Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 12-27-2024

A Russian missile crew in Chechnya is the top suspect in the air disaster. Chechen boss Ramzan Kadyrov called for a “secret” investigation, but Baku nixed the idea.

International airlines canceled flights to a swath of Russian cities on Monday in the wake of a deadly passenger plane crash thought to have been caused by the accidental launch of a Russian anti-aircraft missile at a civilian airliner.

A Monday statement by Azerbaijani Airlines said the Sunday destruction of its flight JS-8432 on the shores of the Caspian Sea, which killed at least 38 people, was the result of “external physical and technical interference” hitting the aircraft above Russia’s Chechnya region.

Ukraine says it has successfully hit a Russian combat unit’s command center in the eastern Ukrainian Zaporizhzhia region.

Ukrainian operational planners have hit a Russian tactical headquarters with at least two High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) precision-guided missiles – one loaded with cluster munitions – and then deployed swarms of first-person view (FPV) kamikaze drones that hunted down survivors, Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence (HUR) said on Monday.

The Ukrainian territories occupied by Moscow are experiencing an upsurge in the destruction of industry by Russian exiles, ethnic cleansing, and the confiscation of property.

Increasingly, Ukrainians hear proposals from international media outlets and observers that suggest Ukraine should abandon attempts to reclaim territories seized by Russia in 2014 and since the 2022 full-scale invasion. Even the US president elect Donald Trump hinted at such a solution, stating, “It is very nice to talk about the return of territories, but most of the cities there are almost destroyed.”

Aside from the norms of international law that directly recognize Russia’s war against Ukraine as illegal, Ukrainians consider they have an inalienable right to their territory do all other countries whose permanent borders were established since the Second World War - borders that Russia itself recognized in 1991.

Russian gas accounted for less than 10% of the EU’s gas imports in 2023. In 2021, a year before Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started, it made up over 40%.

Ukraine will block Russian gas supplies via its territory in several days, effectively halting its transit to Slovakia, Moldova and, to some extent, Hungary.

Kyiv said it would not renew an agreement on Russian gas transit expiring on Dec.31 as Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s fleet will not interfere. It is at the other end of the Black Sea.

A ship loaded with 500 tons of Ukrainian flour to help Syrian families is en route to Syria, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a Monday statement.

The humanitarian aid donation, packed in 15-kilogram bags, will feed 33,250 families, or 167,000 people, and should arrive in Syria by ship in the coming weeks, he said on social platform X, formerly Twitter.

The December poll said half of the Ukrainians surveyed think US President-elect Donald Trump, with his rhetoric of ending the war, will make good on his words.

A recent poll said 45% of Ukrainians surveyed think US President-elect Donald Trump’s November victory could bring Ukraine closer to ending the war. 

The poll, carried out by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) between Dec 2 and Dec. 17, said 15% of the 45% “believe that peace is getting much closer,” with the remaining 30% thinking it is “getting only a little closer.”

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said the soldier was taken prisoner after being ambushed by a special operations team.

The first North Korean soldier captured by Ukrainian forces in combat died from complications of his wounds, sources in Seoul and Kyiv confirmed.

Seoul’s National Intelligence Service (NIS), citing updates from an unnamed “friendly country,” said the soldier was badly injured in fighting prior to being taken prisoner and died in a Ukrainian medical facility on Friday, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap.

The suspects reportedly made and set off a bomb in Berdychiv, Zhytomyr region, on Christmas Eve under orders from Russian intelligence, though no casualties were reported from the blast.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said it arrested two Russian agents responsible for setting off a bomb at a local shopping mall on Christmas Eve.

The SBU’s Friday press release said “a 23-year-old drug addict” from Berdychiv, a city in Ukraine’s Zhytomyr region, made the improvised explosive device (IED) and handed it over to a 41-year-old accomplice from Mariupol to set off the bomb, which went off under the door to a shopping mall in Berdychiv on Dec. 24.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier also warned of “foreign influence ... which is particularly intense on X,” the social media platform owned by billionaire Elon Musk, in upcoming elections.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier dissolved parliament on Friday and confirmed the expected date for the early general election prompted by the collapse of Olaf Scholz’s government last month.

Scholz’s coalition was brought down by internal fights over how to revive Europe’s largest economy, but a deadly car-ramming attack at a Christmas market last week has renewed the country’s heated debates over security and immigration.

The soldier was wounded in his right leg during fighting in Vovchansk but was unable to be evacuated, so the tourniquet stayed in place for more than a month before rescue arrived.

A Ukrainian soldier identified only as 41-year-old “Alexander” was wounded in the right leg in mid-November during heavy fighting in Vovchansk, in the Kharkiv region. A medic applied a tourniquet that saved his life, little knowing that it would remain in place for more than a month, as evacuation under fire was not possible. It is usually recommended that tourniquets be applied for no more than two hours.

Thirty-six days (or 864 hours) later, he was eventually brought to a hospital in the city of Kharkiv, where he underwent an operation. While he lost part of his leg, the surgeons were amazed that he had survived at all and were full of praise for the paramedics who had looked after him in the field.

Polish officials have struggled to rein in companies that are suspected of sanctions-busting, according to economic watchdog reports.

Editor’s note: This is the latest in Kyiv Post’s Sanctions Busting series, a look into how Russia evades sanctions to wage its war against Ukraine.

European and American allies have imposed tens of thousands of economic sanctions against Russia since the Kremlin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, aiming to slowly strangle the Kremlin into retreating. Yet leaders in key business sectors across the EU and the US have continued to find ways to bypass restrictions aimed at curbing Russia’s ability to fund the war through international trade and national growth, allowing the invasion to drag on as casualties mount.

Wedged between Ukraine and Romania, westward-looking Moldova feels threatened by Russia.

The parliament of Moldova, controlled by pro-Western lawmakers, has approved a 10-year defense strategy calling for increased defense spending as part of a plan to join the European Union.

The chamber’s pro-Russian opposition ridiculed the document as pointlessly directed against Moscow in view of Moldova’s small land mass and armed forces.

The two discussed boosting bilateral ties between Kyiv and Belgrade, as well as their “European path,” without providing further details.

President Volodymyr Zelensky and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić discussed cooperation between the two nations by phone, including their “common path to the EU,” according to official statements by the two.

Zelensky thanked Vučić and Serbia’s support for Ukraine in an evening video address on Thursday.

Putin says Fico, an outspoken opponent of EU support for Ukraine, has offered his country to host talks between Russia and Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday (Dec. 26) that Russia is open to a Slovakian proposal to host peace talks with Ukraine to end a conflict he said Russia was determined to bring to a conclusion.

Putin, who this week hosted Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico in the Kremlin, said that Fico, an outspoken opponent of European Union support for Ukraine, had offered his country as to host talks between Russia and Ukraine.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan lashed out at Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko when the latter insisted Pashinyan visit Belarus despite the earlier fallout between the two nations.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko argued off-script in a live broadcast during a Thursday meeting in St. Petersburg. 

During a Eurasian Economic Union meeting at a resort near St. Petersburg, Pashinyan lashed out at Lukashenko when the latter insisted that Pashinyan visit the bloc’s next meeting in Belarus when Minsk takes over the rotating presidency.

The world in focus, as seen by a Canadian leading global affairs analyst, writer and speaker, in his review of international media.

A Russian anti-aircraft system may have downed an Azerbaijan Airlines jet, a US official has told CNN. If confirmed, it may be a case of mistaken identity, the official said, where poorly trained Russian units have fired negligently against Ukraine’s use of drones. Thirty-eight passengers were killed on Wednesday after Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8432 crashed as it attempted to make an emergency landing near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan.

Separately, Azerbaijani government sources have confirmed to Euronews that a Russian surface-to-air missile caused the Azerbaijan Airlines plane crash in Aktau on Wednesday. According to the sources, the missile was fired at Flight 8432 during drone air activity above Grozny, and the shrapnel hit the passengers and cabin crew as it exploded next to the aircraft mid-flight. Government sources have told Euronews that the damaged aircraft was not allowed to land at any Russian airports despite the pilots’ requests for an emergency landing, and it was ordered to fly across the Caspian Sea towards Aktau in Kazakhstan. According to data, the plane’s GPS navigation systems were jammed throughout the flight path above the sea.

Ukraine said Russian enlistment officers prompted school-aged children to join the army during career guidance events held inside the occupied Luhansk region.

Moscow has offered schoolchildren to become contract soldiers in the Russian Army in the occupied Luhansk region, said Ukraine’s regional authorities.

Ukraine’s Luhansk Regional State Administration said Friday that “representatives of [Russian] military enlistment offices” encouraged schoolchildren to join the military during local career guidance events at the Lutuhyne district in the southern Luhansk region, which is currently under Russian occupation.

There are at least five solid reasons why Ukraine as a member of NATO would also be very advantageous for the United States.

A substantial number of Ukrainians today fully support membership in the North American Treaty Organization for their nation. Being a part of NATO is very much viewed as the ideal way to protect the country’s self-governance and halt any future invasions. Imperatively, countless Ukrainians also believe that their country’s elevation into NATO would not only be in the best national interests of Ukraine, but also of the United States.

In a May 28, 2024 interview with Time magazine, US President Joe Biden stipulated that his doubt about Ukraine’s NATO membership is deeply ingrained and surpasses any pragmatic opposition to allowing Kyiv an invitation to join the alliance while the ongoing war with Russia continues. The implication is that President Biden does not consider membership in NATO for Ukraine as an essential requirement for permanent peace in the region.

Pro-government Azerbaijani website Caliber cited unnamed officials as saying they believed a Russian missile fired from a Pantsir-S air defense system downed the plane.

Azerbaijani and US officials believe a Russian surface-to-air missile caused the deadly crash of an Azerbaijani passenger jet, media reports and a US official said Thursday, as the Kremlin cautioned against “hypotheses” over the disaster.

The Azerbaijan Airlines jet crashed near the Kazakh city of Aktau, an oil and gas hub, on Wednesday after going off course for undetermined reasons.

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

Key Takeaways from ISW:

• Russian President Vladimir Putin explicitly rejected a suggestion reportedly considered by US President-elect Donald Trump’s team in early November 2024 that would delay Ukraine’s membership in NATO for at least a decade as a condition for ending the war in Ukraine.
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reiterated Putin’s false claims that the current Ukrainian government is illegitimate and cannot be a legitimate negotiating partner for Russia.
• Russian forces have likely seized Kurakhove following two months of intensified offensive operations aimed at seizing the settlement and eliminating the Ukrainian salient north and south of the settlement.
• Russian forces may struggle to advance rapidly further west of Kurakhove along the H-15 Kurakhove-Pokrovske highway should Ukrainian forces choose to defend in the Kurakhivska TPP and Russian forces fail to outflank Ukrainian positions in the TPP near Dachne or Ulakly.
• Elements of the 51st CAA have been the main forces participating in the seizure of Kurakhove amid ongoing efforts to centralize and formalize elements of the 51st CAA within the Russian military.
• Russian forces conducted a large series of missile and drone strikes targeting Ukrainian energy infrastructure on the night of December 24 to 25, seriously damaging thermal power plants (TPPs).
• Ukrainian forces conducted a successful strike on December 25 against the command post of a Russian unit operating in Kursk Oblast.
• Ukrainian forces struck a Russian ammunition depot in Rostov Oblast and Russian defense industrial base (DIB) facilities in Rostov and Tambov oblasts on December 25 and 26.
• A Russian air defense system reportedly shot an Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 passenger aircraft over the Republic of Chechnya on December 25, after which the plane crashed in Aktau, Kazakhstan.
• A Russian insider source, who is reportedly affiliated with Russian law enforcement, claimed that an air defense missile likely struck the plane at an altitude of 2,400 meters approximately 18 kilometers northwest of the Grozny airport over Naursky Raion.
• Japan will provide Ukraine with $3 billion in non-lethal assistance generated solely from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets.
• Ukrainian forces recently advanced near Toretsk, and Russian forces recently advanced near Kupyansk, Toretsk, Pokrovsk, and Velyka Novosilka.
• Russian milbloggers acknowledged that the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) is attempting to monopolize crowdfunding efforts for the Russian military amid ongoing fallout from the deaths of two Russian drone operators in September 2024.

Ukraine has captured at least one North Korean soldier sent by Pyongyang to aid Russia’s war efforts, South Korea’s spy agency said on Friday.

South Korea’s spy agency said Friday it had confirmed that a North Korean soldier sent to back Russia’s war against Ukraine had been captured by Ukrainian forces.

Pyongyang has deployed thousands of troops to reinforce Russia’s military, including in the Kursk border region where Ukraine mounted a shock border incursion in August.