Russia Ukraine War Live Updates: Two power plants in Russian-controlled E.Ukraine damaged by rockets

Two people might be trapped under debris at the damaged Starobesheve power plant in Novyi Svit, TASS reported. Citing officials, it said the strike was carried out using a multiple rocket launcher system.

Two thermal power plants in part of Ukraine's Donetsk region controlled by Russian forces were damaged in a rocket attack by the Ukrainian army, Moscow-installed officials and Russia's state TASS news agency said on Sunday.

The Pentagon said on Friday that Putin's aim of seizing Ukrainian territory has not changed, even if his military continues to suffer blows. There's been growing concerns that Belarus - a staunch backer of Moscow - could be used as a staging post to attack Ukraine from the north after increasing military activity in the country and fresh transfer of Russian troops there.

Blasts were also heard in the city of Zaporizhzhia, the administrative centre of the Zaporizhzhia region, a local official said, without giving any immediate report on damage or casualties.

There is no end in sight to the war, now in its 11th month, which has killed thousands, displaced millions and turned Ukrainian cities into rubble. Ukrainian officials also reported blasts in regions that make up the broader Donbas region - the war's frontline where fighting has been raging for months.

Russia's overnight bombing of regions in eastern Ukraine killed at least one, local officials said on Sunday, after Moscow ended a self-declared Christmas ceasefire and vowed to push on with combat until it reaches a victory over its neighbour. President Vladimir Putin ordered on Friday a 36-hour ceasefire along the line of contact to observe Russia and Ukraine's Orthodox Christmas, which fell on Saturday. Ukraine had rejected the truce, and there was shelling along the frontline.

The OCU was established in 2019 and recognised as Ukraine's official branch of Orthodoxy by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Istanbul, the global head of the Orthodox Church. That decision infuriated Russia's Orthodox Church, as Istanbul had previously recognised the UOC, then under Moscow's rule, as the legitimate Ukrainian church. Some of the UOC's clergy and many of its worshippers moved to the OCU, to the former organisation's dismay. Both churches say the other is canonically illegitimate. Although the OCU soon had more worshippers than the old church, the UOC maintained control of over 12,000 churches, including the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra complex.

President Vladimir Putin on Saturday praised the Russian Orthodox Church for supporting Moscow's forces fighting in Ukraine in an Orthodox Christmas message and called it an important stabilising force in society. Despite cutting ties, the UOC still faces allegations of pro-Russian views and direct collaboration with Moscow, which it denies, from Ukraine's government and from much of Ukraine's press and civil society. The UOC says it is the victim of a political witch-hunt by its enemies in government.

Ukraine's Orthodox Church, in its various iterations, has been subordinate to Moscow since the 17th century. Ukraine has about 30 million Orthodox believers, divided between different church communities. The war, now in its eleventh month, has led many Ukrainians to rally round the OCU, which they see as more pro-Ukrainian than its rival, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC).

It has become a focus of a bitter conflict between Ukraine's Orthodox communities, triggered by Russia's invasion. Members of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU), Ukraine's largest, piled into the cathedral's ornate interior on Saturday, to hear the first ever Ukrainian-language service in the cathedral.

Tears of joy streamed down worshippers' faces as Ukraine's main church celebrated a "return" to Kyiv's Cathedral of the Assumption on Orthodox Christmas day, shortly after taking control of it from a rival church with alleged ties to Russia.

The move highlights the long-running tensions between the two churches exacerbated by Russia’s war in Ukraine. The cathedral had been under control of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which formerly had ties with the Russian Orthodox Church.

Overlooking the right bank of the Dnieper River, the cathedral and monastery complex has been a pilgrimage site for centuries. And for the first time in the 31 years of Ukraine’s independence, the service there was held in the Ukrainian language. Ukrainian army troops in uniform were among those singing well-known Ukrainian carols.

Packing a cathedral for Orthodox Christmas, hundreds of worshippers heard the service in that church in the Ukrainian language for the first time in decades, a demonstration of independence from the Russian Orthodox Church.

Ukraine's president praised the United States for including tank-killing armored vehicles in its latest multibillion-dollar package of military aid, saying they are “exactly what is needed” for Ukrainian troops locked in combat against Russian forces, even as both sides celebrated Orthodox Christmas on Saturday.

The White House announcement Friday of $3.75 billion in weapons and other aid for Ukraine and its European backers came as Moscow said its troops are observing a short Orthodox Christmas cease-fire.

Ukrainian officials denounced the unilateral 36-hour pause as a ploy and said it appeared to have been ignored by some of Moscow's forces pressing ahead with the nearly 11-month invasion. Ukrainian officials reported Russian shelling attacks in the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions on Saturday.

Vladimir Putin praised the Russian Orthodox Church for supporting Moscow's forces fighting in Ukraine in an Orthodox Christmas message designed to rally people behind his vision of modern Russia.

Shellfire echoed on Saturday around the near-deserted streets of the Ukrainian town of Bakhmut, current focus of the most intense fighting in Russia's invasion of Ukraine, despite Moscow's declaration of a ceasefire for Eastern Orthodox Christmas.Sparkling clear skies and a dusting of snow belied the devastation of a city abandoned by most of its pre-war population of 70,000, where humanitarian volunteers now risk their lives to support those who stayed.

In Kyiv, hundreds of worshippers on Saturday attended a historic service at the 11th century Kyiv Pechersk Lavra as Metropolitan Epifaniy, head of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, led a Christmas divine liturgy in the pro-Western country's most signifiant Orthodox monastery.The service is expected to anger the Moscow Patriarchate. Located in the capital Kyiv, the monastery used to be the seat of a branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox Chuch that was previously under Moscow's jurisdiction but which severed ties after Russia invaded Ukraine in February.Orthodox Christians observe Christmas on January 7.

Ukraine's president is praising the United States for including tank-killing armored vehicles in its latest multibillion-dollar package of military aid, saying they are “exactly what is needed” for Ukrainian troops locked in combat against Russian forces.The White House announcement Friday of $3.75 billion in weapons and other aid for Ukraine and its neighbors on NATO’s eastern flank came as Moscow said its troops are observing a short cease-fire for Orthodox Christmas, celebrated Saturday.

India's ambassador to Ukraine Harsh Kumar Jain called on Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar on Saturday. Vice president's secretariat tweeted about the meeting, but shared no details of the discussions between the two.

Russian and Ukrainian forces exchanged artillery fire at the front line in Ukraine on Friday, even after Moscow said it had ordered its troops to stop shooting for a unilateral truce that was firmly rejected by Kyiv. President Vladimir Putin ordered the 36-hour ceasefire from midday on Friday to observe Russian Orthodox Christmas. Ukraine has said it has no intention to stop fighting, rejecting the purported truce as a stunt by Moscow to buy time to reinforce troops that have taken heavy losses this week."What ceasefire? Can you hear?" said a Ukrainian soldier, using the nom de guerre Vyshnya, as an explosion rang out in the distance at the front line near Kreminna in eastern Ukraine. "What do they want to achieve if they keep on shooting? We know, we have learnt not to trust them."

ndia and the United States "agree very much" that the restoration of an enduring peace in Ukraine is essential, the Biden administration has said.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price also said his country is engaging very closely with its allies and partners, including India, on the conflict in Ukraine and that the international community firmly recognises the need to hold Russia to account.

“We agree very much with India that the restoration of an enduring peace in Ukraine is essential. This is the same message that President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy himself has issued. During the G-20, he spoke to the assembled world leaders, laid out his vision for a just peace. This is something that we very much welcome,” he told reporters at his daily news conference on Friday.

The United States on Friday announced military assistance worth over USD 3.75 billion for Ukraine, European allies, and partners, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced in a statement. In the statement, Antony Blinken said, "This assistance includes a $2.85 billion drawdown from stocks of the Department of Defense to be provided immediately to Ukraine and $225 million in Foreign Military Financing to build the long-term capacity and support modernization of Ukraine's military."

The United States on Friday announced a major military assistance package for Ukraine that is valued at more than $3 billion and includes 50 Bradleys and dozens of other armored vehicles.

The assistance -- $2.85 billion drawn from US inventories and $225 million in foreign military financing -- does not include advanced Western tanks sought by Kyiv, but will still provide significant additional firepower for its forces.

It is "the largest security assistance package in total value that we have committed so far," Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper told journalists.

Artillery exchanges pounded war-scarred cities in eastern Ukraine on Friday despite Russian leader Vladimir Putin unilaterally ordering his forces to pause attacks for 36 hours for the Orthodox Christmas.

The brief ceasefire declared by Putin earlier this week was supposed to begin at 0900 GMT Friday and would have been the first full pause since Moscow's invasion in February 2022.