08.12.2024

Reuters: Syria's former President Bashar al-Assad is in Moscow with his family after Russia granted them asylum on humanitarian grounds, a Kremlin source told Russian news agencies on Sunday, and a deal has been done to ensure the safety of Russian military bases.

AFP: Russia said it had called for a UN Security Council meeting Monday to discuss the situation in Syria.

The Kyiv Independent: Russia has begun withdrawing its naval and military assets from Syria amid the collapse of Syria President Bashar al-Assad's regime, Ukraine's military intelligence agency said on Dec. 8.

AP News: In a television interview that aired Sunday, Trump said he would be open to reducing military aid to Ukraine and pulling the United States out of NATO. Those are two threats that have alarmed Ukraine, NATO allies and many in the U.S. national security community.

Politico: Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has lost 43,000 soldiers killed in action and 370,000 more were wounded, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday, in Kyiv's first disclosure of total casualty figures in the the nearly three-year conflict.

FT: The stars of Putin’s ‘elite’ management school: soldiers accused of war crimes. ‘Time of Heroes’ scheme is training veterans of Russia’s war in Ukraine to govern (archive).

AFP: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday he told President-elect Donald Trump and French leader Emmanuel Macron in talks a day earlier that Kyiv needs an "enduring peace" that Moscow would not "destroy in a few years."

ISW: Russian forces have resumed their offensive operations directly aimed at seizing Pokrovsk through a turning maneuver from the south after successfully widening their salient south and southeast of the town.

07.12.2024

Reuters: The United States unveiled a $988 million aid package of new arms and equipment to Ukraine for its ongoing fight against Russia's invasion on Saturday. The package nearly halves the available $2.21 billion remaining in Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative as the Biden administration works to commit to buying weapons from industry, rather than pulling from U.S. weapons stocks.

AFP, The Straits Times: Russia has stepped up its hybrid warfare tactics in the Baltic Sea and NATO countries in the region should prepare for an extended conflict with Moscow, experts said, after cables were severed and navigation systems scrambled.

Reuters: Two strategically-important Russian military facilities in Syria and Moscow's very presence in the Middle East are under serious threat from rapidly advancing insurgents, Russian war bloggers have warned.

The Kyiv Independent: The situation on the Zaporizhzhia front is becoming "very difficult and tense," but the development was "predicted," Freedom of Russia Legion spokesperson Kostiantyn Denysov said on Dec. 7. "Their infantry assault groups are trying to find weaknesses in our defenses," he said in an interview with KYIV24.

AP News: Romanian prosecutors conducted raids on Saturday linked to a man suspected of illegally financing a campaign to promote Calin Georgescu’s presidential run, a day after the country’s top court annulled the elections in which the far-right candidate had won the first round.

The Kyiv Independent: Ukrainian naval drones have destroyed surveillance systems on Russian-held gas platforms in occupied Crimea, the Commander of the Naval Forces Vice-Admiral Oleksii Neizhpapa, announced on Nov. 7.

Reuters: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Saturday said a second batch of F-16 fighter jets had arrived in Ukraine from Denmark.

ISW: The Kremlin continues to advance its strategic effort to de facto annex Belarus and further expand the Russian military’s presence in Belarus through the Union State framework.

The Kyiv Independent: 19-year-old Russian conscript Artem Antonov was shot and killed by his commander after reportedly refusing to sign a military contract to fight in Kursk Oblast, the Russian independent outlet IStories reported on Dec. 6.

06.12.2024

Meduza: A dark trend has returned to Russia: far-right nationalists sharing videos of attacks on ethnic minorities and other “outsiders.” Experts say this revival of skinhead culture goes hand-in-hand with the authorities’ ubiquitous wartime propaganda.

Politico: EU negotiators on Friday failed to finalize new restrictions on companies and oil tankers aiding Russia’s war in Ukraine. The holdup came after two EU countries, Latvia and Lithuania, refused to back the package because it also extended a provision allowing Western firms to keep working in Russia despite existing sanctions.

Reuters: Russian attacks on the cities of Zaporizhzhia and Kryvyi Rih in southeastern Ukraine on Friday killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 40, regional officials said.

Bloomberg: SpaceX received a Pentagon contract to expand Ukraine’s access to a more secure, militarized version of its Starlink satellite network, deepening the company’s involvement in the conflict despite founder Elon Musk’s ambivalence over the war (archive).

The Daily Beast: While Tucker Carlson is positioning himself as a dove of peace, toiling to prevent a nuclear war, Putin’s acolytes say he is also acting as a carrier pigeon for the Russian president and privately delivering his messages to Trump.

Ukrainska Pravda: Sweden and Denmark announced on Friday the placement of a large order for infantry fighting vehicles, with 40 of them designated for Ukraine.

Reuters: Ukraine showed off a new locally-produced "rocket-drone" on Friday which it said could fly 700 km (430 miles) - more than twice the longest range attributed to missiles supplied by Western allies.

Bloomberg: The European Union is pressing the US to explore ways to mitigate US sanctions on Russia’s Gazprombank, a financial institution key for keeping Russian natural gas flowing into the bloc (archive).

Politico: The EU ramped up payments for purchases of Russian-made fuel from India in 2024, a new report shows — helping fill Moscow’s war coffers. From January to August, the EU bought fuel worth almost 20 percent more than it did last year from three major Indian refineries working on Russian crude oil.

Reuters: Putin said on Friday that Moscow could deploy its Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missiles system in Belarus in the second half of 2025, Russian state media said.

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