Ukraine withdraws troops from eastern town amid deadly Russian strikes

Ukraine pulled out troops from a town in the east after fierce battles, it said on Tuesday, as relentless Russian strikes killed three civilians and cut power to thousands in freezing winter temperatures.

Kyiv said it had withdrawn forces from Siversk, a town in the heavily embattled Donetsk region on the route to two of Ukraine’s last remaining strongholds in the area. Russia announced the capture of Siversk almost two weeks ago.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the pre-Christmas strikes showed that the Kremlin had no intention of ending the invasion it launched in February 2022.

The attacks came two days after US-mediated settlement talks in Miami, which lasted several days as the warring sides worked through details of a Washington-proposed plan to end the war. There has been no sign of an imminent diplomatic breakthrough.

The Ukrainian army said that “to preserve the lives of our soldiers and the combat capability of our units, Ukrainian defenders have withdrawn from the settlement” of Siversk, adding that fighting was continuing on the outskirts.

Moscow on Monday reported “slow progress” in talks over the US plan to end the war, as Kyiv and its European allies seek to adjust an initial proposal that adhered to many of Russia’s hardline demands.

Read morePope calls for Christmas Day truce, laments Russia’s rejection

Chernobyl endangered

A Russian strike could collapse the internal radiation shelter at the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine, the plant’s director has told AFP.

In an interview, director Sergiy Tarakanov said fully restoring the shelter could take three to four years and warned that another Russian strike could cause the inner shell to collapse.

“If a missile or drone hits it directly, or even falls somewhere nearby, for example an Iskander, God forbid, it will cause a mini-earthquake in the area,” Tarakanov said.

The Iskander is Russia’s short-range ballistic missile system, capable of carrying a variety of conventional warheads, including bunker-busting munitions.

“No one can guarantee that the shelter facility will remain standing after that. That is the main threat,” he added.

On the battlefield in the east, Russia’s army claimed to have captured settlements in the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, in a grinding advance that has accelerated in recent weeks.

Read moreLive: Ukrainian troops withdraw from eastern town of Siversk

Four-year-old killed

Zelensky said a four-year-old child was killed in the central Zhytomyr region after a Russian drone struck a residential building.

Workers were scrambling to repair damaged energy infrastructure, he said, forcing emergency power cuts across several regions during frigid winter weather.

“An attack ahead of Christmas, when people simply want to be with their families, at home, and safe. An attack carried out essentially in the midst of negotiations aimed at ending this war,” Zelensky said.

There were also deaths in the Kyiv and Khmelnytskyi regions.

In Russia, one person was killed and three wounded, including a teenage boy, after Ukrainian drone attacks on the border region of Belgorod, its governor said.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said energy facilities in the west of the country were the most affected by the strikes.

Russia’s army said it had launched a massive strike using long-range drones and hypersonic missiles at military and energy sites.

The southern Black Sea region of Odesa was again targeted as Russia stepped up attacks on the key port city.

Olena Dolhachova, a 40-year-old maths teacher in Odesa, told AFP she had to rely on candles to continue her work.

“There are attacks every week. Just when power is restored, all our schedules are disrupted again. We are left without electricity, without stability, sitting in the dark for two or three days,” she said.

“It is very difficult.”

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)