be several waves of attacks, added Ihnat.

Air defense systems are operating, but there is "no information" on the number of missiles launched or how many have been shot down, he said.

The governors of Odesa, Poltava and Vinnytsia regions have announced that missiles are incoming on social media.

Kyiv's air defense systems are "working” around the Ukrainian capital as there is a “movement of missiles towards the region," said Oleksii Kuleba, head of Kyiv's regional military administration, on Telegram. He urged residents to stay in shelters.

CNN teams in Kyiv have reported that air raid sirens have sounded.

As of yet there have not been any confirmed strikes.

Ukraine continues to suffer a "difficult" energy situation, according to state energy provider Ukrenergo.

“We all have a difficult heating season ahead," the company said in an update Monday.

Russian forces have deliberately targeted energy infrastructure in Ukraine, where authorities have been battling to maintain power, water and cell phone connectivity.

This weekend, however, Ukrenergo said “it was possible to apply the minimum amount of emergency shutdowns,” due in part to increased capacity at nuclear power plants.

The company also noted an increase in electricity consumption “due to both the beginning of the week and drop in temperatures throughout the country."

Temperatures in Kyiv hit -7 degrees Celsius (44 Fahrenheit) on Monday, according to the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center.

Russian attacks on critical facilities have dropped off in the past week or so, but Ukrenergo is struggling to bring damaged facilities back online.

Moscow will not recognize a price cap on its oil exports implemented by a group of western nations, according to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.

“One thing is obvious here - we will not recognize any price caps,” Peskov said Monday during his daily conference call with journalists, adding that Russia would prepare a response to the measure.

On Friday, the European Union's 27 member states capped the price of Russian oil at $60 a barrel, with Australia and the Group of 7 nations -- Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States -- implementing the price cap from Monday.

The move is aimed at reducing Russia's income from oil exports and is designed to be enforced by companies that provide shipping, insurance and other services for Russian oil.

If a buyer has agreed to pay more than the cap, they would withhold those services. Most of these firms are based in Europe or the United Kingdom.

The decision to impose the cap would not affect Russia's ability to carry out its “special military operation” in Ukraine, said Peskov.

“The Russian economy has the necessary potential to fully meet all the needs and requirements of the special military operation," he said. "Such measures will not affect it."

However the price cap would have an effect on the stability of the energy market, said Peskov.

“One thing is obvious and indisputable: the adoption of these decisions is a step towards destabilizing the world energy markets,” he said.

The best day of Eric’s life came just days before the worst.

After years of waiting, dozens of tests and a two-week stay on a psychiatric ward, Eric was finally getting his first testosterone shot. Eric is a 23-year-old transgender man from Ukraine. Assigned female at birth, he says starting hormone therapy was a major step in his quest to become his true self.

“It was utter happiness. I was euphoric, it was the moment that I’ve been waiting for for so long,” Eric, who asked for his last name to not be used because he is concerned for his safety, told CNN in Chisinau, Moldova, in July.

But just days after Eric had what should have been the first in a series of testosterone injections administered at a clinic in Kyiv, Russia invaded Ukraine. Everything changed.

Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine has upended the lives of millions of Ukrainians. But for Eric and many other trans people, the war has also made it much more difficult to be who they are.

Many lost access to vital medication and psychological help. Some were completely cut off from their communities and forced into spaces where LGBTQ people were not welcome, according to the Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe.

Bureaucratic problems, such as having personal documents issued under a different gender, can put them at extra risk.

The Ukrainian transgender rights group Cohort says it has helped more than 1,500 people since the start of the war, assisting them to move to safer areas and helping them pay their bills. The NGO also works with shelters to make sure they have the basic supplies they need.

But the number one request Cohort has been receiving in recent months is for help getting hormone therapy, or HRT, according to Anastasiia Yeva Domani, Cohort’s co-founder and executive director.

HRT can be used by trans women, trans men and non-binary people to make their physical appearance more aligned with their gender identity. The drugs alter the body’s testosterone or estrogen hormone levels and trigger physical changes that normally occur during puberty.

Read more here.

The Donetsk region has continued to face shelling as fighting rages in Ukraine's east.

In the city of Bakhmut, besieged for months by Russian forces, an administrative building, a dormitory and a residential building were hit, said Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk region military administration. There were no casualties, he added.

Bakhmut and the surrounding area has seen some of the most ferocious fighting of the war.

The neighboring towns of Soledar and Chashiv Yar were also targeted by Russian shelling, Kyrylenko said, adding that Kurakhove and Hostre came under fire, damaging a kindergarten, four high-rise buildings and seven private houses.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian shelling has injured two people in Donetsk city, according to the Russian Investigative Committee.

The shelling targeted Voroshilovsky district, according to Alexei Kulemzin, head of the city administration.

The shelling allegedly struck the Church of Nativity of Christ, which has “partially collapsed," according to the statement. 

The Investigative Committee said it will “establish all the circumstances of the incident and the persons involved in the commission of crimes."

Two buildings caught fire Monday in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) after strikes by Ukrainian forces, according to Russian state media.

The DPR's mission at the Russian-backed Joint Center for Control and Coordination said Ukrainian forces shelled the Voroshilovsky district of Donetsk with Grad missiles on Monday morning, Russian state news agency TASS reported.

State news agency RIA Novosti said the two buildings that caught fire were residential, with one also housing a funeral home.

Efforts to put out the fires have been complicated by water supply being turned off in the area, Russian media reported.

Information on injuries and casualties is being clarified and emergency responders are at the scene, according to Russian media.

The Ukrainian military has not yet confirmed or commented on the attack. 

Donetsk, in eastern Ukraine, has been held by Russian-backed separatists since 2014. 

At least one person was killed and three others wounded after Russian strikes hit the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih early Monday morning, local authorities said. 

Three missiles hit an industrial enterprise, killing one employee and wounding three others who were taken to a hospital and assessed to be in stable condition, Valentyn Reznichenko, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, said in a Telegram post Monday.

Southern strikes: Russian shelling was also reported in the southern Nikopol district and Zaporizhzhia region. 

In the city of Zaporizhzhia, industrial and energy infrastructure was struck and one private business was damaged, Zaporizhzhia official Anatoliy Kurtev said on Telegram Monday. 

Oleksandr Starukh, head of the Zaporizhzhia regional military administration, said there were no casualties. 

In his daily video address on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rallied residents to stay strong through the difficult winter months. 

This weekend brought a fresh round of Russian attacks near the front lines in both southern and eastern Ukraine.

The map below shows the territories currently controlled by Moscow or Kyiv's forces:

Nine “Grain from Ukraine" ships with a combined 336,000 tons of agricultural products have left Odesa ports in the past two days, the Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure reported Sunday.

The program is a humanitarian initiative, with Ukraine planning to send more than 60 ships of critically needed food products to Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Congo, Kenya and Yemen.

CNN previously reported that the first vessel from the humanitarian program, carrying about 25,000 tons of Ukrainian wheat, arrived at the port of Doraleh in Djibouti Saturday, en route to Ethiopia.