December 15, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine has moved here.

Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s power grid are targeting the entire population, casting people into darkness and cold, and pushing the US closer to sending the Patriot missile defense system long sought by Ukraine’s government.

But news, first reported by CNN, that the US is finalizing plans to send the system to Ukraine triggered a cryptic warning from Russia’s US embassy Wednesday of “unpredictable consequences.”

Sending the Patriot missiles would be seen as an escalation by the US, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova added Thursday.

The Patriot system is expensive and complicated and requires intensive training for the multiple people it takes to operate it, but could help the country guard against Russian attacks that have left millions without power.

Asked Thursday about Russian warnings that the Patriot system would be “provocative,” Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said those comments would not influence US aid to Ukraine.

“I find it ironic and very telling that officials from a country that brutally attacked its neighbor in an illegal and unprovoked invasion … that they would choose to use words like provocative to describe defensive systems that are meant to save lives and protect civilians,” Ryder told reporters.

“Despite Russia’s propaganda to portray themselves as victims, it’s important to remember that Russia is the aggressor here,” he said.

However, he added, “The US is not at war with Russia, and we do not seek conflict. Our focus is on providing Ukraine with the security assistance it needs to defend itself.”

Ryder also said the US would amp up its training of Ukrainian armed forces with exercises in Europe.

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Congress has passed a bipartisan $858 billion defense bill that would authorize $858 billion in national defense funding, which includes $800 million in support for Ukraine.

The Senate voted Thursday to pass the massive National Defense Authorization Act, known as the NDAA, with bipartisan support. It follows the House’s bipartisan approval of the legislation last week.

The legislation now goes to President Joe Biden for his signature.

The NDAA extends and modifies the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, as well as authorizes $800 million in funding in fiscal year 2023, which is $500 million more than was contained in last year’s defense bill.

The program provides funding for the federal government to pay industry to produce weapons and security assistance to send to Ukraine, rather than drawing directly from current US stockpiles of weapons.

The funding authorization is intended to supplement additional money for the initiative expected in a future federal spending package, according to Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican who wrote the program into law in 2015. 

Also, the defense bill would expedite the delivery of munitions to Ukraine and the replenishment of associated US stockpiles by streamlining acquisition requirements and authorizing multiyear procurement for certain munitions, according to the House Armed Services Committee.

One of the key concerns throughout the ongoing conflict in Ukraine has been whether the industrial bases of the US and other allied nations can meet the demand required to support Ukraine.

This measure is focused on reducing bureaucratic red tape to help industry produce those weapons for Ukraine faster.

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The Polish Police Headquarters is seen in Warsaw, Poland, on December 15.

Poland’s police chief Jaroslaw Szymczyk was hospitalized with minor injuries on Wednesday after receiving a gift that exploded after his visit to Ukraine earlier this week, a statement from Poland’s Interior Ministry said on Thursday. 

“During the Police Chief’s working visit to Ukraine on December 11-12 this year, where he met with the heads of the Ukrainian Police and Emergency Situations Service, he received some gifts, one of which exploded.”

The statement alleged the gift came from one of the heads of Ukrainian services. CNN has reached out to Kyiv regional police and national police for comment but have not yet received a response.

The police chief was hospitalized for observation and a member of staff from the police headquarters also suffered minor injuries, but did not need hospitalization, the statement said. 

Poland’s police chief Jaroslaw Szymczyk is seen in July in Rzeszow, Poland.

The statement added that Poland has asked Ukraine to clarify what happened and a case was “immediately opened” with the prosecutor’s office and corresponding services.

The incident comes after a slew of suspicious mail was sent to Ukrainian embassies in Europe, pushing Ukraine to put all of its overseas diplomatic stations under heightened security.

Kyiv’s embassies in Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland, Croatia, Italy, Austria, and the consulates general in Naples and Krakow, have also received suspicious packages, Oleh Nikolenko, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, said on Dec. 2 in a Facebook post.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia shelled Kherson more than 16 times, Thursday, and hit a Red Cross aid station.

The southern city was liberated by Ukrainian troops last month after eight months of occupation by Russian forces. The retreat across the Dnipro River was a major blow to Moscow as Kherson was the only regional capital Russian forces had captured since February’s invasion.

Zelensky also noted the ongoing battles in the eastern Donbas region.

“The occupants are throwing everyone and everything they have at the offensive. They cannot overcome our army, so they physically destroy every town and village so that there are no buildings, not even walls, that can be used for any defense,” Zelensky said.

Social media video from Thursday night showed a large explosion light up the sky in the area of Irmino, a town in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region.

The cause of the explosion could not be confirmed, but video indicated at least two detonations, and showed a fireball reaching hundreds of feet into the air. 

One local community Telegram channel said there had been multiple explosions in the area and suggested an ammunition depot had been struck.

CNN cannot confirm the location of the explosion.

Neither Ukrainian officials nor Russian-backed authorities in Luhansk have commented on the cause of the explosion.

But the Ukrainian military has made no secret of its intention to strike Russian ammunition depots and other critical military locations deep inside Luhansk as its forces try to push into the region.

It has previously said that troop concentrations, transport hubs and munitions dumps have been targeted in Luhansk. 

The US will not “allow comments from Russia to dictate the security assistance” the Biden administration provides to Ukraine, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said during a briefing with reporters on Thursday. 

In a statement Wednesday, the Russian Embassy in Washington said a possible shipment of Patriot missile systems to Ukraine would “lead to unpredictable consequences” and threaten global security. CNN was first to report on Tuesday the Biden administration is finalizing plans to send the Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine. 

“I find it ironic and very telling that officials from a country that brutally attacked its neighbor in an illegal and unprovoked invasion through a campaign that is deliberately targeting and killing innocent civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure, that they would choose to use words like provocative to describe defensive systems that are meant to save lives and protect civilians,” Ryder said at the briefing at the Pentagon.

Ryder reiterated Russia could de-escalate the ongoing conflict any moment if they wanted to, but they have chosen to “double down.” 

Pentagon press secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder speaks during a press briefing on December 15.

The US announced an expansion of training for Ukrainian armed forces in Europe “to include joint maneuver and combined arms operations training,” according to the Defense Department.  

CNN first reported that the US was considering expanding both the type of training provided to the Ukrainian military as well as the number of forces trained.

“Combined arms maneuver training is a logical next step in our ongoing training efforts which began in 2014 to build the Ukrainian armed forces capacity,” said Pentagon press secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder at a news briefing.

Ryder said the program will train approximately 500 Ukrainians per month starting in January and will be conducted in Germany by US Army Europe and Africa Command’s 7th Army Training Command.

Ryder said he was “not aware” that the training would require additional US forces to be deployed.

“We have forces in place that have been conducting training, so to my knowledge, no significant increase in support,” he said.

The US had been providing this kind of training to the Ukrainian military prior to the Russian invasion, starting in 2014, according to Ryder.

“When Russia invaded, we withdrew our trainers from Ukraine, and so this is a continuation now of the training that we had previously provided,” Ryder said.

Ryder added that the training will include “live fire exercises, followed by squad, platoon and company-level training that will then culminate in battalion-level maneuver training.”

One of Ukraine’s most senior military officers said that nearly 400 clashes have taken place between Ukrainian and Russian forces in the eastern regions of Ukraine this week.

Catch up on other key developments in the war:

There’s been an explosion and extensive fire at a building that used to be a hotel in Russian-occupied Kherson.

CNN has geolocated images and video showing the heavily damaged Salamar Hotel in the village of Zaliznyi Port in Skadovsk district.

Unofficial Ukrainian media reported the Russian security service FSB was based at the hotel. Local accounts described a series of explosions in the district.

Neither local Russian-appointed officials nor the Ukrainian military have commented on the reports. CNN has not independently verified the claim that FSB was stationed at the hotel.

More context: Skadovsk is located on the Black Sea coast and part of the broader Kherson region, which is not entirely controlled by either side in the conflict.

Russian officials have moved command posts away from the city of Kherson and toward Crimea since the Ukrainians liberated the west bank of the Dnipro River and took control of the city.

Earlier this week, there was an assassination attempt against a Russian-appointed official in Skadovsk, according to pro-Russian authorities in the area. 

Vladimir Potanin speaks to journalists in Moscow in 2017.

US President Joe Biden’s administration rolled out new sanctions on Thursday targeting Russian-appointed proxies in Ukraine, more than 20 Russian governors, and a wealthy Russian oligarch who is believed to be close with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the State Department and the Treasury Department announced on Thursday. 

The Russian oligarch now under US sanctions is Vladimir Potanin, who US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described as “one of Russia’s wealthiest oligarchs and a close associate of President Putin.” The Biden administration also sanctioned Potanin’s company — a bank that his company acquired this year — and three of his family members, Blinken said. The US additionally identified his yacht as blocked property.

Blinken said that those targeted by the sanctions include 29 Russian heads of regions and governors, two of their family members, and an entity owned by one of the family members who was “helping to advance Russia’s invasion and control of Ukrainian territory.” 

The governors “oversee and enforce the conscription of citizens in response to Russia’s recent mobilization order,” Blinken said.

The US also went after Russians who have been put into positions of power in Ukrainian territory by the Kremlin.

The sanctions also hit the board members of Russian railways, and the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control is also designating 17 subsidiaries of VTB Bank, Blinken said. 

The sanctions come after Russia’s recent attacks on Ukrainian critical infrastructure that have “caused extraordinary death and destruction,” Blinken added.

In the midst of power cuts and sub-freezing temperatures, Tony the gorilla is staying warm at Kyiv’s zoo thanks to a new wood-burning stove.

Tony, who is 47, is a popular fixture at the zoo, whose animals would have been put at risk by the lack of heat as temperatures plunge.

Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said two generators had been installed at the zoo to compensate for the loss of electricity during scheduled power cuts.

Klitschko said 200 animals rescued from the war are wintering in Kyiv Zoo, including a tigress named Delilah from a private zoo in Kharkiv and rhinos and porcupines from Kherson.

“Those are small zoos in that part of Ukraine where there is no heating at all, nothing. It is very difficult for those zoos now. Therefore, they ask us to shelter the animals. Otherwise they will die,” he said.

Brigadier General Oleksiy Hromov at a press briefing on December 1 in Kyiv.

Brig. Gen. Oleksiy Hromov, deputy chief of the Ukrainian military’s Main Operational Directorate, on Thursday said that Russia is stepping up production of munitions and would likely bolster its mobilization with migrants.

Hromov said Russia is increasing munitions “by reducing the quality of products, as well as by activating the conclusion of agreements with other countries.”

He said Russia would likely tap into the large number of migrants from central Asia to shore up its mobilization.

Hromov estimated that about 2.7 million of the total number of migrants in Russia — the vast majority being from central Asia — are men of military age.

Some context: In November, Russia announced that its “partial mobilization” of hundreds of thousands of citizens to fight in the country’s war on Ukraine was completed. The mobilization, first announced in late September, sparked protests — particularly in in ethnic minority regions — and an exodus of men from the country.

Hromov also said that the Russian military presence has been growing in Belarus.

“Russian units of the Second Motorized Rifle Division … are undergoing training and combat coordination. … The Kremlin uses the officers and training ground infrastructure of Belarus to restore the combat capability of existing units, as well as to train newly established military units,” he said.

Hromov said Russian tanks and aircraft had been moved to Belarus, likely to provide Russia with another route for its missile attacks.

“The enemy redeployed three Mig 31-K aircrafts, which carry Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, as well as an A-50U long-range radar detection aircraft to Machulychi airfield. This indicates an increase in the aggressor’s capabilities to conduct air strikes on the territory of Ukraine,” he said.

Belarus’ role in the conflict: Neighboring Belarus is among Moscow’s most stalwart allies, and the two nations have held joint military exercises since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Belarus has served as a staging ground for Russian forces near Ukraine’s northern border. It was the launching point for the Kremlin’s ultimately unsuccessful march toward Kyiv at the start of the invasion.

One of Ukraine’s most senior military officers said that nearly 400 clashes have taken place between Ukrainian and Russian forces in the eastern regions of Ukraine this week.

Brig. Gen. Oleksiy Hromov, deputy chief of the Ukrainian military’s Main Operational Directorate, said Russia continues to launch attacks using missiles and artillery along a wide front.

“Since Dec. 8, the enemy has launched 41 missile strikes,” including 38 attacks with S-300 missiles, on the civilian infrastructure of Ukraine and positions of troops.

Russia has also launched 32 drones loaded with explosives at energy facilities, including 15 self-detonating drones at the civilian infrastructure of Kyiv, he said. Almost all the Iranian-made drones were intercepted.

Hromov said that “388 military clashes with the enemy took place in eastern Ukraine this week” and claimed the Russians had experienced heavy casualties.

“During Dec. 1 and 2, up to 500 wounded were taken to hospitals in Luhansk, mostly from among the mercenaries of the Wagner private military company,” he claimed.

“In total, as of Dec. 4, more than 3,600 wounded Russian servicemen from the so-called special contingent were in hospitals in the occupied territories,” Hromov claimed. There is no way to verify the estimate.

Hromov also said that Ukrainian attacks on Russian positions and facilities behind the front lines continued.

“During the week, artillery units have struck 309 enemy targets, including 34 control points, 24 warehouses with ammunition and fuel,” he said.

Additionally, he said, high-precision weapons had targeted 58 sites, including five ammunition warehouses.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visits the liberated city of Kherson, Ukraine on November 14, 2022.

In a series of interviews with The Economist, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his top commanders say they expect a new offensive by Russia early in the new year – but are in no mood to compromise on their ultimate goals. 

Zelensky repeated that Ukraine’s aim was to retrieve the land it held when it became independent in 1991 — including Crimea. 

Days after the Kremlin said Ukraine must recognize new realities, including Russia’s recent annexation of four Ukrainian regions, Zelensky repeated that Ukraine would make no concessions. “If he [Putin] now withdraws to the 1991 borders then the possible path of diplomats will begin. That is who can really turn the war from a military path to a diplomatic one. Only he can do it.” 

Zelensky said it was “a little scary” to visit recently liberated towns and witness how the occupation had changed people. 

“I must admit that this propaganda model of the Kremlin — it works.” It had changed Ukrainians in occupied territories. They were like “astronauts who cannot take off heavy helmets — limiting what they can see to unrelenting disinformation.” 

The overall military commander in Ukraine, General Valery Zaluzhny, said he expected a new Russian offensive in the new year. 

“They [Russian forces] are 100% being prepared,” he said. 

A major Russian attack could come “in February, at best in March and at worst at the end of January”, he said. And it could come anywhere: in Donbas, where Putin is eager to capture the remainder of Donetsk province; in the south, towards the city of Dnipro; even towards Kyiv. 

Russian shelling of the recently liberated Ukrainian city of Kherson continues to kill civilians, according to Ukrainian officials.

“The enemy hit a critical infrastructure facility. Shell fragments damaged residential buildings and the place where the medical aid and humanitarian aid distribution point is located,” Yaroslav Yanushevych, head of Kherson region military administration, said in a Telegram video on Thursday.

Yanushevych said two people had been killed.

Three more people were wounded, he said.

Yanushevych earlier said the city had been hit 86 times with “artillery, MLRS, tanks, mortars and UAVs” over 24 hours.

A local official says missiles fired by Ukraine triggered air defense systems over the town of Klintsy in the Russian region of Bryansk on Wednesday night, but the missiles “were shot down.”

This would be the second time in a week that Klintsy has been targeted. On Tuesday Aleksandr Bogomaz, the governor of the region claimed the Ukrainians “shelled the territory of the city.” 

Klintsy is located around 50 kilometers (about 80 miles) from the Ukrainian border. 

Posting on Telegram a couple of hours later on Wednesday, Bogomaz said “As a result of the falling rocket debris shot down by the air defense system, the power supply to the village of Ardon’ in the Klintsy urban district was damaged.” Ardon is located south of the city. 

Video posted to social media shows a livestream camera of a central street and an orange flash coming from the south. CNN was able to identify the location of the livestream camera from Google maps and crosscheck with the video posted on social media. The camera points south.

CNN has been unable to verify if was falling debris that caused the power outage or if it was a direct attack.

Russia unleashed fresh strikes over Kherson on Thursday morning, as the nearly ten-month conflict in Ukraine ramped up in the southern and eastern regions of the country.

Here are the latest developments:

Kyiv has been given machinery and generators from the United States to help strengthen the city’s power infrastructure, amid sweeping energy deficits across the country.

The mayor of Ukraine’s capital, Vitali Klitschko, said Kyiv “received machinery and generators from the U.S. Government to operate boiler houses and heat supply stations.”

The Energy Security Project, run by USAID, delivered four excavators and over 130 generators in order to help Ukraine rebuild its energy infrastructure, Klitschko said on Telegram. All equipment was free of charge.

The excavators “have already been delivered and will be soon put to work,” the mayor added.

The new equipment, will allow authorities “to quickly and efficiently perform soil excavation, and thus accelerate the performance of emergency works,” he said.

The generators were sent to boiler houses, combined heat and power plants and heat supply stations.

“11 kilometers of heating networks damaged by rocket attacks were replaced this year,” Klitschko added.

A view of the damage caused after a shelling by Ukrainian forces in Donetsk's center Thursday.

Ukrainian forces carried out the biggest attack on the occupied Donetsk region of the country since 2014 on Thursday, according to a Russian-installed official.

Donetsk has been held by Russian-backed separatists since 2014 and it is one of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow attempted to annex in October, in violation of international law.

Heavy fighting in the region in recent months has caused extensive destruction, especially around the city of Bakhmut.

Kulemzin shared photographs on Telegram of damage to residential and commercial buildings and a cathedral.

There have been no immediate reports of casualties, according to Russian state media. 

CNN cannot independently confirm Kulemzin’s claims.

The war in Ukraine ramped up in the southern and eastern regions of the country, as Russia unleashed fresh assaults on Kherson overnight.

The city was hit 86 times in the past 24 hours and three people were killed in shelling on Wednesday, according to the regional head of the Kherson military administration, Yaroslav Yanushevych.

On Thursday, the Kremlin appeared to rebuff Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s peace solution that involved asking Russia to start withdrawing troops from Ukraine this Christmas.

This takes place against the backdrop of a harsh winter season in Ukraine inflamed by sweeping power outages caused by Russian strikes and a grinding battle of attrition.