The US has unveiled almost $6bn in military and budget aid for Ukraine, as the Biden administration works quickly to spend all the money it has available to help Kyiv fight off Russia before president-elect Donald Trump takes office next month. “I’ve directed my administration to continue surging as much assistance to Ukraine as quickly as possible,” Biden said in a statement. “At my direction, the United States will continue to work relentlessly to strengthen Ukraine’s position in this war over the remainder of my time in office.” The package includes nearly $2.5bn more in weapons, as well as $3.4bn in economic assistance to help pay for critical government services, including salaries for civilian government and school employees, healthcare workers and first responders.
Ukrainian forces have staged a new attack on the town of Lgov in southern Russia’s Kursk region, badly damaging a two-storey apartment building, the region’s acting governor said on Monday, a week after four people were killed in another strike. Alexander Khinshtein, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said one person was injured in the latest attack in the region, where Ukrainian forces have seized a chunk of territory after launching an incursion in August. “Their purpose is to frighten people, sow confusion, panic and chaos,” Khinshtein said of the Ukrainian attack. “And to deny children the chance to enjoy the forthcoming New Year.”
Russia and Ukraine have carried out a major prisoner exchange, with at least 150 people from each side returning home before New Year’s Eve, in a swap partly brokered by the United Arab Emirates. “The return of our people from Russian captivity is always very good news for each of us,” the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said in a message posted on Telegram on Monday. “My son is 5 years old now, the last time I saw him he was 2 years old,” said Serhii, who was captured by Russian forces at the Azovstal steel mill in the southern port Mariupol, which withstood a siege for nearly three months in 2022.
Ukraine is pledging support for the new authorities in Syria, which was once a key Russian ally in the Mideast. Ukraine’s foreign minister met with Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus on Monday, days after Kyiv announced the delivery of a large shipment of wheat flour to the country after the ouster of Bashar al-Assad, who has been granted asylum in Moscow. Foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said he hopes “that a new Syria would become a country that respects international law”. “The Russian and Assad regimes supported each other because their foundation is violence and torture,” he added.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has vowed to step up bilateral relations with Russia in a letter to President Vladimir Putin on Monday, state media KCNA reported on Tuesday. In the message, Kim sent New Year greetings to Putin and all Russians, including their troops and “wished that the New Year 2025 would be recorded as the first year of victory in the 21st century when the Russian army and people would defeat neo-nazism and achieve a great victory,” KCNA said. Kim and Putin signed a mutual defence treaty at a summit in June, which calls for each side to come to the other’s aid in the event of an armed attack, and Pyongyang has since dispatched tens of thousands of troops to Russia to support its war effort, according to Ukraine, the US and South Korea.
