Russia-Ukraine updates: Putin suspends key US-Russia nuclear treaty in speech denouncing West

Traditional Christmas and New Year celebrations in Saint Petersburg, Russia will be canceled and all previously allocated money for the festivities will be channeled to finance volunteers and mobilized troops involved in the war with Ukraine, according to TASS, a Russian news agency, which cited a statement from the municipal authorities.

All the available funds will be channeled into a special account to pay for gear for volunteers and mobilized citizens, according to TASS.

"During a session with Governor Alexander Beglov with members of the municipal administration it was decided to cancel previously scheduled events dedicated to New Year festivities," the statement said, according to TASS.

-ABC News' Natalia Shumskaia

A top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has criticized the Nobel Peace Prize for its decision to award Russian and Belarusian human rights defenders alongside Ukraine’s, reflecting a widespread sentiment in Ukraine that it has been unwillingly lumped in with two countries engaged in attacking it.

"Nobel Committee has an interesting understanding of word "peace" if representatives of two countries that attacked a third one receive @NobelPrize together. Neither Russian nor Belarusian organizations were able to organize resistance to the war. This year's Nobel is 'awesome',"Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to Zelenskyy, wrote on Twitter.

-ABC News' Patrick Reevell

President Joe Biden made some of his most clear and striking assessments on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threats of using a nuclear weapon.

For the "first time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have the direct threat of the use of a nuclear weapon if in fact things continue down the path that they are going. That’s a different deal," he said at a fundraiser in New York City on Thursday.

"We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis," he said. "I don't think there's any such thing as the ability to easily [use] a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon."

Biden said Putin's military is "underperforming" in Ukraine and he may feel threatened.

Biden said he knows Putin "fairly well" and has spent "a fair amount of time with him" and warned that Putin is serious.

"He is not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons, or biological, or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming," Biden said.

"There’s a lot at stake," Biden said. "We are trying to figure out what is Putin’s off ramp? Where does he get off? Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself in a position that he does not - not only lose face but lose significant power within Russia?"

-ABC News' Justin Gomez

There are mines along the perimeter of Zaporizhzhia, Europe's largest nuclear power plant, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said at a press conference in Kyiv Thursday after holding talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The facility is currently under the control of Russian forces.

"There have been indications that in the perimeter of the plant there are some mines, yes," Grossi said, before denying that there are any mines inside the plant itself.

Grossi is headed to Russia next to push for a security zone to be set up around the Zaporizhzhia plant.

Grossi told reporters that the IAEA considers Zaporizhzhia a Ukrainian facility.

"I think the IAEA, as an international organization, has a mission, has a legal parameter to do it. And what I will be is very consistent as I have been from the very beginning. We are not changing our line. We are continuing saying what needs to be done, which is basically avoid a nuclear accident. At the plant, which is still a very, very clear possibility. Yes," Grossi said.

-ABC News' Brittyn Clennett