Closing summary
It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
The White House’s national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said the US expects that the war in Ukraine will continue “for some time going forward” and there is “no expectation” that fighting will stop in the winter months. Kirby also confirmed that a US citizen has been released as part of a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine, but did not release additional details, citing privacy concerns.
The Ukrainian military said it shot down 13 Iranian-made drones over Kyiv and the surrounding region following Russia’s first major drone attack on the capital in weeks. Authorities described the assault early on Wednesday as a continuation of Russia’s “energy terror” against the country. There were no victims, the spokesperson for Kyiv’s rescue services, Svitlana Vodolaga, told Ukraine’s Suspilne news.
Wednesday’s Russian drone strikes damaged five buildings in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv – though air defences thwarted many more, authorities said. The attacks underline how Ukraine’s biggest city remains vulnerable to the regular Russian attacks which have devastated infrastructure and other population centres, mostly in the country’s east and south in recent weeks.
One unofficial Telegram channel has posted a picture of what appears to be a piece of a downed drone with the words “For Ryazan!!!” written on it in Russian. On 5 December, a Russian military airbase in the city of Ryazan in western Russia was attacked. A Russian Tu-95 bomber plane, which has been used to attack Ukraine, was damaged and three soldiers at the base were fatally wounded, according to Russia’s ministry of defence.
Russian forces firing multiple rocket launchers hit the regional administration building in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, according to a senior Ukrainian official. Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said two floors of the building on the central square of the recently liberated city had been damaged, but that no one was reported hurt. An unconfirmed video circulating on social media showed a huge plume of smoke pouring up from the top of the administration building.
Russian drone strikes on Kyiv and the region around the Ukrainian capital, on Wednesday, did not damage any energy facilities, national power grid operator Ukrenergo said. “Thanks to the brilliant work of the air defence forces, the energy infrastructure facilities were not damaged (on Wednesday) – all 13 drones were shot down,” Ukrenergo said on Telegram.
The Russian assault on Wednesday morning came as the US was expected to decide whether to supply Ukraine with its advanced Patriot air defence system. US officials told CNN that the missiles could be delivered in a matter of days after the repeated Russian barrages against Ukrainian cities. The Patriot, which would be the most advanced surface-to-air missile system the west has provided to Ukraine, is usually in short supply, with US allies around the world vying for it.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Russia has not received any proposals about a “Christmas ceasefire” in Ukraine, adding that the topic was “not on the agenda”. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, earlier this week called on G7 leaders to back a peace solution that would start with Russia withdrawing troops from Ukraine, beginning this Christmas.
Peskov insisted at Tuesday’s briefing that Kyiv needed to accept new territorial “realities” that included Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions as its “new subjects” – annexations that most UN countries have condemned as illegal. Ukraine’s presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said on Wednesday that it was Peskov and President Vladimir Putin who had to accept the “new reality” that “there are no stolen Ukrainian territories within the [Russian Federation] ‘forever’”.
Ukraine’s state-run energy agency, Energoatom, said it will offer higher bonuses to staff at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant who remain loyal to Kyiv. Energoatom said Russian forces have told Ukrainian workers at the plant that they will not be paid in the new year unless they sign contracts with Russia’s nuclear energy company, Rosatom.
Nearly seven million children in Ukraine, or almost every child in the country, have been put at “desperate risk” as a result of continued attacks on Ukrainian critical energy infrastructure, the UN’s children agency has warned. Without sustained access to electricity, children in Ukraine are “facing a bleak winter huddled in the cold and the dark” with temperatures of below -20C, Unicef said. Many schools in the country have been destroyed or damaged by missile attacks, leaving children unable to continue the online learning opportunities which, for many, is their only access to education, it said.
Ukrainian investigators have uncovered a “torture chamber“ in Kherson city where children were allegedly detained and abused by Russian occupying forces, Ukraine’s human rights chief said. Russian security services kept the children in what they called “the children’s cell” where they were given little water and almost no food, Dmytro Lubinets said, citing local residents’ testimonies.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged Europe to support a war tribunal to try senior Russian officials as he accepted the EU’s top human rights award. The EU and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, have lent support for the creation of a special tribunal to try senior Russian officials – potentially including Vladimir Putin – for the crime of aggression in Ukraine.
President Zelenksiy said 184 Ukrainian athletes have been killed as a result of Russia’s war since its troops invaded Ukraine in February. The Ukrainian leader noted the figure during a conversation with the head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach. It is not possible to independently verify the number of Ukrainian athletes that have been killed in the war.
The European Union is united in its support for Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz told the German parliament, adding, with apparent reference to Hungary, that attempts to undermine the bloc’s values by blocking foreign policy measures would fail. Support for Ukraine, including sanctions against Russia, would be maintained and intensified for as long as President Vladimir Putin keeps up his war against Kyiv, Scholz added.
A US national who was arrested by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine in the summer has now been released as part of a prisoner exchange with Ukraine, the head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, Andriy Yermak, said. Suedi Murekezi, 35, was released by Russia along with 64 Ukrainian soldiers and the bodies of four fallen soldiers, Yermark said. Murekezi told the Guardian earlier this month that he felt “trapped” after he was released in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk without his papers.
The new head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said she intends to go to Moscow to discuss access to prisoners of war “when the moment is there”. Mirjana Spoljaric Egger told reporters she had personally been “speaking with Russian counterparts”, adding that she sees the possibility of a major prisoner of war swap deal in the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
Russian oil revenues fell last month despite a boost in production to just below levels before the invasion of Ukraine, the International Energy Agency has said. The IEA estimated that Russia earned about $15.8bn (£12.8bn) from oil sales in November, the second lowest this year after $14.7bn in September, a sign that western efforts to choke off the Kremlin’s income are working.
Pope Francis urged people to spend less on Christmas celebrations and gifts this year and send the difference to Ukrainians to help them get through the hunger and cold of winter. The pope, who has been making appeals for Ukraine at nearly every public event since Russia invaded its neighbour in February, made the unscripted plea at the end of his weekly general audience.
Volodymyr Zelenksiy has said 184 Ukrainian athletes have been killed as a result of Russia’s war since its troops invaded Ukraine in February.
The Ukrainian leader noted the figure during a conversation with the head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, today. It is not possible to independently verify the number of Ukrainian athletes that have been killed in the war.
Zelenskiy informed Bach of Kyiv’s opposition to the idea of Russian athletes taking part in the 2024 summer games in Paris, Ukraine’s presidential office said.
Talking with @iocmedia President Bach I noted the support for 🇺🇦 athletes. Urged to contribute to rebuilding 🇺🇦 sports objects destroyed by RF. Upset with the intention to return RF's & 🇧🇾's athletes to world competitions. Аs long as RF destroys peaceful life – only isolation.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) December 14, 2022
Bach said last week that the participation of Russian and Belarusian sportsmen and women at the 2024 Olympics was still unclear.
Ukraine was disappointed by what he called the IOC’s intention to allow Russians and Belarusians to compete under a neutral flag, Zelenskiy said.
Zelenskiy was quoted by his office as saying:
One cannot try to be neutral when the foundations of peaceful life are being destroyed and universal human values are being ignored. A just response to such actions can only be the complete isolation of the terrorist state in the international arena. In particular, this applies to international sporting events.
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