We’ll only get better at shooting you down, Zelenskiy warns Russian pilots; Adviivka facing ‘third wave’ of attacks

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A huge explosion and fireball engulfed part of the Crimean port of Feodosia early on Tuesday morning. Ukraine’s air force commander claimed responsibility on Telegram after videos circulated online of the blast in the Russian-held port. Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk said the Russian landing ship Novocherkassk was hit: “The fleet in Russia is getting smaller and smaller!” An initial fire was followed by a massive secondary explosion.

Ukraine’s cabinet of ministers has submitted to parliament a draft law lowering the age of those who can be mobilised for combat duty to 25 from 27. Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine’s president, said a week ago that the military had proposed mobilising up to half a million more Ukrainians but it was a “highly sensitive” issue that the military and government would have to discuss.

Russian troops have probably begun a third wave of attacks trying to take Avdiivka, Vitalii Barabash, head of the Avdiivka city military administration, has told Ukrainian TV.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned Russian pilots that Ukraine’s air defence will “only get stronger” after Ukraine said it shot down five Russian jet fighters in the days before Christmas. “In just one evening yesterday, our warriors shot down almost 30 Shahed drones, a few missiles, and two military aircraft. Five in a week. I am grateful to everyone who ensured such a powerful result.”

Ukrainians for the first time observed Christmas on 25 December as a public holiday rather than the later date followed in Russia. The change is a direct consequence of Russia’s invasion. Oksana Poviakel, director of a Ukrainian cultural museum in Kyiv, said: “We are separating ourselves from the neighbour who is currently trying to destroy our state, who is killing our people, destroying our homes, and burning our land.”

The ruler of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, said Russia had completed its shipments of nuclear weapons to his country, a move that has raised strong concerns in neighbouring Poland and elsewhere in the region.

Russia’s forces have gained full control of Maryinka, a town in eastern Ukraine, news agencies have cited the Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, as saying.

Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has been located at a penal colony in the Arctic Yamal-Nenets region of northern Russia, his spokesperson Kira Yarmysh has confirmed.

The members of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union have signed a free trade agreement with Iran, Russian news agency Tass has reported.

‘All Ukrainians are together,’ president says after government changed date of Orthodox Christmas in snub to Russia

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Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny is in a penal colony in the Arctic Yamal-Nenets region of northern Russia, his spokesperson Kira Yarmysh has confirmed.

Navalny’s lawyer managed to see him on Monday, Yarmysh was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Five killed in Russian attacks on Kherson region; Ukrainian Orthodox Christians prepare to mark Christmas on 25 December for first time

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Russian attacks on southern Ukraine’s Kherson region killed five civilians on Sunday, Ukrainian officials said. Regional police said three people died in shelling of an apartment building and a private home in Kherson city. A woman died in a drone attack in a small town south of Kherson and a second woman was killed when a town farther north came under heavy fire.

Ukrainian shelling killed one woman and wounded six civilians in the town of Horlivka, an area of Ukraine’s Donetsk region under Russian control, a Russian-installed official said. A shopping centre and several other buildings were destroyed, the mayor of Horlivka, Ivan Prikhodko, said on Telegram.

Polish farmers have ended their blockade of one of the border crossings between Ukraine and Poland and the movement of lorries has been fully restored, the Ukrainian border service has said. Drivers have been blocking several crossings with Ukraine since 6 November, demanding that the EU reinstate a system under which Ukrainian companies need permits to operate in the bloc, and the same for European truckers seeking to enter Ukraine.

Ukrainian Orthodox Christians attended services on Sunday as the country for the first time celebrated Christmas on 25 December, after the government changed the date from 7 January, when most Orthodox believers celebrate, as a snub to Russia. “All Ukrainians are together,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a Christmas message released Sunday evening. “We all celebrate Christmas together. On the same date, as one big family, as one nation, as one united country.”

Russian and Ukrainian military officials both reported downing enemy aircraft on Sunday in different areas of the 1,000-km-long (621-mile) front. The commander of Ukraine’s air force, Mykola Oleshchuk, said Ukrainian anti-aircraft units had struck a Russian Su-34 fighter bomber near the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov in southern Ukraine. Oleshchuk, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said the aircraft had not returned to its base, but gave no further details.

Russia’s defence ministry said earlier that its air defence systems had shot down four Ukrainian military aircraft over the past 24 hours – just two days after Zelenskiy said Kyiv had downed three Russian aircraft. In its daily dispatch, the Russian defence ministry said its air defence shot down three Su-27 fighter aircraft and one Su-24 tactical bomber in the Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions of southeastern Ukraine. The dispatch provided no further details.

Hundreds of supporters of Igor Girkin, a jailed former commander of Russian-backed fighters in Ukraine, rallied in Moscow on Sunday to back his bid to stand for president. Better known by his alias Igor Strelkov, Girkin was a key leader of separatist fighters in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine in 2014. The nationalist has strongly criticised Russia’s military strategy in Ukraine for being “too kind”. He was detained in July on an extremism charge after a series of posts critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is expected to easily win re-election.

Russia launched 15 drones at Ukraine, mostly in the south of the country, overnight with air defences destroying 14 of them, Ukrainian military said on Sunday. “As a result of air combat, Ukraine’s air force and defence forces destroyed 14 shaheds in Mykolaiv, Kirovohrad, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro and Khmelnytskyi regions,” the Ukrainian air force said on the Telegram messaging app.