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The latest developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine. All times EST.
10:01 p.m.: Ukraine will fight the Russian invasion until victorious, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his New Year’s address Saturday, paying tribute to all those taking part in the war effort, Agence France-Presse reported.
"We fight and will continue to fight. For the sake of the main word: 'victory,'" he said, as his country saw the old year out.
Hours after Ukraine suffered another wave of Russian missile attacks, Zelenskyy remained defiant in an emotional speech in which he heaped praise on all of the people involved in the war in Ukraine.
"I want to say to all of you: Ukrainians, you are incredible! See what we have done and what we are doing!
"How our soldiers have been smashing this 'second army of the world' since the first days.
"How our people stopped their equipment and infantry columns ...
"There are no small matters in a great war," Zelenskyy added.
"There are no unnecessary ones. Each of us is a fighter. Each of us is a front. Each of us is the basis of the defense.
"We fight as one team –- the whole country, all our regions. I admire you all. I want to thank every invincible region of Ukraine."
9:05 p.m.: People in the center of Moscow prepared late Saturday to mark a somewhat muted New Year's Eve without the usual fireworks and celebrations on Red Square, with many saying they wanted peace in 2023, Reuters reported.
Authorities closed off the famous cobbled square in the heart of Moscow, citing restrictions to fight COVID-19, and increased the number of police in nearby side streets.
New Year's Day is Russia's main seasonal holiday, while Orthodox believers also celebrate Christmas on January 7.
"We hope that there will be a predictable year, we hope there will be world peace, as strange as it may sound in such a situation," said Moscow resident Alexander Tsvetov.
"We hope that people will be happy, on each side of this conflict, and there will be peace," he continued, in a reference to what President Vladimir Putin calls the 10-month "special military operation" in Ukraine.
Deprived of the chance to gather on Red Square and watch a traditional New Year's Eve firework display, people walked along the wet streets, looking at Christmas markets, brightly lit storefront displays and trees set up with baubles.
The canceled fireworks display, said 68-year-old Yelena Popova, was an act of solidarity with what was happening in Ukraine.
"One should not pretend that nothing is happening - our people are dying there. A holiday is being celebrated, but there must be limits," she said.
8:10 p.m.:
7:21 p.m.: France will stand by Ukraine until its victory, French President Emmanuel Macron said in a New Year's Eve speech, Reuters reported.
"In the year that is starting, we will stand by you without fail," he said.
In his speech, he also urged the French to continue with energy savings, saying this was one way for the country to avoid electricity cuts, as the war drags on in Ukraine.
6:42 p.m.:
5:45 p.m.: Thirty percent of Kyiv is without power, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
“The municipal 'life support system' of the capital is operating normally. Currently, 30% of consumers are without electricity. Due to emergency shutdowns,” Klitschko said in a Telegram post Saturday, according to CNN.
Kyiv residents have water and heat, he added.
Klitschko also said there are restrictions on the open section of a metro line in the city to check “for the presence of remnants of missile debris.”
"Specialists are on the way to that area,” he said. “We will inform you further about the resumption of traffic on the red line.”
3:10 p.m.: As the frontline Donbas city of Bakhmut has turned into the site of some of the fiercest fighting under way in Ukraine, tensions between the notorious Russian mercenary company, the Wagner Group, and the Russian military have spilled out into the open.
Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin took aim at Russia’s military leadership and the stalling war effort in Ukraine days after an expletive-filled video surfaced of Wagner mercenaries near Bakhmut cursing out Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s chief of the General Staff of the armed forces and complaining about a lack of ammunition in their battles against Ukrainian forces, RFE/RL reports.
Several Russian media outlets and pro-war bloggers initially suggested that the video was fake, featuring alleged “Ukrainian nationalists” dressed up as fighters trying to undermine Russian resolve, but Prigozhin debunked that theory during a December 27 message shared on the Telegram channel of Concord Management’s press service, which is owned by the Russian oligarch.
“There are no [Ukrainian] nationalists in that notorious video,” Prigozhin said in the audio message, before confirming that the men in the video are Wagner mercenaries taking a shot at Russia’s military brass.
“The guys asked me to pass along that, when you’re sitting in a warm office, it’s hard to hear about the problems on the front line, but when you’re dragging the dead bodies of your friends every day and seeing them for the last time — then supplies are very much needed,” he said. “As for the problems that are unfortunately surfacing at every step…we will solve them and force them to be solved.”
2:05 p.m.: The BBC’s Russia Editor Steve Rosenberg takes to the streets of Moscow to see how the Russian invasion on Ukraine has affected Russian society.
1:40 p.m.: Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said Saturday, that the “excellent work” of Ukraine’s air defense prevented “serious damage” to the energy infrastructure during Russia’s mass missile strike on New Year’s Eve, The Kyiv Independent reported.
“The enemy tries to break us in every way,” Halushchenko said in a Facebook post. “However, despite the aggressor's plans, Ukrainian energy workers will do everything possible and impossible to ensure that Ukrainians have electricity on New Year's Eve.”
With Russia’s ongoing attacks on Ukraine’s power grid, Ukraine has struggled to cope with the severe energy deficit.
Kyiv and many other urban areas were forced to roll out emergency power outages, as well as scheduled blackouts, to preserve electricity during the difficult winter months. “These are the most difficult Christmas and New Year holidays in the entire history of independent Ukraine," Halushchenko said.
1:15 p.m.: Russia and Ukraine said on Saturday they had freed more than 200 captured soldiers, the latest prisoner exchange between the two sides in the 10-month-old war.
Russia's Defense Ministry said 82 Russian soldiers had been released by Ukraine, while the Ukrainian president's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said Russia had handed over 140 Ukrainian service personnel.
Some of the 132 Ukrainian men and eight women who were freed had been wounded or had fought to defend the Black Sea port city of Mariupol and on Snake Island, Yermak said in a message on his Telegram page.
The two sides have exchanged hundreds of captured soldiers in several rounds of prisoner exchanges in recent months, despite a complete breakdown in broader diplomatic talks between Moscow and Kyiv, Reuters reported.
12:50 p.m.: In a tweet the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reacted to the injury of a Japanese journalist from the Russian attacks in Kyiv, Saturday.
12:30 p.m.: Russia fired more than 20 cruise missiles at targets in Ukraine on Saturday, killing at least one person in Kyiv.
This was the second barrage of major Russian missile attacks in three days. It badly damaged a Kyiv hotel and a residential building. Energy Minister German Galushchenko on Facebook said the strikes had not caused serious damage to the national power system.
Calling Russia a “terrorist state,” in a video address Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, “The terrorist state will not be forgiven. And those who give orders for such strikes, and those who carry them out, will not receive a pardon. To put it mildly.”
Zelenskyy said “At Easter, they made such attacks, at Christmas, at New Year... They call themselves Christians, they are very proud of their Orthodoxy. But they are following the devil. They support him and are together with him.”
11:40 a.m.: A bust of Russian poet Aleksandr Pushkin has been removed from a park in Kramatorsk, the mayor of the city in Ukraine’s Donetsk region said on December 30. Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko published a photo of the bust of Pushkin being taken down by a backhoe. "Here is a place for our heroes, our culture and history. This is not a fight against monuments, this is Ukraine's fight for life," Honcharenko said on Facebook.
Honcharenko said the bust will be temporarily stored in a city facility and its fate will be decided later.
Many Ukrainian cities are waging a cultural “derussification” as they call it by demolishing Russian monuments and renaming street names associated with Russia, RFE/RL reported.
10:35 a.m.: On the last day of the year marked by the brutal war, many Ukrainians returned to the capital to spend New Year’s Eve with their loved ones, despite the ongoing Russian attacks.
Multiple explosions were heard across the country Saturday, and air defenses were activated in several regions. One of the explosions in Kyiv rocked a residential area, among the multi-story buildings of Solomianskyi district. One person was killed and three wounded, said the capital’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko.
As Russian attacks continue to target power supplies leaving millions without power, no big celebrations are expected, and a curfew will be in place as the clock rings in the new year. But for most Ukrainians being together with their families is a luxury, The Associated Press reported.
10:10 a.m.: Russian President Vladimir Putin devoted his annual New Year's address on Saturday to rallying the Russian people behind his troops fighting in Ukraine and pledging victory over Ukrainian "neo-Nazis" and a West supposedly intent on "destroying Russia," Reuters reported
For months, the Kremlin presented the conflict as a limited campaign that would not affect most Russians' lives.
But the speech, delivered in front of grim-faced soldiers in combat uniform, put the war squarely center stage, telling families gathered for the year's main celebration that the months ahead would require support and sacrifice from everyone..
The message was being broadcast into millions of homes on state TV just before the clocks struck midnight in each of Russia's 11 time zones, as families tucked into a festive meal and exchanged gifts.
9:05 a.m.: Russia launched a fresh barrage of missiles across Ukraine New Year’s Eve, killing at least one person and wounding at least 19, The Kyiv Independent reported.
Multiple regions were targeted during the coordinated strike as Russian missiles hit civilian areas in the center, south, east, and west of Ukraine.
At least eight massive explosions were heard across Kyiv at around 2 p.m. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that at least one person was killed in the western Solomianskyi district. He warned residents to stay in shelters.
One of the 11 victims wounded during the attack on Kyiv is in “an extremely difficult condition,” according to the mayor. Among the injured is a Japanese journalist.
Hotels, a concert hall, residential buildings and roads were targeted in Kyiv. The missile debris also damaged buildings on the territory of the Temp Stadium in the westernmost Sviatoshynskyi District, according to the President’s Office.
Explosions were also reported in other regions of Ukraine, including the embattled eastern Donetsk Oblast. Kramatorsk Mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko said that a missile strike hit an industrial zone, but there were no casualties so far.
Mykolaiv Oblast Governor Vitaliy Kim said that at least six were wounded in the southern city of Mykolaiv. Three of them were hospitalized, with one of them in critical condition.
"Today, the occupiers are shelling not only the critical (infrastructure)," Kim said in a Telegram post. "In many cities, residential areas, hotels, garages, (and) just roads (came under fire)."
Deputy Head of the President's Office Kyrylo Tymoshenko said that two people were wounded in the western city of Khmelnytskyi due to the missile strike.
In the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, residential buildings were damaged, but information about casualties and destruction is being clarified, Tymoshenko added.
Multiple reports on social media earlier said that the air defense was working in Kyiv, Kherson, Kharkiv, Vinnytsia, and Zhytomyr oblasts.
“The occupiers decided to try to spoil the day for us,” Kim said in a Telegram post.
Russia’s afternoon strike comes three days after it launched a nationwide mass attack on Dec. 29, marking the latest of its months-long campaign to take out Ukraine’s energy system during winter.
8:55 a.m.: Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov warned Russian citizens in a video address Friday, that Russia's leadership is preparing a new wave of mobilization and plans to close the border within a week.
"I know for a fact that you have about one week left before you still have any choice," Reznikov said, speaking in Russian.
"In early January, the Russian authorities will close the borders to men, declare martial law, and begin another wave of mobilization. Borders will also be closed in Belarus," he said.
Reznikov also said that this latest wave of conscription "concerns residents of large Russian cities." So far, Moscow and St. Petersburg have largely been shielded from the Kremlin's mobilization drives, while ethnic minorities in other Russian regions have been found to be disproportionately called up.
In an interview with the BBC Friday, Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine's Intelligence Directorate, said that Russia is planning a new wave of mobilization starting Jan. 5 due to a lack of manpower.
Russia has lost over 100,000 soldiers in its war against Ukraine, according to the latest figures by the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces. Suffering defeats, Russia has also had to rely on the Kremlin-backed private mercenary Wagner Group, who are known to recruit from among Russian prisons, The Kyiv Independent reported.
8:30 a.m.: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Saturday Russia would never give in to the West's attempts to use Ukraine as a tool to destroy Russia, Reuters reported.
In a New Year's video message broadcast on Russian state TV, Putin said Russia was fighting in Ukraine to protect its "motherland" and to secure "true independence" for its people.
In a nine-minute message - the longest New Year's address of his two-decade rule - Putin accused the West of lying to Russia and of provoking Moscow to launch what it calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine.
"For years, Western elites hypocritically assured us of their peaceful intentions," he said in a speech filmed in front of Russian service personnel at the headquarters of Russia's southern military district.
"In fact, in every possible way they were encouraging neo-Nazis who conducted open terrorism against civilians in the Donbas," Putin said in an uncharacteristically combative New Year's speech, usually dedicated to well wishes for the year ahead.
Earlier on Saturday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had vowed victory in Ukraine was "inevitable” as he praised the heroism of Russian soldiers fighting on the frontlines and those who had died during the 10-month war.
"The West lied about peace," Putin said. "It was preparing for aggression ... and now they are cynically using Ukraine and its people to weaken and split Russia.
"We have never allowed this and will never allow anybody to do this to us," Russian state-run news agencies quoted Putin as saying in the clip, which was broadcast at midnight in Russia's far east.
Kyiv and the West reject Moscow's claims calling the Russian invasion on Ukraine, a baseless war of aggression in a bid to seize territory and topple Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Reuters reported.
8 a.m.:
5:20 a.m.: The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank, said in its latest Ukraine assessment that Russian forces continued to conduct counterattacks along the Svatove-Kreminna line. They also continued offensive operations in the Avdiivka area as well as in Bakhmut, where the pace of Russian offensive operations may have slowed compared to previous days.
Ukrainian forces, meanwhile, struck Russian concentration areas in Luhansk Oblast, the assessment said.
4:29 a.m.: Chancellor Olaf Scholz is celebrating Germany's progress in freeing itself from reliance on Russian gas, urging people to keep saving energy in the new year and vowing to keep up help for Ukraine, The Associated Press reported.
Scholz's televised new year message, the text of which was released by his office before its broadcast Saturday, focused squarely on the effects of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and his government's efforts to cushion the impact for people in Germany.
But, he added, "the history of 2022 is not purely one of war, suffering and worry." Ukrainians are defending their homeland, "thanks in part to our help — and we will continue to support Ukraine," he said. Germany has given military equipment and financial aid.
The European Union and NATO, Scholz added, are more united than they have been for a long time, "and we in Germany did not bow down when Russia turned off the gas this summer — because we refuse to be blackmailed."
Russia, which used to account for more than half of the country's natural gas supply, hasn't delivered any gas to Germany since the end of August.
3:13 a.m.: Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, warning Russians of the latest wave of conscription, said this "concerns residents of large Russian cities."
Moscow and St. Petersburg have largely been shielded from the Kremlin's mobilization drives, while ethnic minorities in other Russian regions have been found to be disproportionately called up.
"I know for a fact that you have about one week left before you still have any choice. In early January, the Russian authorities will close the borders to men, declare martial law, and begin another wave of mobilization. Borders will also be closed in Belarus," Reznikov said, speaking in Russian, The Kyiv Independent reported.
2:15 a.m.: As fighting rages in Ukraine's Donetsk region, Russian forces around the city of Bakhmu are said to be exhausted. Ukrainian troops are relying on their extensive air reconnaissance operations to track enemy movements, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has this report.
On the front line, an elite drone unit known as The Wings of Madyar is providing real-time information to Ukrainian artillery batteries. Current Time's Borys Sachalko spent a day with a drone crew near Bakhmut as they watched Russian troops from above.
1:14 a.m.:
12:02 a.m.: Russian authorities announced Friday that soldiers and state employees deployed in Ukraine will be exempt from income tax, in the latest effort to encourage support of its military operation there, Agency France-Presse.
The new measure concerns all those fighting in the four Ukrainian territories Russia has declared as its own, although it does not completely control them: Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov cited an exemption contained in an anti-corruption law, which the Russian authorities published the details of Thursday evening.
Soldiers, police, members of the security services and other state employees serving in the four regions no longer have to supply information on "their income, their expenditure, their assets," said the decree.
The decree also grants them the right to receive "rewards and gifts" if they are of "a humanitarian character" and received as part of the military operation in Ukraine.
In Russia, soldiers and senior officials close to the country's military-industrial complex are regularly convicted in corruption cases in which large sums of money have been embezzled.
Some information in this report came from Agence France-Presse and The Associated Press.
