For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine.
The latest developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine. All times EST.
11 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, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports.
In the latest episode, 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.
Several Russian media outlets and pro-war bloggers initially suggested that the video was a fake, featuring alleged “Ukrainian nationalists” dressed up as fighters in an attempt to undermine Russian resolve, but Prigozhin dispelled 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.
10:30 p.m.: Military chaplain serves exhausted troops on Ukraine's frontline: Mark Kupchenenko lives alone in a large, abandoned house in the war-hit Ukrainian town of Bakhmut, apart from the troops he serves. "So as not to get too close," he told Agence France-Presse.
Every day, the 26-year-old military chaplain visits the frontline army positions to try to bring succor to the troops.
Officially, his job is to maintain "the very high morale" of soldiers serving at one of the most dangerous points on Ukraine's eastern front.
The reality he describes is very different.
The soldiers fighting in Bakhmut are subjected to "incredible moral fatigue" as well as mental variety, says Kupchenenko.
In this unending war of attrition, he says, some fighters see themselves reduced to pieces of "meat, good only for sending to their death."
10 p.m.: Russia has continued its rocket and drone onslaught against Ukraine, with New Year's Day blasts killing at least three civilians and wounding dozens of others, while Kyiv said its forces had inflicted "heavy" losses on Russian-backed separatist fighters around the strategic eastern city of Bakhmut, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.
Attacks late on December 31 and early on January 1 were reported in the capital, Kyiv, and other cities, including in the city of Khmelnytskiy, where officials said a 22-year-old woman died from injuries suffered in a Russian rocket attack the day before.
In his New Year's address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy maintained his defiant tone amid the relentless Russian attacks, telling the Ukrainian people that "I want to wish all of us one thing — victory."
9:20 p.m.: #Russian occupation authorities are intensifying law enforcement crackdowns in occupied areas in response to #Ukrainian partisan activities. Russian occupation officials are also creating unbearable living conditions for residents of occupied territories, according to an Institute for the Study of War tweet.
8:30 p.m.:
7:59 p.m.: Ukraine's forces shelled on New Year's Eve the city of Makiivka and other places of the Moscow-controlled parts of the Donetsk region, Russia's officials said, with reports saying that a military quarters were hit, killing many, Reuters reported.
The Moscow-installed administration of the Donetsk region in Ukraine said on Sunday that at least 25 rockets were fired at the region overnight on New Year's Eve.
Russia's TASS state news agency cited local Moscow-installed officials as saying that at least 15 people were injured in Makiivka, a major coal producing center, in a series of shelling with High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) rockets.
Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports.
7:06 p.m.: When more than 2,000 Slavic, East European, and Eurasian studies specialists from around the world gather in Philadelphia later this year for their largest annual conference, Russia's invasion of Ukraine will dominate the discussion -- or loom large over the proceedings, at the very least, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reports.
In Ukraine, Moscow's unprovoked war has killed tens of thousands of people and laid cities and towns to waste. At universities across the West, it has thrust Russia's history of imperialism and colonialism to the forefront of Slavic and Eurasian academic discussion — from history and political science to art and literature.
The war is forcing scholars, departments, and university officials to question how they teach the history of Russia, the former Soviet Union, and the region, what textbooks and sources they use, whom they hire, which archives they mine for information, and even what departments should be named.
6:15 p.m.:
5:40 p.m.: The Kyiv region was under threat of drone attacks late on Sunday, Kyiv governor Oleksiy Kuleba said, as air raid sirens blared across the capital and eastern Ukraine.
"Air raid alert has been announced in the region," Oleksiy Kuleba, said on the Telegram messaging app. "There is a threat of a Shahed (Iranian-made drones) attack."
The emergency services said air raid alerts were announced for the city of Kyiv, and for the eastern part of Ukraine, Reuters reported.
5:25 p.m.: Andriy Nebytov, chief of Kyiv's police, posted a photo showing what was described as a piece of drone used in an attack on the capital, with a hand-written note on it in Russian saying "Happy New Year," The Kyiv Independent reported.
"This wreckage is not at the front [line], where fierce battles are taking place; this is here, on a sports ground, where children play," Nebytov was quoted as saying.
Russia's Defense Ministry said it had targeted production, storage and launch sites of Ukrainian drones with long range missiles on New Year's Eve.
Since October, Russia has launched mass missile and drone attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure, casting cities into darkness and cold as winter sets in. Moscow says the strikes aim to reduce Ukraine's ability to fight; Kyiv says they have no military purpose and are intended to hurt civilians, a war crime, Reuters reported.
4:45 p.m.: A poll by sociological group "Rating" of 1,000 Ukrainians has found that 97% of those surveyed believe Ukraine can fend off Russia's invasion, according to Euromaidan Press.
The poll has remained consistently high since the start of the conflict more than 10 months ago, and appears to reflect Putin’s inability to break the Ukrainians' morale.
As of the end of 2022, over 82% of respondents expressed the belief that things in Ukraine are moving in the right direction; only 7% think that the current direction is wrong. The assessment dominates among age groups in all of Ukraine's regions and has been steadily high since Ukraine started repelling the Russian invasion in late February of 2022.
3:55 p.m.: In his nightly video address on New Year’s Day, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, “Russians are scared.” “Our sense of unity, authenticity, life itself — all this contrasts dramatically with the fear that prevails in Russia,” he said. Russians are right to be afraid because they are losing, said Zelenskyy. “Drones, missiles, anything else won’t help them. Because we are together. And they are together only with fear.”
2:50 p.m.:
2:45 p.m.:
1:55 p.m.: In an interview with the BBC, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said western countries must be prepared to provide long-term support to Ukraine as Russia shows no signs of relenting,
Jens Stoltenberg said that military support would ensure the survival of Ukraine as a sovereign country and force Russia to negotiate an end to the war.
Russia's leader accuses the West of using Ukraine to destroy his country.
Russian missiles and drones have hit Ukraine on New Year's Eve and Day.
Russia's partial mobilization program, last September, showed Moscow had no desire to end the war Stoltenberg said.
"The Ukrainian forces had the momentum for several months, but we also know that Russia has mobilized many more forces, many of them are now training," he said.
"All that indicates that they are prepared to continue the war and also try to potentially launch a new offensive," he added.
12:45 p.m.: Russian President Vladimir Putin should go on trial in Ukraine this year for war crimes committed there, says Sir Geoffrey Nice the lawyer, who led the prosecution of former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.
Sir Geoffrey Nice told the BBC the Russian president was a "guilty man" for attacks on civilian targets during the war. He called Moscow's actions during the invasion as "crimes against humanity" — as civilian targets were being attacked.
Russian forces have been accused by the international community of thousands of abuses since their full-scale invasion on Ukraine last February.
The prosecutor-general in Kyiv says more than 62,000 war crimes have so far been recorded, including the deaths of more than 450 children. The BBC has not been able to verify these figures.
Russia denies committing war crimes.
11:45 a.m.: Moscow said Sunday its New Year's Eve attacks on Ukraine targeted the pro-Western country's drone production, claiming it had managed to thwart Kyiv's "terror attacks" against Russia, Agence France-Presse reported.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office, said that two people died in Kyiv and the southern region of Kherson and 50 were injured as a result of the Russian strikes.
A 22-year-old woman died from her wounds in the western city of Khmelnytskyi, governor Sergiy Gamaliy said on Sunday.
11 a.m.: In a post on Instagram Saturday, Alexey Navalny, the prominent opposition leader who has been behind bars since early 2021, said that he had received so many seasonal decorations in letters from supporters that he hung them up in his cell at his prison outside Moscow. An hour later, the warden took them down, “but the feeling remained,” he said.
10:30 a.m.: CNN reporter Matthew Chance, covering Russia’s invasion from Ukraine recounts key moments from the war in 2022. He said, “2022 will be remembered as the year that Russia was held onto the abyss by Vladimir Putin and his extraordinary war in Ukraine." Chance added “not only is the country facing a potentially devastating military defeat, but also it is facing economic catastrophe.”
10 a.m.: Ukraine’s General Staff reported Sunday that Russia has lost 106,720 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of its invasion on Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Ukraine’s General Staff also said that Russia had also lost 3,031 tanks, 6,084 armored fighting vehicles, 4,720 vehicles and fuel tanks, 2,021 artillery systems, 423 multiple launch rocket systems, 213 air defense systems, 283 airplanes, 269 helicopters, 1,792 drones, and 16 boats.
9 a.m.: The depletion of the Russian military’s artillery ammunition stocks will likely impact their ability to conduct a high pace of operations near Bakhmut, Donetsk Oblast, and elsewhere in Ukraine, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
8 a.m.: Ukrainians defiantly cheered from their balconies while their air defenses blasted Russian missiles and drones out of the sky in the first hours of 2023, Reuters reported.
Ukraine's Air Force command said it had destroyed 45 Iranian-made Shahed drones overnight — 32 of them on Sunday after midnight and 13 late on Saturday.
That was on top of 31 missile attacks and 12 air strikes across the country in the past 24 hours.
Russia's defense ministry said it had targeted production, storage and launch sites of Ukrainian drones with long range missiles to thwart what it called potential "terrorist attacks."
Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the southern Russian region of Belgorod bordering Ukraine, said overnight shelling of the outskirts of Shebekino town had damaged houses but there were no casualties.
Russia's RIA state news agency reported, citing a local doctor, that six people were killed when a hospital in Russian-occupied Donetsk in eastern Ukraine was attacked on Saturday.
The Russian-installed military headquarters of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic said Ukrainian shelling had killed one man and wounded one woman in the city of Yasynuvata.
There was no immediate response from the Ukrainian government and Reuters was not able to verify the reports independently.
7:45 a.m.: Ukrainians welcomed the New Year amidst sirens blaring and fresh missile strikes targeting civilians' infrastructure across Ukraine, The Associated Press reported.
The death toll from Russia’s massive New Year Eve assault across the country climbed to at least three. In the newly liberated southern city of Kherson, night-time shelling killed one person, wounded another and blew out hundreds of windows in a children’s hospital, according to the deputy presidential chief of staff.
Multiple blasts rocked Kyiv and other areas of Ukraine on Saturday, in a sign that the pace of Russian attacks had picked up to ring in the New Year. Ukrainian officials claimed Russia was now deliberately targeting civilians, seeking to create a climate of fear and erode morale, The Associated Press reported.
5:18 a.m.: The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank, said in its latest Ukraine assessment that Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu demonized Ukraine and announced that Russian victory is inevitable in his New Year’s Eve speech.
Russian forces are likely depleting their stocks of artillery ammunition and will struggle to support their current pace of operations in Ukraine as a result, the assessment said. Russian forces launched another round of missile strikes targeting Ukrainian critical infrastructure but at a reduced intensity compared to previously massive waves of strikes.
4:23 a.m.: A provision in the recently signed defense spending bill mandates that the United States work to ease Ukraine's debt burden at the International Monetary Fund, which could create tensions at the world's lender-of-last-resort over one of its biggest borrowers.
The National Defense Authorization Act requires American representatives to each global development bank, including the IMF, where the U.S. is the largest stakeholder, to use " the voice, vote, and influence " of the U.S. in seeking to assemble a voting bloc of countries that would change each institution's debt service relief policy regarding Ukraine.
Among other things, the U.S. is tasked with forcing the IMF to reexamine and potentially end its surcharge policy on Ukrainian loans. Surcharges are added fees on loans imposed on countries that are heavily indebted to the IMF.
The U.S. interest in changing the policy comes as it has distributed tens of billions for Ukrainian military and humanitarian aid since the Russian invasion began in February. Most recently, Ukraine will receive $44.9 billion in aid from the U.S. as part of a $1.7 trillion government-wide spending bill.
Inevitably, some U.S. grant money is spent servicing IMF loans.
3:31 a.m.: Kyiv City Military Administration confirmed Sunday that air defense had downed 23 aerial targets, The Kyiv Independent reported. The administration didn't specify how many of the downed targets were drones. Missile debris was spotted on the road in the city's Dniprovskyi district. There has been no immediate word on casualties.
2:07 a.m.: About 30 minutes into the new year in Kyiv, air raid sirens sounded.
Blasts were heard in and around Kyiv early on New Year's Day, Reuters reported, cited witnesses, while the emergency services said air raid sirens were wailing across all Ukraine.
With sirens blaring, some people in Kyiv shouted from their balconies, "Glory to Ukraine! Glory to heroes!"
Kyiv city and region officials said on the Telegram messaging app that air defense systems were working. It was not immediately known whether any targets were hit.
12:02 a.m.:
Some information in this report came from Agence France-Presse, The Associated Press and Reuters.
