Sawt Falasteen - Ukraine retreats in east as Russian strikes kill three, hit energy

Kyiv had to withdraw forces from Siversk, a town in the heavily embattled Donetsk region on the way to two last strongholds held by Ukraine. Russia announced the capture of Siversk almost two weeks ago.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the pre-Christmas strikes showed that the Kremlin had no intention of ending the invasion it launched in February 2022.

The attacks also came two days after US-mediated settlement talks in Miami, which lasted for a few days as the warring sides were working out details of the Washington-proposed plan to end the war.

There has been no sign of an imminent breakthrough in the diplomatic push.

The Ukrainian army said that "to preserve the lives of our soldiers and the combat capability of our units, Ukrainian defenders have withdrawn from the settlement" of Siversk, adding that fighting was still ongoing on the outskirts.

Moscow on Monday reported "slow progress" in talks over the US plan to end the war, as Kyiv and its European allies seek to adjust an initial proposal that adhered to many of Russia's hardline demands.

- Chernobyl endangered -

A Russian strike could collapse the internal radiation shelter at the defunct Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine, the plant's director has told AFP.

In an interview with AFP, plant director Sergiy Tarakanov said that fully restoring the shelter could take three to four years and warned that another Russian strike could cause the inner shell to collapse.

"If a missile or drone hits it directly, or even falls somewhere nearby, for example, an Iskander, God forbid, it will cause a mini-earthquake in the area," Tarakanov told AFP in an interview conducted last week.

The Iskander is Russia's short-range ballistic missile system that can carry a variety of conventional warheads, including those designed to destroy bunkers.

"No one can guarantee that the shelter facility will remain standing after that. That is the main threat," he added.

On the battlefield in the east, Russia's army claimed to have captured settlements in the Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions, in a grinding advance that has accelerated in recent weeks.

- Four-year-old killed -

Zelensky said a four-year-old child was killed in the central Zhytomyr region, where a Russian drone struck a residential building.

Workers were scrambling to repair energy infrastructure hit in the attack, he said, which forced emergency power cuts across several regions in frigid winter weather.

"An attack ahead of Christmas, when people simply want to be with their families, at home, and safe. An attack carried out essentially in the midst of negotiations aimed at ending this war," he said.

There were also deaths in the Kyiv and Khmelnytskyi regions.

In Russia, one person was killed and three wounded, including a teenage boy, after Ukrainian drone barrages on the border region of Belgorod, its governor said.

Ukraine's prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko said energy facilities in the west of the country were most affected by the strikes.

Russia's army said it had launched a massive strike using long-range drones and hypersonic missiles at military and energy sites.

The southern Black Sea region of Odesa was also targeted again -- as Russia steps up its attacks on the important port city.

Olena Dolhachova, a 40-year-old maths teacher there, told AFP she had to resort to candles to do her work.

"There are attacks every week. Just when power is restored, all our schedules are disrupted again, we are left without electricity, without stability, sitting in the dark for two or three days," she said.

"It is very difficult."

J.AbuShaban--SF-PST