These are the important thing developments from day 1,394 of Russia’s struggle on Ukraine.
Printed On 19 Dec 2025
Right here is the place issues stand on Friday, December 19:
Combating
- Three individuals, together with two crew members of a cargo vessel, had been killed in in a single day Ukrainian drone assaults on the Russian port of Rostov-on-Don and the city of Bataysk within the nation’s southern Rostov area, native governor Yury Slyusar stated.
- Russian strikes close to Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa killed a lady in her automobile and hit infrastructure. Odesa’s Governor Oleh Kiper stated a Russian drone killed a lady crossing a bridge in her automobile, and three kids had been injured within the incident.
- Kiper additionally requested residents whose properties have been affected by prolonged energy outages to be affected person and to finish blocking roads in protest towards the blackouts.
- “On account of enemy assaults, the power infrastructure in Odesa area has suffered intensive harm,” Kiper stated.
- About 180,000 shoppers have been left with out electrical energy throughout 5 Ukrainian areas after Russian assaults, Ukraine’s performing power minister, Artem Nekrasov, stated.
- Nekrasov stated the southern areas of Mykolaiv and Zaporizhia, the central areas of Cherkasy and Dnipropetrovsk, and the northeastern area of Sumy have been impacted.
- Russia has fashioned a navy brigade geared up with Moscow’s new hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile, Russian chief of the final employees, Valery Gerasimov, stated.
- Russia fired the Oreshnik at Ukraine for the primary time in November 2024, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has boasted that the missile is unimaginable to intercept and has harmful energy akin to that of a nuclear weapon.
Sanctions
- European Union leaders have agreed in precept at a summit in Brussels to work on financing Ukraine in 2026 and 2027 by way of the usage of frozen Russian assets relatively than EU borrowing, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk stated.
- EU leaders had been nonetheless making an attempt to beat variations over the plan, with talks in Brussels targeted on in search of to reassure Belgium, which holds a lot of the frozen belongings, and different involved international locations, that Europe would share the authorized and monetary dangers ensuing from the initiative.
- A brand new draft of the deal supplied Belgium and different international locations limitless ensures for damages ought to Moscow efficiently sue them for utilizing Russian belongings to finance Ukraine.
- Diplomats stated the deal might be an issue for some governments, who would wish parliamentary approval. The brand new draft additionally supplied EU international locations and establishments, whose belongings could also be seized by Russia in retaliation, the chance to offset such damages towards Russian belongings held by the EU.
- The textual content of the draft deal additionally supplied a mechanism of unconditional, irrevocable, on-demand ensures that the EU would swiftly repay the Russian central financial institution belongings in all circumstances ought to the necessity come up.
- Russia’s central financial institution has stated it would lengthen authorized motion past its lawsuit towards Belgium-based depository Euroclear and sue European banks in a Russian court docket over makes an attempt the EU’s plans to make use of frozen Russian belongings as loans for Kyiv.
- Britain has imposed extra sanctions focusing on Russian oil firms, together with 24 people and entities, in what it described as a transfer towards Russia’s largest remaining unsanctioned oil firms: Tatneft, Russneft, NNK-Oil and Rusneftegaz.
Peace talks
- Ukrainian peace negotiators are en path to the US and plan to fulfill Washington’s negotiating staff on Friday and Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has stated.
- US President Donald Trump stated he believes talks to finish the struggle in Ukraine are “getting near one thing” as Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner plan to fulfill a Russian delegation in Miami this weekend.
Support
- The Ukraine-US reconstruction fund, established as a part of a Trump-pushed minerals deal the 2 international locations signed in April, has permitted its asset insurance policies and is poised to start reviewing its first funding alternatives in 2026, the US physique overseeing the fund stated.
- The Improvement Finance Company (DFC) stated the fund’s second assembly “reached closing consensus essential to convey the fund to full operational standing”. Potential offers might give attention to crucial minerals extraction and power improvement in addition to on maritime infrastructure, the DFC stated.
- Ukraine is going through a overseas assist shortfall of 45-50 billion euros ($53-$59bn) in 2026, President Zelenskyy stated, including that if Kyiv didn’t obtain a primary tranche of a mortgage secured by Russian belongings by subsequent spring, it must lower drone manufacturing.
- Ukraine has clinched a long-awaited deal to restructure $2.6bn of growth-linked debt, with collectors overwhelmingly accepting a bonds-and-cash swap supply – a key step for the nation to emerge from the sovereign default it suffered within the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
Politics and diplomacy
- President Zelenskyy stated he noticed no want to alter Ukraine’s structure enshrining its goal to grow to be a NATO member state. A block on Ukraine becoming a member of the navy alliance has been a core Russian demand to finish its struggle.
- “To be trustworthy, I don’t suppose we have to change our nation’s structure,” Zelenskyy stated. “Actually not due to calls from the Russian Federation or anybody else,” he stated.
- Earlier this week, Zelenskyy stated Ukraine might compromise on NATO membership if given bilateral safety ensures with protections just like NATO’s Article 5, which considers an assault on one member as an assault towards all.
- Ukraine’s Deputy International Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya met Chinese language overseas ministerial aide Liu Bin in Beijing, the place the pair “mentioned methods to strengthen commerce and financial cooperation, and problems with co-operation inside worldwide organisations”, the International Ministry stated.
Russian affairs
- Sergei Yeremeyev, a Belarusian man accused by Russia of blowing up two trains in Siberia for Ukraine, has been jailed for 22 years. Yeremeyev was discovered responsible of finishing up an act of terrorism and of planting explosives on two freight trains in 2023.
- British man Hayden Davies, who fought for Ukraine towards Russia, has been sentenced to 13 years in a most safety jail camp after being convicted of being a paid mercenary, Russian prosecutors stated. The 30-year-old was tried by a court docket in part of Russian-controlled Donetsk.
