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Key events
Here are images we have received from a volunteer aid station in Bakhmut, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
More on Moldova:
Russia has denounced a decision by Moldova to temporarily ban six television channels as “political censorship”.
Moldova accused the channels of airing “incorrect information” about the country and Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.
The channels are closely tied to the politician and businessman Ilan Shor, who fled the country in 2019 after the election of the pro-western president, Maia Sandu, Reuters reports.
Shor, who is in exile in Israel, has backed protests demanding that Sandu’s government resign.
The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said:
“We consider this ban as an unprecedented act of political censorship, as an abuse on the principle of media pluralism and a flagrant violation of the right to freedom of access to information, to which the political leadership of the Republic regularly declares its adherence.
“In light of the unprecedented consequences of its implementation for the Russian-speaking part of the country’s population, we also qualify it as a cynical infringement of the rights of national minorities.”
The ban will start on Monday and last for the duration of a state of emergency that Moldova declared after Russia invaded Ukraine.
Moldova has reached a short-term energy deal that will help wean it off its dependence on Russian natural gas, a senior official said on Saturday.
The former Soviet republic of 2.5 million people, which faces soaring inflation amid Russia’s war on neighbouring Ukraine, has traditionally been reliant on Russian gas.
The Moldovan deputy prime minister, Andrei Spînu, said the state gas firm Moldovagaz would buy 100m cubic metres of gas from domestic supplier Energocom this month.
It would be the first time that Moldova has not consumed any of the gas it has bought from Russia, he wrote on his Telegram channel.
Spînu added:
Since last year, we have promised to make reserves and find an alternative to stop being dependent on a single source. I managed to do it.
Summary of the day so far
It’s 6pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
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Rescuers have recovered the body of a one-and-a-half-year-old boy from the rubble of Friday’s Russian strike on a three-storey residential building in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih in Dnipro region, the region’s governor, Valentyn Reznichenko, said. In total, four people were killed in the attack on Kryvyi Rih, Reznichenko said. 13 others were injured by the attack, including four children.
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Electricity has been restored in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, and the region, its governor said, a day after fresh Russian attacks pitched multiple cities into darkness, cutting water and heat and forcing people to endure freezing cold. The mayor of Kyiv said the city’s metro system was back in service and that all residents had been reconnected to water supply a day after the latest wave of Russian airstrikes on critical infrastructure.
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Russia’s defence ministry said its “high-precision” weapons hit parts of Ukraine’s military-industrial complex and energy and military administrative facilities on Friday. Ukrainian facilities producing weapons, military equipment and ammunition had been disabled, it added. Ukraine’s western allies have said the suffering inflicted by Russian airstrikes on freezing civilians constitutes war crimes, with the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, calling the bombings “barbaric”.
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The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Russia still had enough missiles for several more massive strikes and he again urged western allies to supply Kyiv with more and better air defence systems. “Whatever the rocket worshippers from Moscow are counting on, it still won’t change the balance of power in this war,” he said in Friday’s evening address.
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Air raid sirens were reported across Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, on Saturday. “Please go to the shelters!” Kyiv city’s military administration said on Telegram. Explosions were heard in the southern city of Odesa on Saturday morning, Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesperson for the Odesa regional military administration, said.
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A 36-year-old man was killed inside his car after Russian forces shelled the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson on Saturday morning, the regional governor, Yaroslav Yanushevych, said. A 70-year-old woman was also injured after Russian troops struck a western district of the city with artillery and multiple rocket launchers, Yanushevych wrote on Telegram.
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A Ukrainian military commander has said Russia may try to invade from the north, potentially around the anniversary of when Vladimir Putin first ordered his troops to invade Ukraine. In an interview with Sky News, Maj Gen Andrii Kovalchuk warned the fiercest fighting may yet come and appeared particularly focused on the possibility of Russian troops invading via Belarus on Ukraine’s northern border, in order to target the capital.
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Russia’s campaign of strikes against Ukrainian critical infrastructure has largely consisted of air- and maritime-launched cruise missiles, but has almost certainly also included Iranian-provided drones, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence. In its latest intelligence update, the ministry also said Russia was likely concerns about the “vulnerability” of Crimea.
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The Kremlin said Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, held meetings with armed forces commanders on Friday to discuss its military campaign in Ukraine during a visit to the operation’s headquarters. The Russian leader met his defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, and chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov, and held “separate discussions with commanders” from different defence branches, it said.
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The Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak has said it is “unrealistic” to expect Kyiv to come to an agreement with Russia to end the war. “War must end only with its defeat,” Podolyak wrote on Twitter, and said Ukraine would act with “required proportions of artillery, armored vehicles, drones and long-range missiles”.
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Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said the latest round of EU sanctions against Moscow will just lead to an “exacerbation” of problems within the bloc. EU leaders agreed on Thursday to provide €18bn to Ukraine as well as the ninth package of sanctions aimed at ramping up pressure on Russia for its war in Ukraine. The latest measures blacklist nearly 200 more people and bar investment in Russia’s mining industry, among other steps.
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A popular pedestrian bridge in central Kyiv has reopened today after it was damaged by Russian airstrikes on the Ukrainian capital in October, the Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, announced. The bridge, known in the city as the “glass bridge” or “Klitschko’s bridge”, connects the two central Kyiv parks of Volodymyrska Hirka and Mariinsky Park.
Electricity restored in Kharkiv, says governor
Electricity has been restored in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, and the region, its governor said, a day after Russia’s latest wave of missile attacks targeted the country’s power grid.
Oleh Syniehubov, Kharkiv’s regional governor, posted on Telegram:
The power was cut off in entire Kharkiv region and Kharkiv. Currently, electricity supply has been restored throughout the region and the city.
Friday’s attack, in which 76 rockets were fired at several Ukrainian regions, caused “colossal” damage to Kharkiv’s electricity infrastructure, its mayor, Ihor Terekhov, yesterday said. He asked for residents to be patient while water, electricity and heating were out.
Poland’s top policeman said that an explosion in his office was caused by a grenade launcher, telling private broadcaster RMF FM that he had received two of the weapons as a gift from Ukraine.
Poland’s interior ministry and prosecutor’s office had not previously confirmed media reports that the explosion on Wednesday, at police headquarters in Warsaw, was caused by a grenade launcher.
Prosecutors said they were investigating the blast, which resulted in police commander in chief Jarosław Szymczyk being taken to hospital, Reuters reported.
“When I was moving the used grenade launchers, which were gifts from the Ukrainians, there was an explosion,” Szymczyk told RMF FM.
He said he was moving the launchers into an upright position at the time.
RMF cited a source from a Polish delegation that visited Ukraine as saying Szymczyk had received two launchers from officials as presents during visits to the police and the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.
The officials had assured the Polish delegation that the launchers were not loaded, and the delegation took them back to Warsaw by car before leaving them in the back room of Szymczyk’s office, the source told RMF.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm this version of events.
The Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak has said it is “unrealistic” to come to an agreement with Russia to end the war.
“War must end only with its defeat,” Podolyak wrote on Twitter, and said Ukraine would act with “required proportions of artillery, armored vehicles, drones and long-range missiles”.
Here are some of the latest images we have received from Ukraine:
Russia claims ‘high-precision’ weapons hit Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and military targets
Russia’s defence ministry said its “high-precision” weapons hit parts of Ukraine’s military-industrial complex and energy and military administrative facilities on Friday.
In a statement it said:
As a result of the strike, the transportation of weapons and ammunition of foreign production has been thwarted.
Ukrainian facilities producing weapons, military equipment and ammunition had been disabled, it added.
Yesterday’s wave of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power grid pitched multiple cities into darkness, cutting water and heat and forcing people to endure freezing cold.
Ukraine’s western allies have said the suffering inflicted on freezing civilians constitutes war crimes, with the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, calling the bombings “barbaric”.
The Kyiv Independent’s Illia Ponomarenko writes that Kyiv’s main Christmas tree is being installed today, just a day after Russian forces carried out another wave of mass strikes on Ukraine, including the capital.
A popular pedestrian bridge in central Kyiv has reopened today after it was damaged by Russian airstrikes on the Ukrainian capital in October, the Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, announced.
The bridge, known in the city as the “glass bridge” or “Klitschko’s bridge”, connects the two central Kyiv parks of Volodymyrska Hirka and Mariinsky Park.
In a statement on Facebook, the city’s mayor said all 18 of the bridge’s damaged glazed windows had been replaced, and that the railings and cables that stretched along bridge were also restored.
He added:
One of our symbols of immortality is again happy to wait for Kyiv and guests of the capital.
Russia says latest EU sanctions will ‘exacerbate’ problems
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said the latest round of EU sanctions against Moscow will just lead to an “exacerbation” of problems within the bloc.
EU leaders agreed on Thursday to provide €18bn to Ukraine as well as the ninth package of sanctions aimed at ramping up pressure on Russia for its war in Ukraine.
The latest measures blacklist nearly 200 more people and bar investment in Russia’s mining industry, among other steps.
In a statement, Zakharova said:
The current ‘package’ will have the same effect as all the previous ones – exacerbation of socio-economic problems in the European Union itself.
She called on Brussels to cancel all restrictions that directly or indirectly, are having an impact on Russian exports of grains and fertilisers.
One person killed in Russian shelling of Kherson, says governor
A 36-year-old man was killed inside his car after Russian forces shelled the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson this morning, the regional governor Yaroslav Yanushevych said.
A 70-year-old woman was also injured after Russian troops struck a western district of the city with artillery and multiple rocket launchers, Yanushevych wrote on Telegram.
Here are some of the latest images we have received from Ukraine.
Ukraine ‘preparing’ for Russia to invade from north, says commander
A Ukrainian military commander has said Russia may try to invade from the north, potentially around the anniversary of when Vladimir Putin first ordered his troops to invade Ukraine.
Maj Gen Andrii Kovalchuk warned that the fiercest fighting may yet come and called on western allies to support Ukraine with lethal weapons, including potentially cluster munitions.
In an interview with Sky News, he said he could “foresee” that Russian forces may try to invade Ukraine from the north, the east and the south, maybe even on 24 February – on the anniversary of when Russian troops invaded the country.
Kovalchuk said:
We foresee such options, such scenarios. We are preparing for it. We live with the thought that they will attack again. This is our task.
He appeared particularly focused on the possibility of Russian troops invading via Belarus on Ukraine’s northern border, in order to target the capital.
Ukraine was “considering a possible offensive from Belarus at the end of February, maybe later”, he said.
He said Kyiv would be better prepared to fend Putin’s troops, adding that “it will no longer be the case that they will simply walk in, as was the case on 24 February”.
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