These are the key developments from day 1,394 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.Published On 19 Dec 202519 Dec 2025Click here to share on social mediashare2ShareHere is where things stand on Friday, December 19:Fighting
Three people, including two crew members of a cargo vessel, were killed in overnight Ukrainian drone attacks on the Russian port of Rostov-on-Don and the town of Bataysk in the country’s southern Rostov region, local governor Yury Slyusar said.
Russian strikes near Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa killed a woman in her car and hit infrastructure. Odesa’s Governor Oleh Kiper said a Russian drone killed a woman crossing a bridge in her car, and three children were injured in the incident.
Kiper also asked residents whose homes have been affected by extended power outages to be patient and to end blocking roads in protest against the blackouts.
“As a result of enemy attacks, the energy infrastructure in Odesa region has suffered extensive damage,” Kiper said.
About 180,000 consumers have been left without electricity across five Ukrainian regions after Russian attacks, Ukraine’s acting energy minister, Artem Nekrasov, said.
Nekrasov said the southern regions of Mykolaiv and Zaporizhia, the central regions of Cherkasy and Dnipropetrovsk, and the northeastern region of Sumy have been impacted.
Russia has formed a military brigade equipped with Moscow’s new hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile, Russian chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, said.
Russia fired the Oreshnik at Ukraine for the first time in November 2024, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has boasted that the missile is impossible to intercept and has destructive power comparable to that of a nuclear weapon.
Sanctions Advertisement
European Union leaders have agreed in principle at a summit in Brussels to work on financing Ukraine in 2026 and 2027 through the use of frozen Russian assets rather than EU borrowing, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.
EU leaders were still trying to overcome differences over the plan, with talks in Brussels focused on seeking to reassure Belgium, which holds most of the frozen assets, and other concerned countries, that Europe would share the legal and financial risks resulting from the initiative.
A new draft of the deal offered Belgium and other countries unlimited guarantees for damages should Moscow successfully sue them for using Russian assets to finance Ukraine.
Diplomats said the deal could be a problem for some governments, who would need parliamentary approval. The new draft also offered EU countri …
