Russia's war on Ukraine latest: Ukraine pleads with allies to send tanks

Ukrainian officials reported heavy fighting in eastern regions as Kyiv's forces tried to push back Russian troops, while President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged the West to provide his army with heavy tanks.

Ukrainian officials reported heavy fighting in eastern regions as Kyiv's forces tried to push back Russian troops, while President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged the West to provide his army with heavy tanks. FIGHTING

* Ukraine's military said Russian forces were focused on an offensive in the Bakhmut sector and its attacks in the Avdiivka and Kupiansk sectors were unsuccessful. * It also reported an unspecified number of civilian casualties as a result of Russian air, missile and rocket attacks on the largely ruined, Ukrainian-held city of Bakhmut and two other cities in the Donetsk region - Kostiantynivka and Kurakhove.

* A married couple and their 12-year-old son were killed when a Russian shell hit a residential building in southern Ukraine on Thursday, a presidential aide said. * Reuters could not immediately verify the battlefield reports.

* Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, called for both sides of the war in Ukraine to observe a Christmas truce, a step dismissed by Kyiv as a cynical trap. DIPLOMACY

* President Vladimir Putin told Turkey's Tayyip Erdogan that Russia was open to dialogue over Ukraine but that Kyiv would have to accept the loss of territories claimed by Russia, the Kremlin said. * Turkish President Erdogan had told Putin in a phone call that peace efforts in the Russia-Ukraine war should be supported by a unilateral ceasefire and a "vision for a fair solution", the Turkish presidency said.

* A senior Ukrainian official reiterated Kyiv's rejection of any peace deal with Moscow that would allow Russia to keep Ukrainian territory seized by Russian forces. * France's decision to send light AMX-10 RC armoured combat vehicles to Ukraine prompted renewed calls from within German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition for Berlin to send more modern fighting vehicles to help in the war against Russia.

* U.S. President Biden said that sending Bradley Fighting Vehicles to Ukraine was being considered. The armoured vehicle with a powerful gun has been used as a staple by the U.S. Army to carry troops around battlefields since the mid-1980s. * Russia and Belarus have beefed up their joint military grouping in Belarus with weapons, soldiers and specialised equipment, and plan to hold joint aviation drills, the Belarusian Defence Ministry said.

ECONOMY & SANCTIONS * Ukraine's gross domestic product fell by 30.4% in 2022 - the largest annual fall in more than 30 years - because of the war with Russia, Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.

* The United States is looking at ways to target Iranian drone production through sanctions and export controls, the White House said. Washington previously imposed sanctions on companies and people it accused of producing or transferring Iranian drones that Russia has used against Ukraine. (Compiled by Grant McCool and Alex Richardson)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)