Here is the situation on Sunday, December 22:
Fighting:
- Eight Ukrainian drones hit residential buildings in the Russian city of Kazan, more than 1,000km (600 miles) from the front line, bringing the war deep into the heart of Russia. Local authorities said there were no casualties.
- Russian civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia temporarily closed Kazan international airport and cancelled all major public events in the area as a precaution.
- The acting governor of Russia‘s Kursk region, Alexander Khinshtein, said six people, including one child, were killed on Friday in a Ukrainian missile attack on the town of Rylsk. Ten others, including a 13-year-old, sustained minor injuries.
- Ukrainian officials said Moscow sent 113 drones into Ukraine overnight on Saturday, 57 of which were shot down. Another 56 drones were “lost”, likely having been electronically jammed.
- The Russian Ministry of Defence announced its forces captured the village of Kostiantynopolske, referred to as Ostrovsky by Russian authorities, amid an ongoing campaign to seize control of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.
- A Russian strike on the southern Kherson region hit an oncology hospital, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. There were no casualties as staff and patients were sheltering.
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Diplomacy and security
- Zelenskyy said he met CIA Director William Burns in Ukraine, a rare public disclosure of a meeting between the pair. He did not specify when the meeting took place but said it would be their final before Burns leaves his post as Trump takes office.
- Russia’s FSB security service says a man has been sentenced to 19 years in prison for passing information about Russian soldiers to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
- Responding to the attack that killed six in Kursk, Russia’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Vasily Nebenzya, told the Security Council that Moscow’s “response to this targeted crime against peaceful Russian citizens will not be long in coming”.
- Zelenskyy said Ukraine “will definitely continue to strike at Russian military targets with drones and missiles”.
Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies
