Ukraine’s air force said yesterday Russia attacked it with 72 drones overnight though it downed 33 of them while 34 others disappeared from radar without reaching their targets.

Russia’s gas transit to Europe via Ukraine stopped yesterday, Moscow and Kyiv said, ending a decades-long arrangement and marking the latest casualty of the war between the neighbours.

Russia and Ukraine swapped more than 300 prisoners of war yesterday in an exchange brokered by the United Arab Emirates ahead of New Year’s Eve, officials from both countries said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that “several” wounded North Korean soldiers died after being captured by Ukrainian forces, as he accused Russia of throwing them into battle with “minimal protection”.

Russia attacked Ukraine’s energy system and some cities with cruise and ballistic missiles plus drones yesterday in an “inhuman” Christmas Day assault, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Russian missiles targeted the Ukrainian capital Kyiv at sunrise yesterday, killing at least one person and cutting heating to hundreds of residential buildings in cold temperatures.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday that he was ready to compromise over Ukraine in possible talks with Donald Trump on ending the war and that Russian forces were moving towards achieving their primary goals on the battlefield.

A top Russian general accused by Ukraine of being responsible for the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian troops was assassinated in Moscow by Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service yesterday morning in the most high-profile killing of its kind.

Ukraine said yesterday that North Korean units fighting for Russia sustained losses of at least 30 soldiers killed or wounded around several villages on the front in Russia’s Kursk region over the weekend.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has slammed Russia and its President Vladimir Putin over two aerial attacks that killed at least 12 people.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said yesterday that his country needed security guarantees from Nato and more weapons to defend itself before any talks with Russia.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has urged his Nato counterparts to issue an invitation to Kyiv at a meeting in Brussels next week to join Nato, according to the text of a letter seen by Reuters.

Russia launched more than a hundred drones at Ukraine overnight and early yesterday, killing one person and wounding eight others, officials said.

Russia yesterday unleashed its second big attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure this month, cutting power to more than 1 million people in the west, south, and centre of the country, officials said.

Ukraine yesterday showed journalists fragments of the Russian missile used to strike the city of Dnipro last week, after Moscow said it had tested its new Oreshnik ballistic missile.

The Kremlin said yesterday that a strike on Ukraine using a newly-developed hypersonic ballistic missile was designed to warn the West that Moscow will respond to moves by the US and Britain to let Kyiv strike Russia with their missiles.

Ukraine has lost over 40 percent of the territory in Russia’s Kursk region that it rapidly seized in a surprise incursion in August as Russian forces have mounted waves of counter-assaults, a senior Ukrainian military source said.

Russia launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) during an attack on Ukraine yesterday, Kyiv’s air force said, in the first known use in the war of such a powerful, nuclear-capable weapon with a range of thousands of kilometres.

Russia yesterday accused the US of prolonging the “war in Ukraine” by stepping up weapons deliveries to Kyiv ahead of Donald Trump entering the White House.

Ukraine used US ATACMS missiles to strike Russian territory for the first time yesterday, Moscow said, in an attack regarded by Russia as a major escalation on the war’s 1,000th day.