Summary
It’s nearly 11pm in Kyiv. Here’s where things stand:
Power has been restored to nearly 6 million Ukrainians in the last 24 hours following a slew of Russian missile strikes against the country’s various infrastructure including its electricity generating systems. “Repair work continues without a break after yesterday’s terrorist attack,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address on Saturday.
Russia has claimed that the mass strikes it launched on Friday against Ukraine which led to national power and water outages were part of its prevention of foreign weapons’ delivery to Ukraine. On Friday, “military command systems, the military-industrial complex and their supporting energy facilities of Ukraine were hit with a mass strike with high-precision weapons,” Russia’s defence ministry said in its daily briefing.
The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, has announced that 75% of households in Kyiv had had their heat restored. In a Telegram post on Saturday, Klitschko wrote, “75% of the capital’s residents already have heat supply. Heating engineers continue working for the second day in order to stabilize the situation with heat supply in Kyiv.”
Russia has denounced a decision by Moldova to temporarily ban six television channels as “political censorship”. Moldova accused the channels of airing “incorrect information” about the country and Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. The channels are closely tied to the politician and businessman Ilan Shor, who fled the country in 2019 after the election of the pro-western president, Maia Sandu.
Moldova has reached a short-term energy deal that will help wean it off its dependence on Russian natural gas, a senior official said on Saturday. The Moldovan deputy prime minister, Andrei Spînu, said the state gas firm Moldovagaz would buy 100m cubic metres of gas from domestic supplier Energocom this month.
Power restored to almost 6 million Ukrainians
Power has been restored to nearly 6 million Ukrainians in the last 24 hours following a slew of Russian missile strikes against the country’s various infrastructure including its electricity generating systems.
“Repair work continues without a break after yesterday’s terrorist attack,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address on Saturday.
Russia has claimed that the mass strikes it launched on Friday against Ukraine which led to national power and water outages were part of its prevention of foreign weapons’ delivery to Ukraine.
On Friday, “military command systems, the military-industrial complex and their supporting energy facilities of Ukraine were hit with a mass strike with high-precision weapons,” Russia’s defence ministry said in its daily briefing, Agence France-Presse reports.
“The target had been reached. All assigned objects were hit,” it added.
“As a result of the strike, the transfer of weapons and ammunition of foreign production was disrupted, the advancement of reserves to areas of hostilities was blocked and Ukrainian defence enterprises for the production and repair of weapons... were halted.”
The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, has announced that 75% of households in Kyiv had had their heat restored.
In a Telegram post on Saturday, Klitschko wrote, “75% of the capital’s residents already have heat supply. Heating engineers continue working for the second day in order to stabilize the situation with heat supply in Kyiv.”
On Friday, Russia fired 76 missiles across Ukraine that killed at least three people, damaged at least nine energy facilities and forced the capital to impose emergency blackouts throughout the country as its residents brace for a harsh winter.
Here are images we have received from a volunteer aid station in Bakhmut, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
Updated
More on Moldova:
Russia has denounced a decision by Moldova to temporarily ban six television channels as “political censorship”.
Moldova accused the channels of airing “incorrect information” about the country and Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.
The channels are closely tied to the politician and businessman Ilan Shor, who fled the country in 2019 after the election of the pro-western president, Maia Sandu, Reuters reports.
Shor, who is in exile in Israel, has backed protests demanding that Sandu’s government resign.
The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said:
“We consider this ban as an unprecedented act of political censorship, as an abuse on the principle of media pluralism and a flagrant violation of the right to freedom of access to information, to which the political leadership of the Republic regularly declares its adherence.
“In light of the unprecedented consequences of its implementation for the Russian-speaking part of the country’s population, we also qualify it as a cynical infringement of the rights of national minorities.”
The ban will start on Monday and last for the duration of a state of emergency that Moldova declared after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Updated
Moldova has reached a short-term energy deal that will help wean it off its dependence on Russian natural gas, a senior official said on Saturday.
The former Soviet republic of 2.5 million people, which faces soaring inflation amid Russia’s war on neighbouring Ukraine, has traditionally been reliant on Russian gas.
The Moldovan deputy prime minister, Andrei Spînu, said the state gas firm Moldovagaz would buy 100m cubic metres of gas from domestic supplier Energocom this month.
It would be the first time that Moldova has not consumed any of the gas it has bought from Russia, he wrote on his Telegram channel.
Spînu added:
Since last year, we have promised to make reserves and find an alternative to stop being dependent on a single source. I managed to do it.
Updated
Summary of the day so far
It’s 6pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
Rescuers have recovered the body of a one-and-a-half-year-old boy from the rubble of Friday’s Russian strike on a three-storey residential building in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih in Dnipro region, the region’s governor, Valentyn Reznichenko, said. In total, four people were killed in the attack on Kryvyi Rih, Reznichenko said. 13 others were injured by the attack, including four children.
Electricity has been restored in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, and the region, its governor said, a day after fresh Russian attacks pitched multiple cities into darkness, cutting water and heat and forcing people to endure freezing cold. The mayor of Kyiv said the city’s metro system was back in service and that all residents had been reconnected to water supply a day after the latest wave of Russian airstrikes on critical infrastructure.
Russia’s defence ministry said its “high-precision” weapons hit parts of Ukraine’s military-industrial complex and energy and military administrative facilities on Friday. Ukrainian facilities producing weapons, military equipment and ammunition had been disabled, it added. Ukraine’s western allies have said the suffering inflicted by Russian airstrikes on freezing civilians constitutes war crimes, with the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, calling the bombings “barbaric”.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Russia still had enough missiles for several more massive strikes and he again urged western allies to supply Kyiv with more and better air defence systems. “Whatever the rocket worshippers from Moscow are counting on, it still won’t change the balance of power in this war,” he said in Friday’s evening address.
Air raid sirens were reported across Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, on Saturday. “Please go to the shelters!” Kyiv city’s military administration said on Telegram. Explosions were heard in the southern city of Odesa on Saturday morning, Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesperson for the Odesa regional military administration, said.
A 36-year-old man was killed inside his car after Russian forces shelled the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson on Saturday morning, the regional governor, Yaroslav Yanushevych, said. A 70-year-old woman was also injured after Russian troops struck a western district of the city with artillery and multiple rocket launchers, Yanushevych wrote on Telegram.
A Ukrainian military commander has said Russia may try to invade from the north, potentially around the anniversary of when Vladimir Putin first ordered his troops to invade Ukraine. In an interview with Sky News, Maj Gen Andrii Kovalchuk warned the fiercest fighting may yet come and appeared particularly focused on the possibility of Russian troops invading via Belarus on Ukraine’s northern border, in order to target the capital.
Russia’s campaign of strikes against Ukrainian critical infrastructure has largely consisted of air- and maritime-launched cruise missiles, but has almost certainly also included Iranian-provided drones, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence. In its latest intelligence update, the ministry also said Russia was likely concerns about the “vulnerability” of Crimea.
The Kremlin said Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, held meetings with armed forces commanders on Friday to discuss its military campaign in Ukraine during a visit to the operation’s headquarters. The Russian leader met his defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov, and held “separate discussions with commanders” from different defence branches, it said.
The Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak has said it is “unrealistic” to expect Kyiv to come to an agreement with Russia to end the war. “War must end only with its defeat,” Podolyak wrote on Twitter, and said Ukraine would act with “required proportions of artillery, armored vehicles, drones and long-range missiles”.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said the latest round of EU sanctions against Moscow will just lead to an “exacerbation” of problems within the bloc. EU leaders agreed on Thursday to provide €18bn to Ukraine as well as the ninth package of sanctions aimed at ramping up pressure on Russia for its war in Ukraine. The latest measures blacklist nearly 200 more people and bar investment in Russia’s mining industry, among other steps.
A popular pedestrian bridge in central Kyiv has reopened today after it was damaged by Russian airstrikes on the Ukrainian capital in October, the Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, announced. The bridge, known in the city as the “glass bridge” or “Klitschko’s bridge”, connects the two central Kyiv parks of Volodymyrska Hirka and Mariinsky Park.
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Electricity restored in Kharkiv, says governor
Electricity has been restored in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, and the region, its governor said, a day after Russia’s latest wave of missile attacks targeted the country’s power grid.
Oleh Syniehubov, Kharkiv’s regional governor, posted on Telegram:
The power was cut off in entire Kharkiv region and Kharkiv. Currently, electricity supply has been restored throughout the region and the city.
Friday’s attack, in which 76 rockets were fired at several Ukrainian regions, caused “colossal” damage to Kharkiv’s electricity infrastructure, its mayor, Ihor Terekhov, yesterday said. He asked for residents to be patient while water, electricity and heating were out.
Updated
Poland’s top policeman said that an explosion in his office was caused by a grenade launcher, telling private broadcaster RMF FM that he had received two of the weapons as a gift from Ukraine.
Poland’s interior ministry and prosecutor’s office had not previously confirmed media reports that the explosion on Wednesday, at police headquarters in Warsaw, was caused by a grenade launcher.
Prosecutors said they were investigating the blast, which resulted in police commander in chief Jarosław Szymczyk being taken to hospital, Reuters reported.
“When I was moving the used grenade launchers, which were gifts from the Ukrainians, there was an explosion,” Szymczyk told RMF FM.
He said he was moving the launchers into an upright position at the time.
RMF cited a source from a Polish delegation that visited Ukraine as saying Szymczyk had received two launchers from officials as presents during visits to the police and the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.
The officials had assured the Polish delegation that the launchers were not loaded, and the delegation took them back to Warsaw by car before leaving them in the back room of Szymczyk’s office, the source told RMF.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm this version of events.
Updated
The Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak has said it is “unrealistic” to come to an agreement with Russia to end the war.
“War must end only with its defeat,” Podolyak wrote on Twitter, and said Ukraine would act with “required proportions of artillery, armored vehicles, drones and long-range missiles”.
Do not get distracted talking about unrealistic plans: you cannot come to an agreement with RF. War must end only with its defeat. Therefore, paraphrasing Hemingway: "Greeting to arms!". In required proportions of artillery, armored vehicles, drones and long-range missiles.
— Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) December 17, 2022
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Here are some of the latest images we have received from Ukraine:
Updated
Russia claims ‘high-precision’ weapons hit Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and military targets
Russia’s defence ministry said its “high-precision” weapons hit parts of Ukraine’s military-industrial complex and energy and military administrative facilities on Friday.
In a statement it said:
As a result of the strike, the transportation of weapons and ammunition of foreign production has been thwarted.
Ukrainian facilities producing weapons, military equipment and ammunition had been disabled, it added.
Yesterday’s wave of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power grid pitched multiple cities into darkness, cutting water and heat and forcing people to endure freezing cold.
Ukraine’s western allies have said the suffering inflicted on freezing civilians constitutes war crimes, with the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, calling the bombings “barbaric”.
Updated
The Kyiv Independent’s Illia Ponomarenko writes that Kyiv’s main Christmas tree is being installed today, just a day after Russian forces carried out another wave of mass strikes on Ukraine, including the capital.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s main Christmas Tree is being installed, as always, on Sofiyska Square in Kyiv.
— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) December 17, 2022
No Christmas market this time around… but you can charge your gadgets at the place🎄 pic.twitter.com/grX4wkMIZb
A popular pedestrian bridge in central Kyiv has reopened today after it was damaged by Russian airstrikes on the Ukrainian capital in October, the Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, announced.
The bridge, known in the city as the “glass bridge” or “Klitschko’s bridge”, connects the two central Kyiv parks of Volodymyrska Hirka and Mariinsky Park.
In a statement on Facebook, the city’s mayor said all 18 of the bridge’s damaged glazed windows had been replaced, and that the railings and cables that stretched along bridge were also restored.
He added:
One of our symbols of immortality is again happy to wait for Kyiv and guests of the capital.
Updated
Russia says latest EU sanctions will 'exacerbate' problems
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said the latest round of EU sanctions against Moscow will just lead to an “exacerbation” of problems within the bloc.
EU leaders agreed on Thursday to provide €18bn to Ukraine as well as the ninth package of sanctions aimed at ramping up pressure on Russia for its war in Ukraine.
The latest measures blacklist nearly 200 more people and bar investment in Russia’s mining industry, among other steps.
In a statement, Zakharova said:
The current ‘package’ will have the same effect as all the previous ones – exacerbation of socio-economic problems in the European Union itself.
She called on Brussels to cancel all restrictions that directly or indirectly, are having an impact on Russian exports of grains and fertilisers.
Updated
One person killed in Russian shelling of Kherson, says governor
A 36-year-old man was killed inside his car after Russian forces shelled the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson this morning, the regional governor Yaroslav Yanushevych said.
A 70-year-old woman was also injured after Russian troops struck a western district of the city with artillery and multiple rocket launchers, Yanushevych wrote on Telegram.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images we have received from Ukraine.
Ukraine ‘preparing’ for Russia to invade from north, says commander
A Ukrainian military commander has said Russia may try to invade from the north, potentially around the anniversary of when Vladimir Putin first ordered his troops to invade Ukraine.
Maj Gen Andrii Kovalchuk warned that the fiercest fighting may yet come and called on western allies to support Ukraine with lethal weapons, including potentially cluster munitions.
In an interview with Sky News, he said he could “foresee” that Russian forces may try to invade Ukraine from the north, the east and the south, maybe even on 24 February – on the anniversary of when Russian troops invaded the country.
Kovalchuk said:
We foresee such options, such scenarios. We are preparing for it. We live with the thought that they will attack again. This is our task.
He appeared particularly focused on the possibility of Russian troops invading via Belarus on Ukraine’s northern border, in order to target the capital.
Ukraine was “considering a possible offensive from Belarus at the end of February, maybe later”, he said.
He said Kyiv would be better prepared to fend Putin’s troops, adding that “it will no longer be the case that they will simply walk in, as was the case on 24 February”.
Updated
Rockets launched by Ukrainian forces killed three civilians in the Russian-occupied town of Shchastia in Ukraine’s southern Luhansk province, according to pro-Moscow officials.
In a statement on Telegram, Russian-installed Luhansk officials claimed US-made Himars rockets had wounded five others, and destroyed four houses.
It has not been possible to independently verify their claims.
Updated
In the icy waters of a Siberian harbour, the Christophe de Margerie, a Russian ship with an unusual French name, was ready for loading. The world’s first ice-breaking gas tanker had been designed for a very specific purpose: opening up Russia’s Arctic shipping routes towards Europe and Asia during the winter months.
It was December 2017, and the temperatures had plunged to -27C, but the politicians and oil executives gathered in Sabetta, on the Yamal peninsula, were jubilant. Vladimir Putin had flown in for the event. At the president’s signal, gas began to pump into the tanker.
“This is probably the biggest step in the development of the Arctic,” Putin declared.
As they watched, the onlookers will have noticed another of the ship’s distinguishing features: its prow was painted with a giant white moustache.
The whiskers – and the name – were a tribute to the former boss of the French oil major Total. Known as “big moustache” for his luxuriant facial hair, De Margerie had spent years flying between Paris and Moscow, setting up a $27bn (£22bn) partnership with Novatek, Russia’s largest private gas group, and China’s state oil company, to transform a remote wilderness with a vast untapped gas field into a busy industrial hub.
Sabetta now has a port, an airport, a railway station, a power plant and a facility for condensing methane into its liquid form. The liquid natural gas (LNG) is then exported by sea. But De Margerie was not there for the tanker’s inauguration. He had been killed in an accident three years earlier, when his private plane collided with a snow plough at Moscow airport.
Air raid sirens sound across all of Ukraine
Air raid sirens have been reported across Ukraine, including Kyiv, Lviv, Mykolaiv and Volyn.
⚠️ Вся Україна, окрім тимчасово окупованого Криму - повітряна тривога! pic.twitter.com/vDzM3qWLuC
— Ukrinform (@UKRINFORM) December 17, 2022
Updated
Russian 'concerned about the vulnerability of Crimea', says UK's MoD
Russia’s campaign of strikes against Ukrainian critical infrastructure has largely consisted of air- and maritime-launched cruise missiles, but has almost certainly also included Iranian-provided drones, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence.
In its latest intelligence update, the ministry said there had been “an uptick” in Russia’s campaign of long-range strikes against Ukraine’s critical national infrastructure.
These Iranian-provided uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) were being launched from Russia’s Krasnodar region, it said, where previously they were primarily launched from locations within occupied Crimea.
It said the change of launch site “is likely due to Russian concerns about the vulnerability of Crimea, while it is also convenient for resupply from the weapons’ likely arrival point in Russia, at Astrakhan”.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 17 December 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) December 17, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/qvaiWq0n01
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/d9jqkHomEZ
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Putin meets military commanders to discuss Ukraine strategy, says Kremlin
The Kremlin said Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, held meetings with armed forces commanders on Friday to discuss its military campaign in Ukraine during a visit to the operation’s headquarters.
A statement by the Kremlin read:
On Friday, the president spent the whole day at the army staff involved in the special military operation in Ukraine.
The Russian leader met his defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov, and held “separate discussions with commanders” from different defence branches, it said.
In video footage released by the Kremlin, Putin is seen presiding at the meeting of around a dozen people at a circular table, flanked by Shoigu and Gerasimov.
He was also filmed at the head of another conference table at the joint taskforce headquarters, inviting suggestions from a number of military commanders.
Putin said:
We will listen to the commanders in each operational direction, and I would like to hear your proposals on our immediate and medium-term actions.
Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the US-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, has shared the video of the meeting, which was also broadcast on Russian state media.
President Putin reportedly visited the Russian Joint Forces headquarters yesterday, which included Shoigu, Gerasimov, and Surovikin. He said he would listen to the commanders for each operational direction. https://t.co/rhTmTUTkt5https://t.co/HUsM9Pvoka pic.twitter.com/k9pBzBqXFB
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) December 17, 2022
Air force Gen Sergei Surovikin, the overall commander of Russian forces fighting in Ukraine, was also shown attending the meetings in photographs published on the Kremlin website.
Putin spent the whole of Friday at the task force headquarters, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Interfax news agency. No other details of the visit or the location of the headquarters were reported.
Updated
Explosions were heard in Ukraine’s southern city of Odesa on Saturday morning, Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne reported.
Explosions occurred in #Odesa this morning. Two Onyx missiles, which had been launched from Crimea, were downed over the region.#Russia #Ukraine #UkraineRussiaWar️
— SUSPILNE NEWS 📰 (@suspilne_news) December 17, 2022
Two Russian Oniks-type missiles were shot down in the Odesa region, according to Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesperson for the Odesa regional military administration.
Writing on Telegram, Bratchuk said:
This morning the enemy has launched another missile attack on the Odesa region. Two Oniks-type missiles were fired from a coastal missile system in the temporarily occupied Crimea. The anti-aircraft defense units destroyed them.
It has not been possible to independently verify this information.
Updated
Rescuers pull body of one-year-old from under rubble of Russian strike on Kryvyi Rih, says governor
Rescuers have recovered the body of a one-and-a-half-year-old boy from the rubble of a Russian strike on a three-storey residential building in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih in Dnipro region, the region’s governor, Valentyn Reznichenko, said.
In total, four people were killed in Friday morning’s attack on Kryvyi Rih, Reznichenko said. 13 others were injured by the attack, including four children.
In an earlier update, Reznichenko said:
A 64-year-old woman and a young couple died. Their little son still remains under the rubble of the house.
Announcing the recovery of the toddler’s body from the rubble of the building this morning, he said:
It is difficult to write about something like this.
Hello. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong with you as we unpack the latest developments from Russia’s war in Ukraine. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images we have received from Ukraine after Russia fired more than 70 missiles at Ukraine in one of its biggest attacks since the start of the war.
Updated
Kyiv mayor says metro service and water supply back, heating restored to half the city
The mayor of Ukraine’s capital said early on Saturday the city’s metro system was back in service and that all residents had been reconnected to water supply a day after the latest wave of Russian airstrikes on critical infrastructure.
Ukrainian officials said Russia fired more than 70 missiles on Friday in one of its biggest attacks since the start of the war, forcing emergency blackouts nationwide.
Vitali Klitschko also said heating had been restored to half the city and electricity had been returned to two-thirds.
“But schedules of emergency outages are being implemented,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “Because the deficit of electricity is significant.”
Updated
Summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Christine Kearney and I’ll be bringing you the latest developments. It’s about 8.30am in Kyiv, here’s where things stand:
Ukraine was working on Saturday to restore electricity to hospitals, heating systems and other critical infrastructure in major cities after Russia’s latest wave of attacks on the power grid prompted accusations of “war crimes”. The volley of missiles unleashed on Friday pitched multiple cities into darkness, cutting water and heat and forcing people to endure freezing cold.
Russia fired more than 70 missiles at Ukraine in one of its biggest attacks since the start of the war. Ukraine shot down 60 out of the 76 missiles fired at it, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces said.
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said early Saturday the city’s metro system was back in service and that all residents had been reconnected to water supply a day after the latest wave of Russian airstrikes on critical infrastructure. He also said heating had been restored to half the city and electricity had been returned to two-thirds.
Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, had restored power to just 55% of residents, with plans to have a fully operational grid by midnight.
France and the European Union said the suffering inflicted on freezing civilians constituted war crimes, with the bloc’s foreign policy chief calling the bombings “barbaric”. “These cruel, inhumane attacks aim to increase human suffering and deprive Ukrainian people,” Josep Borrell said.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia still had enough missiles for several more massive strikes and he again urged western allies to supply Kyiv with more and better air defence systems. “Whatever the rocket worshippers from Moscow are counting on, it still won’t change the balance of power in this war,” he said in an evening address.
The mass strikes appeared to be a continuation of the Kremlin’s attempt to destroy Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Ukraine’s state energy company Ukrenergo said energy consumption had fallen by 50% as a result of the attacks. The company said Russia had hit thermal power plants, hydroelectric plants and substations of main networks. Ukrenergo said it would take longer to repair the national grid and restore power than it did after previous Russian missile attacks, with priority given to “critical infrastructure facilities”.
Energy infrastructure was hit across the country, resulting in complete outages in Ukraine’s eastern and central regions of Kharkiv and Poltava. Nine power facilities in the country were damaged by Friday’s strikes, Ukraine’s energy minister, Herman Halushchenko, said. The mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, said the missile strikes caused “colossal” damage to infrastructure and left the city without power, heating and water. A senior Ukrainian presidential official said emergency power shutdowns were being brought in across the country.
The Kyiv city administration said Ukraine’s capital had withstood “one of the biggest rocket attacks” launched by Russian forces since they invaded Ukraine nearly 10 months ago. The administration said Ukrainian air defence forces shot down 37 of “about 40” that entered the city’s airspace. There were water disruptions in every district, Klitschko said.
At least eight people were killed and 23 injured by Ukrainian shelling in the Russian-controlled Luhansk region of Ukraine, Russia’s state Tass news agency reported on Friday, citing an unidentified source in the emergency services. The shelling destroyed a building in the village of Lantrativka and some people were trapped under rubble, Tass said. The head of the “people’s militia” in Luhansk also claimed there were civilian casualties as a result of Ukrainian shelling on the town of Svatove on Friday morning.
EU states should buy arms jointly to replenish stocks after supplying Ukraine, said the bloc’s defence agency, warning the US may not always be able to shield Europe from threats. “The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine demonstrates our capability shortfalls,” said Jiří Šedivý, chief executive of the European Defence Agency. The agency was in talks with European arms firms about boosting production, he said, as well as with countries about clubbing together to buy equipment and ammunition.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, spoke by phone with the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, on Friday. The Kremlin said Putin gave “fundamental assessments” of the conflict in Ukraine during the call, at Modi’s request. The Indian leader’s office was cited as saying that he had reiterated his call for dialogue and diplomacy as the only way forward in the conflict.
Putin will visit Belarus for talks with the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, on Monday. The pair will discuss Russian-Belarusian integration “as well as current topics on the international and regional agenda”, the Kremlin said. Putin and Lukashenko will hold a one-on-one meeting in which they will “give priority to security issues and exchange views on the situation in the region and the world”, Belarusian state-owned news agency Belta said, without mentioning Ukraine.
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