The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, strongly opposes paying the price for a ceasefire demanded by President Vladimir Putin, which would involve withdrawing from strategic territory that Russia has not been able to capture despite sacrificing tens of thousands of soldiers.
According to Zelenskyy's account to the BBC, Putin has already initiated the Third World War, and the only response is intense military and economic pressure to force him to back down.
"I believe Putin has already started it. The question is how much territory he will be able to seize and how to stop him... Russia wants to impose a different way of life on the world and change the life that people have freely chosen."
In a military context, three people died in Russian attacks. Two died in the Odesa region (south), following an initial fatality in the Zaporiyia region (center), according to military authorities in both regions.
In Zaporiyia, "the Russians attacked the city with drones. An industrial infrastructure was hit, and a 33-year-old man died," said the head of the regional military administration, Ivan Fedorov, specifying that another 45-year-old man was injured. Additionally, three people were injured in the Odesa region, two in Kharkiv (northeast), one in Kherson (east), and one in Dnipropetrovsk, according to local authorities.
Ukrainian Economy Stays Afloat Thanks to Europe but Growth Slows Down
After four years of Russian military aggression, the Ukrainian economy continues to focus on sustaining the war effort and maintains its stability thanks to a ¤90 billion loan for the next two years agreed upon by the European Union (EU). However, its growth is slowing down due to the constant drain caused by Russian attacks and the lack of new economic stimuli.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) - which also contributes to the country's viability with an $8.1 billion loan to be disbursed over four years - has lowered its GDP growth forecast for this year from 2% to 1.8%, mainly due to the negative impact that the current campaign of Russian airstrikes on the energy system is having on production and consumption.
Since the beginning of this year, Russia has launched numerous massive attacks that have further degraded Ukraine's already severely diminished electricity generation capacity, leading to long power outages and the need to extend the scheduled blackouts that were already in place due to the deficit caused by previous Russian bombings.
Russian Forces Target Ukrainian Energy and Fuel Infrastructures
Russian forces carried out "successful" attacks on Ukrainian transportation, energy, and fuel infrastructures, as reported on Monday by the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, citing the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Reuters could not independently verify the frontline report.
Amnesty International Denounces Life in Ukraine as "Survival" Amid Power Outages and Extreme Cold
Amnesty International denounced on Monday that life in Ukraine has become a matter of "survival covered by a layer of stubborn normality" amid power outages, extreme cold, and schools that only function underground, where solidarity is no longer just a slogan but what "sustains everything."
This was expressed by the Media and Campaigns Coordinator of Amnesty International Ukraine, Lera Burlakova, to commemorate the anniversary of the start of the Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory.
In a statement to the media, Burlakova described how in Ukraine, each day begins by checking for air raid alerts and sleeping away from windows at night to avoid broken glass. She emphasized that human rights work "cannot be delegated to safer countries."