TOP HEADLINES

· Ukraine shelled the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk overnight in what its Moscow-backed mayor described as "the most massive attack" on the occupied eastern city since 2014. Accusing Kyiv of firing forty rockets at civilian targets, the Donetsk official went on to cast the attack as a war crime.

· Moscow has said no "Christmas ceasefire" was on the cards and that the topic was "not on the agenda," after Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week that Russia should start withdrawing by Christmas as a step to end the conflict. A Ukrainian general also dismissed the possibility of a New Year's ceasefire.

· With an announcement on U.S. plans to send its game-changing Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine expected as soon as this week, Russia's foreign office stressed that any Western weapons systems in Ukraine would be a legitimate target for Russian strikes, adding that they would be either destroyed or seized.

· Moscow said it has received an apology from the Vatican over Pope Francis' comments last month that Russian soldiers from some ethnic minority groups were the "cruellest" fighters in the conflict.

· A senior Ukrainian military officer has accused Russia of seeking to turn the Ukraine war into "a prolonged armed confrontation." He added that Moscow was training new divisions in neighboring Belarus, but that the likelihood of a military operation being launched from there remained low.

· A U.S. citizen is among dozens of Russian-held prisoners to have been exchanged with Ukraine, the head of Ukraine's presidential office has announced.

· President Vladimir Putin is set to sign a decree this week outlining Russia's response to a Western price cap on Russian oil exports, according to the Kremlin. Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov added that no decision had been made yet on whether to finalize repairs of the undersea Nord Stream gas pipelines that were bombed in September.

· The UN's high commissioner for human rights said that further strikes on Ukraine's infrastructure could lead to a serious deterioration of the humanitarian situation and was exposing millions of people to "extreme hardship."

· A UN senior official said she was "cautiously optimistic" that there would be a breakthrough in negotiations to ease exports of Russian fertilizers. A deal for extending a Black Sea grain export agreement was secured in November, but Russia complained its concerns about fertilizer exports had not been addressed.

· The Ukrainian parliament's commissioner for human rights has accused Russia of taking 12,000 Ukrainian children into its territory since February, including 8,600 by force.

IN DETAIL

'Massive' Donetsk attack, no Christmas ceasefire

Ukrainian forces have launched their heaviest shelling attack in years on the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk, as both Moscow and Kyiv ruled out a Christmas truce in the nearly 10-month-old war.

Alexei Kulemzin, the Russian-backed mayor of Donetsk city, said 40 rockets were fired from Grad rocket launchers at civilian targets in the city's center during the early hours of Thursday morning.

Kulemzin described the attack as a war crime and said it was the largest the city had seen since 2014, when pro-Russian separatists seized it from Kyiv's control. At least five people were injured in the attack, including a child, he said. 

Kyiv is yet to comment on the strikes.

Meanwhile Russian forces have continued air strikes and shelling along the eastern front line, killing at least one person, while two more died in the southern city of Kherson, Ukrainian officials said.

"There is no calm on the front line," Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday, adding that Russian artillery attacks on towns in the east had left "only bare ruins and craters."

The leader had said this week that Russia should start pulling out its forces by Christmas as a step to end the conflict, but neither side appears willing to make concessions to move towards a peace settlement.

"The Kremlin... is seeking to turn the conflict into a prolonged armed confrontation," a senior Ukrainian officer, Brigadier General Oleksiy Gromov, said on Thursday, dismissing the possibility of a truce over the festive period.

On Wednesday, the Kremlin said a Christmas ceasefire was "not on the agenda".