The Secretary General of NATO has said that Ukraine was still inflicting major losses on Russia, despite Kyiv not managing to regain captured territory.
"Of course we would like them to liberate as much territory as possible as quickly as possible as possible, but even though the frontline has not moved, Ukrainians have been able to inflict heavy losses on the Russian invaders," Jens Stoltenberg said.
His comments come as a severe snowstorm blanketed Ukraine, leaving more than 2,000 settlements across 16 regions without power and more than a dozen motorways closed to vehicles, authorities said.
The extreme weather comes as tens of thousands of troops man front-line positions in the 21-month-old war with Russia and amid fears Moscow could target the power grid with air strikes this winter.
At least 1,370 cargo trucks were stuck and 840 cars had to be towed away amid snow drifts that in some places were two meters high, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko wrote on the Telegram messenger.
Southern and central Ukraine were the worst hit, he said.
More than 1,500 rescue workers were involved in a massive clean-up effort, according to the state emergency service, which posted photos of cars, buses, and cargo trucks which had veered off snowbound roads.
Ukraine's largest private energy provider, DTEK, said early today that it had been able to restore power to nearly 250 settlements.
Yesterday, the mayor of the Black Sea port of Odesa urged residents to stay at home, and authorities warned that water supplies were being interrupted by power cuts that stopped pumps from working.
Ukraine's border service also said yesterday that Moldova had temporarily suspended vehicle access to its territory from two crossing points in the Odesa region.
In the capital Kyiv, city officials said the weather had caused a tear in the country's largest flag, but that it was being replaced and would be raised again after the weather has cleared.
Meanwhile fierce storms have killed three people on the Russian and Crimean Black Sea coast, with hundreds evacuated.
State news agency TASS reported that one person had been killed in the resort city of Sochi, another on the Russian-held Crimean peninsula, and a third person onboard a vessel in the Kerch Strait, which separates Crimea from the Russian mainland.
Storms have been raging in the Black Sea since Friday.
Video published online showed large waves sweeping over the seafront in Sochi, and carrying away cars. In the Crimean town of Yevpatoriya, streets were flooded.
The Russian-installed governors of Crimea and Sevastopol, both of which Moscow seized and unilaterally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, declared states of emergency.
Russia's emergency services ministry said it had evacuated more than 350 people.
And the energy ministry said bad weather had left about 1.9 million people without electricity this morning in the southern Russian regions of Dagestan, Krasnodar and Rostov, as well as Crimea and the regions of Ukraine that Russia unilaterally said it had annexed last year.
In the Russian port of Novorossiysk, the Caspian Pipeline Consortium and Russia's Transneft state oil pipeline company announced a halt to loadings due to weather conditions.
