Facts about Russia-Ukraine conflict: U.S. profits greatly from Ukrainian crisis: Russian official

Photo taken on Aug. 4, 2022 shows the White House in Washington, D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

The United States attempts to obstruct any Kiev-Moscow talks and at the same time is making huge profits from the current crisis in Ukraine, Ryabkov said.

MOSCOW/KIEV, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) -- The following are the latest developments in the Ukraine crisis.

Half of the 300,000 people drafted during the partial mobilization in September are deployed to the zone of the special military operation in Ukraine, and 77,000 of them are with tactical units, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday at an annual meeting of the Council for Civil Society and Human Rights.

There is no need to extend the mobilization, he added.

Meanwhile, Putin said that Russia will not be the first to use nuclear weapons and considers weapons of mass destruction as a means of defense and retaliation.

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Russia has carried out more than 1,000 strikes against Ukraine's energy system, the Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported Wednesday, citing a senior energy official.

"More than 1,000 shells and missiles were fired at electrical facilities and lines, including substations. Unfortunately, these attacks caused great damage to Ukraine and our system," said Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, chief executive officer of the Ukrainian state-run energy company Ukrenergo.

Ukraine is experiencing a large shortage of power generating capacity after the attacks despite the reduction of energy consumption by 25-30 percent compared with a pre-conflict period, Kudrytskyi said.

The Ukrenergo has developed a specific plan aimed at keeping the energy system integrated during the winter in the face of further attacks, he added.

"Our main goal is to make sure that the country has a critical infrastructure, heat supply systems, mobile communications, and the Internet," Kudrytskyi said.

Russia has carried out eight waves of air strikes against Ukraine's energy infrastructure since Oct. 10.

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The United States attempts to obstruct any Kiev-Moscow talks and at the same time is making huge profits from the current crisis in Ukraine, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Thursday.

Washington is moving to hurt any prospects of Kiev and Moscow returning to the negotiating table, Ryabkov told a local TV program.

"The insatiability of the U.S. military-industrial complex has no limits. The events in and regarding Ukraine are merely a pretext to fuel these appetites, including financial ones," he said.

Americans are profiting greatly from the current crisis in a wide range of areas, including selling overpriced energy, he noted.

Washington's continuous arms supplies are aimed at "flexing the muscles of its war machine and feeding its military-industrial complex even more," Ryabkov said.

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Ukrainian losses in November amounted to over 8,300 troops, five aircraft, 10 helicopters, 149 tanks and over 300 armoured fighting vehicles, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday at a meeting with senior defense officials.

Ukraine's troops and equipment suffered severe damage in the Lugansk-Donetsk and South Donetsk directions, he said.