Sergei Lavrov gave Ukraine an ultimatum on Monday to comply with Moscow’s demands, including relinquishing territory controlled by Russia, or its military would resolve the issue, the Russian foreign minister said, a day after President Vladimir Putin said he was open to discussions.

The latest on the war in Ukraine, day 307:

A brief summary of recent events:

• A drone believed to be Ukrainian flew hundreds of kilometers through Russian airspace on Monday, causing a deadly explosion at Moscow’s main strategic bomber base.
• Moscow claimed to have shot down the drone, causing it to crash at Engels Air Force Base, killing three servicemen.
• Volodymyr Zelenskyi noted that the shortage of electricity persists, almost nine million people are without electricity.
• According to the Ukrainian military, dozens of cities in the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions were shelled. In the Kherson region, Russian troops bombed settlements on the right bank of the Dnieper.
• The city of Kherson, which was liberated two months ago by the Ukrainian army, is now under daily Russian bombardment. A local resident told HotNews.ro what it’s like to live in a city where an average of more than 70 attacks take place every day.
• Russia’s FSB security service said a four-person Ukrainian “sabotage group” was “liquidated” when it tried to enter Russia’s Bryansk region on the border with Ukraine on Sunday.
• Putin said he was open to talks and accused Ukraine and its Western allies of not negotiating. The former commander of the US forces in Europe ridiculed Putin’s Christmas “offer”: “I also held negotiations with the Russians”
• Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Monday that his government intends to hold a peace summit by the end of February, preferably at the United Nations.
• In a telephone conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Zelensky said that he had asked India for help in implementing the “peace formula”. India did not condemn the direct invasion of Russia.
• Ukraine demands the exclusion of Russia from the permanent membership of the UN Security Council and accuses it of violating international law.
• The video, which appeared on social networks, shows how the soldiers of the “Azov” regiment honored their comrades who died in battle.
• A Russian soldier who confessed to killing a Ukrainian civilian this summer also now faces criminal charges in Russia for spreading “fake news.”
• After the mobilization in September, strip clubs in Russia began to be left without customers, but the situation causes dissatisfaction not only among dancers.
• A video was shared on social media in which members of Wagner’s mercenary group tell the chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, that he is good for nothing and call him a “bastard.”
• The balance of the two armies:How much did the Russian army lose before Christmas: Over 3,000 tanks and over 6,000 battle tanks / How much did Ukraine lose
• Near the border with Russia, in northeastern Poland, the American army leads one of the NATO battle groups, which also includes Romanian soldiers: her name is Yulia, she is 21 years old, she drives the largest tank in the world – VIDEO REPORT HotNews.ro

——————

• The events of Monday, day 306, were broadcast LIVE on HotNews.ro