Russia attacks Ukraine on multiple fronts

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian forces were trying to advance in the northeast and east and "planning something" in the south, while Nato yesterday sought to reassure other countries that fear destabilisation from Moscow.

Ukraine's General Staff said its forces had repelled six Russian attacks in the past 24 hours in the eastern Donbas region, while Russian artillery had relentlessly shelled the right bank of the Dnipro River and Kherson city in the south.

Winter weather has hampered fighting on the ground, and Zelensky has told Ukrainians to expect a major Russian barrage this week on Ukraine's stricken electricity infrastructure, which Moscow has pounded roughly weekly since early October.

"These are president (Vladimir) Putin's new targets. He's hitting them hard," US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said after Nato talks in Bucharest.

Putin had focused his "fire and ire" on Ukraine's civilians by bombing more than a third of its energy system supplying power and water, but the strategy would not work, Blinken said, adding that Nato was also concerned by China's ties with Moscow.

The Nato allies yesterday offered to help nearby Moldova, Georgia and Bosnia-Herzegovina - all under pressure from Russia - Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.

"If there is one lesson from Ukraine it is that we need to support them now," Stoltenberg told a news conference, while Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu told Reuters "the beast also wants to take control of the Western Balkans".

Zelensky said Russian forces were attacking Donetsk and Luhansk which make up the eastern Donbas as well as Kharkiv in the northeast, where Ukraine pushed them back in September.

"The situation at the front is difficult," he said in his nightly video address. "Despite extremely large losses, the occupiers are still trying to advance" in the east and "they are planning something in the south," he said, without elaborating.

Russia said its forces had taken full control of two settlements in the Donetsk region and destroyed a warehouse in the Dnipropetrovsk region containing HIMARS shells.

In Spain, an employee of Ukraine's embassy in Madrid was "lightly" injured yesterday when a letter bomb blew up as he handled it, a police source said.

"National Police were informed around 1:00 pm (1200 GMT) of an explosion at the Ukranian embassy in Madrid. It happened when one of the embassy employees was handling a letter," the source said.

Police have opened an investigation "which includes the participation of forensic police," the source said without giving further details, reports AFP.

In Kyiv, snow fell and temperatures were expected to remain below freezing as millions in and around the capital struggled to heat their homes despite attacks on infrastructure that Kyiv and its allies say are aimed at harming civilians, a war crime.

Workers have raced to repair the damage even as they anticipate more; electricity supplies crept back up towards three quarters of needs yesterday, national grid operator Ukrenergo said, a full week after the worst Russian barrage so far left millions of people shivering in cold and darkness.