explosions rattled villages and cities across Ukraine on Thursday, damaging civilian infrastructure and killing at least three people in what Kyiv has called one of Moscow’s biggest missile barrages since the war began in February.

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30 December 2022- Kyiv

Edited by | Anna Sam

world news section - CJ journalist 

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Authorities have been cautioning for days that Russia was preparing to launch an all-out assault on the power grid to close out 2022, plummeting the country into darkness as Ukrainians attempt to ring in the New Year and celebrate the Christmas holidays, which for the country’s Orthodox Christians falls on January 7.

At least three people were killed and seven injured in the nationwide attacks, according to the Ukrainian State Emergency Service. Ukraine’s Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said that Lviv, Kyiv, and Odesa were particularly hard hit, and experiencing emergency power outages – when the electricity is protectively turned off to diminish damage from the grid shorting out.

As the war looks set to stretch into another year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Thursday that Moscow will not negotiate with Kyiv on the basis of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s proposed 10-point peace formula, which includes Russia’s withdrawal from all Ukrainian territory, a path to nuclear safety, food security, a special tribunal for alleged Russian war crimes, and a final peace treaty with Moscow.

Lavrov told Russian state-run news agency RIA Novosti that Zelensky was “nursing the illusion” that, with the aid of Western nations, he could force the withdrawal of Russia from Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that it annexed from Ukraine in 2014, and occupied areas of Ukraine’s Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, as well as bring Russia in front of international courts and pay reparations. “We will not talk to anyone under such conditions,” he said.

Still, he stressed Russia was open to diplomatic solutions, echoing comments made by Russian President Vladimir Putin in recent days that he wanted an end to the war. Putin’s claim that he is open to negotiating was roundly dismissed by Kyiv and the West as a ruse.