"Russians have not reached the outskirts of the town," said Viktor Trehubov, a spokesperson for Ukraine's Khortytsia grouping of forces.
Even while at war, Ukraine piped Russian gas to Europe. Moscow earned an estimated $5 billion in 2024, while Ukraine raked in up to $1 billion in fees.
Hoping to bolster the resolve of a nation whose heart “is covered in scars” after more than 1,000 days of unrelenting Russian assaults, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in his New Year’s address on Wednesday that he believed the United States would continue to stand with Kyiv in “compelling Russia into a just peace.”
The breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria cut heating and hot water supplies to households on Wednesday after Russia stopped supplying gas via Ukraine.
Russian investigators have determined that an oil spill from two tankers in the Black Sea last month was smaller than initially thought, the Transport Ministry said on Thursday.
Vladimir Putin assured Russia he was "certain that everything will be fine" in his New Year's Eve address on Tuesday, as the nation heads toward its fourth year of war in Ukraine in 2025.
Marking 25 years in office, Vladimir Putin says he has remade Russia as a sovereign power and will prevail in Ukraine, but economic and strategic setbacks complicate the picture.
Russia’s share of the EU pipeline natural gas market dropped sharply to about 8% in 2023, according to data from the EU Commission. The Ukrainian transit route served EU members Austria and Slovakia, which long got the bulk of their natural gas from Russia but have recently scrambled to diversify supplies.
Nearly three years of war have devastated much of Moscow's military, but its other forces, like its naval fleet and air force, remain strong.
Ukraine's New Year's Day tally of Russian losses, which includes those killed and wounded, showed that over the last 12 months Russia lost 430,790 troops. This is a big jump from the estimated quarter of million casualties Kyiv said Russia faced in 2023. Newsweek has contacted the Russian defense ministry for comment.