Russia-Ukraine war updates: Darkness in Ukraine after latest Russian attack

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Read our explainer on why Russia is escalating attacks on Ukraine’s Odesa, here.

Watch here for more on the killing of a top Russian general.

And you can find all the latest on the Russia-Ukraine war here.

We will soon be closing this live page. Here’s a look at the day’s main events:

• At least three people, including a four-year-old child, have been killed, and dozens more were wounded, in a wave of Russian attacks on Ukraine.
• Moscow’s military assault also targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure, prompting emergency power outages in several parts of the war-torn country.
• The director of Ukraine’s Chornobyl nuclear power station has warned that a Russian strike could collapse the internal radiation shelter at the defunct facility.
• Ukraine’s General Staff says its forces have withdrawn from the Donetsk region’s Siversk area after heavy fighting, noting that Moscow had a “significant advantage” there.
• Russia says it has intercepted dozens of Ukrainian drones in a wave of attacks on several regions.

The Chernihiv City Council has reported that a drone hit a nine-storey building in Chernihiv, in northern Ukraine.

No injuries have been reported so far. The council said that nearby vehicles were also damaged, and emergency services were on site to assess the extent of the damage.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry has hailed F-16 fighter pilots for shooting down the Russian projectiles.

“Overall, on the night of December 23, Russia launched 673 aerial targets against Ukraine, including drones and missiles,” the ministry said on X.

“621 of them were destroyed or suppressed by Ukrainian air defence forces.”

A pro-Russian group of hackers has claimed an attack that disrupted the French postal service, La Poste, during the busy Christmas week.

The group, Noname057(16), has previously targeted Ukrainian media websites, as well as government and corporate websites in countries including Poland, Sweden and Germany.

Noname057(16) emerged in 2022, the year that Russia launched its all-out invasion of Ukraine. Experts say that its activities appear to be designed to support pro-Russian information warfare.

In the quiet village of Kozubivka in Ukraine’s Poltava region, Nelia and her husband, Oleksandr, open their home to people displaced from Kharkiv, where bombing and shelling have forced thousands to flee.

But rebuilding a life in rural Ukraine is not easy.

See more in the documentary below:

Russia has revoked journalist Roman Anin’s citizenship for allegedly discrediting the armed forces, the state news agency TASS has reported.

The Interior Ministry said that immigration officials had decided to take this step because of crimes committed by Anin, the editor-in-chief of the internet news portal Vazhnye Istorii.

Russian authorities classified Vazhnye Istorii as a foreign agent in 2021. The portal was banned shortly after the start of the war against Ukraine in 2022, and is now operating from Latvia.

A Moscow court in March sentenced Anin and another journalist from the media outlet in absentia to 8.5 years’ in prison each for “knowingly spreading false information about the Russian armed forces”.

Ukraine is rapidly deploying inexpensive interceptor drones to counter Russia’s sophisticated aerial attacks on its urban centres and energy infrastructure.

These homegrown systems intercept high-altitude suicide drones at a fraction of conventional missile costs, revolutionising modern air defence strategies.

Field technicians swiftly assemble equipment, attaching antennas and sensors to light stands, and unpacking monitors and controls from protective cases, as they prepare these game-changing weapons for immediate deployment.

Check out our full photo gallery here.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy has said that work to restore energy facilities following Russia’s latest strikes is ongoing in the Rivne, Ternopil, and Odesa regions.

The ministry noted that border regions were the hardest hit. “The situation is most severe there, as restoring electricity is complicated by continuous fighting,” it said on Telegram.

The ministry added that restrictions on power consumption continued to be applied across all regions.

The Ukrainian president says Kyiv believes that Washington “wants to reach a final agreement” and will offer its “full cooperation” to that goal.

“The key is that Russia must not sabotage this diplomacy and must take ending the war 100% seriously,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.

“If it doesn’t, then additional pressure on Russia must follow. The world has all the instruments needed to make that pressure effective and ensure that peace is achieved.”

We sense that America wants to reach a final agreement and from our side there is full cooperation. Ukraine has never been, and will never be, an obstacle to peace. pic.twitter.com/CTBPByxIcB

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) December 23, 2025

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has held talks with his French counterpart, Jean-Noel Barrot, discussing a range of issues, including the Russia-Ukraine war.

The pair “agreed to continue cooperation on diplomatic efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war”, the US State Department said in a readout of the talks.

France has been a vocal supporter of Ukraine amid Washington’s continuing efforts to get both Kyiv and Moscow to agree to a plan to end the conflict.

An earlier Trump proposal that appeared to favour Russia and included several Russian demands had drawn concerns in Europe with leaders stressing that Ukraine’s and Europe’s security concerns must be addressed.

Russian forces have launched drones and fired artillery on the Nikopol and Kryvyi Rih districts of Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration says.

Vladyslav Haivanenko, the administration’s acting head, said on Telegram that an 86-year-old woman was injured in the attacks.

Pope Leo has said Russia’s apparent refusal to agree to a ceasefire on December 25 is “among the things that cause me much sadness”.

“I will make an appeal one ‌more time to people of goodwill to respect at least Christmas ‌Day as a day of ‌peace,” Leo told reporters outside his residence in Castel Gandolfo, Italy.

“Maybe they will listen to us, and there ‌will be at least 24 hours, a day of peace, across the world.”

The Atlantic Council’s Melinda Haring explains why the Russia-Ukraine war is likely to drag on, even as US and Russian negotiators meet for peace talks.

Check it out below:

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul warns that Russia could be capable of launching a large-scale attack on NATO territory.

“I do not want to speculate on how great the danger is that Russian President Vladimir Putin would use a ceasefire to put himself in a position to attack NATO territory even more quickly. I can only advise us to prepare ourselves for the possibility that this could happen,” he told the German Press Agency.

Wadephul said if Russia were to achieve lasting military success in Ukraine, it would “pose a serious threat to NATO” and is reason alone for European leaders to continue to support Kyiv.

“The more stable the peace situation in Ukraine is, the sooner Ukraine will be able to protect its own interests and the better it will be for Europe as a whole,” he said.

Wadephul also called for stepped-up efforts when it comes to German and NATO military capabilities in light of a likely Russian attack.

Ukrainian forces have said they are blocking the advance of Russian troops in the central part of Pokrovsk, in the Donetsk region.

The eastern section of the Operation Task Force reported fighting in the Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad area.

Ukrainian forces “continue to control the northern part of Pokrovsk”, they said in a statement, adding, in the town centre, “our soldiers are blocking the enemy’s advance”.

Warsaw says Polish and allied aircraft have been deployed to ensure the safety of Polish airspace after Russia launched air strikes on western Ukraine near the border with the NATO country.

“Fighter jets were scrambled, and ground-based air-defence and radar reconnaissance systems were put on heightened readiness,” the operational command of the Polish armed forces said in a post on X.

Ukraine’s national gas company, ⁠Naftogaz, says Russian strikes that hit production facilities belonging to its extraction subsidiary Ukrnafta have caused “serious damage” and the shutdown of some facilities.

It gave no details on where the strikes occurred but said crews were repairing the damage. No casualties were reported.

Have you been on a plane during severe turbulence, fearing that the shaking aircraft is about to fall apart and tumble down? Brief moments of weightlessness stop your breath; perhaps you whisper prayers and remember everyone you love.

That’s the feeling you get during a Russian air raid in Kyiv, Ukraine, and there have been more than 1,800 of them since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022.

These days, they are bigger, scarier and longer than ever, because each one involves hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles.

Read more of this reporter’s story here.

A Russian strike in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region has killed one person, the head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration says.

Oleh Syniehubov said the strike targeted a crossing but did not specify the location.