TOP HEADLINES

· Ukraine's army said it repelled an overnight drone attack on the country, including on the capital Kyiv, a day after Russia launched a barrage of missiles on Ukraine. READ MORE BELOW

· A stream of Russian missile strikes on Ukraine has resulted in "significant damage" to the national power grid, already battered by repeated bombardment, officials reported. "Unfortunately, due to significant network damage, it is difficult for us to deliver electricity in Kharkiv, Kyiv, Odessa, Mykolaiv, Kherson and Lviv regions," said the head of Ukraine's grid operator Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi.

· President Vladimir Putin oversaw the commissioning of several new warships and a nuclear-powered submarine as he vowed to further strengthen Russia's navy.

· Russian forces shot down a drone near Engels, a base for Russia's strategic aircraft, located hundreds of kilometers from Ukraine's border, regional authorities said. Kyiv says Engels, in Russia's central region of Saratov, houses aircraft used to strike Ukraine.

· NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called on NATO member states to supply more weapons to Ukraine. " I call on allies to do more. It is in all our security interests to make sure Ukraine prevails and Putin does not win," Stoltenberg told German news agency DPA.

· Authorities in Minsk summoned Ukraine's ambassador over a Ukrainian air defense missile that landed near the western Belarusian city of Brest. "A strong protest was made in connection with the launch of an S-300 anti-aircraft guided missile from the territory of Ukraine," the foreign ministry said.

· Ukraine suggested a missile Belarus shot down over its territory might have been a move by Moscow aimed at bringing Minsk into the war. "The Ukrainian side does not exclude a deliberate provocation on the part of... Russia, which laid such a route for its cruise missiles to provoke their interception in the airspace over the territory of Belarus," said a defense ministry statement.

IN DETAIL

Kyiv repels overnight drone attacks

Ukraine's army said it repelled an overnight drone attack on the country, including on the capital Kyiv, a day after Russia launched a barrage of missiles on Ukraine.

"On the night of December 29-30, the enemy attacked Ukraine with Iranian-made kamikaze drones," Ukraine's air force said in a statement on social media. 

It added that a total of 16 drones were launched from the southeastern and northern directions and they were "all" destroyed by Ukraine's air defense.

In the capital Kyiv, the city authorities announced an air alert at 2:12 am local time (00:12 GMT), which lasted for just over two hours.  

Mayor Vitali Klitschko later said the capital was attacked with seven drones: two were shot down "on approach" and five over the city.

There were no casualties, but falling debris damaged windows in two buildings in a southwestern neighborhood, he added.

On Thursday morning, blasts were reported across Ukraine, including in Kyiv, the second city Kharkiv in the east and the western city of Lviv near the border with Poland. 

Ukraine's army said Russia had launched 69 cruise missiles, 54 of which had been shot down.