Ukraine Russia

By Vitalii Hnidyi and Herbert Villarraga KHARKIV/KOSTIANTYNIVKA, Ukraine - Leonid Onyshchenko, a gruff-voiced 63-year-old Ukrainian soldier with a thick moustache, has spent many a Christmas away from his family, but hearing his little grandson Petro's voice over the phone from far away is as hard as ever. Onyshchchenko joined the territorial defence force after Moscow's February invasion, and has volunteered supporting Ukraine's army in the fight against Russian-backed separatists in the country's east since 2014. [IMAGE_GALLERY_1] While he is stationed in the Donetsk region which has seen some of the heaviest battles, his daughter Maryna and her husband Vitalii were celebrating Christmas at home in Kharkiv, Ukraine's second biggest city, frequently under Russian attack. Holding her three-month-old son Yaroslav with one hand, Maryna took a Christmas cake out of oven with the other. Vitalii helped two other sons, Petro and Tais, get dressed before the festive Christmas dinner. In the...

KYIV - Air raid sirens wailed in Kyiv and across all Ukrainian regions on Sunday morning but no new Russian attacks were reported, officials said. The all-clear was later given. Unconfirmed Ukrainian social media reports suggested the sirens may have been triggered after Russian jets took to the skies in Belarus and that the all-clear was sounded after the planes returned to their bases. was unable to verify those reports. Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for Ukraine's air forces, told national television earlier on Sunday that Russian military jets were flying virtually around the clock. "But we have increased readiness - everything that takes off must be under our control," Ihnat said. Russia has carried out a series of missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure since mid-October, knocking out power and causing emergency blackouts in many areas. On Saturday a Russian strike on the southern city of Kherson, recently liberated by Ukrainian forces, killed at least 10 peopl...

- Russian authorities in the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol have begun demolishing most of the city's drama theatre, where Ukrainian authorities say hundreds died in an air bombardment in March. Video posted on both Ukrainian and Russian websites on Friday showed heavy equipment taking down much of the building, while leaving its front facade intact. Ukrainian officials denounced the demolition as a bid to cover up the deaths in the March 16 bombardment and wipe out Ukrainian culture. Russian officials said it was part of plans to rebuild the theatre in a city firmly under their control. [IMAGE_GALLERY_1] "The Mariupol Theatre no longer exists," Ukrainian Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko wrote on Facebook. "The occupiers are removing traces of their crimes and couldn't care less whether this is cultural heritage or whether it belongs to another culture." Russia's Tass news agency quoted the theatre's director, Igor Solonin, as saying that the demolition concerned "only that p...

By Francesca Landini MILAN - Enel and a pool of banks signed a 12 billion euro ($12.74 billion) credit facility to fund margin calls linked to the group's derivative trades, Italy's biggest utility said. The financing is 70% guaranteed by the Italian export credit agency SACE and has a term of about 18 months, Enel said on Friday.As anticipated by , the credit line is part of the Italian government's efforts to shield the country's utilities against volatility on energy markets. After the start of the war in Ukraine, soaring power and gas prices have rocked energy companies across Europe, forcing utilities and traders to secure extra funds from governments and banks to cover margin call requirements. Enel said the facility does not have any impact on its net financial debt, which was nearly 70 billion euros at the end of September. Italy's economy minister, in agreement with the industry minister, will have to issue a specific decree for Enel to be able to tap the credit line and for...

By Andrew Osborn - President Vladimir Putin on Friday told Russia's defence industry chiefs to up their game to ensure that the Russian army quickly got all the weapons, equipment and military hardware it needed to fight in Ukraine. Putin, who has cast Russia's war in Ukraine as part of an historic effort to push back against what he says is excessive Western influence over global affairs, made the comments during a visit to Tula, a centre for arms manufacturing. [IMAGE_GALLERY_1] "The most important key task of our military-industrial complex is to provide our units and frontline forces with everything they need: weapons, equipment, ammunition, and gear in the necessary quantities and of the right quality in the shortest possible timeframes," said Putin. "It's also important to perfect and significantly improve the technical characteristics of weapons and equipment for our fighters based on the combat experience we have gained." Putin said this week that the Russian army had to learn...

OTTAWA - Canada on Friday condemned what it said were North Korean arms deliveries to Russia, saying Pyongyang's transaction with the private military company the Wagner Group "clearly violates international law and United Nations Security Council resolutions." "We will continue to work with international partners to address these developments and respond to further arms deliveries should they take place," Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said in a statement. North Korea's foreign ministry, in a statement, has denied that it has supplied munitions to Russia but did not make any mention of Wagner. The United States on Thursday said North Korea had completed an initial arms delivery to the Wagner Group to help bolster Russian forces in Ukraine, confirming news first reported by .   (Reporting by Steve Scherer in Ottawa; writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Andrew Heavens)...

By Shannon Stapleton and Vladyslav Smilianets DONETSK FRONT LINE, Dec 23 - "Take the chest guy," barked volunteer U.S. nurse Jennifer Mullee as shells exploded close to the Donetsk front line, triaging wounded Ukrainian soldiers before taking time to relay a personal warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Mullee worked as an emergency nurse in a hospital in Los Angeles until May, when she arrived in the eastern region that has been mired in conflict for much of the 10-month war following an appeal from President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. As a member of the Pirogov First Volunteer Mobile Hospital, she's been helping to save Ukrainian lives there ever since. "I miss my (two) daughters, but they understand and believe in the struggle of what's going on here in Ukraine and fully support me and know that I'm doing important work," she told inside the ambulance transporting the now stabilised soldier to hospital. Deployed twice as a nurse and doctor in Afghanistan, Mullee comes from a mili...

BUDAPEST - The government of Hungary decided to raise the capital of state-owned energy company MVM Zrt by 41 billion forint ($108.79 million) to 849.4 billion forints, the company said on Friday in a statement on the stock exchange's website. Hungary is highly dependent on Russian oil and gas imports, and soaring energy prices caused the budget and current account deficit to balloon this year, posing a challenge to Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government. Hungary will likely have to pay 17 to 20 billion euros for its energy bill next year, Orban said on Wednesday, adding that his government would raise the necessary financing in the market. Under a 15-year deal signed last year, before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Hungary receives 4.5 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas per year via Bulgaria and Serbia under a long-term deal with Russia. In order to ease the burden of high energy bills on the current account deficit and the forint currency, MVM reached an agreement with Russia's Gazp...

By Mark Trevelyan LONDON - A St Petersburg politician has asked prosecutors to investigate Russian President Vladimir Putin for using the word "war" to describe the conflict in Ukraine, accusing the Kremlin chief of breaking his own law. Putin has for months described his invasion as a "special military operation". He signed laws in March that prescribe steep fines and jail terms for discrediting or spreading "deliberately false information" about the armed forces, putting people at risk of prosecution if they call the war by its name. But he departed from his usual language on Thursday when he told reporters: "Our goal is not to spin the flywheel of military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war." Nikita Yuferev, an opposition councillor in the city where Putin was born, said he knew his legal challenge would go nowhere, but he had filed it to expose the "mendacity" of the system. "It's important for me to do this to draw attention to the contradiction and the injustice of...

SAO PAULO - Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on Tuesday he has spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin, noting that Putin wished him a good administration and said he hoped that relations between the two countries would be strengthened. "Brazil is back, seeking dialogue with everyone and committed to the search for a world without hunger and with peace," Lula, who will take office from incumbent Jair Bolsonaro on Jan. 1, said in a Twitter post.   (Reporting by Gabriel Araujo; Editing by Steven Grattan)...

LONDON - Britain's finance ministry set out details on Tuesday of a temporary 45% tax which will apply to excess profits made by some electricity generating companies after Jan. 1. "The levy will be applied to a measure of extraordinary revenues, defined as revenues from selling periodic output at an average price above 75 pounds ($91.12) per MWh," the ministry said in a written statement to parliament. "It will apply to revenues from electricity generation in the UK from renewable including biomass, nuclear, and energy from waste sources and will be focused on the largest generators through a generation threshold of 50GWh of annual output ," it added. The benchmark price will be indexed to CPI inflation from April 2024. ($1 = 0.8231 pounds)   (Reporting by David Milliken; editing by William James)...

WASHINGTON - There are conflicting views in Russia on whether or not to launch a counteroffensive in Ukraine, a senior State Department official said on Tuesday, but reiterated that Washington would continue its support of Kyiv regardless of which scenario plays out. "Certainly there are some (within Russia) who I think would want to pursue offensives in Ukraine. There are others who have real questions about the capacity for Russia to actually do that," a senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told reporters. Ukraine's top general, Valery Zaluzhniy, told The Economist last week that Russia was preparing 200,000 fresh troops for a major offensive that could come from the east, south or even from Belarus as early as January, but more likely in spring.   (Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Doina Chiacu)...

- President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered the strengthening of Russia's borders and instructed special services to keep greater control of society and to ensure the safety of people in regions in Ukraine that Moscow claims as its own, news agencies reported. "Work must be intensified through the border services and the Federal Security Service (FSB)," Russia's state-owned RIA news agency cited Putin as saying. "And it (the border) must be reliably covered. Any attempts to violate it must be thwarted quickly and effectively using whatever forces and means we have at our disposal, including mobile action units and special forces." Speaking on Security Services Day, widely celebrated in Russia, Putin instructed the services to increase control of the society and maximise their "use of the operational, technical and personnel potential" to prevent risks coming from abroad and internal traitors. "Maximum composure, concentration of forces is now required from counterintelligence agencie...

MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking at a joint press conference in Minsk with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Monday, said that Russia does not want to "absorb" anyone, and that unspecified "enemies" wanted to stop Russia's integration with Belarus.   (Reporting by )...

By Alexander Tanas CHISINAU - Moldova's spy chief warned on Monday of a "very high" risk of a new Russian offensive towards his country's east next year and said Moscow still aimed to secure a land corridor through Ukraine to the breakaway Moldovan region of Transdniestria. The comments by Alexandru Musteata, head of the Information and Security Service, echo recent messages out of Ukraine where top army generals have warned in recent days of the threat of a major new Russian offensive early next year. "The question is not whether the Russian Federation will undertake a new advance towards Moldova's territory, but when it will do so," Musteata told the TVR-Moldova television channel. He said his agency believed Russia was looking at several scenarios to reach Moldova and that it was possible an offensive would be launched in January-February or later in March-April. The Information and Security Service said in a statement that it expected Russian offensive action would depend on the c...

By Kate Abnett BRUSSELS -European Union nations' energy ministers have agreed a gas price cap, a spokesperson for the Czech Republic said on Twitter on Monday. The deal follows weeks of talks on the emergency measure that has split opinion across the bloc as it seeks to tame the energy crisis. The Czech Republic holds the EU's rotating presidency and chaired the negotiations. According to officials and a document seen by , European Union countries' energy ministers agreed that the cap on gas prices would be triggered when benchmark gas prices spike to 180 euros per megawatt hour. The EU gas price cap would kick in if prices on the front-month Dutch Title Transfer Facility gas hub contract exceed 180 eur/MWh for three days, the document detailling EU ministers' agreement showed. The cap can be triggered from Feb. 15 onwards, and will not apply to over the counter trades initially, the document said. Three EU officials said that Germany - which had been sceptical about the price cap - h...

BRUSSELS - Poland withdrew its objections to a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15% of Thursday, unblocking a whole package of linked agreements that include 18 billion euros in financing for Ukraine in 2023, diplomats said.   (Reporting by Jan Strupczewski)...

MOSCOW - Russia's Trust Bank has sold Moscow-based luxury real estate developer Inteko to another property firm for 38 billion roubles ($600 million), the bank said on Wednesday, the largest deal in Russia's development market since 2015. Under the deal, developer Sminex will buy Inteko's assets in the cities of Moscow and Rostov-on-Don, which include multiple residential complexes with an area of 1.4 million square metres. Inteko was taken over by the central bank in 2017 as part of a bailout of then owner B&N Bank, and since 2018 has been managed by the regulator-run Trust Bank, which tried to sell it on multiple occasions. "The sale price is fully in line with our expectations," Trust Bank President Alexander Sokolov said. "Moreover, despite the high turbulence in the economy and the cautious behaviour of major investors, we closed the deal at a price even higher than we had planned." Inteko was founded in 1991 by Elena Baturina, the wife of late Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. ($1...

By Anthony Deutsch and Anna Voitenko KHERSON, Ukraine - An international team of legal advisers has been working with local prosecutors in Ukraine's recaptured city of Kherson in recent days as they began gathering evidence of alleged sexual crimes by Russian forces as part of a full-scale investigation. The visit by a team from Global Rights Compliance, an international legal practice headquartered in The Hague, has not previously been reported. Their efforts are part of a broader international effort to support overwhelmed Ukrainian authorities as they seek to hold Russians accountable for crimes they allegedly committed during the conflict, now nearly 10 months old. Accusations surfaced soon after Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of rape and other abuses across the country, according to accounts gathered and the U.N. investigative body. Moscow, which says it is conducting a "special military operation" in Ukraine, has denied committing war crimes or targeting civilians, and the Kremlin de...

MOSCOW -Russia launched what it calls a special military operation in Ukraine because its concerns around peace accords between Kyiv and Russian-backed separatists were ignored, Russian news agencies quoted the Kremlin spokesman as saying on Sunday. President Vladimir Putin this week bemoaned the failure to implement the Minsk agreements - ceasefire and constitutional reform deals between Kyiv and Russian-backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine brokered in 2014 and 2015 by Russia, France and Germany, at the outset of the conflict with Ukraine. Both Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of violating the deal. Asked by a journalist whether Russia understood that it was being "deceived" over the Minsk accords, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: "Over time, of course, it became obvious. "And, again, President Putin and our other representatives constantly kept saying this," the TASS news agency quoted Peskov as saying. "But this was all ignored by the other participants of the negotia...