Ukrainian officials reported heavy fighting in eastern regions as Kyiv’s forces tried to push back Russian troops, while President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged the West to provide his army with heavy tanks.
* Ukraine’s military said Russian forces were focused on an offensive in the Bakhmut sector and its attacks in the Avdiivka and Kupiansk sectors were unsuccessful.
* It also reported an unspecified number of civilian casualties as a result of Russian air, missile and rocket attacks on the largely ruined, Ukrainian-held city of Bakhmut and two other cities in the Donetsk region – Kostiantynivka and Kurakhove.
* The Ukrainian deputy defence minister said significant Russian losses meant Moscow would likely have to announce a second partial mobilisation in the first quarter of the year.
* Reuters could not immediately verify the battlefield reports.
* President Vladimir Putin sent a frigate to the Atlantic Ocean armed with new generation hypersonic cruise missiles.
* Germany is looking for further ways to help Ukraine to protect its people and infrastructure, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said, stressing that any dip in Europe’s resolve on the issue would serve as a boon to Moscow.
* Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in a phone call that peace efforts in the Russia-Ukraine war should be supported by a unilateral ceasefire and a “vision for a fair solution”, the Turkish presidency said.
* French President Macron told Ukrainian President Zelenskiy in a phone call his government would send light AMX-10 RC armoured combat vehicles.
* U.S. President Biden said that sending Bradley Fighting Vehicles to Ukraine was being considered. The armoured vehicle with a powerful gun has been used as a staple by the U.S. Army to carry troops around battlefields since the mid-1980s.
* Ukraine’s gross domestic product fell by 30.4% in 2022 – the largest annual fall in more than 30 years – because of the war with Russia, Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.
* The United States is looking at ways to target Iranian drone production through sanctions and export controls, the White House said. Washington previously imposed sanctions on companies and people it accused of producing or transferring Iranian drones that Russia has used against Ukraine.
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