By Heather Chen, Sophie Tanno, Adrienne Vogt, Aditi Sangal, Maureen Chowdhury and Elise Hammond, CNN
From CNN's Al Goodman in Madrid
The envelope that exploded at the Ukrainian Embassy in Madrid Wednesday was addressed to Ambassador Serhii Pohoreltsev, according to a statement released by Spain’s Foreign Ministry.
Spain’s Foreign Affairs Minister Jose Manuel Albares spoke to Pohoreltsev after the incident. The person injured was a Ukrainian worker, according to the same statement.
Albares, who is visiting Spanish troops at a NATO mission in Romania, extended his support and solidarity after the incident.
From CNN's Kylie Atwood
US President Joe Biden's administration is considering designating the Wagner Group, a Russian private military group, as a foreign terrorist organization amid ongoing efforts to impose costs on Russia for the Ukraine war, a US official said.
No final decision has been made, and it is unclear how far out the administration is from potentially making this designation given the laborious legal process in making this determination, the official explained.
The Wagner Group is a mercenary firm that has been heavily involved in the fighting in Ukraine. The group is often described as President Vladimir Putin’s off-the-books troops. It has expanded its footprint globally since its creation in 2014. The group has been accused of war crimes in Africa, Syria and Ukraine.
The group was founded by a Russian oligarch, Yevgeny Prigozhin, which he admitted to earlier this year. Prigozhin is so close to the Kremlin that he is known as Putin’s “chef.”
The group is already sanctioned by the US, but the Biden administration has its sights on labeling it a terrorist organization amid pressure – both from the Ukrainians and from Congress – to declare Russia as a state sponsor of terror due to the invasion of Ukraine and the constant attacks on the civilian population.
“As Ukraine continues to seize momentum on the battlefield, President Putin has focused his ire and his fire on Ukraine’s civilian population,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a news conference Wednesday at the NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Bucharest, Romania, noting that Putin’s targets are heat, water and electricity. “This brutalization of Ukraine’s people is barbaric.”
More background: The Biden administration has so far resisted efforts to label Russia as a state sponsor of terror, making the case that it would be a largely symbolic designation that could create obstacles when it comes to getting support into Ukraine, particularly through the Black Sea.
“We have to take into account the consequences, both the intended and the unintended. And that has led us to the approach we’ve taken here,” US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said earlier this year.
The conversations regarding Wagner are currently happening within a small group of US officials, and no final decision has been made.
From CNN's Darya Tarasova and Tim Lister
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that its forces have made a breakthrough in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
"As a result of offensive actions by Russian troops, Andriivka (Donetsk People's Republic) has been completely liberated from the Ukrainian armed forces," it announced on Tuesday in a Telegram post.
Andriivka is a small settlement south of the city of Bakhmut, in a region that has seen some of the heaviest fighting of the conflict.
The ministry said that Russian troops continued "successful offensive operations to liberate Vodiane," a nearby settlement.
Russian forces have focused considerable effort on taking villages around Bakhmut in an effort to encircle and take the city.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces have not confirmed the loss of any territory. The General Staff said Monday that Russian troops continued their main offensive actions on places east and south of Bakhmut, mentioning both Andriivka and Vodiane.
From CNN's Yulia Kesavia in Kyiv
A Christmas tree of "invincibility" will be installed in the Ukrainian capital ok Kyiv, Mayor Vitaly Klitschko said.
The tree will be 12 meters high and “decorated with energy-saving lights” that will be generator powered.
A charging point will be installed near the generator for people to charge their phones and once Christmas passes, the company that provided the generator will donate it to the Ukrainian armed forces, according to Klitschko’s social media post.
The tree itself will be placed on St. Sophia Square and the decorations will be funded 100% from local businesses.
Klitschko described the tree as being decorated the same as “previous years”, which includes 1,000 toys, blue and yellow baubles and 500 white doves donated by “Global Decor.” The topper, patriotically, will be a Ukrainian coat of arms.
The spruce will be decorated with a nod to the international assistance that Ukraine has received. Flags of countries “that help Kyiv cope with the challenges and consequences” of the war will be placed around the base.
On Tuesday, Klitschko announced that trees will be installed across the city but didn’t offer many details saying, “we cannot let Putin steal Christmas!”
It was confirmed that any tree installations would not have mains powered lights given the pressure on the Ukrainian grid. The use of the generator appears to be an alternative.
From CNN’s Arnaud Siad and Ben Kirby
NATO is looking to invest in Soviet-era weapon systems used in Ukraine, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN on Wednesday.
“We’re looking at every option to make sure that, again, [the Ukrainians] get what they need and what can be most effective for them. Some of that does go to Soviet-era systems that they’ve had in their inventory for decades and, for example, making sure that the ammunition is there for those systems. And in some cases, that may require producing things that haven’t been produced for some time. So we are looking across the board at all of that,” Blinken told CNN in Bucharest, Romania, where he is attending a meeting of NATO foreign ministers.
The New York Times reported on Sunday that NATO was discussing investing in old factories in the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria to restart the manufacturing of Soviet-era shells for Ukraine’s still largely Soviet-era artillery armory.
From CNN's Amy Cassidy in London
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Wednesday asked Germany to provide Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine as soon as possible.
“The message is simple: give Patriots as soon as you can,” Kuleba said while speaking at a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Bucharest, “because this is the system that Ukraine needs to protect its civilian population and critical infrastructure.”
Kuleba's remarks come after Poland's Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak said last week that Berlin should send Patriot missile air defense systems directly to Ukraine rather than Poland. German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht responded by stressing that the use of NATO defense systems outside its territory needs to be agreed by all member states.
“This is not an offensive weapon. … If Germany is ready to provide Patriots to Poland, and Poland has nothing against handing these batteries over to Ukraine, then I think that the solution for the German government is obvious,” Kuleba said.
Berlin had initially offered the Patriot systems to Poland after a likely Ukrainian stray missile crashed and killed two people in a Polish village near the border with Ukraine earlier this month.
“We are ready to accept them; we are ready to operate them in the safest and most efficient way. And once again, I would like to reiterate that this is a purely defensive weapon. We will be working with the German government on this particular issue," Kuleba said.
From Pau Mosquera, Claudia Rebaza and Al Goodman in Madrid
An explosion has occurred at the Ukrainian Embassy in Madrid, according to a Spanish Ministry of Interior statement. One person is slightly injured after handling a letter and is being treated at hospital, the ministry said.
The Spanish National Police said an explosive device has gone off at the embassy and they are investigating.
Police said it is too early to know if the explosion took place when an embassy worker tried to open an envelope or simply move the envelope.
“Minister Dmytro Kuleba (Ukrainian Foreign minister) has issued an urgent instruction to step up security at all Ukrainian embassies abroad,” said the Ukrainian foreign minister’s spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko.
“Whoever is behind this explosion they will not succeed in intimidating Ukrainian diplomats or stopping their daily work to strengthen Ukraine and to counter Russian aggression,” Nikolenko quotes Kuleba as saying.
From CNN’s Arnaud Siad and Ben Kirby
The United States is “very focused” on providing air defense systems to Ukraine, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN on Wednesday.
“We’re now very focused on air defense systems and not just us, many other countries,” Blinken told CNN's Christiane Amanpour.
“And we’re working to make sure that the Ukrainians get those systems as quickly as possible but also as effectively as possible, making sure that they are trained on them, making sure they have the ability to maintain them, and all of that has to come together and it is. We have a very deliberate process established by the Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in Ramstein, Germany, that meets regularly to make sure that the Ukrainians are getting what they need, when they need it,” he added.
Blinken was speaking from Bucharest, Romania, where he is attending a meeting of NATO foreign ministers.
While Blinken would not elaborate on whether the Pentagon would provide the Patriot missile defense system to Ukraine, he told Amanpour that the United States had been working on making sure that “at any given time, [the Ukrainians] have the most effective systems possible to deal with the threat they are facing.”
“We just recently, for example, provided them with a very effective system called NASAMS that they are using very effectively. Before that of course, we had the HIMARS, which they used to great effect both in southern and eastern Ukraine,” Blinken said.
From CNN's Jennifer Hansler
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken strongly condemned the targeting of Ukrainian civilians by Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling it “barbaric.” He also promised that the United States and NATO allies would continue to support Kyiv in the face of Russian efforts to “splinter our coalition.”
“As Ukraine continues to seize momentum on the battlefield, President Putin has focused his ire and his fire on Ukraine's civilian population,” Blinken said at a news conference Wednesday at the NATO foreign ministers meeting in Bucharest. “Over the past several weeks, Russia has bombed out more than a third of Ukraine's energy system, plunging millions into cold, into darkness, as frigid temperatures set in.”
“Heat, water, electricity, for children, for the elderly, for the sick — these are President Putin's new targets. He's hitting them hard,” the top US diplomat said. “This brutalization of Ukraine's people is barbaric.”
On Tuesday, the United States government pledged more than $50 million dollars in equipment to support Ukraine’s electrical system. Blinken said Wednesday that the equipment – generators, transformers, spare parts – would be arriving in Ukraine “not in a matter of months, but in a matter of days, or weeks.”
Blinken said the attacks on civilian infrastructure were part of Putin’s “playbook” to “freeze and starve Ukrainians, force them from their homes,” drive up costs for energy and food around the world, “and then try to splinter our coalition.”
“President Putin thinks that if he can just raise the costs high enough, the world will abandon Ukraine, that it will leave them to fend for themselves. His strategy has not and will not work,” Blinken said.
Allies are aware that “standing up for Ukraine means accepting difficult costs,” Blinken said, “but the cost of inaction would be far higher.”
Blinken said that diplomacy would be necessary to fully end Russia’s war in Ukraine, but noted that “Russia's savage attacks on Ukrainian civilians are the latest demonstration that President Putin currently has no interest in meaningful diplomacy.”
“The best way to actually hasten the prospects for real diplomacy is to sustain our support to Ukraine and continue to tilt the battlefield in its favor,” Blinken said. “That will also help ensure that Ukraine has the strongest possible negotiating position and hand to play when a negotiating table emerges.”
“Short of Russia ending the aggression had started that is the only path to a peace that is both just and durable,” Blinken said.
