Ukraine conflict briefing: 5 killed and houses broken in sequence of Russian and Ukrainian assaults | Ukraine

At the very least 5 individuals have been killed in a sequence of Russian and Ukrainian strikes on Friday, together with a day Russian missile assault on the Ukrainian metropolis of Chernigiv which left at the least one particular person lifeless and broken a residential space, officers stated. “A number of homes have been closely broken. There are wounded,” regional governor Vyacheslav Chaus stated. “Search and rescue operations are ongoing.” Loud explosions have been heard within the metropolis, positioned to the north of the capital, Kyiv, about 75km (46 miles) from the Russian border. Town head stated 4 had been wounded within the strikes, based on preliminary studies. Separate Russian bombardments on Friday killed a truck driver close to Kyiv and a pensioner within the southern Zaporizhzhia area, native officers stated. 4 have been harm when the city of Sloviansk was shelled close to the frontline within the Donetsk area, officers stated. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, stated on Telegram that within the first three days of 2025 Russia had launched 300 assault drones and almost 20 missiles on Ukrainian targets. Most, he stated, had been downed or intercepted.

Ukrainian assaults on Russian border areas killed two individuals, based on native governors. One was killed by a mortar strike on a village within the Bryansk area, officers stated. Close to the frontlines within the Kursk area, the place Ukraine launched an offensive final August, a person strolling down a highway was killed in a drone strike, the regional governor stated. Moscow and Kyiv have escalated their aerial campaigns by the primary weeks of winter in what has been seen as an try to realize the higher hand forward of US president-elect Donald Trump taking workplace later in January.

The US expects to make bulletins about extra safety help for Ukraine in coming days, White Home spokesperson John Kirby stated on Friday. He stated future bulletins have been anticipated, with out offering specifics, after Washington final week introduced $5.9bn in extra army and price range help for Ukraine and {that a} assembly of the Ukraine defence contact group in Germany can be held on 9 January.

The breakaway Moldovan area of Transnistria ordered rolling blackouts on Friday as a halt in Russian gasoline provides earlier this week plunged the self-proclaimed state into disaster. The breakaway area bordering Ukraine has been unable to supply heating and scorching water to its residents since Wednesday, when Moscow reduce off gasoline provides to Moldova over a monetary dispute. “In Transnistria at present, 3 January, there will likely be rolling blackouts. It is because inhabitants of the republic are at present consuming extra electrical energy than is produced by the vitality system,” Transnistria’s financial system ministry stated on Telegram. Components of Transnistria’s largest metropolis, Tiraspol – together with a neighbourhood residence to a maternity hospital – would lose energy, in addition to smaller cities and villages, it stated.

Oil from two ageing and broken Russian tankers was detected on Friday off the coast of Sevastopol, the most important metropolis in Moscow-annexed Crimea, an area official stated. The Volgoneft-212 and the Volgoneft-239 have been hit by a storm final month within the Kerch strait linking Crimea to the southern Russian Krasnodar area, about 250km from Sevastopol. One sank and the opposite ran aground, pouring about 2,400 tonnes of a heavy gas oil referred to as mazut into the encompassing waters, Russia’s transport ministry stated. “A small oil slick reached Sevastopol at present,” the Moscow-installed head of town, Mikhail Razvozhayev, stated on Telegram, publishing a video of the oil. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has referred to as the tanker spills an “ecological catastrophe”.