Ukraine-Russia war – live: Toddler’s body pulled from rubble as air strikes death toll rises

Emergency crews have pulled the body of a toddler from the rubble in a pre-dawn search for survivors of a Russian missile strike that tore through an apartment building in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih.

The missile was one of what Ukrainian authorities said were 16 that got through air defenses among the 76 missiles fired Friday in the latest Russian attack targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure, part of Moscow’s strategy to leave Ukrainian civilians and soldiers in the dark and cold this winter.

Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko of the Dnipropetrovsk region, where Kryvyi Rih is located, wrote on the Telegram social media app that “rescuers retrieved the body of a 1-1/2-year-old boy from under the rubble of a house destroyed by a Russian rocket.”

In all, four people were killed in the strike, and 13 injured — four of them children — authorities said.

The victims were “a 64-year-old woman and a young family with a small son,” he wrote.

Reznichenko said the pounding from Russian forces continued overnight, damaging power lines and houses in the cities and towns of Nikopol, Marhanets and Chervonohryhorivka, which are across the Dnieper River from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Good morning, welcome to our coverage of the Ukraine war on Friday, 16 December

Russian forces are looking to launch a new offensive in January along with a second attempt to capture Kyiv, Ukrainian defence officials said citing evidence.

The attacks could come as early as January, Ukrainian general Valery Zaluzhniy and general Oleksandr Syrskiy said yesterday.

"The Russians are preparing some 200,000 fresh troops. I have no doubt they will have another go at Kyiv," Mr Zaluzhniy told The Economist magazine.

The military push can come from the eastern Donbas area — where Russia has already battered Ukraine, the south or neighbouring Belarus, along with another ground assault on Kyiv, which Moscow failed to capture early in the invasion, the officials said.

Ukrainian defence minister Oleksiy Reznikov said that the country was seeing mounting evidence that Russia is planning a broad new offensive.

This could come in February, he said, citing the likelihood of half of the conscripted 300,000 troops to enter the war’s battlefield after finishing their training.

“The second part of the mobilisation, 150,000 approximately ... do a minimum of three months to prepare. It means they are trying to start the next wave of the offensive probably in February, like last year. That’s their plan,” Mr Reznikov told The Guardian.

Earlier this week, Moscow ruled out Volodymyr Zelensky’s Christmas truce plea, taking Ukraine to its 11th month of war.

The European Union has approved a new package of sanctions – the ninth since the start of the war in Ukraine – aimed at ramping up pressure on Russia.

This tranche of sanctions designates nearly 200 more people and bars investment in Russia’s mining industry, among other steps.

In addition, the EU is offering €18bn in financing to Ukraine next year.

“Our joint determination to support Ukraine politically, financially, militarily and in the humanitarian area for as long as necessary remains unbroken,” German chancellor Olaf Scholz said after talks among the 27 national EU leaders in Brussels.

The package was approved after days of deliberations during a meeting of the 27-nation bloc’s ambassadors.

The Czech Republic, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU Council, said the package will be confirmed by written procedure on Friday. Details will then be published in the bloc’s legal records.

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Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Russian forces shelled Kherson more than 16 times yesterday as the invading forces continued their “brutal large-scale offensive” in the eastern Donbas region.

The shelling killed two people in the centre of Kherson, said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the president’s office. The attack also knocked out the recaptured city’s power grid, officials said.

On the front line in the east, Russia’s main focus remained on the eastern cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, the Ukrainian military general staff said. Russia is also trying to get a stronger foothold in the Zaporizhzhia region in southern Ukraine, the top military official said.

The US is looking to expand its support for Ukraine amid the ongoing Russian invasion as officials in Kyiv present eveidence that Moscow will have another go at the Ukrainian capital in early days of 2023, reported Politico, citing six people aware of the developments.

The Biden administration is contemplating sending other weapons like joint direct attack munition kits, which convert unguided aerial munitions into smart bombs, ground-launched small diameter bombs which will help Ukraine majorly extend its strike range, two US officials and another person familiar with the talks said.

Experts have predicted a slow burning conflict in the winter battle in Ukraine with Russia prolonging the offensive with little gains but by deploying reservists.

Russian forces fired four missiles, 23 airstrikes and 78 MLRS attacks against Ukraine in the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian general staff said today.

In return, at least 22 strikes were fired on the areas of concentration of personnel, weapons and military equipment by Ukrainian aviation along with three strikes on Russian positions of anti-aircraft missile systems, the top military office said.

Two Orlan-10 type drones were also shot down by Ukrainian forces.

Ukrainian shelling has killed at least eight people and injured another 23 in the village of Lantrativka in the Russia-controlled Luhansk region this morning, Russian state TASS news agency reported.

Further details of the attack are awaited.

Russia will double the number of test launches of its intercontinental ballistic missiles in 2023 to eight from four in 2022, Moscow’s commander of strategic rocket forces said today.

The eight test flights will be scheduled from two launch sites - one near Murmansk in the north, the other near Volgograd in the south, Sergei Karakayev told military newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda.

He added that four launches had taken place this year and “confirmed the high reliability of the missile systems”.

Russian forces have continued to expend considerable effort to construct extensive defensive positions along the frontline, the British defence ministry said today citing imagery from the recent weeks.

“They have likely prioritised the northern sector around the town of Svatove,” the ministry noted.

It added: “The Russian constructions follow traditional military plans for entrenchment, largely unchanged since the Second World War. Such constructions are likely to be vulnerable to modern, precision indirect strikes.

“The construction of major defensive lines is further illustration of Russia’s reversion to positional warfare that has been largely abandoned by most modern Western militaries in recent decades,” the defence ministry said.