Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to Belarus on Monday, stoking Ukrainian fears that he would exert pressure on his partner to launch a new onslaught as Russian drones continue to target crucial infrastructure in Kyiv.

Belarus permitted using its land as a launching platform for Russia's invasion of neighboring Ukraine but has not joined the conflict.

After a Sunday meeting of Ukraine's highest military command, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated, "Protecting our border, both with Russia and Belarus, is our constant priority." "We are preparing for all possible defense situations."

Putin will visit Belarus for the first time in three and a half years. The Kremlin calls it a "working visit" that will include discussions with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

Lukashenko has consistently stated that he has no intention of sending soldiers into Ukraine. However, Ukrainian officials have been warning for months that Belarus might once again serve as a springboard for an attack on the ground against Kyiv.

According to the Russian Interfax news agency, which cited the Russian defense ministry, battalion-level tactical drills would be conducted by the Russian forces that moved to Belarus in October.

It was unclear when and where the latest in a spate of recent drills will begin in Belarus.

Monday saw Russian airstrikes strike "important infrastructure" in and around Kyiv, according to Ukrainian authorities. They reported that air defense systems destroyed approximately 15 of the 20 drones aimed at the city. Governor Oleskiy Kuleba said private residences were killed in the broader Kyiv region.

The mayor of Kyiv stated that preliminary information indicated no fatalities or injuries due to the attack on the city. Doctors were working at the Solomyanskyi and Shevchenkovskyi areas where the strikes occurred.

"Critical infrastructure facilities were destroyed due to the attack on the capital," Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced via the Telegram messaging app.

Sunday, Zelenskyy reiterated his plea for Western nations to bolster Ukraine's air defenses in response to weeks of Russian airstrikes aimed at the energy network under subzero conditions.

Multiple loud explosions were heard on Monday, but it was unclear if they were caused by air defense systems destroying drones or by drones striking their targets.

After the attacks, emergency power outages were reinstated in Kyiv, according to the electrical supplier YASNO.

The ten-month conflict in Ukraine is the deadliest in Europe since World War II, with tens of thousands killed, millions displaced, and towns reduced to rubble.

As Russia seeks to advance in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, Zelenskyy informed Ukrainians that the armed forces were standing fast in the town of Bakhmut, the location of the worst combat in weeks.

"The Bakhmut battlefield is crucial," he said. "We rule the town even though the occupants are doing everything possible to ensure that no intact walls remain."

Denis Pushilin, the Russian-installed administrator of the area of the Donetsk region under Moscow's control, stated that Ukrainian forces shelled a hospital in Donetsk city, resulting in one death and other injuries.

Reuters was unable to confirm the battlefield reports independently.

Putin portrays what he terms Russia's "special military operation" in Ukraine as a watershed event in which Moscow finally stood up to the Western alliance, led by the United States, which sought to profit from the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union by destroying Russia.

Putin has no excuse for what Kyiv and the West have deemed an imperialistic conflict that has resulted in Russia controlling around one-fifth of Ukraine.

Moscow announced Monday that Russian and Chinese forces would conduct joint naval exercises in the East China Sea from December 21 to December 27.

While the drills have been placed annually since 2012, in recent months, Moscow has attempted to enhance its political, security, and economic ties with Beijing and views Chinese President Xi Jinping as a critical ally in an anti-Western coalition.

Henry Kissinger, 99, the architect of the détente policy towards the Soviet Union and China during the Cold War as secretary of state for the United States in the 1970s, stated that it was time for a negotiated peace in Ukraine.

Kissinger stated in The Spectator magazine, "The moment has come to build on the strategic reforms that have already been made and integrate them into a new framework aimed at attaining peace via negotiation."

Ukraine rejected the idea because it would appease the aggressor.

"All supporters of simple solutions should remember the obvious: any agreement with the devil — a bad peace at the expense of Ukrainian territories — will be a victory for Putin and a recipe for success for autocrats around the world," said Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, on Telegram.

There are currently no peace discussions underway.