Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused the United States of not allowing Ukraine to hold peace talks with the aim of "exhausting" Russia, stressing that his country has no desire to communicate with the West at present.
This coincides with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's pledge to continue preparing the Ukrainian defense and security forces for the next year, and his assertion that his country has united the European Union and is "approaching victory over the Russian enemy."
Lavrov confirmed in statements from the Russian capital that Moscow is now working to "liberate" the lands of the four regions that joined Russia recently, referring to the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson, which Moscow announced its annexation months ago after holding a referendum whose results were rejected by Kyiv and its Western allies.
He announced his country's readiness to discuss security issues in Ukraine and other major strategic issues.
negative behaviour
He also said that it is not possible to communicate with US President Joe Biden's administration unless Washington realizes "the negativity of its current behavior," as he put it.
He added that there are no alternatives to building relations of mutual respect with Russia in Ukraine, calling on Washington to abandon its current positions towards his country.
For its part, the Kremlin denied on Wednesday the existence of any peace plan for Ukraine so far, accusing Kyiv of not taking what it called "the realities of the day" into account.
He affirmed his rejection of any peace plan with Ukraine that does not recognize the accession of the "four new regions" to Russia.
A spokeswoman for the Secretary-General of the United Nations said that the international organization cannot hold a peace summit on Ukraine without the consent of all parties, after the statements of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, in which he stipulated that Russia face a war crimes tribunal before holding direct talks with his country.
Donbass and Crimea
For his part, the Ukrainian president stressed that Kyiv will restore life to normal in the Donbass and Crimea, as described, noting that his country's forces have regained control of more than 1,800 residential areas from the hands of the Russian army.
An advisor to the Ukrainian presidency also said that his country's constants are the restoration of Donbass, Crimea and all the lands seized by Russia.
He added that Russia started a war to kill civilians and seize lands, and any other Russian justifications are pure lies, as he described it.
Air alert
On the ground, the Al-Jazeera correspondent quoted Ukrainian military sources as saying that the authorities declared a state of air alert in Kyiv and the provinces of Zaporizhia, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odessa in the south of the country, in anticipation of new Russian attacks with missiles or drones.
And Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushenko said - Tuesday - that Russia may use missiles and cruise missiles in a large-scale attack on New Year's Eve, which falls next Saturday.
The Ukrainian army also said that it had confronted attempts by Russian forces to advance on more than one front today, Wednesday, in Zaporizhia County (south).
The Ukrainian military administration in Zaporizhia confirmed that its forces are holding the front lines in the canton, and are repelling attempts by Russian forces to advance on more than one axis.
It indicated that Russian forces bombed civilian infrastructure in 11 regions and towns in Zaporizhia.
On the other hand, the Russian Ministry of Defense broadcast footage of what it said was an air attack targeting Ukrainian sites, which it did not disclose.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that its helicopters destroyed camouflaged command posts and equipment for the Ukrainian armed forces.
Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that Russian artillery and missile forces destroyed the headquarters of the Ukrainian reserve forces in the city of Kramatorsk, pointing to the implementation of attacks on Ukrainian sites in Zaporizhia and Kubyansk in Kharkiv province.