Russia-Ukraine war live: Ukrainian military says it shot down 20 of 31 drones launched by Russia overnight

Opening summary

Rachel Hall

Hello –

Welcome to the Guardian’s blog covering the Russia-Ukraine war.

The Ukrainian military has said that it shot down 20 drones out of 31 launched by Russia overnight. Of the 31 drones, 11 “imitator-drones” did not reach their targets due to active engagement from the Ukrainian military, it added.

Here are yesterday’s key developments, after Russia launched a Christmas Day attack against some of Ukraine’s cities.

Joe Biden has asked the US defence department to continue its surge of weapons deliveries to Ukraine, describing Russia’s Christmas Day attack against some of Ukraine’s cities and its energy infrastructure as “outrageous”.
Christmas morning in Ukraine was overshadowed by a massive Russian aerial attack using cruise missiles to target energy infrastructure across the country, which Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned as “inhuman”.
The attack left half a million people in Kharkiv region without heating, in temperatures just a few degrees Celsius above zero, while there were blackouts in the capital, Kyiv, and elsewhere.
Ukraine’s air defences downed 59 of 78 Russian missiles and 54 of 102 drones launched overnight and on Wednesday morning, the Ukrainian military said.
British prime minister Keir Starmer has also condemned the Russian attack launched on Ukraine’s energy grid, which killed one person.
Nato member Romania said it had not detected any Russian missile passing through its airspace to target Ukraine, as claimed by Kyiv.
Russia’s Federal Security Service claimed on Thursday that it had foiled several plots by Ukrainian intelligence services to kill high-ranking Russian military officers and their families in Moscow. It claimed four Russian citizens allegedly involved in the plots had been detained. Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service has claimed responsibility for the killing of Igor Kirillov, chief of Russia’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection troops, who died after a bomb attached to an electric scooter exploded outsided his apartment building on 17 December.
A Russian cargo ship that sank on Tuesday in the Mediterranean Sea was the target of an “act of terrorism”, according to the vessel’s owner. The Ursa Major sank while it was sailing through international waters between Spain and Algeria, leaving two crew members missing. The Ukrainian navy spokesperson Dmytro Pletenchuk said Russia faced “systemic problems” in maintaining its fleet but gave no indication that Kyiv was involved in the incident.
Falling debris from a Ukrainian drone that was shot down caused an explosion and a fatal fire in a shopping centre in the city of Vladikavkaz in Russia’s North Ossetia region, the local governor said on Wednesday. One woman was reported to have been killed inside the shopping centre.
Russia’s foreign ministry said Australia had been in contact about the possible capture by the Russian army of an Australian citizen fighting with Ukrainian forces. Oscar Jenkins was reportedly captured by Russian soldiers while fighting alongside Ukrainian forces in the Donbas region.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a call with the Japanese prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, where he thanked Japan’s government for a decision to transfer an additional $3bn secured from frozen Russian assets. The Ukrainian leader also thanked Japan for the total $12bn in humanitarian and financial aid provided to Ukraine, according to a readout of the Wednesday call.

We’ll be keeping you updated with all the most important happenings throughout the rest of the day.

Key events

Russia thinks a weak ceasefire to freeze the war in Ukraine would be futile and counterproductive, and instead would rather a legally binding deal for a lasting peace that would ensure the security of both Russia and its neighbours, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said.

He said he suspected a weak truce would be used by the west to re-arm Ukraine, adding:

A truce is a path to nowhere.

We need final legal agreements that will fix all the conditions for ensuring the security of the Russian Federation and, of course, the legitimate security interests of our neighbours.

He added that Moscow wanted the legal documents drafted in such a way to ensure “the impossibility of violating these agreements.”

He also said that Ukraine repeatedly hits civilian targets in Russia with Western missiles and drones and Moscow will respond. Russia targets only military facilities and infrastructure and “it’s not in our rules to strike civilian targets,” he added.

Separately, Lavrov said that the new ruler of Syria had called relations with Russia long standing and strategic and that Moscow shared this assessment.

Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said on Monday that Russia was in contact with Syria’s new administration at both a diplomatic and military level.

Peskov added that the investigation into the cause of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash is underway and it is wrong to speculate before it gives its conclusions.

An Embraer EMBR3.SA passenger jet crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan on Wednesday, killing 38 people, after diverting from an area of Russia that Moscow has recently defended against Ukrainian drone attacks.