Closing summary
It’s nearly 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
The second mass strikes in days has been launched by Russia across Ukraine, with at least 70 rockets fired at several regions on Friday morning. So far authorities have said three people died and several injured, including three children, when one of the rockets hit a residential building in the southern city of Kryvyi Rih in Dnipro region.
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 will 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, according to the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, and local people reported immediate power outages.
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.
The White House has said the next security assistance package for Ukraine was coming and it was expected to include more air defence capabilities for the country. Russia’s foreign ministry warned this week that if the US delivered sophisticated Patriot air defence systems to Ukraine, such systems and any crews that accompany them would be a legitimate target for the Russian military. Washington rejected the threat.
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 head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said she welcomes the agreement by EU leaders on the ninth package of sanctions against Russia. EU leaders agreed on Thursday to provide €18bn in financing to Ukraine next year as well as to a fresh package of sanctions, which will designate nearly 200 more people and bar investment in Russia’s mining industry, among other steps. The Kremlin said it would study the latest package of EU sanctions and then formulate its response.
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.
Senior Ukrainian officials say Putin is preparing for a major new offensive in the new year, despite a series of humiliating battlefield setbacks for Russia in recent months. In an interview with the Guardian, Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said that while Ukraine was now able to successfully defend itself against Russia’s missile attacks targeting key infrastructure, including the energy grid, evidence was emerging that the Kremlin was preparing a broad new offensive.
Russia is to double the number of test launches of its intercontinental ballistic missiles to eight next year from four in 2022, the commander of strategic rocket forces was quoted as saying. Sergei Karakayev told the military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda that the eight test flights would be scheduled from two launch sites – one near Murmansk in the north, the other near Volgograd in the south.
Polish prosecutors are investigating a “violent release of energy” at the national police headquarters amid media reports that the chief of police fired a grenade launcher in his office. Poland’s interior ministry said on Thursday that Jarosław Szymczyk, the police commander in chief, was injured and taken to hospital when a present he received during a visit to Ukraine exploded at police headquarters in Warsaw.
Fifa has reportedly rebuffed a request by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to share a message of world peace before the kickoff at the World Cup final on Sunday. Talks between Ukraine and Fifa are still under way, a source told CNN, adding that Zelenskiy’s office was surprised by the governing body’s response.
Britain’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has reportedly ordered an audit into the progress of the war in Ukraine. A source told BBC Newsnight that the audit, known as a data-driven assessment, is designed to assess the progress of the war and the significance of the UK’s military contributions to Ukraine.
A Russian businessman believed to be a close ally of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group founder, has been taken to hospital in Central African Republic (CAR) after an “assassination attempt”, the RIA Novosti news agency has reported, citing the local Russian embassy. Dmitry Sytii, who officially works as head of the “Russian House” culture centre in CAR’s capital, Bangui, had sanctions imposed on him by the US in September 2020 for his alleged links to Wagner Group, a private military group that has deployed more than 1,000 fighters in the unstable country to fight rebels.
A Russian businessman believed to be a close ally of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group founder, has been taken to hospital in Central African Republic (CAR) after an “assassination attempt”, the RIA Novosti news agency has reported, citing the local Russian embassy.
Dmitry Sytii, who officially works as head of the “Russian House” culture centre in CAR’s capital, Bangui, had sanctions imposed on him by the US in September 2020 for his alleged links to Wagner Group, a private military group that has deployed more than 1,000 fighters in the unstable country to fight rebels.
The Russian embassy in Bangui did not immediately comment on the circumstances of the alleged assassination attempt.
Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch under US sanctions who has led Russia’s recent push into Africa, said in a statement published on Friday that Sytii received a mailed parcel containing an explosive that detonated in his hands.
“At the moment, the life of Dmitry Sytii hangs in balance. Russian doctors are doing everything possible in the Bangui hospital to save him,” Prigozhin said in a statement posted by his catering company, Concord, that described Sytii as a “Patriot of Russia and Central African Republic”.
Prigozhin, without providing evidence, claimed that the assassination attack was coordinated from France.
I have already contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation so that it initiates the procedure for declaring France a state sponsor of terrorism, as well as conducting a thorough investigation of the terrorist methods of France and its western allies – the United States and others.
The French foreign ministry in a statement denied any involvement.
Western officials say that Prigozhin and his companies are the spearhead of an ambitious – if opportunistic – effort by Russia to extend its influence in more than a dozen African states, often at the expense of France.
Britain’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has reportedly ordered an audit into the progress of the war in Ukraine.
A source told BBC Newsnight that the audit, known as a data-driven assessment, is designed to assess the progress of the war and the significance of the UK’s military contributions to Ukraine.
The request has reportedly raised alarm bells among some Whitehall staff, with the source saying:
Wars aren’t won [by dashboards]. Wars are won on instinct. At the start of this it was Boris (Johnson) sitting down and saying: ‘Let’s just go for this.’ So Rishi needs to channel his inner Boris on foreign policy though not of course on anything else.
The BBC understands that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is aware of the debate within the UK over its support of Ukraine and is encouraging Sunak to maintain strong military support for his country.
The source added:
President Zelenskiy has sensed what is going on. So he has been talking to Rishi. He is trying to inspire him, saying the UK are the great liberators, the great fighters. We need you. Rise to that.
Ukraine’s state power grid operator, Ukrenergo, has now lifted the state of emergency it declared earlier in the day.
In a statement, Ukrenergo said Russian missile strikes this morning caused a loss of nationwide energy consumption by more than 50%.
Here are some of the latest images we have received from the southern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih in Dnipro region, where officials say at least three people were killed by a Russian attack on a residential building.
Updated
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has condemned Russia’s campaign of “indiscriminate terror” against Ukraine after the latest wave of missile attacks across the country.
Russian airstrikes on Ukraine were “cruel, inhumane” and aimed “to increase human suffering and deprive Ukrainian people, but also hospitals, emergency services and other critical services of electricity, heating and water”, Borrell said in a statement.
He described the fresh barrage of Russian missiles on Friday morning as “barbaric” and “constitute war crimes”.
He said:
Today’s massive missiles attacks by Russia across Ukraine, in addition to the ongoing daily shelling of civilians and civilian infrastructure, are yet another example of the Kremlin’s indiscriminate terror.
Lawmakers in Croatia have rejected a government proposal for the country to join an EU mission to help train Ukrainian soldiers.
The vote was held after hours of heated debate in parliament, after the Croatian president previously refused to sign off on the proposal, saying it was not in accordance with the country’s constitution.
A majority of two thirds was needed to agree the proposal; of the 107 who voted in the 151-seat parliament, 97 supported it. Ten voted against.
The proposal would have included allowing up to 100 Ukrainian troops to be trained in Croatia over the next two years, and was opposed by the president, Zoran Milanović, who has been an outspoken critic of western policies in Ukraine.
In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the EU agreed to set up the Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine (EUMAM Ukraine), and appointed a Polish general to lead training that will mostly take place in Poland.
The mission was established in October, envisaging that the EU’s 27 member countries would offer various forms of support and training to Ukraine.
Milanović declined to consider the government proposal for Croatia to join the EUMAM Ukraine, arguing that Croatia should not be involved in the war.
Updated
Death count from Russian rocket strike on Kryvyi Rih rises to 3, says governor
The number of people killed in Friday morning’s Russian missile attack in the southern city of Kryvyi Rih in Dnipro region has risen to three, plus 13 injured, according to officials.
Dnipropetrovsk governor Valentyn Reznichenko provided the updated casualty figures, as reported by the Kyiv Independent.
Among those injured include four children – a boy and a girl, both aged three, as well as a boy and a girl, aged, seven – according to Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the Kryvyi Rih’s city military administration.
⚡️Casualty figures from Russian strike in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast rise to 3 killed, 13 injured. pic.twitter.com/c83i1NtKOQ
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) December 16, 2022
The Swiss government has adopted further sanctions against Russia in line with the EU’s latest measures on Russian crude oil and petroleum products, its cabinet said.
The measures relate to a price cap on Russian crude oil and petroleum products. “This extends the ban on transporting such products sold above the price cap to trade and brokering services,” it said.
Polish prosecutors are investigating a “violent release of energy” at the national police headquarters amid media reports that the chief of police fired a grenade launcher in his office.
Poland’s interior ministry said on Thursday that Jarosław Szymczyk, the police commander in chief, was injured and taken to hospital when a present he received during a visit to Ukraine exploded at police headquarters in Warsaw.
Polish media reported that the present was a grenade launcher and that Szymczyk himself had accidentally fired it in his office, in what would be a serious breach of safety regulations.
In a statement, published on Thursday, a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office said it was investigating “an act consisting of unintentionally causing a violent release of energy that threatened the life or health of many people or property”.
The statement said three people, including Szymczyk, were considered victims, without giving details of possible injuries.
The US basketball star, Brittney Griner, has departed a medical military facility in Texas having spent a week there following 10 months in Russian custody, CNN reported.
Griner, 32, was released last week in a prisoner swap in exchange for Russian arms dealer, Viktor Bout.
In an Instagram post, she thanked her family, the WNBA, advocates and US president, Joe Biden, among others.
She added that “every family deserves to be whole,” referencing the US citizen Paul Whelan, who has been detained in Russia since 2018.
Updated
Summary of the day so far
It’s 6pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
The second mass strikes in days has been launched by Russia across Ukraine, with at least 70 rockets fired at several regions on Friday morning. So far authorities have said two people died and several injured, including three children, when one of the rockets hit a residential building in the southern city of Kryvyi Rih in Dnipro region.
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 will 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, according to the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, and local people reported immediate power outages.
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.
The White House has said the next security assistance package for Ukraine was coming and it was expected to include more air defence capabilities for the country. Russia’s foreign ministry warned this week that if the US delivered sophisticated Patriot air defence systems to Ukraine, such systems and any crews that accompany them would be a legitimate target for the Russian military. Washington rejected the threat.
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 head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said she welcomes the agreement by EU leaders on the ninth package of sanctions against Russia. EU leaders agreed on Thursday to provide €18bn in financing to Ukraine next year as well as to a fresh package of sanctions, which will designate nearly 200 more people and bar investment in Russia’s mining industry, among other steps. The Kremlin said it would study the latest package of EU sanctions and then formulate its response.
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.
Senior Ukrainian officials say Putin is preparing for a major new offensive in the new year, despite a series of humiliating battlefield setbacks for Russia in recent months. In an interview with the Guardian, Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said that while Ukraine was now able to successfully defend itself against Russia’s missile attacks targeting key infrastructure, including the energy grid, evidence was emerging that the Kremlin was preparing a broad new offensive.
Russia is to double the number of test launches of its intercontinental ballistic missiles to eight next year from four in 2022, the commander of strategic rocket forces was quoted as saying. Sergei Karakayev told the military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda that the eight test flights would be scheduled from two launch sites – one near Murmansk in the north, the other near Volgograd in the south.
Fifa has reportedly rebuffed a request by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to share a message of world peace before the kickoff at the World Cup final on Sunday. Talks between Ukraine and Fifa are still under way, a source told CNN, adding that Zelenskiy’s office was surprised by the governing body’s response.
Good afternoon from London. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong still here with all the latest news from Ukraine. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.
Updated
Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, said her country is “clenching its fists, but it is holding on” after Russian missile strikes across Ukraine this morning.
At least two people were killed and eight more were injured when a missile hit a residential building in the southern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, officials have said.
Among those injured by the attack on central Kryvyi Rih were a boy and a girl aged three, and a girl aged seven, according to Valentyn Reznichenko, head of the Dnipropetrovsk military administration.
Friday began with massive ru–shelling of the entire 🇺🇦. No electricity and water due to infrastructure damage in some cities. In Kryvyi Rih, missile hit residential building – 2 people died, 3 children injured. Ukraine is clenching its fists, but it is holding on and will win
— Олена Зеленська (@ZelenskaUA) December 16, 2022
The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said she welcomes the agreement by EU leaders on the ninth package of sanctions against Russia.
EU leaders agreed yesterday to provide €18bn in financing to Ukraine next year as well as to a fresh package of sanctions.
The latest measures designate nearly 200 more people and bar investment in Russia’s mining industry, among other steps.
I welcome the agreement on the 9th sanctions package against Russia.
— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) December 16, 2022
It focuses on tech, finance and media to push the Russian economy and war machine further off the rails.
It sanctions almost 200 individuals and entities involved in attacks on civilians & kidnapping children https://t.co/3vx73DMZyz
The White House said on Friday that the next security assistance package for Ukraine was coming and it was expected to include more air defence capabilities for the country.
“As you have seen in previous packages, I think you can expect to see additional air defence capabilities in this,” John Kirby, spokesperson for the White House national security council, told reporters.
Updated
A barrage of rockets has been fired at several regions across Ukraine, the second mass air attack launched by Russia in days.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images we have received from Ukraine today.
Fifa has reportedly rebuffed a request by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to share a message of world peace before the kickoff at the World Cup final on Sunday.
Zelenskiy’s office was surprised by the governing body’s response after the Ukrainian president offered to appear in a video link to fans in the stadium in Qatar, ahead of the game, a source told CNN.
The source said:
We thought Fifa wanted to use its platform for the greater good.
Talks between Ukraine and Fifa are still under way, according to the source.
Updated
A Ukrainian official said Russia’s latest attacks on Ukrainian cities “didn’t come as a surprise as we’ve been warning for weeks”.
Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine’s defence minister, warned that today’s strikes were “unlikely to be the last ones”.
He told the BBC:
This has been [the Russian] strategy over the last two months. Facing defeats on the battlefield, they need to compensate for it. They’re trying to create conditions to force Ukraine to negotiate. This will not happen. This is not going to work.
The attacks send a message to Ukraine’s western allies that Kyiv needs air defence systems to protect cities, he added.
Euan MacDonald of the New Voice of Ukraine, who is based in Kyiv, writes that the power and water are now up and running again after this morning’s Russian strikes on the capital.
Lights back in #Kyiv, and relatively quickly - I’m hearing power is back all over the city: it seems our area was one of the last to get it back. Water back as well, but very low pressure. No heating. Taking the opportunity to charge up our lighting before the next power outage. pic.twitter.com/kDALqAXZtM
— Euan MacDonald (@Euan_MacDonald) December 16, 2022
Ukraine’s state energy operator Ukrenergo has said it will take longer to repair the national grid and restore power than it did after previous Russian missile attacks.
In a statement, Ukrenergo said:
Considering this is already the ninth wave of missile strikes on energy facilities, the restoration of power supply may take longer than before.
Priority will be given to “critical infrastructure facilities” including hospitals, water supply facilities, heat supply facilities, and sewage treatment plants, it said.
Kharkiv left without power, heating and water as Russian attack causes ‘colossal’ damage, says mayor
Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, is without power, heating and water after Russian missile strikes on Friday morning caused “colossal” damage to infrastructure, its mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
In a post on Telegram, Terekhov said:
There is colossal damage to infrastructure, primarily the energy system. I ask you to be patient with what is happening now. I know that in your houses there is no light, no heating, no water supply.
Oleh Syniehubov, Kharkiv’s regional governor, reported three strikes on the city’s critical infrastructure.
Updated
Maria Avdeeva, a Ukrainian security expert, has shared a video of people sheltering inside a metro station in Kyiv during the latest wave of Russian missile attacks across the country.
Mood in Kyiv metro during missile attack. People read, scroll through the news, work. The book that the woman is reading is called “Resilient”. This is what all Ukraine is now. pic.twitter.com/Dqj55rV2X8
— Maria Avdeeva (@maria_avdv) December 16, 2022
Earlier we reported that President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, today. We now have some more details about the call.
The Kremlin said Putin gave “fundamental assessments” of the conflict in Ukraine during the call, at Modi’s request.
The pair expressed satisfaction with the high level of cooperation in their “privileged strategic partnership” and discussed prospects for the two countries to work together in areas such as investment, energy, agriculture, transport and logistics, it added.
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.
Updated
Ukraine says it shot down 60 of 76 missiles from mass Russian airstrike
Ukrainian air defences shot down 60 out of the 76 missiles fired by Russia onto Ukraine this morning, according to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, Valery Zaluzhny.
In a statement on Telegram, Zaluzhny said:
According to preliminary data, this morning from the regions of the Caspian and Black seas, the enemy launched 76 missiles, including 72 cruise missiles (X-101, ‘Kalibr’, X-22) and 4 guided air missiles (X-59) at Ukrainian critical infrastructure.
In a separate statement, a spokesperson for Kyiv’s military administration said Ukraine shot down 37 of 40 incoming Russian missiles in the region.
Dnipropetrovsk governor Valentyn Reznichenko also said air defences shot down 10 missiles over the central Ukrainian region.
Updated
The Kremlin has confirmed that Vladimir 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”, it said.
The agenda of the negotiations will be “extensive”, the Belarusian state-owned news agency Belta said, and will include the two leaders as well as government members, ministers and heads of government agencies.
Putin and Lukashenko will then 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”, Belta said, without mentioning Ukraine.
In comments published by his office, Lukashenko said the “sovereignty and independence of Belarus are unshakable”. But, he added:
At the same time, Belarus will never be an enemy of Russia
Updated
40 missiles fired at Kyiv region, says official
About 40 Russian missiles were fired on the Kyiv region this morning, according to the Ukrainian capital’s military spokesperson, Mykhailo Shamanov.
Ukrainian air defences shot down 37 of 40 incoming missiles in the Kyiv area in what was one of Russia’s latest attacks since the start of the war in February, Shamanov said on television.
In a separate statement, Dnipropetrovsk governor Valentyn Reznichenko said air defences shot down 10 missiles over the central Ukrainian region.
A Ukrainian campaigner has described how electricity blackouts caused by today’s Russian missile attacks prevented elderly people from being able to access medicine.
Daria Kaleniuk, the executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Centre, said the attack on Zhytomyr left its regional hospital without power.
The anger towards Moscow has “spread now all to the deepest villages in Ukraine”, she said.
Today I’ve experienced missiles attack from Russia in Zhytomyr region hospital. Suddenly electricity disappeared, my 88 years old grandma with pneumonia had problems with getting oxygen. The hospital doesn’t have a generator yet. I went to the drug store to buy some medicines…
— Daria Kaleniuk (@dkaleniuk) December 16, 2022
In the drug store another grandma travelled 25 kilometres by bus from the small village to buy medicines. However, cut of electricity means drug store can’t sell drugs. I drove the grandma to another drugstore with a generator - she thanked me as I’ve saved her life.
— Daria Kaleniuk (@dkaleniuk) December 16, 2022
All patients in the hospital, all people in the drug store were super angry with Moscovians. The anger against Russia is spread now all to the deepest villages in Ukraine. “Imagine what these orcs would do with us if invaded” - told a grandma from the drugstore. “We must win!”
— Daria Kaleniuk (@dkaleniuk) December 16, 2022
Attack damages nine Ukrainian power facilities, says energy minister
Ukraine’s energy minister, Herman Halushchenko, said the latest Russian missile attacks have damaged nine power facilities.
In a statement, he said:
What we already see is damage to about nine generating facilities. Now we are still verifying the damage.
In a separate statement, Ukraine’s state energy operator said the mass strikes caused the country’s energy system to lose more than half its capacity.
Here are some of the latest images we have received from Ukraine, after yet another wave of Russian missile attacks across the country.
Ukraine’s energy operator declares emergency after Russian strikes 'cause 50% loss in consumption'
Ukraine state power grid operator, Ukrenergo, has declared an emergency situation after Russian missile strikes across the country led to a more than 50% drop in Ukrainian energy consumption, it said.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said emergency power shutdowns were being brought in across the country after Russian missiles struck energy facilities in several regions. He did not specify which facilities had been hit.
From Ukrainian journalist Myroslava Gongadze:
Ukrenergo has declared an emergency situation in the energy system of Ukraine. As a result of shelling on December 16, there was a loss of more than 50% of Ukraine's UES consumption. pic.twitter.com/LIpFAjx1XO
— mgongadze (@MGongadze) December 16, 2022
Hello everyone, it’s Léonie Chao-Fong here to bring you all the latest developments from Russia’s war in Ukraine. Feel free to drop me a message if you have anything to flag, you can reach me on Twitter or via email.
Updated
Summary
The time in Kyiv is 1pm. Here is a roundup of the day’s top news stories so far:
The second mass air attack in days has been launched by Russia across Ukraine with a barrage of rockets fired at several regions across the country. The aim of the mass attack, authorities said, appeared to be to destroy Ukraine’s power grid in the hope that damaging Ukraine away from the frontline will enable Russia to make gains on the battlefield.
In the capital, Kyiv, explosions have been heard in the south-western district of Holosiivkyi, on Ukraine’s right bank, as well as the eastern districts of Dniprovskyi and Desnyanskyi, according to Kyiv’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko. It is not yet clear if the rockets hit their targets or the sounds were that of Ukraine’s air defence. So far hits have been reported in the southern city of Kryvih Rih, where a residential building, not energy facility, was struck. The deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said there may be victims under the rubble and emergency services were on the scene.
Elsewhere, Ukraine’s eastern and central regions of Kharkiv and Poltava, the authorities have reported power outages. The governor of Kharkiv, Oleh Syniehubov, confirmed that energy infrastructure had been hit and Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne said there were power outages in the region. Neighbouring Polatava region is without electricity, according the mayor of the city of Poltava, Oleksandr Fedoryuk. The sound of air defence could also heard in the regions of Dnipro, Ternopil, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Kirovohrad, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi and Vinnytsia.
A senior Ukrainian presidential official said on Friday that emergency power shutdowns were being brought in across the country after Russian missiles hit energy facilities in several regions. Russia launched dozens of missiles at Ukraine, the latest in a wave of attacks on critical infrastructure.
Two people died and a further five were injured including two children after a rocket hit a residential building in Kryvyi Rih, the head of Dnipro region, Valentyn Reznichenko said on his Telegram. The injured are being treated in hospital. The building’s entrance was destroyed in the attack, he added.
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.
Vladimir Putin is preparing for a major new offensive in the new year, Ukraine’s defence minister has said. In an interview with the Guardian, Oleksii Reznikov said evidence was emerging that the Kremlin was preparing a broad new campaign despite a series of humiliating battlefield setbacks for Russia in recent months. Referring to Russia’s partial mobilisation of about 300,000 soldiers, Reznikov suggested that while half – often after receiving minimal training – were being used to reinforce Moscow’s forces now, the remainder were being prepared more thoroughly for future offensives.
Putin will visit Belarus on Monday, AFP is reporting, citing the Minsk presidential press service. Putin’s visit comes as the UK warns that Belarus is reportedly holding “readiness exercises”. Russia has also deployed extra units of mobilised reservists to Belarus. The UK Ministry of Defence wrote that Belarusian troops would be unlikely to constitute a force capable of conducting a successful new assault into northern Ukraine.
The head of Ukraine’s armed forces believes Russia will make a renewed attempt at capturing the capital, Kyiv, after its previous attack was repelled earlier this year. In an interview with the Economist, Gen Valeriy Zaluzhny said he was trying to prepare for Russian forces to have another go at taking the city, possibly in February or March.
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, an EU body that helps the bloc’s governments to develop their military capabilities.
The Kremlin said on Friday it would study the latest package of EU sanctions against Russia and then formulate its response. EU leaders agreed on Thursday to provide 18 billion euros in financing to Ukraine next year and hit Moscow with a ninth package of sanctions. The measures designate nearly 200 more people and bar investment in Russia’s mining industry, among other steps.
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. Moscow-allied officials in the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk, meanwhile, said they had come under some of the heaviest shelling in years from Ukrainian forces, leaving one person dead.
Russia is to double the number of test launches of its intercontinental ballistic missiles to eight next year from four in 2022, the commander of strategic rocket forces was quoted as saying on Friday. Sergei Karakayev told the military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda that the eight test flights would be scheduled from two launch sites – one near Murmansk in the north, the other near Volgograd in the south.
The US military announced it would expand training in Germany of Ukrainian military personnel. Starting in January, 500 troops a month would be trained, building on more than 15,000 Ukrainians trained by the US and its allies since April.
Electricity blackouts due to Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s power infrastructure are crippling its economy, including in key sectors such as mining and manufacturing. The report in the Washington Post said Ukraine needed another $2bn a month on top of the $55bn already projected for next year to meet basic expenses.
That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, for the time being. My colleague Léonie Chao-Fong will be along shortly to continue bringing you the latest from Russia’s war on Ukraine.
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The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, spoke by phone on Friday with the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, the Kremlin said.
It provided no immediate details of the conversation, Reuters reported.
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People sit on an escalator while taking shelter inside a metro station during an air raid alert in the centre of Kyiv today.
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The Kremlin said on Friday it would study the latest package of European Union sanctions against Russia and then formulate its response.
EU leaders agreed on Thursday to provide €18bn in financing to Ukraine next year and hit Moscow with a ninth package of sanctions.
The measures designate nearly 200 more people and bar investment in Russia’s mining industry, among other steps.
The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would study the list before responding.
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A senior Ukrainian presidential official said on Friday that emergency power shutdowns were being brought in across the country after Russian missiles hit energy facilities in several regions.
Russia launched dozens of missiles at Ukraine, the latest in a wave of attacks on critical infrastructure.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the presidential office, did not say which facilities had been hit.
Two people die and five injured after rocket hits Kryvyi Rih residential building
Two people have died and a further five injured including two children after a rocket hit a residential building in Kryvyi Rih, the head of Dnipro region, Valentyn Reznichenko said on his Telegram.
The injured are being treated in hospital. The building’s entrance was destroyed in the attack, he added.
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Energy infrastructure has been damaged in Kyiv as a result of the mass rocket attack early Friday, according to Ukraine’s authorities.
The authorities have not specified what has been hit or the extent of the damage.
The Ukrainian energy company DTEK said emergency power outages would be introduced in Kyiv because of the missile attack.
Water supplies have been disrupted in every district in Kyiv city because energy infrastructure was damaged, said Kyiv’s mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko, on Telegram.
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Russia rains missiles on Ukraine causing power outages
The second mass air attack in days has been launched by Russia across Ukraine with a barrage of rockets fired at several regions across the country.
The aim of the mass attack, authorities said, appeared to be to destroy Ukraine’s power grid in the hope that damaging Ukraine in the rear will enable Russia to make gains on the battlefield.
In the capital, Kyiv, explosions have been heard in the south western district of Holosiivkyi, on Ukraine’s right bank, as well as the eastern districts of Dniprovskyi and Desnyanskyi, according to Kyiv’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko. It is not yet clear if the rockets hit their targets or the sounds were that of Ukraine’s air defence.
So far hits have been reported in the southern city of Kryvih Rih, where a residential building, not energy facility was struck. The deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, Kyrylo Tymoshehnko, said there may be victims under the rubble and emergency services were on the scene.
Elsewhere, Ukraine’s eastern and central regions of Kharkiv and Poltava, the authorities have reported power outages. The governor of Kharkiv, Oleh Syniehubov, confirmed that energy infrastructure had been hit and Ukraine’s public broadcasts Suspilne said there were power outages in the region. Neighbouring Polatava region is without electricity, according the mayor of the city of Poltava, Oleksandr Fedoryuk.
The sound of air defence could also heard in the regions of Dnipro, Ternipol, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, Kivrohrad, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi and Vinnytsia.
On Wednesday, Russia launched 13 Iranian-supplied drones at Kyiv city and Kyiv region, according to Ukraine’s air forces. Ukraine’s air defence forces said they shot down all 13. No casualties were reported, though a few buildings were damaged by the debris of the downed drones.
Ukraine’s defence minister Oleksii Reznikov told the Guardian on Thursday that Ukraine was winning the air war, thanks to its air defence forces honing their skills and equipment over the past nine months. He said that efficiency of Ukraine’s air defence forces had gone from 50% to 80% since the war began.
European Union states should buy arms jointly to replenish stocks after supplying Ukraine, said the bloc’s defence agency, warning the United States may not always be able to shield Europe from threats.
“The Russian war of aggression against Ukraine demonstrates our capability shortfalls,” said Jiri Sedivy, chief executive of the European Defence Agency, an EU body that helps the bloc’s governments to develop their military capabilities.
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, Reuters reported.
“What is important is that we would be able, the European Union, to become a credible provider of security in protecting citizens,” he told Reuters, urging countries to heed U.S. calls to invest in defence.
“The United States will be inevitably engaged in Asia Pacific and not be able to provide some of the essential enablers such as strategic airlift, reconnaissance aircraft, precision-guided missiles and air defences.”
He pointed also to the threat of terrorism and failed states in the Middle East or north Africa.
The mayor of the Poltava city, Oleksandr Mamai has said Poltava region is without electricity, indicating that Russia hit energy infrastructure in the area.
In Kryvyi Rih, a residential building has been hit and there may be victims below the rubble, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a deputy head of Ukraines presidential administration has said on Telegram
In Kyiv explosions have been heard in the south western district of Holosiivskyi as well as the eastern districts of Desnyanskyi and Dniprovskyi on the left bank. No casualties have been reported so far.
One rocket has been shot down near Bucha in Kyiv region, according to Bucha’s mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk.
Kyiv’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko is reporting explosions in the north-eastern Desna district of Kyiv, where there is a major power plant.
It’s not clear if the plant has been hit.
Critical infrastructure in Ukraine hit in Russian missile attack
Russia launched a new barrage of missile at Ukraine on Friday and air defence systems went into operation across the country, Ukrainian officials said.
Explosions were heard in the eastern city of Kharkiv and local officials said critical infrastructure had been hit. Local officials in the Black Sea region of Odesa said critical infrastructure had also been hit there.
Reuters witnesses heard explosions in the capital Kyiv. It was not immediately clear if any were caused by missiles getting through air defences.
There was no immediate word of casualties and it was not clear what critical infrastructure had been hit.
The governor of the northern region of Sumy said there were power outages in his region because of Friday’s missile strikes.
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for now. My colleague Tom Ambrose will take you through the developments in this morning’s strikes.
Dozens of missiles fired at Ukraine – reports
As many as 60 Russian missiles have been spotted heading to Ukrainian airspace, said Vitaliy Kim, who is the governor of the Mykolaiv region in southern Ukraine.
“A part of them is already over northern Ukraine,” he wrote on Telegram.
The Guardian could not verify this claim independently.
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Multiple missiles launched on Ukraine
Multiple rockets have reportedly been launched on Ukraine this morning, according to Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs. Air raid alerts have been issued in regions across the country:
Air raid alert over most of Ukrainian territory.
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) December 16, 2022
There is information about multiple Russian rocket launches.
Ukrainians are advised to stay in shelters. pic.twitter.com/ux1krZKNVi
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“Do not ignore air raid alerts, remain in shelters,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of Ukraine’s president’s office wrote a few moments ago on Telegram messaging app.
Putin to visit Belarus on Monday
Putin will visit Belarus on Monday, AFP is reporting, citing the Minsk presidential press service. Putin’s visit comes as the UK warns that Belarus is reportedly holding “readiness exercises”. Russia has also deployed extra units of mobilised reservists to Belarus.
The UK Ministry of Defence wrote that Belarusian troops would be unlikely to constitute a force capable of conducting a successful new assault into northern Ukraine.
#BREAKING Putin to visit Belarus on Monday: Minsk presidential press service pic.twitter.com/q0AweWSpXQ
— AFP News Agency (@AFP) December 16, 2022
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Air raid alerts issued for multiple Ukrainian regions
Ukrainians are once again waking up to the sound of air raid sirens and rushing to shelters, as air raid alerts are issued for regions including Kyiv, Kharkiv, Zhytomyr and Vinnytsia, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv and Kirovohrad.
Threat of 'massive missile strike' says Zhytomyr governor
Vitaliy Bunechko, the Zhytomyr regional governor, has called on people to remain in shelters due to the threat of a “massive missile strike”.
Air raids sound in Kyiv
The Kyiv City Administration has called on people in the Ukrainian capital to head to shelters amid air raid alerts.
“An air raid alert has been announced in the capital! Please go to shelter!” the administration posted on Telegram a few moments ago.
Air raid sirens in Kharkiv
Oleg Synegubov, the head of Kharkiv regional administration, has warned people via Telegram to remain in shelters amid air raid alarms this morning.
At least eight killed in Russian shelling of village in Luhansk
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.
Russian-backed officials from Luhank’s representation to the Joint Centre of Control and Co-ordination – a ceasefire monitoring body set-up to help manage the conflict between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces after 2014 – said Ukraine fired three US-made HIMARS rockets at Lantrativka at 04:10 local time (0210 GMT) on Friday morning.
The head the “people’s militia” in Luhansk also reported on his Telegram channel there were civilian casualties as a result of Ukrainian shelling on the town of Svatove on Friday morning. He provided no further details of the attack.
Reuters could also not immediately verify the battlefield reports.
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US senate approves $800m in aid
The US Senate passed legislation on Thursday authorising a record $858bn in annual defence spending, including $800m in additional security assistance for Ukraine.
The bill extends the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, a program that “provides funding for the federal government to pay industry to produce weapons and security assistance to send to Ukraine, rather than drawing directly from current US stockpiles of weapons,” CNN reports.
Ukrainian officials warn of major new Russian offensive
Senior Ukrainian officials say Vladimir Putin is preparing for a major new offensive in the new year, despite a series of humiliating battlefield setbacks for Russia in recent months.
In an interview with the Guardian, Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said that while Ukraine was now able to successfully defend itself against Russia’s missile attacks targeting key infrastructure, including the energy grid, evidence was emerging that the Kremlin was preparing a broad new offensive.
The briefing appearsto be part of a broad, coordinated effort to warn against complacency among western allies and highlight the continuing threat Russia poses to Ukraine.
Referring to Russia’s partial mobilisation of about 300,000 soldiers, Reznikov suggested that while half – often after receiving minimal training – were being used to reinforce Moscow’s forces after a series of battlefield setbacks, the remainder were being prepared more thoroughly for future offensives.
“The second part of the mobilisation, 150,000 approximately, started their training courses in different camps,” said Reznikov, speaking of Russia’s mobilisation drive, which started in October.
“The [draftees] do a minimum of three months to prepare. It means they are trying to start the next wave of the offensive probably in February, like last year. That’s their plan.”
The warnings come amid evidence of Putin’s continuing desires to continue the war into next year, including missile procurement efforts from Iran, and analysis by Russian commentators suggesting that the Kremlin sees no way of retreating from the conflict.
Isobel Koshiw and Peter Beaumont report:
Welcome and summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest developments for the next few hours.
Our top stories this morning:
Vladimir Putin is preparing for a major new offensive in the new year, Ukraine’s defence minister has said. In an interview with the Guardian, Oleksii Reznikov, said evidence was emerging that the Kremlin was preparing a broad new campaign despite a series of humiliating battlefield setbacks for Russia in recent months.
And the US Senate passed legislation on Thursday authorising a record $858bn in annual defence spending, including $800m in additional security assistance for Ukraine.
Here are the other key recent developments:
The head of Ukraine’s armed forces believes Russia will make a renewed attempt at capturing the capital, Kyiv, after its previous attack was repelled earlier this year. In an interview with the Economist, Gen Valeriy Zaluzhny said he was trying to prepare for Russian forces to have another go at taking the city, possibly in February or March.
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. Moscow-allied officials in the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk, meanwhile, said they had come under some of the heaviest shelling in years from Ukrainian forces, leaving one person dead.
Russia is to double the number of test launches of its intercontinental ballistic missiles to eight next year from four in 2022, the commander of strategic rocket forces was quoted as saying on Friday. Sergei Karakayev told the military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda that the eight test flights would be scheduled from two launch sites – one near Murmansk in the north, the other near Volgograd in the south.
A Russian airbase in Kursk was struck on Wednesday night, a senior Ukrainian official has said. Anton Gerashchenko, a senior presidential adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, posted a series of updates on Telegram, saying an “unknown drone” struck the military facility.
The US military announced it would expand training in Germany of Ukrainian military personnel. Starting in January, 500 troops a month would be trained, building on more than 15,000 Ukrainians trained by the US and its allies since April.
Electricity blackouts due to Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s power infrastructure are crippling its economy, including in key sectors such as mining and manufacturing. The report in the Washington Post said Ukraine needed another $2bn a month on top of the $55bn already projected for next year to meet basic expenses.
An €18bn EU finance package for Ukraine looks likely to go ahead after Poland dropped its opposition. Diplomats from Warsaw had objected to a minimum corporate tax level, which diplomats had told Reuters had “blindsided” those negotiating the deals. They, and Lithuania, had also argued for tighter restrictions on their neighbour Russia.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the next six months of the conflict with Russia will be “decisive”. In an online address to the European Council on Thursday, Ukraine’s president said: “The next six months will be decisive in many respects in the confrontation Russia started with their aggression.”
Vladimir Putin has said Russia will try to overcome the financial impact of western sanctions by selling gas to its eastern neighbours. In a televised speech he said Russia would develop its economic ties with countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
