Hell of a way to work towards a elusive cease-fire, eh?
In the back ground this weekend with Zelensky flying to Florida to talk to Trump is the constant story that Russian President will NOT bend on his plan to grab the ENTIRE Ukraine back and moving to grab back the old members of the Soviet Union….
Moscow launched one of its heaviest air assaults on Kyiv in recent weeks overnight, just as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy prepares to travel to the United States for high-stakes talks with U.S. President Donald Trump on a revised peace proposal.
The Russian barrage, involving nearly 500 drones and around 40 missiles, including Kinzhal hypersonic weapons, according to Ukrainian authorities, triggered air-raid sirens across the capital and left parts of Kyiv without electricity and heating amid freezing temperatures.
Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said at least one civilian was killed and more than 20 others were injured, with multiple residential buildings damaged and rescue teams searching for people trapped under rubble.
The attack reverberated across Europe’s eastern flank.
Poland scrambled fighter jets and placed its air defense systems on heightened alert as a precautionary measure, citing Russian long-range aviation activity targeting Ukraine. Poland’s Operational Command said on X that military aviation operations were launched to protect Polish airspace, adding later that no violations had been detected and the alert was subsequently lifted….
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday confirmed that Canada will give his country a new assistance package after he spoke with European leaders amid peace talks.
Zelensky stopped in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and thanked Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney for joining him in “speaking with our friends from Europe” about bringing the war between Ukraine and Russia to an end.
Carney told reporters that “a just and lasting peace” needs a “willing Russia.” He condemned Russia’s strikes on Kyivon Saturday, which killed at least one person and left over 20 people hurt.
“We’re announcing today further economic assistance for Ukraine: $2.5 billion worth of economic assistance that helps unlock financing from the [International Monetary Fund], from the World Bank, from the European Bank for reconstruction and redevelopment,” Carney said.
Zelensky thanked Carney and called Russian President Vladimir Putin “a man of war.”…
*Guardian and ISW late entres…
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Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies Nabu and Sapo raided national parliament offices in Kyiv on Saturday as investigators alleged some MPs were implicated in a new graft probe. A statement from Nabu, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, accused State Security Department guards of “resisting Nabu officers during investigative actions in committees of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine”. The anti-corruption agency did not reveal details of the investigation, but said suspects took bribes for votes.
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Ukraine’s State Security Department said the anti-corruption detectives were stopped at first by security but later allowed in. An earlier corruption investigation has led to the resignation of the chief of staff to the president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It involved an alleged $100m kickback scheme in the battered energy sector, allegedly masterminded by a personal friend of the president.
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Zelenskyy said he would hold talks with European leaders after meeting Donald Trump on Sunday. The Ukrainian president said he had spoken with a group of Ukraine’s partners to coordinate priorities on the diplomatic track. “Tomorrow, after the meeting with President Trump, we will continue the discussion.” The Ukrainian leader has headed to Floridafor the Trump meeting. Zelenskyy stopped in Canada, where he met the prime minister, Mark Carney, who announced an additional $2.5bn (£1.85bn) of economic aid for Ukraine.
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Ahead of the Florida meeting, and amid pressure from the Trump administration for Ukraine to concede territory for peace, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) assessed that Russia is demanding such concessions because it “does not have sufficient manpower or materiel” to take the rest of the Donetsk region while continuing its war in other parts of Ukraine. “The Kremlin is therefore making demands in negotiations that Ukraine cede the unoccupied parts of Donetsk oblast,” the ISW assessed, “… possibly to put Russia in a more advantageous position to re-invade in the future to pursue Putin’s longer-term strategic goal of controlling all of Ukraine.”
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The Kremlin’s commanders are sending false reports up the chain of command, contributing to Ukrainian gains on the battlefield, according to complaints from Russian milbloggers as reported by the ISW, which said: “Ukrainian forces continue to make tactical gains in Kupiansk, and Russian milbloggers are increasingly acknowledging Ukrainian successes. The scale of Russian milblogger complaints about Kupiansk … demonstrates the scale and egregiousness of the Russian military command’s lies about Kupiansk.”
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The analysis came as Russia claimed to have captured two more towns in eastern Ukraine: Myrnohrad and Huliaipole, near Pokrovsk which Russia claims also to have captured but is still contested. Ukraine’s military general staff said in response that the situation in Huliaipole was “complex” and in Myrnohrad “dire” but they remained defended. “Enemy units, as before, are failing to implement their plans to seize the Pokrovsk-Myrnohrad agglomeration, so they are resorting to disinformation.”
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A third of Kyiv lost heating in a Russian drone and missile barrage on the Ukrainian capital that cut off power supplies, leaving hundreds of thousands of people facing freezing temperatures. The overnight strikes into Saturday lasted 10 hours and killed at least one person while wounding two dozen others…
ISW…Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 27, 2025
- Russian forces are currently unable to build out a strategic reserve and will therefore likely be constrained to grinding, slow advances at their current rate and scale in the coming year.
- Russian forces conducted another large-scale combined missile and drone strike against Ukrainian critical infrastructure overnight on December 26 and 27, primarily targeting Kyiv City and Kyiv Oblast.
- A high-ranking Kremlin official explicitly stated that Russia will not deviate from its war demands “one bit.”
- The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) is intensifying its efforts to cover up recent Russian failures in Kupyansk amid ongoing widespread criticism from Russian milbloggers.
- There is ample evidence to indicate that Ukrainian forces have liberated most of Kupyansk, however.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet with Western partners ahead of his December 28 meeting with US President Donald Trump in Florida.
- Ukrainian forces recently advanced near Kupyansk. Russian forces recently advanced near Hulyaipole.
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