US announces new military aid for Kyiv

The United States announced new military aid for Ukraine on Friday and vowed to disrupt Russian ties with Iran, which a British envoy said involved Moscow seeking hundreds of ballistic missiles and offering unprecedented military support in return.

Diplomacy, economy 

* Australia's foreign minister said the government would place targeted sanctions on Russia and Iran in response to what it called "egregious" human rights violations.

* The Russian-installed administration of Ukraine's Kherson region said it had begun changing locally circulated Ukrainian hryvnia currency into Russian roubles, with hryvnia circulation in Moscow-controlled areas of the region to end on Jan. 1.

* Belarus told the United Nations on Friday that it would allow, without preconditions, the transit of grain from Ukraine through its territory for export from Lithuanian ports, a U.N. spokesman said.

Nobel laureate 

* Russia wants to turn Ukraine into a "dependent dictatorship" like Belarus, the wife of jailed Belarusian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Byalyatski said upon receiving the prize on his behalf, speaking his words.

Gass prices and Russian oil exports

* A dozen countries including Belgium, Italy, Poland and Slovenia have made a push to "significantly" lower a planned European Union cap on gas prices, as the bloc struggles to strike a deal on the measure.

* Russian Energy Minister Nikolai Shulginov said on Friday Russia had three possible options for how to response to the West's price cap on Russian oil, without going into details, the TASS news agency reported.

* Turkey emerged as a critical stumbling block to a complex international plan to deprive Russia of wartime oil revenues as the number of tankers waiting to exit the Black Sea through Turkish straits continued to rise on Friday.

Conflict

* Russian forces have shelled the entire front line in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, Ukrainian officials said on Friday, part of what appears to be the Kremlin's scaled-back ambition to secure only the bulk of territory it has claimed.

* The fiercest fighting was near the towns of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, and Russian troops were also trying to advance near Lyman, which was recaptured by Ukrainian forces in November, the region's governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said on Friday.

* Reuters was not able to verify battlefield reports.

* Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday repeated his accusation that the West was "exploiting" Ukraine and using its people as "cannon fodder" in a conflict with Russia.

Brittney Griner

* A plane carrying Brittney Griner landed in the United States on Friday after the U.S. basketball star was released in a prisoner swap with Russia.

* The Kremlin said the exchange should not be seen as a step towards improving bilateral ties between Moscow and Washington, saying they remained "in a sorry state".

* The release of Griner in exchange for a convicted Russian arms dealer has resurfaced an old question: Do prisoner swaps do more harm than good?