War

Air raid sirens blared across Ukraine early on December 31 with explosions heard in some parts of the capital as officials warned of Russian air attacks.Warnings were issued in Chernihiv, Sumy, Poltava, Luhansk, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Kyiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, and Vinnytsya regions.The head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, Serhiy Popko, reported falling debris in the Darnytskyi district. No information on possible casualties was given.The regional military administration in Sumy reported a Russian missile strike on infrastructure in the town of Shostka. It added that an investigation was under way to assess the damages and whether there were any casualties.The new attacks come a day after the United States pledged additional security assistance for Ukraine to help strengthen its defenses along the front line.The White House said in a statement on December 30 that the pledge includes an additional $1.25 billion drawdown package for the Ukrainian military and a $1.22 billion Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative package.Hours later, the Treasury Department announced a separate $3.4 billion disbursement to Ukraine in direct budget support.The announcements came as the White House ramps up support to the war-torn country before President Joe Biden's term ends next month.Biden pledged to continue ratcheting up support, but the package is likely to be the last brought forth during his administration amid concerns that President-elect Donald Trump will significantly reduce or halt arms supplies to Ukraine in order to push Kyiv to negotiate a peace settlement with Russia.
Trump is scheduled to be inaugurated on January 20.Russia has been pushing back Ukrainian troops on the front lines for weeks and claimed on December 29 to have seized another town in Ukraine's Donetsk region as it continues its long, bloody drive against the strategic -- but nearly destroyed -- southern logistics hub of Pokrovsk.Russia's Defense Ministry said on December 30 that its forces captured Novotroyitske, a settlement with a prewar population 6,300 about 16 kilometers south of Pokrovsk.The Ukrainian military did not comment specifically about Novotroyitske, but it said Russian troops had carried out 133 attacks on its positions, most of which were in the Pokrovsk area.Analysts have speculated on what the Kremlin forces' next steps will be for the city, a strategic logistics hub for Kyiv.The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said geolocation data suggested the Russian military was about 10 kilometers from the border of the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions."[Russian President Vladimir] Putin may be putting pressure on the Russian military command to advance to the border, and not to cover Pokrovsk at this time," it wrote.
In an interview with RFE/RL, Viktor Muzhenko, the former Ukrainian military commander, said any truce between Kyiv and Moscow that leaves swaths of Ukrainian territory under Russian control would represent a victory for the Kremlin and "fully compensate [it] for its costs of the war."Muzhenko, who led the military from 2014-19, said the situation with the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk regions and parts of Zaporizhzhya and Kherson regions is "critical" -- "not only for the loss of territories, but also [the loss of] half of the resource base of Ukraine."The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said late on December 30 that during the day, some 153 combat clashes occurred on the front lines as Russia presses forward.
The ISW estimates territorial gains by the Russian army in 2024 reached about 3,300 square kilometers.Counterattacks by Ukraine also took place in 2024, though only a few square kilometers of Ukrainian territory was recaptured.The bulk of the Russian advances, it said, took place at the end of the year, when Russian troops captured 20 to 30 square kilometers per day, the ISW said.