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The latest developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine. All times EST.
10 p.m.: The United States on Thursday committed another $2.5 billion in food assistance to Africa, pledging to help the continent cope with rising prices blamed in part on Russia's invasion of breadbasket Ukraine, Agence France-Presse reported.
President Joe Biden laid out the new commitment at the close of a three-day summit that brought nearly 50 African leaders to Washington.
Biden told leaders that the United States was concerned about rising hunger triggered "in part due to Russia's unprovoked war against Ukraine."
8:55 p.m.:
7:53 p.m.: Poland's Interior Ministry says a gift that the country's top police commander received during a recent visit to Ukraine exploded at national police headquarters in Warsaw, The Associated Press reported.
The ministry said the the explosion in a room next to the commander's office on Wednesday morning caused him and a civilian employee to suffer minor injuries. It didn't specify what object the Polish commander had received during a working visit to Ukraine on Sunday and Monday.
It said Thursday that the Polish government has asked Ukraine for an explanation of what happened. Poland is an ally of Ukraine and has offered the neighboring country military and humanitarian aid since Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24.
6:29 p.m.: Since early October, Russia has launched multiple seven large-scale missile and drone attacks of this kind, causing power, water, and heating outages in cities and towns across the country while also killing dozens of people. The latest came on Thursday, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports.
Moscow opened this new front in its war against Ukraine after suffering a series of major setbacks on the battlefield, seemingly hoping that as winter descends, severe conditions will force Ukraine into concessions -- something it has failed spectacularly to do so far.
The infrastructure assaults have added to ire against Russia in the West --"Targeted attacks on civilian infrastructure with the clear aim to cut off men, women, children [from] water, electricity, and heating with the winter coming…are acts of pure terror,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in October -- and pose a persistent, serious threat.
But as citizens, authorities, and energy companies learn to deal with the blackouts and other problems caused by power outages, there are growing indications that Moscow's efforts on the “energy front” may end up falling flat.
“We have no choice but to survive,” Tymofiy Mylovanov, a former economy minister who is an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told RFE/RL at the Kyiv School of Economics, where he is president.
5:29 p.m.: Russian shelling killed two people including a Red Cross worker in Kherson on Thursday and completely cut power in the southern city, Ukrainian officials said, with temperatures near freezing, Agence France-Presse reported.
The UN's human rights chief set out evidence of what he said was Russian killings of hundreds of Ukrainian civilians in the first months of the wary.
And the commander of Ukraine's armed forces warned they expected a fresh Russian attack on Kyiv early next year.
4:28 p.m.: The Grisly Job of Exhuming the Dead in Ukraine: In the woods of eastern Ukraine, a team of volunteers are scraping the dirt from a corpse and searching for anything that might identify who it was. One of them finds a cross -- a possible clue. He says it's always an honor for him if the team manages to return a body to its family. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has this report.
3:50 p.m.: U.S. officials say the Pentagon will expand military combat training for Ukrainian forces, using the slower winter months to instruct larger units in more complex battle skills, The Associated Press reported.
The U.S. has already trained about 3,100 Ukrainian troops on how to use and maintain certain weapons and other equipment, including howitzers, armored vehicles and the High Moblity Artillery Rocket System, known as HIMARS. But senior military leaders for months have discussed expanding that training, touting the need to improve the ability of Ukraine’s battalion-sized units to move and coordinate attacks across the battlefield.
The officials spoke Thursday on condition of anonymity because the program has not been publicly announced.
3:11 p.m.: European Union governments agreed on Thursday on a ninth package of sanctions against Russia over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, EU diplomats said, Reuters reported.
The package will be formalized through what the EU calls a "written procedure" by Friday noon.
"Sanctions agreed. Written procedure until tomorrow noon," one of the diplomats said.
2:55 p.m.:
2:10 p.m.: President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Russia would expand trade cooperation with new partners, including by sharply increasing gas exports to China, to combat Western sanctions, Reuters reported.
When spending on the war in Ukraine is squeezing funds for health and education, Putin promised Russians in a major televised speech on the economy that pensions and the minimum wage would keep rising.
He said Russia would develop its economic relations with partners in Asia, Africa and Latin America to thwart Western efforts to isolate it economically.
"We will remove restrictions in logistics and finance. Let me remind you that by introducing sanctions, Western countries were trying to push Russia to the periphery of world development. But we will never take the route of self-isolation," he said.
With no end in sight to the Ukraine war, Russia has outlined plans to spend nearly a third of next year's budget on defense and domestic security while cutting funding for schools, hospitals and roads.
1:30 p.m.: The U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Thursday accused Russia of gross violations of international human rights and humanitarian laws in Ukraine. The accusation was made in a report on recent developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine and was submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
The report focuses on killings of civilians by Russian armed forces through summary executions, which took place in 102 villages between February 24 and April 6.
U.N. monitors have documented the killings of 441 civilians--men, women, boys, and girls--by Russian troops. U.N. rights chief Volker Tuerk said the actual figures are likely to be much higher. Lisa Schlein has the details.
1:15 p.m.: Russian forces keep pounding critical power infrastructure in Ukrainian cities, killing more civilians and leaving tens of thousands of more people without electricity, as its troops step up the pace of their relentless attacks along the entire front line in the east, RFE/RL reported.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian military said that Russian artillery fire was concentrated on Bakhmut and Avdiyivka in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, as Moscow is seeking to stabilize its tactical positions around Kupyansk in the eastern Kharkiv region and Zaporizhzhi in the southeast.
The recently liberated southern city of Kherson was left completely without power following Russian shelling that also killed at least two people on Thursday, according to the head of the Kherson regional military administration, Yaroslav Yanushevych.
12:48 p.m.: United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths said on Thursday it was unlikely the Black Sea grain deal would be expanded in the near term to include more Ukrainian ports or reduce inspection times, Reuters reported.
Kyiv has called for an expansion of the deal with Moscow which was mediated by the United Nations and Turkey and allows Ukraine, a major global grain exporter, to ship food products from three of its Black Sea ports despite Russia's invasion.
"I don't see that happening in the next, near term," the U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator told Reuters in an interview in the Ukrainian capital. "I think it would be great if it could be expanded, the more grain that gets out into the world, the better clearly from our point of view, from the world's point of view. But I don't think that's immediately likely."
Griffiths traveled to Ukraine this week, visiting the southern cities of Mykolaiv and recently liberated Kherson as Ukraine grapples with winter power outages caused by Russian air strikes on critical infrastructure.
12:22 p.m.: The Struggles of Life in Kherson After Liberation From Russian Occupation: Life in the recently liberated city of Kherson is a constant struggle for locals. Russian forces continue to shell the war-torn regional capital. Although supermarket chains have started to reopen, residents say they need greater support during the cold winter months, including more generators and better access to medicine. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has this report.
11:23 a.m.: The U.S. announced on Thursday sanctions targeting Russia’s financial sector and Russian businessman Vladimir Potanin, one of the country’s richest men.
A State Department statement said sanctions were imposed on Potanin, as well as his wife, adult children, yacht and Interros, an investment holding company he controls.
Potanin, 61, is the largest shareholder at Nornickel, which was not designated on Thursday. Interros owns 36% of Nornickel. Nornickel, the world's top palladium and refined nickel producer, was one of the biggest prizes in the post-Soviet carve-up of Russian industry in 1990s, Reuters reported.
“The Department of State is also designating officials helping to advance Russia’s invasion and control of Ukrainian territory, including 29 Russian heads of regions and governors, two of their family members, and an entity owned by one of the family members. These governors oversee and enforce the conscription of citizens in response to Russia’s recent mobilization order,” the statement said.
10:24 a.m.: The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said on Thursday that further strikes on Ukraine's infrastructure could lead to a serious deterioration of the humanitarian situation and spark further displacement, Reuters reported.
Russia's attacks on Ukraine's electricity infrastructure have left millions of people without heat, clean water or electricity as temperatures plummet and some 18 million people now rely on humanitarian aid.
Moscow says the assaults do not target civilians and are meant to reduce Ukraine's ability to fight and push it to negotiate. Kyiv says the attacks are a war crime.
In a speech to the Human Rights Council following a trip to Ukraine last week, Turk said that Russian strikes were exposing millions of people to "extreme hardship.”
9:43 a.m.: To get through the winter, Ukraine needs emergency support. Most Ukrainian power plants, all hydroelectric plants and all thermal power plants, were damaged or destroyed by Russian shelling, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says. Officials say at least $1.5 billion is needed for only the superficial quick restoration of Ukrainian energy facilities destroyed by Russian strikes. VOA’s Myroslava Gongadze has this report from Ukraine.
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Officials Say Ukrainian Energy Infrastructure Main Target of Russian Attacks
9:04 a.m.: More than 14 million tonnes of grain have been exported from Ukraine under the Black Sea deal with Russia and eased global food prices, the United Nations said Thursday, Agence France-Presse reported.
Rebeca Grynspan, head of the U.N.'s trade and development agency UNCTAD which helped broker the Black Sea Grain Initiative, said it had reduced world food prices for seven straight months.
"We have surpassed 14 million tonnes of food that has come out through the Black Sea Grain Initiative," Grynspan told reporters at the U.N. in Geneva.
Ukraine, one of the world's top grain producers, was invaded by neighbouring Russia in February.
Two agreements brokered by the U.N. and Turkey were signed on July 22.
8:20 a.m.:
7:58 a.m.: The Vatican on Thursday launched a crowdfunding campaign on Thursday to send thermal underwear to Ukraine to help residents survive the winter as they face power shortages amid the war with Russia.
The Vatican's charity office said in a statement that it had linked up with the Italian crowdfunding site eppela.com to raise money to buy the clothing, according to Reuters.
The head of the office, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, said Italian companies had already responded to an earlier appeal by donating thermal underwear or providing it at cost.
Krajewski, a Pole who is based in Rome and has carried out several charity missions to Ukraine for Pope Francis this year, said he would personally take the clothing to the country in a convoy of trucks.
The pope urged people on Wednesday 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.
Russia has been pounding Ukraine's energy infrastructure since October, destroying or damaging half of it.
7:10 a.m.: The majority of the more than 1 million Ukrainians who fled to Germany after the Russian invasion feel welcome there and around 37% would like to settle permanently or for several years, Reuters reported Thursday citing a government-backed survey.
The poll of 11,225 refugees carried out jointly by several bodies, including the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, said that a further 34% of refugees planned to stay until the end of the war and 27% were undecided. Some 2% planned to leave within a year.
Germany has taken in more Ukrainians than any other European Union country except Poland after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February and triggered the largest movement of refugees since the end of the Second World War.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz has pledged to support Ukraine “for as long as it takes,” and along with other Western allies has sent aid and weapons to Kyiv to withstand the Russian assault.
The vast majority of adult Ukrainian refugees — some 80% — were women, the survey showed, and tended to be better educated than the average Ukrainian, with 72% having a university degree.
6:25 a.m.: Ukrainian forces staged their heaviest shelling attack in years in the country’s Russian-controlled east on Thursday, Reuters reported citing Moscow-installed officials, as both sides ruled out a Christmas truce in the nearly 10-month-old war.
Alexei Kulemzin, the Russian-backed mayor of Donetsk city, said 40 rockets were fired from BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launchers at civilians in the city center in the early hours.
Meanwhile Russian forces kept up shelling and air strikes along the entire eastern front line, killing one person, while two were killed in the southern city of Kherson, Ukrainian officials said.
Moscow and Kyiv are not currently holding talks to end Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II, raging mainly in Ukraine's east and south with little movement on either side.” The Kremlin... is seeking to turn the conflict into a prolonged armed confrontation,” a senior Ukrainian officer, Brigadier General Oleksiy Gromov, told a news briefing on Thursday. He also dismissed the possibility of a truce over the festive period.
Reuters was unable to immediately verify battlefield accounts from either side.
6 a.m.: The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said on Thursday that further strikes on Ukraine's infrastructure could lead to a serious deterioration of the humanitarian situation and spark further displacement.
Reuters reported that, in a speech to the Human Rights Council following a trip to Ukraine, Turk said that Russian strikes were exposing millions of people to "extreme hardship".
"Additional strikes could lead to a further serious deterioration in the humanitarian situation and spark more displacement," he said.
5:30 a.m.: “I hope my children understand that their daddy is here, he loves them — even from Belgrade,” Yaroslav Leonov told Agence France-Presse in their new report.
In the piece, AFP interviews Leonov, now in exile in Serbia to avoid conscription in Russia, and his wife, still in Moscow. Through their story, AFP focuses on families split by the mobilization — men who have fled abroad and women now raising children alone.
5 a.m.: “At 5 a.m. on February 24, Maryna Ganitskaya heard the boom of distant explosions and realized a full-scale invasion had begun. The director of a hospital for patients with psychological and physical conditions in Borodyanka, 50 kilometers northwest of Kyiv, drove immediately to the facility.
In her own words, here is what happened next...”
A report by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty tells the story of Ganitskaya and the 350 patients in her care during the Russian occupation. Ganitskaya, who had only held the job for six weeks, and the 10 staff members who stayed, became responsible for vulnerable residents, violent psychiatric patients, severely autistic children and hundreds of people from the surrounding community who sheltered in the hospital.
4:45 a.m.: Ukrainian forces shelled the Russian-controlled eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk overnight in some of the biggest attacks for years, Russian-installed officials in the annexed areas said on Thursday, according to Reuters.
"At exactly 7.00 o'clock this morning they subjected the center of Donetsk to the most massive attack since 2014," Alexei Kulemzin, the Russian-backed mayor of the city, said on Telegram.
"Forty rockets from BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launchers were fired at civilians in our city," Kulemzin said. He cast the attack as a war crime.
Reuters was unable to immediately verify Kulemzin's account of what happened, and there was no immediate response to his comments from Ukrainian officials.
Kulemzin told Russian state TV that preliminary information indicated that five people had been hurt in the shelling, including a child.
Video footage released by Russia's state RIA news agency showed smoke rising from damaged buildings, debris-strewn yards and streets, burnt out cars, and what appeared to be a blood stain on a pavement next to someone's hat.
Firefighters were seen dousing flames.
Kulemzin, the mayor, said a kindergarten, a school, a university, a student hospital and a cathedral had been damaged in the attack.
4:30 a.m.: “Don’t trust Putin. Don’t be happy if Putin signs something because it means nothing. And don’t be afraid of Putin, learn from the Ukrainian experience. This way, you will win together with Ukraine.” In an interview with VOA, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko offers this advice to the international community.
In the conversation with VOA Ukrainian Service’s Tatiana Vorozhko, he outlines the essential elements to Ukrainian success and his vision for the end of the war.
SEE ALSO: VOA Interview: Former Ukrainian President Poroshenko4:15 a.m.: Reuters cited Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova Thursday saying that all weapons supplied to Ukraine by the West are legitimate targets for Russia, and that they would be either destroyed or seized.
4 a.m.: More than 50,000 women have enlisted in Ukraine’s war effort, and at least 6,000 are deployed on or near the front lines.
The Associated Press has a new report on a volunteer organization collecting and sending them over $1 million of support in the form of “hundreds of boots, uniforms, stand-to-pee devices, wireless bras and thermal underwear, medicines, right-sized bulletproof plates for flak jackets, and care packages with items like lotions, shampoo, toothpaste and feminine hygiene products.”
3:35 a.m.: European Union member states failed to agree on a ninth package of Russia sanctions in talks late on Wednesday, diplomats said as EU leaders gathered in Brussels on Thursday for their last summit of the year.
Countries moved closer to a deal in Wednesday’s negotiations, but Poland and some other countries still have objections, one EU diplomat told Reuters, adding a new draft was expected to be circulated on Thursday evening.
Fresh sanctions on Moscow have been held up by disagreement over whether the EU should make it easier for Russian fertilizer exports to pass through European ports, even in the case when the fertilizer companies are owned by blacklisted oligarchs.
Some say EU restrictions pose a food security threat to developing countries, while others argue that relaxing them would allow Russian oligarchs who own fertilizer businesses to dodge EU sanctions against them.
One EU diplomat said Poland and the Baltic states are telling other countries that they are deluding themselves if they think a relaxation on Russian fertilizers is not going to be abused as a loophole for oligarchs.
Some member states want the World Food Program to be involved in authorization for exports of fertilizers to countries that need it.
3 a.m.:
2:45 a.m.:
2:10 a.m.: Agence France-Presse reported that Ukraine’s SBU security service on Wednesday found “propaganda literature” in counter-intelligence searches in churches and monasteries across the country, in its most recent descent on religious sites of the Russia-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
“The Security Service of Ukraine found Russian passports, propaganda literature and laissez-passer" issued by Russian occupation authorities during searches on Wednesday, the agency said in a statement.
The SBU earlier announced “counter-intelligence measures” in more than a dozen religious sites in several Ukrainian regions, including the western Lviv region, Kherson region in the south and Zhytomyr region in the northwest.
“In the publications, representatives of the Russian Federation deny the existence of the Ukrainian people, their language and culture, and question Ukrainian statehood,” the SBU said.
It published photos of seized Russian passports, Saint George ribbons — Russian military symbols widely taken up by supporters of the war — and documents in support of Moscow.
Earlier this month, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine will move to impose limitations on religious organizations in the country which have links to Russia.
Ukraine had been under Moscow’s spiritual leadership since at least the 17th century, but part of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church broke with Moscow in 2019 over Russia’s annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in the eastern Donbas region.
In May, the war caused the Moscow-backed branch of Ukraine’s Orthodox Church to sever ties with Russia, in a historic move against the Russian spiritual authorities.
Earlier on Wednesday the SBU said it was carrying out measures aiming to “prevent the use of religious communities as a center of the ‘Russian world’ and to protect the population from provocations and terrorist acts.”
It released photos of its operatives in khaki uniform inspecting religious sites, sometimes accompanied by priests in long black robes.
1:40 a.m.:
1:20 a.m.:
12:45 a.m.: The Kremlin said on Wednesday that U.S. Patriot missile defense systems would be a legitimate target for Russian strikes against Ukraine, should the United States authorize them to be delivered to support Kyiv, Reuters reported.
Washington is finalizing plans to send the Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine, a decision that could be announced as soon as this week, three U.S. officials told Reuters on Tuesday.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Patriots would “definitely” be a target for Russia, but that he would not comment on unconfirmed media reports.
The Patriot is considered to be one of the most advanced U.S. air defense systems, including against aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. It typically includes launchers along with radar and other support vehicles.
Russia’s embassy in Washington said the proposed transfer was provocative and could lead to unpredictable consequences.
“Even without providing Patriots, the United States is getting deeper and deeper into the conflict in the post-Soviet republic,” the mission wrote on its Telegram channel. “It is the United States that is responsible for the prolongation and escalation of the Ukrainian conflict.”
The Pentagon says Russia’s recent surge in missile strikes in Ukraine is partly designed to exhaust Kyiv’s supplies of air defenses so it can dominate the skies above the country. For that reason, the United States and its allies have been delivering more air defenses for Kyiv.
For the United States, this has included NASAMS air defense systems that the Pentagon says have flawlessly intercepted Russian missiles in Ukraine. Washington has so far provided Ukraine with $19.3 billion in military assistance since the start of the conflict.
12:15 a.m.: Moscow said no “Christmas cease-fire” was on the cards after nearly 10 months of devastating war in Ukraine, even as the release of dozens more prisoners including an American showed that some contacts between the two sides remain. Reuters has this report.
12:01 a.m.: Ukrainian authorities say they thwarted a Russian attack on Kyiv and the surrounding region as their air defense system destroyed 13 explosive-laden drones, The Associated Press reported.
An official said Wednesday drone wreckage damaged five buildings. No casualties were reported. The attempted strikes underlined the continued vulnerability of Ukraine’s capital but also highlighted Ukraine’s claims of increasing efficiency in intercepting weapons.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces fired 13 Iranian-made drones, and all were intercepted. Ukraine’s capital remained largely calm after Wednesday’s attack, which occurred around daybreak.
In another development, Ukraine’s human rights chiefs said authorities discovered evidence that children were tortured in formerly Russian-occupied areas.
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.