Russia-Ukraine war live: Zelenskiy says Ukrainians are creating their own ‘miracle’ in Christmas Eve address | Ukraine

Isobel Koshiw

Dmytro Perov was at his day job, analysing planning applications for Kyiv city council, when he saw a familiar address – the derelict house in central Kyiv built by his family in the late 1800s that was confiscated by the Bolsheviks.

The owners of the site now wanted to build on it and had made the unlikely claim that their office was based at the house, which Perov knew had no roof and collapsed walls.

When he was a child, his grandmother said somewhere on the land around the former family home were rumoured to be ancient caves. He described it as a “small family legend”. Ukraine is home to a few cave complexes, most of which were built by monks, the most famous being Kyiv’s Pecherska Lavra – or Cave Monastery in English.

Perov decided that this might be his last chance to discover whether his grandmother’s tale was true. He and his friends, who like him are preservation activists, went to the site and climbed around the ruins of his grandmother’s house. Perov spotted some bushes and a pile of bricks in one corner on the hillside. There he found the entrance to tunnel burrowing into the hill. He and his friends climbed in, using their phones as torches.

So far they have discovered the entrances to four tunnels in and around the hills behind the house. The upper tunnel, which is the most accessible, stretches for 40 metres, and the lower one, said Perov, is twice as long. Inside the tunnels are rooms and cubbyholes which leading archaeologists believe may have been used to place lanterns.

Timur Bobrovskyy, head of archaeology at the St Sofia state museum in Kyiv, has hailed it a significant and special discovery and concluded that it must be preserved for its “indisputable and cultural value”. Bobrovskyy assesses that the caves are more than 1,000 years old and have similarities to “medieval monastery cave complexes”. Judging by some of the markings, the caves have had visitors before Perov, but he surmised they had not realised their significance.

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Three Ukrainian emergency services workers were killed on Saturday when a mine exploded while they were demining parts of the Kherson region, according to the emergency service in which they served.

“All three selflessly served … and performed the task of demining territories liberated from the enemy in the Kherson region,” the Zhytomyr emergency service said on its Facebook page.

Russia, which invaded Ukraine 10 months ago, occupies most but not all of Kherson region. Ukrainian forces retook Kherson city – the region’s administrative centre – and a number of settlements in the region in mid-November.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Russian forces had heavily mined buildings when they withdrew and explosives experts have been working to clear the area of dangerous devices.

My colleagues Lorenzo Tondo and Isobel Koshiw wrote last month about the danger of these operations last month and heard from experts who said that clearing the entire region could take years.

Good morning everyone. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong here, taking over from Jonathan Yerushalmy to bring you today’s developments from the Russia-Ukraine war. As always, feel free to drop me a message if you have anything to flag. You can reach me on Twitter or via email.

Russia’s parliament is preparing to introduce a higher taxation rate for people who have left the county, as many have since the war in Ukraine began in February.

Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the Duma, said legislation was being worked on.

It is right to cancel preferences for those who have left the Russian Federation and to introduce an increased tax rate for them.

Those who realised that they had made a mistake have already returned. The rest should understand: the vast majority of society does not support their act and believes that they betrayed their country, relatives and friends.”

The number of Russians who have left since the start of the war is unclear.

Some local media reported that as many as 700,000 fled after the announcement of a mobilisation drive to call up new troops to join the fight in September. The government rejected that figure at the time.

Russia’s 13% personal income tax is deducted automatically by domestic employers. Russians working abroad who are Russian tax residents must pay the tax independently, according to the Federal Tax Service of Russia.

Air raid sirens are sounding in Kyiv and across other Ukrainian regions.

The Kyiv city administration urged people to go to shelters after the air alert was announced.

The mayor of Mykolaiv in the country’s south posted to his official Telegram channel, warning of the sirens.

We’ll bring you more information when it’s available.

Pope Francis delivered his Christmas Eve mass on Saturday, warning that the level of greed and hunger for power was such that some wanted to “consume even their neighbours”, in an apparent reference to the war in Ukraine.

Men and women in our world, in their hunger for wealth and power, consume even their neighbours, their brothers and sisters.

How many wars have we seen! And in how many places, even today, are human dignity and freedom treated with contempt.”

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, Francis has spoken out against the war at nearly every public event, denouncing what he has called atrocities and unprovoked aggression.

He did not specifically mention Ukraine on Saturday night.

Earlier this month, the pope urged people to spend less on Christmas celebrations and gifts and send the difference to Ukrainians to help them get through the winter.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy used a Christmas Eve video address to say that Ukrainians would create their own miracle this Christmas, by remaining unbowed, despite Russian attacks that have left millions without power.

Most Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians and mark Christmas in early January.

Speaking 10 months to the day since Russia invaded, Zelenskiy said that while freedom came at a high price, slavery would cost even more.

Even in complete darkness, we will find each other to hug each other tightly. And if there is no heat, we will embrace each other for a long time to warm one another.

We will smile and be happy, as always. There is one difference – we will not wait for a miracle, since we are creating it ourselves.”

Referring to Russian strikes on the recently liberated city of Kherson that killed at least 10 on Saturday, Zelenskiy described Russia as a “terrorist country”.

The world must see and understand what absolute evil we are fighting against.”

Hello and welcome to today’s coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Jonathan Yerushalmy and I’ll be with you for the next while.

It’s 9am in Kyiv where some will be celebrating Christmas Day, however most Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians and will therefore mark the occasion in early January.

Nonetheless, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, used an address on Christmas Eve to deliver a message to all Ukrainians who are marking the holiday in the face of ongoing attacks from Russia.

Speaking 10 months to the day since Russia invaded, Zelenskiy said that while freedom came at a high price, slavery would cost even more.

More on that shortly. In the meantime, here are the other key recent developments:

• At least ten people were killed and an estimated 58 wounded on Saturday in Russian shelling on the recently recaptured Ukrainian city of Kherson. The region was targeted by 74 Russian strikes. 66 cars caught fire in a residential area of the city due to the shelling, the emergency services said.
• Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the attacks on Kherson “terror … killing for the sake of intimidation and pleasure”. He said: “it is the real life of Ukraine … The world must see and understand what absolute evil we are fighting against.”
• Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said the attack in Kherson is more evidence that Ukraine needs to be supplied with more defence systems and called for more weapons and ammunition.
• Reuters reporters in the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol have confirmed that authorities are demolishing and clearing what is left of the smashed rear portion of the cities theatre, where hundreds of Ukrainians were killed in Russian airstrikes after a protracted siege earlier this year.
• Ukraine has announced it has killed another 480 Russian troops, according to its latest casualty figures.
• The Netherlands has pledged €2.5bn ($2.7bn) to help Ukraine in 2023, with most of the money earmarked for military aid.
• The rock band Pink Floyd has raised $600,000 for Ukraine with the song Hey Hey Rise Up.