You can watch Putin’s press conference here:
Putin says Russia is ready for a missile 'duel' with the US
We have some more comments made by Putin at the press conference. According to Reuters, he suggested a missile “duel” with the US that would show how Russia’s new Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile could defeat any American missile defence system. Putin has used the missile, which has nuclear capabilities, as a way of raising the stakes and threatening the west.
Addressing western scepticism about the Oreshnik, the Russian president suggested that both sides select a designated target to be protected by US missiles. “We’re ready for such an experiment,” Putin was quoted as saying.
Russia first fired the Oreshnik missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on 21 November, in what Putin cast as a response to Ukraine’s first use of US Atacms ballistic missiles and British Storm Shadows to strike Russian territory with Western permission. US and UK sources indicated at the time that they believed the missile fired on Dnipro was an experimental nuclear-capable, intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), which has a theoretical range of below 3,420 miles (5,500km). That is enough to reach Europe from where it was fired in south-western Russia, but not the US.
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Main takeaways from Putin's annual news conference
Vladimir Putin is speaking at an annual end-of-year press conference in Moscow. Here are some of the notable remarks the Russian president, who has held power for nearly a quarter-century, made during the highly choreographed event:
Putin said he could not say when his army would regain full control of the western Kursk region, where Ukraine launched a surprise offensive in August. “We will absolutely kick them out. Absolutely. It can’t be any other way. But the question of a specific date, I’m sorry, I cannot say right now,” he said.
Putin said that Russian forces were moving towards achieving their primary goals in the war, with Russian forces advancing along the front.
Putin said the economy may grow by 4% this year but inflation was a worrying signal. “With the economy as a whole, the situation in Russia is stable, despite external threats,” he said, adding: “Inflation is a worrying signal.” “The thing that is unpleasant and bad is the rise in prices. But I hope that if macroeconomic indicators are maintained, we will be able to cope with it,” Putin said.
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Europe should focus its efforts on supporting Ukraine and not engage in premature calls for peace negotiations, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has said. “We have to talk how we can support Ukraine more. Any push for negotiations too soon will actually be a bad deal for Ukraine,” Kallas said before a summit of EU leaders in Brussels.
Her comments are similar in tone to those made by Lithuania’s president, Gitanas Nauseda. Also speaking before the summit of EU leaders in Brussels, Nauseda said it is too early to talk about possible peace negotiations in Ukraine as Russia shows no interest in real peace at the moment. “Russia is showing no willingness to negotiate and I think in this situation we have to do everything what is in our hands to support Ukraine and to make Ukraine strong and only then to proceed and to go to the negotiations table,” he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, facing manpower shortages and growing territorial losses, has indicated that he may be open to negotiations with Russia, though he has said this has to be from a position of strength, which means security guarantees from the west and more weapons.
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Russia says it has taken control of two villages in Ukraine
Russian forces have taken control of the villages of Novyi Komar and Zelenivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the Interfax news agency is reporting, citing the Russian defence ministry. We have not been able to independently verify this information yet.
In total, Russia, which continues to make incremental battlefield gains, has captured and retaken about 2,350 sq km of territory (907 sq miles) in eastern Ukraine and in Russia’s Kursk region, where Kyiv launched a surprise incursion over the summer, according to the BBC.
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Zelenskyy says it is 'very difficult to support Ukraine without US help'
Jennifer Rankin is the Guardian’s Brussels correspondent
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said “it is very difficult to support Ukraine without American help”, casting doubt on Europe’s ability to fill the gap if Donald Trump withdraws US military support.
Ukraine’s president also said there needed to be “very much unity between the United States and the EU and countries of Europe” to achieve peace.
He was speaking to journalists as he arrived at a summit in Brussels for talks with European leaders.
Officially, that meeting is likely to focus on issues such as Ukraine’s urgent needs to protect its energy network and increase weapons production, rather than more sensitive questions of long-term security guarantees.
That issue came up on Wednesday night, according to Zelenskyy, when he held talks with a smaller group of European leaders including France’s Emmanuel Macron, Germany’s Olaf Scholz, the Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte, and the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy.
Zelenskyy was led into the meeting by the European Council president António Costa, who said: “We want to welcome you some day here as a member of the European Union and we will work with you for this and to win a comprehensive, just and lasting peace.”
Ukraine has claimed responsibility for striking the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in Russia’s Rostov region overnight. The country’s military said that the attack caused a fire at the refinery which was used to supply Russian armed forces.
The Russian governor of the Rostov region, Yuri Slyusar, had earlier reported a fire at the site after a “massive attack by the enemy, who used more than three dozen drones and three missiles.”
The fire at the refinery - which is 10 kilometres (six miles) from the international border with Ukraine, but 200 kilometres from the nearest Ukrainian positions (125 miles) - lasted for more than six hours, according to posts on his Telegram channel.
Drones have attacked another oil depot in Russia, this time in Novoshakhtinsk, Rostov region. A massive fire has broken out. pic.twitter.com/X8axXqxe7R
— KyivPost (@KyivPost) December 19, 2024
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British troops could be sent to Ukraine to help train the country’s soldiers - defence secretary suggests
British troops may be sent to Ukraine to train up soldiers in its war against Russia, the UK’s defence secretary has suggested.
John Healey, who has been in Kyiv to discuss plans to provide more support to Ukraine, said Britain needs to “make the training a better fit for what the Ukrainians need”. Defence sources have told the BBC that he has not ruled out sending UK troops to Ukraine to help train. But no official decision on this has been announced.
Healey told The Times: “We [need to] make it easier for the Ukrainians to access and we [need to] work with the Ukrainians to help them motivate and mobilise more recruits.”
Asked if this meant extending training of Ukrainian recruits inside Britain to Ukraine itself, he said: “We will look wherever we can to respond to what the Ukrainians want. They are the ones fighting.”
Britain is currently training Ukrainian soldiers in the UK. But, along with other Nato members, Britain has not sent any ground troops to help Ukraine on the frontlines for fear of escalating the conflict and being pulled directly into it. The UK has, however, been providing both lethal and non-lethal weaponry, including tanks, air defence systems and long-range precision strike missiles.
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Zelenskyy says he discussed French troop idea with Macron
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had held a new discussion with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, on the latter’s proposal to deploy troops in Ukraine as a means to help achieve a stable peace.
“We share a common vision: reliable guarantees are essential for a peace that can truly be achieved,” said Ukraine’s president, who was in Brussels on Wednesday for meetings with Nato’s chief and European leaders.
“We continued working on President Macron’s initiative regarding the presence of forces in Ukraine that could contribute to stabilising the path to peace.”
Macron’s office said France was making reinforced support for Ukraine its “absolute priority” and would continue giving Ukraine “the means to defend itself and to make Russia’s war of aggression fail”.
The French president would maintain a “tight dialogue with Ukraine and its international partners to work for a return to a fair and lasting peace”. Zelenskyy is also due to take part in an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday.
In February, Macron said he refused to rule out sending ground troops to Ukraine, but said no consensus existed on the step. Allies – including the US and European countries such as Germany and Sweden - were quick to rule out sending combat troops to Ukraine.
In other developments:
At least 100 North Koreans deployed to support Russia’s war effort in Ukraine have been killed since entering combat in December, South Korean lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun told reporters on Thursday. Pyongyang has sent thousands of troops to reinforce the Russian military, including to the Kursk border region, where Ukrainian forces seized territory earlier this year. “In December, they [North Korean troops] engaged in actual combat, during which at least 100 fatalities occurred,” Lee said, speaking after a briefing by South Korea’s spy agency. “The National Intelligence Service also reported that the number of injured is expected to reach nearly 1,000.” Despite those losses, the agency also said it had detected signs North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was preparing to train a new special operations force to ship westward.
Ukraine struck Russian territory with at least 13 missiles and 84 drones, triggering a fire at the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in the southern Rostov region that burned for hours, Russian officials said on Thursday. Russian air defences shot down 84 drones over Russian regions, including 36 over Rostov region, according to the defence ministry.
A Russian missile attack damaged residential buildings and infrastructure in Ukraine’s Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions, the Ukrainian military said this morning. There were no immediate reports of causalities. Russia used two Iskander-M ballistic missiles and a Kh-59/69 guided missile in its attack, the air force said. The attack damaged infrastructure, two apartment buildings, a hospital, and a school in Dnipropetrovsk region, its governor Serhiy Lysak said. A missile attack on the northeastern Sumy region damaged nine private residences, regional authorities said.
Britain has unveiled £225m (US$286m) in new military aid to Ukraine for next year including drones, boats and air defence systems.
The World Bank has approved $2.05bn in funding for Ukraine that includes the first grant from a $20bn US loan fund for Kyiv that is backed by income from frozen Russian sovereign assets.
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