At least three civilians were wounded on Monday by a Ukrainian artillery attack on the city of Belgorod, according to the regional governor. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that Czech-supplied Vampire launchers were used in the strike.

Missile defenses engaged and destroyed ten incoming projectiles, whose origin the MOD identified as an RM-70 Vampire launcher, provided to Ukraine by the Czech Republic over the past two years. The same system was involved in the December 30 attack on the city that killed 24 civilians, including children, and injured over 100.

“Our air defense system worked over Belgorod and the region,” Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram. “Ten aerial targets were shot down on approach to the city.”

Missile alert sirens went off at around 9:30pm local time. The authorities warned residents to seek shelter and stay away from windows. According to preliminary reports, three people, two men and a woman, were injured by shrapnel and taken to a local hospital for medical care.

Gladkov reported the damage on the ground as broken windows in two apartment buildings and a private home, three cars damaged by shrapnel, and four trucks caught in a fire caused by the debris.

Belgorod Region borders Kharkov Region in Ukraine and has been under sporadic shelling by Kiev’s artillery for months. Ukrainian long-range rocket attacks have been nearly constant since December 30, when missiles with cluster warheads targeted the holiday market in the center of the city of Belgorod, about 40km from the Ukrainian border.

Moscow has accused the US and UK of helping plan the strike. A security source also told RT that the attack had been personally ordered by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and carried out by the neo-Nazi Kraken Regiment based in Kharkov.

Russia has responded to the Belgorod massacre by repeatedly striking key Ukrainian military-industrial complex sites, missile and ammunition warehouses, and depots of equipment sent to Kiev by the US and its allies. 

Kiev is prepared to consider the possibility of slapping banking restrictions on Ukrainians who evade military service, said the head of the National Bank of Ukraine, Andrey Pyshny.

The Ukrainian parliament is currently working on preparing amendments to the mobilization law. President Vladimir Zelensky has told lawmakers that the military has requested up to 500,000 more troops to make up for losses on the battlefield. 

A government request submitted last month would lower the age of conscription from 27 to 25 and eliminate exemptions for disabilities, among other things. Proposals have been floated to draft women as well.

“We have taken note of this bill, and I think that when it is worked out in parliament, we should have discussions and an exchange of views,” Pyshny told the Ukrainian outlet Zerkalo Nedeli. “If the need arises, and it is likely to arise, we will take part in the discussion. I think it will lead us to the optimal solution.”

Ukrainians living abroad who have not registered for military service may also be denied consular and banking services under the proposed law, according to Batkivshchyna party MP Vadim Ivchenko, who sits on the parliamentary committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence. 

Kiev has already demanded that EU countries hosting Ukrainian refugees send back the men capable of military service, although most have refused to do so.

Ukraine has struggled to replace the battlefield losses in the conflict with Russia. While the Russian Defense Ministry has estimated Kiev’s losses at over 383,000 killed, wounded and missing, former prosecutor-general Yury Lutsenko put that number as high as 500,000 in an interview last week.

General Valery Zaluzhny, commander in chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, told lawmakers last week that everyone mobilized will get 80 days of training but unless he gets more troops somehow, “there will be no one to defend the state.”

We are hearing more and more suggestions that Kiev should get ready for a compromise peace. In particular, there are mountings calls to cede territory to Russia.

Two things have changed in both the West and Ukraine: First, there are now growing demands for a “plan B,” as the former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko calls it, and, more importantly, the taboo on talking about this need is gone.

Given Ukraine’s difficult and dangerous – not to mention that things could quickly get much worse – military, financial, and political situation, these calls are no surprise. The real question is not why this is happening, but what it may mean for the future: Do these calls signal a real readiness to make peace? And if so on what terms? And is it a realistic prospect?

Let’s start with a voice from the West: James Stavridis – a retired American admiral, former military head of NATO, and dean emeritus of the prestigious US Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy – has used his perch as a Bloomberg columnist to ask how the war will end. He finds that Ukraine is unlikely to retake what has been lost to Russia and, in effect, recommends it “consider temporarily or even permanently ceding Crimea and the ‘land bridge’ connecting it to Russia.”

A few months ago, such a statement would have been scandalous; now it’s part of the new normal. Despite the fact that it directly contradicts Ukraine’s official war aims, namely, to make no territorial concessions at all. And note that such a scenario is what Stavridis pitches as the desirable outcome of continuing Western support: This is a former NATO commander telling the West that the new best-case result is a compromise peace that Kiev officially abhors.

What do we hear from Ukraine? The single most resonant statement there has come from Timoshenko. Once a cunning and energetic top player in Kiev politics and still leader of her own ‘Batkivshchyna’ party, she has clearly not given up trying for a comeback: Recently, she made headlines by resisting a new mobilization law and launching an offensive against LGBTQ politics. The two issues have little in common except they both show her angling for popular appeal: On the mobilization law she poses as the defender of the next cohort of young recruits to go into the meatgrinder (she suggests sending police and other “siloviki [security professionals]” instead…); and regarding LGBTQ, she presents herself as upholding traditional values.

And then there is Aleksey Arestovich. A former adviser to Zelensky and top promoter of war against Moscow, when it could still have been avoided, he has recently made a splash by suggesting that Ukraine and Russia should make peace and then unite against the West. That would be yet another way of ending the war, if it were realistic.

But what about the conditions that Stavridis, Timoshenko, and Arestovich foresee?

The former NATO commander is an example of how even those in the West who have rediscovered some realism, still suffer from wishful thinking as well. Stavridis’ scenario for ending the fighting involves not only Ukraine ceding territory to Russia, but also Moscow acquiescing in Kiev acceding to EU and NATO membership. If he is serious about this, then he is outlining what is a perfect non-starter for Russia. As its President Vladimir Putin has just reiterated, Moscow’s war aims still include Ukraine’s neutrality.   

Timoshenko’s ideas don't look much more hopeful. She may have only one real aim: to embarrass Zelensky and his “leadership.” Her “plan B” is still a plan “of victory,” and her rhetoric has remained generally strident: In a recent op-ed, she insists that Ukraine has “already won” multiple battles, such as being acknowledged as part of “the West” (good luck with that…), achieving domestic unity, and dismantling Russian influence. And yet, she is a wily operator: Could her list of victories already claimed also be read as signaling that, perhaps, for now at least, more may not be needed?

Which one is the real Arestovich: the one calling for an anti-Western alliance with Russia, the one who says (on a YouTube channel that he seems to assume no one in the West will ever hear about) that that was merely a bluff to cajole the West, or the one who hovers high above such tactical plays to ponder the very big picture, namely, how to secure global peace?

And yet, here as well, things may be more complicated: In the same interview and following the recent revelations of former Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksandr Chaly, Arestovich also spends much time on the great missed opportunity of the Istanbul talks in spring 2022, confirming that Moscow then offered very advantageous conditions to Kiev and that peace was almost made. A “parade of unexpected generosities” from Russia he now calls what was on the table then.

Before Istanbul, Arestovich was also involved with the Minsk Agreements. Between the spring of 2015 and early 2022, Minsk II in particular, endorsed by the UN, could have served as a basis for a peaceful resolution of the then comparatively small-scale conflict. Yet neither the Ukrainian leadership nor its Western sponsors were interested in making the deal work, as Ukrainian politicians boasted at the time (usually on Ukrainian media) and Western leaders admitted in retrospect. It is no surprise to find Arestovich deriding the Minsk Agreements as a “trap” and a “dead end.” Yet while that merely confirms the Ukrainian obstructionism we already knew about, it is still interesting to note that, for him, Kiev got much better out of the Istanbul talks.

In that sense, Arestovich’s new statements about Istanbul 2022 can be read as implying future possibilities as well: If peace was so close once, it cannot be entirely impossible now. Yet the former presidential adviser also warns – realistically – that terms as good as were available then to Kiev are not likely to return. Indeed, he confesses his pessimism as to finding an end to the war soon.

The “Plan B” team is daring to join the debate, albeit cautiously. That’s good news. But a closer look is disappointing. We find few serious, concrete, and explicit suggestions as to how to make peace. Stavridis, who has the freedom to be the most outspoken, combines his realistic call for territorial concessions by Kiev with NATO membership for Ukraine, an idea that he must know will never fly in Moscow. Timoshenko and Arestovich remain ambiguous, even self-contradictory. And none makes a genuine effort to think through what Stavridis – in his most insightful aside – at least mentions: that any plans will depend on Russia agreeing.

Russia has announced that its forces have conducted a range of missile strikes targeting Ukraine’s military-industrial base. Kiev has confirmed the attacks, admitting that its air defenses failed to intercept most  of the projectiles.

In a statement on Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had carried out “a group strike” using high-precision sea- and air-based weapons, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles. The barrage, which took place in the morning, targeted military-industrial facilities, officials said, without providing details on the results of the attack.

According to the Ukrainian Air Force, the attack targeted various types of facilities in Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk and Khmelnitsky regions as well as in the parts of Zaporozhye region controlled by Kiev.

Authorities in the Khmelnitsky region reported six explosions, adding that one attack targeted an unspecified infrastructure facility. Local officials said that at least two people had been killed in the strikes.

The Ukrainian Air Force said that it had managed to shoot down only 18 out of 51 missiles it claims Russia had launched. It admitted failure to intercept all four Kinzhal, six Iskander-M, and eight X-22 missiles. Yury Ignat, the spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, explained that Russia had launched a large number of ballistic rockets that he said could only be shot down by US-made Patriots or other similarly advanced air defense systems.

The latest strike wave comes after The New York Times reported on Saturday that White House and Pentagon officials had warned that they would be unable to provide Ukraine with Patriot missiles, as US Republicans continue to block president Joe Biden’s supplemental funding request, which includes a possinble $60 billion for Kiev. The GOP has repeatedly demanded that the Biden administration do more to enhance US border security as a prerequisite for a potential deal.

Russia has ramped up its airstrikes on Ukraine’s military targets and critical infrastructure in the wake of what it called “terrorist attacks” on Belgorod and Donetsk. The strikes killed dozens of civilians, including several children, prompting Russian President Vladimir Putin to vow retaliation, while insisting that Moscow’s own attacks would not target civilians.

Ukraine’s leaders should frankly admit that they have lost 500,000 service members since the start of the conflict with Russia, and that the monthly casualty rate is at around 30,000, former prosecutor general Yury Lutsenko has said.

President Vladimir Zelensky's goverment could convince reluctant citizens to join the fight by publicly admitting the heavy losses on the battlefield and declaring that the country’s very existence is in jeopardy, he believes.

Ukrainians “must know how many have died, and then all debates about the mobilization will be settled,” he added.

Speaking to the country's media on Wednesday, the former official proposed a number of steps to address the draft-dodging and corruption that is hampering the country’s conscription efforts.

He suggested that new legislation must be introduced by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, the country’s defense minister, and top army general to emphasize the seriousness of the situation.

According to Lutsenko, this “shock” would lead to large queues at recruitment offices, as had occurred in February 2022. Another important measure, according to the former official, would be the campaign to send members of the Ukrainian elite to the frontline.

“The army should not be all workers and peasants. Everyone should fight for Ukraine,” he stated, arguing that this would encourage ordinary citizens who he said have a very strong sense of justice.

Zelensky said in December that the Ukrainian military had asked him to mobilize another 450,000 or 500,000 soldiers to make up for battlefield losses. Later that month, the government introduced a mobilization bill proposing to lower the recruitment age from 27 to 25 and eliminate exemptions for some categories of disabled people.

The initiative comes after Ukraine launched a large counteroffensive in early June, which failed to gain any substantial ground. Moscow has described Kiev’s losses as catastrophic, estimating them at around 160,000 since the start of the push. Ukraine, however, has been reluctant to officially publish data on its casualties.

Kiev Mayor Vitaly Klitschko has publicly declared the acquisition of a lavish mansion in Hamburg, Germany worth almost a quarter of a billion hryvnias ($6 million), Strana.ua reported on Sunday, citing the politician’s official tax return. 

The document shows that Klitschko received the 750 square meter mansion on December 20, 2023 as a debt settlement from Maximum I LLC, a US-based company originally owned by his brother Vladimir. Ownership of the company was, however, transferred to Vitaly in May 2023, according to the outlet. The house, the exact cost of which is 227 million hryvnias, was then transferred to the mayor of Kiev as a unique form of debt repayment. 

Vitaly Klitschko is a former professional boxer who won multiple world heavyweight championships during his career. He and his younger brother Vladimir dominated heavyweight boxing between 2006 and 2015, a period widely known as the ‘Klitschko Era’.

Vitaly announced his retirement from professional sports in 2013 and went on to launch a political career, becoming the mayor of Kiev in 2014, in the wake of the bloody neo-nationalist coup. In an interview with the BBC in 2013, he admitted that he had lived in Germany for 13 years. It was reported in 2016 that he owned property in Hamburg that was occupied by his wife and daughter, but the assets had never been declared. 

In September 2023, Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky signed into law a bill mandating electronic declarations for officials, which had been suspended after Russia’s military operation began in 2022. 

In August last year, Zelensky launched a sweeping military purge, firing all regional military officials in the wake of a massive corruption scandal in which 112 criminal cases were opened against officials in recruitment centers. 

Last month, Ukrainian law enforcement officers conducted a search of a €4 million Spanish villa that belonged to former military commander Evgeny Borisov. It was established that he purchased multiple properties in the city of Marbella in 2022 and 2023, according to Ukrainian law enforcement. 

A poll conducted by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology last year showed that Ukrainians consider corruption the country’s second most serious problem after the military conflict. 

Ukraine can continue to resist Russia only if Western countries show solidarity on numerous fronts while intensifying joint arms production programs, President Vladimir Zelensky has said.

Speaking via video link at the annual Society and Defense conference held in Sweden on Sunday, Zelensky claimed that Russia, which he described as “a much larger enemy… in terms of military strength,” was using “the potential… amassed over the lifetimes of several generations” against both Ukraine and Europe.

Zelensky said Moscow’s attacks on Ukraine, and what he described as its “hybrid” activities against the West, could be foiled only via cooperation on numerous fronts. “To fight successfully, to reclaim what is yours… and to teach the aggressor that aggression brings no benefits, is only possible if defense gets strength from solidarity,” Zelensky stated.

In this vein, he urged his European partners to “create an arsenal for the defense of freedom” by intensifying joint weapons production. “Regardless of which political moods will dominate on both sides of the Atlantic, our strength can and should be sufficient to protect our way of life," he added.

In early November, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni acknowledged in a phone call with a pair of Russian pranksters that EU nations were getting tired of the conflict and that it would eventually have to be resolved through some kind of a compromise.

Meanwhile, the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell warned in December that the parliamentary election in the bloc scheduled for later this year could result in right-wing politicians – many of whom have been skeptical about sending arms to Ukraine – gaining more clout.

On the other side of the Atlantic, US President Joe Biden has vowed to support Ukraine “as long as it takes,” but his efforts have been hampered by congressional gridlock. Republicans continue to block the White House’s supplemental funding request, which includes more than $60 billion for Ukraine, demanding that the administration do more to enhance border security.

Russia has repeatedly warned the West against sending weapons to Ukraine, arguing it will only prolong the conflict and make it a direct participant in the hostilities.

An unusual "tribute" to the late Soviet leader Joseph Stalin has been spotted in Holy Trinity Cathedral – the chief place of worship of the Georgian Orthodox Church in the nation’s capital of Tbilisi. A video showing the Georgian-born head of the USSR depicted in an icon inside the cathedral surfaced on social media earlier this week.

Stalin, wearing his signature trench coat, is depicted next to a female saint in the image. The context of his appearance in the icon is unclear. The news immediately drew the attention of some Georgian politicians, who rushed to link the development to alleged Russian influence.

“Russia is scoring solid success as both the EU and US fail to recognize the central role of weaponization of memory in Russia’s information warfare agenda, and that of Stalin in particular,” Giorgi Kandelaki, a former Georgian MP and a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday.

An icon to none other but Joseph Stalin in the of the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Tbilisi. Russia is scoring solid success as both EU and US fail to recognize the central role of weaponization of memory in Russia's information warfare agenda and that of Stalin in particular pic.twitter.com/ejYE5CFngQ

— Giorgi Kandelaki (@kandelakigiorgi) January 6, 2024

Moscow and Tbilisi severed diplomatic ties in 2008 in the wake of the war in Georgia. The five-day conflict erupted on the night of August 8, 2008, when US-backed Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili sent troops into the breakaway region of South Ossetia, shelling a Russian peacekeeper base. Moscow recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway region, on August 26, shortly after defeating the Georgian Army.

Relations between the two neighbors have remained strained ever since. Direct flights between the two countries were suspended in 2019 and only resumed in May 2023.

On Saturday, Kandelaki also blamed Stalin for the “destruction of Georgia’s independence” during the Soviet era, as well as for the establishment of the “Soviet totalitarian system” and the persecution of the Orthodox Church.

The Georgian Orthodox Church confirmed the existence of an icon depicting Stalin, adding that it had no objections. People who persecuted the Orthodox Church are sometimes also depicted on icons, Andria Jagmaidze, the head of the press service of the Georgian Orthodox Patriarchate, told local CNews media outlet on Saturday. “There is a fresco depicting Diocletian” as well, he added - in reference to the  Roman emperor responsible for one of the largest and bloodiest persecution campaigns against early Christians.

In 1943, during WWII, the Soviet leader met with three Church metropolitans in the Kremlin. The Orthodox patriarchate was then officially restored in the USSR and a new patriarch was appointed. The authorities legalized bishops’ councils, re-opened many churches and monasteries, and released some priests from prison and exile.

After the war, the persecution resumed, although not as brutally and on a smaller scale.

Stalin’s legacy remains controversial in Russia as well. Although many people link his name to the USSR’s victory over Nazism in 1945 and to a major industrialization campaign that turned the Soviet Union into a nuclear armed power, others blame him for the most massive and brutal periods of repression in the nation’s history and call him the architect of a totalitarian regime.

A new Russian law has come into effect giving those deemed to be highly skilled foreign workers an opportunity to get a residence permit in the country. Previously, highly skilled specialists could obtain such a permit easier than other foreigners, but only for a limited period of time.

A residence permit can now be granted to highly skilled specialists without any limitations if they have worked legally in Russia for two years. All family members of such foreign workers, including their spouses, children, grandchildren, parents, and grandparents, can also get such a permit if they live in Russia. The legislation also covers adopted children, spouses of the specialist’s children or parents, as well as their adoptive parents.

The amendment was passed by the Russian parliament and signed by President Vladimir Putin between June and July 2023, but came into effect only on Sunday.

A foreigner who signs a contract with the Russian military for one year during the conflict with Ukraine will also receive the right to apply for a permanent residence permit in Russia together with their family members. The permit can be revoked, however, if they decide to terminate their contract early.

Previously, the major drawback for any highly skilled worker in Russia was that their residence permit was strictly tied to their contract and could not be granted for a longer period than three years. After that, it needed to be extended or revoked. The new amendment removes this limitation.

A regular residence permit in Russia used to be valid for up to five years. In 2019, the government introduced an indefinite residence permit for most categories of foreigners applying under the regular procedure, but this did not cover highly skilled specialists at that time.

Russian forces have downed two Ukrainian warplanes in the past 24 hours, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said on Sunday.

The ministry identified one as a Su-25 close air support plane, which it said was shot down by Russian air defense not far from Dnepropetrovsk (known as Dnepr in Ukraine), some 150km north of the frontline. The other jet was a Su-27 fighter, downed not far from Krivoy Rog, about 140km west of Dnepropetrovsk, officials added.

The Russian military also said it had intercepted 14 missiles fired from US-supplied HIMARS and Soviet-era Uragan missile systems, as well as six Ukrainian anti-ship Neptune rockets. According to the statement, Russian forces have also destroyed 38 Ukrainian drones across the frontline over the past 24 hours. 

In total, Russia has taken out 567 Ukrainian warplanes, 265 helicopters, and 10,526 drones since the start of the conflict in February 2022, the Defense Ministry claimed.  

In October, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said Moscow’s forces had received new military systems, which at the time allowed them to shoot down 24 Ukrainian planes in just five days. He did not provide further details. 

Kiev’s attempts to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) could have “dire consequences” for the nation’s hopes of joining the EU, The Telegraph newspaper quoted lawyers as saying on Saturday. The Ukrainian parliament is expected to vote later this month on closing down the country’s biggest Christian denomination with its 12,000 parishes.

Lawyers have written to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, US President Joe Biden and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen urging them to put pressure on Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to “suspend efforts to ban this historic institution,” the paper reported.

Such a decision could cause “serious harm to Orthodox Ukrainians” and call into question whether Ukraine can meet its commitments as a candidate for EU membership, according to a letter to Western leaders penned by international lawyer Robert Amsterdam, and quoted by the Telegraph.

“This will have dire ramifications for Ukraine’s entry into the European Union and its place in the Western world,” Amsterdam wrote. He added that Kiev had “falsely accused” the UOC of collaborating with Moscow and expressed concern about “arrests of clerics on spurious charges.”

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has opened 65 criminal cases against UOC priests, sanctioned 17 clerics, and deprived 19 hierarchs of the country’s citizenship, according to TASS news agency.

The Ukrainian government’s attacks on the UOC are “a clear violation of the freedom of religion guaranteed by both international human rights law and the Ukrainian Constitution itself,” Amsterdam wrote.

In October, the Ukrainian parliament passed in a single reading a draft law on banning the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, prepared by the Cabinet of Ministers on the order of President Vladimir Zelensky. The document was supported by 267 out of 450 deputies.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has celebrated Orthodox Christmas with the wives and children of soldiers who have lost their lives in the Ukraine conflict, according to the Kremlin’s official website.

Putin had a lengthy meeting with the families at his Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow on Saturday evening and had dinner with them. Afterwards, they attended the Christmas service at the local church.

Christmas is one of the “warmest” and “most beloved” holidays in Russia, the president told his guests.

On January 7, Russian Orthodox Christians, who constitute the majority of the country’s population, offer greetings to each other as well as representatives of other faiths, and receive greetings from them, he said. “One can safely say that this holiday is characterized by a strongly-pronounced fraternal unity of the peoples of Russia.” 

The president stressed that “many of our men, our courageous, heroic men, Russian warriors, even now, on this holiday, defend the interests of our country with arms in hand.”

He added that the meeting at Novo-Ogaryovo should serve as a “clear signal” to officials at all levels that the relatives of those who die fighting for the country should receive help whenever they need it.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the relatives of the fallen heroes spent the New Year’s holiday week in Moscow, where a special program, which included exhibitions, shows, and other events, was organized for them.

Ukrainian forces launched multiple attacks against civilian targets in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) on Saturday, with one of the strikes damaging a hospital, according to local authorities.

At least three people were injured when a shell hit the Central Clinical Hospital No. 6 in the Leninsky district of Donetsk, according to the city's Joint Center for Control and Coordination. All of the victims were patients at the facility. The attack also damaged several houses in other parts of Donetsk, with witnesses calling it a “Christmas miracle” that no one was seriously injured.

Photos and videos from the scene show the aftermath of the explosion, with windows shattered and glass shards and broken blinds scattered throughout the hospital.

Ukraine's army frequently shells Donetsk, due to the city's proximity to the front line. Four people were killed after Kiev’s forces shelled the city shortly after midnight on January 1, in the first deadly attack of 2024.

The city of Belgorod, located around 40 kilometers from the border, has been the target of Ukrainian missile attacks and shelling since December 30. In that time, a massive strike has claimed the lives of 24 people and left more than 100 injured. According to the Russian military, Kiev’s forces used banned cluster munitions in the attack.

The Russian Orthodox Church has canceled Christmas Eveservices in the capital of Belgorod Region and all settlements located within a 20-kilometer-wide zone along the Russian border with Ukraine.

The city of Belgorod, located around 40 kilometers from the border, has been subjected to continuous Ukrainian strikes for seven days in a row.

Night services were also cancelled in the border city of Shebekino, which was also targeted by Ukrainian strikes and ground attacks last year, the church’s regional metropolitan, Ioann, told his congregation during a sermon that was also published on YouTube. Ioann cited “the danger that besets all of us,” in reference to the Ukrainian attacks. He also vowed to pray for all the victims of Kiev’s strikes that remain in hospitals.

Belgorod has been the target of Ukrainian missile attacks and shelling since a massive strike on December 30 claimed the lives of 24 people and left more than 100 injured. According to the Russian military, Kiev’s forces used banned cluster munitions in their attack.

Although Ukrainian forces have been striking civilians in Russia’s border regions for months, the December 30 attack was the worst of its kind since the start of the conflict. Moscow has accused the US and UK of helping plan the strike.

A security source also told RT that the strike on Belgorod had been personally ordered by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and was carried out by the neo-Nazi Kraken unit based in Kharkov.

Around a dozen Russian cities canceled New Year’s festivities in the wake of the tragedy, in solidarity with Belgorod.

In 2024, the ‘Lastochka’ (‘Swallow’) attack drone, the updated ‘Rusak’ first-person view (FPV) drone, and the ‘Zhuravl’ (‘Crane’) UAV carrier, which transports kamikaze drones, will be sent to the Ukraine conflict combat zone for testing. Discussing the developments in an interview with RT, the founder of the Stratim design bureau, which produced the weapons, said the new UAVs will effectively strike the enemy’s infantry and equipment. The Stratim team is also developing anti-interference navigation and improving its ‘Pozemka’ communication module, he added.  

— When did Stratim start to develop reconnaissance and attack drones and supply them to the front? What makes your company’s products special? 

— The idea to launch a company that would manufacture FPV drones came to me in the summer of 2022, when volunteers started talking about the shortage of drones. [The late military blogger] Vladlen Tatarsky had a particular influence on me. We personally discussed the type of equipment that our soldiers lacked.

At first, Stratim operated in ‘garage mode’ at a defense industry research institute. Then, in November 2022, I traveled to the front line with RT military correspondent Andrey Filatov. I witnessed the tough storming of Pervomaisky [an urban settlement near Donetsk]. Together with Filatov, we helped the soldiers of the 9th Regiment of the People’s Militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) by conducting reconnaissance using drones. 

In order to understand the specifics of modern combat operations and the use of UAVs, I studied topography and artillery reconnaissance, as well as assault operation tactics. 

That’s how I understood exactly what type of drones the army needed – what tactical and technical characteristics they should have, what kind of onboard equipment, communications equipment, machine vision equipment, and the software they have to be equipped with. 

Our first drones were quite primitive, but with each new model they became more complex, more technologically advanced and efficient.

Now, the UAVs developed by Stratim are well adapted to the strategy of combat operations, which implies a very short period of time between military reconnaissance and attack. Our drones are divided by their functional purpose (i.e. reconnaissance and attack drones), weight (light, medium, and heavy-weight drones), and according to the aerodynamic construction (multi-rotor drones and fixed-wing UAVs).

We also always supply relay drones. They ensure the transmission of control signals and the operation of a video channel that’s necessary for reconnaissance drones equipped with a camera and FPV drones. Drones of this type often hover at an altitude of about 150 meters and work in offline mode. 

Naturally, we’re always concerned about the safety of drone pilots. The drone controls produced by Stratim can be located 50-100 meters from the position of the crew. The drone pilot and co-pilot remain hidden in a shelter. If the enemy’s radio intelligence detects the control signals, the strike will hit the communication equipment or the wire that stretches from the shelter [but not the pilots themselves].

At the current stage, it’s important for all our products to be tested at the front.

— Why don’t you disclose your name, but use the military call sign Obi Wan?

— Our work greatly annoys the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). Presently, the enemy is losing [the battle] and we know that their special services are trying to track down Russian engineers, including those who produce UAVs. For security reasons, the Stratim team doesn’t disclose any personal data. However, any of us who want to cooperate with the media or is active on social media can use military call signs for identification. 

I’d like to say a few words about the company’s engineering masterminds. For example, Stratim’s chief designer used to work on CERN’s Large Hadron Collider project, and the director of the multirotor department worked on robotics at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology.

— You mentioned that your drones are used in the short period of time between military reconnaissance and attacking a target. Could you explain how your UAVs are used in practice? 

— When developing the drones, we took into account the specific characteristics of how they would be used and the distance to the target. For example, at short range (5-10km) or, in military terms, at ‘tactical depth’, one needs reconnaissance UAVs that can create an orthophotoplan – i.e. a digital map of the area made by means of digital photography. In the context of the current military conflict, the orthophotoplan includes not only a detailed map of the terrain and buildings, but also the location of enemy positions and firing points.

It’s very difficult to create an orthophotoplan near the front line because of electronic warfare (EW) equipment – mainly anti-drone weapons and other compact jammers, such as trench electronic warfare systems. 

One of the simplest ways to protect drones is to fly them in radio silence mode, when the devices fly along a pre-established route [i.e. using the so-called internal navigation system]. In this mode, enemy jammers rarely detect UAV signatures, but even if this happens, the drone will not be disabled and will safely return home.

Our reconnaissance drones meet all of the above requirements. The autonomous drone ‘Voron’ (‘Raven’) is launched first in order to create an orthophotoplan. It can fly at an altitude of up to 500 meters, and it takes 30 minutes to execute the task. This UAV is quite maneuverable and can reach a speed of over 40km/h. It’s used for mapping terrain and buildings.

Then, the ‘Vorobey’ (‘Sparrow’) drone rises into the sky. It’s a lot like the Mavic quadrotor drone. It has all the advantages of the Chinese version, but doesn’t require reprogramming — the user can customize it for their tasks. The drone’s main tool is a camera with 6x zoom. Usually, this is enough to see the enemy’s positions.

Kamikaze drones then take off and strike targets located at tactical depth, such as the enemy’s firing points, the infantry located in shelters, and armored vehicles. These are ‘Shegol’ (‘Goldfinch’) light attack drones which are capable of carrying a combat load of up to 2kg, as well as ‘Rusak’ UAVs with a 3kg payload capacity, which carry RPG-7 shaped-charge ammunition. Also, these UAVs can be equipped with a TBG-7V thermobaric projectile, which is designed to destroy manpower in shelters. Most often, shaped-charge grenades are suspended on these UAVs. 

To drop VOGs (high explosive fragmentation grenades), the Stratima team has developed the ‘Golub’ (‘Dove’) bomber drone with a revolver-type cylinder capable of firing 12 grenade launcher shots. This drone is effective during an offensive or for striking infantry in poorly equipped fortifications. 

The ‘Rusak’ drone is currently undergoing modernization. In 2024, its updated version will be able to strike even moving targets thanks to the autopilot feature [that can be activated] in the final stages of the flight. To be more precise, this FPV drone will have homing devices which will be activated 500 meters before approaching the target. The improved Rusak drone will make the drone pilot’s work easier and safer.

At medium range, which can be defined as 10-40km, we suggest using our vertical takeoff and landing drones, constructed according to the ‘tailsitter’ design. Such drones take off from a small platform and then shift to horizontal flight.

When developing medium-range UAVs, our team took several factors into account. First of all, building a normal runway would be nearly impossible [in frontline conditions]. Secondly, catapult launchers would be problematic since their elastic cables freeze at subzero temperatures.

For effective reconnaissance missions at medium range, we use the ‘Strepet’ (‘Little Bustard’) reconnaissance drone. Among its advantages are vertical takeoff and landing and a heavy payload capacity. This drone can conduct reconnaissance using both visible light and thermal imaging methods. The Strepet has a flight range of up to 100km, can carry a payload of up to 10kg, and has a speed of up to 100km/h.

To strike enemy equipment, the Stratima team is developing the ‘Chaika’ (‘Seagull’) loitering munition with a shaped-charge warhead, with a range of up to 30km. It’s capable of carrying explosives of the K3-6 type weighing about 4kg. If necessary, it can also be used as a medium-range reconnaissance drone. This is also a ‘tailsitter’-type model. It takes off vertically and then switches to horizontal flight. 

Another interesting tailsitter-type drone is called ‘Redkaya Ptitsa’ (‘Rare Bird’) — it is more compact and has four X-shaped wings, which allow it to fly more than 20km using the lift coefficient. At the same time, in terms of cost and simplicity of design, this UAV is comparable to an FPV drone.

Another promising model with similar functionality is the ‘Zhurval’ (‘Crane’) drone. It will become one of the first Russian drone carriers which are often called ‘drone mother ships’. The UAV will carry three ‘Sinitsa’ (‘Parus’) kamikaze drones capable of hitting military equipment from any side. 

The wingspan of this drone is about 2 meters, the maximum take-off weight is 25kg, the flight range is 30-50km, and maximum speed is 100km/h. We expect to test this drone in 2024.

We also think the army will need a kind of Switchblade-600 analog. We called it ‘Lastochka’ (‘Swallow’). This kamikaze drone will be placed in a transport and launch container – one similar to the RPO-A Shmel tube. It can be easily transported on the shoulder, and prior to launch it is mounted on two legs, like a mortar.

The drone will have wing opening mechanisms. Lastochka will be able to carry 1.5kg of explosives and hit targets at a distance of up to 35km. Presently, we are solving a number of technical issues. In 2024, the system will be sent to the front for testing. The main advantages of this drone are a simple launch mechanism and modern guidance tools. 

— Several Russian private manufacturers are developing jet-powered UAVs. Have you ever considered this as well?

— Yes, we are currently working on several such UAV models. We’re developing an EW-resistant medium-long range drone called ‘Tyuvik’ (‘Levant sparrowhawk’) which will take off from 2-meter-long reusable folding rails. A solid fuel rocket engine (also called a ‘black powder rocket motor’) will propel the UAV.

Other jet-powered UAVs that are being developed are long-range drones. They will be equipped with small-sized gas turbine engines. The ‘Yastreb’ (‘Hawk’) UAV will also use solid-fuel propellants. Stratim presents this model as a smaller analogue of the ‘Geranium’ drone. 

The UAV will be constructed using affordable components and, like the Geranium drone, should be cheap. We are currently testing an engine turbine, and it’s already starting to give the right traction. The tests should be completed this winter. The flight range of the ‘Yastreb’ drone is 300-350km and its payload capacity is 16kg.

— What other projects is Stratim working on?

— In addition to developing new UAVs and improving current models, Stratim is focused on developing target recognition and homing devices. 

We’re working on the implementation of anti-interference navigation – this technology doesn’t use signals from global satellite systems, since these are vulnerable to electronic warfare systems. Specifically, these flight technologies employ visual odometry – i.e. when images of the underlying surface are analyzed and used for navigation. This method is more effective than conventional inertial navigation systems. Odometry allows the UAV’s computer to map out a route [to a specific target] and back. 

Currently, we’re also writing a protocol for the ‘Pozemka’ communication module that we had developed earlier. The module operates at non-standard frequencies and uses frequency-hopping spread spectrum technology. 

We have also created our own analog video transmission system and antennas for it. It operates in a frequency range that the AFU’s electronic intelligence systems currently do not recognize, and it can’t be jammed by the enemy’s EW equipment. We believe that our ideas in the field of communications and autonomous flights will boost the effectiveness of UAVs, save the lives of our soldiers, and bring victory closer. 

The leader of Russia’s Republic of Chechnya has said US sanctions do not bother him or his family members, and that his proposal to release Ukrainian POWs in exchange for Washington dropping the restrictions on his relatives was just “trolling.” 

During an address to members of the Chechen security forces in Grozny on Friday, Ramzan Kadyrov suggested that 20 Ukrainian troops, who were captured during the fighting in Donbass and are now being held in the republic, could be handed over to Kiev if the Americans “lift the sanctions against my mother, my daughters, innocent people and horses, except for me.”

Kadyrov later wrote a post on Telegram, claiming that “the lives of ordinary Ukrainians mean nothing to the US leaders.” 

“They only care about their own interests, so I made that statement to reveal the true face of the American politicians,” he explained.

The Chechen leader said it was “obvious” that, despite his family having nothing to do with politics, the US authorities would not agree to his proposal, but “it’s interesting to hear their excuses [for not doing so], if there’ll be any.”

“Ritter, unlike some, understood this trolling correctly,” the leader of Chechnya said of his offer. “As for the sanctions, they don’t interfere with our lives in any way,” he added.

The US blacklisted Kadyrov’s family members – including his wife and daughters – in 2020, accusing Chechen authorities of “gross human rights violations.” In August last year, financial restrictions and a travel ban were also imposed on Aymani Kadyrova – the Chechen leader’s mother. According to Washington, she was targeted for running the Akhmat Kadyrov Foundation, which the US claimed was involved in the “re-education” of Ukrainian children evacuated by Russia from the conflict zone.

Ukrainian web dictionary MySlovo has declared ‘mobilization’ the word of the year. In a post published on Friday, the lexicon said that the choice hinged on the word being “at the center of public debate” fueled by a “controversial mobilization bill” submitted to the parliament in late December.

The legislation in question is a response to huge battlefield losses incurred by Ukraine's army in its conflict with Russia, and proposes lowering the mobilization age from 27 to 25, eliminating exemptions for some categories of disabled people as well as introducing harsher measures against draft dodgers.

MySlovo also noted that ‘mobilization’ had overtaken the word ‘counteroffensive’ – a reference to Kiev’s much-hyped push that started in early summer but failed to gain substantial ground. The authors of the post also pointed out that the latter word “unfortunately received far more media support than logistics and, as a result, brought more frustration than visible results.”

Other notable mentions also harked back in one way or another to the ongoing hostilities, including ‘draft dodger,’ ‘positional war,’ and ‘drone.’ The phrase ‘eggs for 17 hryvnias ($0.45) each,’ also made it to the list, an apparent reference to a corruption scandal in the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, which allegedly procured various foodstuffs at exorbitant prices.

The word ‘blockade’ also proved to be popular both in the context of Russia’s naval operations on the Black Sea and Polish haulers and farmers’ protests on the border between the two states. The latter have opposed EU regulations they claim give unfair advantages to their Ukrainian counterparts.

The only word not directly associated with the conflict was ‘AI’ (artificial intelligence), although the dictionary suggested that its presence was “related to the integration of AI into military systems.”

Ukraine announced mobilization in February 2022 shortly after the start of the conflict with Russia, with the recruitment drive marred by corruption and draft dodging. However, during its counteroffensive, Kiev started actively mulling new measures to call up more soldiers in mid-2023. According to Moscow, Ukraine has lost around 160,000 troops since the start of the botched push in early June.

Ukrainian viewers are turning away from Telemarathon United News, a round-the-clock multi-channel broadcast set up as single source of televised information about the conflict with Russia, because it has turned into a “little more than a mouthpiece for the government,” the New York Times has reported.

Telemarathon United News was created on the order of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and gets 40% its funding from the government. Opposition channels have been denied participation in the project.

The broadcast has been jointly produced by Ukraine’s six leading networks since the start of the fighting between Moscow and Kiev in early 2022. The NYT report this week described the 24/7 broadcast as “a major tool of Ukraine’s information war,” which was “crucial… for holding the country together.”

But, after two years of conflict, “Ukrainians have grown weary of Telemarathon,” the paper acknowledged. Viewers now increasingly complain that it “often paints too rosy a picture of the war, hiding worrying developments on the frontline and the West’s eroding support for Ukraine,” it said.

Telemarathon’s audience has shrunk from 40% of Ukraine’s total viewership in March 2022 to just 10%, according Svetlana Ostapa, deputy chief editor of Detector Media, a Ukrainian media watchdog.

Detector Media’s Igor Kulias said that throughout 2023, Telemarathon had emphasized “the effectiveness and skill of the Ukrainian forces,” while Russian troops were portrayed “as being in a state of panic, experiencing significant losses and surrendering en masse.” However, it was “a completely different reality” from what was actually happening on the ground, he pointed out.

According to Kulias’ data, more than 68% of the political guests of the program last year were from Zelensky’s Servant of the People party.

Golos party MP Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, who heads the Ukrainian parliament’s committee on freedom of speech, claimed earlier this month that Telemarathon had blinded people to the fact that the conflict with Russia would be a prolonged one and would require more sacrifices.

Ukraine's foreign minister has urged citizens not to be excessively worried about delays in US aid to Kiev, while playing down warnings of a funding cut. 

Dmitry Kuleba took to Instagram on Friday after Ukrainian media quoted State Department spokesman Matthew Miller commenting on an expected drop in military assistance.

“This is not about supporting Ukraine in 2024,” Kiev’s foreign minister insisted. “The State Department said that when Ukraine is firmly on its feet and there are enough weapons and resources to counter Russian aggression, then the amount of support can be reduced.”

“Chill. Don’t look for extra reasons to worry that will bring you into a state of agony and depression,” he added.

During Thursday’s briefing at the State Department, Miller told reporters the US intends to continue supporting Ukraine “for as long as necessary,” but not with the amount of money and weapons provided so far.

“This does not mean that we will continue to support them at the same level of military funding as in 2022 and 2023,” Miller said.

Because such capacities not in place yet, however, he urged Congress to approve additional funding that had been requested by President Joe Biden. The White House sought over $60 billion in emergency funding for Kiev back in October, but has encountered opposition in the Republican-majority House of Representatives. The Pentagon said on Friday it is authorized to spend $4 billion more, but cannot do so until the funds are approved by Congress.

Speaking to CNN earlier this week, Kuleba insisted that Kiev does not have a “plan B” if this aid dries up, but is “confident in plan A” and continued Western funding. He has also brushed off concerns about Biden’s possible election loss to former US President Donald Trump in November, suggesting Kiev could “work with” a new administration.

The head of Russia’s Chechnya Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, has proposed releasing up to 20 Ukrainian servicemen, but only if Kiev’s Western backers lift sanctions imposed against his family in return. The Ukrainian soldiers had previously been captured by the Chechen units fighting in Donbass.

Washington placed restrictions on the leader’s family members – including his wife and daughters – in 2020, accusing Chechen authorities of “gross human rights violations.” Kadyrov had expressed his bemusement at the decision at the time by saying his children had nothing to do with anything.

In August 2023, the US also imposed financial restrictions and a travel ban on Aymani Kadyrova – the Chechen leader’s mother. According to Washington, she was sanctioned because she was the head of the Akhmat Kadyrov Foundation, which the US claimed was involved in the “re-education” of Ukrainian children evacuated by Russia from the war zone. Kadyrov said he was shocked by the move, adding that he would never forgive Washington for this step.

“We have POWs that we have taken in the Donetsk and Lugansk [People’s Republics],” he said at the Chechen security forces roll call in Grozny. “If [Western nations] lift the sanctions against my mother, my daughters, innocent people and horses, except for me … we will hand [the Ukrainians] over.”

Neither Ukraine nor the West has so far commented on Kadyrov’s proposal.

Moscow and Kiev have regularly exchanged POWs throughout the conflict, although major prisoner swaps have been rare in the past few months. The biggest one took place shortly after New Year’s Eve and included 248 Russian service members and 230 Ukrainian personnel. The deal was the result of a “complex negotiation process” facilitated by the “humanitarian mediation” of the United Arab Emirates, the Russian military said.

The previous public POW swap was in early August 2023, and involved 22 soldiers from each side. Before that, a major prisoner exchange took place in June 2023 and involved swapping 94 Russian servicemen for 95 Ukrainian fighters.

Foreign officials discriminating against Russians could face prosecution under a bill currently making its way through the parliament in Moscow, the outlet RBK reported on Friday, citing insider sources.

Irina Yarovaya, an MP from the ruling ‘United Russia’ party and a long-time critic of “Russophobia,” is behind the proposal that would amend the Russian Criminal Code with penalties for the practice. 

The bill, which RBK has seen, would introduce liabilities for “discriminatory action” against ethnic Russians or Russian nationals, as well as “public calls to commit discriminatory actions.” It would also apply to members of foreign governments acting in their official capacity and allow individuals to be tried in absentia “in exceptional cases.”

In the explanatory note to the bill, Yarovaya said it was needed to ensure the protection of military cemeteries, monuments, and other memorials to those who died in the defense of Russia. 

Yarovaya has campaigned to criminalize Russophobia for over a year now, describing it as a “misanthropic ideology” designed as a weapon against Russia, its citizens, and the entire “Russian world.” She has cited denial of employment and medical care, cancellation of theatrical productions and concerts, and restrictions on the use of the Russian language as some examples of Russophobia in action.

Meanwhile, some US allies have used the Ukraine conflict as the pretext for a campaign to either “cancel” the Russian language, culture, and heritage throughout the West or have it rebranded as “Ukrainian.”

Yarovaya’s proposal appears to have the support of the Kremlin, according to RBK. During his December 14 press conference, President Vladimir Putin called Russophobia one of the “attack vectors” against Russia and said it was necessary to “nip in the bud” any attempts to destabilize Russian society.

Several questions remain to be resolved before Yarovaya’s bill can be adopted, however. The bill does not specify the penalties, such as fines and terms of imprisonment, that would apply, for example. 

The bill would also need to provide examples of specific actions that would be criminalized, rather than just “ways of thinking or someone’s feelings towards any ethnic group,” attorney Alexey Dobrynin of the Pen & Paper Bar Association told RBK. 

Dobrynin described the proposed law as a deterrent to future Russophobic actions and a demonstration of Russia’s determination to counter them.

Russian laws already ban discrimination on the basis of citizenship, ethnicity, or nation, Anton Bibarov-Gosudarev, a member of the Russian Lawyers Association, told the outlet. The “novelty” of Yarovaya’s proposal is that it would specifically target foreign officials, Bibarov-Gosudarev added, acknowledging that bringing them to justice in Russia “seems difficult to implement.”

Here’s a little experiment that you can replicate at home: Type ‘Russia Danger’ into Google (or Bing, or whatever search engine you like, but it probably has to be in English or another NATO-affiliated language; say German or French or Polish). Peruse the results.

Then type ‘Russia Weak’ and repeat.

Funny, isn’t it? Both searches will net you a rich catch of links and titles, of opinion pieces, longform articles, surveys and so on, depicting a dangerous or a weak Russia, as the case may be. And many of those sources will be high-quality or, at least, thoroughly mainstream: Reuters, The Telegraph, The New York Times, NPR, reputable think tanks, institutes, and experts – that sort of thing.

In other words, the West is producing two roughly equally prominent narratives about Russia that are mutually exclusive. True, there are some attempts – vaguely reminiscent of medieval scholasticism – to reconcile them. Almost a year ago now, Reuters, for instance, ran the headline that “even a weak Russia is a problem for Europe.”

How convenient from a Western point of view! That way, you can have your triumphalism (because the phrase “Russia weak” here, of course, implies “West strong”) and, at the same time, you can still spread the fear of big bad Russia, with all that means for intra-NATO politics (i.e. US dominance), military budgets, and arms manufacturers. The latter have been doing very well out of yet another war that has – surprise, surprise – turned out to be a racket, in the famous words of US Marine Major General Smedley Butler.

Yet, on the whole, we are looking at a stark contrast. You may think that this is simply reflecting a healthy debate, with two opposing opinions clashing or that differences are due to time passing and things, especially in Ukraine, changing on the ground. To an extent, you’d be right: It is obvious, for instance, that the Western mood has become more pessimistic after the failure of Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive had to be acknowledged.

But the above is far from the whole explanation for the striking Western bipolarity (to use a term from clinical psychology) about Russia. For as so often with Western narratives about that country, they may not help you much to understand the real Russia, but if you read them against the grain, they can tell you a lot about the West’s imaginary Russias (yes, there is  more than one). And that, in turn, offers some timely insights into the real West.

Let’s look at a sample of points habitually made about Russia in the two big Western narratives.

For ‘Russia Danger’ we get: obsessively imperial (wants the Soviet Union back or, at least, something similarly dominant); supremely devious (never means what it says and not even the opposite, either); very subversive (able to make or break American presidents, for instance); militarily powerful and ruthless (its forces are battle-hardened and learning, its weapons advanced and adaptable, and, worst of all, its war economy is effective – unlike the West’s); well-connected (it gets ammunition from North Korea, sells oil to India, China just won’t stop siding with it, and, exasperatingly, much of the world is not heeding the West’s command to isolate it); and last but not least, politically “totalitarian,” of course (just disregard here that that term makes absolutely no sense with regard to Russia now).

For ‘Russia Weak’ we find: Not all it’s cracked up to be and really just a fraud (this is where almost no one can resist that deadly tired cliche about “Potemkin” this and “Potemkin” that); primitive in terms of, well, really, everything: values, politics, organization, technology (Remember German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s Wayward Washing Machine Theory regarding how Russians get their microchips? No? Lucky you.); savage (This one easily blends with “primitive,” of course – see under “Russian soldiers without guns but with sharpened shovels”); isolated (at least by the very proper crowd in the West), and, last but not least, always brimming with repressed popular discontent and, potentially at least, on the verge of color revolution and regime change (so to speak, authoritarian enough to condemn, but terribly bad at that, too – see under “Potemkin” and “primitive”).

We could refine the picture, but the outlines should be clear enough. And here is what it reveals: what is behind the West’s two Russias is not merely a debate or differences of opinion and assessments, but the latest iteration of a deep cultural pattern with a long history, reaching back to, at least, the moment when Peter the Great gate-crashed the European Great Power club in the early 18th century.

On one side, the West loves to imagine Russia in what – after the great Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said – we have learned to call an Orientalist framing, as a Backward Other: a part of that perennial fantasy ‘East’ that the West simply can’t imagine – or accept – as its equal. That’s the root of all those descriptions of today’s Russia as a kind of shovel-wielding gas station running on empty (if you will forgive a metaphor as muddled as the thinking it designates).

But there is another powerful register in the West’s Russia imagination: the Sinister Other. Whereas in the Orientalist key, Russia is ultimately always seen as reassuringly weak, the Sinister Other is different: a kind of evil mirror image of the West’s self-idealization, this Russia appears as modern, wielding up-to-date means of power across multiple domains from information, to the economy, to the battlefield. The Sinister Other can also mobilize its population well; it has, like the West, solved the political challenge of bringing the masses into politics, only in a way the West likes to imagine as morally inferior to its own brand of manufacturing consent.

Consider the issue of how Russia has been fighting the current war between it, on one side, and Ukraine and (de facto) NATO on the other. Initial – and gleeful – Western observations about Moscow’s mistakes and predictions that, with its call-up of September 2022, Moscow would fall flat on its face and even trigger large-scale rebellion, if not revolution, were a classic example not only of wishful groupthink but of the Orientalist, Backward-Other register. Put crudely: “Those Russians just can’t hack it, because – they are Russians.”

Yet, when Russia did succeed in mobilizing and also adjusted its military tactics, at least some Western perceptions shifted into the Sinister-Other key: as Barry R. Posen, an unusually perceptive Western observer wrote in Foreign Affairs, “the most alarming thing about Russia’s bombing campaign is that Moscow knows what it is doing.” Indeed. But where’s the news?

It is crucial to understand that this Western pattern is not merely about passive observation. On the contrary, there is a proactive aspect to it: We can read the last decades, essentially since the end of the Soviet Union, as marked by the West’s obstinate attempt to not only imagine Russia as backward and weak. Rather, Russia – and Russians – were supposed to fit that image: Under Western eyes, Russia was to be relegated in the real-existing hierarchy of international politics – a big country (and market), sure, but still one that, when push comes to shove, can be coerced and even defeated. And because Moscow has resisted this demotion successfully, Russia is now the Sinister Other again.

That shift illustrates the single most depressing thing about the West’s views of Russia: the West may change its tone from time to time, it may even produce two very different, mutually exclusive narratives about Russia at the same time, when stuck in a moment of transition or confusion. But it never actually learns. All it does, collectively and with all too few exceptions, is alternate between different frameworks of stereotypes. What a missed opportunity. Again and again.

Kiev should “stop humiliating itself” and end the “illusion” that it will soon join the EU and NATO, Aleksey Arestovich has said.

President Vladimir Zelensky’s former aide made the remarks during a joint broadcast with journalist Yulia Latynina on Friday, in which he commented on the EU Council’s decision in mid-December to begin negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the bloc.

“No matter how much we want to join NATO and the EU – we are not welcome there,” he said.

Arestovich observed that the price for even the “possibility” of Ukraine joining NATO was the start of “a big war with Russia,” adding that the same applied to other Western nations as well. The West is “not ready to pay this price,” he said.

Ukraine’s goal of “joining a big union” is “unfeasible” and the only way out of this situation is to “stop humiliating itself,” so that foreign and domestic policy issues will be handled in Kiev, “not in Brussels, Washington or Moscow,” Arestovich said.

The decision to open formal negotiations on Ukraine’s accession to the EU was taken on December 15 by 26 of the bloc’s 27 member states. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has been one of the main opponents of Kiev’s entry into the bloc, said his country “does not want to participate in this bad decision” and left the room when the vote was taken.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky announced in September 2022 that he was accelerating his country’s application to join NATO, claiming that “de facto we have already made our way into NATO” and that the request was made “to make it de jure.”

Lithuanian seafood giant Viciunai Group has been added to Kiev’s list of “international sponsors of war” for continuing to operate and pay taxes in Russia, Ukraine’s National Corruption Prevention Agency (NCPA) announced Thursday.

Inclusion on this blacklist has no legal consequences but Ukraine has repeatedly used it as a pressure tool to force them to stop doing business in Russia amid the conflict between Moscow and Kiev.

The Viciunai Group, best known for its Vici crab-taste sticks, announced in March 2022 that it would “suspend operations in Russia” and focus on business in Europe following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February that year. However, according to the NCPA, despite the promises, “Viciunai does not stop its work in Russia and remains one of the most favorite brands of Russian consumers.”

“Vici continues to operate its facilities in Russia, looking for new employees and paying significant taxes,” the agency claimed.

The net profit of Viciunai’s production complex in Russia’s Kaliningrad region in 2022 “increased by 156% (up to $20 million),” according to the Ukrainian agency.

Ukraine’s list of alleged international war sponsors is used by Kiev to attempt to inflict reputational damage on selected companies with significant business interests in Russia. Nearly 50 international brands, including PepsiCo, Nestle, Mars, Unilever, Xiaomi, Bacardi, Leroy Merlin, Procter & Gamble, Yves Rocher, and Alibaba (owner of AliExpress), have been listed by Kiev due to their reluctance to leave the Russian market.

Commenting on the withdrawal of international companies from the Russian market, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in June 2023 that they could not resist the “pressure of foreign political elites.” Moscow is ready to take them back but “the peculiarities of the behavior of some of these partners” will be taken into account, Putin added.

He noted that foreign firms that have not left the Russian market and will continue to operate there will be treated in the same way as local producers, which Moscow considers them to be.

Three dozen Ukrainian drones have been shot down while attempting to strike Crimea in an overnight raid on Friday, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

The attack came just hours after an attempted missile strike on Sevastopol, in which Kiev’s forces used ten projectiles, including Western-supplied “Storm Shadows.”

“An attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out a terrorist attack with unmanned aerial vehicles was stopped on January 5,” the ministry said in a bulletin.

“Air defense systems on duty destroyed and intercepted 36 Ukrainian UAVs over the territory of the Republic of Crimea and one UAV over the territory of Krasnodar Region,” the military added.

One downed missile fell in a residential area near Sevastopol State University (SevGU) but did not explode. The area has been cordoned off to allow explosive ordnance disposal teams to handle the situation.

Ukrainian artillery also targeted the Russian city of Belgorod at arund the same time as the drone attack. While a total of ten rockets were intercepted, at least one struck a parking lot in a residential area, shattering windows and damaging a number of cars. Two civilians were reported injured.

Five NATO reconnaissance planes and a drone had surveyed Crimea on Wednesday, while an American RC-135W spy plane was patrolling the Black Sea during the missile strike on Thursday, according to the Russian think-tank Rybar.

If members of parliament can’t agree on a new mobilization law, they are welcome to volunteer for the front themselves, commander in chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valery Zaluzhny, reportedly told lawmakers on Thursday.

Zaluzhny’s remarks came during a meeting of the National Security Committee of the Verkhovna Rada, according to the Ukrainian publication New Voice. The outlet cited a source who was present, but wished to remain anonymous.

“I need people,” the general reportedly said. “The Russians have already called up 400,000 and are preparing several hundred thousand more. And who do I have? Either turn to the world and ask people there, or go fight [yourselves] if you don’t provide.”

Zaluzhny insisted that unless tougher mobilization rules are adopted, “there will be no one to defend the state.” According to the same source, he also opposed a proposal to draft convicts, as this would create a perception that military service was a punishment.

“There will be 80 days of training for each person mobilized. But give me people,” the general reportedly told the lawmakers.

Ukraine’s Western backers have pushed Zelensky to expand the draft to younger and older men and women as well, according to Russian intelligence. An MP from Zelensky’s ruling ‘Servant of the People’ party, Mariana Bezuglaya, has indeed proposed amendments that would allow drafting women. Her own Facebook poll, however, showed that 74% of men and 65% of women were willing to renounce their Ukrainian citizenship in order to avoid conscription.

Record breaking cold temperatures have triggered weather emergencies in half a dozen regions of Russia, including Moscow and St. Petersburg, and disrupted air and rail travel throughout the country.

On Thursday, thermometers in Moscow showed -26 degrees Celsius, with the forecast expecting a low of -31 overnight and a high of -12C on Friday. The Russian capital has been put on an ‘orange weather alert’ through January 6.

Temperatures in St. Petersburg dropped to -27C on Thursday, while the northern part of Leningrad Region saw a cold snap as low as -36C.

Lows of -35C were expected on Thursday in the central regions of Russia – Vladimir, Ivanovo, Kostroma, Tver, and Yaroslavl – while -40C was predicted for Sverdlovsk Region. The unusual cold will spread to 70% of the country in the coming days and will not let up before January 10, the federal weather service has announced.

In some parts of Russia, temperatures could reach -54C.

Портовый город особенно прекрасен в лютый холод pic.twitter.com/KglRk8BdwW

— Маша на Весте (@Maria_Gouleva) January 3, 2024

As of Thursday evening, 11 flights have been delayed or canceled at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport and five at Vnukovo. There were no cancellations or delays at Domodedovo and Zhukovsky.

pic.twitter.com/Sgdkml81QG

— ᛞᛗᛁᛏᚱᛁᛃ (@T0KY0BOY) December 30, 2023

The frost has also led to problems with rail traffic. Six trains were stopped in Chelyabinsk Region in the Urals. While some social media outlets have reported problems with heating and food running out, the railways said they would maintain a “comfortable temperature regime” on board and provide meals for everyone in Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk.

В Екатеринбурге креативный Дед Мороз разгуливает по городу на ванной

А вместо оленей в упряжке неслись хаски.. pic.twitter.com/nlQ6Iqv7PX

— Tibo91 (@Tibortibor15) January 3, 2024

A Lastochka electric train became stuck in Vladimir Region, en route from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod, after it lost power in -30 C frost. Some 300 passengers were reported “trapped in ice” for almost three hours. 

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— ᛞᛗᛁᛏᚱᛁᛃ (@T0KY0BOY) December 30, 2023

As electric heaters worked overtime to cope with the cold, at least 20 rural settlements in Moscow Region reported power supply interruptions, clogging the Telegram channels of local authorities with complaints. 

Сегодня какой-то капитальный холод, сидим дома пьем игристое убираемся pic.twitter.com/hRWJdJDUDT

— Оя (@Ooolya_96) January 2, 2024

The Zaoksky district in Tula Region has been without power for several days, as outside temperatures dropped to -25C.

The harsh cold snap did have a silver lining in Moscow, where a “winter rainbow” was spotted on Thursday. As water vapor freezes in the extreme cold, light refracts off the resulting ice needles for a spectacular visual.

Ukrainian rocket artillery has launched another “indiscriminate” attack on Belgorod, local authorities confirmed shortly after midnight on Friday. Residents have been warned to shelter in place. 

Warning sirens went off just before midnight as air defenses detected and engaged incoming missiles, shooting down ten incoming rockets on approach to the city, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. According to the official, two civilians have been taken to local hospitals with shrapnel injuries.

Local residents were warned to stay indoors and away from windows if possible.

Videos posted on social media showed cars damaged by debris and on fire. Gladkov said that several buildings had their windows shattered by an explosion, and that more than 30 cars were damaged. 

Video of shelling in Belgorod. pic.twitter.com/v08r6IS4IM

— ayden (@squatsons) January 4, 2024

The mayor of Belgorod, Valentin Demidov, said that at least 130 windows had been shattered in the attack, sharing multiple photos of the aftermath. With outside temperatures below -10 degrees Celsius  (14 Fahrenheit), the emergency services worked overnight to urgently restore the thermal envelope of the affected flats, the official added.

Friday’s attack marked the seventh consecutive day of Ukrainian attacks on Belgorod, which is some 40km from the border. A rocket attack on New year's even hit the city's main square, killing dozens – including children – and wounding 100 more.

Russia has responded with drone and missile strikes on Ukrainian military industry facilities, repair shops and ammunition warehouses, including depots loaded with weapons donated to Kiev by the US and its allies.

Russians should not give up the English language just to spite the West in the way Kiev ditched Russian to spite Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in Moscow on Thursday.

Lavrov was hosting an 11-year-old girl from Lugansk named Anastasia as part of the ‘Wishing Tree’ charity campaign. When she told the foreign minister she was studying English, he praised her and said it was a good language to know.

“I don’t think they are right, those who say ‘Well they are setting the entire world against us, so let’s get away from the English language.’ That’s stupid, because the language has nothing to do with it,” the minister said.

“That’s just like when [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky banned the Russian language, Russian education, [and] Russian media in Ukraine,” he added.

Some Russian lawmakers have mooted downgrading the status of English in all levels of education, from mandatory to optional. A member of the State Duma from the ruling ‘United Russia’ party, argued in April that English had become the main international language only because schools mandate it.

The US, Britain and Canada have been among the most outspoken supporters of Ukraine in the conflict with Russia, and have led the campaign to “cancel” the Russian language, culture and heritage throughout the West, or have it rebranded as “Ukrainian.”

Lavrov himself is fluent in English, French, Dhivehi (spoken in the Maldives) and Sinhala (used in Sri Lanka), along with his native Russian.

The ‘Wishing Tree’ is a charity campaign that helps children from various backgrounds see their wishes come true around the New Year’s holidays. It has “granted” the wishes of 107,000 children since its inception in 2018.

In addition to Anastasia – who wished to meet him in person – Lavrov granted two more wishes this week, helping 14-year-old Ksenia from Amur Region get a vinyl record player and 11-year-old Arseny from Moscow to play a game of chess with grandmaster Sergei Karyakin.

President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree granting the right to obtain Russian passports to foreigners who sign up for service in the country’s Armed Forces or other military units during the Ukraine conflict, the Kremlin reported on its website on Thursday.

Family members of such foreigners will also have the right to obtain Russian citizenship, according to the decree.

In addition, simplified naturalization rules will apply to foreigners dismissed from military service during the fighting for health reasons, upon reaching the age limit, or the expiration of their contract.

Applications to secure Russian ID for the foreign nationals are to be considered within a month after the relevant papers are submitted to the Interior Ministry. The term can be extended to up to three months in case some data needs additional verification, the document reads.

“Now the problem with the extradition of veterans of the military operation to other countries, where they are to be punished as ‘mercenaries’, will be resolved. Russia doesn’t extradite its citizens!” he wrote on Telegram.

Foreigners have been allowed to sign contracts with the Russian military since November 2022. However, a simplified path towards naturalization previously only applied to those who committed to at least one year of service.

Last month, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said that the number of “foreign volunteers” joining the country’s military units had increased sevenfold over the past year. He didn’t reveal the exact number.

Also on Thursday, the Russian Defense Ministry published data on foreign mercenaries fighting on the Ukrainian side. According to its estimates, over 13,500 soldiers of fortune have arrived in the country since the outbreak of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022.

A total of 5,900 mercenaries have been killed, while over 5,600 have fled the battlefield. The number of foreigners in the ranks of the Ukrainian military currently stands at over 1,900, according to the ministry.

Ukraine has more than 9,000 active criminal proceedings being brought against alleged draft dodgers, Interior Minister Igor Klimenko revealed on Thursday. Some 2,600 of them have already made it to court, he added.

Klimenko made the revelation during an interview with the My-Ukraina TV channel, stating that all the affected draft-dodging accused have been prosecuted under the same article of the criminal code. Anyone convicted of evading their obligation risks landing behind bars for up to five years, according to Ukrainian law.

“To date, there are about 9,000 criminal proceedings. Some 2,600 such cases have been sent to courts,” Klimenko stated.

The number of criminal cases alleging evasion of Ukraine’s draft appears to be relatively small given the scale the practice has reached amid the conflict with Russia. Over the past year alone, nearly 11,000 men were caught at a border while trying to escape the country, spokesman for the Ukrainian border guard Andrey Demchenko said last week. Some 7,700 people were apprehended while attempting to cross the border on foot through the wilderness, and another 3,000 were caught at checkpoints with forged papers, according to the official.

It’s widely feared that the scale of draft dodging is actually even broader, with “tens, hundreds of thousands of people” evading military conscription, Deputy Defense Minister Natalya Kalmykova said last October. “Unfortunately, we see a lot of situations… when people don’t want and plan to avoid mobilization somehow, the need to defend their country,” she said at the time.

While Ukrainian authorities have never officially disclosed the country’s casualties in the conflict with Russia, that tally is believed to be in the hundreds of thousands already. According to the latest estimates by Moscow, Kiev has lost nearly 400,000 troops since the beginning of the recent hostilities, with the much-hyped yet botched counteroffensive alone costing it some 159,000 soldiers.

The heavy casualties are indirectly confirmed by ever-broadening mobilization plans, with President Vladimir Zelensky recently accounting for the need to call up an additional 500,000 troops. Kiev has also been deliberating lowering the draft age for men, as well as calling up more women.

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has characterized Russia as his country’s “main partner and ally,” adding that bilateral relations are “at a very high level.” In a Wednesday interview with the country’s Egemen Qazaqstan newspaper, the leader also said that close ties between the two neighbors are crucial for “ensuring regional stability and international security.” 

While the Kazakh leadership has publicly professed on multiple occasions that it abides by Western sanctions imposed on Russia over its military operation in Ukraine, there have been allegations that the Central Asian nation, which is a member of several Russian-led economic and security pacts, has been secretly helping Moscow circumvent restrictions and acquire Western-made goods, including dual-use ones that could have a military application.

In the interview, Tokayev said that “high-level political dialogue is developing rapidly” between Kazakhstan and Russia, with more than 300 treaties and agreements signed between the two countries over the past 30 years.

The Kazakh head of state recounted how he and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, had “clarified that the strategic partnership and relations between our states will not deviate from the nature of true friendship” during the Russian president’s official visit to the country in November 2023.

According to Tokayev, Moscow plays a key role in the international arena, and  Putin is a “person who influences the global climate both by words and deeds.” Therefore, “no problem in the world can be solved without the participation of this state.” 

Speaking during his visit to Astana in November, the Russian president said that the two neighbors were “not just allies, but the closest allies,” lauding Tokayev’s personal contribution in fostering these ties.  

Meanwhile, in September, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, following a meeting with the Kazakh head of state, that he was satisfied with the way Astana “supports us in preventing sanction circumvention and has taken active counter-measures.” 

The Russian Foreign Ministry, for its part, has made it clear that it considers Western countries’ attempts to woo Central-Asian states as part of an overt anti-Russia agenda.

Russia’s Defense Ministry has published statistics detailing the aid supplied to Ukraine from abroad during the conflict with Russia. According to its figures, Kiev’s foreign backers together have spent more than $203 billion on assisting the government of President Vladimir Zelensky.

Some 54 countries have been providing assistance to the Ukrainian forces amid the fighting with Russia, the ministry said on Thursday.

More than 500 US and NATO spacecraft are working for the needs of Kiev. Those include 70 military surveillance satellites, while the rest are commercial but of double use, the ministry claimed in a post on Telegram.

Ukrainian troops are also relying on more than 20,000 Starlink terminals from Elon Musk’s SpaceX, according to the figures.

Kiev has been supplied with more than 1,600 units of missile and artillery equipment, over 200 air defense systems, some 5,220 tanks and armored vehicles, and more than 23,000 drones, the ministry said.

The Russian military's estimates also claim that over 13,500 foreign mercenaries came to Ukraine to fight for Kiev. Among these were some 8,500 Europeans and over 2,700 from North and South America, while the rest traveled from Asia and Africa, it added.

In late November, Zelensky announced that Ukraine would switch from attacking to building fortifications, acknowledging that the counteroffensive, which had begun in early June and aimed to cut Russia’s land bridge to Crimea, had ended without success. Moscow estimates that Kiev has lost over 125,000 troops and 16,000 pieces of heavy equipment, including a lot of Western-supplied hardware, in its failed attempts to advance.

Since then, President Vladimir Putin and his Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu have both said that Russian forces have been holding the initiative in the conflict. Last month, the defense ministry confirmed the full capture of Maryinka, a key Ukrainian stronghold in Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic.

Meanwhile, the flow of foreign military aid to Kiev has significantly reduced in recent months. In the US, Republican lawmakers are resisting attempts by the Biden administration to push through another $60 billion in assistance for Kiev, while Hungary has vetoed the EU’s planned four-year, €50 billion ($55 billion) aid package for Ukraine.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba told CNN on Wednesday that authorities in Kiev “don't have a plan B” if the US funding doesn’t arrive in time.

Four Ukrainian citizens have been arrested after posting videos of Russian airstrikes on the Kiev region, local authorities said, noting they could be charged for helping the enemy “adjust” its fire.

Moscow targeted multiple military sites around Kiev earlier this week, though Ukraine's military claimed to have intercepted most of the missiles.

The arrests were announced in a social media post by Ukraine's security service, the SBU, on Wednesday, claiming the four unnamed bloggers had “made an unauthorized video recording” of Russian strikes and shared the footage online.

“The Security Service once again emphasizes the prohibition of shooting and publishing video and photo materials regarding the activities of the Defense Forces, as well as the consequences of enemy strikes,” the agency continued, adding “The publication of such media files is considered adjusting enemy fire, which is punishable by up to 12 years in prison.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry described the operation as a “group strike with long-range precision weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles on enterprises of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine,” adding that it targeted arms-manufacturing sites around the capital area.

Purported footage of the strikes has made the rounds online, though it remains unclear whether the videos were captured by any of those arrested on Wednesday. Some of the material appears to show strikes in progress, while other clips depict the aftermath of attacks.

On that day, the Ukrainian military claimed to have intercepted almost all incoming projectiles, including ten out of ten hypersonic Kinzhal missiles. Moscow previously ridiculed Kiev for exaggerating the effectiveness of its anti-aircraft defenses and claiming to intercept three times as many projectiles as Moscow actually launches. Moscow also repeatedly accused Kiev of deploying its air defense systems in residential districts, resulting in casualties among civilians.

Moscow’s missile and drone strikes intensified after Ukraine launched an attack on the Russian border city of Belgorod last week, killing 25 people, including several children, and injuring more than 100, according to local officials. In the early hours of January 1, Kiev also shelled Donetsk, a frequent target of the Ukrainian military since 2014, killing four people and injuring 13.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed a response to those “terrorist attacks,” promising to ramp up strikes on Ukrainian military facilities, though stressed that Moscow had no intention of targeting civilians.

A member of the Ukrainian defense industry’s new governing board has floated the idea of using an American-style “lottery” as a solution to Kiev’s conscription troubles. Former economy minister Timofey Milovanov raised the issue on Wednesday.

“Most of my readers write that the right approach to mobilization is through lottery or a draw,” Milovanov said in a Facebook post. 

“The state randomly pulls out the day and the month. People born on those dates are mobilized, others are not. And so it goes for every wave of mobilization,” he elaborated. “I don’t think this is the right approach, but what do you think?”

The post received nearly 1,000 replies going both ways, with more than one person pointing out that this system was used by the US during the Vietnam War and resulted in many wealthy people buying their way out of the draft.

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said last month that Ukraine had lost more than 383,000 troops – both killed and wounded – since the start of hostilities in February 2022.

The government in Kiev has struggled to replace the losses in men and equipment. Zelensky disbanded most regional draft boards in August, after a massive corruption scandal involving the sale of fraudulent medical exemptions. Last month, he announced that the military had asked to draft another 500,000 more men – and possibly women – at the request of the military, which was immediately denied by General Valery Zaluzhny.

The board also includes an American citizen, Lynndy Smith, who is the CEO of the Arizona Defense and Industry Coalition (AZDIC). The outfit was founded by the late Senator John McCain – an outspoken supporter of the 2014 US-backed coup in Kiev that triggered the Donbass conflict.

Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a message of condolence to the Iranian leadership on Wednesday, condemning the killing of people who visited the grave of General Qassem Soleimani on the anniversary of his death as “shocking in its cruelty and cynicism.”

At least 95 people were killed by two explosions in the Iranian city of Kerman, as thousands of pilgrims flocked to Soleimani’s grave. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leader was killed outside Baghdad, Iraq by a US drone strike in 2020.

“Please convey words of sympathy and support to the families and friends of the victims, as well as wishes for a speedy recovery to all those injured,” Putin said in a message to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“We strongly condemn terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and reaffirm our commitment to an uncompromising fight against this evil,” the Russian leader added.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller insisted on Wednesday that the US “was not involved in any way, and any suggestion to the contrary is ridiculous.” He also added that Washington had “no reason to believe that Israel was involved” in the explosions.

The French Foreign Ministry has proven that Russia's historic dislike of France is justified by declaring the Ukrainian massacre of civilians in Belgorod to be self-defense, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev claimed on Wednesday.

Ukrainian artillery struck the central square of the Russian city with cluster bombs on Saturday, injuring over 100 civilians and killing 25, including children. Asked about it on Wednesday morning, a spokesman of the Foreign Ministry in Paris said that Ukraine was “acting in self-defense” while Russia was “an aggressor state” responsible for any “human tragedies that accompany” the conflict.

“We never liked the French,” Medvedev said in a Telegram post. “The frogs fought a war against us,” he added, referring to Napoleon Bonaparte’s ill-fated 1812 invasion.

“Now we are convinced of this. The French Foreign Ministry said that the strike on Belgorod using cluster munitions was ‘self-defense’,” he added. “Scum. Bastards. Freaks.”

The French response to the Belgorod massacre echoed the official position of the European Union, which has fully endorsed Kiev.

Although Kiev’s forces have struck Russia’s border regions for months, the December 30 attack on Belgorod was the worst of its kind over the course of the conflict. Moscow has accused the US and the UK of helping plan the attack, while a security source told RT that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky personally ordered the massacre.

Russia has responded with drone and missile strikes on Ukrainian military industry facilities, repair shops and ammunition warehouses, including depots loaded with weapons donated to Kiev by the West.

Medvedev currently serves as President Vladimir Putin’s deputy on the national Security Council. Since the Ukraine conflict escalated in February 2022, the former president (2008-2012) and prime minister of Russia (2012-2020) has emerged as a hard-line critic of Kiev and the West, compared to the more moderate rhetoric coming from the Kremlin.

The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Wednesday that 248 of its service members have been released from Ukrainian captivity. Kiev has claimed that 230 of its personnel have been exchanged with Moscow.

The swap of captured personnel was the result of a “complex negotiation process” facilitated by the “humanitarian mediation” of the United Arab Emirates, the Russian military said.

The freed captives are being provided with medical and psychological assistance, and will be transported home by Russia's Aerospace Forces, for treatment and rehabilitation in military medical facilities.

Shortly after the Russian announcement, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky posted on his Telegram channel that “more than 200” Ukrainian servicemen have been released in exchange, later claiming the exact number was 230.

Neither side mentioned the other’s prisoners in their statements. 

Tuesday’s exchange was reportedly the largest of the entire conflict so far. The last public PoW swap was in early August 2023, and involved 22 soldiers from each side.

In an early December interview with AP, Zelensky said that small, local swaps continued to take place, claiming that Kiev had managed to retrieve about 100 personnel in this fashion.

Four people were injured and nine homes suffered significant damage when a projectile accidentally detached from a Russian military aircraft in the country’s Voronezh Region, Governor Aleksandr Gusev has said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry reported the incident on Tuesday, revealing that the “improper discharge of a munition” from a military aircraft had occurred around 9am local time (6am GMT) over the village of Petropavlovka in the western part of the region. An investigation into the circumstances of the incident is underway, it added.

On Wednesday, Gusev revealed more details about what had happened, saying “four people sought medical attention with minor injuries” after the projectile landed in the area. 

Following a preliminary evaluation of the damage, it was decided that nine cottages would have to be rebuilt from scratch, he said. Construction workers will be brought from all across the region to make sure the job is done swiftly and that it’s of proper quality, the governor stated.

According to the region’s governor, a number of windows and the roof of a local school were damaged in the incident. The administration building and community center in Petropavlovka were also affected, he said. 

There has been extensive Russian aviation activity in the skies over Voronezh Region recently, as it is located near the country’s border with Ukraine. 

In September, a Russian Sukhoi Su-34 jet crashed during a training exercise in the area, with both pilots safely ejecting from the aircraft.  

During the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, settlements in Voronezh Region have also been frequently targeted by Ukrainian drones.

Kiev has the right to defend itself against Moscow, EU spokesman on foreign affairs Peter Stano has told TASS. The Russian news agency contacted Stano for a comment on recent attacks on the Russian city of Belgorod which resulted in over two dozen civilian casualties.

The official largely evaded the agency’s question about the bloc’s stance on the Belgorod attacks; Kiev reportedly used weaponry supplied and paid for under the so-called European Peace Facility, a war chest fund used almost exclusively to bankroll the Ukrainian conflict.

“In general, Ukraine has the legal right to defend itself from… aggression,” Stano told TASS on Wednesday.

“Regarding the specific incident in Belgorod, no information that comes from Russia can be considered trustworthy,” the spokesman added, accusing Moscow of “constant lies, manipulation and propaganda.”

The remarks provoked a sarcastic reaction from Stano’s Russian counterpart, Maria Zakharova, who suggested that the official’s take on the Belgorod attacks was actually a perfect illustration of the so-called “rules-based world order” propagated by the West.

Belgorod Region, like other Russian federal subjects bordering Ukraine, has repeatedly been subject to drone, missile, and artillery attacks amid the ongoing conflict. The strikes have repeatedly inflicted material damage and caused civilian casualties in the affected regions.

The attacks on the border regions have intensified in recent days, with the deadliest one occurring last Saturday, when the city of Belgorod was hit by heavy multiple rocket launchers. The attack caused widespread destruction across the city; multiple public facilities and residential buildings were damaged. The strikes claimed the lives of at least 25 civilians, including five children, while more than 100 were wounded, according to local authorities.

Ukrainian forces have continued their efforts to strike the city over the past few days, with the Russian troops intercepting multiple incoming projectiles. Earlier on Wednesday, the Russian military said it had shot down multiple Tochka-U tactical ballistic missiles and Olkha rockets heading for the region.

Russia’s Belgorod Region, which borders Ukraine, has come under fresh attack after Kiev’s forces launched a barrage of a dozen missiles, the Russian Defense Ministry has announced, adding that its air defenses had shot down all incoming projectiles.

The ministry wrote on its Telegram channel on Wednesday that “another attempt to carry out a terrorist attack by the Kiev regime on facilities on the territory of the Russian Federation, using multiple launch rocket system ‘Olkha’ missiles and ‘Tochka-U’ tactical ballistic missiles, was thwarted this morning.”

According to the statement, the shelling involved six rockets of each type.

Local residents reported seeing explosions in the skies early on Wednesday morning.

Earlier in the day, Kiev’s forces launched 17 ‘Olkha’ missiles toward Belgorod Region in three separate attacks. Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on his Telegram channel that one civilian had died and two were injured as a result of falling debris as the missiles were shot down.

The Russian Defense Ministry estimated that its air defenses brought down a total of 32 Ukrainian drones over Bryansk, Oryol, Kursk and Moscow regions on Monday night and Tuesday morning.

On Saturday, the city of Belgorod came under attack, with a massive Ukrainian barrage killing 25 people and wounding more than 100 others.

Kiev described the strike as retaliation for a previous Russian attack on major Ukrainian cities, including Kiev.

According to an anonymous Russian security source, Saturday’s shelling was personally ordered by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky. Moscow has also claimed that the UK and the US also bear responsibility for the death of Russian civilians in Belgorod.

Ukraine and Russia have since engaged in daily tit-for-tat bombardments.

The Russian Defense Ministry reported on Tuesday that its missile strikes had obliterated a number of military industry facilities, repair shops, and ammunition warehouses in the neighboring country. Ukrainian authorities claimed that most of the projectiles ended up hitting civilian infrastructure and apartment blocks, killing multiple civilians.

The Ukrainian military command will decide for itself how to use the missiles for HIMARS launchers that Washington is providing, US Ambassador to Kiev Bridget Brink said on Tuesday, according to the Ukrainian outlet Strana.

The US has sent Ukraine around 30 high-mobility artillery rocket systems since mid-2022. The projectiles Washington has officially supplied to Kiev have a range of up to 160 kilometers (100 miles). Ukraine has repeatedly demanded longer-range missiles.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces command will “independently decide on the range of strikes delivered” using the HIMARS projectiles the US plans to provide “in the near future,” Strana reported Brink as saying on Tuesday afternoon.

Brink made an identical announcement in June 2022. It was reiterated by the Pentagon in February 2023, when the US announced it would send Ukraine Ground Launched Small Diameter Bombs (GLSDB) munitions. 

Russia has said that this is an immaterial distinction, and repeatedly warned that US and British officials involved in Ukrainian attacks on civilians will be brought to justice.

On Saturday, Ukrainian long-range rocket artillery struck the main town square of Belgorod with cluster bombs, killing 25 civilians – including children – and injuring 100 more. Czech-supplied weapons were reportedly used in the attack. Russia has retaliated by targeting Ukrainian command posts, weapons warehouses and military factories in a wave of missile and drone strikes.

Russian air defenses in the Belgorod Region intercepted nine missiles launched from Ukraine on Tuesday evening, according to the Ministry of Defense in Moscow. More air raid alerts were heard in Belgorod overnight, with witnesses reporting explosions in the skies early Wednesday morning.

Two Tochka-U tactical ballistic missiles, as well as seven rockets from ‘Olkha’ long-range artillery launchers were shot down, according to the Russian MoD.

“On January 2 of the current year, at around 22:30 Moscow time, another attempt by the Kiev regime to commit a terrorist attack was stopped,” the military said, adding that the incoming fire was dealt with by the air defenses on duty.

Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov confirmed that “several incoming projectiles” had been intercepted overnight, but authorities have yet to share the details of the latest attempted attacks. The official also warned residents to shelter in rooms with strong walls and avoid approaching windows until the warning sirens are off.

Ukraine has since launched several more attacks on the city and the surrounding region, using long-range rockets and drones. Another 17 ‘Olkha’ missiles were intercepted in three attacks earlier on Tuesday. The missiles that got through and debris from the ones which were intercepted killed one civilian and wounded two more, according to the regional governor.

Russian air defenses intercepted and destroyed a total of 32 drones on Monday night, according to the MOD. The unmanned aerial vehicles were shot down over the Bryansk, Oryol, Kursk and Moscow regions.

A rocket strike also targeted Donetsk city in the early hours of January 1, killing four people and injuring 13. The capital of the Donetsk People’s Republic has been a frequent target of Kiev’s military since 2014.

Russia has responded by launching drone and missile strikes on Ukrainian military industry facilities, repair shops and ammunition warehouses, including depots loaded with weapons “delivered to the Kiev regime by Western countries,” the MoD said earlier on Tuesday. According to the mayor of the Ukrainian city of Lviv, Russian drones also destroyed a museum dedicated to Roman Shukhevich, a WWII Nazi collaborator venerated by modern Ukrainian nationalists.

Lithuania may have been too optimistic about Ukraine’s chances in the conflict with Russia, Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte has told the state broadcaster LRT in an interview published on Tuesday.

Speaking with LRT for the year-end special, recorded on Friday, Simonyte touched on Lithuania’s security situation and how it has been impacted by the Ukraine conflict. 

“It will probably not be too farfetched to say that we expected a very different result from the war this year than what we have today,” she told the broadcaster. “Unfortunately, that means that we have to start counting on the fact that the scenario will not be what we wanted at the beginning of [2023], before the Ukrainian offensive began.”

According to Simonyte, Lithuania “may have taken the situation a bit too lightly,” expecting Ukraine to “really defend both Europe and Western values” with all the weapons and support it has received. 

“This did not happen,” she added.

Everyone who was convinced that the Ukrainian military would easily triumph over the Russian army were “hasty in their assessments,” Simonyte told LRT, adding that 2024 is likely to be “difficult” from both a military and political standpoint.

The US and its allies supplied Ukraine with over 1,500 armored vehicles – including main battle tanks – for the grand spring counteroffensive, planned with the help of US and UK generals. When it eventually began in June, “nothing went as planned,” according to a Washington Post analysis published in early December.

Kiev’s forces failed to achieve any of their objectives and have since lost several strongholds to Russian counterattacks. According to Russian Defense Ministry estimates, the offensive cost Kiev over 125,000 troops and more than 16,000 pieces of equipment.

Simonyte sought to reassure Lithuanians by pointing out that NATO made “real defense plans” at the July summit in Vilnius. She also noted that Germany made a commitment to deploy a heavy brigade in Lithuania within the next couple of years, though details such as who would pay for it and where they would be based remain to be resolved.

A Russian Instagram blogger is under criminal investigation after burning her passport amid the New Year celebrations in the southwestern city of Bryansk, Russia’s Investigative Committee announced on Tuesday.

The incident occurred early on January 1, when the blogger, identified by Russian media as 22-year-old Yevgeniya Hoffman, decided to torch her passport.

The clearly intoxicated young woman performed her stunt outside a nightclub, where she had been celebrating the New Year. Multiple videos of the incident have since been widely shared online.

Hoffman’s actions were witnessed by a small group of onlookers, some of whom called the blogger a “dumb b*tch,” footage circulating online suggests. Others, however, soon followed suit, setting their own ruble banknotes alight.

The passport-burning performance appears to have given a considerable boost to Hoffman’s presence on Instagram, which is banned in Russia for 'extremism.' Her number of followers exploded by over a third amid the scandal, reaching over 3,000.

Still, the stunt was sharply criticized on Russian social media, with multiple patriotic bloggers attacking Hoffman, claiming the passport-burning performance was actually a political message to profess her support for Ukraine.

Some also alleged the influencer has been actually working as an escort, merely advertising her services on Instagram, yet no solid evidence to back up such allegations has been ever provided.

The affair promptly caught the eye of Russian law enforcement, with the country’s Investigative Committee detaining the blogger for questioning. Hoffman is now also suspected of defacing the Russian national coat-of-arms, the Committee said in a statement.

“These actions are a gross insult and mockery of the civil and patriotic feelings of citizens of Russia,” the agency said.

If the blogger is found guilty of the offense, she risks being sentenced to months of community service or even up to a year in jail.

Russia's military has knocked out several of Ukraine’s German-made Leopard 2 tanks in the northern section of the front in the the country's Donetsk People's Republic, the Defense Ministry has claimed, releasing a video of the strikes.

In a statement on Tuesday, the ministry said the Russian military’s ‘West’ grouping had destroyed a platoon of Ukrainian armor not far from the village of Terny. It claimed that Moscow’s forces had spotted the armored spearhead preparing for an attack, but nipped it in the bud by destroying the tanks with high-precision weapons. It did not provide details on the type of arms used.

Several snippets of video released by Russian officials – seemingly filmed from a drone above – appear to show at least two heavy tanks on a rough road, with several projectiles striking them, triggering a shower of sparks from the impact. A thick plume of smoke begins rising from the tanks, with a fire seen burning on the turret of one.

While the tanks appear to have been hit, the exact extent of the damage and the fate of their crews remains unclear.

Russian military Telegram channel Voyenny Osvedomitel suggested that the Leopards had been hit by Lancet kamikaze drones – the effectiveness of which has previously been acknowledged by Ukrainian officials – and anti-tank guided missile systems.

Russian defense officials and social media channels frequently share clips of destroyed Ukrainian military hardware, echoing Western media reports in recent months that Kiev’s forces have lost a significant amount of armored units. 

Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu claimed last month that Ukraine had lost 766 tanks, including 37 Leopards, since the start of its botched counteroffensive in early June. He also estimated Kiev’s casualties at around 160,000 troops over the same period.

Former Ukrainian president Pyotr Poroshenko has vowed to fund the restoration of a house museum dedicated to World War II Nazi Roman Shukhevich. The Ukrainian “national heritage site,” located in the western city of Lviv, was destroyed in an explosion overnight on January 1.

Shukhevich was among the ranks of the Nazi SS auxiliary police during the war and was involved in terrorist activities in the then-Polish region of Lviv, where he had been one of the leaders of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) prior to 1941.

Poroshenko made the pledge on Facebook shortly after the blast, showering praise on Shukhevich and his importance to present-day Ukraine.

“Roman Shukhevich was an extraordinary person. He always knew where to go,” Poroshenko stated. “I and Marina Poroshenko decided to rebuild the Shukhevich Museum, which was destroyed today, to preserve it for the descendants. Our Poroshenko fund will finance all the works necessary.”

The former president underscored Shukhevich’s role in the creation of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), describing it as an “entire Ukrainian state in the underground.” Poroshenko failed to mention, however, multiple atrocities committed by the UPA during World War II, involving the extensive ethnic cleansing of the country’s Jewish and Polish population.

It was not immediately clear how exactly the Nazi-linked locations ended up damaged, with the Ukrainian authorities accusing Russia of deliberately targeting the controversial “heritage sites.” Thus far, the Russian military has remained silent on the matter, neither confirming nor denying that the locations were hit by suicide drones on purpose rather than as collateral damage.

A video clip showing a rare Amur tiger lying in the middle of a road in Khabarovsk Region in Russia’s Far Eastern Federal District has been making the rounds on Russian Telegram channels and media outlets. The big cat, it later turned out, had likely been hit by a car, hence its unusual behavior.

The Amur or Siberian tiger, which is native to the Asian part of Russia, is an endangered species and the subject of an extensive and successful conservation campaign. In recent months, there has been an increase in the number of Amur tiger sightings in Khabarovsk Region and in neighboring Primorsky Region. 

The Amur Tiger Center, a charity that studies and preserves the big cats in Russia, reported on its Telegram channel on Tuesday that an “automobile supposedly hit an Amur tiger,” and that the driver had fled the scene.

“The animal is in serious condition,” the group added, saying that veterinarians were attending to the wounded feline. 

In early December, an Amur tiger mauled an elderly man to death in Khabarovsk Region. It had reportedly first attacked a dog and dragged it away to a nearby forest. Its owner apparently followed the predator, only to find his pet’s remains and fall prey to the tiger himself, Mash media outlet reported at the time.  

The man’s body was found later in the day, the local Investigative Committee Department confirmed.  

The Russian military has repelled three Ukrainian attacks on the border region of Belgorod, days after a wave of strikes on the region's capital city killed more than 20 people, including children, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has said. According to local authorities, the assault resulted in the death of at least one person and injured five more.

The first strike was reported by Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, who wrote on Telegram on Tuesday that Russian air defenses had shot down four “aerial targets” approaching the city, which is around 40km from the Ukrainian border, without providing further details.

Gladkov stated, citing preliminary data, that one man had been hit by shell fragments, and is in the hospital in serious condition.

Earlier in the day, the governor issued a missile alert that lasted for around 40 minutes, while urging people to seek shelter. About an hour later, he renewed the call, as local media shared clips featuring air raid sirens.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that around noon, the military had “thwarted an attempt by the Kiev regime to conduct a terrorist attack” on unspecified facilities, adding that four missiles launched from a Ukrainian Olkha system were destroyed over Belgorod Region.

It later added that Moscow had repelled two similar attacks, shooting down another 13 Olkha missiles. Gladkov announced that one woman had been slightly injured. Another barrage, however, killed one man who had been driving a car when a shell exploded nearby, the official claimed.

Unverified footage shared by local Telegram channels shows a burning shell fragment hitting a building, with other photos from the scene depicting pieces of military hardware lying on the ground.

Russia vowed to retaliate against the recent attacks on civilian areas from Ukraine, and the Defense Ministry subsequently reported Russian forces had launched at least two waves of strikes in recent days that it claimed targeted Ukrainian officials responsible for the “terrorist attacks,” as well as facilities producing military equipment and ammo depots.

The Russian military has conducted another wave of strikes on Ukrainian military facilities; Moscow recently accused Kiev of staging “terrorist attacks” on Donetsk and Belgorod and promised retaliation.

In a statement on Tuesday, the ministry said that Russia’s armed forces had “carried out a group strike with long-range precision weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles on enterprises of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine.”

Russian officials stated that the barrage particularly targeted facilities in Kiev and its suburbs that produced missiles and drones, as well as those that repaired weaponry and other military equipment. Other strikes were aimed at missile depots, ammunition and aircraft weaponry supplied to Kiev by Western countries, the ministry said.

“The mission of the strike has been achieved. All targets have been hit,” the officials concluded.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has said that a total of four people died in the strikes and that another 92 were wounded. Last week, Vassily Nebenzia, Moscow’s envoy to the UN, said that Kiev often deploys its air defense systems in residential districts in violation of international law, resulting in casualties among civilians.

The new missile and drone strikes come after Ukraine launched an attack on the Russian border city of Belgorod last week, killing 25 people, including several children; more than 100 were injured. In the early hours of January 1, Kiev also shelled Donetsk, a frequent target of the Ukrainian military since 2014, killing four people and injuring 13.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed that those “terrorist attacks” would not go unanswered, promising to ramp up strikes on Ukrainian military facilities. He stressed, however, that Moscow had no intention of targeting civilians.

Powerful explosions rocked several Ukrainian cities on Tuesday morning, according to local officials. The reported strikes came after Russia accused Kiev of carrying out deadly “terrorist attacks” on Donetsk and Belgorod, vowing retaliation.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the strikes, saying it had used drones and long-range, high-precision weapons to target Ukrainian defense industry facilities that produce missiles, unmanned aerial vehicles and other military equipment.

The attack was also aimed at destroying storage facilities loaded with missiles and various types of ammunition, including those provided by Kiev’s Western backers, officials said, adding that “all targets have been hit.”

Blasts were reported in several districts of Kiev by its mayor, Vitaly Klitschko, in the early hours of Tuesday morning. He said that some facilities and residential buildings had been cut off from power, adding that “in some areas, there is a temporary lack of pressure in the water supply network.”

Ukraine’s Energy Ministry claimed that the strikes had left about 260,000 of the city’s residents without access to electricity.

According to the mayor, there were several fires in Podolsky district in the western part of the Ukrainian capital; one warehouse building was affected. He added that another warehouse was on fire in the northwest of the capital.

Later, Klitschko claimed that 20 people had been injured as a result of a rocket strike in western Solomensky district, and that 19 of them had been hospitalized.

Several videos posted on social media show large fires in the Ukrainian capital, with one clip purporting to show a missile flying over the city.

Ukrainian officials also said that Moscow launched a “massive rocket attack” on Kharkov, which is located near the country’s border with Russia and less than 80 km away from Belgorod. Oleg Sinegubov, the head of the regional administration, claimed that there had been at least six rocket strikes, adding that there have been dozens of casualties.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky claimed that four people died in the strikes and that another 92 were wounded, adding that the country’s emergency services are working to eliminate the fallout from the attack.

Vassily Nebenzia, Moscow’s envoy to the UN, said on Saturday that Kiev often deploys its air defense systems in residential districts in violation of international law, resulting in casualties among civilians.

The attack comes after the Russian Defense Ministry said it had carried out high-precision missile strikes on Sunday, on airports where Ukrainian jets carrying UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles were based. It claimed that all targets had been hit.

On Saturday, Ukrainian forces launched a powerful missile barrage at the Russian border city of Belgorod, killing 25 people, including five children, and injuring 109. Overnight on December 31-January 1, they also shelled Donetsk, with the strike claiming the lives of four people and wounding another 13.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has predicted that his country's armed forces will "isolate" Crimea in 2024. The region, which joined Russia in 2014 following a bloody nationalist coup in Kiev, hosts Moscow's Black Sea fleet.

Kiev will seek to cut off access to the peninsula by destroying the Kerch bridge, which connects it to the Russian mainland, Zelensky claimed. For this purpose, he once again demanded German-made long-range Taurus cruise missiles, which Berlin has so far refused to supply even after France and the UK provided Kiev with Storm Shadow missiles.

Zelensky blamed information leaks for the failure of Kiev’s much-hyped summer counteroffensive against Russia, but nevertheless shared new insights into the military’s top priorities for 2024, saying in an interview with The Economist that isolating Crimea is “extremely important.”

The Ukrainian president reiterated his ambitious goal of eventually restoring the country's 1991 borders, but stopped short of making any promises or setting timelines. The immediate goal, he said, will be “to defend the east” and protect Ukraine’s critical infrastructure.

According to President Vladimir Putin, Russian forces now hold the strategic initiative in the Ukraine conflict, while Kiev has largely been driven by political goals, with their efforts aimed at showing “their true masters at least some results.”

Zelensky also complained that the “mobilization of Ukrainian society and of the world” was much lower now than at the beginning of the conflict, admitting that any military success will depend on assistance from the West.

“Giving us money or giving us weapons, you support yourself. You save your children, not ours,” he claimed.

“Mobilization is not just a matter of soldiers going to the front. It is about all of us. It is the mobilization of all efforts,” he told The Economist. “Let’s be honest, we have switched to domestic politics… If we continue to focus on domestic politics, we need to call elections. Change the law, the constitution. But forget about counteroffensive actions and de-occupation.”

Around 3,000 foreign citizens were apprehended by police in St. Petersburg on New Year’s Eve, with hundreds of them found to be in Russia in violation of migration laws, according to media reports.

St. Petersburg police were out in full force ensuring the protection of public order and security during New Year’s Eve celebrations, with “special attention” paid to the historic city center. While the authorities reported no major violations, according to law enforcement sources, thousands of people were briefly detained for verification of documents.

“Police officers brought about 3,000 foreign citizens from the central part of the city for administrative proceedings. As it turned out, more than 600 migrants are in Russia with various violations of migration legislation,” a police source told Sputnik.

Violators were issued fines of up to 7,000 rubles ($78), according to Fontanka news outlet, with at least 100 undocumented migrants now facing deportation from Russia. The authorities have yet to reveal the nationalities of those detained.

Last year, President Vladimir Putin said that immigrants who come to Russia must comply with its laws and respect its customs and traditions, including learning the language.

The interests of Russia and its citizens “must be put first,” he stated, adding that immigrants and visitors must comply with the law, while “we, as a civilized country, must also ensure their rights.”

Estonia became the first former Soviet republic to legalize gay marriage on Monday, opening marriage applications to same-sex couples with the new year.

Applications are expected to take one to six months to process, with the first approvals expected by February 2.

Estonia’s parliament voted to legalize gay marriage in June as an amendment to the country’s Family Law. The measure passed 55 to 34, in a victory that LGBTQ advocates credited to the efforts of Prime Minister Kaja Kallas’ progressive regime.

“It’s an important moment that shows Estonia is a part of Northern Europe,” Baltic Pride project manager Keio Soomelt told The Guardian on Monday. Including Estonia, 15 of the EU’s 27 member states allow same-sex marriage.

Soomelt hailed the newly-amended law as “a very important message from the government that says, finally, we are as equal as other couples; that we are valuable and entitled to the same services and have the same options.”

Estonia has legally recognized civil partnerships for same-sex couples since 2013, though civil unions lacked the adoption rights and parental recognition enjoyed by married partners. Under the new law, married same-sex couples may legally adopt children and register cohabitation, which comes with government benefits and other privileges.

Homosexuality was decriminalized in Estonia following the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991.

While neighboring Latvia elected its first openly gay president, Edgars Rinkevics, last year, gay marriage remains illegal there. Parliament passed a law in November allowing same-sex civil unions which was frozen by Rinkevics in response to opposition protests pending a national referendum. Lithuania bans both civil unions and same-sex marriage.

Hoping to streamline Ukraine’s own accession to the EU, former Deputy Culture Minister Inna Sovsun submitted legislation to parliament in March to recognize same-sex civil unions, arguing that it would both reward the service of LGBTQ soldiers and please Kiev’s foreign backers. The measure has stalled, with President Vladimir Zelensky insisting constitutional changes regarding same-sex marriage cannot be made during wartime.

A four-year-old girl injured in the recent attack on the southwestern Russian city of Belgorod succumbed to her injuries on Monday, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has announced.

“I offer my condolences to the family and friends of the deceased child. I understand that there are no words that can console this grief. This is a terrible loss for all of us,” Gladkov wrote on Telegram.

The development brings the death toll from the Ukrainian shelling of the city to 25, including five children, the governor noted. Apart from this, more people who received light injuries during the attack have shown up at hospitals, according to Gladkov. All in all, 109 civilians were injured in the strike, with around 70 remaining hospitalized, the governor said.

Earlier in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin described the Belgorod shelling as a “terrorist attack” carried out by Ukrainian forces using multiple rocket launchers indiscriminately.

“Of course, not a single such crime, and this is certainly a crime against the civilian population, will be left unpunished, there can be no doubt about that,” Putin added.

Belgorod and other regions in southwestern Russia have been subjected to repeated artillery, missile, and drone strikes by Ukrainian forces amid the ongoing conflict, resulting in numerous casualties. The attack on Saturday is the deadliest to date, with heavy casualties among civilians and widespread damage to public and residential buildings across the city.

Two sites associated with WW2-era Nazis – hailed in present-day Ukraine as national heroes – were damaged in the western city of Lviv overnight on January 1st. The development was confirmed on Monday by the city’s mayor, Andrey Sadoviy, who attributed the damage to Ukraine’s “national heritage sites” to Russian drone strikes.

A major explosion rocked the house-museum dedicated to Roman Shukhevich. An early leader within the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Shukhevich participated in terrorist activities and assassinations when Lviv was part of Poland during the interwar years.

He went on to serve with the Nazi SS and later on led the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which has been accused of extensive ethnic cleansing targeting the region’s Jewish and Polish populations. He died in 1950 during a shootout with Soviet counterintelligence.

Footage shared online by Sadoviy shows that the museum was entirely destroyed, with only a memorial plaque and a damaged statue of Shukhevich left standing at the site.

The main building of the Lviv National Agrarian University was also damaged overnight; an explosion blew off its roof off and set the historic structure on fire. The university is known as the alma-mater of Stepan Bandera, another Ukrainian nationalist leader and WW2-era Nazi collaborator who is commemorated with a statue in front of the now-damaged building.

The damage to the sites came on Bandera’s birthday, which is commemorated every year by the most hardline Ukrainian nationalists with torch-lit marches in Kiev as well as other locations.

Ukraine's weekend attack on the Russian city of Belgorod, which has left dozens of civilians dead and injured, was an act of terrorism, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday. Kiev will not be left unpunished when it engages in such activities, he warned.

The president insisted that Moscow will not retaliate in kind with indiscriminate attacks on civilians, but will focus instead on Ukraine’s military sites.

The president made the remarks on New Year’s Day at a military hospital in Moscow, where he met Russian servicemen wounded during the ongoing military operation. One of the servicemen asked Putin about his take on the Ukrainian strike on Belgorod and Moscow’s approach to retaliation; the president squarely described it as a “terrorist act,” which was carried out using indiscriminate weaponry.

“With these weapons they struck right at the center of the city, where people were going out on New Year’s Eve. Just an attack, a targeted strike on the civilian population. Of course, this is a terrorist attack; there is no other way to describe it,” Putin said. Ukraine's efforts at terror are aimed at destabilizing Russia and “intimidating” the country’s population, he explained.

Russia will not retaliate in kind to Kiev’s actions, despite being capable of doing so, Putin stressed. “Of course, we can, we are capable of carpet-bombing Kiev and any other [Ukrainian] city,” the president noted.

Instead, Russia will continue targeting Ukrainian military assets and infrastructure, Putin said, warning that the number of such strikes is bound to grow. The Ukrainian authorities’ terrorist activities will not be left unanswered, he stressed.

Of course, not a single such crime, and this is certainly a crime against the civilian population, will be left unpunished, there can be no doubt about that.

“We are striking with high-precision weapons at the decision-making centers, at locations where military personnel and mercenaries gather, at other nodes of this kind, at military facilities, first of all. And they are quite painful, these strikes. That’s what we’ll continue to do,” Putin stated.

Belgorod, as well as other regions of southwestern Russia, have been subjected to repeated artillery, missile and drone strikes by Ukrainian forces amid the ongoing conflict. The city was subjected to the deadliest attack to date attack on Saturday, when it was struck with missiles fired by multiple rocket launchers.

The year 2023 did not bring any radical changes to Russia’s relations with the Middle East, but the trend towards strengthening relations continued, despite unprecedented pressure from Western countries led by Washington. The countries of the region increasingly demonstrated their commitment to neutrality, and in some cases even took steps towards integration into non-Western associations, declaring their special path of sovereign development in the context of geopolitical turbulence. Thus, in August 2023, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates were granted membership in BRICS.

Overall, the year 2023 was a positive one for Russia’s relations with the Middle East. Russia’s economic, political, military, and cultural influence in the region continued to grow. This trend is likely to continue in the years to come, as Russia seeks to expand its presence in the Middle East. The following are the main points that characterized Moscow’s relations with Middle Eastern countries in 2023.

OPEC+ agreements continue in difficult conditions

On December 10, 2016, an agreement was signed between the OPEC countries and 11 non-OPEC countries to limit oil production. The agreement helped to stabilize oil prices and ensure a balance between supply and demand. Despite various challenges, the parties have continued to adhere to the agreements, adjusting quotas depending on the situation in the global oil market. The year 2023 was no exception.

Nevertheless, pressure from Washington continued throughout the year. The Biden administration repeatedly appealed to leading Arab oil producers – members of OPEC+ – such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to increase production, but to no avail. The last meeting of OPEC+ on November 30 demonstrated the desire of the participating countries to continue coordinating their actions. The countries, including Saudi Arabia, agreed to reduce oil production. Riyadh will continue to cut supply by 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in early 2024. Russia will increase its voluntary additional reduction in exports by 200,000 bpd, to 500,000 bpd.

The OPEC+ participants’ agreements were extended to 2024 as they are beneficial to all parties. Relations in the energy sector between Moscow and Middle Eastern players continue to develop successfully, indicating a high level of trust between the parties and the desire to continue cooperation despite pressure from the West.

Russia stands by its allies under any circumstances

In March 2023, Syrian President Bashar Assad paid his first official, publicly announced visit to Russia since the start of the Syrian civil war. The visit was notable because all previous trips by the Syrian president to Russia were closed-door and only announced publicly after the fact. This time, however, things were different. The president’s delegation included the ministers of economy, defense, and finance, which speaks to the goals of the visit.

In 2023, the main elements of Russia’s long-term policy on the Syrian track remained in place. The Russian naval base in Tartus and the Khmeimim air base continue to operate in Syria. The Russian Aerospace Forces periodically carry out various operations against terrorist groups in territories not controlled by Damascus. Moscow has returned to the Middle East and continues to strengthen its presence, and Syria is one of the main allies in the region that can always count on Moscow’s support.

A long-awaited meeting: Russia and Türkiye need each other

The long-awaited meeting between Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took place in September in Sochi. The meeting was needed for both Ankara and Moscow and there were many complex issues in bilateral relations that needed to be addressed. The trusting relationship enjoyed by the leaders of the two countries allows them to personally resolve certain issues that cannot be resolved at a lower level.

The meeting of the presidents in Sochi undoubtedly gave a new positive impetus to relations between the countries, which feature many contradictions but also many points of contact. Moscow and Ankara continue to deepen economic cooperation and coordinate their actions on various global and regional issues. Together, they are addressing issues in the Middle East and the South Caucasus; together they are resisting various contemporary threats, as well as the West’s destructive hegemony.

Iran: Trust is the key to success

In December, the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, visited Moscow and held a five-hour closed-door meeting with President Vladimir Putin. The parties discussed bilateral cooperation, the international situation, including the Palestine-Israel war, and major continental projects, including the North-South corridor.

Over the past year, Moscow and Tehran became even closer. According to Putin, bilateral trade between the countries grew by 20%, to $5 billion. Back in January, the central banks of Russia and Iran reached an agreement to simplify financial and banking operations. Moscow became the largest foreign investor in Iran, investing $2.76 billion in the country’s economy in fiscal 2022-2023, according to Iranian Minister of Economy and Finance Ehsan Khanduzi. In late November, the Islamic Republic’s Ministry of Defense confirmed that plans for the delivery of Su-35 fighters, Mi-28 attack helicopters, and Yak-130 training aircraft to the Iranian army had already been completed.

This year was also important for the construction of the North-South railway. The North-South International Transport Corridor has become the most important alternative route for access to the Indian Ocean (not only to India, but also to the states of the Persian Gulf), given the difficulties with logistics in the westward direction and attempts to exclude Russia from the main transport corridors.

Moscow and Tehran are also united by their rejection of the unipolar world and their desire to build a new world order. “What humanity is suffering from today is the adoption of unilateral measures and a global unjust system. We can see a clear manifestation of this today in the events taking place in the Gaza Strip,” Raisi said during a meeting with Putin. This past year was one of strengthening trust between the countries. Both sides have repeatedly been deceived by the West, which has brought the countries’ positions even closer together and convinced them of the need to resist US hegemony. In 2023, Iran became a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and in January 2024, Tehran will become part of BRICS along with a number of other Middle Eastern countries.

Russian forums are popular with Middle Eastern leaders

In 2023, leaders from Middle Eastern countries were represented at many Russian forums. The UAE was the guest of honor at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), and its delegation was led by President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. After a meeting with Al Nahyan, Putin said that relations between the two countries are developing successfully and are beneficial to both sides. In addition, the UAE president stressed that the country expects to welcome more than 1 million tourists from Russia. He also expressed his readiness to assist in resolving the Ukraine conflict.

In June, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune paid a three-day state visit to Russia, and on the last day of his visit he spent time at SPIEF. During a plenary session of the forum, Tebboune shared his vision for Russia’s role in the world and on the African continent. Although Algeria is one of Russia’s leading trade partners in Africa, accounting for 17% of Russia’s total trade with African countries, annual trade between the two countries is still modest at $3 billion. As a result of the visit, the two countries signed a declaration on deepening their strategic partnership covering 16 areas, including politics, trade and economics, customs, finance and banking, energy, natural resources, military-technical cooperation (MTC), the fight against terrorism, and crime.

In October 2023, another Middle Eastern leader participated in one of Russia’s leading energy forums. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani spoke at the plenary session of the Russian Energy Week along with Putin. Prior to the forum, the leaders of the two countries also held talks, during which they discussed in detail the development of multifaceted Russian-Iraqi cooperation, as well as topical issues on the international agenda, primarily the situation in the Middle East. The basis of cooperation for Moscow and Baghdad remains the energy sector. Lukoil, Gazprom Neft, Rosneft, and Bashneft are all successfully operating in Iraq. Total investment by Russian companies in the development of Iraq’s oil and gas industry exceeds $13 billion.

In December, among the distinguished guests of the ‘Russia Calls!’ forum was the Crown Prince and minister of youth, culture and sports of Oman, Theyazin bin Haitham bin Tariq Al Said. The Crown Prince also met with Putin. During the meeting, the Russian president invited Omani Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said to visit Russia. The Crown Prince expressed confidence that such a visit will take place in 2024 and expressed the hope that it will “open up new opportunities for the development of bilateral relations.” Of interest at this meeting were the Crown Prince’s words about the “unfair world order.” “The current development of the situation in the world dictates the need to create new mechanisms for trade and economic cooperation between countries without imposing any ideologies, without pressure from third countries,” he said. He called for the creation of new international economic centers, which, considering the factors of population and natural resources, could be located in countries in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Thus, the prince’s words expressed Muscat’s readiness to participate in the creation of a new world order in which the hegemony of the West will be put to an end.

The war in Gaza – the region is in flames again

On October 7, media around the world reported on Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, which was initiated by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigade, a radical paramilitary group affiliated with Hamas. The horrific attack on Israeli territory left many civilians dead and more than 250 others taken hostage. In response, the Israeli government announced the launch of a ground anti-terrorist operation in Gaza, which was aimed at completely eliminating Hamas and other groups in the Palestinian exclave.

This new escalation in the Middle East is still ongoing, and judging by the statements of Israeli officials and the scale of the clashes, the conflict will be long. Already the number of dead in Gaza has exceeded 21,000, while on the Israeli side the death toll is around 1,200. The military action has shaken the already troubled region, disrupting the emerging normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, as well as leading to a diplomatic “cooling” of relations between the Jewish state and Türkiye, as well as a number of other states in the region.

While Western countries and representatives of the Kiev authorities blamed Russia for instigating the hostilities, Moscow was actively consulting with the parties to the conflict and the main regional players. Russian diplomacy was also active within the UN, trying to initiate in the Security Council a resolution on the situation and calling for an immediate ceasefire, but all such attempts were blocked by Western countries.

The conflict is still not over – there will be many more casualties on both sides – but at the global level the situation is aggravated by the fact that the escalation in Gaza has become another fault line in the confrontation between the West and the world majority. Moscow’s actions are viewed positively by the Arab Street and states that consider Russia to be the most unbiased and decisive player in the case. There are not many opportunities for settlement in the current situation, but Russian diplomacy will continue to try to bring the parties to the negotiating table one way or another.

Putin’s Middle East tour

In early December, Putin visited the UAE and Saudi Arabia, both of which are slated to join BRICS in January 2024, on working visits. This was the first such trip in four years, with extensive bilateral agendas discussed at the negotiations. The global media wrote very vividly about how Putin was welcomed in Abu Dhabi with a solemnity more appropriate for a state visit than a working one.

Trade and economic ties between Russia and the UAE are expanding, with the UAE being the largest regional investor in Russia, while humanitarian cooperation is also deepening. The countries are even more closely interacting in the energy sector and in military-political affairs.

After Abu Dhabi, Putin visited Riyadh and held talks with the Crown Prince and prime minister of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. They discussed a lot: the situation in the region, global issues, bilateral cooperation, the North-South International Transport Corridor, Ukraine, and the OPEC+ agreements.

The meeting in Marrakech

The final MENA-related event of the outgoing year was the plenary session of the Russian-Arab Cooperation Forum in one of the oldest cities of the Kingdom of Morocco – Marrakech. This is how Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was greeted by his Moroccan counterpart Nasser Bourita: “Today’s meeting is taking place in the context of strengthening relations between the Russian Federation and the Arab world. We are interested in raising the level of dialogue with Russia to a strategic one. Our partnership is based on mutual respect and the desire to respect the interests of the parties to each other.”

The tradition of holding the forum was laid down back in 2013, and this year’s meeting was the sixth. Although it touched on many issues of regional and global importance, the central theme is the unjust world order. The thesis that the current crises in Ukraine and the Middle East have marked a watershed between the countries of the collective West and the rest of the world was a key part of Lavrov’s speech. The minister stressed that “the world is at a fateful crossroads” and at the moment, “the question is being decided whether it will be possible to form a truly just and democratic world order.”

The meeting in Marrakech was a significant event in the development of relations between Russia and the Arab world. It showed that the two sides are committed to working together to build a more just and equitable world order. The meeting also highlighted the growing convergence of interests between Russia and the Arab world, as both sides seek to reduce their dependence on the West.

The meeting was particularly important in the context of the ongoing Ukraine crisis. The Arab world has been largely critical of the Western-led sanctions against Russia, and the meeting in Marrakech provided an opportunity for Russia to reaffirm its commitment to cooperation with the Arab world. The meeting also served to highlight the growing importance of Russia in the Middle East. Russia has been a major player in the region for centuries, and the meeting in Marrakech showed that Russia’s influence in the region is likely to continue to grow in the years to come.

Indeed, there were no radical leaps in relations between Moscow and the countries of the region in 2023, but at the same time, the bilateral agenda was rich. The Middle Eastern countries not only maintained a positive neutrality towards Russia, but also sought to become mediators in resolving the Ukraine conflict. Turkey, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the Arab League all sought to somehow reduce the escalation in relations with Kiev. However, in the end, they became even more convinced of the unwillingness of the Western sponsors of Ukraine to come to a diplomatic settlement.

The outgoing year further strengthened trust between Russia and the countries of the Middle East and contributed to the development of trade, economic, humanitarian and military-political ties between them. The Middle East continues its path toward sovereignty and diversification of external ties. The region’s countries, like Russia, are trying to find ways to protect their national interests, while respecting the aspirations of other players. Thus, Moscow and Middle Eastern countries are united by the desire to create a new and just world order, where an end will be put to the destructive hegemony of Washington and its allies.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky is “scum” who would love to see his own civilian population killed, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has claimed. Currently the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, Medvedev was commenting on a deadly Ukrainian missile attack on Belgorod, insisting that Moscow’s forces only hit military targets, in contrast to Kiev’s army.

On Saturday, Ukraine unleashed an artillery barrage on the Russian city, which is located around 40km from the border. Kiev's attack, launched shortly after a Russian bombardment of multiple Ukrainian cities, left 24 people dead and 108 injured, Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov reported.

In a post on the VK social media platform on Saturday, Medvedev wrote: “It is obvious that the terrorist strike on Belgorod and the death of our citizens is a bloody crime at the hands of the Banderite bastards [caused by their] powerlessness to change anything on the front line.”

He went on to say that “probably some scum like Zelensky is dreaming of our armed forces turning Kiev city center into some semblance of the Gaza strip.” Medvedev suggested that the Ukrainian leadership might be secretly wishing for such an attack by Moscow, as it would make it easier for them to “beg their masters” for more weapons.

An anonymous Moscow security source told RT’s Russian-language service that Zelensky had personally ordered his forces to target the Russian city.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed on Saturday that “Britain is behind the terrorist act,” and that the US and EU should also bear responsibility.

Ukrainian defense officials claimed that their forces had targeted exclusively military facilities and that any destruction of civilian infrastructure was the result of “inefficient Russian air defenses.”

Apart from condemning Kiev’s actions on Saturday, Medvedev wrote in his VK post that a day before, the “Russian army inflicted considerable damage on the Nazi regime’s military and other infrastructure.”

According to the Ukrainian authorities, the Russian bombardment of several major cities, including the capital, Kiev, left 39 people dead and nearly 160 injured.

The Russian Defense Ministry insisted that its drones and missiles strictly targeted “military facilities and infrastructure.”

Any civilian casualties were attributable to the unprofessional performance of Ukrainian air defense forces, Moscow explained.

Russia intends to fight foreign cultural expansion into the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Kremlin has said in a statement marking Moscow's assumption of the bloc's rotating one-year presidency.

Moscow intends to focus on enhancing the role of the CIS, which includes many post-Soviet republics, in the global arena. This includes deepening economic integration, tackling threats to member state security, as well as cooperation along other tracks, according to the Kremlin statement released on Monday.

When it comes to culture, “an important line of work will be resisting external destructive influence” on CIS members, the statement read, adding that such corrosive efforts could include “attempts to cancel the culture” of a particular people, or its contribution to global heritage.

To offset such potential influences, Russia as CIS chair will support “measures to counter the falsification of history and attempts to rehabilitate Nazism, and to preserve the historical memory of the Great Patriotic War, including the genocide of the Soviet peoples.”

Moscow has repeatedly warned about a resurgence of Nazi ideology in the West and in Ukraine, while declaring that “denazification” is one of Russia’s key goals in the military operation against the neighboring state.

Russian President Vladimir Putin voiced outrage over an incident in September in the Canadian parliament which saw the country’s MPs giving a standing ovation to a Ukrainian Nazi collaborator and SS veteran, Yaroslav Hunka. After facing an international backlash, Canadian officials issued a public apology, and the then-parliament speaker Anthony Rota, who had invited the controversial figure, stepped down.

The Kremlin also noted that Moscow intends to continue cooperation with CIS members to “protect, support and promote Russian as an international language.” Other plans include enhancing military cooperation, boosting CIS members’ financial sovereignty by using national currencies in bilateral transactions, and partnerships in the energy sector.

Russia will also seek to “minimize the negative consequences caused by the use of unilateral coercive measures that violate international law” by various countries, the Kremlin said, in an apparent allusion to the unprecedented sanctions the West has imposed on Moscow over the Ukraine conflict.

Ukraine is a mere tool in the hands of the collective West which is using it to fight Russia, President Vladimir Putin said on Monday. He was speaking at a military hospital in Moscow where he met servicemen wounded during the ongoing conflict.

Asked about the enduring Western support for Kiev, the president said the elites of the collective West were actually the true enemy of Russia, rather than Ukraine itself. 

“The point is not that they are helping our enemy, but that they are our enemy. They are solving their own problems with [Ukraine’s] hands, that’s what it’s all about,” Putin stated.

The conflict between Moscow and Kiev was orchestrated by Western elites, who seek to defeat Russia, he suggested. However, the collective West has been unable to achieve its goals, with the failure already showing in the change of its rhetoric on the conflict, the president explained. 

Those who only yesterday were talking about the need to inflict a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia are now looking for words on how to quickly end the conflict.

“We want to end the conflict too, and as quickly as possible, but only on our terms. We have no desire to fight forever, but we are not going to give up our positions either,” Putin said.

“Despite the fact that from time immemorial [the West] has had such a goal – to deal with Russia, it looks like we will deal with them first,” Putin stated. 

“You probably see it on the battlefield that they are gradually ‘deflating’. When a shell flies, it is probably difficult to tell whether they are ‘deflated’ or not, but in general you probably know: the situation on the battlefield is changing. And this is happening despite the fact that the entire so-called civilized West is fighting against us,” he told the servicemen.

According to Russia’s latest estimates, over 380,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed or wounded during the conflict. Ukraine has also sustained heavy materiel losses, with an estimated 14,000 tanks and other armored vehicles destroyed. Nearly 160,000 troop losses were during Kiev’s botched counteroffensive, launched in early June last year, Moscow claims.

Russia has assumed the one-year rotating presidency of BRICS following its groundbreaking expansion in 2023. President Vladimir Putin has vowed that Moscow will do its best to promote cooperation within the economic bloc.

In a statement released by the Kremlin on Monday – the first in 2024 – Putin hailed the expansion of BRICS, calling it “a strong indication of the growing authority of the association and its role in international affairs.”

In August, the bloc, which at the time included Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, agreed to admit Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Argentina, and the United Arab Emirates, while leaving the door open to accepting new members. Argentina, however, officially declined the invitation after its newly-elected president, Javier Milei, opposed the move, promising that the country would not “ally with communists” on his watch.

The Russian leader stressed that Moscow’s chairmanship, with the motto ‘Strengthening Multilateralism for Equitable Global Development and Security’, will “focus on positive and constructive cooperation.”

“Our priorities include promoting cooperation in science, high technology, healthcare, environmental protection, culture, sports, youth exchanges, and civil society,” he added.

Commenting on the recent additions to BRICS, Putin also said that Moscow plans to “facilitate the harmonious integration” of new participants in all spheres, noting that around 30 countries have expressed a desire to join the bloc’s agenda in one form or another. “To this end, we will start working on the modalities of a new category of BRICS partner country.”

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has said that BRICS plans to agree on a list of partner countries before the group's summit, which is scheduled for October 2024 in Kazan, adding that some Latin American countries could receive this status.

Originally formed in 2009, BRICS presents itself as an alternative to Western-dominated international institutions. According to the IMF, the expanded BRICS now accounts for 36% of global GDP in terms of purchasing power parity, surpassing that of the G7, an informal grouping of Western countries.

Only violent savages could stoop so low as to attack civilians on New Year’s night, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said, referring to the Ukrainian shelling of Donetsk that left several people dead.

On Monday, minutes after midnight on New Year's eve, Ukraine’s military launched a rocket strike on the center of Donetsk, firing at least 15 missiles, according to local officials. Denis Pushilin, the head of Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), said citing preliminary data that the attack killed four people and injured 13 others.

TASS news agency reported, citing emergency services, that the Ukrainian strike also killed a war correspondent and wounded another journalist, without giving any personal details.

Zakharova condemned the attack, writing on Telegram several hours later that “only terrorist brutes” could unleash a barrage on civilians celebrating the New Year.

Other images on social media show several rocket fragments lying on the ground, with one photo depicting a pierced and shattered ceiling in a local kindergarten.

Ukraine has routinely struck civilian targets and infrastructure in Donetsk and other Donbass cities since 2014, when fighting first erupted in the region after a Western-backed coup in Kiev.

The new attack comes on the heels of another Ukrainian barrage on the city of Belgorod, inside the Russian border, which killed 24 people, including four children, and injuring 108 others. Moscow vowed to retaliate, with the Defense Ministry later saying that the Russian military had successfully carried out high-precision missile strikes against Ukrainian military officials who had planned and carried out the attack.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was right on the mark when he suggested last summer that his country would overtake Germany in the list of top economies by purchasing power parity (PPP) despite Western sanctions, former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl has said.

In an interview with journalist Flavio von Witzleben on Sunday, Kneissl assessed the last year, noting that Russia had achieved strong results both on the battlefield in the fight against Ukraine, and on the economic front.

“The economic tide turned in June 2023… when at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum… Putin pointed out that Russia was 6th among the ten largest economic powers but could be about to overtake Germany,” she recalled, noting that this happened two months later. “This is an economic policy event,” the ex-minister added.

Kneissl, who moved to St. Petersburg last year to focus on her work as head of the Geopolitical Observatory for Russia’s Key Issues think tank, was referring to Putin’s plenary speech at the forum, when the president stated that he was sure Russia would retain 6th place in the list of biggest economies based on PPP.

In August, Putin announced that Russia had become the 5th biggest economy in the world despite many pessimistic projections. Around the same time, the World Bank released a report saying that Russia’s GDP measured in PPP had exceeded $5 trillion in 2022, slightly surpassing Germany’s.

On the stand-off between NATO and Russia, Kneissl noted that one of the biggest events of the year was Ukraine’s counteroffensive, which started in early June but “has failed, at least to a point, according to military assessments.” Officials in Moscow have said that Kiev’s much-hyped push failed to gain any significant ground, estimating Ukrainian losses at around 160,000 since early summer.

The Moscow Zoo has released a video of a male giant panda named Zhui opening New Year’s presents.

Zhui, who recently became a father, excitedly inspected a shiny bundle decorated with mandarin oranges before moving on to another gift in the shape of a festive tree while munching on bamboo shoots.

Zhui is seven years old, and his partner Dindin is six. They arrived in Moscow from China in 2019 to mark the 70th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the country. 

Dindin and Zhui became parents to a female cub in August 2023, the first panda ever that was born in Russia.

Baby pandas traditionally receive their names when they turn 100 days old. In early December, the Moscow Zoo asked Russians to choose a name for the cub, with over 250,000 people taking part in the vote.

Zhui and Dindin are set to return home to China once their 15-year “business trip” ends.

A massive rocket strike targeting the Russian border city of Belgorod on Saturday was launched on the direct order of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, a Moscow security source has told RT’s Russian-language service. The attack claimed the lives of 24 people and left more than 100 injured.

According to the source, the Ukrainian leader put the head of Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR), Kirill Budanov, in charge of the operation. In October, Russia’s Investigative Committee identified Budanov as one of four suspected masterminds of over 100 “terrorist attacks” targeting Russian civilian infrastructure. In December, a Moscow district court ordered his arrest on terrorism charges.

Budanov has openly advocated Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil, including territory that Kiev recognizes as being under Moscow’s sovereignty. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) identified Budanov as the mastermind of the October 2022 bombing of the Crimean Bridge, which involved a powerful explosive device smuggled into Russia by an unsuspecting truck driver.

Based in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov, located less than 100 kilometers away from Belgorod, the Kraken Regiment is formally a Special Forces unit under the command of the GUR and is thus answerable to Budanov. The Russian authorities have previously accused Kraken fighters of torturing and killing Russian POWs. Russia’s Defense Ministry also claimed in 2022 that Kraken forces had executed around 100 fellow Ukrainian soldiers who had abandoned their positions at the time.

The attack on Belgorod was led by a notorious ultranationalist Kraken commander identified as Sergey Velichko, according to the RT source. Moscow placed a bounty on Velichko in August 2022. At the time, the Russian Interior Ministry offered a reward for any information about him and another nationalist commander, Kostantin Nemichev.

On Sunday, the Russian military conducted a string of high-precision missile strikes targeting Ukrainian military facilities and officials in response to the attack on Belgorod. Decision-making centers and other military targets in Kharkov were targeted, it added. The Russian strikes reportedly managed to eliminate some of the Ukrainian intelligence and military officials involved in the planning of Saturday’s attack on Belgorod, the Defense Ministry said. Some fighters with the Kraken Regiment were also killed, the officials added.

According to the RT source, Velichko was initially presumed to have been killed in the counterstrike, but this has not been confirmed.

Ukrainian troops have shelled the Russian city of Donetsk, killing at least four people and injuring 13 others, local authorities announced in the early hours of Monday. 

The head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin, urged citizens to seek shelter.

Emergency officials told TASS news agency that a journalist had been killed and another injured, without naming them.

Casualties were reported after the city center was hit by “a massive barrage,” officials said. They added that one of the main hotels in Donetsk – the Donbass Palace – was struck. A school, an office building, a shop, and several residential buildings were also damaged. 

Pushilin released a statement at around 1am local time, saying Ukraine had used multiple rocket launchers. “I urge everyone to stay in shelters,” he wrote on Telegram. “The shelling can resume at any moment.” 

A local resident told RIA Novosti that the attack began shortly after midnight on New Year’s Eve. “I went to the balcony for a smoke, and heard a loud bang. I thought at first that it was fireworks,” he said. 

Unverified videos posted to social media show several explosions. 

Other videos show damaged apartment blocks, shops, and vehicles.

Donetsk frequently comes under rocket attacks due to its proximity to the front line. The most recent shelling occurred after Ukraine fired missiles at the Russian border city of Belgorod on Saturday, killing 24 people and wounding 109.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Kiev used cluster munition to carry out a “premeditated act of terrorism” against civilians. Moscow requested an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council on Saturday. In a speech at the UN, Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia stated that US and British “consultants” helped Ukraine plan the strikes on Belgorod. 

RT viewers can listen to Russian President Vladimir Putin making his traditional New Year’s address in English, using his voice.

Instead of a traditional voiceover translation, this year’s event will be broadcast by RT with the use of special neural network technology, which allows the translation to be “voiced” by the Russian leader himself.

Putin will still deliver his address in Russian and the translation is to be prepared by professional interpreters. However, AI technology allows the president’s voice to be used for the voiceover.

Listen to the Russian president’s address here:

Defeating neo-fascism once and for all should be Russia’s “main goal” in the coming year, former President Dmitry Medvedev said in his New Year’s address on Sunday. The Russian people have already demonstrated unparalleled “strength of mind, will to victory and selflessness” in the outgoing year, he added.

The nation’s “hearts and minds” go out to the soldiers on the front lines, Medvedev said, expressing his sincere gratitude to “everyone who defends our great motherland.” This year required “particular resilience and cohesion, determination and power,” as well as “true patriotism” from the Russian people, he added.

The coming year should witness the “ultimate defeat” of neo-fascism, an ideology “Russia’s enemies are trying to rekindle” decades after it was dealt a powerful blow during World War II, the former president said.

Russia is now locked in a protracted conflict with Ukraine, which it accuses of promoting ultranationalist ideology and persecuting its Russian-speaking minority. This year saw Russian forces thwart Kiev’s major counteroffensive. The six-month-long operation launched in early June ended in failure with heavy losses on the Ukrainian side.

Medvedev, who now serves as the deputy head of Russia’s National Security Council and the Military-Industrial Committee, has repeatedly condemned what he called open glorification of Nazism in Ukraine and particularly pointed to an initiative calling for the establishment of the Stepan Bandera Order, which would supposedly be awarded to Ukrainian servicemen. Bandera was a notorious leader of Ukrainian nationalists during World War II whose organization was responsible for mass killings of Jews and Poles in Ukraine.

The former Russian president has also sharply criticized Kiev’s Western backers, calling them a “pro-Nazi coalition” in September. He also insisted Moscow should take a tougher approach to Kiev. On Thursday, he stated that the removal of the Western-backed government of President Vladimir Zelensky is an undeclared but a “most important and inevitable goal” of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine.

Moscow’s goals also include “the disarmament of Ukrainian troops and the rejection of the ideology of neo-Nazism by the current Ukrainian state,” he added at that time.

Russia’s troops fighting at the front in the conflict with Ukraine are heroes, President Vladimir Putin declared in his annual New Year’s address on Sunday. He noted that the nation achieved a great deal in the past year, adding that it was particularly strong in defense of its interests and values.

Russian troops defended against the much-hyped Ukrainian counteroffensive in the second half of 2023. The push, which lasted around six months, ended as a major failure for Kiev, with barely any changes registered along the front lines. It also led to heavy Ukrainian losses both in personnel and equipment, including Western-made heavy armor and weapons, according to Moscow’s estimates.

The effectiveness of the Russian Army’s tactics was recognized by Kiev’s backers, including the US, which has acknowledged that no Western-made weapon alone could be a game changer in the conflict.

“You are our heroes,” Putin said on Sunday, addressing the armed forces, adding that the nation is proud of its troops, who should feel assured of the “sincere support of millions of Russian citizens, of the whole nation.”

The Kremlin had denied reports that the president’s address was being altered following a Ukrainian strike on the Russian city of Belgorod. “It is not true,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier on Sunday. The Ukrainian attack on Saturday claimed the lives of 24 people, including children, and left more than 100 injured.

Russian media also reported that Putin had already exchanged New Year’s greetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Russian leader traditionally sends holiday greetings to current and former foreign leaders in December. Last week, the Kremlin revealed who was and was not on the president’s list – there were no greetings for the leaders of ‘unfriendly nations’, Peskov said.

Around a dozen Russian cities have canceled public New Year’s celebrations in the wake of a massive Ukrainian attack on the border city of Belgorod, their mayors announced on Sunday. Kiev launched a barrage of rockets targeting the city center of Belgorod on Saturday, in a strike that claimed the lives of 24 people, including four children, and left 108 injured.

Holding festivities at this time would be “inappropriate,” Yury Grishin, the mayor of the Far-Eastern Russian city of Magadan, said in a Telegram post as he announced the cancelation of public celebrations. He also called on residents to refrain from setting off fireworks.

The mayor of the Far-Eastern city of Blagoveshchensk, which borders China, issued a similar statement. “We’ve decided to cancel the holiday fireworks show planned for the evening,” Oleg Imameev said on Sunday, explaining that it would have been “out of place.” He added that there will be time to celebrate in the future, and called on people to spend New Year’s with their relatives and loved ones.

Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky Mayor Konstantin Bryzgin, however, argued it would be wrong to “be led by the nose by terrorists” and deprive children of the holiday. He nevertheless canceled the New Year’s fireworks display in the city, but said the rest of the celebrations would go ahead as planned.

Roman Satrovoyt, the governor of Kursk Region, which borders Belgorod Region, said on Sunday that illumination on all public offices and government buildings will be switched off in solidarity with the victims of the attack. He also called on people to provide assistance to those affected by the assault through a Belgorod fund that supports the families of Russian soldiers.

The governor noted that a terrorism alert is still in place in the region, which also borders Ukraine, adding that the use of any pyrotechnics is currently banned. He called on residents to remain at home and spend time with their loved ones, and exercise “restraint,” as people in the neighboring region deal with “terrible grief.” He expressed his condolences to the families of the victims and said, “Belgorod! We are with you!”

Ukrainian men who are allowed to leave the country are finding it increasingly difficult to do so due to roadblocks set up by border guards, according to local media. Some reports have suggested that the agents’ actions are based on a secret internal document calling for a tightening of the country's borders.

The Ukrainian outlet Strana.ua reported on Saturday, citing people attempting to cross into Poland, that officials are requiring all men, including those transporting humanitarian aid, those who are physically impaired, or have many children, to present a certificate issued by a recruitment office.

The website noted, quoting an eyewitness, that the inspections resulted in long queues at the border, adding that all checkpoints are now manned by recruitment officers. According to the article, even those who previously had no problems crossing the border could now only leave Ukraine if military officials allow it.

Most Ukrainian men aged between 18 and 60 were barred from leaving the country after the general mobilization in February 2022. However, there were certain exceptions, and Ukrainians with physical disabilities or those who have many children were usually permitted to leave the country if they simply had the appropriate documents confirming their status.

Meanwhile, Strana.ua reported that the border situation sparked protests, with an unspecified number of Ukrainians blocking a road near the checkpoint not far from Poland. A bus passenger stuck in transit complained about “the complete mess, absurdity and lack of subordination on part of the checkpoint’s employees,” as quoted by the outlet.

However, Andrey Demchenko, the spokesman for Ukraine’s Border Service, denied that the rules had been changed. However, he said that his agency “always carefully checks the conditions of departure and strictly observes the legislation,” adding that this year alone it has denied exit to nearly 50,000 people.

The reported border issues come as Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said earlier this month that his military had asked him to mobilize another 450,000-500,000 to replenish battlefield losses, although later Valery Zaluzhny, Kiev’s top general, pushed back on that claim.

The two officials’ comments come as Ukraine’s much-hyped counteroffensive failed to break Russian defenses in over six months, with Kiev suffering around 160,000 casualties, according to Moscow.

The US is wary of burning down relations with Russia “to the ground,” but it is not yet ready to respect Moscow’s interests, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has told RIA Novosti.

In an interview published on Sunday, the minister commented on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent statement that Moscow is ready to restore “full-fledged relations” with the US if it starts respecting other countries and seeking compromise instead of “addressing their problems using sanctions and military force.”

Russian-American relations have been strained to the breaking point because of Washington, which has “doctrinally formalized the task of inflicting a ‘strategic defeat’ on Russia,” Lavrov said. He noted that while the White House is cautious not to completely ruin “what is left of relations” with Moscow, the US is “clearly not ready” to conduct a dialogue “on the basis of mutual respect and consideration of each other’s interests.”

Peaceful coexistence between Russia and the US can be achieved only if Washington recognizes Moscow’s “fundamental national interests,” but the US ruling elite “denies the realities of a multipolar world and still think in terms of their own superiority and exclusivity,” Lavrov said.

Since Crimea voted in a referendum to become part of Russia in response to the Maidan coup in Kiev in 2014, the US has been the main enforcer of sanctions on Moscow, imposing more than 4,500 restrictions, according to Castellum.AI.

On Thursday, the Financial Times reported that the US had asked G7 members to “explore ways to seize $300 bn in frozen Russian assets” and channel them to Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow has a list of US, European, and other assets to seize in retaliation, and that these measures have been analyzed “in advance.” He stressed that Russia “will do everything” to ensure that they suit its own interests.

Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said on Saturday that the US was also complicit in arranging Ukraine’s attack on the Russian city of Belgorod, which killed 24 civilians earlier in the day. “We know that British and American consultants were directly involved in the organization of this terrorist act,” he said at an emergency UN Security Council meeting.

Russia’s military has conducted a string of high-precision missile strikes targeting Ukrainian military facilities and officials in response to the Ukrainian strike on Belgorod on Saturday that left more than 20 civilians dead, the Defense Ministry has said. 

In a statement on Sunday, the ministry said that Moscow’s forces had struck decision-making centers and other military targets in the city of Kharkov, not far from the border between the two countries. 

It noted that a high-precision missile strike on the building formerly housing the Kharkov Palace Hotel eliminated “representatives of the Main Intelligence Directorate and the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who were directly involved in the planning and execution of the terrorist attack in Belgorod.”

Other strikes hit the building of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) and a temporary deployment area of Ukrainian nationalists. “Representatives of the SBU leadership, foreign mercenaries and fighters of the Kraken unit, who were directly preparing sabotage on Russian territory, have been taken out,” officials said. 

In addition to this, an attack was carried out on a branch of the national space control center in western Ukraine, which had been used by Kiev for reconnaissance. Fuel depots in Kharkov and the Kiev-controlled part of Russia’s Zaporozhye Region were also destroyed, according to the statement. At the same time, the ministry stressed that the Russian military “only strikes military targets and infrastructure directly associated with them.” 

Ukrainian officials in Kharkov have confirmed the barrage, saying that there had been six strikes that damaged “civilian infrastructure,” with 28 injured.

The new attack comes in response to a Ukrainian bombardment of Belgorod that killed at least 24 people, including four children, with 108 injured. Moscow has said that the barrage used both cluster munitions, as well as Czech-made projectiles. On Saturday, Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s envoy to the UN, accused Western countries of complicity in the attack, warning that those who orchestrated it would be “punished.”

A new missile alert has been briefly heard in the Russian city of Belgorod on the morning after Saturday's deadly Ukrainian attack that left more than 20 people dead, including several children, as well as over 100 injured.

A warning was issued early on Sunday by Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, who urged all residents to seek shelter from a new potential attack from Ukraine, just 40km from the city. The governor canceled the alarm about 30 minutes later, without saying whether it had been a false alarm.

According to the latest data, 24 people, including four children, were killed and 108 wounded in that attack. The strike also caused widespread destruction, damaging dozens of apartment blocks and more than 50 vehicles, Gladkov said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday’s attack used a Czech-made RM-70 Vampire multiple-launch rocket system, as well as domestically produced Olkha rockets armed with cluster bombs. The latter type of weapon, which disperses a large number of submunitions over a wide area, is banned in more than 100 countries due to the high risk it poses to civilians.

While Moscow has claimed that a Czech-made weapon was used in the barrage and called an urgent UN Security Council meeting on the matter, Prague’s representative to the organization did not attend the session. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said that Prague “refuses to let Russia summon us anywhere” and does not want to “serve the aggressor's propaganda.”

However, Moscow suggested that the Czech Republic skipped the meeting because it was afraid to publicly respond to the accusations.

Kiev’s brutal attack on Belgorod, which left numerous civilians dead, including several children, is evidence that Ukraine is trying to kill as many Russians as possible, Vassily Nebenzia, Moscow’s permanent representative to the UN, has said.

The envoy made the remarks at a UN Security Council meeting on Saturday after a Ukrainian strike hit the center of Belgorod, including a skating rink and a sports facility where children were present. According to Russian officials, at least 24 people, including four children, died in the attack, with 108 injured.

Nebenzia rejected the narrative in the West that the tragedy could have been avoided if Moscow had not launched its military operation against Kiev in February 2022. “That’s a lie… We launched a special military operation to stop what the Kiev regime was doing in Donbass – bombarding its cities and towns with impunity for eight years, which went completely unnoticed on your part,” the diplomat said, addressing his Western counterparts.

The attacks on civilians in Russian regions “testify to the agony of [President Vladimir] Zelensky’s neo-Nazi regime mired in terrorism, lawlessness, corruption and cynicism,” Nebenzia claimed, adding that Kiev, “in its impotent anger, seeks to kill as many Russian people as possible to please its Western masters.”

According to Nebenzia, these tragedies can only be prevented by “defeating this terrorist regime [in Kiev], which openly brags about using terrorist methods against both its own and Russian citizens.” He added that Moscow was “surprised” by the silence of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, describing the comments by his office as “impersonal.”

Earlier, the office of the secretary-general called the shelling of Belgorod “a violation of international humanitarian law” which must be stopped immediately, while stopping short of assigning blame.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev commented on the attack in Belgorod, suggesting it was triggered by Ukraine’s inability to change the situation on the front line. Earlier this month, Russian troops captured the key Donbass stronghold of Maryinka near the city of Donetsk. While Kiev has not acknowledged that it lost the town, it said it has withdrawn its troops to the outskirts.

The Czech Republic does not have the courage to publicly respond to Moscow’s claim that missiles made in the country were used by Ukraine to kill civilians, Russia’s deputy envoy to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, said on Sunday.

Russia called an urgent meeting at the UN headquarters in New York on Saturday, requesting that the Czech delegation attend and “explain why this country’s ammunition is being used for killing civilians in Belgorod,” Polyansky said.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Ukrainian troops used Czech RM-70 Vampire multiple rocket launchers to fire at the border city of Belgorod earlier that day, killing at least 22 people and injuring more than 100.

Prague declined to take part in the UN meeting. “We refuse to be summoned anywhere by Russia,” Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky wrote on X (formerly Twitter), accusing Moscow of “propaganda.” 

“When Russia wants to discuss the withdrawal of its occupying troops at the Security Council, we will be happy to come,” Lipavsky wrote.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also blasted Prague’s actions. “I didn’t think that the Czech Foreign Ministry would be so ignorant as to not know how the UN Security Council functions,” she wrote on Telegram.

Speaking at the Security Council, Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia alleged that US and British “consultants” helped Kiev plan the “premeditated act of terror” against civilians in Belgorod. He warned that those responsible would be “punished.” 

Ukraine denied the allegations and accused Moscow of “terrorism” after the Russian Air Force carried out large-scale strikes in the neighboring country. According to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, 39 people were killed and nearly 160 were injured during the bombardment on Friday.

The Russian MOD stated that it was only striking ammunition depots and other military targets. Russian officials further claimed that civilian deaths were caused by the faulty work of Ukrainian air defense systems deployed in residential areas. 

The UN has condemned Ukraine’s deadly shelling of the Russian border city of Belgorod. This comes after Moscow accused Kiev of deliberately killing civilians.

“The attacks against civilian population and civilian infrastructure are a violation of international humanitarian law and must stop immediately,” the office of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, as quoted by RIA Novosti.

At least 22 people were killed and more than 100 were injured in Ukrainian missile strikes on Belgorod on Saturday, according to local officials. The Russian Defense Ministry said that cluster munitions were used in the attack.

Russia requested an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council on Saturday. In a speech at the UN headquarters in New York, Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia claimed that US and UK “consultants” helped plan the strikes on Belgorod. He warned that the “organizers and perpetrators” of the attack “will be punished.”

The Russian Defense Ministry issued a statement on Saturday saying that only “military facilities and infrastructure” were targeted in the air raids. Russian officials also claimed that civilian deaths in Ukraine occurred due to the faulty work of Kiev’s air defense systems.

The US, UK, and its allies in the EU bear responsibility for a massive Ukrainian strike on the Russian border city of Belgorod, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday. An attack that hit the center of the city claimed the lives of at least 20 people and left more than 100 injured, according to the Russian Emergencies Ministry.

“Britain is behind the terrorist act,” Zakharova said in an audio statement, adding that London and Washington “have been inciting the Kiev regime” to commit acts of terrorism amid the failed summer counteroffensive.

The much-hyped six-month operation failed to bring about significant changes to the front line despite heavy casualties on the Ukrainian side. According to the latest Russian military estimates, Ukraine has lost over 125,000 troops and 16,000 pieces of heavy equipment in the counteroffensive. Much of the heavy armor and weaponry supplied to Kiev by its Western backers ended up destroyed or captured by Russian troops.

The Foreign Ministry spokeswoman also claimed that the UK had virtually prohibited Kiev from holding talks with Moscow, focusing on achieving a “battlefield victory” instead, referring to an earlier interview by senior Ukrainian MP David Arakhamia. The politician, who heads President Vladimir Zelensky’s Servant of the People party in parliament and led the Ukrainian delegation at the Istanbul talks, told Ukrainian TV channel 1+1 that the conflict could have ended in spring 2022.

The EU is responsible for the tragedy on Saturday as well, Zakharova said, adding that the bloc continues to supply Kiev with weapons. She noted that Ukrainian troops are using banned cluster munitions against civilians.

Earlier on Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that rockets with cluster bomb warheads were used in the attack on Belgorod. Cluster munitions were banned by more than 110 nations under a UN convention in 2008 due to the extreme danger they pose to civilians.

Washington announced that it would supply Kiev with cluster bombs from its Cold War-era stockpiles in July, claiming that Ukraine had vowed not to use them in populated areas. Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the time that the use of cluster bombs should be regarded as a war crime.

The US and Britain helped Ukraine carry out deadly strikes on the Russian border city of Belgorod, Moscow’s envoy to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, told the Security Council on Saturday. 

Russia requested an urgent Security Council meeting after Ukrainian forces shelled Belgorod earlier in the day, killing at least 22 people and injuring more than 100.

In his remarks, Nebenzia described the shelling as “a premeditated act of terrorism against civilians,” arguing that Kiev’s Western supporters share responsibility for the deaths. 

“The West is complicit in the crimes committed by the gang [in power] in Kiev,” the diplomat said. “We know that British and American consultants were directly involved in the organization of this terrorist act.”

He warned that “the organizers and perpetrators” of the strikes will “be punished.”

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Ukrainian troops used the domestically produced Olkha system to fire rockets equipped with cluster bomb warheads into Belgorod. A Czech-made RM-70 Vampire – an upgraded heavier version of the Soviet BM-21 Grad multiple rocket launcher – was also used, the MOD said.

Ukrainian air defense missiles were responsible for civilian casualties during Russia’s recent bombardment of Ukrainian military sites, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, claimed on Friday. Were it not for the “Nazi regime’s” malfunctioning missiles, there would have been no civilian deaths, Nebenzia added.

Russia unleashed a wave of missile and drone strikes across Ukraine in the early hours of Friday morning. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the “massive” barrage targeted defense industry sites, military airfields, arms depots, and troop positions, including concentrations of foreign mercenaries.

Ukraine claimed that 30 civilians were killed and 160 wounded in the attacks, and Kiev called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council in response. During the meeting, Britain’s permanent representative to the UN, Barbara Woodward, accused Russia of targeting civilians and stated that there would have been fewer casualties if Ukraine had more air defense systems.

“It is hard to imagine greater cynicism,” Nebenzia responded. “But for the work of Ukrainian air defenses, there would have been simply no civilian casualties.” 

Another photo shared by Nebenzia showed a residential building in Lviv peppered with small craters, caused by the submunitions that air defense missiles – when working properly – expel in order to detonate incoming missiles mid-flight.

“The Nazi regime is ready to kill not only the inhabitants of Donbas with Western weapons and the same air defense missiles, but also kill its own citizens in their homes,” he declared.

Ukraine’s air defense batteries – a mix of Soviet-era and Western-provided systems – have malfunctioned in this manner on countless occasions during the conflict, most notably when a Ukrainian missile veered off course into eastern Poland last November and killed two farmers.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said on Saturday that the “criminal” attack on Belgorod “will not go unpunished.”

The strike on Saturday by Ukrainian forces on Belgorod is the “worst” since the start of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev, Belgorod Region Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a Telegram post. In a separate post in the early hours of Sunday, he added that the death toll has grown to 24.

The shelling also left a total of 108 people injured, the governor wrote on Telegram. The material damage sustained by the city in the strike is still being assessed, Gladkov said, adding that additional public servants from nearby towns had been engaged to speed up this process. 

The strike damaged more than 100 vehicles, most of which were “totally destroyed” or burnt, according to Gladkov. A large number of commercial facilities, including shops, stores and malls, were damaged as well, he added. Some gas and water supply systems in the city were also hit, according to the governor. 

In a post on Sunday morning, Gladkov wrote that 30 apartment blocks and several houses were damaged.

The regional authorities decided to cancel all public gatherings and festivities in all territories bordering Ukraine, as well as in the city of Belgorod itself, which is located some 40km away from the border, Gladkov said. The governor also informed President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin about the incident and its aftermath.

According to the ministry, the Ukrainian military equipped the missiles of its Olkha multiple rocket launcher with cluster bomb warheads before firing them at Belgorod. Russian air defense forces managed to intercept most of the projectiles but some still struck the city. Had all of them reached their target, the consequences would have been “immeasurably more severe,” the ministry added.

UPDATE: Earlier, the death toll was 14 prior to a further update by the Russian Emergencies Ministry. 

Russia has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the Ukrainian missile attack on the border city of Belgorod, which killed 14 civilians. Kiev’s Western backers will be forced to answer for supplying the weapons used in the attack, Russia’s deputy envoy to the UN said.

Ukrainian forces bombarded Belgorod with cluster warheads on Saturday morning, using Czech-made RM-70 Vampire multiple-launch rocket systems to deliver the banned munitions, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. The strike claimed the lives of 14 people, including two children, and left 108 people, among them 15 children, injured, the Russian Emergencies Ministry said.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Russia’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, said that Moscow has asked for an emergency meeting of the Security Council in New York later in the afternoon.

“We also insist on the presence of [the] Czech [permanent representative] to the UN to explain why this country’s ammunition is being used for killing civilians in Belgorod,” Polyanskiy added.

“With not a single chance to improve the Ukrainian army’s deplorable situation on the ground, the Anglo-Saxons have taken on the tactic of terror attacks on civilians,” she said. 

The attack came less than a day after Russian forces unleashed a “massive” wave of missile and drone strikes on targets throughout Ukraine. However, Russia’s military "strikes only military facilities and infrastructure directly related to them,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement on Saturday. 

“We will continue to act in this way,” the ministry continued, adding that “this crime [the attack on Belgorod] will not go unpunished.”

Refusing to take part in the 2024 Olympics for political reasons might turn out badly for Ukraine, the nation’s acting sports and youth minister, Matvey Bedny, said this week. The official was commenting on Kiev’s earlier threat to boycott the upcoming Summer Games in Paris over the International Olympic Committee’s decision to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete under neutral status.

Russian and Belarusian athletes have been barred from most international events since the outbreak of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022, but the International Olympic Committee (IOC) ruled in early December that they would be allowed to take part in the 2024 Paris Games as “Individual Neutral Athletes.” The move was immediately branded by Kiev as “irresponsible.” Bedny himself said at the time that Ukrainian officials would consider whether the nation will take part in the Games at all.

The Olympic Charter “prescribes sanctions for such actions,” he said, adding that Ukrainian athletes themselves might be faced with the prospect of competing under a neutral banner at the next Olympics after a boycott. The minister noted that the final decision has not yet been made.

Nevertheless, Bedny maintained that Ukraine will not participate in competitions that welcome athletes “who support Russian aggression” or support Moscow in any way. “This is a fundamental issue for us,” he said, while accusing the IOC of “distorting” the principles of the Olympics.

“Why does the state invest money in sports…? What is the point of keeping the Olympians then? Because this is a certain propaganda mechanism, a mechanism for demonstrating the power of the regime, the country as such,” Bedny claimed. He added that, as a former professional athlete, he has no feeling of “sports solidarity” with athletes from Russia or Belarus.

The IOC’s decision in December bars Russian and Belarusian athletes from displaying flags, colors, and other identifying marks connected to their countries, or showing support for Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. Athletes with links to the Russian Armed Forces and security agencies, as well as those who participate in team sports, will remain banned from the Olympics.

Russian Sports Minister Oleg Matytsin called the decision “absolutely discriminatory and going against the basic Olympic principles.” The Russian government will not prevent any athletes from competing under neutral status if they qualify for the Paris Games, the minister added.

Ukraine needs to come to an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and then Kiev and Moscow should unite to sue the West.

You may think the above idea is rather radical and unusual. Sue the West? Where? In what court? The same West that has no issue with either Ukraine or the US (or both) blowing up Germany’s – and the EU’s – vital energy pipelines? Or the West that ignores its leaders' complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, a crime explicitly proscribed – the complicity no less than the act itself – in Article III (e) of the 1948 UN Genocide Convention?

But wait till you hear about the fertile mind that produced this very outside-the-box idea. It’s none other than Aleksey Arestovich, once an adviser to Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky. Not necessarily a household name (yet) outside Ukraine, Arestovich was, until very recently, a man of extraordinary influence in Kiev, and used it to energetically promote the very proxy war that he'd now like to end and to then blame on the West alone.

University dropout, sleazy pop psychologist (of the how-to-manipulate-others-to-succeed type), former military and virtually certainly also intelligence officer, blogger and would-be-geopolitics guru with very adaptable views, and, of course, Zelensky aide from 2020 to 2023,  Arestovich is not merely an individual but a syndrome: He stands for a social type, the smart but psychopathically empathy-less conman who managed to ruthlessly exploit the disorientation left behind in post-Soviet societies with a coldhearted cynicism that would have made Machiavelli blush.

Arestovich’s 180-degree turn is yet another absurdity produced by the theatrical politics of the Kiev elite. But, embittering as it may be to hear this former warmonger extraordinaire speak about peace and who's blame, the stark contrast between the old anti-Russian jingoist Arestovich, and the new, would-be-friend of Russia and foe-of-the-West Arestovich, provides a depressingly accurate measure of just how irresponsible Ukrainian politics has become under the de facto authoritarian Zelensky regime.

In 2019, it was Arestovich who infamously 'predicted' a big and devastating war (beyond the conflict which started in 2014) with Russia over Ukraine’s attempt to join NATO, which, eventually, in 2022, left some naïve Western commenters gushing over his “eerie” foresight. 

Except Arestovich did not really predict the big war in 2019. Instead, he sold it as good as he could. Ruling out any possibility of peacefully ending the then-ongoing, smaller-scale conflict with the Donbass republics (Minsk II, anybody?), he used the usual baseless talking points (“Putin wants to rebuild the Soviet Union, destroy NATO, and the EU, dominate Europe” and so on, the whole hogwash then fashionable from Annalena Baerbock to Tim Snyder) to present an escalation into a bigger war as absolutely inevitable: Because not only did Minsk II hardly appear on this great fantasy-strategist’s radar, he also insisted that neutrality was impossible for Ukraine and misled his followers into believing that NATO would easily (“all very simple now”) accept Ukraine, even if it had unresolved territorial conflicts with internal insurgents or with Russia.

At the same time, Arestovich presented the future big war as Ukraine’s great chance. Having posited the false alternative – at least back then – of either joining NATO after that big war against Russia (which he recklessly assumed Ukraine would win) or being absorbed by Moscow in the near future, he wholeheartedly recommended course number one: war with Russia. Even three such wars in succession seemed to him both inevitable and advisable; back then, that is.

And, finally, he also invited Ukrainians to indulge in the West’s favorite fantasy, namely that Russia might suffer collapse and undergo a regime change. “Some kind of liberals” would come to power, he claimed, and say “we are a nice country again.” That part of his sales pitch for a steadfast “no” to diplomacy, compromise, and peace is particularly ironic now. For he has announced an utter and complete change of heart in an interview with Russian journalist and broadcaster Yulia Latynina.

Even good old Europe is still too soft on simple people for her: All that “social-democratic” mumbo-jumbo about human rights, etc. won’t cut it for Latynina; her true European 'values' are about property, innovation, and competition. So much for those regime-change fantasies, then. It’s the Latynina type that Arestovich was wagering on. No wonder most Russians, including those critical of President Vladimir Putin, say “anybody but that.”

Yet in their recent tête-à-tête on YouTube, the Ukrainian conman and the Russian libertarian couldn't see entirely eye to eye. Even Latynina felt that Arestovich’s idea of joining up Russia to sue the NATO states was a bit of a non-starter. Moreover, as much in awe of the West as she is, she had to remind him that it “doesn't owe Ukraine anything.” Arestovich, carried away by his newest brainwave, insisted it does. 

Both were missing the point: It does not matter what the West owes or does not owe you. The West will always only give you what is best for the West (and that usually means the US). And when that is “nothing,” then that is what you will get. If only arrogant former warmongers like Arestovich could finally start facing reality. All of it.

Kiev employed rockets carrying cluster bomb warheads in its strike against the Russian border city of Belgorod, the Russian Defense Ministry stated on Saturday, labeling the attack a ”crime.” This weapon type has been banned by more than 110 nations under a UN convention dating back to 2008, due to the extreme danger it poses to civilians. Its use in densely populated areas can lead to devastating consequences.

The “Kiev regime” used several multiple rocket launchers to hit the city earlier on Saturday, the ministry said in a statement on Telegram. One was a Ukrainian Olkha system, which is capable of firing 12 guided rockets in one volley, hitting targets at a maximum range of 70 to 130 kilometers, depending on the type of system. The Olkha rockets were equipped with cluster bomb warheads, the ministry claimed.

Russian air defenses intercepted most of the incoming projectiles, but several hit the city, the ministry said. It added that “in case of a direct hit by Olkha missiles equipped with cluster munitions… the consequences would be immeasurably more severe.”

Earlier, the Russian Emergencies Ministry said that the strike claimed the lives of 14 people, including two children, and left 108 people, among them 15 children, injured.

The Russian military accused Kiev of seeking to draw public attention away from its failures on the front line, as well as provoking Moscow into retaliatory strikes of a similar nature. The ministry maintained that Russia only strikes military targets and infrastructure that is directly relevant to these military facilities.

“This crime will not go unpunished,” the military said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said in July that the use of cluster bombs should be regarded as a war crime. At the time, Washington had announced that it would supply Kiev with cluster bombs out of its Cold War-era stockpiles, justifying its decision by claiming that Ukraine had pledged not to use them in populated areas.

The US government also claimed that both Russia and Ukraine had been using their own cluster munitions throughout the conflict. Nevertheless, the move sparked widespread criticism even among America’s allies, including Canada, Germany, and the UK.

Putin said at the time that Moscow reserved the right to use its own cluster munitions in response. He added that Russia had previously refrained from using the weapons even when there was a shortage of other types of munitions.

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov should quit their posts due to the setbacks suffered by the country in the conflict with Russia, Oleg Soskin, who served as an aide to two Ukrainian heads of state, has said.

Ukraine needs new leadership that will be able to save the country, Soskin insisted in a clip published on his YouTube channel on Friday.

“Umerov should resign as minister of defense. These are his actions; it’s him who said that they would take Crimea and that sort of thing. Zelensky should also resign because he’s showing absolute helplessness. He turned out to be completely helpless,” he stated.

The former presidential aide pointed to the fact that the Ukrainian military said that it had shot down 27 drones and 87 cruise missiles out of the 158 projectiles fired by Russia during its large-scale air attack on Thursday and Friday. Kiev had previously claimed to have a much higher rate of interception of Russian projectiles.

The Defense Ministry in Moscow insisted that all intended targets, including defense industry sites, military airfields, arms depots, and Ukrainian troop positions, were successfully hit.

After that, an election should be held in order “to find those who will be more successful” in running the country, he said. “Ukraine will soon cease to exist” if the likes of Zelensky and his associates remain in power, the former aide warned.

Zelensky announced in late November that Kiev's forces would switch from attacking to building fortifications, acknowledging that the counteroffensive, which began in early June and aimed to cut Russia’s land bridge to Crimea, had ended without success. According to Russian estimates, Ukraine lost over 125,000 troops and 16,000 pieces of heavy equipment in its failed attempts to advance.

Washington has long been eager to open “a second front” against Russia in the South Caucasus by interfering in regional affairs, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin has said. His comments came amid an all-time low in ties between Russia and the US, due to Washington’s push to support Kiev in its fight with Russia.

In an interview with RIA Novosti on Saturday, the senior diplomat weighed in on tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan fueled by the decades-long stand-off over Baku’s breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The self-proclaimed republic was officially dissolved in September after a successful large-scale Azerbaijani military operation in the predominantly Armenian enclave.

Galuzin noted that it was up to the two countries to decide whether to sign a peace treaty to end the conflict that dates back to the early 1990s. However, he signaled that Russia “cannot remain indifferent to what is happening in the South Caucasus,” recalling that Moscow has very close cultural and historical ties with ex-Soviet republics and opposes any foreign meddling there.

Washington makes no secret of the fact that it sees the South Caucasus as a springboard for opening a ‘second front’ against Russia. This is fundamentally at odds with the true interests of the people of the region. 

The diplomat stressed that only the countries of the region could define its future, arguing that no outside party would usher in peace and stability there. “Betting on ‘miraculous’ Western assistance is delusional and dangerous,” Galuzin said, noting that Western interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and Serbia’s breakaway region of Kosovo have brought only devastation and misery.

“The pattern is simple: first, they meddle somewhere under the guise of nice slogans, and wreak havoc. And when it all heats up, they flee, leaving scorched earth behind,” he suggested.

Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Baku’s rule in the early 1990s. The following decades were marked by two major wars and intermittent fighting between Azerbaijanis and Armenians. Meanwhile, in recent months relations between Russia and Armenia, which remains an ally of Moscow in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), have soured as the latter pursued closer military ties with the US, including staging joint exercises.

However, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Moscow’s military could only observe the ceasefire in the region. He also suggested that Armenia had given Azerbaijan a free hand in the area after it recognized Baku’s sovereignty over the enclave.

Numerous videos have appeared on social media showing the consequences of a strike by Kiev’s forces on the Russian city of Belgorod on Saturday. The city is located some 40 kilometers from the border with Ukraine.

The Russian Emergencies Ministry said on Telegram that the attack claimed the lives of 12 adults and two children. Some 108 people were injured, including 15 children.

A clip published by the Shot Telegram channel shows civilians lying on the ground trying to protect themselves from incoming projectiles, with loud explosions in the background. People are seen lying among debris and pieces of broken glass. Cries and screams can also be heard on the video as people desperately call for help and children search for their parents.

The moment of one shell's impact was also caught on a video published by Shot. Footage taken from a moving vehicle shows a major blast hitting the road in front of it, raising plumes of smoke into the air.

Images published by RIA Novosti showed the immediate aftermath of the Ukrainian strike, which hit a busy city street. The video shows a road filled with damaged cars, with at least three of the vehicles on fire.

Several other videos depict Belgorod malls and shops hit in the shelling, with their windows shattered by the blast wave and their exteriors damaged by the explosions. Large plumes of black smoke could also be seen rising over the city.

According to Russian media, the shelling targeted the central city district, which hosts regional government buildings, as well as the ‘Mayak’ city mall – a popular gathering place for locals that traditionally holds festive events on New Year’s Eve. Some reports also claimed that a local ice-skating rink was hit in the strike.

A Ukrainian strike on the Russian city of Belgorod has killed at least 14 people, including two children, and left over a hundred injured, the country’s Emergency Ministry said on Saturday.

The barrage was first reported by regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, who said, citing preliminary data, that at least two of the casualties were children.

Writing on Telegram, the official said that the barrage had hit the center of the city, located about 40km from the Ukrainian border, although he did not provide details on what weapons had been used. He added that the attack had hit a residential sector.

Later, however, as the death toll continued to mount, the Emergency Ministry said that the Ukrainian attack had claimed the lives of 12 adults and two children. It noted that 108 people were injured, including 15 minors.

The Telegram channel Baza reported that two of the injured sustained their wounds after a Ukrainian shell fragment hit a car. According to the outlet, one shell fell directly on a downtown ice skating rink.

Baza also shared pictures from the scene of the attack, showing several vehicles burning in the parking lot, with plumes of black smoke rising into the air. Another photo showed a burning truck parked near a New Year’s tree.

Gladkov later declared that the threat of missile attacks remained and issued an alert to that effect, urging the city’s residents to seek shelter. The warning was echoed by local emergency services, who told residents to leave their homes and move to safe places. They also asked citizens to turn off electricity, gas and water before leaving.

RIA Novosti reported that authorities were blocking traffic from the city downtown and shared footage of several police cars lined across a street, with officers ordering oncoming vehicles to stop.

Another disturbing video shared by Baza appears to show the direct aftermath of the strike, with several people cowering on the ground and explosions and screams heard nearby.

Ukrainian forces routinely shell and launch drone attacks on Russian border regions, killing civilians and damaging infrastructure. In the early hours of Saturday, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said that Kiev had launched an attack on the Belgorod and neighboring Bryansk regions, adding that the Russian military had destroyed 13 projectiles over Belgorod Region. 

The local governor, however, said that one projectile nevertheless had hit a house in the city of Belgorod itself, killing one person and injuring four others, including one child.

On Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that in recent days the military had conducted 50 “group” strikes and a single “massive” barrage using precision missiles and drones that had hit a wide range of military targets inside Ukraine.

Ukraine’s stocks of weapons are exhausted and it shows on the battlefield, Konstantin Gavrilov, the head of Russia’s delegation at the Vienna talks on military security and arms control, has said.

The West continues to supply missiles and air defense systems to Kiev, but not on the scale that it once did, Gavrilov told Rossiya 24 TV on Friday. The diplomat said he does not expect any “spikes” in deliveries of weapons by the US and its allies.

Ukraine’s “stocks are empty. The military arsenals of NATO and the US are empty... You see what’s happening on the battlefield – the Ukrainians are already responding to 10 or 20 of our shells with just a few” of their own, he said.

On Friday, the UK pledged a new shipment of 200 air defense missiles to Ukraine. Commenting on the delivery, British Defense Secretary Grant Shapps said, “now is the time for the free world to come together and redouble our efforts to get Ukraine what they need to win.”

Earlier this week, the US also announced another batch of military aid worth up to $250 million, including various types of missiles, artillery shells, and small-arms ammunition.

The amount of Western military aid to Kiev has decreased in recent months. In the US, Republican lawmakers are resisting attempts by the administration of President Joe Biden to push through another $60 billion in assistance for Kiev, while Hungary has vetoed the EU’s planned four-year €50 billion ($55 billion) aid package for Ukraine.

Moscow has repeatedly warned that deliveries of weapons to Kiev by the US and its allies will not prevent it from achieving the goals of its military operation, but only increase the risk of a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO. According to Russian officials, the provision of arms, intelligence-sharing, and training of Ukrainian troops means that Western nations have already become de facto parties to the conflict.

Washington's reaction to Moscow’s recent massive airstrikes on Ukrainian military targets demonstrates the effectiveness of the operation, Russia's ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, said on Friday.

During the week, 50 “group” strikes and a single “massive” barrage of precision weapons were launched against Ukrainian military targets, hitting all of them, according to a statement by the Russian Defense Ministry on Friday.

Commenting on the Russian strikes, US President Joe Biden said that “the stakes of this fight extend far beyond Ukraine” and accused President Vladimir Putin of threatening “some of our NATO allies.” “The risk rises that the United States gets pulled in directly,” Biden added.

“The American reaction to the strikes of the Russian Aerospace Forces demonstrates the effectiveness of the special military operation,” Antonov said. He noted that Washington itself admits that it is uniting states around itself “[to wage] a hybrid war against Russia.”

“This is confirmed by today’s successful strikes by the Russian Aerospace Forces on military targets of the Kiev regime,” he said.

Antonov stressed that if Washington had “at least a shred of compassion” for the Ukrainian people, “then we can clearly see the solution – immediately stop the hybrid war.” Statements calling for “an even more violent military confrontation” will “lead to serious consequences not only for regional, but also for global security,” he said.

Biden said earlier this month that Putin “won’t stop” if Russia achieves victory in the Ukraine conflict, claiming he might “keep going” and attack a NATO ally.

Putin dismissed these remarks as “complete nonsense,” suggesting that his American counterpart “understands that” but has to stick to the narrative to justify his “mistaken policy” on Russia.

Moscow has repeatedly reiterated that the goals of its military operation are the denazification and demilitarization of Ukraine and its neutral status, stating that it would be preferable to achieve this through political and diplomatic means, but that the West and Kiev reject such a path.

Ukrainians who violate an overnight curfew during New Year’s celebrations could be detained by police and taken to military recruitment offices, a senior security official has warned.

Speaking on national TV on Friday, Anatoly Seredinsky, a deputy head of the National Police’s Prevention Department, said that nationwide security restrictions would not be eased between December 31 and January 1, but rather tightened, noting that some 30,000 officers would be on duty that night.

He explained that public gatherings pose a security risk due to the conflict with Russia. Anyone found celebrating outside while restrictions are in place will be escorted to a local police station so that officers can “find out what happened in the life of the citizen who deliberately decided to violate the curfew,” Seredinsky said.

“Moreover, our recruitment centers are very interested in these people,” he added. He also reminded the audience that people are forbidden to use fireworks.

Kiev announced a general mobilization in February 2022, barring most men aged 18 to 60 from leaving the country. However, the campaign has been marred by corruption and draft dodging.

According to Ukrainian officials, the country’s border guard detained some 8,000 men attempting to leave the country illegally in 2023, with another 3,000 suspected of forging documents exempting them from military service.

Following Ukraine’s disappointing summer counteroffensive, President Vladimir Zelensky recently announced a plan to raise 500,000 more soldiers to replace battlefield losses and allow rotation of frontline troops. In addition, in recent weeks several Ukrainian officials have stated that every citizen should fight Russia in some capacity.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said earlier this month that all Ukrainian men fit for service who left the country since the start of the conflict would receive invitations to report to recruitment centers. Those who fail to comply could face sanctions, he said, without providing specifics.

Back in 2022 high stakes were at play. Everyone wanted to know whether Russia would be able to withstand the tipping point. Could Moscow keep its economy from collapsing under sanctions and would it be able to consolidate both the elites and broader society?

Last year ended with a lack of clear answers to these questions. However, 2023 has brought more certainty. The rupture is over: Russia is living in new conditions of confrontation and is coping with them.

The main outcome of the past twelve months is the transition to a new normal in foreign and domestic policy. By comparison, 2021 was a time of gathering stormclouds. Back then, an imminent turning point was in the air but many wanted to believe it wouldn’t happen. The mood of the thirty years since the end of the Cold War – peace, openness and cooperation – had become too familiar.

In relations with the West, the tide began to turn long before 2021. Cracks started to appear as early as the late 1990s and, since 2014, have become increasingly irreversible. But, as is often the case, the possibility of major change was hard to believe precisely because the inertia of everyday life distracts from signs of tectonic shifts. Of course, in hindsight they are always clearly visible and make sense. But, in the past itself (ie, what was then the present), few people want to believe in what’s coming.

The year 2022 was a year of dynamic chaos, featuring Russia’s transition to a new reality in its political and social order. The trigger for the change was the outbreak of contradictions in relations with the “collective West.” The military operation against Ukraine and the subsequent chain of confrontational events became a concentrated expression of the crisis: with an acceleration of the arms race, NATO expansion, large-scale sanctions, attempts to isolate Russia, military and financial aid to Ukraine, and other factors all playing a part.

So where do we stand now? And what are the parameters of this new reality?

The deliveries include both Soviet-era weapons and ammunition left in stockpiles, and Western-made gear. However, the increase in stocks has so far been limited by financial and industrial capacity. As the conflict drags on, these may be overcome over time.

Ideologically, Russia and the West have become principled rivals. There are no compromise solutions to their contradictions. Each side expects to impose its own conditions on the other.

The West does it by exhausting Russia with sanctions, sending direct aid to its military opponent, using information warfare and evoking its influence with neutral or friendly countries.

Russia does it by inflicting a military defeat on Ukraine and demilitarizing Kiev, as well as by asymmetric retaliation.

The parties do not have the capabilities to destroy each other, but they are counting on victory. The West assumes vulnerabilities in the Russian economy and the theoretical possibility of internal upheavals could lead to a radical change in foreign policy and the country’s defeat. Russia believes that the increasing number of conflicts in which the US, and the West as a whole, will be forced to become involved in will put too much of a strain on their resources, and it’s also counting on disagreements within the Western bloc itself.

The second is the military situation in Ukraine. 2023 began with much-hyped expectations fromKiev’s planned counteroffensive. It was fueled by informational and political statements by Western leaders and its success was supposed to justify, among other things, large military and financial injections by Ukraine’s Western partners.

Right now, Western diplomats have rational reasons for exploring the ground for ceasefire talks, even if their government’s positions have not officially changed. Moscow, on the other hand, has no good reason to agree to a halt in the fighting. A pause will allow Ukraine to rearm, increase the capacity of its military-industrial complex and resume the conflict at a moment favorable to Kiev. Obviously, Russia believes that only a painful and large-scale defeat of Ukraine can lead to the consideration of Russian demands and interests. Moreover, such a defeat can be either a crushing blow or from attrition. The second option appears to be the fundamental one.

The third is sanctions against Russia. The year 2022 was marked by a “sanctions tsunami,” when a wide range of restrictive measures were imposed in a very short period of time. These included the blocking of sovereign assets and financial sanctions against systemically important companies, export controls, import bans on oil, coal, steel, gold and other goods, transport and other restrictions. In 2023, all these measures were extended. They caused damage, but they didn’t crush the economy.

The shock effect hung in the air in 2022 and was replaced by a plateau in 2023. The US, the EU and other sanctions initiators have tried to combat evasion of the restrictions. Secondary sanctions are being introduced and criminal cases are being opened against alleged violators, including Russian citizens. But even these measures do not radically increase the campaign’s effects. Also, Moscow shows no interest in raising the issue of sanctions relief in response to political concessions.

Changes are also taking place in Russian society. 2022 was characterized by shock after the start of the Ukrainian conflict. This was inevitable, given the radical nature of the foreign-policy changes. In 2023, Russian society seems to have adapted. Despite the conduct of large-scale military operations, the country has generally maintained a stable and fairly predictable way of life. Some alarming effects, such as higher inflation, labor shortages and the decline of a number of industries are combined with record low unemployment, the rapid development of new market niches following the withdrawal of foreign companies, and an industrial revival based on import substitution and military contracts.

The internal situation remains stable, an important psychological factor for society. Meanwhile, the attempted military mutiny in June and its failure demonstrated the stability of the political system. The adaptation of society to new conditions is also part of the new normal.

How long will it last? What new transitions await us in the future? How exactly will Russia manage them? All these questions remain unanswered.

For now, it is clear that the upheaval of 2022 has been offset by the stabilization of 2023.

This article was first published by Valdai Discussion Club, translated and edited by the RT team.

Ukraine’s ambitious plan to defeat Russia has ended in a “complete fiasco,” the envoy to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, told the Security Council on Friday.

An urgent meeting in the UN headquarters in New York was requested by Kiev after Russia carried out large-scale airstrikes and drone attacks in the neighboring country. In his speech, Nebenzia did not mince words, telling Kiev and its supporters that no amount of Western aid can help Ukraine. 

“Ukraine does not and will not have resources to achieve a breakthrough or preserve the current situation on the line of contact [between the armies],” Nebenzia said. 

“The military plans of the regime in Kiev have ended in a complete fiasco – that is why you should anticipate bad news in the nearest future for yourself and your Ukrainian proxies.” 

The Russian envoy stated that additional Western aid would “only prolong the agony” of the Ukrainian government. “A military victory over Russia is a completely unattainable goal,” he said. 

“The time is running out for the regime in Kiev. Its future is, in fact, under serious threat,” the Russian diplomat warned. “At the same time, peaceful Ukrainians, the Ukrainian language, and Ukrainian culture are under no threat, no matter how hard the West is trying to prove the opposite.”  

Nebenzia made the comments months after Ukraine’s much-hyped summer counteroffensive failed to gain any significant ground. The troops suffered heavy casualties and lost much of their valuable Western-supplied tanks and other equipment. 

In an interview in November with The Economist, Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top general, described the situation on the battlefield as a stalemate. President Vladimir Zelensky has publicly contested his assessment, however.

Ukrainian officials frequently complain about their Western backers’ ability and resolve to continue supplying Kiev with weapons. Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba lamented “the dreadful state of the defense industry” in the EU, after the bloc failed to reach its yearly target for delivering ammunition to Ukraine. 

Ukraine’s deployment of Western-provided air defense systems to residential areas is leading to civilian casualties when they malfunction, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, told the Security Council on Friday.

Officials in Kiev have accused Moscow of killing 30 civilians and injuring at least 160 more during an 18-hour barrage of drones and missiles across the country earlier in the day. 

“There is only one solution – Russia must be deprived of its ability to produce weapons, to finance its military aggression and to threaten the world,” Ukrainian envoy Sergey Kislitsa said. He went on to accuse Russia of “rocket terrorism” against civilians. 

Kislitsa was backed by the British representative, who said that the death toll would have been greater if not for the work of the Ukrainian air defenses.

The Russian envoy said there are numerous videos available online that show “how Russian missiles and drones are striking military sites and depots, causing distinctive detonation, while Ukrainian anti-raid missiles are missing their targets or veering off course and falling on residential buildings and [other] civilian sites.” 

Nebenzia argued that fragments of projectiles are causing damage in civilian areas “only because [Ukrainian] air defense systems are posted there.” 

During the meeting, which was broadcast live, Nebenzia held up a sheet of paper with a QR code linking to a video he said was proof of his claims. 

According to the transcript from the website of Russia’s mission to the UN, the link leads to a video that shows a burning projectile crashing into a high-rise residential building.

Ukraine described Friday’s airstrikes as the biggest since the conflict escalated in February 2022, with damage reported in Kiev, as well as the regions of Kharkov, Lviv, Sumy, and Odessa, among others. The Ukrainian military claimed to have shot down most of the incoming missiles and drones.

The Russian Defense Ministry acknowledged the strikes, describing their intended targets as “defense industry sites, military airfield infrastructure, and depots for the storage of artillery munitions, naval drones, arms, and fuel for military vehicles,” as well as Ukrainian troop positions.

The government of Belarus has decided to pay for a new potato storage facility from the space exploration fund, according to a decree made public on Thursday.

The National Academy of Sciences in Minsk has been notified that approximately $670,000 in funds for a planetary survey network has been reassigned to the agricultural program, according to the decree. 

The remote surveying project was supposed to be spearheaded by the state enterprise Geoinformation Systems, and involves collaboration with Russia, Kazakhstan, India, Venezuela, Vietnam, and other countries to create a network of satellites. It was the flagship space project for the former Soviet republic.

Minsk has apparently decided to prioritize expanding the storage at the Tolochin cannery in the east of Belarus, which produces wine, starch, and pre-cut French fries, among other things. The new facility will be built under the 2021-25 state program for agricultural development, and will cost an estimated $720,000. It is supposed to have the capacity to store 20,000 tons of potatoes.

Belarus produces over 5 million tons of potatoes a year, more than any other crop.

Kiev has launched rockets and drones at the Russian regions of Bryansk and Belgorod, the Defense Ministry in Moscow and local officials reported in the early hours of Saturday. Both of the regions share a border with Ukraine.

A projectile hit a house in the city of Belgorod, killing one person and injuring four, including a ten-year-old child, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. He added that the “massive barrage” damaged ten houses and two vehicles.

According to Gladkov, the border town of Shebekino was also shelled on Friday evening, resulting in damage to several houses.

The MOD released a short statement, saying that 13 “projectiles” were destroyed over Belgorod Region.

Bryansk Governor Aleksandr Bogomaz wrote on Telegram that the region was targeted by kamikaze drones, several of which have been shot down by air defenses.

The MOD later released a separate statement, saying 32 drones had been intercepted and destroyed overnight in Bryansk, Kursk, Oryol, and Moscow Regions.

The attacks came after the Russian Defense Ministry confirmed that large-scale airstrikes were conducted against military targets in Ukraine. Officials in Kiev described Friday’s raid as the largest since Moscow launched its military operation in February 2022. According to Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klimenko, 30 people were killed and more than 160 were wounded.

Ukrainian border guards have detained almost 8,000 men who tried to sneak out of the country over the course of the year, as well as 3,000 more who had fake documents purportedly exempting them from military duty, a spokesman said on Friday.

Speaking to journalists in Kiev, Andrey Demchenko of the State Border Service tallied up the 2023 arrests of draft-dodgers, as Ukraine continued to struggle with mobilizing replacements for reportedly huge battlefield losses.

“A total of 7,700 violators who tried to illegally cross the border ‘through the woods’, meaning outside of designated crossings, were detained in the first eleven months of this year,” he said.

Most of those attempts were on the borders with Romania and Moldova, while far fewer draft-dodgers attempted to cross into Poland.

About 3,000 more Ukrainians attempted to leave through the checkpoints by presenting forged documents – such as medical exemptions and disability certificates – declaring them unfit for military service, Demchenko noted.

He would not comment on whether the illegal crossings were related to mobilization for the armed forces, however, noting that the only correlation he could speak about was the weather.

“The increase in attempts was recorded when the weather conditions were favorable,” Demchenko told reporters. “Because when it gets cold and it snows, the terrain becomes impassable, and there are fewer people willing to cross the border.”

The Border Service has discovered more than 220 groups that allegedly organized the escape of draft-dodgers from Ukraine, Demchenko claimed, over which over 1,400 people were charged with criminal offenses.

Although the Ukrainian government has not officially disclosed its casualties in the conflict with Russia, President Vladimir Zelensky recently announced a plan to mobilize 500,000 additional troops to make up the battlefield losses. Kiev has also demanded EU countries send back men of military age who have fled, while proposing to expand the draft age to men under 25 as well as women.

Death in battle is preferable to in a car crash, Alla Martinyuk, an aide to the supreme commander of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, General Valery Zaluzhny, said in an interview on Friday.

Martinyuk, 37, is a former theater and TV actress who currently serves as an “external adviser” to Zaluzhny. In a broadcast shared on social media by the Kiev-based news agency UNIAN, she argued against the reaction of most Ukrainians to getting mobilized into the military.

“I now see when someone gets a summons, the mothers immediately write [that] they are already hysterical and almost immediately say goodbye to the lives of their sons,” Martinyuk said on air.  “But I will tell you, this is not right. All this hysteria is not needed. You need to believe that your son is a hero and the flower of the nation.” 

“We will all die anyway. Leaving this life with dignity is much better than walking down the street and [having] a brick fall on you or a car run you over,” she added.

Zaluzhny has distanced himself from Martinyuk’s words, saying on social media that “unpaid aides were not authorized to make public comments” on his behalf. He added he did not have any “unpaid aides and consultants” since Thursday.

Zelensky and Zaluzhny have tried to pass the blame for this situation onto each other as the Ukrainian parliament debated lowering the draft age to 25 and allowing the mobilization of women into combat roles. Some regional governors have proposed even more drastic measures.

Former PM Yulia Tymoshenko, who now leads a small opposition party in the Verkhovna Rada, has argued that Zelensky’s mobilization proposal was both ineffective and unconstitutional. She also said Ukraine would be better off deploying police and trained security personnel to the front lines instead.