Russian President Vladimir Putin’s New Year’s address to the nation usually is rather anodyne and backed with a soothing view of a snowy Kremlin. This year, with soldiers in the background, he lashed out at the West and Ukraine. The conflict in Ukraine cast a long shadow as Russia entered 2023. Cities curtailed festivities and fireworks. Moscow announced special performances for soldiers’ children featuring the Russian equivalent of Santa Claus. An exiled Russian news outlet unearthed a video of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, now the Ukrainian president despised by the Kremlin, telling jokes on a Russian state television station's New Year’s show just a decade ago. Putin, in a nine-minute video shown on TV as each Russian time zone region counted down the final minutes of 2022 on Saturday, denounced the West for aggression and accused the countries of trying to use the conflict in Ukraine to undermine Russia. “It was a year of difficult, necessary decisions, the most important steps toward gaining full sovereignty of Russia and powerful consolidation of our society,” he said, echoing his repeated contention that Moscow had no choice but to send troops into Ukraine because it threatened Russia’s security. Read more: Sarajevo’s agony echoes as Ukraine braces for a dark winter “The West lied about peace, but was preparing for aggression, and today it admits it openly, no longer embarrassed. And they cynically use Ukraine and its people to weaken and split Russia,” Putin said. “We have never allowed anyone and will not allow anyone to do this." The Kremlin has muzzled any criticism of its actions in Ukraine, shut independent media outlets and criminalized the spread of any information that differs from the official view — including diverging from calling the campaign a special military operation. But the government has faced increasingly vocal criticism from Russian hardliners, who have denounced the president as weak and indecisive and called for ramping up strikes on Ukraine. Russia has justified the conflict by saying that Ukraine persecuted Russian speakers in the eastern Donbas region, which had been partly under the control of Russian-backed separatists since 2014. Ukraine and the West says these accusations are untrue. “For years, the Western elites hypocritically assured all of us of their peaceful intentions, including the resolution of the most difficult conflict in the Donbas,” Putin said. Western countries have imposed wide sanctions against Russia, and many foreign companies pulled out of the country or froze operations after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine. Read more: Russia hits key infrastructure with missiles across Ukraine “This year, a real sanctions war was declared on us. Those who started it expected the complete destruction of our industry, finances, and transport. This did not happen, because together we created a reliable margin of safety,” Putin said. Despite such reassurances, New Year’s celebrations this year were toned down, with the usual fireworks and concert on Red Square canceled. Some of Moscow’s elaborate holiday lighting displays made cryptic reference to the conflict. At the entrance to Gorky Park stand large lighted letters of V, Z and O – symbols that the Russian military have used from the first days of the military operation to identify themselves. “Will it make me a patriot and go to the front against my Slavic brothers? No, it will not,” park visitor Vladimir Ivaniy said. Moscow also announced plans to hold special pageant performances for the children of soldiers serving in Ukraine. The Russian news outlet Meduza, declared a foreign agent in Russia and which now operates from Latvia, on Saturday posted a video of Zelenskyy, who was a hugely popular comedian before becoming Ukraine’s president in 2019, performing in a New Year’s Day show on Russian state television in 2013. Zelenskyy jokes that the inexpensive sparkling wine Sovietskoe Shampanskoye, a popular tipple on New Year’s, is in the record books as a paradox because “the drink exists but the country doesn’t.” Adding to the irony, the show’s host was Maxim Galkin, a comedian who fled the country in 2022 after criticizing the military operation in Ukraine.

At least 11 Russian soldiers were killed Saturday in a shooting incident that underlined the challenges posed by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s hasty mobilization, just as Ukrainian troops pressed an offensive to reclaim the areas in the country’s south that were illegally annexed by Moscow. The Russian Defense Ministry said two men opened fire at volunteer soldiers during a target practice session in western Russia, killing 11 of them and wounding 15 others before being killed themselves. The ministry called it a terror attack. Russia has lost ground in the nearly seven weeks since Ukraine’s armed forces opened their southern counteroffensive. This week, the Kremlin launched what is believed to be its largest coordinated air and missile raids on Ukraine’s key infrastructure since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. In the continuation of those attacks, a missile strike Saturday seriously damaged a key energy facility in Ukraine’s capital region, the country’s grid operator said. Following mounting setbacks, the Russian military has worked to cut off power and water in far-flung populated areas while also fending off Ukrainian counterattacks in occupied areas. In the Zaporizhzhia region, Gov. Oleksandr Starukh said the Russian military carried out strikes with suicide drones from Iran and long-range S-300 missiles. Some experts said the Russian military’s use of the surface-to-air missiles may reflect shortages of dedicated precision weapons for hitting ground targets. Dmytro Pocishchuk, a hospital medic in the Zaporizhzhia region’s capital who has treated dozens of people wounded during Russian attacks in recent weeks, said people sought safety outdoors or in his building’s basement when the familiar blasts started at 5:15 a.m. Saturday. “If Ukraine stops, these bombings and killings will continue. We can’t give up to the Russian Federation,’” Pocishchuk said several hours later. He put a small Ukrainian flag on the broken windshield of his heavily damaged car. Kyiv region Gov. Oleksiy Kuleba said the missile that hit a power facility Saturday morning didn’t kill or wound anyone. Citing security, Ukrainian officials didn’t identify the site, one of many infrastructure targets the Russian military tried to destroy after an Oct. 8 truck bomb explosion damaged the bridge that links Russia to the annexed Crimean Peninsula. Ukrainian electricity transmission company Ukrenergo said repair crews were working to restore electricity service, but warned residents about further possible outages. Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office, urged residents of the capital and three neighboring regions to conserve energy. “Putin may hope that by increasing the misery of the Ukrainian people, President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy may be more inclined to negotiate a settlement that allows Russia to retain some stolen territory in the east or Crimea,” said Ian Williams, a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a policy organization based in Washington. “A quick look at history shows that the strategic bombing of civilians is an ineffective way to achieve a political aim.” This week’s wide-ranging retaliatory attacks, which included the use of self-destructing explosive drones from Iran, killed dozens of people. The strikes hit residential buildings as well as infrastructure such as power stations in Kyiv, Lviv in western Ukraine, and other cities that had seen comparatively few strikes in recent months. Putin said Friday that Moscow didn’t see a need for additional massive strikes but his military would continue selective ones. He said that of 29 targets the Russian military planned to knock out in this week’s attacks, seven weren’t damaged and would be taken out gradually. The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank based in Washington, interpreted Putin’s remarks as intended to counter criticism from pro-war Russian bloggers who “largely praised the resumption of strikes against Ukrainian cities, but warned that a short campaign would be ineffective.” In the southern Kherson region, one of the first areas of Ukraine to fall to Russia after the invasion and which Putin also illegally designated as Russian territory last month, Ukrainian forces pressed their counteroffensive Saturday. Kyiv’s army has reported recapturing 75 villages and towns there in the last month, but said the momentum had slowed, with the fighting settling into the sort of grueling back-and-forth that characterized Russia’s months-long offensive to conquer Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. On Saturday, Ukrainian troops attempted to advance south along the banks of the Dnieper River toward the regional capital, also named Kherson, but didn’t gain any ground, according to Kirill Stremousov, a deputy head of the occupied region’s Moscow-installed administration. “The defense lines worked, and the situation has remained under the full control of the Russian army,” he wrote on his messaging app channel. The Kremlin-backed local leaders asked civilians Thursday to leave the region to ensure their safety and to give Russian troops more maneuverability. Stremousov reminded them they could evacuate to Crimea and cities in southwestern Russia, where Moscow offered free accommodations to residents who agreed to leave. Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Defense Ministry’s spokesman, said the military destroyed five crossings on the Inhulets River, another route Ukraine’s fighters could take to progress toward the Kherson region. Konashenkov claimed Russian troops also blocked Ukrainian attempts to make inroads in breaching Russian defenses near Lyman, a city in the annexed Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine that the Ukrainians retook two weeks ago in a significant defeat for the Kremlin. Amid the fighting, two men from an unnamed former Soviet nation fired on volunteer soldiers during target practice at a firing range in the Belgorod region that borders Ukraine and were killed by return fire, the Russian Defense Ministry said. The shooting comes amid a mobilization ordered by Putin to beef up Russian forces in Ukraine — a hasty and poorly executed move that triggered protests and caused hundreds of thousands to flee Russia. Some of the mobilized reservists were sent to the front lines without receving proper training and equipment, according to activists and media reports. Putin said on Friday that more than 220,000 reservists already had been called up as part of an effort to recruit 300,000. To the north and east of Kherson, Russian shelling killed two civilians in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Gov. Valentyn Resnichenko said. He said the shelling of the city of Nikopol, which is located across the Dnieper from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, damaged a dozen residential buildings, several stores and a transportation facility. Fighting near the nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, has been an ongoing concern during the nearly eight-month war. The power station temporarily lost its last remaining outside electricity source twice in the past week, fueling fears the reactors could eventually overheat and cause a catastrophic radiation leak. International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi reported that such fears were somewhat eased late Friday, because Ukrainian engineers had managed after several weeks to restore backup power lines that can serve as a “buffer” in case of further war-related outages. “Working in very challenging conditions, operating staff at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant are doing everything they can to bolster its fragile offsite power situation,” Grossi said. “Restoring the backup power connection is a positive step in this regard, even though the overall nuclear safety and security situation remains precarious.”

As he turns 70 on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin finds himself in the eye of a storm of his own making: His army is suffering humiliating defeats in Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of Russians are fleeing his mobilization order, and his top lieutenants are publicly insulting military leaders. With his room for maneuvering narrowing, Putin has repeatedly signaled that he could resort to nuclear weapons to protect the Russian gains in Ukraine — a harrowing threat that shatters the claims of stability he has repeated throughout his 22-year rule. “This is really a hard moment for him, but he can’t accuse anyone else. He did it himself,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment. “And he is going straight ahead to big, big problems.” By unleashing the disastrous war in Ukraine, Europe’s largest military conflict since World War II, Putin has broken an unwritten social contract in which Russians tacitly agreed to forgo post-Soviet political freedoms in exchange for relative prosperity and internal stability. Mikhail Zygar, a journalist who has had extensive contacts among the Kremlin elite and published a bestselling book about Putin and his entourage, noted that the invasion came as a complete surprise not only for the public but for Putin’s closest associates.  “All of them are in shock,” Zygar said. “None of them wanted to see the developments unfold in such a way just because they are going to lose everything. Now they are all stained by blood, and they all understand they have nowhere to run.” Stanislav Belkovsky, a longtime political consultant with extensive contacts among the ruling class, described the invasion as a mechanism of “self-destruction for Putin, his regime and the Russian Federation.” With the Russian army retreating under the blows of Ukrainian forces armed with Western weapons, Putin raised the stakes by annexing four Ukrainian regions and declaring a partial mobilization of up to 300,000 reservists to buttress the crumbling front line. The poorly organized call-up has triggered broad chaos. The military is struggling to provide supplies for new recruits, many of whom were told to buy medical kits and other basics themselves and were left to sleep on the floor while waiting to be sent to the front. Social networks have been abuzz with discussions about how to dodge recruitment, and hundreds of thousands of men fled the mobilization, swarming Russia’s borders with ex-Soviet neighbors. The mobilization, Kolesnikov noted, has eroded Putin’s core support base and set the stage for potential political upheavals. “After the partial mobilization, it’s impossible to explain to anyone that he stabilized the system. He disrupted the foundation of stability,” he said. The military setbacks also drew public insults from some of Putin’s top lieutenants directed toward military leaders. The Kremlin has done nothing to halt the criticism, a signal that Putin could use it to set the stage for a major shakeup of the top brass and blame them for the defeats. “The infighting between powerful clans in Putin’s entourage could destabilize the system and significantly weaken Putin’s control over the situation in the country,” Belkovsky said. The widening turmoil marks a dramatic contrast with the image of stability Putin has cultivated since taking helm in 2000. He has repeatedly described the turbulent rule of his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, as a time of decay when national riches were pilfered by Kremlin-connected tycoons and the West while millions were plunged into poverty. Russians have eagerly embraced Putin’s promises to restore their country’s grandeur amid oil-driven economic prosperity, and they have been largely indifferent to the Kremlin’s relentless crackdown on political freedoms. Insiders who have closely studied Putin’s thinking say he still believes he can emerge as a winner. Belkovsky argued that Putin hopes to win by using energy as an instrument of pressure. By reducing the gas flow to Europe and striking a deal with OPEC to reduce oil output, he could drive prices up and raise pressure on the U.S. and its allies. Putin wants the West to tacitly accept the current status quo in Ukraine, resume energy cooperation with Russia, lift the most crippling sanctions and unfreeze Russian assets, Belkovsky said. “He still believes that he will get his way in the long showdown with the West, where the situation on the Ukrainian front line is just one important, but not decisive, element,” Belkovsky said. At the same time, Putin threatened to use “all means available” to defend the newly annexed Ukrainian territories in a blunt attempt to force Ukraine and its Western allies to back off. The U.S. and its allies have said they are taking Putin’s threats seriously but will not yield to what they describe as blackmail to force the West to abandon Ukraine. Ukraine vowed to press its counteroffensive despite the Russian rhetoric. Kolesnikov described Putin’s nuclear threats as a reflection of growing desperation. “This is the last step for him in a sense that this is a suicidal” move, Kolesnikov said. “If he’s ready for the step, it means that we are witnessing a dictator who is even worse than Stalin.” Some observers have argued that NATO could strike Russia with conventional weapons if Putin presses the nuclear button. Belkovsky warned that Putin firmly believes that the U.S. and its allies wouldn’t dare to strike back if Russia used a low-yield nuclear weapon in Ukraine. “If the U.S. believes that there is no psychologically readiness for that, it’s mistaken,” he said. Zygar compared the Russian leader to a fighter pilot who tries to win a dogfight by attacking the enemy head-on and waiting for him to turn away first. “He thinks he has the nerve, and he believes he must escalate to the end,” Zygar said. He noted that pundits failed to predict Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the current invasion just because they were using rational criteria. “Our past perceptions about rational limits all have proven false,” he said. “There are no such limits.”

Russia attacked the Ukrainian president’s hometown and other targets Sunday with suicide drones, and Ukraine took back full control of a strategic eastern city in a counteroffensive that has reshaped the war. Russia’s loss of the eastern city of Lyman, which it had been using as a transport and logistics hub, is a new blow to the Kremlin as it seeks to escalate the war by illegally annexing four regions of Ukraine and heightening threats to use nuclear force. Russian President Vladimir Putin's land grab has threatened to push the conflict to a dangerous new level. It also prompted Ukraine to formally apply for fast-track NATO membership. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Sunday that his forces now control Lyman: “As of 12:30 p.m. (0930 GMT) Lyman is cleared fully. Thank you to our militaries, our warriors," he said in a video address. Russia's military didn't comment Sunday on Lyman, after announcing Saturday that it was withdrawing its forces there to more favorable positions. The British military described the recapture of Lyman as a “significant political setback” for Moscow, and Ukraine appeared to swiftly capitalize on its gains. Hours after Zelenskyy's announcement, Ukrainian media shared an image of Ukrainian troops carrying the country's yellow-and-blue flag in front of a statue marking the village of Torske, 15 kilometers (9 miles) east of Lyman and within sight of the Russian-held Luhansk region. Shortly later, a video posted online showed one Ukrainian soldier saying that Kyiv's forces had begun to target the city of Kreminna, just across the border in Luhansk. Outgoing artillery could be heard in the background. Russian military correspondents also acknowledged Ukrainian attacks targeting Kreminna. In another online photo, an Ukrainian soldier stood before giant watermelon landmark just south of the village of Novovorontsovka on the banks of the Dnieper River, along the Russian-controlled province of Kherson's northern edge. A Ukrainian flag flew above the statue as several apparently deactivated landmines lay beside it. While Ukrainian forces did not immediately acknowledge a breakthrough, writers close to the Russian military have described a new offensive by Kyiv in the Kherson region. In southern Ukraine, Zelenskyy's hometown of Krivyi Rih came under Russian attack by a suicide drone that destroyed two stories of a school early Sunday, the regional governor said. The Ukrainian air force said Sunday it shot down five Iranian-made drones overnight, while two others made it through air defenses. A car carrying four men seeking to forage for mushrooms in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region struck a mine, killing all those inside, authorities said Sunday. The reports of military activity couldn't be immediately verified. Ukrainian forces have retaken swaths of territory, notably in the northeast around Kharkiv, in a counteroffensive in recent weeks that has embarrassed the Kremlin and prompted rare domestic criticism of Putin's war. Lyman, which Ukraine recaptured by encircling Russian troops, is in the Donetsk region near the border with Luhansk, two of the four regions that Russia illegally annexed Friday after forcing what was left of the population to vote in referendums at gunpoint. In his nightly address, Zelenskyy said: “Over the past week, there have been more Ukrainian flags in the Donbas. In a week there will be even more.” In a daily intelligence briefing Sunday, the British Defense Ministry called Lyman crucial because it has “a key road crossing over the Siversky Donets River, behind which Russia has been attempting to consolidate its defenses.” The Russian retreat from northeast Ukraine in recent weeks has revealed evidence of widespread, routine torture of both civilians and soldiers, notably in the strategic city of Izium, an Associated Press investigation has found. AP journalists located 10 torture sites in the town, including a deep pit in a residential compound, a clammy underground jail that reeked of urine, a medical clinic and a kindergarten. Recent developments have raised fears of all-out conflict between Russia and the West. Putin frames the recent Ukrainian gains — along with NATO's post-Soviet expansion — as a U.S.-orchestrated effort to destroy Russia, and last week he heightened threats of nuclear force in some of his toughest, most anti-Western rhetoric to date. Nine central and eastern European NATO members fearful that Russia’s aggression could eventually target them, too, issued a letter of support Sunday for Ukraine. The leaders of Czechia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania and Slovakia issued a joint statement Sunday backing a path to NATO membership for Ukraine, and calling on all 30 members of the U.S.-led security bloc to ramp up military aid for Kyiv. Germany's defense minister on Sunday announced the delivery of 16 wheeled armored howitzers produced in Slovakia to Ukraine next year. The weapons will be financed jointly with Denmark, Norway and Germany, Russia moved ahead Sunday with steps meant to make its land grab look like a legal process aimed at helping people allegedly persecuted by Kyiv, with rubber-stamp approval by the Constitutional Court and draft laws being pushed through the Kremlin-friendly parliament. Outside Russia, the Kremlin's actions have been widely denounced as violating international law, with multiple EU countries summoning Russian ambassadors since Putin on Friday signed annexation treaties with Moscow-backed officials in southern and eastern Ukraine. Meanwhile, international concerns are mounting about the fate of Europe's largest nuclear plant after Russian forces detained its director for alleged questioning. The International Atomic Energy Agency announced Sunday that its director-general, Rafael Grossi would visit Kyiv and Moscow in the coming days to discuss the situation around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Grossi is continuing to push for “a nuclear safety and security zone” around the site. The Zaporizhzhia plant is in one of the four regions that Moscow illegally annexed on Friday, and repeatedly has been caught in the crossfire of the war. Ukrainian technicians have continued running the power station after Russian troops seized it but its last reactor was shut down in September as a precautionary measure. Pope Francis on Sunday decried Russia's nuclear threats and appealed to Putin to stop “this spiral of violence and death.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed treaties Friday to annex occupied areas of Ukraine and said he would use “all available means” to protect the territory that Ukrainian and Western officials said Russia was claiming illegitimately and in violation of international law. In a speech preceding the treaty-signing ceremony, Putin urged Ukraine to sit down for talks to end the seven months of fighting that started when he ordered his troops to invade the neighboring country. But he warned that Russia would never give up the absorbed regions and would protect them as part of its sovereign territory. The ceremony came three days after the completion of Kremlin-orchestrated “referendums” on joining Russia that were dismissed by Kyiv and the West as a bare-faced land grab held at gunpoint and based on lies. Putin said Ukrainian authorities should “treat ... with respect” the lopsided results of the Moscow-managed votes and warned sternly that Russia would never surrender control of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Both houses of the Kremlin-controlled Russian parliament will meet next week to rubber-stamp the treaties for the regions to join Russia, sending them to Putin for his approval. Ukrainian officials dismissed Putin's remarks, saying the future of the Ukraine was being decided on the battlefields of Ukraine. “We continue to work and liberate Ukrainian territories. And we don’t pay attention to those whose time to take pills has come," Andrii Yermak, the head of the Ukrainian president's office, said. "The army is working, Ukraine is united. Only moving forward.” The event in the Kremlin’s opulent white-and-gold St. George’s Hall was organized for Putin and the heads of the four regions of Ukraine to sign treaties for the areas to join Russia, in a sharp escalation of the seven-month conflict. The separatist Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine have been backed by Moscow since declaring independence in 2014, weeks after the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. The southern Kherson region and part of the neighboring Zaporizhzhia were captured by Russia soon after Putin sent troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24. Putin and his lieutenants have bluntly warned Ukraine against pressing an offensive to reclaim the regions, saying Russia would view it as an act of aggression against its sovereign territory and wouldn’t hesitate to use “all means available” in retaliation, a reference to Russia’s nuclear arsenal. The Kremlin-organized votes in Ukraine and the nuclear warning are an attempt by Putin to avoid more defeats in Ukraine that could threaten his 22-year rule. Russia controls most of the Luhansk and Kherson regions, about 60% of the Donetsk region and a large chunk of the Zaporizhzhia region where it took control of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. Asked about Russia’s plans, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that at the very least Moscow aims to “liberate” the entire Donetsk region. As it prepared to celebrate the incorporation of the occupied Ukrainian regions, the Kremlin was on the verge of another stinging battlefield loss, with reports of the imminent Ukrainian encirclement of the eastern city of Lyman. Retaking it could open the path for Ukraine to push deep into one of the regions Russia is absorbing, a move widely condemned as illegal that opens a dangerous new phase of the seven-month war. Russia on Friday also pounded Ukrainian cities with missiles, rockets and suicide drones, with one strike reported to have killed 25 people. The salvos together amounted to the heaviest barrage that Russia has unleashed for weeks. They followed analysts’ warnings that Putin was likely to dip more heavily into his dwindling stocks of precision weapons and step up attacks as part of a strategy to escalate the war to an extent that would shatter Western support for Ukraine. The Kremlin preceded its scheduled annexation ceremonies Friday with another warning to Ukraine that it shouldn’t fight to take back the four regions. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would view a Ukrainian attack on the taken territory as an act of aggression against Russia itself. The annexations are Russia's attempt to set its gains in stone, at least on paper, and scare Ukraine and its Western backers with the prospect of an increasingly escalatory conflict unless they back down — which they show no signs of doing. The Kremlin paved the way for the land-grabs with “referendums,” sometimes at gunpoint, that Ukraine and Western powers universally dismissed as rigged shams. “It looks quite pathetic. Ukrainians are doing something, taking steps in the real material world, while the Kremlin is building some kind of a virtual reality, incapable of responding in the real world,” former Kremlin speechwriter turned political analyst Abbas Gallyamov said. “People understand that the politics is now on the battlefield," he added. "What’s important is who advances and who retreats. In that sense, the Kremlin cannot offer anything сomforting to the Russians.” A Ukrainian counter-offensive has deprived Moscow of mastery on the military fields of battle. Its hold of the Luhansk region appears increasingly shaky, as Ukrainian forces make inroads there, with the pincer assault on Lyman. Ukraine also still has a large foothold in the neighboring Donetsk region. Luhansk and Donetsk – wracked by fighting since separatists there declared independence in 2014 – form the wider Donbas region of eastern Ukraine that Putin has long vowed, but so far failed, to make completely Russian. Peskov said that both Donetsk and Luhansk will be incorporated Friday into Russia in their entirety. All of Kherson and parts of Zaporizhzhia, two other regions being prepared for annexation, were newly occupied in the invasion’s opening phase. It’s unclear whether the Kremlin will declare all, or just part, of that occupied territory as Russia's. Peskov wouldn’t say in a call Friday with reporters. In the Zaporizhzhia region's capital, anti-aircraft missiles that Russia has repurposed as ground-attack weapons rained down Friday on people who were waiting in cars to cross into Russian-occupied territory so they could bring family members back across front lines, the deputy head of Ukraine's presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said. The general prosecutor's office said 25 people were killed and 50 wounded. The strike left deep impact craters and sent shrapnel tearing through the humanitarian convoy's lined-up vehicles, killing their passengers. Nearby buildings were demolished. Trash bags, blankets and, for one victim, a blood-soaked towel, were used to cover bodies. Russian-installed officials in Zaporizhzhia blamed Ukrainian forces for the strike, but provided no evidence. Russian strikes were also reported in the city of Dnipro. The regional governor, Valentyn Reznichenko, said at least one person was killed and five others were wounded. Ukraine's air force said the southern cities of Mykolaiv and Odesa were also targeted with Iranian-supplied suicide drones that Russia has increasingly deployed in recent weeks, seemingly to avoid losing more pilots who don't have control of Ukraine's skies. Putin was expected to give a major speech at the ceremony to fold Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia into Russia. The Kremlin planned for the region's pro-Moscow administrators to sign annexation treaties in the ornate St. George’s Hall of the palace in Moscow that is Putin's seat of power. Putin also issued decrees recognizing the supposed independence of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, steps he previously took in February for Luhansk and Donetsk and earlier for Crimea, seized from Ukraine in 2014. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, called an emergency meeting of his National Security and Defense Council and denounced the latest Russian strikes. “The enemy rages and seeks revenge for our steadfastness and his failures,” he posted on his Telegram channel. "You will definitely answer. For every lost Ukrainian life!” The U.S. and its allies have promised even more sanctions on Russia and billions of dollars in extra support for Ukraine as the Kremlin duplicates the annexation playbook used for Crimea. With Ukraine vowing to take back all occupied territory and Russia pledging to defend its gains, threatening nuclear-weapon use and mobilizing an additional 300,000 troops despite protests, the two nations are on an increasingly escalatory collision course. That was underscored by the fighting for Lyman, a key node for Russian military operations in the Donbas and a sought-after prize in the Ukrainian counteroffensive launched in late August. The Russian-backed separatist leader of Donetsk, Denis Pushilin, said the city is now “half-encircled” by Ukrainian forces. In comments reported by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, he described the setback as “worrying news." "Ukraine’s armed formations," he said, "are trying very hard to spoil our celebration."

Pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin mounted on the battlefield and in the halls of global power as Ukrainian troops pushed their counteroffensive Saturday to advance farther into Ukraine's partly recaptured northeast. Western officials and analysts said Russian forces were apparently setting up a new defensive line in Ukraine’s northeast after the counteroffensive punched through the previous one, allowing Kyiv’s soldiers to recapture large swaths of land in the northeastern Kharkiv region that borders Russia. Putin, at a high-level summit in Uzbekistan this week, vowed to press his attack on Ukraine despite the recent military setbacks but also faced concerns by India and China over the drawn-out conflict. “I know that today’s era is not of war," Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the Russian leader in televised comments as they met Friday in Uzbekistan. “We discussed this with you on the phone several times, that democracy and dialogue touch the entire world.” At the same summit a day earlier, Putin acknowledged China's unspecified “questions and concerns” about the war in Ukraine while thanking President Xi Jinping for Beijing's “balanced position” on the conflict. The hurried retreat of Russian troops this month from parts of a northeast region they occupied early in the war, together with the rare public reservations expressed by key allies, underscored the challenges that Putin faces on all fronts. Both China and India have maintained strong ties with Russia and had sought to remain neutral on Ukraine. Xi, in a statement, expressed support for Russia’s “core interests” but also wanted to work together to “inject stability” into world affairs. Modi said he wanted to discuss “how we can move forward on the path of peace," adding that the biggest concerns facing the world are the problems of food security, fuel security and fertilizers. "We must find some way out and you too must contribute to that,” Modi stressed in a rare public rebuke. The comments cast a shadow over a summit that Putin had hoped would burnish his diplomatic status and show he was not so internationally isolated. On the battlefield, Britain's Defense Ministry said the new front line likely was between the Oskil River and Svatove, 150 kilometers (90 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. After Russian troops retreated from the city of Izium, Ukrainian authorities discovered a mass grave site, one of the largest found so far. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that there were more than 440 graves at the location containing the bodies of hundreds of civilian adults and children, as well as soldiers, and that some had been tortured, shot or killed by artillery shelling. He cited evidence of atrocities, such as a body with a rope around its neck and broken arms. “Torture was a widespread practice in the occupied territory. That’s what the Nazis did. That’s what (the Russians) do,” Zelenskyy said Saturday in his nightly video address. “We will establish the identity of all those who tortured, who mocked, who brought this atrocity from Russia here to Ukrainian soil.” Ukrainian forces, in the meantime, were crossing the Oskil River in the Kharkiv region and have placed artillery there, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Saturday. The river, which flows south from Russia into Ukraine, had been a natural break in the newly emerged front lines since Ukraine launched its counteroffensive about a week ago. “Russian forces are likely too weak to prevent further Ukrainian advances along the entire Oskil River,” the institute said. Videos circulating online indicated that Ukrainian forces were continuing to retake land in the country's embattled east, although their veracity could not be independently verified. One showed a Ukrainian soldier walking past a damaged building and then pointing at a colleague hanging the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag over a mobile phone tower. The soldier identified the seized village as Dibrova, just northeast of the city of Sloviansk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Another video showed two Ukrainian soldiers in what appeared to be a bell tower, with one saying they had retaken the village of Shchurove, also northeast of Sloviansk. The Ukrainian military and Russia did not comment on the two villages. Elsewhere, Russian forces continued pounding cities and villages with missile strikes and shelling. A Russian missile attack early Saturday started a fire in Kharkiv's industrial area, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. Firefighters extinguished the blaze. Syniehubov said remnants suggested the Russians fired S-300 surface-to-air missiles at the city. The S-300 is designed for striking missiles or aircraft in the sky, not targets on the ground. Analysts say Russia’s use of the missiles suggest they may be running out of some precision munitions. Shelling of the nearby city of Chuhuiv later in the day killed an 11-year-old girl, Syniehubov reported. In the southern Zaporizhzhia region, a large part of which is occupied by Russian forces, one person was wounded in shelling of the city of Orikhiv, the region's Ukrainian governor, Oleksandr Starukh, reported on Telegram. He said Russian troops also shelled two villages in the region, destroying several civilian facilities. Explosions were also reported in Russian-occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia. Russian-installed official Vladimir Rogov said on Telegram that at least five blasts were heard in the city of Melitopol. The city's Ukrainian mayor, Ivan Fedorov, said they were in a village south of the city, where the Russian troops had relocated some military equipment. Ukraine's central Dnipropetrovsk region also came under Russian fire overnight, according to its governor, Valentyn Reznichenko. “The enemy attacked six times and launched more than 90 deadly projectiles on peaceful cities and villages,” he said. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s atomic energy operator, Energoatom, said a convoy of 25 trucks had brought diesel and other critical supplies to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant — Europe's largest — which was shut down a week ago amid fears that nearby fighting could result in a radiation disaster. The trucks were allowed through Russian checkpoints Friday to deliver spare parts for repairs of damaged power lines, chemicals for the operation of the plant and additional fuel for backup diesel generators, Energoatom said. The six-reactor plant was captured by Russian forces in March but is operated by Ukrainian engineers. Its last reactor was switched off Sunday after repeated power failures due to shelling put crucial safety systems at risk. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported Saturday that one of the nuclear plant’s four main external power lines had been repaired. The Russian military accused Ukraine of renewed artillery shelling of the power plant. Ukrainian authorities did not immediately address the claim. In Russia, one person was killed and two others wounded Saturday by shelling, according to Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Russian border region of Belgorod. Gladkov blamed Ukraine. The claim could not be verified.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Monday expanding a fast-track procedure to receive Russian citizenship to all Ukrainians, in yet another effort to expand Moscow’s influence in war-torn Ukraine. Until recently, only residents of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as residents of the southern Zaporizhzhia and the Kherson regions, large parts of which are under Russian control, were eligible for the simplified procedure. Ukrainian officials haven’t yet reacted to Putin’s announcement. Between 2019, when the procedure was first introduced for the residents of Donetsk and Luhansk, and this year, more than 720,000 residents of the rebel-held areas in the two regions — about 18% of the population – have received Russian passports. In late May, three months after Russia invaded Ukraine, the fast-track procedure was also offered to residents of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. A month ago, the first Russian passports were reportedly handed out there. The move by Putin came as Russian shelling of Ukraine’s second-largest city killed at least three people on Monday and 31 others were injured, the local administrator said. Hours earlier, Russian troops launched three missile strikes on Kharkiv which the official described as “absolute terrorism.” Kharkiv regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said on Telegram that the shelling came from multiple rocket launchers, and those hospitalized for injuries suffered in the attacks included children ages 4 and 16. “Only civilian structures — a shopping center and houses of peaceful Kharkiv residents — came under the fire of the Russians. Several shells hit the yards of private houses. Garages and cars were also destroyed, several fires broke out,” Syniehubov wrote. Earlier, he said that one of the missiles the Russian forces launched on Kharkiv overnight destroyed a school, another hit a residential building, while the third landed near warehouse facilities. “All (three were launched) exclusively on civilian objects, this is absolute terrorism!” Syniehubov said. Read: Ukraine official says Russia strikes ‘absolute terrorism’ Kharkiv resident Alexander Peresolin said the attacks came suddenly, without warning, causing him to lose consciousness. “I was sitting and talking to my wife,” he said. “I didn’t understand what happened. There were two strikes, two or three.” Peresolin said neighbors carried him to the basement where he later regained consciousness. The strikes came just two days after a Russian rocket attack struck apartment buildings in eastern Ukraine, killing at least 24 people. A total of nine people have been rescued, emergency officials said. The attack late Saturday destroyed three buildings in a residential quarter of the town of Chasiv Yar, inhabited mostly by people who work in nearby factories. Russian attacks in the east also have continued, with Luhansk regional Gov. Serhiy Haidai saying on Monday that the shelling hit settlements on the administrative border with the Donetsk region. Russian forces carried out five missile strikes and four rounds of shelling in the area, Haidai said. The Luhansk and Donetsk regions together make up Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland known as Donbas, where separatist rebels have fought Ukrainian forces since 2014. Earlier this month, Russia captured the last major stronghold of Ukrainian resistance in Luhansk, the city of Lysychansk. After the seizure of Lysychansk, some analysts predicted Moscow’s troops likely would take some time to rearm and regroup, but Ukrainian officials said there has been no pause in attacks. The British military assessed that Russian troops weren’t getting needed breaks. The Defense Ministry tweeted Monday that online videos suggested at least one tank brigade in the war was “mentally and physically exhausted” as they had been on active combat duty since the start of the war on Feb. 24. The British said: “The lack of scheduled breaks from intense combat conditions is highly likely one of the most damaging of the many personnel issues the Russian (Ministry of Defense) is struggling to rectify amongst the deployed force.” Also on Monday, the main Russian gas pipeline to Germany began a 10-day closure for maintenance amid European fears that Moscow may not turn the flow back on after its completion.

Russian President Vladimir Putin issued an order Wednesday to fast track Russian citizenship for residents of parts of southern Ukraine largely held by his forces, while lawmakers in Moscow passed a bill to strengthen the stretched Russian army. Putin’s decree applying to the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions could allow Russia to strengthen its hold on territory that lies between eastern Ukraine, where Moscow-backed separatists occupy some areas, and the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014. Also read:200 bodies found in Mariupol basement as war rages in east The Russian army is engaged in an intense battle for Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland, known as the Donbas. In a sign that the Kremlin is trying to bolster its stretched military machine, Russian lawmakers agreed to scrap the age limit of 40 for those signing their first voluntary military contracts. A description of the bill on the parliament website indicated older recruits would be allowed to operate precision weapons or serve in engineering or medical positions. The chair of the Russian parliament’s defense committee, Andrei Kartapolov, said the measure would make it easier to hire people with “in-demand" skills. Russian officials say only volunteer contract soldiers are sent to fight in Ukraine, although they acknowledge that some conscripts were put into the fighting by mistake in the early stages of the war. Three months into Russia's invasion, Putin visited a military hospital in Moscow on Wednesday and met with some soldiers wounded in Ukraine, the Kremlin said in a statement. It was his first known visit with soldiers fighting in Ukraine since he launched the war on Feb. 24. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has visited wounded soldiers, civilians and children — including at times when Russian troops were fighting on the outskirts of Kyiv. A reporter for the state-run Russia1 TV channel posted a video clip on Telegram showing Putin in a white medical coat talking to a man in hospital attire, presumably a soldier. The man, filmed from behind standing up and with no visible wounds, tells Putin that he has a son. The president, accompanied by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, responds: “He will be proud of his father,” before shaking the man's hand. Zelenskyy reiterated Wednesday that he would be willing to negotiate with Putin directly but said Moscow needs to retreat to the positions it held before the invasion and must show it's ready to “shift from the bloody war to diplomacy.” “I believe it would be a correct step for Russia to make," Zelenskyy told leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, by video link. He also said Ukraine wants to drive Russian troops out of all captured areas. “Ukraine will fight until it reclaims all its territories,” Zelenskyy said. “It’s about our independence and our sovereignty.” In his nightly address to the nation, Zelenskyy strongly rebuffed those in the West who suggest Ukraine cede control of areas occupied by Russian troops for the sake of reaching a peace agreement. Those “great geopoliticians” who suggest this are disregarding the interests of ordinary Ukrainians — “the millions of those who actually live on the territory that they propose exchanging for an illusion of peace,” he said. “We always have to think of the people and remember that values are not just words.” Zelenskyy compared those who argue for giving Russia a piece of Ukraine to those who in 1938 agreed to cede territory to Hitler in hopes of preventing World War II. Russia already had a program to expedite the naturalization of people living in Luhansk and Donetsk, the two eastern Ukraine provinces that make up the Donbas and where the Moscow-backed separatists hold large areas as self-declared independent republics. Also read:Russian soldier sentenced to life at Kyiv war crimes trial During a visit to the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions last week, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin indicated they could become part of “our Russian family.” A Russia-installed official in the Kherson region has predicted the region would become part of Russia. An official in Zaporizhzhia said Wednesday that the region's pro-Kremlin administration would seek that as well. Melitopol, the Zaporizhzhia region’s second-largest city, plans to start issuing Russian passports in the near future, said the Russia-installed acting mayor, Galina Danilchenko. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who attended the Davos forum in person, called for friendly countries — particularly the United States — to provide Ukraine with multiple launch rocket systems so it could try to recapture lost territory. “Every day of someone sitting in Washington, Berlin, Paris and other capitals, and considering whether they should or should not do something, costs us lives and territories,” Kuleba said. Zelenskyy said his army was facing the fiercest attack possible in the east by Russian forces, which in some places have many more weapons and soldiers. He pleaded for even more military assistance from the West, “without exception, without restrictions. Enough to win.” The governor of the Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, accused Russia of targeting shelters where civilians were hiding in the city of Sievierodonetsk. “The situation is serious,” Haidai said in a written response to questions from The Associated Press. “The city is constantly being shelled with every possible weapon in the enemy’s possession.” Sievierodonetsk and nearby Lysychansk are the largest remaining towns held by Ukraine in Luhansk. The region is “more than 90%” controlled by Russia, Haidai said, adding that a key supply route for Kyiv's troops was coming under pressure despite stiff Ukrainian resistance. Haidai said the road between Lysychansk and the city of Bakhmut to the southwest was “constantly being shelled” and that Russian sabotage and reconnaissance teams were approaching. The governor of the Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said four civilians were injured when two rockets hit the town of Pokrovsk early Wednesday. One strike left a crater at least three meters (10 feet) deep, with the remnants of what appeared to be a rocket still smoldering. A row of low terraced houses near the strike suffered significant damage. “There’s no place to live in left. Everything is smashed,” Viktoria Kurbonova, a mother of two who lived in one of the terraced houses, said. An earlier strike about a month ago blew out the windows, which were replaced with plastic sheeting. Kurbonova thinks that probably saved their lives since there was no glass flying around. In other developments, Russia said the strategic Ukrainian port of Mariupol was functional again following a nearly three-month siege that ended with the surrender last week of the last Ukrainian fighters holed up in a giant steel plant. Russia now has full control of Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the separatists in Donetsk planned to set up a tribunal to put the fighters on trial and that Moscow welcomes the action.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused the West of lacking courage as his country fights to stave off Russia's invading troops, making an exasperated plea for fighter jets and tanks to sustain a defense in a conflict that has ground into a war of attrition. Speaking after U.S. President Joe Biden said in a lacerating speech that Russian President Vladimir Putin could not stay in power — words the White House immediately sought to downplay — Zelenskyy lashed out at the West's “ping-pong about who and how should hand over jets" and other weapons while Russian missile attacks kill and trap civilians. “I’ve talked to the defenders of Mariupol today. I’m in constant contact with them. Their determination, heroism and firmness are astonishing," Zelenskyy said in a video address early Sunday, referring to the besieged southern city that has suffered some of the war's greatest deprivations and horrors. "If only those who have been thinking for 31 days on how to hand over dozens of jets and tanks had 1% of their courage.” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, now in its 32nd day, has stalled in many areas, its aim to quickly encircle the capital, Kyiv, and force its surrender faltering in the face of staunch Ukrainian resistance — bolstered by weapons from the U.S. and other Western allies. Read:Rocket attacks hit Ukraine's Lviv as Biden visits Poland Britain’s Defense Ministry said Russia’s troops looked to be trying to encircle Ukrainian forces directly facing the two separatist-held areas in the country’s east. That would cut the bulk of Ukraine’s military off from the rest of the country. Moscow claims its focus is on wresting from Ukraine the entirety of the eastern Donbas region, which has been partially controlled by Russia-backed separatists since 2014. A high-ranking Russian military official said Friday that troops were being redirected to the east from other parts of the country. The leader of one of the separatist-controlled areas of Donbas said Sunday that he wants to hold a vote on joining Russia, words that could indicate a shift in Russia's position. Leonid Pasechnik, the head of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, said it plans to hold a referendum on becoming part of Russia “in the nearest time.” Russia has supported the separatist rebels in Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk since an insurgency erupted there in 2014, shortly after Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. In talks with Ukraine so far, Moscow has urged Kyiv to acknowledge the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk. Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, accused Russia of seeking to split Ukraine in two, like North and South Korea. “The occupiers will try to pull the occupied territories into a single quasi-state structure and pit it against independent Ukraine," Budanov said in a statement released by the Defense Ministry, He predicted that guerrilla warfare by Ukrainians would derail such plans. Ukraine says that to defeat Russia, it needs fighter jets and not just the missiles and other military equipment supplied by the West. A proposal to transfer Polish planes to Ukraine via the United States was scrapped amid NATO concerns about getting drawn into a military conflict with Russia. In his pointed remarks, Zelenskyy accused Western governments of being "afraid to prevent this tragedy. Afraid to simply make a decision.” "So, who is in charge of the Euro-Atlantic community? Is it still Moscow, thanks to its scare tactics?” he said. “Our partners must step up their aid to Ukraine.” His plea was echoed by a priest in the western city of Lviv, which was struck by rockets on Saturday. The aerial assault illustrated that Moscow, despite recent assertions that it intends to shift the war eastward, is willing to strike anywhere in Ukraine. “When diplomacy doesn’t work, we need military support,” said the Rev. Yuri Vaskiv, who on Sunday reported fewer parishioners than usual in the pews of his Greek Catholic church, likely because of their fear. Referring to Putin, he said: “This evil is from him, and we must stop it.” Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov confirmed that Russian forces used air-launched cruise missiles to hit a fuel depot and a defense plant in Lyiv. He said another strike with sea-launched missiles destroyed a depot with air defense missiles in Plesetske just west of Ukraine's capital, Kyiv. Read:Zelenskyy delivers video speech at Doha Forum The strikes came as Biden wrapped up a visit to Poland, where he met Ukraine’s foreign and defense ministers, visited U.S. troops and saw refugees from the war. Before leaving, he delivered a forceful and highly personal condemnation of Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denounced the remark, saying “It’s not up to the president of the U.S. and not up to the Americans to decide who will remain in power in Russia.” U.S. officials quickly stressed that Biden was not calling for an immediate change in government in Moscow. “We do not have a strategy of regime change in Russia, or anywhere else, for that matter," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a visit to Israel. “In this case, as in any case, it’s up to the people of the country in question. It’s up to the Russian people.” French President Emmanuel Macron distanced himself from Biden’s comment, saying it was vital to avoid "escalation.” “We should be factual and ... do everything so that the situation doesn’t get out of control,” Macron told France-3 television. Macron, who has spoken to Putin several times in so-far-unsuccessful peacemaking efforts, is scheduled to talk again with the Russian leader on Sunday or Monday. A chemical smell lingered in the air on Sunday as firefighters in Lviv, about 45 miles (72 kilometers) from the Polish border, trained hoses on flames and black smoke pouring from oil storage tanks hit in the Russian attack. A security guard at the site, Yaroslav Prokopiv, said he saw three rockets strike and destroy two oil tanks but no one was hurt. Russia’s back-to-back airstrikes shook the city that has become a haven for an estimated 200,000 people who have fled bombarded towns and cities. Lviv, which has largely been spared bombardment, also has been a way-station for most of the 3.8 million refugees who have left Ukraine since Russia invaded on Feb. 24. In the dim, crowded bomb shelter under an apartment block a short way from the first blast site, Olana Ukrainets, a 34-year-old IT professional, said she couldn’t believe she had to hide again after fleeing from the northeastern city of Kharkiv, one of the most bombarded cities of the war. “We were on one side of the street and saw it on the other side,” she said. “We saw fire. I said to my friend, ‘What’s this?’ Then we heard the sound of an explosion and glass breaking..” In his video address, Zelenskyy angrily warned Moscow that it was sowing a deep hatred for Russia among the Ukrainian people. “You are doing everything so that our people themselves leave the Russian language, because the Russian language will now be associated only with you, with your explosions and murders, your crimes,” Zelenskyy said. Along with the millions of people who have fled Ukraine, the invasion has driven more than 10 million people from their homes, almost one-quarter of Ukraine’s population. Thousands of civilians are believed to have been killed. While Russia’s advance on Kyiv remans stalled, fighting has raged in the suburbs, and blasts from missiles fired into the city have rattled the St. Sophia Cathedral, a 1,000-year-old UNESCO world heritage site that is the heart of Ukrainian spiritual and national identity. Vadim Kyrylenko, an engineer and conservator who is the most senior manager remaining on site, said a strike nearby “would be a point of no return for our landmark because it is very fragile and vulnerable.” Pointing at the cathedral’s golden domes, Kyrylenko said the cross atop the central one toppled a month before the outbreak of World War II. “The cross on the left fell a month before this war,” he added.

Vladimir Putin was born on October 7, 1952, in Leningrad, Russia. He is the current president of Russia. After completing his Law Degree, Putin joined the KGB, the Soviet Union's intelligence agency. In political career, Putin served as prime minister (in-office) of Russia from August 9, 1999 to May 7, 2000 and again from May 8, 2008 to May 07, 2012. He also held the position of acting president of Russia from December 31, 1999, to May 7, 2000. And, later Putin served as President (in Office) from May 7, 2008 to May 7, 2012. He assumed office again on May 7, 2012. Since taking office as Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin has been one of the most influential and controversial leaders in the world. Beyond political career, there are still many things about Putin that remain relatively unknown to the average person. Here are some interesting facts about Vladimir Putin that you may not have heard before. 14 Unique and Interesting Facts about Vladimir Putin He is a Soccer Fan Fitness freak Putin has been a fan of sports especially soccer or football since childhood. Even though he is a busy person, Putin continues to follow his favourite sport and he often watches European soccer matches on TV. Argentine legend Diego Maradona and Brazilian star player Pele were his favourite players in football. Putin Learned Judo to Grow up When he was a teenager, Putin noticed that other boys were growing up faster than him. He started learning judo to speed up his growth. He won a black belt in judo at the age of 18. Yet he regularly takes martial arts training. Read Ukraine: 14 Interesting but Lesser-Known Facts