Defence ministry says drone was shot down on approach to Engels airbase but falling debris killed three

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

Three Russian servicemen have died after a Ukrainian drone attack on a crucial airbase deep inside Russian territory, Moscow has said.

According to the defence ministry, a Ukrainian drone was shot down on the approach to Engels base early on Monday morning but falling debris killed three service personnel.

Ten dead and more than 50 injured in Russian strikes on Kherson; ‘We will endure this winter,’ Volodymyr Zelenskiy says in Christmas eve message

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At least ten people were killed and an estimated 58 wounded on Saturday in Russian shelling on the recently recaptured Ukrainian city of Kherson. The region was targeted by 74 Russian strikes. 66 cars caught fire in a residential area of the city due to the shelling, the emergency services said.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the attacks on Kherson “terror … killing for the sake of intimidation and pleasure”. He said: “it is the real life of Ukraine … The world must see and understand what absolute evil we are fighting against.”

Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said the attack in Kherson is more evidence that Ukraine needs to be supplied with more defence systems and called for more weapons and ammunition.

In a message on Saturday, Zelenskiy said Ukrainians will create their own miracle this Christmas by showing they remain unbowed despite Russian attacks that have plunged millions into darkness. The president made his remarks in a video address to Ukrainians who celebrate Christmas in December. Most Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians and mark the occasion in early January.

Reuters reporters in the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol have confirmed that authorities are demolishing and clearing what is left of the smashed rear portion of the cities theatre, where hundreds of Ukrainians were killed in Russian airstrikes after a protracted siege earlier this year.

Ukraine has announced it has killed another 480 Russian troops, according to its latest casualty figures.

A Ukrainian official has called for Iranian drone and missile factories to be destroyed because of their use by Russia in the war. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Iran “blatantly humiliates the institution of international sanctions”.

The Netherlands has pledged €2.5bn ($2.7bn) to help Ukraine in 2023, with most of the money earmarked for military aid.

The rock band Pink Floyd has raised $600,000 for Ukraine with the song Hey Hey Rise Up.

Eight people confirmed dead and more than 50 injured as Russian shelling hits city of Kherson

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the shelling on Kherson that has killed five and injured 20 others is “terrorism”.

Posting photographs of the aftermath of the attacks, including casualties lying on the street, he said: “The terrorist country continues bringing the Russian world in the form of shelling of the civilian population. Kherson. In the morning, on Saturday, on the eve of Christmas, in the central part of the city.

Putin orders defence chiefs to quickly get military all it needs; Russian forces accused of cover-up in demolishing Mariupol theatre after deadly airstrike

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British ministry of defence says Russian soldiers also troubled by lack of equipment and uncertainty over war’s objectives

• What we know on day 298 of the invasion

The time is approaching for a negotiated peace in Ukraine to reduce the risk of another devastating world war, but dreams of breaking up Russia could unleash nuclear chaos, the veteran US diplomat Henry Kissinger said.

Kissinger, an architect of the cold war policy of detente towards the Soviet Union as secretary of state under Republican presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, has met Vladimir Putin multiple times since he first became president in 2000.

Russian barracks hit in strategically important city and German chancellor Olaf Scholz says Vladimir Putin is determined to conquer parts of Ukraine

A neo-Nazi paramilitary group linked to the Kremlin has asked its members to submit intelligence on border and military activity in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, raising concerns over whether far-right Russian groups are planning an attack on Nato countries.

The official Telegram channel for “Task Force Rusich” – currently fighting in Ukraine on behalf of the Kremlin and linked to the notorious Wagner Group – last week requested members to forward details relating to border posts and military movements in the three Baltic states, which were formerly part of the Soviet Union.

I’m not really seeing anything coming from the Russian side that gives me confidence that Vladimir Putin is entering these talks in good faith. The wider rhetoric is still very confrontational.

Any negotiations need to be real, they need to be meaningful, they can’t just be a fig leaf for Russian rearmament and further recruitment of soldiers.”

Ukraine’s president says Russian shelling has ‘actually destroyed’ the city

Russian forces have “destroyed” the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, while Ukraine’s military reported missile, rocket and airstrikes in multiple parts of the country.

The latest battles of Russia’s nine-and-a-half-month war in Ukraine have centred on four provinces that Russian president Vladimir Putin illegally claimed to have annexed in late September, the Associated Press reported.