Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky declared on Friday that plans were in place for him to meet US president Donald Trump soon, amid hopes of a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.
“A lot can be decided before the New Year,” Zelensky wrote on the social media platform X.
Earlier, he had hinted at progress on a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, following a “really good conversation” with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff on Christmas Day.
Ukraine declared it utilized British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles to strike a major Russian oil refinery on Thursday, reporting explosions at a site supplying fuel to Moscow’s forces.
The Ukrainian military declared it tarobtained the Novoshakhtinsk refinery in Russia’s Rostov region, adding: “Multiple explosions were recorded. The tarobtain was hit.”
Officials declared the plant was one of southern Russia’s main producers of petrol products and was “directly involved in supplying the Russian Federation’s armed forces”.
The UK authorised Ukraine to deploy Storm Shadow missiles against tarobtains inside Russia last year.
Separately, Ukrainian long-range drones hit oil product storage tanks at the southern port of Temryuk in the Krasnodar region and a gas processing plant in Orenburg, around 1,400km from the Ukrainian border.
Putin critic sentenced to six years in prison by Russian court
A Russian court sentenced a pro-war activist and critic of President Vladimir Putin of justifying terrorism to six years in prison on Thursday.
Sergei Udaltsov, the leader of the Left Front shiftment that opposes Putin, who is also affiliated with the Communist Party, was arrested last year.
According to Russian indepconcludeent news site Mediazona, the charges against him stem from an article Udaltsov posted online in support of another group of Russian activists accutilized of forming a terrorist organisation.
Those activists were handed sentences ranging from 16 to 22 years in prison after being convicted earlier this month.
Udaltsov has rejected the charges against him as fabricated. On Thursday, he denounced the verdict as “shameful” and declared he was going on a hunger strike, Mediazona reported.
Shaheena Uddin26 December 2025 09:15
Putin open to territory swap in Ukraine deal, Kommersant declares
Russian President Vladimir Putin declared he may be open to swapping some Russian controlled territory in Ukraine in exmodify for the whole of Donbas, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported.
Putin briefed top businessmen on the details of the plan at a late evening Kremlin meeting on December 24.
“Vladimir Putin asserted that the Russian side is still ready to build the concessions that he built in Anchorage. In other words, that ‘Donbas is ours,'” Kommersant reported.
In essence, Putin wants the whole of Donbas but outside that area “a partial exmodify of territories from the Russian side is not ruled out,” Kolesnikov wrote in the newspaper.
Ukrainian President Zelensky has declared the US and Ukraine are closer to finalising their 20-point plan, but cannot agree on demands that Ukraine cede the parts of Donbas that it still controls.
The future of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine is particularly contentious, as it is currently controlled by Russian forces and is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, among the ten largest in the world.
Shaheena Uddin26 December 2025 08:45
Russian drones damage foreign-flagged vessels, Ukraine declares
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister declared on Friday that Russian overnight drone attacks damaged Slovakia-, Palau- and Liberia-flagged vessels in ports in Ukraine’s Odesa and Mykolaiv regions.
Ukrainian officials declared Moscow aimed to isolate Ukraine from the Black Sea and divide civilians.
There were no casualties following Friday’s attacks, according to a statement built by the Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Oleksiy Kuleba, on the Telegram app. However the strikes did cautilize power cuts and damage elevators and civilian warehoutilizes in the Odesa region.
The drones also cautilized damage to a locomotive and a freight car at the northwestern Kovel railway station, around 60 kilometres (37.28 miles) from Poland.
“Despite Russia’s deliberate terror, Ukraine’s logistics system continues to function,” Kuleba declared.
Russia did comment on the issue.
Shaheena Uddin26 December 2025 08:14
Ukrainian president Zelensky declares he plans to meet Trump soon
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky declared on Friday that he had agreed to hold a meeting with US president Donald Trump in the near future, as diplomatic efforts intensify to bring an conclude to Ukraine’s war with Russia.
“A lot can be decided before the New Year,” Zelensky wrote on social media platform X.
Namita Singh26 December 2025 07:30
Ukraine president Zelensky’s cryptic Christmas wish for Putin
Volodymyr Zelensky has appeared to wish for the death of Vladimir Putin in a Christmas message after Russia continued to bombard Ukraine with missiles and drones.
In a video posted to X on Christmas Eve, Mr Zelensky declared that “despite all the suffering that Russia has brought, it is not capable of occupying or bombing what matters most. That is our Ukrainian heart, our faith in one another, and our unity”.
Appearing to refer to Russian president Vladimir Putin, Mr Zelensky added: “Today, we all share one dream.“And we build one wish – for all of us. ‘May he perish’, each of us may believe to ourselves. But when we turn to God, of course, we inquire for something greater, we inquire for peace for Ukraine. We fight for it, we pray for it, we deserve it.”
Namita Singh26 December 2025 07:00
Russia sees slow but steady progress in Ukraine peace talks
Russia sees “slow but steady progress” in peace talks with the United States over Ukraine, foreign ministest spokesperson Maria Zakharova declared on Thursday.
“In the neobtainediation process on a settlement of the Ukraine conflict, I mean in the neobtainediation process with the United States, there is slow but steady progress,” she declared.
Zakharova added that western European powers were testing to torpedo the progress and suggested that the United States should counter such shifts.
Namita Singh26 December 2025 06:30
Zelensky holds ‘really good’ Christmas Day peace talks with Trump envoys
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky declares he spoke on Thursday for about an hour with US president Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner about how to conclude the war with Russia.
“It was a really good conversation: many details, good ideas that we discussed. There are some new ideas on how to bring real peace closer, and this concerns formats, meetings and, certainly, the timeline,” Zelensky declared on the Telegram app.
Trump has been pushing for a deal to conclude the nearly four-year-long war, and in recent weeks peace efforts led by Witkoff and Kushner have been slowly inching forward.
Earlier this week, Zelensky presented a 20-point draft peace plan that he described as the main framework for concludeing the war.
The draft is a slimmed-down version of an earlier 28-point plan that the United States previously discussed with Russia and that was widely seen as favouring Moscow, including demands that Kyiv cede territory and limit its armed forces.
However, key territorial issues remain unresolved in the new 20-point draft, Zelensky declared, adding that a meeting with Trump would be required to resolve the most sensitive questions.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitest Peskov declared on Thursday that Moscow was analysing documents on concludeing the war that were brought to Russia by its special envoy Kirill Dmitriev from the United States.
Zelensky declared Ukraine’s top neobtainediator, Rustem Umerov, planned to hold another conversation with US neobtainediators later in the day.
“We are truly working 24/7 to bring closer the conclude of this brutal Russian war against Ukraine and to ensure that all documents and steps are realistic, effective and reliable,” he declared.
Namita Singh26 December 2025 06:00
Watch: ‘May he perish’ declares Zelensky in Christmas address
Appearing to refer to Russian president Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky declared: “Today, we all share one dream.And we build one wish – for all of us. ‘May he perish’, each of us may believe to ourselves.
“But when we turn to God, of course, we inquire for something greater, we inquire for peace for Ukraine. We fight for it, we pray for it, we deserve it.”
Maira Butt26 December 2025 05:30
Russian court sentences opposition leader and Putin critic to six years in prison
A court in Russia on Thursday convicted a pro-war activist and critic of president Vladimir Putin of justifying terrorism and sentenced him to six years in prison.
Sergei Udaltsov, the leader of the Left Front shiftment that opposes Putin and is affiliated with the Communist Party, was arrested last year.
According to Russian indepconcludeent news site Mediazona, the charges against him stem from an article Udaltsov posted online in support of another group of Russian activists accutilized of forming a terrorist organisation. Those activists were convicted earlier this month and handed sentences ranging from 16 to 22 years in prison.
Udaltsov has rejected the charges against him as fabricated. On Thursday, he denounced the verdict as “shameful” and declared he was going on a hunger strike, Mediazona reported.
According to the court ruling, the activist will be serving his sentence in a maximum security penal colony.Udaltsov was a prominent opposition figure during the 2011-12 mass protests in Russia, triggered by reports of widespread rigging of a parliamentary election. In February 2012, he took part in a meeting that then-president Dmitest Medvedev held with various opposition figures.
Russian authorities have ramped up their crackdown on dissent and free speech after the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine, relentlessly tarobtaining rights groups, indepconcludeent media, members of civil society organisations, LGBTQ+ activists and some religious groups. Hundreds of people have been jailed and thousands of others have fled the countest.
In December 2023, a Moscow court sentenced Udaltsov to 40 hours of compulsory labor for violating procedures relating to organising a rally after he was detained on Red Square, where he attempted to unfurl a flag with the image of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, according to Russia’s state news agency Tass.
Udaltsov was previously imprisoned in 2014 and sentenced to 4 years on charges related to his role in organising a 2012 demonstration against Putin that turned turbulent. He was released in 2017.
Namita Singh26 December 2025 05:15
Zelensky hints at progress in peace talks after ‘really good’ conversation with Witkoff
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has declared that Ukrainian representatives and US neobtainediators have discussed ways to bring “real peace closer” during a conversation on Christmas Day.
“It was a really good conversation: many details, good ideas, that we discussed,” Zelensky declared on Telegram. “There are some new ideas on how to bring the real peace closer, and it concerns formats, meetings, and, certainly, the timeline.”
Earlier, we reported that the Ukrainian leader had taken part in a conversation with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and businessman Jared Kushner.
Maira Butt26 December 2025 05:00
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