Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,406

On Wednesday, December 31st, what is the current situation:

Fighting

• One person was killed when Russian forces shelled the Ukrainian town of Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk region, according to a source. According to the Ukrinform news agency, the deadly attack occurred one day after another person was killed and four were hurt in a Druzhkivka attack.
• Two Panama-flagged civilian vessels, Emmakris III and Captain Karam, were attacked as they approached the Black Sea ports of Pivdennyi and Chornomorsk in the Odesa region of Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian navy, who also launched numerous attacks.
• Oil storage tanks were also targeted in the port attacks, according to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba.
• Authorities in the northern Chernihiv region of Ukraine issued a mandated evacuation order to residents of 14 border villages spread across four districts. According to an official, the order will affect about 300 residents who still reside in the communities of Novhorod-Siverskyi, Semenivka, Snovsk, and Horodnya, which have been experiencing daily shelling.
• According to the deputy minister of energy of Ukraine, Olha Yukhymchuk, 75 000 Chernihiv households are still without electricity as a result of Russian attacks on the region’s energy infrastructure. She noted that there were also settlements in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions that were completely or partially without electricity.
• In addition, Yukhymchuk added that repair work has been done on transmission lines close to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to ensure “stable and reliable power supply to the station in the event of damage or shut down of the Dniprovska overhead line as a result of” Russian shelling.
• In eastern Ukraine, the Ministry of Defense announced that it had taken control of two more settlements. They were identified as Bohuslavka in the Kharkiv region and Lukianivske, a village in the Zaporizhia region.
• Russian authorities claimed that a Ukrainian drone attack on a residential area of the Russian Black Sea port of Tuapse damaged port infrastructure and a gas pipeline. No injuries were reported, according to the regional administration.
• A woman was killed and four others were hurt in other Ukrainian drone attacks on Belgorod, according to local authorities.

allegedly an attack on Putin’s residence

Russia will “toughen” its negotiating position in discussions over a resolution to end the conflict in Ukraine as a “diplomatic consequence” of an alleged drone attack on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Novgorod residence on Sunday, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
• Peskov claimed that the attack, which Ukraine denies, was intended to scuttle the peace talks and that the media in the West were complicit in Kyiv’s denial.
• The Russian claim has been refuted by Ukraine as lies intended to justify further attacks on Kyiv and prolong the conflict.
• Andrii Sybiha, the foreign affairs minister in Ukraine, claimed that Russia had not provided any believable proof of its accusations. “And they won’t,” he said. since there isn’t. On X, Sybiha claimed that no such attack took place.
• Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, criticized nations that have condemned the alleged attack, including India and the United Arab Emirates, saying it “didn’t even happen.” The movements were described as “confusing and unpleasant.”
• When China was asked about the alleged attack on Putin’s residence, China claimed that “dialogue and negotiation” are the only “viable way out of the Ukraine crisis.”
• According to Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “relevant parties must adhere to the principles of no expansion of the battlefield, no escalation of fighting, and no provocation by any party,” to work toward de-escalation and “accumulate the conditions for the political settlement of the crisis.”
• The “pattern of observed evidence,” which is typically seen “when Ukrainian forces launch strikes into Russia,” was found by analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank based in Washington, DC.
• Matthew Whitaker, the US ambassador to NATO, questioned the accusations made by Russia and said he would like to see US intelligence on the incident. Whitaker told Varney &amp, Co. on Fox Business, “It is unclear whether it actually happened.”
• The German government expressed concern for Ukraine that Russian claims of the attack could be used as a pretext for a further escalation of Moscow’s conflict.

Diplomacy

• Zelenskyy stated that Ukraine and the Willing group of nations, which are supporting Kyiv, intend to hold their upcoming meetings at the beginning of January. According to Zellenskyy, the nations’ national security advisers will meet in Ukraine on January 3 and with French leaders on January 6.
• Additionally, he added that Kyiv and US President Donald Trump were discussing possible US troops presence in Ukraine as part of security arrangements.
• We are, of course, discussing this with President Trump and with members of the [Western] coalition that support Kyiv. This is what we desire. This is what we want. The president of Ukraine said that would be a strong security guarantee.
• According to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, there is reason to believe that Ukraine will soon experience peace. Peace is on the horizon, he said, “There is no denying that there is reason to believe that this war will end, and quite quickly,” but there is still a chance, far from 100% certain.
• Tusk claimed Kyiv’s security guarantees were a sign that the US was willing to put an end to the conflict, but that Kyiv would need to make a compromise on territorial issues.
• According to the US Treasury Department, the US lifted sanctions on Alexandra Buriko, the former head of Sberbank, the country’s state-owned bank.
• Shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, a group of senior executives and board members resigned from Western-approved Sberbank. In a federal court in Washington in December 2024, she claimed that her continued inclusion on the sanctioned list was unlawful because she had ties to Sberbank cut short after it was sanctioned.

Weapons

Romania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the country would contribute 50 million euros ($58 million) to the Priority Ukraine Requirements List (PRURL), a European initiative to purchase weapons from US companies for Ukraine.
• Belarusian authorities said in a video that the Russian hypersonic Oreshnik missile system, which it claimed would be, was being deployed on its territory to improve Moscow’s ability to strike targets across Europe in the event of a war.