Russia-Ukraine War: List of key events, day 1,036 | Russia-Ukraine war News

Here are the key developments on the 1,036th day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Here is the situation on Thursday, December 26:

Fighting:

• Russian and Ukrainian forces have clashed again in battles surrounding the key city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine’s General Staff said 35 Russian attacks were reported across the city on Wednesday. “Three Russian soldiers are concentrated here against us,” Ukrainian regional commander Viktor Trehubov was quoted as saying.
• Russia launched a massive Christmas Day attack on Ukraine with cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as drones.
• The Russian attack wounded at least six people in the northeastern city of Kharkiv and killed one in Dnipropetrovsk region, local governors said.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the “inhumane” attack by Russia, which included more than 170 missiles and drones, some of which knocked out power in several regions of the country.
• The President of the United States Joe Biden said that “this horrific attack was designed to cut off Ukrainians from access to heat and electricity in the winter and to jeopardize the security of its grid”.
• The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer, condemned the Russian strikes on the electricity grid in Ukraine, saying “there is no rest even on Christmas”.
• Meanwhile, Russia said that five people were killed by Ukrainian missile strikes and a plane that crashed on the border of Kursk and North Ossetia in the Caucasus.
• The Russian Foreign Ministry has confirmed that Australia has contacted Moscow about the abduction by Russian forces of an Australian citizen fighting with Ukrainian forces and that it is looking into the matter.

Military assistance:

• Biden said he asked the US Department of Defense to continue arms shipments to Ukraine, after criticizing Russia’s Christmas Day attack on Ukraine.

Diplomacy:

• Pope Francis called for “silence of arms” around the world in his Christmas address, calling for peace in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan as he condemned the “horrendous” humanitarian situation in Gaza.
• Russian opposition politician Ilya Yashin, who was released in a prisoner swap by Moscow in August, has been placed on Russia’s “wanted” list, according to an Interior Ministry report seen by AFP news agency. Yashin, 41, was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison at the end of 2022 for condemning the “killing of civilians” in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.

Regional security:

• The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused NATO of trying to make Moldova a supply hub for the Ukrainian military and seeking to bring the Western alliance’s military infrastructure closer to Russia.
• Arto Pahkin, head of Finland’s electricity grid operations, told public broadcaster Yle that “the possibility of sabotage cannot be ruled out” after the break in the power cable connecting Finland and Estonia. It is the latest in a series of incidents involving telephone lines and power lines in the Baltic Sea.
• A “terrorist act” sank a Russian cargo ship that ran aground in international waters in the Mediterranean this week, the Russian state-owned company said. The Oboronlogistika company said it “thinks that a targeted attack was carried out on December 23, 2024, against Ursa Major”, without specifying who might have carried out this action or why.
• The passenger plane of Azerbaijan Airlines that crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people, was taking off from the Russian territory that Moscow recently protected from the attacks of the Ukrainian planes. Authorities in two Russian regions bordering Chechnya, Ingushetia and North Ossetia, reported drone strikes on Wednesday morning.