United News of Bangladesh

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.  

Ukraine has bought some 1,400 drones, mostly for reconnaissance, and plans to develop combat models that can attack the exploding drones Russia has used during its invasion of the country, according to the Ukrainian government minister in charge of technology. In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Minister of Digital Transformation Mykhailo Fedorov described Russia’s war in Ukraine as the first major war of the internet age. He credited drones and satellite internet systems like Elon Musk’s Starlink with having transformed the conflict. Ukraine has purchased drones like the Fly Eye, a small unmanned aerial vehicle used for intelligence, battlefield surveillance and reconnaissance. “And the next stage, now that we are more or less equipped with reconnaissance drones, is strike drones,” Federov said. “These are both exploding drones and drones that fly up to three to 10 kilometers and hit targets.” He predicted “more missions with strike drones” in the future, but would not elaborate. “We are talking there about drones, UAVs, UAVs that we are developing in Ukraine. Well, anyway, it will be the next step in the development of technologies,” he said. Russian authorities have alleged several Ukrainian drone strikes on its military bases in recent weeks, including one on Monday in which they said Russian forces shot down a drone approaching the Engels airbase located more than 600 kilometers (over 370 miles) from the Ukrainian border. Russia’s military said debris killed three service members but no aircraft were damaged. The base houses Tu-95 and Tu-160 nuclear-capable strategic bombers that have been involved in launching strikes on Ukraine. Ukrainian authorities have never formally acknowledged carrying out such drone strikes, but they have made cryptic allusions to how Russia might expect retaliation for its war in Ukraine, including within Russian territory. Ukraine is carrying out research and development on drones that could fight and down other drones, Federov said. Russia has used Iranian-made Shahed drones for its airstrikes in Ukrainian territory in recent weeks, in addition to rocket, cruise missile and artillery attacks. “I can say already that the situation regarding drones will change drastically in February or March,” he said. Federov sat for an interview in his bright and modern office. Located inside a staid ministry building, the room contained a vinyl record player, history books stacked on shelves and a treadmill. The minister highlighted the importance of mobile communications for both civilian and military purposes during the war and said the most challenging places to maintain service have been in the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa and Kyiv regions in the center and east of the country. He said there are times when fewer than half of mobile phone towers are functioning in the capital, Kyiv, because Russian airstrikes have destroyed or damaged the infrastructure that power them. Ukraine has some 30,000 mobile-phone towers, and the government is now trying to link them to generators so they can keep working when airstrikes damage the power grid. The only alternative, for now, is satellite systems like Starlink, which Ukrainians may rely on more if blackouts start lasting longer. “We should understand that in this case, the Starlinks and the towers, connected to the generators, will be the basic internet infrastructure,” Federov said. Many cities and towns are facing power cuts lasting up to 10 hours. Fedorov said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree that instructs mobile phone companies to ensure they can provide signals without electricity for at least three days. Meanwhile, with support from its European Union partners, his ministry is working to bring 10,000 more Starlink stations to Ukraine, with internet service made available to the public through hundreds of “Points of Invincibility” that offer warm drinks, heated spaces, electricity and shelter for people displaced by fighting or power outages. Roughly 24,000 Starlink stations already are in operation in Ukraine. Musk’s company, SpaceX, began providing them during the early days of the war after Fedorov tweeted a request to the billionaire. “I just stood there on my knees, begging them to start working in Ukraine, and promised that we would make a world record,” he recalled. Federov compared Space X’s donation of the satellite terminals to the U.S.-supplied multiple rocket launchers in terms of significance for Ukraine’s ability to mount a defense to Russia’s invasion. “Thousands of lives were saved,” he said. As well as the civilian applications, Starlink has helped front-line reconnaissance drone operators target artillery strikes on Russian assets and positions. Federov said his team is now dedicating 70% of its time to military technologies. The ministry was created only three years ago. Providing the army with drones is among its main tasks. “We need to do more than what is expected of us, and progress does not wait,” Federov said, scoffing at Russian skill in the domain of drones. “I don’t believe in their technological potential at all.” ___                                                                                                    

Russia’s foreign minister on Tuesday warned anew Ukraine that it must demilitarize, threatening further military action and falsely accusing Kyiv and the West of fueling the war that started with Moscow’s invasion. Sergey Lavrov said Ukraine must remove any military threat to Russia — otherwise “the Russian army (will) solve the issue.” His comments also reflected persistent unfounded claims by the Kremlin that Ukraine and its Western allies were responsible for the 10-month war, which has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions. Russia launched the war on Feb. 24, alleging a threat to its security and a plot to bring NATO to its doorstep. Lavrov reiterated on Tuesday that the West was feeding the war in Ukraine to weaken Russia, and said that it depends on Kyiv and Washington how long the conflict will last. “As for the duration of the conflict, the ball is on the side of the (Kyiv) regime and Washington that stands behind its back,” Lavrov told the state Tass news agency. “They may stop senseless resistance at any moment.” In an apparent reaction, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted that “Russia needs to face the reality.” “Neither total mobilization, nor panicky search for ammo, nor secret contracts with Iran, nor Lavrov’s threats will help,” he said. “Ukraine will demilitarize the RF (Russian Federation) to the end, oust the invaders from all occupied territories. Wait for the finale silently…” A day earlier, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told the Associated Press in an interview that his government wants a summit to end the war but that he doesn’t anticipate Russia taking part. Kuleba said Ukraine wants a “peace” summit within two months with U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres acting as mediator. But he also said that Russia must face a war crimes tribunal before before his country directly talks with Moscow. Read more: Russia scrubs Mariupol's Ukraine identity, builds on death Both statements illustrate how complex and difficult any attempts to end the war could be. 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. Testifying to the hardships of war, families of Ukrainian prisoners of war believed held by Russia on Tuesday said the Christmas holiday season is particularly painful and appealed for more to be done to bring their loves ones back home. Neither Ukraine nor Russia have revealed the exact numbers of POWs they hold, while hundreds have been released as part of prisoner exchanges. Iryna Latysh’s husband Yevhen was captured exactly 300 days ago, in the early days of the war, and she says Christmas isn’t the same without him. “We were decorating the Christmas tree together this time last year,” she sobbed. “We put the star together, the decorations.” U.N. human rights investigators have warned that Ukrainian POWs appear to be facing “systematic” mistreatment — including torture — both when they are captured and when they are transferred into areas controlled by Russian forces or Russia itself. Meanwhile, fierce fighting continued on Tuesday in the Russia-claimed Donetsk and Luhansk regions that recently have been the scene of the most intense clashes. Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said that Russian forces are trying to encircle the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, but without success. Heavy battles are also underway around the city of Kreminna in the Luhansk region, Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai said. In the partially occupied southern Kherson region, Russian forces shelled Ukrainian-held areas 40 times on Monday, wounding one person, Ukrainian authorities said. The city of Kherson itself — which Ukraine retook last month in a major win — was targeted 11 times, said regional administrator Yaroslav Yanushevich. Since its initial advances at the start of the war 10 months ago, Russia has made few major gains, often pummeling Ukraine’s infrastructure instead and leaving millions without electricity, heating and hot water amid winter conditions. Lavrov didn’t specify how the Russian army will achieve its goals of demilitarizing and “denazifying” Ukraine — which was Russia’s stated goal when the invasion started in February. The reference to “denazification” comes from Russia’s allegations that the Ukrainian government is heavily influenced by radical nationalist and neo-Nazi groups. The claim is derided by Ukraine and the West. Lavrov warned further Western support for Ukraine could lead to direct confrontation. Read more: Russia warns increasing supply of US arms to Ukraine will aggravate war “We keep warning our adversaries in the West about the dangers of their course to escalate the Ukrainian crisis,” he said, adding that “the risk that the situation could spin out of control remains high.” “The strategic goal of the U.S. and its NATO allies is to win a victory over Russia on the battlefield to significantly weaken or even destroy our country,” he said. 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 will 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.  

The Russian military reported Monday that it shot down a Ukrainian drone approaching an air base deep inside Russia, the second time the facility has been targeted this month — again revealing weaknesses in Russia’s air defenses. Russia’s Defense Ministry said debris killed three servicemen at the Engels air base, which houses Tu-95 and Tu-160 nuclear-capable strategic bomber planes that have struck Ukraine with missiles in the 10-month-old war. Russia’s Baza news outlet reported that four people were wounded and said a fire had broken out, with explosions, sirens and flashes on a video it posted on its Telegram channel. The Defense Ministry claimed no Russian aircraft were damaged. It wasn’t clear whether the drone had been launched from Ukraine or Russian territory. If the drone had been launched from Ukraine, it would have traveled more than 600 kilometers (370 miles) to reach Engels, located in Russia’s Saratov region on the Volga River. Shooting the drone down after such a long trip inside Russia again raises questions about the effectiveness of Russia’s air defenses, particularly those intended to protect its most strategic military assets such as warplanes capable of carrying nuclear weapons. In keeping with the Kyiv government’s long-standing practice of not confirming cross-border attacks but welcoming their results, Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat didn’t directly acknowledge his country’s involvement in Monday’s incident in an interview on Ukrainian television, but said: “These are the consequences of Russian aggression.” He added: “If the Russians thought that the war wouldn’t affect them deep behind their lines, they were deeply mistaken.” Read more: Ukraine FM aims for February peace summit Russia has suffered numerous cross-border attacks during the war on its main territory, as well as on the Crimean Peninsula, which it illegally annexed in 2014. The incidents have outraged Russian military bloggers who say they show the country’s weak air defenses and security systems in general. In another cross-border incident that couldn’t be independently confirmed, Russia’s Tass news agency reported Monday that the country’s security forces had killed four Ukrainian saboteurs attempting to enter the Bryansk region from Ukraine. The report claimed the infiltrators carried explosive materials when they were caught Sunday. The cross-border attacks on Russian military and other strategic sites prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to order almost weekly missile and weaponized drone attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, causing widespread blackouts that also knocked out heating and water supplies in increasingly frigid weather. The attacks, which began in October across much of the country, have been occurring as ground fighting focused on Ukraine’s southern and eastern regions. In eastern Ukraine on Monday, Luhansk’s Ukrainian governor, Serhiy Haidai, said Russian forces have withdrawn from their military command operations post in the town of Kreminna as Ukrainian forces were approaching after months of intense fighting. Russia’s Defense Ministry didn’t comment on the withdrawal claim. Russian forces relocated to Kreminna and several other areas in September after they pulled back from the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine. Kreminna is in the eastern Luhansk region, which is almost entirely under Moscow’s control, and is on an important supply route for Russian forces and serves as a gateway for movement into other strategic positions. Earlier, Haidai reported that Russia had withdrawn its occupying government administration from Svatove, 51 kilometers (31 miles) north of Kreminna. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address Monday that “the situation there is difficult, painful. The occupiers are expending all the resources available to them — and they are considerable resources — to squeeze out at least some advance.” Haidai told Ukrainian television on Monday that Russian forces in the region are “suffering huge losses and medical facilities are overwhelmed with wounded soldiers.” The Russian army is redeploying paratroopers from the Kherson region to the area, he added. Read more: Russia shoots down Ukrainian drone near its Engels airbase In neighboring Donetsk region, partially occupied by Russia, fierce battles continue around the city of Bakhmut, which Russian forces have been trying to seize for weeks to consolidate their grip on Ukraine’s east. Zelenskyy said last week Bakhmut was the hottest spot on the war’s 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) front line. Ukrainian officials have maintained ambiguity over previous high-profile attacks, including drone strikes on Russian military bases earlier this month. On Dec. 5, unprecedented drone strikes on Engels and the Dyagilevo base in the Ryazan region in western Russia killed a total of three servicemen and wounded four others. In retaliation, Russia launched a massive missile barrage in Ukraine that struck homes and buildings and killed civilians. Elsewhere on the battlefield, at least four civilians were wounded in Russian shelling of five Ukrainian southeast regions over the past 24 hours, according to the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko. Overall, the intensity of the shelling from Sunday night into Monday was significantly lower. For the first time in weeks, Russian forces didn’t shell the Dnipropetrovsk region, which borders the partially occupied southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, its governor, Valentyn Reznichenko, reported on Telegram. “This is the third quiet night in 5.5 months since the Russians started shelling” the areas around the city of Nikopol, Reznichenko wrote. Nikopol is located across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is under the control of Russian forces and whose six reactors are shut down. Ukrainian-controlled areas of the neighboring Kherson region were shelled 33 times over the past 24 hours, according to Kherson’s Ukrainian Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevich. No casualties were reported. On Sunday, Russian forces attacked the city of Kramatorsk, where Ukrainian forces are headquartered. Three missiles hit an industrial facility and damaged residential buildings, but no casualties were reported, according to local officials. On Saturday, a deadly attack on the city of Kherson, which Kyiv’s forces recaptured last month, killed and wounded scores of people. Local residents are lining up to donate blood for the wounded, Yanushevich said Monday.

Ukraine’s foreign minister said Monday that his nation wants a summit to end the war but he doesn’t anticipate Russia taking part, a statement making it hard to foresee the devastating invasion ending soon. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told The Associated Press that his government wants a “peace” summit within two months at the United Nations with Secretary-General António Guterres as mediator. The U.N. gave a very cautious response. “As the secretary-general has said many times in the past, he can only mediate if all parties want him to mediate,” U.N. associate spokesperson Florencia Soto Nino-Martinez said Monday. Kuleba said Russia must face a war-crimes tribunal before his country directly talks with Moscow. He said, however, that other nations should feel free to engage with Russians, as happened before a grain agreement between Turkey and Russia. The AP interview offered a glimpse at Ukraine’s vision of how the war with Russia could one day end, although any peace talks would be months away and highly contingent on complex international negotiations. Read: Russia shoots down Ukrainian drone near its Engels airbase Kuleba also said he was “absolutely satisfied” with the results of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to the U.S. last week, and he revealed that the U.S. government had made a special plan to get the Patriot missile battery ready to be operational in the country in less than six months. Usually, the training takes up to a year. Kuleba said during the interview at the Foreign Ministry that Ukraine will do whatever it can to win the war in 2023. “Every war ends in a diplomatic way,” he said. “Every war ends as a result of the actions taken on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.” Commenting on Kuleba’s proposal, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told the state RIA Novosti news agency that Russia “never followed conditions set by others. Only our own and common sense.” A Kremlin spokesman said last week that no Ukrainian peace plan can succeed without taking into account “the realities of today that can’t be ignored” — a reference to Moscow’s demand that Ukraine recognize Russia’s sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed in 2014, as well as other territorial gains. Kuleba said the Ukrainian government would like to have the “peace” summit by the end of February. “The United Nations could be the best venue for holding this summit, because this is not about making a favor to a certain country,” he said. “This is really about bringing everyone on board.” At the Group of 20 summit in Bali in November, Zelenskyy made a long-distance presentation of a 10-point peace formula that includes the 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. Asked about whether Ukraine would invite Russia to the summit, he said that Moscow would first need to face prosecution for war crimes at an international court. “They can only be invited to this step in this way,” Kuleba said. About the U.N. Secretary-General’s role, Kuleba said: “He has proven himself to be an efficient mediator and an efficient negotiator, and most importantly, as a man of principle and integrity. So we would welcome his active participation.” Read: Putin claims Moscow ready for Ukraine talks as attacks go on The U.N. spokesman’s office had no immediate comment. Other world leaders have also offered to mediate, such as those in Turkey and Saudi Arabia. The foreign minister again downplayed comments by Russian authorities that they are ready for talks. “They (Russians) regularly say that they are ready for negotiations, which is not true, because everything they do on the battlefield proves the opposite,” he said. Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed few days ago that his country is ready for talks to end the war in Ukraine, but suggested that the Ukrainians are the ones refusing to take that step. Despite Putin’s comments, Moscow’s forces have kept attacking Ukraine — a sign that peace isn’t imminent. Zelenskyy’s visit to the U.S. was his first foreign trip since the war started on Feb. 24. Kuleba praised Washington’s efforts and underlined the significance of the visit. Ukraine secured a new $1.8 billion military aid package, including a Patriot missile battery, during the trip. Kuleba said that the move “opens the door for other countries to do the same.” He said that the U.S. government developed a program for Ukrainian troops to complete training faster than usual “without any damage to the quality of the use of this weapon on the battlefield.” While Kuleba didn’t mention a specific time frame, he said only that it will be “very much less than six months.” And he added that the training will be done “outside” Ukraine. During Russia’s ground and air war in Ukraine, Kuleba has been second only to Zelenskyy in carrying Ukraine’s message and needs to an international audience, whether through Twitter posts or meetings with friendly foreign officials. On Monday, Ukraine called on U.N. member states to deprive Russia of its status as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and to exclude it from the world body. Kuleba said they have long “prepared for this step to uncover the fraud and deprive Russia of its status.” The Foreign Ministry says that Russia never went through the legal procedure for acquiring membership and taking the place of the USSR at the U.N. Security Council after the collapse of the Soviet Union. “This is the beginning of an uphill battle, but we will fight, because nothing is impossible,” he told the AP.