Closing summary
It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
Russian forces may be capable of launching a “large offensive” in Ukraine by the end of January or February despite successive defeats and military problems, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, warned. He said Vladimir Putin’s goals had not changed since he ordered his troops to invade Ukraine in February, and he called on western allies not to listen to the Kremlin’s “empty statements”.
The US is finalising plans to send the Patriot missile defence system to Ukraine which could be announced as soon as this week, according to US officials. The plan is awaiting approval by the US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, before it is sent to President Joe Biden for his signature. Approval is expected, two US officials and a senior administration official told CNN.
Generators are as important as armour in helping Ukraine survive Vladimir Putin’s energy terrorism this winter, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. Ukraine needed an additional €800m (£686m) to survive the winter and €1.5bn to restore the long-term damage to the energy grid, its president told an emergency conference in Paris convened to coordinate infrastructure and humanitarian aid to the country over the next four months.
More than €1bn was raised to support Ukraine this winter at the aid conference in Paris, France’s foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, said. The money, pledged by 46 countries and 24 international organisations, would be split between restoring Ukraine’s depleted energy network, the food sector, water supply, health and transportation, Colonna said.
Ukrainian forces have reportedly damaged a key bridge outside the southern city of Melitopol, a key objective for Kyiv in the region. Video posted online showed two supports of the bridge had been damaged during the attack, just two days after Ukraine hit a Russian barracks sited in a resort in the city, with Himars rockets causing substantial damage and casualties.
Ukrainian officials gave the all clear on Tuesday after air raid sirens blared across the country following warnings that Russia may carry out a new wave of missile strikes. Ukrainian media said the alerts may have been triggered by MiG fighter jets that took off from Ryazan, near Russia’s border with Ukraine, and flew towards Belarus.
Russia and Ukraine pounded each other’s forces in heavy fighting in the eastern region of Donetsk on Tuesday. Moscow is battling to take full control of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, two of four territories the Kremlin claims to have annexed in votes rejected by most countries as illegal.
Ukraine must take into account the new territorial “realities” that include Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions, the Kremlin has said. Ukraine’s president said on Monday that Russia could begin to withdraw its troops from the territory of Ukraine to show they are capable of abandoning their aggression. In response, the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there could be “no question” of Moscow beginning to pull out its troops by the end of the year.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, will hold talks to discuss the events of 2022 in late December, the Russian business daily Vedomosti reported. Dmitry Peskov told the newspaper that the date and the agenda of the meeting are already known, but an official announcement will come later. The talks will unlikely be face-to-face, the paper said.
The Belarusian ministry of defence has announced a “sudden combat readiness check” of its troops. The exercises are mostly taking place in the north-west of the country, not close to Ukraine’s border. This is one in a string of announcements by Belarus since mid-October which Kyiv say is designed to stoke fear in Ukrainians and disinform Ukraine’s army.
Germany will approve another €50m in winter aid for Kyiv following Russia’s missile attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said. She said Berlin was working to deliver generators, blankets and heating fuel to Ukraine over Christmas.
The UK Foreign Office announced it was imposing sanctions on 12 Russian commanders for their role in attacks on Ukrainian cities. They include Maj Gen Robert Baranov, identified by Bellingcat as the commander of programming and targeting Russian cruise missiles, as well as four Iranians, including the co-owner and managing director of MADO, an Iranian drone engine manufacturer.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Tuesday that there was an agreement on removing heavy weapons from Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plants. Talks were under way, he said, adding: “We managed to protect Chornobyl and our goal is to protect Zaporizhzhia. The coming weeks will be crucial.”
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, said he did not expect to have contact with the US regarding further prisoner exchanges, Russian media reported. The White House said on Monday that senior US officials plan to hold talks this week with Russian counterparts to discuss the case of the detained American Paul Whelan. Ryabkov was quoted as saying that he didn’t know what the Americans “have in mind”.
Ukraine’s parliament has adopted a law on national minorities, a key requirement for the country’s accession to the EU, it said in a statement. The bill is designed to “improve the protection of the rights of national minorities”, including “the rights to self-identification, the use of languages of national minorities, education, participation in political, economic, social, and cultural life, etc”, the New Voice of Ukraine reported.
Two Ukrainian journalists have been awarded for their coverage of the Russian bombardment of the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol during the early weeks of the war. Freelance photojournalist Evgeniy Maloletka and Associated Press videographer and photojournalist Mstyslav Chernov spent three weeks documenting the impact of the fighting and artillery bombardments in Mariupol, including the shelling of a maternity hospital as well as the struggle of residents to survive.
Updated
Russia could launch ‘large offensive’ in January or February, warns Ukraine
Russian forces may be capable of launching a “large offensive” in Ukraine by the end of January or February despite successive defeats and military problems, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said today.
Moscow is preparing to mount a major offensive at the start of 2023 as it continues to attack Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, Kuleba said.
Speaking to reporters from a bomb shelter in central Kyiv, he said:
I think the Russian capability to conduct an offensive, maybe a large offensive, may be restored somewhere by the end of January, February. That’s what they’re trying to do. And we, of course, do everything possible to prevent it from happening.
Russia “definitely still hopes they will be able to break through our lines and advance deeper in Ukraine”, he said, pointing to “the conscription they have announced, and the training of new conscripts, and the movement of their heavy weapons across the country”.
He said Vladimir Putin’s goals had not changed since he ordered his troops to invade Ukraine in February, and called on western allies not to listen to the Kremlin’s “empty statements”. He said:
No one should be fooled. Russia has not changed its ultimatums and still wants to conquer all of Ukraine. What they want right now is not peace, but a pause in aggression to continue it later. We will not play this game.
Ukraine’s immediate concern was restoring electricity to the entire country following waves of Russian missile attacks on crucial infrastructure which aimed to “destroy the Ukrainian energy system and leave millions of people without access to power, water and heating amid freezing temperatures”, he said.
Putin hopes that without power, water and heating, Ukrainians will stop resisting and accept Russian ultimatums, but this is a grave miscalculation. Russian missile terror will not break Ukraine down.
Updated
