Moscow has said there is no “Christmas truce” in Ukraine after nearly 10 months of war, rejecting Kyiv’s call to begin a holiday withdrawal as a step toward ending Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.

Highlights of Thursday, the 295th day of the Ukrainian war, LIVETEXT:

07:33President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said that on Wednesday he spoke with the President of the International Olympic Committee Thomas Bach, who asked him not to allow Russian athletes to compete even under a neutral flag.

A quick recap of the latest developments on Thursday morning:

• The Russian military loaded the Yars intercontinental ballistic missile into a launch shaft in the Kaluga region, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported on Wednesday, TASS reports. The Ministry of Defense released a video on the occasion of this event on the eve of Russia’s Strategic Missile Defense Day.
• White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the US expects the war in Ukraine to continue for “some time” and that there is “no expectation” that fighting will stop in the winter months. Kirby also confirmed that an American citizen had been released in a prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine, but did not provide other details, citing privacy concerns.
• Ukraine’s military said it had shot down 13 Iranian-made drones over Kiev and the surrounding area, following the first major Russian drone attack on the capital in weeks. Authorities called the attack Wednesday morning a continuation of Russia’s “energy terror” against the country. There were no casualties.
• Russian drone strikes on Wednesday damaged five buildings in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, although authorities say air defenses prevented many more. The attacks underscore how vulnerable Ukraine’s largest city remains to regular Russian attacks that have destroyed infrastructure and other populated areas in recent weeks, mostly in the country’s east and south.
• The unofficial Telegram channel published a photo that looks like the wreckage of a downed drone with the inscription in Russian “Za Ryazan!!!”. On December 5, the Russian military air base in the city of Ryazan in western Russia was attacked. The Russian Tu-95 bomber, which was used to attack Ukraine, was damaged, and three soldiers at the base were fatally wounded, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reports.
• According to a high-ranking Ukrainian official, Russian troops hit the building of the regional administration in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson with rocket launchers.
• Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that 184 Ukrainian athletes have died as a result of Russia’s war since its troops invaded Ukraine in February. The Ukrainian leader mentioned this figure during a conversation with the head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomas Bach, reports The Guardian.
• Russia is outraged by the arrest in Estonia of a suspected FSB agent, whose extradition is sought by the United States
• The Kremlin said on Wednesday that the Patriot air defense system that the United States is preparing to send to Kyiv would be a “legitimate target” for its strikes on Ukraine.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin will also not deliver his annual speech to the Russian parliament in 2022, canceling his marathon press conference, which he usually holds in December, TASS agency reports citing a source in the Moscow legislature.
• Searches in churches suspected of ties to Moscow. The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) announced on Wednesday that it had raided Orthodox churches of the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine amid growing pressure on the branch amid the Russian invasion, AFP reports.
• An announcement about US plans to supply Ukraine with the Patriot anti-missile defense system could be made as early as this week, three US officials told Reuters.
• The Ukrainian authorities discovered a camera with which the Russians detained and tortured children during the occupation of Kherson, said Dmytro Lubinets, the human rights representative of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, on December 14, Kyiv Independent reports.

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Wednesday’s events were broadcast live on HotNews.ro