These are the key events from day 1,400 of Russia's war against Ukraine.
Published on December 25, 2025
This is how things are on Thursday, December 25:
Struggle
- An explosion in Moscow killed three people, including two police officers, just days after a car bomb killed a senior Russian general in the same area of the capital.
- A Ukrainian military intelligence official, known as GUR, told The Associated Press news agency that the attack had been carried out as part of a Ukrainian operation and that the two police officers were targeted for participating in Russia's war in Ukraine.
- Russian air defense units shot down 16 Ukrainian drones heading towards Moscow on Wednesday, the capital's mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.
- Sobyanin said the drones were repelled over a period of about 17 hours, and that emergency crews were examining fragments where the drones hit the ground, but no damage was reported.
- Two of the four main airports serving Moscow were forced to limit their operations for a time due to drone attacks, Russia's civil aviation authority said on Telegram.
- Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defense units destroyed 172 Ukrainian drones overnight, almost half of them in regions bordering Ukraine.
- Ukraine said its drones had attacked the Yefremov synthetic rubber plant in Russia's Tula region south of Moscow and a marine drone storage facility in Russian-occupied Crimea.
- Tula Regional Governor Dmitry Milyaev said that “wreckage from a downed Ukrainian drone sparked a fire at an industrial site, and Russian air defense units destroyed 12 Ukrainian drones over the region.
- A sunflower oil spill, caused by Russian airstrikes, has polluted the coast around the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa, killing wildlife and prompting warnings from conservationists, AFP news agency reports.
- “The cause was damage to sunflower oil tanks as a result of massive enemy attacks on port infrastructure, which caused some of the oil to spill,” Odessa Governor Oleh Kiper said in a statement. The region's Pivdenny port was temporarily closed on Wednesday to help with cleanup.
- A Russian-backed court in occupied Ukraine sentenced a Colombian man to 19 years in prison for fighting for kyiv's army.
- Russia's Prosecutor General said the Supreme Court in the Russian-controlled area of Ukraine's Donetsk region sentenced Oscar Mauricio Blanco López, 42, to 19 years in prison. The Colombian arrived in Ukraine in May 2024 to enlist in the Ukrainian army and had been “taken prisoner by Russian soldiers” in December 2025.
Ceasefire talks
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy revealed for the first time details of an agreement between the United States and Ukrainian negotiators to end the war with Russia. Moscow is now reviewing the 20-point plan, agreed upon by American and Ukrainian negotiators after marathon talks.
- As part of the plan, President Zelenskyy said Ukraine would be willing to withdraw troops from the country's eastern industrial heartland if Moscow also withdraws and the area becomes a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces.
- A similar deal could be possible for the area around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is currently under Russian control, Zelenskyy said. The Ukrainian leader said any peace plan should be put to a referendum in Ukraine.
- Asked about the latest developments in the ceasefire talks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would decide its position based on information received by Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who met with US envoys in Florida over the weekend.
- Russia has given no indication that it will accept any kind of withdrawal from the lands it has seized from Ukraine. Moscow has also insisted that Ukraine give up the rest of the territory it still holds in the Donbas. Russia has captured most of Luhansk and about 70 percent of Donetsk, the two areas that make up the Donbas.
Politics and diplomacy
- Most Russians expect the war in Ukraine to end in 2026, Russian state pollster VTsIOM said, in a sign that the Kremlin may be testing public reaction to a potential peace deal as diplomatic efforts to end the conflict intensify.
- During the pollster's year-end presentation, VTsIOM deputy director Mikhail Mamonov said that 70 percent of the 1,600 respondents saw 2026 as a more “successful” year for Russia than 2025, while for 55 percent that hope “was linked to a possible end to Russia's war in Ukraine.”
- A Russian court has scheduled the first public hearing in a criminal case against German sculptor Jacques Tilly, accused of discrediting the Russian military through his satirical Carnival floats depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin.
- The Moscow court said the trial will begin on December 30 and that the proceedings will be conducted in absentia as Tilly, who faces up to 10 years in prison or a fine, is not in Russia.
- Zelenskyy said in his Christmas speech on Wednesday that despite celebrating the holiday at a “difficult” time, the nation's unity remains intact. “Ukrainians are together tonight,” Zelenskyy said, adding that the war had “without a doubt” changed the country. “It doesn't matter what dishes are on the table, what matters is who is on the table,” he said.
Regional security
- French President Emmanuel Macron said he spoke with NATO chief Mark Rutte to “discuss the situation in Ukraine and the work carried out by the 'coalition of the willing.'” “Starting in January in Paris, we will continue the work started within this framework to provide Ukraine with strong security guarantees, a prerequisite for a strong and lasting peace,” Macron said on social media.
- Democratic US senators have urged President Donald Trump to reverse the dismissal of nearly 30 career ambassadors, warning that the move leaves a dangerous leadership vacuum that allows adversaries such as Russia and China to expand their influence. In recent days, the Trump administration has ordered career diplomats serving in Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America to return to Washington to ensure that U.S. missions abroad reflect its “America First” priorities.
economic sciences
- Kazakhstan's exports of its flagship CPC oil blend will be the lowest in 14 months in December as bad weather delays efforts to repair Russian cargo infrastructure after Ukrainian drone attacks last month, two sources told Reuters news agency.
- On November 29, Ukrainian drones attacked the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal located near the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, leaving only one of three piers operational and prolonging export delays. The bad weather has aggravated the difficulty of carrying out the maintenance work necessary to allow exports to recover.
- Ukraine's Finance Ministry said it had completed the deal to restructure $2.6 billion of growth-linked debt.
