December 27, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that Ukraine must fulfil Moscow's proposals regarding their "new territories" — or the Russian military would take action, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

The four occupied territories: Russia claimed control over the four regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson after sham referendums in September, widely slammed by Kyiv and Western governments as violating international law.

But Russia has struggled with setbacks in these areas from the start — Moscow's forces were not in full control of the territories when they were rubber-stamped as part of the Russian Federation.

Just weeks after illegally annexing Kherson, Ukraine reclaimed its regional capital with the same name, liberating about 10,000 square kilometers of land and moving its Western-supplied artillery within range of Crimea.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that the situation in the four occupied territories was "extremely complicated," a rare window into the challenges that Moscow faces in areas it has attempted to illegally annex.

This post has been updated to more accurately reflect Lavrov's comments.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has neutralized more than 4,500 cyberattacks on the country this year, an official said Monday.

Ilya Vitiuk, head of the SBU cybersecurity department said in a statement that Ukraine had "entered 2022 with eight years of hybrid warfare experience behind us,” adding that “at the time of the invasion, we were already ready for the worst scenarios.”

“And the massive cyberattacks that we repelled in January and February became additional 'training' before the invasion,” he said.

The scale of cyberattacks is now much wider, particularly compared to previous years, he said. In 2020, nearly 800 cyberattacks were recorded, while in 2021 it jumped to 1,400, and in 2022 the number increased more than three times.

“Today, the aggressor country launches an average of more than 10 cyberattacks per day. Fortunately, Ukrainian society does not even know about most of them,” Vitiuk said.

He added that attackers are most likely to target energy, logistics, military facilities, government databases and information resources.

Ukrainian President Zelensky said the front lines of Bakhmut, Kreminna and other areas in the eastern Donbas region are “difficult, painful.”

“The situation there is difficult, painful. The occupants are spending all the resources available to them — and these are significant resources — to squeeze out at least some progress,” he said in his nightly address Monday. 

He thanked employees who worked Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to restore energy to different parts of the country. He said that while there are still some outages, the situation is improving.

"As of this evening, about 9 million people are cut off in different regions of Ukraine. But the number and duration of outages is gradually decreasing. I am grateful to each and every person who ensured this result,” he said. 

The Ukrainian president told people to be prepared for further Russian attacks as the war stretches on, saying, "Air defense is preparing, the state is preparing, and everyone must be prepared. Please pay attention to the sirens."

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he is ready to “negotiate with everyone involved in this process about acceptable solutions” regarding the war in Ukraine, according to Russian state news agency TASS, citing Putin’s interview with state TV Sunday.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted in response saying, “Putin needs to come back to reality.”

Remember: Putin’s remarks comes as Russia continues its offensive against Ukraine. On Sunday, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of Donetsk regional military administration, said Russian troops hit Kramatorsk with three rockets. An industrial area was hit but there were no casualties.

Russia has put the investigative journalist Christo Grozev on its “wanted” list, according to the Russian Interior Ministry.

Grozev, who is Bulgarian, is the lead Russia investigator at the journalism group Bellingcat.

Information published on the ministry’s website said he was “wanted under an article of the Criminal Code,” without specifying the exact article.

According to the independent human rights monitor OVD-Info, a criminal case on disseminating “fake news” about the Russian army has been opened against Grozev.

The Russian government adopted a law criminalizing the dissemination of what it calls “deliberately false” information about the Russian armed forces in early March, just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The maximum penalty under the law is 15 years in prison.

Read more here.

Three Russian servicemen were killed Monday after a Ukrainian drone was shot down by air defenses as it approached a military airfield in Saratov Oblast, deep inside Russian territory, according to Russian state news agencies, citing the Defense Ministry.

The incident took place in the western port city of Engels, some 500 miles (more than 800 kilometers) southeast of Moscow, located on the Volga River. It is the second such attempted attack on the city, which houses the Engels-2 military airfield, a strategic bomber air base, this month.

Law enforcement agencies are now investigating the incident at the airfield, said Saratov Oblast Gov. Roman Busargin on Monday. The comments, posted on his official Telegram channel, came after reports circulated of an explosion in the city.

He added that there were “no emergencies in the residential areas of the city,” and that no civilian infrastructure had been damaged. He also extended his condolences to the families of the servicemen, saying the government would provide them with assistance.

CNN has been unable to independently verify Russian reports the drone was deliberately shot down and did not reach its intended target.

In comments Monday, Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat did not claim direct responsibility for the drone, but did suggest the attack was the “consequence of what Russia is doing.”

Read more here.