An emergencies ministry member walks at a local market hit by shelling in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine, December 12, 2022. Picture: Reuters/Alexander Ermochenko
By Nick Starkov and Pavel Polityuk
KYIV - Russian missiles, artillery and drones hammered targets in eastern and southern Ukraine, Ukraine's General Staff said on Monday as global economic powers pledged to beef up Kyiv's military capabilities with a focus on air defences.
The Group of Seven promised to "meet Ukraine's urgent requirements" after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appealed to the virtual G7 meeting for modern tanks, artillery firepower and long-range weapons against Russia's devastating invasion, which began almost 10 months ago.
Zelenskiy also urged the G7 to help Ukraine obtain an extra 2 billion cubic metres of natural gas in light of dire energy shortages as millions languish without power in subzero cold after further Russian air strikes on critical infrastructure.
Sergey Kovalenko, the head of YASNO, which provides electricity to Kyiv, said on his Facebook page that the limitation to power consumption in the capital remained significant.
Separately, European Union foreign ministers agreed to put 2 billion euros ($2.1 billion) more into a fund that has been used to pay for military support for Ukraine, after it was largely depleted. More money may be added in the future.
There are no peace talks and no end in sight to the conflict, the biggest in Europe since World War Two, and which Moscow describes as a "special military operation" against security threats posed by its neighbour. Ukraine and its Western allies call it an unprovoked, imperialist land grab.
Russia does not yet see a "constructive" approach from the United States on the Ukraine conflict, RIA news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin as saying on Monday.
AIR DEFENCE
US President Joe Biden told Zelenskiy on Sunday that Washington's priority was to boost Ukraine's air defences, the White House said. Zelenskiy said he had thanked Biden in a phone call for the "unprecedented defence and financial" help the United States has provided.
British defence minister Ben Wallace said on Monday he would be "open minded" about supplying Ukraine with longer-range missiles to target launch sites for Russian drones that have hit infrastructure if Russia carried on targeting civilian areas.
Moscow has denied targeting civilians but the war has displaced millions and killed thousands of civilians.
Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odesa on Monday resumed operations suspended after Russia used Iranian-made drones on Saturday to hit two energy plants. Power is slowly being restored to some 1.5 million people, but the situation remains difficult, national grid operator Ukrenergo said.
HEAVY FIGHTING
The General Staff said on Monday evening that Russian artillery had hammered nearly 20 front-line settlements around the eastern city of Bakhmut, which Moscow seeks to capture but which is now largely in ruins because of incessant bombardment.
Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-installed official in Zaporizhzhia region, shared video on his Telegram channel of what he said was a damaged bridge connecting a suburb to Melitopol, a city Ukraine sees as vital to Russia’s defence of territory it holds in the south, including Crimea.
Reuters could not independently confirm the report. Ivan Fedorov, the exiled mayor of Melitopol, also shared video of what appeared to be the same bridge, taken from the perspective of a vehicle approaching and then reversing away from a section that had buckled in the middle.
Ukraine has said Russian forces are suffering huge losses in brutal dug-in warfare on the eastern front. The regions Donetsk and Luhansk in the east are two of four in Ukraine that Moscow claims to have annexed. The claims have been rejected by most countries as illegal.
A senior US military official said Russia was burning through so much ammunition that it was using 40-year-old rounds with high failure rates.
The fighting is also exacting a serious toll on Ukrainian troops. "There are days when there are many heavily wounded: four or five amputations at once," Oleksii, a 35-year-old army doctor who declined to give his full name, told Reuters at a military hospital in eastern Ukraine.
At least two people were killed and five wounded in Kherson on Monday after what regional governor Yaroslav Yanushevych said was "massive shelling" by Russian forces of the southern city, which was liberated by Ukrainian forces last month.
Reuters could not independently verify the latest battlefield accounts.
Against a backdrop of setbacks for Russian forces since the summer, the Kremlin said on Monday President Vladimir Putin would not hold his annual, marathon televised year-end news conference this month, an event he has used to showcase his command of issues and stamina.
In Washington, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said US officials planned talks this week with Russian counterparts to discuss the case of an American imprisoned in Russia, Paul Whelan.
United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths arrived in Ukraine on Monday to see "the impact of the humanitarian response and new challenges that have arisen as infrastructure damage mounts amid freezing winter temperatures", his office said.
"Unliveable conditions" are likely to send another wave of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees into Europe over the winter, said Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council.
– REUTERS