The war on Ukraine did not pause for Christmas despite Russian President Vladimir Putin saying he was open to negotiations, with his forces launching more than 40 rocket attacks on Christmas Day, Ukraine’s military disclosed on Monday.
Three Russian military personnel were killed in the early hours of Monday by falling wreckage of a Ukrainian drone that was shot down as it was attacking a base in Russia’s Saratov region, Russian news agencies reported, citing the defence ministry.
It was the second attack on the base this month. The base, near the city of Saratov, about 730 km (450 miles) southeast of Moscow and hundreds of kilometres from the front lines in Ukraine, was hit on December 5 in what Russia said was Ukrainian drone attacks on two Russian air bases that day.
However, the reports could not be immediately verified.
Putin, on Sunday, again said he was open to negotiations and blamed Ukraine and its Western allies failing to engage in talks, a stance the United States has previously dismissed as posturing given the relentless Russian attacks.
“We are ready to negotiate with everyone involved about acceptable solutions, but that is up to them – we are not the ones refusing to negotiate, they are,” Putin said in an interview on Rossiya 1 state television.
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An adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Putin needed to return to reality and acknowledge it was Russia that did not want talks.
“Russia single-handedly attacked Ukraine and is killing citizens. Russia doesn’t want negotiations, but tries to avoid responsibility,” the adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said on Twitter.
Putin’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine – which Russia calls a “special military operation” – has triggered the biggest European conflict since World War Two and the most serious confrontation between Russia and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power stations have left millions without electricity, and Zelenskiy said Moscow would aim to make the last days of 2022 dark and difficult.
“Russia has lost everything it could this year. … I know darkness will not prevent us from leading the occupiers to new defeats. But we have to be ready for any scenario,” he said in a Christmas Day address.
Ukraine traditionally celebrates Christmas on January 7, as does Russia.
However, this year some Orthodox Ukrainians decided to celebrate on December 25 and Ukrainian officials, including Zelenskiy and Ukraine’s prime minister, issued Christmas wishes on Sunday.
Ukraine’s military, on Monday morning, said Russian forces had in the previous 24 hours shelled dozens of towns in the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Zaporizhzia regions.
“In the Kherson direction, the enemy continues artillery shelling of populated areas along the right bank of the Dnipro River,” it said, adding that Ukrainian forces launched attacks on almost 20 Russian targets.
Russia’s defence ministry, on Sunday, said its forces had killed about 60 Ukrainian servicemen the previous day along the Kupiansk-Lyman line of contact and destroyed numerous pieces of Ukrainian military equipment.
Reuters could not immediately verify the reports.
The Kremlin said it will fight until all its territorial aims are achieved, while Kyiv says it will not rest until every Russian soldier is ejected from the country.
Asked if the geopolitical conflict with the West was approaching a dangerous level, Putin on Sunday said: “I don’t think it’s so dangerous.”
Ukraine and the West said Putin has no justification for what they cast as an imperial-style war of occupation.
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