Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,040

Here are the key developments on the 1,040th day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A protester wearing a Christmas wreath has her mouth taped with a slogan reading "Shout" during a rally calling for the exchange of Ukrainian prisoners of war with Russian counterparts at St Sophia Square in Kyiv on December 29, 2024 [Sergei Supinsky/AFP]

Here is the situation on Monday, December 30:

Fighting:

Ukraine’s Air Force reported on Monday that its air defences downed 21 out of 43 drones launched by Russia in an overnight attack. The attack targeted six regions across the country, the air force said, adding that 22 other drones were “lost”.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Monday that its forces had taken Novoolenivka, a village in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, Russian state news agency TASS reported.
On Sunday, Russia’s said its forces had seized the village of Novotroitske in Donetsk, the Interfax news agency reported.
Russian football star Aleksei Bugayev, 43, who played in the national team at Euro 2004, was killed in “intense fighting”, according to Russian media quoting his father and agent. In September, Bugayev had been jailed on drug trafficking charges. He was one of a number of prisoners recruited for the war.

Politics and diplomacy:

The United States announced a $2.5 billion security assistance package for Ukraine on Monday, seen as part of Washington’s efforts to provide aid to Kyiv before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. The aid includes a $1.25 billion military “drawdown package”, which allows the Pentagon to take weapons from US stocks and send them quickly to the battlefield.
Syria’s de facto ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa met with a senior Ukrainian delegation led by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha on Monday, the Syrian state news agency (SANA) reported. For decades under deposed President Bashar al-Assad, Syria was a close ally of Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Sunday that the country would scrap a moratorium on the deployment of intermediate and shorter-range nuclear missiles because the United States had “arrogantly ignored the warnings of Russia and China” and deployed “weapons of this class” in various parts of the world. Russia’s move will kill off all that remains of the New START treaty on nuclear weapons reduction, amid fears of a new arms race.
Russian state media outlets were seemingly blocked on social media platform Telegram in several European Union countries. The channels of RIA Novosti news agency, Russia-1, Channel One Russia and NTV television, and Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspapers were not accessible across the bloc on Sunday. Neither Telegram nor EU sources have yet commented on the disruption. Moscow called the move “an act of censorship”.

Regional security:

Moldova’s separatist Transdniestria region cut off gas supplies to several state institutions – including a medical facility and a police station – on Sunday, two days before a deal allowing Russian gas to transit through Ukraine runs out following the latter’s refusal to extend it in wartime. The move prompted fears of mass New Year power cuts in the ex-Soviet state.

Finnish police said on Sunday they had found tracks dragging on for dozens of kilometres along the bottom of the Baltic Sea where a Cook Islands-registered tanker carrying Russian oil is suspected of breaking a power line and four telecoms cables with its anchor. Baltic Sea nations have been on high alert after a string of outages of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines since the start of the war in Ukraine.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said he wanted Russia to accept it downed an Azerbaijan Airlines plane last week, saying he witnessed “clear attempts to cover up the matter”. Russian President Vladimir Putin had apologised on Saturday to Aliyev for the “tragic incident” in Russian airspace after Russian air defences engaged Ukrainian attack drones, but a Kremlin statement stopped short of saying Russia had shot down the plane, only noting that a criminal case had been opened.