Russian troops are now drawing closer to the final remaining “fortress belt” cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk
Russian soldiers have captured the embattled town of Siversk in eastern Ukraine, as Vladimir Putin’s troops press on with a slow but steady advance.
Putin’s forces had a “significant advantage in manpower” as they took over the area, Ukraine’s military said on Tuesday.
The military added that they were forced “to preserve the lives of our soldiers and the combat capability of units” and withdraw.
It admitted that Ukraine’s “defence forces had exhausted the enemy during the fighting for Siversk”.
Russian troops are now drawing closer to the final remaining “fortress belt” cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk in the industrial Donetsk region – which Ukraine remains in control of.
Read more: Boy, 4, among those dead as Russia launches ‘massive’ wave of strikes on Ukraine
Read more: Starmer and Trump discuss Ukraine and Gaza during final phone call of 2025
But Russia now controls around 75 per cent of the Donetsk region, with up to 99 per cent of next-door Luhansk.
These areas are known collectively as the Donbas – and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been urged by US President Donald Trump to cede all of Donbas to Russia in US-led peace talks.
Russia fired more than 650 drones and three dozen missiles at Ukraine in a large-scale attack that began on Monday night and stretched into daylight hours, officials said.
At least three people were killed, including a four-year-old child.
The barrage struck homes and the power grid in 13 regions of Ukraine, causing widespread outages in bitter temperatures, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, a day after he described recent progress on finding a peace deal “quite solid”.
Initial reports from Ukrainian emergency services said the toddler died in Ukraine’s north-western Zhytomyr region, while a drone killed a woman in the Kyiv region, and another civilian death was recorded in the western Khmelnytskyi region, according to Mr Zelenskyy.
The bombardment demonstrated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intention of prosecuting the invasion of Ukraine, Mr Zelenskyy said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
Authorities in the western regions of Rivne, Ternopil and Lviv, as well as the northern Sumy region, reported damage to energy infrastructure or power outages after the attack.
In the southern Odesa region, Russia struck energy, port, transport, industrial and residential infrastructure, according to regional head Oleh Kiper.
A merchant ship and more than 120 homes were damaged, he said.
Ukrainian and European officials have complained that Mr Putin is not sincerely engaging with US-led peace efforts.
The attack “is an extremely clear signal of Russian priorities”, Mr Zelenskyy said.
“A strike before Christmas, when people want to be with their families, at home, in safety.
“A strike, in fact, in the midst of negotiations that are being conducted to end this war.
“Putin cannot accept the fact that we must stop killing.”
US President Donald Trump has been pressing for a peace agreement for months, but the negotiations have become entangled in the very different demands from Moscow and Kyiv.
US envoy Steve Witkoff said he held “productive and constructive” talks in Florida with Ukrainian and European representatives on Sunday.
Mr Trump was less effusive on Monday, though, saying: “The talks are going along.”