The EU Council has adopted a 12th package of sanctions against Russia, the European Commission said. This package focuses on imposing additional import and export bans on Russia, combating sanctions circumvention and closing loopholes, it said.
Russia has damaged or destroyed almost every building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka, according to a new report, as part of a major assault which has seen civilian infrastructure deliberately flattened.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has presented documents to Russia’s Central Election Commission to register as a candidate in the 2024 presidential election. Supporters of Putin have formally nominated him to run in the 2024 presidential election as an independent candidate.
Russian fighters from the Storm-Z units are “highly likely being returned to combat duties with unhealed wounds”, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence update.
Polish truckers have resumed their blockade of the main crossing at the Ukrainian border, a week after it was lifted, Ukraine’s border service said.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has detained a Ukrainian citizen who allegedly spied for Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) to help direct a Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia, according to the SBU.
The Kremlin has welcomed the victory claimed in parliamentary elections by Serbian leader Aleksandar Vučić’s Serbian Progressive Party. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow hoped the result would lead to the “further strengthening of friendship” between the countries.
Frontline Ukrainian soldiers face shortages of artillery shells and have scaled back some military operations because of a lack of foreign assistance, Brig Gen Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, a senior army general, said. He told Reuters: “There’s a problem with ammunition, especially post-Soviet (shells) – that’s 122 mm, 152 mm. And today these problems exist across the entire frontline… The volumes that we have today are not sufficient for us today, given our needs. So, we’re redistributing it. We’re replanning tasks that we had set for ourselves and making them smaller because we need to provide for them.”
The main units of a German army brigade that is moving to Lithuania will start to arrive in 2025 and reach full fighting readiness in 2027, the Lithuanian defence minister, Arvydas Anusauskas, said. Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, called the agreement on a permanent deployment of a German brigade in Lithuania a “historic moment”.
Russia’s prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, will meet China’s president, Xi Jinping, this week, the Russian government said. The two leaders are expected to meet for talks in China on 19 and 20 December, with Mishustin also due to hold a meeting with the Chinese premier, Li Qiang.
Russia and Ukraine launched drones on each other’s territory for the second day running. The Russian Defence Ministry said 35 Ukraine drones were shot down overnight in three regions in south-western Russia. A Russian airbase hosting bomber aircraft used in Ukraine was among the targets, according to a Russian Telegram channel critical of the Kremlin.
Russian troops launched 20 Shahed drones in southern and western Ukraine, as well as one X-59 cruise missile from the country’s occupied south. Ukraine’s air force said it shot down the Iranian-made drones. A civilian was also killed overnight near Odesa, a key port on Ukraine’s southern Black Sea coast, after the remnants of a destroyed drone fell on his house, Ukraine’s military said.
