Category World News

Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, criticizes a new nuclear submarine agreement signed by the United States and South Korea, citing the country’s media reports that he is touring the country’s submarine production facility as a threat to the stability of the Korean Peninsula.

According to state news agency KCNA, Kim claimed the agreement between Seoul and Washington was an “offensive act severely violating]Pyongyang’s] security and maritime sovereignty and a threat to security that must be countered.”

According to the report, Kim claimed that it was now urgent to “further accelerate the radical development of the modernization and nuclear weaponization of the North Korean naval force.”

Kim made the remarks during a tour of a facility where Pyongyang is “working on an 8, 700-tonnage nuclear-powered strategic guided missile submarine” on Wednesday.

The North Korean leader also oversaw the test of a new high-altitude long-range anti-air missile into the “East Sea of Korea,” as the news outlet called it on Wednesday.

The missile successfully hit a mock target at a distance of 200 kilometers (124 miles) according to KCNA, which confirmed the test’s success.

Seoul announced today that it was looking into “standalone agreements” with the US to acquire nuclear-powered submarine technology, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

Following a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, South Korea’s national security adviser, Wi Sung-lac, announced that US law forbids the transfer of nuclear weapons for military use.

According to Wi, Australia and the US are pursuing similar agreements to build their own nuclear-powered submarines, and negotiations are expected to start in the spring of next year.

Vladimir Putin, the leader of Russia, also emailed Kim a New Year’s greeting on Wednesday, thanking him for his persistent military support for the Ukrainian conflict. Since 2024, North Korea has deployed thousands of soldiers to fight alongside Russian forces in Ukraine and some of Russia’s roughest regions.

According to a report from KCNA, Putin said, “The heroic entry of Korean soldiers into the battles for liberating the Kursk region from occupiers and the subsequent activities of Korean engineers in the land of Russia demonstrated the invincible friendship and militant fraternity” between Russia and North Korea.

On Thursday, December 25, 2018, this is how things are going.

Fighting

• Just days after a high-ranking Russian general was killed in the same area of the capital by a car bomb, three people were killed in Moscow, including two police officers.
• The two police officers were targeted because they participated in Russia’s conflict in Ukraine, according to a GUR official from Ukraine’s military intelligence agency.
• According to the capital’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin, Russian air defense units flew 16 Ukrainian drones into Moscow throughout the day.
• No damage was reported, despite Sobyanin claiming that the drones were repelled over a period of about 17 hours and that emergency personnel were examining the fragments that had hit the ground.
• According to the Russian government’s civil aviation authority, two of the four major airports that serve Moscow were forced to temporarily halt operations.
• Nearly half of the 172 Ukrainian drones that were destroyed by Russia’s Ministry of Defense’s air defense units flew over Ukraine’s borders overnight.

• Ukraine claimed that its drones had struck a storage facility for marine drones in Russian-occupied Crimea and the Yefremov synthetic rubber factory in the Tula region of Russia.
• Dmitry Milyaev, the regional governor of Tula, claimed 12 Ukrainian drones had been destroyed over the region after debris from a downed Ukrainian drone caught fire at an industrial site.
• Wildlife were killed and conservationists were alerted by a sunflower oil spill brought on by Russian aerial bombardments that had contaminated the shoreline of Odesa, southern Ukraine, according to the AFP news agency.
• Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper stated in a statement that “some of the oil … spilled due to massive enemy attacks on port infrastructure.” On Wednesday, the Pivdenny port temporarily closed in the area to assist with the cleanup.
• A Colombian man was given a 19-year prison sentence for fighting for Kyiv’s army by a Russian-backed court in occupied Ukraine.
• Oscar Mauricio Blanco Lopez, 42, was sentenced to 19 years in prison by the Supreme Court in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, according to the prosecutor general of Russia. The Colombian, who had been “taken prisoner by Russian servicemen” in December 2025, arrived in Ukraine in May of that year in order to sign up for the Ukrainian army.

talks on a ceasefire

• For the first time, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, disclosed details of a deal reached by the negotiators of the US and Ukraine to end the conflict with Russia. After extensive negotiations, the US and Ukrainian negotiators agreed on a 20-point plan. Mosco has now reviewed it.
• In line with the government’s strategy, President Zelenskyy stated that if Moscow also backed down and the region was transformed into a demilitarized zone under international surveillance, Ukraine would be prepared to withdraw its troops from the nation’s eastern industrial heartland.
• According to Zelenskyy, a similar arrangement might be made for the region that is currently under Russian control around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Any peace plan in Ukraine would need to be put to a vote, according to the Ukrainian leader.

• Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who met with US envoys in Florida over the weekend, reportedly received information from Russian envoys, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who asked about the most recent developments in the ceasefire talks.
• Russia has not indicated whether it will support any form of reunification of Ukrainian territory. Ukraine has also urged that the Donbass, which it currently controls, be given over to it. The two Donbass regions, which are largely made up of Luhansk and Donetsk, are now largely under Russian control.

diplomacy and politics

• According to Russian state pollster VTsIOM, the majority of Russians anticipate the end of the conflict in 2026, which suggests the Kremlin might be putting pressure on the public as diplomatic efforts to end the conflict get worse.
• During the pollster’s year-end presentation, VTsIOM Deputy Head Mikhail Mamonov claimed that 55% of the 1,600 people concerned about the potential end of Russia’s conflict in Ukraine said they were optimistic about 2026.
• The first public hearing in a criminal case against German sculptor Jacques Tilly, who is accused of discrediting the Russian military with his satirical Carnival floats, is scheduled for March 1 in a Russian court.
• Due to the fact that Tilly is not a resident of Russia and faces up to 10 years in jail or a fine, the trial will begin on December 30 and proceedings will take place in absentia.
• Zelenskyy claimed in his Christmas speech on Wednesday that despite marking the holiday with a “difficult” period, the spirit of the country is still present. The Ukrainian people are all together tonight, Zelenskyy said, adding that the war had “without a doubt” altered the country. He said, “It hardly matters what dishes are on the table; what matters is who is at the table.”

Regional security

• Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, stated that he had spoken with NATO’s Mark Rutte to talk about the “coalition of the willing” and the situation in Ukraine. We will continue the work that was begun in this framework, which Macron stated on social media, “to provide solid security guarantees to Ukraine,” starting in January.
• Democratic US senators have urged President Trump to reverse the recall of nearly 30 of his former aides, warning that it will create a dangerous leadership vacuum that allows rivals like Russia and China to gain influence. In recent days, the Trump administration has directed career diplomats working in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Europe back to Washington to make sure that US missions abroad adhere to its “America First” priorities.

Economics

• Due to bad weather, which slowed efforts to repair Russia’s loading infrastructure following last month’s drone strikes by Ukraine, Kazakhstan’s exports of its flagship CPC Blend oil will be at their lowest level in 14 months in December, according to two sources.
• One of three jetties, operated by Ukrainian drones, were hit by Ukrainian drones on November 29 at Novorossiysk, near Russia’s Black Sea port, causing export delays. The difficulty of carrying out maintenance tasks that will help exports recover has grown due to the bad weather.
• The Ukraine’s Ministry of Finance announced the settlement of a deal to restructure $2.6 billion in growth-linked debt.

According to the country’s SANA news agency, Taha al-Zoubi, a key figure in the ISIL (ISIS) organization, has been arrested in the countryside of Syria’s Ministry of Interior, according to the country’s SANA news agency.

According to the report, “a suicide belt and a military weapon were seized in his possession” and that a “tightly executed security operation” was carried out that resulted in al-Zoubi’s arrest.

According to Brigadier General Ahmad al-Dalati, head of internal security in the Damascus countryside, the raid was carried out “in cooperation” with an anti-ISIL alliance that includes the US-led coalition fighting the group, according to SANA.

The operation has not been made public by US Central Command (CENTCOM).

Al-Dalati claimed that several alleged aides were also detained, and that al-Zoubi, also known as Abu Omar Tibiya, was Damascus’ “wali” or governor.

The arrest demonstrated the “readyness of the security apparatus” and “crippled a blow” to ISIL networks in the capital region, according to the official.

Anyone who dares to work for ISIS or to engage in terrorism will receive a clear message: “The hand of justice will reach them wherever they are,” al-Dalati said.

ISIL has primarily focused its activities against Kurdish forces in the north, which it views as illegitimate.

Raqqa, the capital of the self-declared “caliphate” of ISIL, spanned an area half the size of the United Kingdom at its height.

The organization was infamous for its brutality, which included the beheading of foreign captives and the massacre of Syrians and Iraqis.