Ukraine-Russia war latest: US plans avalanche of Kyiv military aid as Putin’s forces to use ‘any means’ to win

Russian forces suffered about 53 victims per square kilometer as they advanced in Ukraine in the fall of 2024, according to a report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

From September to November 2024, Russian soldiers lost about 125,800 people as they captured about 2,356 square kilometers of territory, including the Kursk region, the report said.

President Volodymyr Zelensky could meet with the newly elected US President Donald Trump during his visit to Paris Notre-Dame Cathedral reopenshe reported AFP citing an unnamed senior Ukrainian official.

“The President of Ukraine will attend the celebrations on the occasion of the restoration of Notre-Dame Cathedral. He will meet with President (Emmanuel) Macron. Other meetings are possible, including with President-elect Donald Trump, who will also attend the event,” the source said. AFP.

Around 50 heads of state and government are expected to attend the reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral on Saturday, five years after the iconic cathedral badly damaged by fire.

Russian attacks on the southeastern Ukrainian cities of Zaporozhye and Kryvyi Rih have killed at least 12 and wounded more than 40, according to regional officials.

The regional governor said 10 people were killed in an attack on a car repair shop in Zaporizhia. Reuters reported that a local official said 24 were injured, including two children.

President Vladimir Zelenski’s hometown, Krivi Rih, experienced a rocket attack on the administration building that killed two people and injured at least 19, including a child.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he is confident he will be able to decide on a joint strategy for Ukraine with US President-elect Donald Trump after speaking with him on the phone, Scholz told the Funke newspaper group, reports Reuters.

“I am convinced that we can develop a common strategy for Ukraine. My guiding principle is that nothing can be decided without giving the Ukrainian people a say,” he told the paper, adding that he had spoken with the future US president “in detail” and that his team had been in direct exchange with Trump’s security advisers.

On Monday, Scholz announced new military aid to Ukraine during a visit to Kievand said he sent a message to Vladimir Putin saying Germany would stand by Ukraine.

The White House has devised a strategy for a last-minute boost Ukrainian war efforts through significant military aid and sweeping new sanctions against Russia, according to a security briefing shared with the Guardian.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, during a meeting with Ukrainian President Andriy Yermak’s chief of staff on Thursday, pledged to deliver hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, thousands of rockets and hundreds of armored vehicles by mid-January.

The United States also plans to train Ukrainian troops outside the country and finalize $20 billion in loans backed by frozen Russian assets, the briefing said.

The strategy includes the final pressure on sanctions against Russia before The newly elected US President Donald Trump rents the White House. The move is intended to weaken Russia’s war effort and increase Ukraine’s leverage in future negotiations.

Russia’s capacity to outmatch a Ukrainian artillery barrage has been reduced to just 1.5 Russian rounds for every Ukrainian shell fired, Western officials said.

Previously, Russia was able to launch at least five times as many rounds as Ukraine could, with ratios sometimes higher.

the anonymous Western officials said narrowing the gap it was down to “a wide range of factors,” including restrictions on Russian production lines, disruptions in rail arms shipments, Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian and North Korean ammunition stockpiles inside Russia, and Strengthening supplies from the West Ukrainian armory.

But a large number of Russian glide bombs could offset the “devastating effect” of a reduced artillery front, Western officials have warned.

The EU’s failed package of latest sanctions against Russia included sanctions on tankers carrying Russian oil, as well as an extension of imports to the Czech Republic Russian oil-based products they come mainly through Slovakia, diplomats say.

Two member states blocked the passage due to disagreements over extending the deadline for disinvestment of European companies from Russia, diplomats said. EU members will return to the package later.

While the Czechs said they were not seeking an extension to allow imports of Russian oil-based fuels, Slovakia sought to keep the arrangement, which expired on Thursday, in place.

But the Czech Republic has upgraded a pipeline from Italy to Germany to transport more oil that way and completely wean itself off Russian crude by the second half of 2025.

President Vladimir Putin said Russia could deploy its new Oreshnik medium-range hypersonic missile on the territory of its ally Belarus in the second half of next year.

Putin was responding to a request from Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko at a summit in Minsk, where the two leaders signed a pact on mutual defense.

“Since today we signed an agreement on security guarantees using all available forces and means, I consider it feasible to deploy such systems as Oreshnik on the territory of the Republic of Belarus,” Putin said on Friday.

Russia first fired the Oreshnik over the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Nov. 21, which Putin said was in response to Ukraine’s first use American ATACMs ballistic missiles and British Storm Shadows to attack Russian territory with the permission of the West.

A Russian missile attack in Ukraine’s Kryvyi Rih damaged an administrative building, killing two people and injuring at least 13 others, the regional governor said.

Among the wounded is a six-year-old child who was hospitalized, the governor said in a telegram.

One of the injured died in the hospital, the governor added.

The rescuers continued the search on the spot because one person is missing.

Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelenskyi, is often targeted by Russia.

It comes as a separate attack in Russia’s Zaporizhzhia region killed at least seven people. Tolls may increase.

Romania’s highest court overturned the result of the first round of the country’s presidential election after the surprise victory of a far-right pro-Russian candidate led to accusations of Russian meddling.

The second round, which was supposed to be on Sunday, should be contested leader Calin Georgescu against the centrist pro-European Union leader Elena Lasconi.

A victory for Georgescu, who wants to end Romania’s support for Ukraine against a Russian invasion, would reverse the pro-Western policy of the EU and NATO member states.

The president of neighboring Moldova, Maia Sandu, who herself won re-election in October despite what her pro-Western camp said was heavy on Russian interference, met Ms Lasconi in Bucharest late on Thursday and endorsed her bid for Romania’s presidency.

“In Moldova, we know well the world promised by those who despise the West,” Sandu said.

Romania was the strongest supporter of its small neighbor efforts to join the EU and the votes of Moldovans with dual Romanian citizenship are weighted in elections for Moldovans.