Ukraine’s military said Russia had pulled some troops from towns on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River from Kherson city, the first official Ukrainian report of a Russian withdrawal on what is now the main front line in the south..

* Spain has stepped up security at public and diplomatic buildings after a spate of letter bombs, including one sent to Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and another to the Ukrainian embassy in Madrid, where an official suffered minor injuries.

* Air raid alerts were issued across all of Ukraine following warnings by Ukrainian officials that Russia was preparing a new wave of missile and drone strikes. “An overall air raid alert is in place in Ukraine. Go to shelters,” country’s border service wrote on Telegram messaging app.

* Ukraine’s military said it had found fragments of Russian-fired nuclear-capable missiles with dud warheads in west Ukraine, and that their apparent purpose was to distract air defences.

* The recently liberated Ukrainian city of Kherson has lost its power supply after heavy shelling by Russian forces, the regional governor said.

* European Union governments tentatively agreed on a $60 a barrel price cap on Russian seaborne oil, with an adjustment mechanism to keep the cap at 5% below the market price, an EU diplomat said.

* Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on that big problems had accumulated in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), accusing the West of spurning the chance to make it a real bridge with Russia after the Cold War.

* Lavrov said that discussions with Washington about potential prisoner exchanges were being conducted by the two countries’ intelligence services, and that he hoped they would be successful.

* The European Union needs patience as it sanctions Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, as most measures will only have an impact in the medium and long term, Lithuania’s prime minister said in an interview at  the  Reuters NEXT conference.

* Switzerland has frozen financial assets worth 7.5 billion Swiss francs ($7.94 billion) as of Nov. 25 under sanctions against Russians to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine, the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) said.

* Russia said the German parliament’s move to recognise the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine as a Soviet-imposed genocide was an anti-Russian provocation and an attempt by Germany to whitewash its Nazi past.

* Ukraine sacked a top engineer at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, accusing him of collaborating with Russian forces, and urged other Ukrainian staff at the plant to remain loyal to Kyiv.

* Russia must withdraw its heavy weapons and military personnel from the Zaporizhzhia plant if the U.N. atomic watchdog’s efforts to create a protection zone are to succeed, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.

* In a grim sign of the energy crisis caused by Russian attacks on Ukraine’s electricity grid, nine people have been killed in fires over the past 24 hours as Ukrainians resorted to emergency generators, candles and gas cylinders in violation of safety rules to try to heat their homes after power outages.

* “Remember one thing – the Russians are afraid. And they are very cold and no one will help them, because they do not have popular support,” – Andriy Yermak, chief of Ukrainian presidential staff.

Related Galleries:

Several places around the world have imposed curbs on travellers from China amid a COVID-19 surge after Beijing relaxed strict “zero-COVID” measures. They cite a lack of information from China on variants and are concerned about a wave of infections.

China has rejected criticism of its statistics and said it expects future mutations to be potentially more virulent but less severe.

Below is a list of rules for travellers from China:

The U.S. will impose mandatory COVID-19 tests on travelers from China beginning on Jan. 5. All air passengers 2 and older will require a negative result from a test no more than two days before departure from China, Hong Kong or Macau. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said Americans should also reconsider travel to China, Hong Kong and Macau.

The country has mandated a COVID-19 negative test report for travellers arriving from China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Thailand, the health minister said. Passengers from those countries will be put under quarantine if they showed symptoms of COVID-19 or tested positive.

Japan will require a negative COVID-19 test upon arrival for travellers from mainland China. Those who test positive will be required to quarantine for seven days. New border measures for China will go into effect at midnight on Dec. 30. The government will also limit requests from airlines to increase flights to China. Hong Kong’s government has asked Japan to withdraw a restriction that requires passenger flights from the financial hub to land at four designated Japanese airports, saying the decision will affect about 60,000 passengers.

The country has ordered COVID-19 antigen swabs and virus sequencing for all travellers coming from China. Milan’s main airport, Malpensa, had already started testing passengers arriving from Beijing and Shanghai. “The measure is essential to ensure surveillance and detection of possible variants of the virus in order to protect the Italian population”, minister Orazio Schillaci said, when announcing mandatory testing for passengers.

Taiwan’s Central Epidemic Command Centre said all passengers arriving on direct flights from China, as well as by boat at two offshore islands, will have to take PCR tests upon arrival.

Taiwan will test arrivals from China for COVID-19 starting Jan. 1.

UNITED KINGDOM

The UK will consider imposing COVID-19 restrictions for arrivals from China, including requiring tests for the coronavirus, the Telegraph reported. Officials from the Department for Transport, Home Office and the Department for Health and Social Care are expected to decide on Thursday whether the UK should follow the United States and Italy in imposing COVID restrictions for travellers from China, the report said.

AUSTRALIA

The country said it was making no change to its rules around allowing travellers from China in. “There is no change in the travel advice at this point in time but we are continuing to monitor the situation, as we continue to monitor the impact of COVID here in Australia as well as around the world,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said.

The Southeast Asian country is being “very cautious” and could impose measures such as testing requirements on visitors from China, but not an outright ban, Transportation Secretary Jaime Bautista said on Wednesday.

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Hong Kong’s government has asked Japan to withdraw a COVID-19 restriction that requires passenger flights from the financial hub to land at only four designated Japanese airports, saying the decision will impact about 60,000 passengers.

Japan, which is a top travel destination for Hong Kong people, said it would limit flights from Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China to Tokyo’s two airports, plus Osaka and Nagoya from Friday. The decision comes during a peak travel season and ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday which begins Jan. 22.

“It is understood that around 250 outbound flights of Hong Kong airlines will be affected between December 30, 2022 and the end of January 2023, affecting around 60,000 passengers,” the government said in a statement late on Wednesday.

City leader John Lee said the government had indicated to the Japanese government it was disappointed.

“We think that Hong Kong people should be allowed to use not just these four airports,” Lee said.

Flights of Hong Kong airlines can still carry passengers back to Hong Kong from various airports in Japan, the government said, to “ensure the smooth return of Hong Kong people from Japan and to minimise the impact to Hong Kong travellers caused by the incident.”

Hong Kong’s flagship carrier Cathay Pacific Airways (0293.HK) said in a statement on Thursday it would continue to operate flights to Japan, although it would reduce these to 65 per week, down 20% from its planned schedule for Jan 2023.

Hong Kong Airlines and Peach Aviation announced they would cancel some flight routes because of the rules.

The United States, India, Italy and Taiwan now require mandatory COVID-19 tests on travellers from China after Beijing’s decision to lift stringent zero-COVID policies.

China in December began dismantling the world’s strictest COVID regime of lockdowns and extensive testing, putting its battered economy on course for a complete re-opening next year.

The lifting of restrictions, following widespread protests against them, means COVID is spreading largely unchecked and likely infecting millions of people a day, according to some international health experts.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s move to effectively halve food rations to the poor ahead of state polls next year and a general election in 2024 is fiscally sound, but politically much depends on whether the charismatic leader can sell it to voters.

Subsidised food and other items are key to winning elections in India, where food aid is a legal right and more than 800 million people received an extra 5 kgs of free rice or wheat in the last 28 months as COVID-19 ravaged their finances.

The free food programme, however, cost the government around $47 billion, worsened the fiscal deficit and reduced wheat stocks in government warehouses to multi-year lows.

From January India will end the additional 5 kgs per person of food aid issued during the COVID-19 pandemic and for one year will issue 5 kgs of free food, but reducing populist measures ahead of elections is risky.

Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won a record-breaking victory in his home state Gujarat this month and is widely expected to win the next general election. Analysts say that reality gives him a freer hand to impose fiscal discipline.

“It’s actually, to my mind, quite clever politics, under the circumstances of fiscal constraints,” Yamini Aiyar, head of New Delhi think-tank Centre for Policy Research, said of the decision to reduce the food programme.

The government expects to save nearly $20 billion a year by ending the COVID free food scheme.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the budget for the next fiscal year on Feb. 1. One government source said the move to end the COVID-era free food programme would reduce the government’s subsidy burden by about 30% next fiscal year and help it rein in the fiscal deficit faster than anticipated.

The government’s subsidy bill on three major items including food and fertiliser is likely to fall to under 4 trillion rupees ($48 billion) the next fiscal year, the source said, from nearly 5.5 trillion rupees in the current fiscal year that ends on March 31.

The official added that the fiscal deficit target for 2023/24 would be lower by at least 50 basis points from 6.4% this fiscal.

Some economists had wanted the food programme gone months ago as COVID curbs eased. The government said last week that the programme would end in December, replaced by subsidised food under a pre-COVID law which will become free for one year.

India’s poor are guaranteed food under a decade-old law that enshrines it as a right.

“Reduction of effective food allocation per person from 10 kg to 5 kg is clearly non-populist,” said Subhash Chandra Garg, who retired as India’s finance secretary three years ago.

“But, this additional food allowance was clearly not required for meeting the calorific requirement. Therefore, if you can sell the idea that poor people will be getting what is required for meeting their true food needs, i.e. 5 kg per person free of cost, possibly the negative effect can be neutralised.”

Modi is known to be a master of communicating the message he wants to send voters and is helped by the fact that there is no obvious challenger to him in the country, said Yashwant Deshmukh, founder of polling agency CVoter Foundation.

Modi’s approval rating is about 60%, compared with about 20% for his nearest competitor, Rahul Gandhi of the main opposition Congress party, CVoter data shows.

“I think Modi has been carrying out the majority of his decisions thanks to his trustworthiness and popularity,” CVoter founder Yashwant Deshmukh said, referring to moves like banning high-value currencies in 2016 that caused widespread distress but he still won many elections easily after that.

“It’s because people do not doubt his intention. Had the trust not been there, and for any other leader, it would have been difficult to end such a food programme ahead of elections.”

But senior BJP leader and former minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the decision to reduce food aid should not be linked to elections or politics.

“This started when COVID was there. In Narendra Modi’s government, inclusion and empowerment of poor are important elements,” he said.

Elections are due in nine states in 2023 before the national poll a year later. In the last general election, a free housing and cooking gas for the poor programme helped the BJP trounce Congress.

Changes to the food handout will mean the government’s total subsidies on food, fertiliser and fuel will come down by 30% to under 4 trillion rupees ($48.27 billion) next fiscal year, two government sources said.

One of the sources expect the government to reduce the fiscal deficit by at least 50 basis points to 5.9% of GDP in the fiscal year starting April 1. The second one said the food subsidy could fall to around 2 trillion rupees next fiscal year from nearly 3.2 trillion in the current year.

Pronab Sen, formerly India’s chief statistician, said that had the COVID food programme been extended, government warehouses would have run out of grains closer to the general election.

“It would have been much more damaging to have to stop it in 2024,” Sen said.

($1 = 82.8750 Indian rupees)

KYIV/BAKHMUT, Ukraine (Reuters) – Ukraine’s recently liberated southern city of Kherson suffered intense mortar and artillery attacks from Russian forces across the Dnipro river, while the Kremlin rejected a Ukrainian peace plan, demanding that Kyiv accept its annexation of four regions.

Kherson has remained under bombardment from Russian forces which had retreated to the east bank of the river when the city was retaken in a major victory for Ukraine last month.

On Wednesday, the shelling hit the maternity wing of a hospital, though no-one was hurt, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s deputy chief of staff. Staff and patients were moved to a shelter, Tymoshenko said in a post on Telegram.

“It was frightening … the explosions began abruptly, the window handle started to tear off … oh, my hands are still shaking,” Olha Prysidko, a new mother, said. “When we came to the basement, the shelling wasn’t over. Not for a minute.”

Moscow has repeatedly denied targeting civilians.

Zelenskiy, in a video address, urged Ukrainians to hug loved ones, tell friends they appreciate them, support colleagues, thank their parents and rejoice with their children more often.

“We have not lost our humanity, although we have endured terrible months,” he said. “And we will not lose it, although there is a difficult year ahead.”

Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. Kyiv and its Western allies have denounced Russia’s actions as an imperialist-style land grab. Russian President Vladimir Putin calls it a “special military operation” to demilitarize its neighbour.

Sweeping sanctions have been imposed on Russia for the war, which has killed tens of thousands of people, driven millions from their homes, left cities in ruins and shaken the global economy, driving up energy and food prices.

Russian gas exports to Europe via pipelines collapsed to a post-Soviet low in 2022 as its largest customer cut imports due to the Ukraine conflict and a major pipeline was damaged by mysterious blasts, Gazprom data and Reuters calculations show.

‘TODAY’S REALITIES’

There is still no prospect of talks to end the war.

Zelenskiy is vigorously pushing a 10-point peace plan that envisages Russia respecting Ukraine’s territorial integrity and pulling out all its troops.

But Moscow dismissed it on Wednesday, reiterating Kyiv must accept Russia’s annexation of the four regions – Luhansk and Donetsk in the east, and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south.

There can be no peace plan “that does not take into account today’s realities regarding Russian territory, with the entry of four regions into Russia”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Zelenskiy’s idea of driving Russia out of eastern Ukraine and Crimea with Western help and getting Moscow to pay damages to Kyiv is an “illusion”, the RIA news agency reported.

TASS cited Lavrov as saying that Russia would continue to build up its fighting strength and technological capabilities in Ukraine. He said that Moscow’s mobilised troops had undergone “serious training” and while many were now on the ground, the majority were not yet at the front.

Zelenskiy told parliament to remain united and praised Ukrainians for helping the West “find itself again”.

“Our national colours are today an international symbol of courage and indomitability of the whole world,” he said in an annual speech held behind closed doors.

On the battlefront, Russia shelled more than 25 settlements around Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on Wednesday. The Kherson region, at the mouth of the Dnipro, serves as a gateway to Russian-annexed Crimea.

Heavy fighting persisted around the Ukrainian-held city of Bakhmut, in the eastern province of Donetsk, and to its north, around the cities of Svatove and Kreminna in Luhansk, where Ukrainian forces are trying to break Russian defensive lines.

Britain’s defence ministry said Russia had likely reinforced the Kreminna section of the frontline as it is logistically important and relatively vulnerable following Ukrainian advances further west.

Kyiv-based military analyst Oleh Zhdanov noted that Kharkiv city and region had also come under heavy attacks which damaged a regional gas pipeline.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said in a Telegram post that the city had come under attack twice, “presumably” from Iranian Shahed drones, five of which Ukraine’s eastern air command separately reported downing over the city of Dnipro.

Reuters was unable to verify battlefield reports.

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