Ukraine

KYIV, Dec 22 (Reuters) - As Russian cruise missiles sped towards their target this month, a Ukrainian pilot gave chase in an old Soviet MiG-29 fighter jet and locked onto two of them, but could not take the shot: they were nearing a large town and it was too risky.

He said he passed the targets on to Ukraine's ground-based air defences which shot them down, as they have done hundreds of missiles since October, blunting the impact of a Russian air campaign that aims to destroy the country's power grid.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog met Thursday in Moscow with officials from Russia’s military and state atomic energy company as he pursues a long-running drive to set up a protection zone around a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant in Ukraine.

KYIV, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has often astonished the world with his trips to the battlefield but his visit to Washington to press for military aid has delivered the biggest surprise of the 10 months since Russia invaded his country.

"On my way to the United States to strengthen resilience and defence capabilities of Ukraine," Zelenskiy said on his Twitter account early on Wednesday.

KIEV, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine's Economy Ministry will focus on supporting business and developing export opportunities in 2023, the government press service reported on Tuesday.

Next year, the ministry will strive to increase the volume of business assistance programs by implementing effective mechanisms to support economic activities, said a statement on the country's government website.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The Kremlin warned Wednesday that increasing the supply of U.S. arms to Kyiv would aggravate the devastating 10-month war ignited by Russia’s illegal invasion and “does not bode well” for embattled Ukraine.

“Weapon supplies (by the U.S.) continue, the assortment of supplied weapons is expanding. All this, of course, leads to an aggravation of the conflict and, in fact, does not bode well for Ukraine,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

KYIV, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said the situation in Russian-held parts of Ukraine was "extremely difficult" on Tuesday while his Ukrainian counterpart drove home the message by visiting a frontline town that Russia has long tried and failed to capture.

Addressing Russia's security services, Putin told operatives they needed to significantly improve their work in a speech that was one of his clearest public admissions yet that the invasion he launched almost ten months ago is not going to plan.

19 Dec 2022; MEMO: Israel's relations with Russia are creating "limits that cannot be overcome," the Israeli ambassador to Kyiv said yesterday, referring to recent criticism by Ukrainian Jews on Israel's stance on the Russian invasion.

Michael Brodsky told the Washington Post that his country was aware of the "frustration of some Ukrainian Jews."

"No government in Israel is going to jeopardise this interest for anybody else, including the Ukrainians," he said.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — On the streets of Kyiv, Fyodor Dostoevsky is on the way out. Andy Warhol is on the way in.

Ukraine is accelerating efforts to erase the vestiges of Soviet and Russian influence from its public spaces by pulling down monuments and renaming hundreds of streets to honor its own artists, poets, soldiers, independence leaders and others — including heroes of this year’s war.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Multiple explosive drones attacked Ukraine’s capital before dawn Monday, local authorities reported, as Russian President Vladimir Putin prepared to visit ally Belarus, which provided the Kremlin’s forces with a launch pad for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine almost 10 months ago.

The drone attack came three days after what Ukrainian officials described as one of Russia’s biggest assaults on Kyiv since the war started and as Moscow presses on with its effort to torment Ukraine from the air amid a broad battlefield stalemate.

KYIV, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday proposed holding a global peace summit this winter, in a video message Kyiv was hoping would be broadcast ahead of the soccer World Cup final in Qatar, although it appeared unlikely FIFA would allow the move.

CNN reported on Friday that Zelenskiy had asked world soccer's governing body FIFA to let him share a message of peace before the final.