Russia's attack on Ukraine can be defeated, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says, adding that the situation on the battlefield remains relatively stable.
"Even Russia can be brought back within the framework of international law. Its aggression can be defeated," Zelenskiy told a conference in Sweden via video link.
The war in Ukraine has shown that Europe must develop joint weapons production to ensure that the continent can "preserve itself" under any global situation that might arise, the Ukrainian president said.
"Two years of this war have proven that Europe needs its own sufficient arsenal for the defence of freedom, its own capabilities to ensure defence," he said.
Officials in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson said the area was subjected to numerous shelling attacks from Russian-occupied parts of the region, across the Dnieper River, on Sunday.
The head of the Kherson city administration, Roman Mrochko, said two people died in the attacks and several others were wounded.
Air defence shot down 21 of 28 drones launched by Russia overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said on Sunday.
Russia also launched three anti-aircraft missiles against Ukraine.
On an unannounced visit to the country this weekend, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa pledged Japan’s continued support for Ukraine.
Speaking at a press conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Kyiv on Sunday, she said that Japan had decided to "contribute $US37 million ($A55 million) to the NATO trust fund to provide drone detection systems," according to Japan’s Foreign Ministry.
In Russia, more than 100 residents of the Russian border city of Belgorod were relocated to an area further away from Ukraine, local officials said.
"On behalf of the regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, we met the first Belgorod residents who decided to move to the safest place. More than 100 people were placed in our temporary accommodation centres," Andrey Chesnokov, head of the Stary Oskol district 115km from Belgorod, wrote on Telegram.
Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod on December 30 killed 25 people, officials there said, with rocket and drone attacks continuing throughout this week.
Meanwhile, Russian military personnel marked Orthodox Christmas on Sunday.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said that military priests led prayer services on the frontline both on Sunday and on Christmas Eve night.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was joined by families of military personnel who died in the war in Ukraine at Christmas Eve services at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence, in the western suburbs of Moscow.
"Many of our men, our courageous, heroic guys, are warriors of Russia even now, during the holiday - with arms in hand, they defend the interests of our country," he said to the attending families according to the Kremlin’s press service.
In his annual Christmas interview, carried by Russian state news agency TASS, Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, made reference to the war in Ukraine.
"The trials that befall us today... are not capable of crushing our worldview, which directly includes love for the Motherland and readiness to defend it," he said, when asked how to reassure Russians in the midst of military and civilian deaths.
with AP
