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Fighting
- Russia’s Ministry of Defence said air defences downed 15 drones in the Kursk region on the Ukrainian border.
- The ministry said one drone each was downed in the Bryansk region, also on the border, and in Lipetsk, further north, as well as in the central Oryol region.
- The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, a frequent target on the Ukrainian border, said a series of attacks had smashed windows in an apartment building and caused other damage, but no casualties were reported.
- Dozens of mourners filled a golden-domed Orthodox cathedral in Ukrainian capital Kyiv to pay their respects to a beloved combat medic, 32-year-old Maria-Khrystyna Dvoinik, who was killed this week on the front line.
Politics and diplomacy
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time in nearly two years and urged Moscow to pull its forces from Ukraine and begin talks with Kyiv.
- The Kremlin described the call as a “detailed and frank exchange of views over the situation in Ukraine”. It said Putin told Scholz that any agreement to end the war should “proceed from the new territorial realities and, most importantly, address the root causes of the conflict”.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticised Scholz’s phone call with Putin, saying it opened a “Pandora’s box” that undermined efforts to isolate the Russian leader and end the war in Ukraine with a “fair peace”. “This is exactly what Putin has long wanted: it is extremely important for him to weaken his isolation and to conduct ordinary negotiations,” he said.
- Scholz said changes are needed to Germany’s spending cap to respond to the “financial emergency” of war in Ukraine after the centre-right opposition signalled willingness to reform the so-called debt brake.
- Zelenskyy told Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne that Russia’s war against his country will “end sooner” under US President-elect Donald Trump‘s administration.
- Russia has informed Austria that it will suspend gas deliveries via Ukraine starting on Saturday, in a development that signals a fast-approaching end of Moscow’s last gas flows to Europe.
- Chancellor Karl Nehammer said Austria’s large gas storage facilities are 93 percent full and the country is well equipped to deal with Russia’s decision to stop gas deliveries.
- Ukraine is fighting to liberate all territory captured by Russia in the last decade, and is not shifting its focus in the war, Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov told a news conference in Norway.
