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Russia deployed multiple drones overnight to attack parts of Ukraine and dozens were shot down, Ukrainian officials said Monday, in a series of relentless attacks through the weekend that killed three civilians on New Year's Eve. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that 40 exploding drones “headed for Kyiv” overnight, according to air defense forces, and all of them were destroyed. Klitschko said 22 drones were destroyed over Kyiv, three in the outlying Kyiv region and 15 over neighboring provinces. Read more: Ukraine faces grim start to 2023 after fresh Russian attacks Energy infrastructure facilities in the capital were damaged and an explosion occurred in one city district, the mayor said. It wasn’t immediately clear whether that was caused by drones or other munitions. A 19-year-old man was hospitalized with wounds, Klitschko added, and emergency power outages were underway. In the outlying Kyiv region, which was also attacked with drones, a “critical infrastructure object” and residential buildings were hit, Gov. Oleksiy Kuleba said. Seven drones were shot down over the southern Mykolaiv region, according to Gov. Vitali Kim, and three more were shot down in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said. In the Dnipropetrovsk region, a missile was also destroyed, according to Reznichenko. He said that energy infrastructure in the region was being targeted. Read more: Evidence of Russian crimes mounts as war in Ukraine drags on A blistering New Year’s Eve assault killed at least three civilians across the country, Ukrainian authorities reported, and wounded dozens. Multiple blasts rocked the capital and other areas of Ukraine on Saturday and through the night. The strikes came 36 hours after widespread missile attacks Russia launched Thursday to damage energy infrastructure facilities, and the unusually quick follow-up alarmed Ukrainian officials. Russia has carried out airstrikes on Ukrainian power and water supplies almost weekly since October, increasing the suffering of Ukrainians, while its ground forces struggle to hold ground and advance.

Ukrainians faced a grim start to 2023 as Sunday brought more Russian missile and drone attacks following a blistering New Year's Eve assault that killed at least three civilians across the country, authorities reported. Air raid sirens sounded in the capital shortly after midnight, followed by a barrage of missiles that interrupted the small celebrations residents held at home due to wartime curfews. Ukrainian officials alleged Moscow was deliberately targeting civilians along with critical infrastructure to create a climate of fear and destroy morale during the long winter months. In a video address Sunday night, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised his citizens' “sense of unity, of authenticity, of life itself.” The Russians, he said, “will not take away a single year from Ukraine. They will not take away our independence. We will not give them anything.” Ukrainian forces in the air and on the ground shot down 45 Iranian-made explosive drones fired by Russia on Saturday night and before dawn Sunday, Zelenskyy said. Another strike at noon Sunday in the southern Zaporizhzhia region killed one person, according to the head of the regional military administration, Alexander Starukh. But Kyiv was largely quiet, and people there on New Year's Day savored the snippets of peace. “Of course it was hard to celebrate fully because we understand that our soldiers can’t be with their family,” Evheniya Shulzhenko said while sitting with her husband on a park bench overlooking the city. Read more: Evidence of Russian crimes mounts as war in Ukraine drags on But a “really powerful” New Year's Eve speech by Zelenskyy lifted her spirits and made her proud to be Ukrainian, Shulzhenko said. She recently moved to Kyiv after living in Bakhmut and Kharkiv, two cities that have experienced some of the heaviest fighting of the war. Multiple blasts rocked the capital and other areas of Ukraine on Saturday and through the night, wounding dozens. An AP photographer at the scene of an explosion in Kyiv saw a woman’s body as her husband and son stood nearby. Ukraine’s largest university, the Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv, reported significant damage to its buildings and campus. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said two schools were damaged, including a kindergarten. The strikes came 36 hours after widespread missile attacks Russia launched Thursday to damage energy infrastructure facilities. Saturday's unusually quick follow-up alarmed Ukrainian officials. Russia has carried out airstrikes on Ukrainian power and water supplies almost weekly since October, increasing the suffering of Ukrainians, while its ground forces struggle to hold ground and advance. Nighttime shelling in parts of the southern city of Kherson killed one person and blew out hundreds of windows in a children’s hospital, according to deputy presidential chief of staff Kyrylo Tymoshenko. Ukrainian forces reclaimed the city in November after Russia's forces withdrew across the Dnieper River, which bisects the Kherson region. When shells hit the children's hospital on Saturday night, surgeons were operating on a 13-year-old boy who was seriously wounded in a nearby village that evening, Kherson Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevych said. The boy was transferred in serious condition to a hospital about 99 kilometers (62 miles) away in Mykolaiv. Elsewhere, a 22-year-old woman died of wounds from a Saturday rocket attack Saturday in the eastern town of Khmelnytskyi, the city’s mayor said. Instead of New Year's fireworks, Oleksander Dugyn said he and his friends and family in Kyiv watched the sparks caused by Ukrainian air defense forces countering Russian attacks. Read more: Ukraine conflict casts shadow on Russia as it enters 2023 “We already know the sound of rockets, we know the moment they fly, we know the sound of drones. The sound is like the roar of a moped,” said Dugin, who was strolling with his family in the park. “We hold on the best we can.” While Russia's bombardments have left many Ukrainians without heating and electricity due to damage or controlled blackouts meant to preserve the remaining power supply, Ukraine's state-owned grid operator said Sunday there would be no restrictions on electricity use for one day. “The power industry is doing everything possible to ensure that the New Year’s holiday is with light, without restrictions,” utility company Ukrenergo said. It said businesses and industry had cut back to allow the additional electricity for households. Zelenskyy, in his nightly address, thanked utility workers for helping to keep the lights on during the latest assault. “It is very important how all Ukrainians recharged their inner energy this New Year’s Eve,” he said. In separate tweets Sunday, the Ukrainian leader also reminded the European Union of his country's wish to join the EU. He thanked the Czech Republic and congratulated Sweden, which just exchanged the EU’s rotating presidency, for their help in securing progress for Ukraine’s bid. Meanwhile, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the Western military alliance's 30 members need to “ramp up” arms production in the coming months both to maintain their own stockpiles and to keep supplying Ukraine with the weapons it needs to fend off Russia. The war in Ukraine, now in its 11th month, is consuming an “enormous amount” of munitions, Stoltenberg told BBC Radio 4′s “The World This Weekend” in an interview that aired Sunday. “It is a core responsibility for NATO to ensure that we have the stocks, the supplies, the weapons in place to ensure our own deterrence and defense, but also to be able to continue to provide support to Ukraine for the long haul,” he said. Achieving the twin goals “is a huge undertaking. We need to ramp up production, and that is exactly what the NATO allies are doing," Stoltenberg said. The NATO chief said that while Russia has experienced battlefield setbacks and the fighting on the ground appears at a stalemate, “Russia has shown no sign of giving up its overall goal of taking control over Ukraine.” he said. “The Ukrainian forces have had the momentum for several months but we also know that Russia has mobilized many more forces. Many of them are now training. “All that indicates that they are prepared to continue the war and also potentially try to launch a new offensive,” Stoltenberg said. He added that what Ukraine can achieve during negotiations to end the war will depend on the strength it shows on the battlefield. “If we want a negotiated solution that ensures that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent, democratic state in Europe, then we need to provide support for Ukraine now," Stoltenberg said.

Ten months into Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine, overwhelming evidence shows the Kremlin’s troops have waged total war, with disregard for international laws governing the treatment of civilians and conduct on the battlefield. Ukraine is investigating more than 58,000 potential Russian war crimes — killings, kidnappings, indiscriminate bombings and sexual assaults. Reporting by The Associated Press and “Frontline,” recorded in a public database, has independently verified more than 600 incidents that appear to violate the laws of war. Some of those attacks were massacres that killed dozens or hundreds of civilians and as a totality it could account for thousands of individual war crimes. As Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, told the AP, “Ukraine is a crime scene.” That extensive documentation has run smack into a hard reality, however. While authorities have amassed a staggering amount of evidence — the conflict is among the most documented in human history — they are unlikely to arrest most of those who pulled the trigger or gave the beatings anytime soon, let alone the commanders who gave the orders and political leaders who sanctioned the attacks. The reasons are manifold, experts say. Ukrainian authorities face serious challenges in gathering air-tight evidence in a war zone. And the vast majority of alleged war criminals have evaded capture and are safely behind Russian lines. Read more: EU proposes UN-backed court to investigate Russia's war crimes in Ukraine Even in successful prosecutions, the limits of justice so far are glaring. Take the case of Vadim Shishimarin, a baby-faced 21-year-old tank commander who was the first Russian tried on war crimes charges. He surrendered in March and pleaded guilty in a Kyiv courtroom in May to shooting a 62-year-old Ukrainian civilian in the head.   The desire for some combination of justice and vengeance was palpable in that courtroom. “Do you consider yourself a murderer?” a woman shouted at the Russian as he stood bent forward with his head resting against the glass of the cage he was locked in. “What about the man in the coffin?” came another, sharper voice. A third demanded the defense lawyer explain how he could fight for the Russian’s freedom. The young soldier was first sentenced to life in prison, which was reduced to 15 years on appeal. Critics said the initial penalty was unduly harsh, given that he confessed to the crime, said he was following orders and expressed remorse. Ukrainian prosecutors, however, have not yet been able to charge Shishimarin’s commanders or those who oversaw him. Since March, Ukraine has named more than 600 Russians, many of them high-ranking political and military officials, as suspects, including Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu. But, so far, the most powerful have not fallen into Ukrainian custody. “It would be terrible to find a scenario in which, in the end, you convict a few people of war crimes and crimes against humanity who are low-grade or mid-grade military types or paramilitary types, but the top table gets off scot-free,” said Philippe Sands, a prominent British human rights lawyer. Throughout the war Russian leaders have denied accusations of brutality. Read more: UN rights experts find war crimes evidence against Russia in Ukraine Moscow’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said no civilians were tortured and killed in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha despite the meticulous documentation of the atrocities by AP, other journalists, and war crimes investigators there. “Not a single local person has suffered from any violent action,” he said, calling the photos and video of bodies in the streets “a crude forgery” staged by the Ukrainians. Such statements have been easily rebutted by Ukrainian and international authorities, human rights groups and journalists who have meticulously documented Russian barbarity since the Kremlin ordered the unprovoked invasion in February.

At the stroke of midnight on Saturday, Croatia switched to the shared European currency, the euro, and removed dozens of border checkpoints to join the world’s largest passport-free travel area. It marked a fresh start for the small Balkan nation of 4 million people that captured international attention three decades ago as the site of a brutal war that left nearly a quarter of its economy in ruins. Joining Europe's ID-check-free Schengen zone means Croats will now be among almost 420 million people who are free to roam its 27 member countries without passports for work or leisure. Adopting the euro will likewise offer Croatia the benefits stemming from deeper financial ties with the currency’s 19 other users and with the European Central Bank. It will also make traveling and doing business easier, removing the hassle of currency exchange for Croats going abroad and for tens of thousands of tourists who visit their country each year for work or to enjoy its stunning Adriatic coastline. Read more: Amazon to make big business changes in EU settlement As revelers around Croatia took to the streets to ring in the New Year, the country’s interior minister, Davor Bozinovic, was at the Bregana border crossing with Slovenia to wish the best of luck to the last travelers to have their passports checked there. Slovenia has been a part of the Schengen zone and tasked with safeguarding its external frontier since 2007. Now, the task will be taken over by Croatia, which will continue to apply strict border controls on its eastern borders with non-EU neighbors Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro. “We opened our doors to borderless Europe. This goes beyond eliminating border controls, it is the final affirmation of our European identity,” Bozinovic said after watching the ramps at the Bregana border crossing being lifted for the final time in the company of his Slovenian counterpart Sanja Ajanovic-Hovnik. Stipica Mandic, a 72-year-old professional driver, shared the sentiment and said the freedom of movement without long waits at border crossings was his personal dream and the reason why he left a New Year’s Eve party at his home and drove 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) to Bregana to see it come true. “I spent years of my life waiting at border checkpoints, so I came here tonight to witness this moment, the moment after which I will wait no more,” he said. Read more: EU member countries reach compromise on gas price cap At about the same time, shortly after midnight, Croatia’s finance minister and central bank governor walked to an ATM in the capital, Zagreb, to withdraw euro banknotes and symbolically relegate Croatia's old national currency, the kuna, to history. Croatia joined the EU in 2013, but to adopt the euro the country had to fulfil a set of strict economic conditions, including having a stable exchange rate, controlled inflation and sound public spending. The Croatian kuna and the euro will be in dual use for cash payments for only 14 days, but as people shop post-holiday in January they will receive only euros in change. The New Year’s Eve developments were described by many Croats as proof their country has completed a difficult journey to the European mainstream 31 years after it fought a war for independence from Serb-dominated Yugoslavia in which 20,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. “We used to dream about this and I am happy that we lived to see it happen,” said Zlatko Leko, a resident of the port city of Split in the country’s south. “I hope this means we are finally a part of Europe." Elenmari Pletikos-Solon in Zagreb agreed: “We have already been a part of Europe, but dismantling the borders and switching to the euro is the final confirmation that we are fully integrated” with the European Union. “I am truly happy. It will make many things in our life much easier,” she added.

New Year's celebrations swept across the globe, ushering in 2023 with countdowns and fireworks — and marking an end to a year that brought war in Europe, a new chapter in the British monarchy and global worries over inflation. The new year began in the tiny atoll nation of Kiribati in the central Pacific, then moved across Russia and New Zealand before heading deeper, time zone by time zone, through Asia and Europe. At least for a day, thoughts focused on possibilities, even elusive ones like world peace, and mustering — finally — a resolve to keep the next array of resolutions. In a sign of that hope, children met St. Nicholas in a crowded metro station in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Yet Russian attacks continued New Year's Eve. At midnight, the streets of the capital, Kyiv, were desolate. The only sign of a new year came from local residents shouting from their balconies, “Happy New Year!” and “Glory to Ukraine!” And only half an hour into 2023, air raid sirens rang across Ukraine’s capital, followed by the sound of explosions. Read more: Ukraine conflict casts shadow on Russia as it enters 2023 Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported an explosion in Holosiivskyi district, and authorities reported that fragments of a missile that had been shot down had damaged a car in a central district. In Paris, thousands celebrated on the Champs Elysees, while French President Emmanuel Macron pledged continuing support for Ukraine in a televised New Year's address. “During the coming year, we will be unfailingly at your side," Macron said. "We will help you until victory and we will be together to build a just and lasting peace. Count on France and count on Europe.” Big Ben chimed as more than 100,000 revelers gathered along the River Thames to watch a spectacular fireworks show around the London Eye. The display featured a drone light display of a crown and Queen Elizabeth II’s portrait on a coin hovering in the sky, paying tribute to Britain’s longest-serving monarch who died in September. Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana beach welcomed a small crowd of a few thousand for a short fireworks display, and several Brazilian cities canceled celebrations this year due to concern about the coronavirus. The Brazilian capital's New Year's bash usually drew more than 2 million people to Copacabana before the pandemic. Turkey’s most populous city, Istanbul, brought in 2023 with street festivities and fireworks. At St. Antuan Catholic Church, dozens of Christians prayed for the new year and marked former Pope Benedict XVI’s passing. The Vatican announced Benedict died Saturday at age 95. New York City prepared to join the glow of the new year with a dazzling Saturday night spectacle in iconic Times Square, anchoring celebrations across the United States. The night culminates with a countdown as a glowing geodesic sphere 12 feet (3.6 meters) in diameter and weighing almost six tons descends from its lofty perch atop One Times Square. Its surface is comprised of nearly 2,700 Waterford crystals that will be illuminated, officials said, by a palette of more than 16 million colors. Read more: Revellers throng to New Year’s parties after COVID hiatus At the stroke of midnight, a ton of confetti was expected to rain down on soggy revelers, glittering amid the jumbo screens, neon and pulsing lights. Last year, a scaled-back crowd of about 15,000 in-person mask-wearing spectators watched the ball descend while basking in the lights and hoopla. Because of pandemic rules, it was far fewer than the tens of thousands of revelers who usually descend on the world-famous square. Before the ball dropped, there were heavy thoughts about the past year and the new one to come. “2023 is about resurgence — resurgence of the world after COVID-19 and after the war in Ukraine. We want it to end,” said Arjun Singh as he took in the scene at Times Square. In Australia, more than 1 million people crowded along Sydney’s waterfront for a multi-million dollar celebration based around the themes of diversity and inclusion. More than 7,000 fireworks were launched from the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and another 2,000 from the nearby Opera House. “We have had a couple of fairly difficult years; we’re absolutely delighted this year to be able to welcome people back to the foreshores of Sydney Harbor for Sydney’s world-famous New Year’s Eve celebrations,” Stephen Gilby, the city’s producer of major events and festivals, told The Sydney Morning Herald. In Auckland, New Zealand, large crowds gathered below the Sky Tower, where a 10-second countdown to midnight preceded fireworks. The celebrations in New Zealand’s largest city returned after COVID-19 forced them to be canceled a year ago. Chinese cautiously looked forward to 2023 after a recent easing of pandemic restrictions unleashed the virus but also signaled a return to normal life. Like many, salesperson Hong Xinyu stayed close to home over the past year in part because of curbs on travel. “As the new year begins, we seem to see the light,” he said at a countdown show that lit up the towering structures of a former steel mill in Beijing. “We are hopeful that there will be more freedom in the future.” Concerns about the Ukraine war and the economic shocks it has spawned across the globe were felt in Tokyo, where Shigeki Kawamura has seen better times but said he needed a free, hot meal this New Year’s. “I hope the war will be over in Ukraine so prices will stabilize,” he said. In military-ruled Myanmar, authorities announced a suspension of its normal four-hour curfew in the country’s three biggest cities so residents could celebrate New Year’s Eve. But opponents of army rule urged people to avoid public gatherings, fearing that security forces might stage a bombing or other attack and blame it on them.

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.

Vildana Mutevelić huddled in her apartment with her two young children and elderly cousins. They had no heat, electricity or running water as artillery shells tore the roof off their building and almost took their lives. To survive, she improvised. Mutevelić made a lamp out of used engine oil, water and a shoelace for a wick. She cooked on a fire fueled by books, furniture, shoes or clothes. A plastic spoon, she discovered, when lit, worked well as a temporary flashlight if she ventured outside. Plastic sheets covered the blown-out windows, a flimsy buffer against the bitter cold. Her news of the world came from a neighbor who powered a radio with a car battery. Read more: Russia hits key infrastructure with missiles across Ukraine “The electricity failed right away,” Mutevelić, 70, said through a translator. “And everything we had in our freezers, it melted. Those were our stocks, basically. That’s all.” For Mutevelić, these are memories from three decades ago, when Bosnian Serbs besieged Sarajevo, causing thousands of civilian casualties. But it’s all happening again in Ukraine. Russia’s armed forces have aimed their firepower at Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as winter weather sets in. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has accused Russia of “energy terrorism," said earlier this week that about 9 million people were without electricity. The country’s prosecutor general, Andriy Kostin, told The Associated Press that Russia’s deliberate targeting of Ukraine’s essential utilities is another act of genocide, the most heinous of war crimes. Read more: Lavrov: Ukraine must demilitarize or Russia will do it “We are convinced that the crimes (Russia) is committing in Ukraine bear all the hallmarks of genocide,” Kostin said in a statement. “The aggressor state is ‘weaponizing winter,’ depriving Ukrainians of the basics — electricity, water and heating.”

Russian missiles hit Ukraine Thursday in the biggest wave of strikes in weeks, damaging power stations and other critical infrastructure during freezing winter weather. Russia fired 69 missiles at energy facilities and Ukrainian forces shot down 54, Ukrainian military chief Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi said. Local officials said attacks killed at least two people around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. The strikes also wounded at least six people across the country, although the toll of the attacks was growing as officials assessed the day’s events. Russia dispatched explosive drones to selected regions overnight before broadening the barrage with air and sea-based missiles, the Ukrainian air force said. Air-raid sirens rang out across the country, and the military activated air-defense systems in Kyiv, the regional administration said. Russia has attacked Ukrainian power and water supplies almost weekly since October while its ground forces struggle to hold ground and advance. Mayor Vitali Klitschko warned of power outages in the capital, asking people to stockpile water and to charge their electronic devices. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called the attacks“senseless barbarism.” “There can be no ‘neutrality’ in the face of such mass war crimes. Pretending to be ‘neutral’ equals taking Russia’s side,” Kuleba tweeted. After more than 10 months of fighting, Russia and Ukraine are locked in a grinding battle of attrition. The Ukrainian military has reclaimed swaths of Russian-occupied territory in the country’s northeast and south, and continues to resist persistent Russia attempts to seize all of the industrial Donbas region in the east. Read more: Russia says it shot down Ukrainian drone near air base At the same time, Moscow has targeted Ukrainian power facilities and other key infrastructure in a bid to weaken the country’s resolve and force it to negotiate on Russian terms. The time between strikes has increased in recent weeks, though, leading some commentators to theorize Russia is trying to ration its missile supply. The Ukrainian military has reported success in shooting down incoming Russian missiles and explosive drones in earlier attacks but many cities have gone without heat, internet and electricity for hours or days at a time. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said a number of energy facilities were damaged during what he said was the 10th such large-scale attack on his country. “Russia is trying to deprive Ukrainians of light before the New Year,” Shmyhal wrote in a Telegram post. He said that emergency blackouts may be necessary “in some areas.” About 90% of Lviv was without electricity, Mayor Andriy Sadovyi wrote on Telegram. Trams and trolley buses were not working, and residents might experience water interruptions, he said. Meanwhile, a Telegram channel affiliated with the presidential press service of Belarus said a Ukrainian S-300 air defense missile landed in Belarusian territory of Belarus early Thursday. It said the missile could have veered off course accidentally and there were no casualties. The Belarusian Defense Ministry said later that the missile was downed by the Belarusian air defense over the western Brest region and fell into a field, according to a statement carried by the state Belta news agency Belarus served as a staging ground for Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine. Belarus’ foreign ministry summoned the Ukrainian ambassador to express “strong protest,” it said, demanding that Ukraine “conduct a thorough investigation” and “hold those responsible to account.” The United States said this month that it would give a Patriot missile battery to Ukraine to boost the country’s defense. The U.S. and other allies also pledged to provide energy-related equipment to help Ukraine withstand the attacks on its infrastructure. Read more: Russia warns of ‘consequences’ if US missiles go to Ukraine Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Russia was aiming to “destroy critical infrastructure and kill civilians en masse.” Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said Monday that his nation wants a “peace” summit within two months at the United Nations with Secretary-General António Guterres as mediator. He said Russia must face a war-crimes tribunal before his country directly talks with Moscow but that other nations should feel free to engage with the Russians. Commenting on the summit proposal Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dismissed it as “delirious” and “hollow,” describing the proposal as a “publicity stunt by Washington that tries to cast the Kyiv regime as a peacemaker.” Russian officials have said that any peace plan can only proceed from Kyiv’s recognition of Russia’s sovereignty over the regions it illegally annexed from Ukraine in September. A 10-point peace plan Zelensky’y first presented at a November Group of 20 summit in Bali includes the full restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the withdrawal of Russian troops, the release of all prisoners, a tribunal for those responsible for the aggression and security guarantees for Ukraine.

France’s defense minister arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday to discuss further military support for Ukraine, insisting the French government’s backing is unflagging while efforts are made to reach an eventual negotiated end to Russia’s invasion. French Minister for the Armed Forces Sebastien Lecornu traveled to Ukraine’s capital after a trip to Poland, where he announced a deal Tuesday to sell Poland two French-made military satellites. In Kyiv, Lecornu laid a wreath at a heroes’ monument to pay homage to Ukrainians who have died defending their country against Russia’s invasion. He was scheduled to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov and army officials. While France has been less vocal about its military support for Ukraine than the United States and Britain, the country has sent a steady supply of weapons to Ukraine since Russia invaded on Feb. 24. France also hosted two aid conferences for Ukraine this month. But many in Ukraine remain critical of the French government’s response to the war because of President Emmanuel Macron’s efforts to maintain contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin and seek a negotiated solution. “Our support for Ukraine has been constant,” Lecornu tweeted ahead of his trip. It was not immediately clear what concrete deals Lecornu’s talks in Kyiv might produce. He came to Ukraine a week after Zelenskyy visited the U.S., Ukraine’s chief ally, and with the fighting focused mostly in the country’s east but neither Moscow nor Kyiv reporting major gains in recent weeks. Read more: Biden, Macron ready to talk Ukraine, trade in state visit Russian forces have pressed their offensive to capture all of eastern Ukraine by concentrating on Bakhmut, a city in Donetsk province. Ukrainian forces were pushing a counteroffensive toward Kreminna, a city in neighboring Luhansk province, in hopes of reclaiming the area and potentially dividing Russia’d troops in the east. France has supplied Ukraine with a substantial chunk of its arsenal of Caesar cannons, as well as anti-tank missiles, Crotale air defense missile batteries and rocket launchers. It is also training some 2,000 Ukrainian troops on French soil. Macron pledged last week to provide a new injection of weapons in early 2023. Western military aid to Ukraine has angered Moscow. On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused Washington and NATO of fueling the war with the aim to weaken Russia and warned the conflict could spin out of control. Also on Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree banning oil exports to countries that support a $60-per-barrel price cap that was declared by the European Union and Group of Seven countries in a bid to reduce Moscow’s revenue during wartime. The ban takes effect in February and is slated to run through July. The price cap is higher than what Russian oil has sold for in recent weeks, so the potential effects of Putin’s ban are uncertain. Russia invaded Ukraine 10 months ago, alleging a threat to its security orchestrated by NATO. The war has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions so far, with an end nowhere in sight. Russian attacks on power stations and other infrastructure have left millions of Ukrainians without heating and electricity for hours or days at a time. Read more: Ukraine president again presses West for advanced weapons The latest Russian shelling has wounded at least eight civilians, including three in Bakhmut, the Donetsk region’s governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said. In the southern region of Kherson, Russian shelling hit a maternity hospital soon after two women delivered babies there, although Ukrainian officials said no one was wounded. Regional Gov. Yaroslav Yanyshevych said the shelling also damaged apartment buildings, a kindergarten and a bakery. The British Defense Ministry said in its daily assessment Tuesday that Russia has likely reinforced its front line near Kreminna as its forces come under continued pressure from the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Russia will likely prioritize holding the line in the logistically important area, the ministry said. Ukraine’s foreign minister told The Associated Press this week that his government would like to see a peace conference by the end of February. Ukraine has said in the past that it wouldn’t negotiate with Russia before the full withdrawal of its troops, while Moscow insists its military gains and the 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula cannot be ignored.

A Swiss court has granted a six-month “stay of bankruptcy” to the operating company for the never-opened Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which was built to bring Russian gas to Germany but put on ice shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine in February. The company’s stay was extended from Jan. 10 through July 10 by a regional court in the Swiss canton (state) of Zug, according to a notice published Wednesday in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce. Nord Stream 2 AG, a subsidiary of Russia’s Gazprom, is based in Zug. Nord Stream 2′s court-appointed administrator, Transliq AG, sought the extension. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government halted the certification process for the pipeline on Feb. 22, after Russia recognized the independence of two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered sent troops into Ukraine two days later, and U.S. President Joe Biden President then directed his administration to impose sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 operating company. The pipeline project had long drawn resistance from Ukraine and eastern European countries, as well as bipartisan opposition in the United States. Red more: All you need to know about Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline At the beginning of March, the operating company said it had dismissed all its employees in Zug, who numbered up to 110, according to local officials. Russia once accounted for more than half of Germany’s natural gas supplies but started reducing deliveries in mid-June, citing alleged technical problems with the parallel Nord Stream 1 pipeline. It hasn’t delivered any gas to the country since the end of August.   Putin has periodically taunted the West by raising the prospect of sending gas through Nord Stream 2, a political nonstarter for the German government and others. Read more: Nord Stream 1 resumes gas deliveries to Germany after maintenance In September, undersea explosions damaged both Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2. The prosecutor leading Sweden’s preliminary investigation said last month that investigators found traces of explosives at the site where the pipelines were damaged in an act of “gross sabotage.” Investigators have not given indications of whom they think might be responsible.