Russia Ukraine war latest: Trump calls for immediate ceasefire as Zelensky reveals frontline casualties

Ousted Syrian leader Bashar Assad has fled to Moscow and been granted asylum by his longtime ally, Russian media reported yesterday, hours after a stunning rebel uprising seized control of Damascus and ended his family’s 50-year iron rule.

The arrival of Assad and his family in Moscow was reported by the Russian agencies Tass and RIA, citing an unidentified source in the Kremlin. A spokesman there did not immediately respond to questions. RIA also said that the Syrian rebels guaranteed the security of Russian military bases and diplomatic missions in Syria.

Earlier, Russia said that Assad had left Syria after negotiations with rebel groups and that he had given instructions for a peaceful transfer of power.

Thousands of Syrians poured into the streets to the sound of celebratory gunfire and waving the revolutionary flag in scenes reminiscent of the early days of the Arab Spring uprisings, before a brutal crackdown and growing rebellion plunged the country into a nearly 14-year civil war.

The rapidly unfolding events raised questions about the future of the country and the wider region.

Hopes for victory, a quick end to the war and prayers for the survival of their loved ones or return from Russian captivity are among the wishes strewn across the letters sent by Ukrainian children living in frontline areas to the volunteer group.

While the volunteers, named reindeer after the magical beasts that pull Santa’s sleigh, can’t fulfill many of these dreams, they strive to fulfill the simpler ones, such as requests for power banks to help families cope with outages, bicycles, books and even pets.

Every winter, volunteers travel to hard-hit cities to deliver gifts and ensure that, despite the war, Ukrainian children can celebrate the holidays like their peers around the world.

This year, the group received 2,310 letters, according to project manager Inna Achkasova of the NGO Ukrainian Frontiers, which launched the St. Nicholas Reindeer initiative in 2015.

The children’s wishes are published on the project’s website. Donors, affectionately known as magicians, then choose a letter and buy the requested gift to make that child’s dreams come true. The reindeer then deliver those gifts.

Scientists have warned of an alarming rise in “extremely pathogenic” multidrug-resistant bacteria in the war-torn Ukraine.

They narrowed down to bacterial samples Klebsiella pneumoniae to assess whether it has the ability to cause disease in a wider context.

Klebsiella causes a range of diseases such as pneumonia and urinary tract, skin and wound infections, and is responsible for about a fifth of all deaths attributed to drug resistance. superbugs.

Ukrainian naval drones have struck and destroyed monitoring systems at Russian-controlled gas platforms in Crimea, Vice Admiral Oleksiy Neizhpapa said.

“The hunt for the enemy in the Black Sea continues. The occupiers will not stay on our territory – we will have them everywhere,” Neizhpapa said in a Facebook post on Saturday.

“Naval (drones) carried out precision strikes on Russian targets.”

In recent weeks, there have been intensified attacks on Russian property in Crimea. The strikes were aimed at radar stations, and in November, explosions were also recorded in Sevastopol and near the Belbek air base.

Russian forces have taken control of the settlement of Blahodatne in eastern Ukraine, the Russian state news agency RIA reported, citing the defense ministry. Ukrainian military officials have not confirmed the territorial seizure.

Experts who followed the war did not confirm the Russian advance on the battlefield. “On December 8, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) claimed that Russian forces had captured Blahodatne (south of Velika Novosilka), but ISW has not seen confirmation of this claim,” the Institute for War Studies said.

Russian forces control just under 20 percent of Ukrainian territory and have advanced through the Donetsk region in the past two months at their fastest pace since March 2022, according to open-source data.

Denmark has delivered a second batch of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky said over the weekend as he traveled to Paris to meet with senior politicians and dignitaries.

In a Telegram message, Zelensky praised Denmark and complained about the lack of commitment from other allies.

“The first series of planes provided by the Danes are already shooting down Russian missiles: they are saving our people and our infrastructure. Now our air shield has been strengthened even more,” he said. “If all partners were so determined, we would be able to make Russian terror impossible.”

The fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad highlights Russia’s weakness and inability to fight on two fronts, Ukraine’s foreign ministry said.

Russia bolstered the Assad government by carrying out airstrikes against opposition targets starting in 2015 and operating from two bases inside Syria.

But Moscow’s 33-month invasion of Ukraine has drained significant military resources.

“Events in Syria show the weakness of Putin’s regime, which is incapable of fighting on two fronts and abandons its closest allies for the sake of continued aggression against Ukraine,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

Russia previously said al-Assad had stepped down and left his country after ordering a peaceful transfer of power, but did not say where he was now or whether Russian troops planned to remain in Syria.

The HUR Intelligence Directorate, posting on the Telegram app, said Russian forces in Syria “withdrew their warships from the naval base in Tartous that Assad allowed Moscow to use as payment for his security.”

Donald Trump urged Russian leader Vladimir Putin to act to achieve an immediate ceasefire with Ukraine, describing it as part of his active efforts as president-elect to end the war despite being weeks away from taking office.

“Zelensky and Ukraine want to come to an agreement and stop the madness,” Trump wrote on social media, referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

In a televised interview that aired yesterday, Trump also said he would be open to cutting military aid to Ukraine and withdrawing the United States from NATO. Those are two threats that have alarmed Ukraine, NATO allies and many in the US national security community.

Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” if he was actively working to end the nearly three-year war in Ukraine, Trump said, “I am.”

He declined to say whether he had spoken to Mr Putin since winning the election in November. “I don’t want to say anything about it, because I don’t want to do anything that could hinder the negotiations,” said the new US president.

Canada said it was banning another 324 types of firearms – weapons that the public safety minister said belong on the battlefield, not in the hands of hunters or sports shooters.

Ottawa also said it was working with the Ukrainian government to see how weapons could be donated to support the fight against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The move follows a ban on 1,500 makes and models of firearms in May 2020, a number that rose to more than 2,000 by November this year as new variants were identified.