December 23, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

We’ve wrapped up our live coverage for today. You can read more on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine here, or scroll through the updates below.

The Ukrainian military reported?heavy shelling this week?by Russian forces in the Zaporizhzhia region, but Kyiv’s military said it carried out its own damaging strikes on Russian bases deep in occupied territory.

Officials in the southern city of Kherson also say they have faced Russian shelling of late. Fighting in the region surrounding the liberated city has remained fierce since Moscow’s troops retreated and staked out positions east of the Dnipro River.

This map shows the areas controlled by both sides in Russia’s war on Ukraine:

Ukrainian?President?Volodymyr?Zelensky used his evening address Friday to warn Ukrainians about not becoming complacent during the holiday season.?

He asked Ukrainians to “help each other and take care of one another.”

The Ukrainian president ended his statement by speaking in Russian and saying, “One more thing: Russian citizens must clearly understand that terror never remains unanswered.”

Ukrainian soldiers hold their national flag over the coffin of comrade Dmytro Kyrychenko, during his funeral in Bucha, outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, on December 23.

Appearing in public for the first time since his historic visit to the US, Ukrainian President Volodymyr?Zelensky called on foreign partners “to take the lead” in implementing his nation’s peace plan.

Here are the latest developments:

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with defense industry officials in Tula, Russia, on December 23.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is meeting on Friday with defense industry officials gathered from across the country in the city of Tula to discuss “problems” related to the supply of weapons to the Russian military, and how to improve deliveries and the weapons’ characteristics.?

“The most important, key task for the military-industrial complex enterprise is to supply everything necessary to the front-line units — weapons, equipment and munition — of the necessary volume and the required quality in the fastest way,” Putin said at the start of the meeting, which he said is taking place in the “city of guns.”?There is a large arms plant in the city.

“A key task in this is to set up a feedback loop between the military-industrial complex and the units involved in the special military operation,” he said, using his term for the invasion of Ukraine.??

“Your specialists go to the frontline helping to repair quickly the damaged equipment and making it operational again, to test how it works in combat and make changes to the prototypes to improve their characteristics,” he said.?

Putin meets with leadership of military industrial complex enterprises in Tula, Russia, on Friday.

Some context: There have been reports of basic equipment shortages for Russian troops since the beginning of the country’s invasion of Ukraine. Russian citizens are now crowdfunding to equip?soldiers deployed to Ukraine?as winter closes in on the battlefield.

In the Chuvashia region, where some of the mobilized staged protests in the fall, Telegram channels said that families had gone into debt buying equipment. And in Tambov, in central Russia, 8th grade schoolchildren also raised money for socks for the troops.

While many appeals focus on preventing hypothermia among soldiers fighting without adequate clothing and shelter in sub-zero temperatures, some also try to source thermal imagery devices, two-way radios, body armor and even drones.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses Congress at the US Capitol on December 21.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr?Zelensky took the stage on Friday at the Conference of Ambassadors of Ukraine in Kyiv.?

Appearing in public for the first time since his arrival back from the US, via Poland, Zelensky made the point that his visit to the United States was rare. Saying, “this visit is a very important benchmark, as a set bar. I do not have the opportunity to make foreign visits — I simply do not have it, because there’s no time.”

As part of his speech the Ukrainian leader also spoke about the “powerful financial package” the US is preparing for Ukraine and put the figure at $45 billion.

This image from video shows fencing surrounding the Drama Theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, on December 2.

The Russian-appointed administration is demolishing the Mariupol Drama Theater, which was struck in March while being used as a shelter by hundreds of civilians.

Local community groups have posted video of the demolition, with bulldozers pulling down the remaining walls.

Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the Ukrainian Mariupol mayor who is not in the city, said in a Telegram post that “the occupiers in Mariupol have demolished half of the Drama Theater.”

“They just demolished it to the ground.?So in two days there will not even be a physical memory of it,” he said.

According to satellite images reviewed by CNN in November, local authorities had previously placed large screens around the heavily damaged building.

A general view of the destroyed Drama Theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, on December 8.

Some background: On March 16, the theater was struck by a heavy bomb while hundreds of people were taking shelter there. At the time, Mariupol was under siege by Russian forces. The theater was struck even though it had a large sign spelling out “children” on the ground outside.

The number of casualties was never confirmed, but several investigations estimated that as many as 600 people were killed.

The Russian military denied striking the building, and some Russian-appointed officials accused Ukrainian militants of carrying out the attack. No evidence for that claim has emerged.

People shelter inside of a metro station during a partial power outage in Kyiv, Ukraine, on December 16.

The energy deficit in the Kyiv region is at around 50%, Oleksii Kuleba, head of Kyiv regional military administration, said on Telegram.

“Hospitals, water and heat supply systems and other critical infrastructure facilities are supplied with electricity as a priority,” he added, reiterating that the situation is “difficult” in Bucha, Brovary and Boryspil districts, where lights are on for two to four hours a day.

Work on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure is continuing “around the clock” to repair the damages from Russian missile attacks, he added.

Police officers check a school that was damaged by Russian shelling in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, on December 22.

Oleksandr Honcharenko, mayor of the city of Kramatorsk in Donetsk, says the city has been struck by two Russian missiles.

Some background: The eastern city of Kramatorsk was?one of the first?places to be targeted by the Russian military when the invasion of Ukraine was launched on February 24.

Officials in the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine say there has been further shelling by Russian forces from across the river on Friday.

Videos and images show damage in the Korabelny district in the heart of Kherson city.

There were casualties at the scene of one strike, said Yaroslav Yanushevych, head of Kherson region military administration. Preliminary information indicated two people had been killed, he added.

Ukrainian soldiers prepare barricades in Bakhmut, Ukraine, on December 21.

The Ukrainian military says its units have repelled further Russian attacks around the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk region.

“You can hear yourself the operational situation now.?Over the past day, the enemy tried to conduct assault actions from Klishchiyivka, Opytne, Zabakhmutka and other operational areas. They suffered losses and did not advance,” a Ukrainian soldier is seen saying in a video that appears to be from Bakhmut on Friday morning.

Russian forces “are pushing a little bit. Or maybe not a little, but a lot. Yes, indeed, there are battles. However, the city is standing, we are in a fighting mood, as always. We will not surrender the city, no matter what anyone says. Bakhmut is Ukraine,” says another soldier seen on the video.

The Russian forces around Bakhmut include a significant number of the Wagner militia.

The frontlines around Bakhmut have changed only slightly in recent weeks. One unofficial media project says that while Russian forces have made no progress in most of the surrounding territory, they had advanced around the village of Yakovlivka, which is north-east of Bakhmut. The Ukrainian armed forces have not confirmed the reports.

There is also heavy fighting in the center of the town of Maryinka, further south on the front lines, according to unofficial reports.

Further west, Kramatorsk Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko?reported that Russians were launching rockets at the city again.

Traffic in Kyiv, Ukraine, is seen during a power outage in the morning of December 19.

Russian forces have targeted the Zaporizhzhia?region with heavy shelling, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced he has returned home from his trip to the US.

At the same time North Korea has denied a report that it sent arms to Russia by train last month.

Here are the latest headlines:

Russia's Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov speaks during a World Affairs event in San Francisco in 2017.

Washington is carrying out a “proxy war” against Russia and?the risk of a “clash” between the two countries is “high,” according to Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the US.

“Today, no one hides the true goals of the White House policy towards us. On all TV channels, political commentators talk about the need to intensify the US proxy war against the Russian Federation,” Antonov said in an interview with Russia state media outlet TASS published Friday.?

“Let me remind the viewers that a proxy war means an agent’s war, a war by proxy. Actually, this is what the Americans are doing on Ukrainian territory,” he added.

“We emphasize that the risk of a clash between the two great powers [Russia and the United States] is high.”

Russia will continue “to strive to ensure that Russian concerns regarding the security of our country are not ignored but are heard with the prospect of working together to resolve them,” he added.

Antonov also said that dialogue between Moscow and Washington is currently in an “ice age” state.

“The [Russian] embassy is still forced to work in an atmosphere of hostility and mistrust,” Antonov said.

“Due to the fault of the local ruling circles, obsessed with the idea of fixing the image of an ‘international outcast’ for us, the state of the Russian-American dialogue is comparable to an ice age,” he said.

Antonov also said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the US demonstrates that neither Washington nor Kyiv “is ready for peace.”

“Zelensky’s visit here, the conversations in Washington showed that neither the administration nor Kyiv is ready for peace,” he said. “The focus [is] on war, on the death of ordinary soldiers, on further tying the Ukrainian regime to the needs of the United States.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses Congress at the US Capitol on December 21.

The Ukrainian military reports heavy shelling by Russian forces across the front lines in Zaporizhzhia region, with at least a dozen settlements being hit, but at the same time it has reported damaging strikes against Russian bases deep in occupied territory.

In Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian defense forces said the towns of Huliapole and Novoandriivka were among those hit.?

“The enemy focuses its main efforts on holding the occupied borders, while shelling the positions of Ukrainian defenders with tank weapons, rocket and barrel artillery along the entire contact line,” they said.

Police had received nearly 30 reports on the destruction of civilian properties, it added.

But the Ukrainians have confirmed that three days ago they hit a “concentration” of Russian troops some distance behind the front lines in Kherson region. The strike occurred in the Skadovsk district, near the border with Crimea.?

“Up to 140 Russian servicemen were wounded and 8 Kamaz trucks with ammunition were destroyed,” the Ukrainian military said.

It also claimed another strike on December 20 in Kherson had killed up to 150 Russian troops. Another 50 had been injured in the strike, which targeted an?enemy airfield near Kakhovka.

“Up to 20 units of military equipment of various types were destroyed,” it said.

Local social media channels say there were also powerful explosions at a Russian base in the town of Tokmak in Zaporizhzhia on Thursday night, but neither side has made any official comment. Video shot at night showed several explosions but could not be geolocated.?

Members of a demining team work to clear mines and unexploded ordinance from the side of the main road leading to Kherson city on November 16 in Kherson, Ukraine.

In addition work continues on extensive demining operations in previously occupied areas.

The total area that is mined is about 880,000 hectares, of which about two-thirds are in Kherson region.

So far, engineering units have inspected 1,175 kilometers (730 miles) of roads, 456 kilometers of railroads and 660 kilometers of power lines as part of the demining operation.

“In total, about 40,000 explosive items were removed during these tasks,” the military said.?

Two people were injured by a car bomb in the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol, according to a local official.

Vladimir Rogov, a Russia-appointed member of the Zaporizhzhia region administration, described the incident as a terrorist act.

“This is, of course, a terrorist attack, behind which are militants of the Kyiv regime,” Rogov told Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti.

The car exploded in a parking lot in front of Gorky Park in the center of Melitopol, he said.?

Images and video of the incident show an explosion and fire in a car on a city street.

Ivan Fedorov, the exiled mayor of Melitopol, said that eyewitnesses report that the car was “blown up.” Fedorov is not currently in the city.

The identities of those injured is unconfirmed, but a well-known Russian blogger in the city said they were members of the Russian Security Service.

Several Russian-appointed officials in Ukraine have been assassinated or injured in similar attacks in recent months.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov watches Russian President Vladimir Putin addressing his annual press conference in Moscow, Russia on December 17, 2020.

“Significant progress” has been made in the “demilitarization” of Ukraine, which is one of the initial goals of Russia’s invasion, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed Friday.

“We can state that there is significant progress along the path of demilitarization,” Peskov told reporters during a regular briefing.?

Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a press conference Thursday that the Ukrainian military-industrial complex “if not completely reset to zero, is getting there fast.”?

Commenting on the US shipment of a Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine, Putin said Patriots are “old” systems and Russia will “always find the antidote.”?

The Christmas tree at Sofiivska Square near St. Sophia cathedral is seen during a blackout in Kyiv on December 19.

Ukraine’s state power provider Ukrenergo says the deficit in the electricity grid has “slightly decreased,” but remains significant.

“All types of generating facilities are working,” it said Friday, but “there are still certain restrictions in the power transmission system caused by damage to the main networks by Russian attacks.”

“In the east of Ukraine, there is damage to power grids in the frontline areas as a result of Russian shelling. Emergency repair work will be started immediately after the military give permission,” Ukrenergo said.

“Repairs at energy facilities continue around the clock, but the damage is complex and large-scale, so their restoration requires considerable time,” it added.

In the capital Kyiv, the city administration said that peoples’ efforts to consume power more wisely were helping improve the situation.?

“Heat and water are supplied to all districts of the capital in a regular mode,” it said. “Power engineers continue repairing the damage in the Kyiv power grid. The city still lives in the mode of emergency shutdowns.”

Those shutdowns mean that many Kyiv households have electricity for fewer than twelve hours a day.

The city administration appealed to residents not to turn on all electrical appliances at once when the power is turned on.?

“Instant peak load negatively affects the grid,” said Serhii Popko, head of Kyiv city military administration.

A damaged apartment in the aftermath of Russian shelling in Kherson seen on December 20.

Ukrainian officials say that Russian shelling across the Dnipro river in Kherson has increased, with more than sixty strikes on Wednesday alone.

Yaroslav Yanushevych, head of the Kherson region military administration, said that the Russians “shelled the territory of Kherson region 61 times. The invaders attacked peaceful settlements of the region with artillery, MLRS, mortars and tanks.”

About half the strikes hit the city of Kherson, including private and apartment buildings, he said. One person was killed in action, while two residents of Kherson region sustained injuries.

Russian shelling of Kherson city and areas along the Dnipro has been sustained since Ukrainian forces liberated the west bank in November.

Serhiy Khlan, a member of Kherson regional council, said the number of attacks was increasing.?

“The occupiers have now started using S-300 missiles and more precise rockets. They are destroying administrative buildings, shelling educational facilities, humanitarian aid centers,” he said.

“The occupiers are randomly shelling residential areas of the city of Kherson with multiple rocket launchers,” Khlan said.

A pedestrian walks past a residential building damaged by Russian shelling in Kherson, Ukraine, on December 20.

The strikes were also impeding efforts to restore power to the city.

“Within a month we have managed to restore almost 100% of electricity supply to Kherson region,” he said.

“However, constant shelling, including of critical infrastructure, does not allow the city of Kherson to have permanent electricity supply.?Kherson city is without electricity again,” added Khlan.

Ukrainian forces are retaliating and say they hit a concentration of Russian weaponry in the town of Kakhovka on the east bank.

But they say the Russians are digging in along the west bank, creating fortifications.

Khlan said that in a strip of land known as the Kinburn Spit, close to the Black Sea, the Russians are using mobile mortar groups that are difficult to hit.

Yurii Sobolevskyi, first deputy head of Kherson regional council, said that occupying forces were taking harsher action against Ukrainian civilians still living in occupied areas of the region.

“Recently, the occupiers have carried out a series of filtration raids in the Henichesk district of Kherson region,” he said, adding that they had been more aggressive than usual.

Sobolevskyi claimed that Russian troops are “experiencing mounting problems with morale and discipline.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has posted a video from his office, saying he has returned to Kyiv following his historic trip to the United States this week.?

“Good morning, everyone. I wish everyone good health. Can you hear, our phones are working again! I’m in the office,” said Zelensky in the video posted on his official Telegram account Friday.

“We’re working for victory. Have a good day everyone! We all shall win!”?

During the high-profile visit, Zelensky addressed the US Congress on Wednesday calling on US lawmakers to slap further sanctions on Russia?to make the country “feel how ruinous its aggression truly is.”

North Korea on Friday denied a media report that claimed it had recently sent arms to Russia.

Japanese outlet Tokyo Shimbun reported Thursday that North Korea delivered munitions by rail to Russia last month, citing an unnamed source familiar with the situation in the country.

The arms deal between Russia and North Korea “has never happened,” the spokesperson added.

Additional supplies and weapons are expected to be delivered from North Korea to Russia in the upcoming weeks, Tokyo Shimbun reported, citing its source.

Wagner denial: Pyongyang’s denial comes as a top US official said that Wagner, a Russian mercenary group engaged in the Ukraine war, took a delivery of arms from North Korea last month.

US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday that Wagner had received infantry rockets and missiles from North Korea.

The head of Wagner later denied the claim.

North Korea last month denied US officials’ claim that Kim Jong Un’s regime is delivering a “significant” number of artillery shells to Russia.?

Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures during his briefing after the State Council meeting at the Grand Kremlin Palace, on December 22, in Moscow, Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday used the word “war” to refer to the conflict in?Ukraine, the first known time he has publicly deviated from his carefully crafted description of Moscow’s invasion as a “special military operation” 10 months after it began.

Putin’s critics say that using the word “war” to describe the Ukraine conflict has effectively been illegal in Russia since March, when the Russian leader signed a censorship law that makes it a crime to disseminate “fake” information about the invasion, with a penalty of up to 15 years in prison for anyone convicted.

So Putin’s use of the word did not go unnoticed.

Nikita Yuferev, a municipal lawmaker from St. Petersburg who fled Russia due to his antiwar stance, on Thursday said he had asked Russian authorities to prosecute Putin for “spreading fake information about the army.”

A US official told CNN their initial assessment was that Putin’s remark was not intentional and likely a slip of the tongue. However, officials will be watching closely to see what figures inside the Kremlin say about it in the coming days.

Some context: Thousands have been killed, entire villages wiped out and billions of dollars of infrastructure destroyed since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began on Febr. 24.

That day, Putin used the term “special military operation” to describe his attack. He has framed the ongoing brutality as a campaign of “denazification” — a description dismissed by historians and political observers — and has increasingly described Russia’s unprovoked invasion as a patriotic and almost existential cause.

Read more here.

Newly downgraded US intelligence suggests the Russian mercenary group Wagner?has assumed expanded influence and is recruiting convicts — including some with serious medical conditions — from prisons to supplement Moscow’s flagging military.

The group recently took delivery of arms from North Korea, a top US official said, a sign of its growing role in the war in Ukraine.

And the US believes Wagner could be locked in a power battle with the Russian military itself as it jockeys for influence with the Kremlin.

The revelations about the Wagner group came a day after?Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s historic visit to Washington, where he thanked the United States for its military assistance?and said more was needed to fend off Russian advances.

Wagner has emerged as a key player in the 10-month conflict. The group is often described as?President Vladimir Putin’s off-the-books troops. It has expanded its footprint globally since its creation in 2014, and has been accused of war crimes in Africa, Syria and Ukraine.

The group’s founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said Thursday that Kirby’s claims that his group took weapons deliveries from North Korea are “nothing more than gossip and speculation.”

Read more here.

A?German?citizen who worked for the country’s foreign intelligence service was arrested Wednesday on charges of spying for Russia, according to the office of the German Federal Prosecutor General.

“The defendant is urgently suspected of treason,” a news release by the German Prosecutor General said of the defendant, named Carsten L.

It was not immediately clear whether he had been appointed a lawyer. CNN has sought response on that matter from the office of the German Prosecutor General.

Read more here.

In this February 20, 2020 file photo, a member of the US Air Force stands near a Patriot missile battery at the Prince Sultan Air Base in al-Kharj, Saudi Arabia.

The US has trained approximately 3,100 Ukrainian troops to date on different systems, with training on the?newly announced Patriot missile systems?set to begin “very soon,” a senior defense official said.

Nearly half of those troops have been trained on M777 howitzers or HIMARS rocket launchers, two of the systems that have been critical to Ukrainian operations so far. Ukrainian forces have also been trained on vehicles, various forms of artillery, drones and other systems.?

The Pentagon will soon begin training Ukrainian personnel on how to operate and maintain the Patriot missile system, officially?announced?yesterday during President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Washington.

The Patriot system costs between $450 million and $550 million, the Pentagon said, depending on the configuration of the platform. Each missile costs approximately $4 million.

The US will also soon start an expanded training program for Ukrainian forces, including joint maneuver and combined arms training. This program will train approximately 500 soldiers per month on larger combat operations.

Schoolchildren raise money for socks, mothers buy winter clothes and sleeping bags, community groups collect donations for body armor.

Russian citizens are crowdfunding to equip?soldiers deployed to Ukraine?as winter closes in on the battlefield. Troops have complained they are short of basic equipment — and the message has reached President Vladimir Putin.

Putin and other Russian officials have said that teething problems with supplying newly mobilized troops sent to Ukraine are being overcome, partly by a shake-up in supply chains. But the Kremlin has also stepped up pressure on those who dare to complain — and is increasingly framing the invasion of Ukraine as a patriotic and almost existential cause.

On Wednesday, Putin said that mobilization efforts must be modernized after the partial draft in the fall revealed issues.

Putin himself held a well-choreographed meeting with the families of soldiers at the Kremlin at the end of November, two months after the much-criticized partial mobilization. But those attending were carefully selected for their supportive tone.

Local campaigns to raise funds for soldiers are underway in both Russia and the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine. One dubbed “Together is Warmer” has raised 3 million rubles (about $45,000) to provide basic equipment and clothing for Russian soldiers.

Read more here.

US President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hold a press conference in the East Room of the White House on December 21.

Kyiv and its Western allies are “set for a long confrontation with Russia” following President Volodymyr Zelensky’s momentous?visit to Washington, Moscow said, as the?war in Ukraine?approaches 10 months.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry?condemned?what it called the “monstrous crimes” of the “regime in Kyiv,” after US President Joe Biden promised more military support to Ukraine during Zelensky’s summit at the White House on Wednesday.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that no matter how much military support the West provides to the Ukrainian government, “they will achieve nothing.”

Her comments came after Zelensky?delivered a historic speech?from the US Capitol, expressing gratitude for American aid in fighting Russian aggression since the war began – and asking for more.

While keeping the spotlight on the conflict in Ukraine, Zelensky emphasized that American support “is crucial.”

The US announced a new?$1.8 billion?aid package to Ukraine, which included the “first-ever transfer to Ukraine of the Patriot Air and Missile Defense System, capable of bringing down cruise missiles, short-range ballistic missiles, and aircraft at a significantly higher ceiling than previously provided air defense systems.”

Kyiv has repeatedly asked for the US Army’s Patriot — an acronym for Phased Array Tracking Radar for intercept on Target — system, as it is considered one of the most capable long-range air defense systems on the market.

However, the Kremlin denounced the transaction and said the US supplying Ukraine with Patriot missile systems will prolong the Ukrainian people’s?“suffering.”

Read more here.

Ukrainian soldiers walk to the frontline in Bakhmut, Ukraine, on December 16.

Bakhmut rests in the gentle rolling hillocks of the Donbas, a countryside feature that is rare in the?Ukrainian?steppe.

During the past 10 months of Russia’s war on the country, the city has risen to infamy for being regularly referred to as the most contested and kinetic part of the 1,300-kilometer (800-mile) long frontline in Ukraine.

For months, Ukrainian President?Volodymyr Zelensky, his advisers and generals have been calling the battles for Bakhmut “fierce,” “hot” and “difficult.”

A?local resident leaves his home after Russian shelling destroyed an apartment house in Bakhmut, Ukraine, on December 7.

The fire and brimstone unleashed by the Russian advance on the city has left it in ruins, a smoking shell of its former self. This fate has burnished Bakhmut’s power as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance — in the face of devastating Russian attacks, it is still holding on.

Various CNN teams have visited the city in recent months, including one that I was part of. We witnessed the devastation and dereliction. We saw firsthand the impact it was having on the Ukrainian soldiers there, and the shellshock the hardy residents who remained were going through.

Read more here.