31.12.2023

Reuters: Russia on Sunday said it attacked military facilities in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv overnight, including a hotel "housing military commanders and foreign mercenaries", in response to Ukraine's strikes on Belgorod the previous day.

AFP: Putin praised the Russian army in his New Year's Eve address Sunday, arguing society had "united" behind the Kremlin in a scaled-back message that did not mention Ukraine. In stark contrast to last year, when the Kremlin leader gave a combative speech flanked by soldiers, Putin described 2024 as the "year of the family" in front of the traditional backdrop of the Kremlin.

RFE/RL: There were no mass protests in Russia in 2023. There were no hair-raising scenes of riot police in helmets and body armor beating students and shoving elderly demonstrators into police vans. Nonetheless, the harsh repression of dissent was the daily business of Putin’s security forces, with the action shifted to pretrial detention centers, the courts, and the prison system.

NY Times: As conventional forces struggle to break through defensive lines, both sides are increasingly turning to guerrilla tactics.

ISW: Russia continues attempts to actively shape the Western information space to support Russian positions and undermine support for Ukraine while portraying these efforts as endogenous to the West.

Reuters: Russia pounded the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv with missiles and drones in the hours leading into New Year's Eve, Ukrainian officials said, hours after Moscow accused Kyiv of carrying out a deadly air assault just across the border on nearby Belgorod.

CNN: As 2023 draws to a close, Putin is all about a vibe: projecting confidence as he sails to inevitable re-election in March.

30.12.2023

AFP: Russia accused Ukraine on Saturday of conducting a "terrorist attack" on civilians in Belgorod and using widely prohibited cluster munitions, making the claim during an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council requested by Moscow.

A fake Euronews video is being shared online claiming their fact-checking segment The Cube has investigated cryptocurrency links with a senior Ukrainian official.

Reuters: Poland ended a ground search on Saturday after finding no parts of a suspected Russian rocket which it said had violated the country's airspace on Friday morning, the Polish army said.

AFP: Ukraine has exported about 13 million tonnes of merchandise on some 400 ships since setting up a protected maritime corridor in August to fend off Russian threats, a government minister said Saturday.

UK Ministry of Defence: If casualties continue at the current rate through the next year, by 2025 Russia will have sustained over half a million personnel killed and wounded over three years of war. This is compared to the Soviet Union’s 70,000 casualties in the nine-year Soviet-Afghan War.

The Kyiv Independent: The death toll of Russia's Dec. 29 nationwide missile attack has risen to 39 as new deaths were reported in Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia.

Meduza: Local news agencies publish, then remove articles saying 74 Russian sailors killed in Ukraine’s strike on Russian military ship in annexed Crimea.

WP: Russia has been increasing its efforts to undermine French support for Kyiv — a hidden propaganda front in Western Europe that is part of the war against Ukraine, according to Kremlin documents and interviews with European security officials and far-right political figures.

Reuters: Russia drew sharp criticism at the UN Security Council on Friday for launching massive missile and drone attacks against Ukraine, after Kyiv and its supporters called for an urgent meeting of the 15-member body to address the strikes.

29.12.2023

Reuters: U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday called Russia's latest missile barrage on Ukraine a "stark reminder" that Putin remained committed to destroying Ukraine and said "he must be stopped."

AFP: Argentine President Javier Milei has sent letters to BRICS leaders to formalize his decision to reject an invitation to join the grouping of major emerging economies, the presidency said Friday.

Reuters: Britain is sending around 200 air defence missiles to Ukraine to help protect civilians and infrastructure from Russian drones and bombing, the British ministry of defence said on Friday.

The Moscow Times: Put’ Dumoi (Way Home), a Russian movement of mostly wives and mothers of mobilized soldiers calling for the return of their loved ones from the front lines and an end to mobilization, has released a video plea of a soldier’s widow decrying the invasion of Ukraine.

Meduza: Russian military charged record number of soldiers with abandoning positions in 2023.

NATO air forces were scrambled more than 300 times in response to Russian military aircraft in 2023, the treaty organisation said on Friday.

NY Times: A law making it illegal to discredit Russia’s army has ensnared thousands of Russians for even mild acts or statements against the war.

Kyiv Post: Russia’s human and materiel losses suffered during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine are “enormous” and its army will emerge from the war severely weakened, a German general has said.

Reuters: The Kremlin on Friday warned the West that it had a list of U.S., European and other assets that would be seized if G7 leaders decided to go ahead and confiscate $300 billion in frozen Russian central bank reserves.

AFP: A Russian court on Friday sentenced Ksenia Fadeyeva, who led jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny's now-banned organisation in the Siberian city of Tomsk, to almost a decade in prison.

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