The United States will announce new aid on Tuesday to help Ukraine restore power as it faces another week of bitter cold and darkness after Russian strikes on the power grid caused blackouts.

Highlights of Tuesday, the 279th day of the Ukrainian war, LIVETEXT:

07:48 The remains of a modern and expensive Russian SU-34 were found in the Kharkiv region. He would have been shot down a month ago, but only now has the success of the Ukrainian army been confirmed. The Moscow Air Force lost, according to visual confirmation, at least 17 such devices.

07:26Romania’s concrete bid for the NATO meeting that begins today in Bucharest. Messages sent in advance by Johannis and Aureska

07:09 The statements of Pope Francis regarding Chechens and Buryats demonstrate not only Russophobia, but also a scandalous distortion of the truth, the spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said on Monday.

07:05 The US and NATO allies are trying to keep up the pace of military aid to Ukraine, where “one day of war is worth 30 days of war in Afghanistan.”

A brief summary of recent events:

• A line of communication established between the US and Russian militaries at the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine has been used only once, a US official told Reuters.
• Nuclear disarmament talks between Russia and the United States, which were supposed to take place this week, have been postponed, the Russian Foreign Ministry and the US Embassy said.
• Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned Ukrainians to expect another week of bitter cold and darkness, predicting that Russia’s attacks on infrastructure will not stop until it runs out of missiles.
• The Ukrainian energy company “Naftogaz” has asked the US Agency for International Development for help regarding additional volumes of natural gas for the heating season, the general director of the company, Oleksiy Chernyshov, said.
• Over the past week, Russian troops bombed 30 settlements in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine 258 times, Zelenskyy said. Heartfelt statement of a 38-year-old woman from the city of Kherson: “I went outside with my child, and my mother was lying face down at the entrance to the house, covered in blood. And my dad was sitting next to me and said that she would die,” said Lilia Khristenko. (Reuters)
• On Monday evening, the Ukrainian military reported that Russia continued to bomb the key points of Bakhmut and Avdiyivka in the Donetsk region, while in the north it bombarded Kupyansk and Lyman, both recently recaptured by Kyiv. Russian troops are trying to advance in Donbas in three directions.
• The Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine is still under Russian control and will remain so, the Kremlin said, after a Ukrainian official suggested Russian forces were preparing to leave it.
• The Pentagon is considering a proposal from Boeing to supply Ukraine with small, cheap, precision-guided bombs mounted on missiles it has in abundance, allowing Kiev to strike far behind Russian lines as the West struggles to meet demand for more weapons.
• Zelensky named Romania among the countries and organizations that support Kyiv’s new initiative “Grain from Ukraine”, which aims to facilitate the transportation of Ukrainian grain.
• Ukraine is testing the import of electricity from Romania The Ukrainian state company ECU on Sunday carried out a test import of one megawatt of electricity from Romania, the company announced on Monday.
• European governments “unanimously” decided to consider the violation of European sanctions a “crime”.
• The price of Russia’s flagship oil Urals fell again, falling below the price ceiling discussed at the level of the European Union and the G7.
• In the video published on the social networks of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, one of the snipers can be seen knocking out several Russian soldiers who were trying to hunt a rabbit at night with grenades.

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• Monday’s events surrounding the Russian invasion were broadcast LIVE on HotNews.ro