Here is the situation on Monday, December 16:
Fighting
- Russia’s army said it had captured the village of Yelyzavetivka in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, where its troops are steadily advancing. The village is around 10km (six miles) south of Kurakhove, a resource-rich town Russian troops are also trying to seize.
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Earlier on Monday, Russia announced it captured the village of Shevchenko also in Donetsk, according to TASS state news agency, quoting Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-installed head of the region.
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Russia’s Defence Ministry also claimed its forces had taken control of the villages of Veselyi Hai and Pushkino in the same region. The ministry further said Russian forces had hit and destroyed four Patriot air defence systems.
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Russia has launched 49 drones to attack Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian military said, adding that its air force shot down 27 of the drones and lost track of 19 others.
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Ukraine’s military intelligence said its troops killed or wounded at least 30 North Korean soldiers who had been deployed by Russia near the villages of Plekhovo, Vorozhba, and Martynovka in the Kursk region, where Ukraine has seized territory.
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Ukraine’s SBU security service said it had launched an operation to destroy 40 railcars carrying fuel to Russian troops in an area of the Zaporizhzhia region, which is now about 70 percent under Russian control.
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A Ukrainian drone has struck a campus belonging to Russia’s National Guard on Sunday in the Russian region of Chechnya, as Kyiv continues to strike back against Moscow. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov confirmed the hit on a site belonging to the Akhmat Grozny riot police battalion.
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Ukraine has claimed there are no more Russian vessels patrolling the Black Sea, after Moscow’s naval force in the area has been degraded by Kyiv, said Al Jazeera’s Alex Gatopoulous, who is reporting from Kyiv.
Politics and diplomacy
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President Vladimir Putin said Russia’s army seized 189 Ukrainian settlements this year and called 2024 a “landmark year in the achievement of the goals of the special military operation”. He was speaking at a meeting of defence officials in Moscow.
- At the same meeting on Monday, Defence Minister Andrei Belousov said Russian troops have pushed Ukrainian forces out of almost 4,500 sq km (1,737 sq miles) of territory this year and are advancing 30 sq km (11.5 sq miles) per day. Some 427,000 servicemen signed contracts with the army in 2024, he said.
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Moscow’s foreign intelligence chief Sergey Naryshkin said he has not been in contact with the CIA over Kyiv’s strikes with Western long-range weapons into Russia and Moscow’s use of its new missile in response, Russia’s RIA agency reported.
- European Union foreign ministers signed off on the bloc’s 15th round of sanctions since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. The new measures aim to curb the circumvention of already existing EU sanctions and to weaken the Russia’s defence industry.
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Norway said it will provide 2.7 billion kroner ($242.38 million) to strengthen the Ukrainian navy and help it deter Russian naval forces in the Black Sea. “It is essential to protect the Ukrainian population and Ukrainian infrastructure from attacks by Russia’s Black Sea Fleet,” Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said in a statement. “It is also important to protect exports by sea of grain and other products, which generate crucial revenues for Ukraine.”
