Ukraine-Russia war latest: Trump approves major Russia sanctions bill after Zelensky says war could end soon

At least three people have been killed in Russian attacks on the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, Ukrainian authorities have said.

Seven were also injured in the attacks, which came during a large overnight air attack. The Zaporizhzhia military administration said Russia had conducted 698 attacks against 30 settlements over the past day, including 11 air strikes and 412 drone attacks of various types.

Russian forces targeted critical and social infrastructure alongside residential areas, they said according to Ukrainska Pravda.

Ukrainian authorities are carrying out repairs this morning to restore heat and water to more than one million consumers left without power, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Oleksiy Kuleba said.

The Russian aerial attacks yesterday late night targeted critical infrastructure in southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region.

The attack knocked out power supplies almost entirely in two regions of southeastern Ukraine, including Dnipropetrovsk.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said he believes Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine could be brought to an end in the first half of this year, adding that the negotiations have reached a new milestone.

The Ukrainian leader was speaking at a ceremony marking the start of Cyprus’s European Union presidency.

“As Cyprus begins its presidency of the Council of the EU, we note that the negotiations have reached a new milestone together with our European partners and, of course, the United States, and all members of the Coalition of the Willing,” Zelensky said.

“We sincerely believe that this war can be ended during your presidency of the Council of the EU,” he said.

The Mediterranean nation’s presidency of the Council of the EU will end in six months, at the end of June.

Trump will allow Russia sanctions bill to advance in Congress, US Senator says

US president Donald Trump will allow a bipartisan sanctions bill targeting countries doing business with Russia to move forward in Congress and it could be put to a vote as early as next week, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said on Wednesday.

Graham said in a statement Trump had “greenlit” the legislation after the pair met yesterday.

The legislation, which Graham has been working on with fellow Republicans and Democrats for months, would impose sanctions on countries doing business with Russia, including buyers of its energy exports, over Moscow’s failure to negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

“This bill will allow President Trump to punish those countries who buy cheap Russian oil fueling Putin’s war machine,” Graham said, citing China, India and Brazil as potential targets of the legislation.

Graham, a senator from South Carolina, said he is looking forward to a “strong bipartisan vote” on the legislation to take place as early as next week.

Putin called Russian soldiers “warriors” who were acting “as if at the Lord’s behest” in a speech marking Orthodox Christmas on Wednesday.

Despite appearing to position himself as a saviour using messianic messaging, Putin is “more like the Anti-Christ”, according to Father Myroslav Pushkaruk, a priest of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

“Trying to do this with power and violence, which is not about love, not about Christian values is more like the Anti-Christ in the Christian world,” the Rector at the Parish of the Protection of the Holy Mother of God in central London told The Independent.

Ukraine prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko said impending snowfalls and temperatures plunging overnight to minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit) were likely to compound disruptions to power and heating.

Russian attacks have long targeted Ukraine’s energy network and have become more intense in recent months.

“Ukraine’s energy system is under enemy attacks every day, and energy workers are operating in extremely difficult conditions to provide people with light and heat,” Svyrydenko wrote on Telegram.

“Deteriorating weather conditions put additional strain on critical infrastructure,” she said.

Public broadcaster Suspilne reported power cuts in the city of Dnipro, where the metro had stopped running, and other parts of the region. Officials extended school holidays by two days.

The head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional council told the broadcaster it was unclear when power would be restored.

Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the military administration in Kryvyi Rih, president Volodymyr Zelensky’s home town in the region, said conditions were particularly difficult in two districts with teams working to restore power.

He called for generators to be brought into use as much as possible.

EU purchases from a single oil project in northwest Siberia, a strategically important development known as the Yamal project, netted €7.2 billion ($8.4 billion) of revenue for the Kremlin in 2025 alone.

Around 15 million of the 19.7 million tons (76.1 per cent) of LNG exported from Yamal was shipped to the EU, according to analysis of data published by trading intelligence website Kpler, carried out by environmental NGO Urgewald.