A torch-lit march held in Kiev to honor a controversial anti-Soviet resistance leader shows Ukraine is following in the footsteps of the Nazis, a senior Russian foreign ministry official said Friday.

"Torch-lit marches in Ukraine demonstrate that it is continuing to move along the path of the Nazis! And this is in the center of civilized Europe!" Konstantin Dolgov, the foreign ministry's human rights envoy, wrote on Twitter.

President Vladimir Putin thanked Russians for defending national interests in what he described as an historic year that saw Crimea annexed from Ukraine and the "best ever" Winter Olympic Games.

In a New Year's Eve message usually aired at midnight, which has already been shown to Russians in the Far East, Putin said that love for the motherland was what ensured that the Crimean peninsula joined Russia in March after a controversial referendum.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday sent a New Year's greeting to U.S. counterpart Barack Obama, saying the two countries share mutual responsibility to ensure world peace.

In a statement showing Putin's New Year's messages to heads of state across the world, the Russian leader addressed Obama despite the crisis in U.S.-Russian relations over Ukraine, saying the "Russian-American partnership could have been developing successfully."

Ukraine's Western-backed leader Petro Poroshenko promised Monday to meet Russia's Vladimir Putin and involve U.S. President Barack Obama in his stalled push for peace with pro-Kremlin fighters in the separatist east.

The surprise announcement came days after the first direct peace talks with the rebels in three months broke down without any evident progress after just one acrimonious round.

U.S. President Barack Obama hit back at foreign policy critics in an interview aired Sunday, brushing off claims he had been naively outmaneuvered by Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin over the Ukraine crisis.

President Vladimir Putin said Saturday no country can "intimidate" or "isolate" Russia, after the West imposed new sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis.

"Of course, no one will be able to intimidate us, or contain and isolate Russia. No one has ever been able to and no one ever will," Putin said in a speech.

President Vladimir Putin has invited North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un for celebrations next year to mark the 70th anniversary of victory in World War II, Russian news agencies said Friday, citing his spokesman.

"Yes. Such an invitation was sent," Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS news agency.

Peace talks between Ukraine's leaders and Kremlin-backed rebels could take place Sunday or Monday in the Belarussian capital Minsk in the presence of Russian and OSCE envoys, French President Francois Hollande said.

These talks will "happen on Sunday or Monday," Hollande said after an EU summit on Thursday, referring to the peace talks that will take place between the rebels and the Ukrainian government delegates in Minsk.

New EU president Donald Tusk said Thursday the bloc needs a strategy on Russia lasting years, not just weeks or months, to cope with the problems raised by its intervention in Ukraine.

"We need a long perspective strategy... plans for years. We need to be realistic, we have to treat this as a long-term game," Tusk said after chairing his first European Union leaders summit, which reviewed relations with Russia.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini on Thursday urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a "radical change" in attitude to end the crisis sparked by Moscow's intervention in Ukraine.

"The fact that Russia is in a difficult situation from a financial point of view is not good news, Mogherini told reporters, referring to the collapse of the Russian ruble, partly due to western sanctions.