Here is the situation as it stands on Friday, December 23.

Zelenskyy returns to Ukraine

• President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has returned from the United States, his first trip abroad since Russia’s invasion on February 24.
• The administration of US President Joe Biden announced another $1.85bn in military aid for Ukraine, including a Patriot missile system, as Zelenskyy began his visit.
• “We are coming back from Washington with good results. With something that will really help,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram.

Weapons and defence systems

• Russia said Ukraine acquiring Patriot missiles from the US would not help settle the conflict or prevent Moscow from achieving its goals.
• Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his goal was “not to spin the flywheel of military conflict, but, on the contrary, to end this war”.
• He added: “We will strive for an end to this, and the sooner the better, of course.”
• “All armed conflicts end one way or another with some kind of negotiations on the diplomatic track,” Putin said.
• These comments drew quick US scepticism, with White House spokesman John Kirby saying Putin had “shown absolutely zero indication that he’s willing to negotiate” an end to the war.

Wagner Group

• The White House said a private Russian military company, the Wagner Group, took delivery last month of infantry rockets and missiles from North Korea to help bolster Russian forces in Ukraine.
• However, Wagner’s head Yevgeny Prigozhin dismissed the talk as “gossip and speculation”.
• North Korea’s foreign ministry denied the report, calling it “groundless”, the official KCNA news agency reported, and blamed the US for “bringing bloodshed and destruction to Ukraine by providing it with various kinds of lethal weapons”.
• South Korea’s foreign ministry condemned North Korea’s alleged arms shipment, adding it supported the US’s push to raise the issue at the United Nations Security Council.