Russia announced its refusal to conduct peace negotiations on Ukraine's terms, while Kyiv warned of the possibility of Moscow launching a large-scale attack on New Year's Eve, and announced that several attacks had been repelled in the vicinity of a disputed city in the Donetsk region, in the east of the country.
Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, at a press conference, in response to a question about whether Moscow was ready to negotiate under certain conditions from Kyiv, "We never followed the conditions of others, we focused only on our own conditions, and on common sense," according to the Russian news agency Sputnik.
The Russian spokesman's speech comes one day after statements by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, in which he said that Kyiv wants to hold a "peace summit" by the end of next February, adding, "It is preferable to be on the United Nations platform with the Secretary-General of the Organization, Antonio Guterres, as a possible mediator." ".
In an interview with the Associated Press, Kuleba added that all wars end in a diplomatic way and are the result of developments on the battlefield and dialogue at the negotiating table, as he put it.
He also noted that diplomacy plays an important role in ending the conflict.
Kyiv wants to hold a peace summit at the UN in the coming months, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told AP.
According to him, the Ukrainian government would like to hold the summit by the end of February, and the chairman should be UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
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Lavrov's remarks on negotiation
For his part, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow's proposals for "disarmament" and "the elimination of Nazism" in Ukraine are well known to Kyiv.
And the official Russian news agency quoted Lavrov as calling on the Ukrainian authorities to take action to eliminate threats to Russia's security, otherwise the Russian army will decide the matter, "according to his expression."
Lavrov had said earlier that the West's ability to lead the global economy is greatly diminishing, which will eventually force it to negotiate with Russia, "whether it be so or not."
Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced his country's readiness to agree with all parties to the conflict in Ukraine on "acceptable solutions", but they refuse to do so.
Russia wants to negotiate on the basis of the current situation and the fait accompli, and considers the areas it has taken control of in its recent attack since last February to be Russian territory, while Kyiv demands the complete withdrawal of Russian forces from the "occupied" Ukrainian lands as a precondition for the summit.
Warning of a massive Russian attack
Meanwhile, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushenko said that Russia may use missiles and cruise missiles in a large-scale attack on New Year's Eve, which falls next Saturday.
In statements to Ukrainian television, Galushenko added, "The Russians have not stopped attacks on our energy network, and since they are targeting certain dates, the new year may be one of those dates when they will try to harm our energy network."
He said, "Work is underway to fix the network at the present time quickly, to enable Ukrainians to celebrate the New Year without interruptions, but this will not be possible in the event of new Russian attacks."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently said that all power stations in his country were damaged or destroyed by the Russians, while Germany and the UAE sent generators to Ukraine to avoid shortages in electricity sources.
Zelensky also said in his videotaped daily speech on Monday evening that about 9 million Ukrainians have become without electricity as a result of Russian strikes on the country's infrastructure, warning that Russian forces will attack Ukraine's electricity grid again.
He explained that the Russians are pressing with all their capabilities and resources in the eastern region of Dunas, to achieve what he described as some progress on those fronts, stressing that the situation in Bakhmut, Krimina and other regions in the region is "difficult and painful", and requires maximum strength and focus.
Repelling Russian attacks in Bakhmut
On the ground, the Ukrainian General Staff announced that the army forces had repulsed several Russian attacks in the area surrounding the disputed city of Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region.
The General Staff also said that Ukrainian artillery shelled Russian forces in the village of Polovenkino in the neighboring Luhansk region, killing or wounding about 150 Russian fighters.
The report said that similar artillery strikes targeted Russian soldiers in the Kherson region in the south, killing about 50 soldiers and wounding 100 others.
In the Donetsk axis, the Russian forces continued their attacks, and the Russian Ministry of Defense announced the killing of 40 Ukrainian soldiers in attacks by its forces on the southern axis of the city of Donetsk.
The ministry's spokesman, Igor Konashenkov, said that the Russian forces destroyed workshops to repair the weapons of the Ukrainian army in the city of Kramatorsk, east of the Donbass region, and added that the total losses of Ukraine within one day amounted to about 100 soldiers, with the destruction of several vehicles.