events

These are the key developments from day 1,416 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Saturday, January 10:

Fighting:

• The death toll from a massive Russian attack on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv that began on Thursday night has risen to four, the Ukrainian State Emergency Service wrote in an update shared on Facebook on Friday. At least 25 people were also injured, including five rescuers, the service added.
• The attack left thousands of Kyiv apartments without heat, electricity and water as temperatures fell to minus 10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) on Friday, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko and other local officials said.
• Klitschko called on people to temporarily leave the city, saying on Telegram that “half of apartment buildings in Kyiv – nearly 6,000 – are currently without heating because the capital’s critical infrastructure was damaged by the enemy’s massive attack”.
• Russian forces shelled a hospital in the Ukrainian city of Kherson just after midday on Friday, damaging the intensive care unit and injuring three nurses, the regional prosecutor’s office wrote on Telegram.
• “As a result of the attack, three nurses aged 21, 49, and 52 were wounded. At the time of the shelling, the women were inside the medical facility,” the office said in a statement.
• The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, condemned attacks on healthcare in Ukraine in a statement shared on X, saying that there had been nine attacks since the beginning of 2026, killing one patient, one medic and injuring 11 others, including healthcare workers and patients.
• Tedros said that the attacks further “complicated the delivery of health care during the winter period” and called for “the protection of health care facilities, patients and health workers”.
• Russian forces attacked two foreign-flagged civilian vessels with drones in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, killing a Syrian national and injuring another, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba and other officials said on Friday.
• A Ukrainian drone attack on a bus in Russia’s Belgorod region injured four people, the regional task force reported, according to Russia’s TASS state news agency.
• Russian forces seized five settlements in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, including Zelenoye, the Russian Ministry of Defence said, according to TASS.
• Ukrainian battlefield monitoring site DeepState said on Friday that Russian forces advanced in Huliaipole and Prymorske in the Zaporizhia region, but did not report any further changes.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Friday that Russia’s Oreshnik missile strike late on Thursday was “demonstratively” close to Ukraine’s border with the European Union.
• The International Atomic Energy Agency has begun consultations to establish a temporary ceasefire zone near Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after military activity damaged one of two high-voltage power lines, Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement on Friday.

Sanctions

• US forces seized the Olina oil tanker and forced it to return to Venezuela so its oil could be sold “through the GREAT Energy Deal”, United States President Donald Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Friday. According to The Associated Press news agency, US government records showed that the Olina had been sanctioned for moving Russian oil under its prior name, Minerva M.
• Ukraine’s ambassador to the US, Olha Stefanishyna, said that Ukrainian nationals were among members of the crew of the Russian-flagged tanker Marinera seized earlier this week by US forces over its links to Venezuela, according to Interfax Ukraine news agency.
• The Russian Foreign Ministry separately said on Friday that the US had released two Russian crewmembers from the Marinera, expressing gratitude to Washington for the decision and pledging to ensure the return home of crewmembers.

Politics and diplomacy

• Qatar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed “deep regret” over damage to its embassy in Kyiv, confirming that no diplomats or staff were hurt, in a statement on Friday. The ministry underscored the importance of protecting diplomatic buildings and reiterated its call for a “resolution to the Russian-Ukrainian crisis through dialogue and peaceful means”.
• British Defence Secretary John Healey said that the United Kingdom was allocating 200 million pounds ($270m) to fund preparations for the possible deployment of troops to Ukraine, during a visit to Kyiv on Friday.
• The leaders of Britain, France and Germany described Russia’s use of an Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile in western Ukraine as “escalatory and unacceptable”, according to a readout of their call released by Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office on Friday.

These are the key developments from day 1,414 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Thursday, January 8:

Fighting

• One person was killed and five people were injured in a Russian attack on two ports in Ukraine’s Odesa region, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said in a post on Facebook. “The attack damaged port facilities, administrative buildings, and oil containers,” Kuleba said.
• A Russian attack on Kryvyi Rih, in Ukraine’s Dnipro region, injured eight people, including two seriously, the head of the Kryvyi Rih defence council, Oleksandr Vilkul, wrote on Telegram.

• Russian attacks left Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia regions in southeastern Ukraine “almost completely without electricity”, Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy said in a statement on Telegram. “Critical infrastructure is operating on reserve power,” the ministry added.

• Firefighters put out a blaze that broke out at an oil depot in Russia’s southern Belgorod region following an overnight Ukrainian drone attack, the Vesti state TV channel reported on Wednesday, citing the regional governor.

Politics and diplomacy

• British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that any deployment of UK forces under a declaration signed with France and Ukraine would be subject to a parliamentary vote. “I will keep the house updated as the situation develops, and were troops to be deployed under the declaration signed, I would put that matter to the house for a vote,” Starmer told parliament on Wednesday.

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told reporters on WhatsApp that he hopes to meet with United States President Donald Trump soon to gauge his openness to a Ukrainian proposal that Washington ensure security for Kyiv for more than 15 years in the event of a ceasefire, according to the Reuters news agency. “The Americans, in my view, are being productive right now; we have good results … They need to put pressure on Russia. They have the tools, and they know how to use them,” Zelenskyy said.
• Zelenskyy also said during a visit to Cyprus on Wednesday that Ukraine is “doing everything required on our side in the negotiation process. And we expect that no additional or excessive demands will be placed on Ukraine.”
• Zelenskyy was in Cyprus as it assumed the rotating presidency of the European Union, as he continued a push for his country to join the bloc. “We are working to make as much progress as possible during this period on opening negotiating clusters and on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union,” Zelenskyy said after a meeting with Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides in Nicosia, in a statement posted on X.
• Spain’s Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said on Wednesday that negotiations are still “far from a peace plan” for Ukraine. “There is an outline of ideas,” Albares said, according to Reuters.

Sanctions

• The US seized two Venezuela-linked oil tankers in the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday, including the Marinera crude oil tanker sailing under Russia’s flag.
• US Vice President JD Vance said that the tanker “was a fake Russian oil tanker,” in an interview set to air on Fox News, excerpts of which were provided in advance. “They basically tried to pretend to be a Russian oil tanker in an effort to avoid the sanctions regime,” Vance said, referring to sanctions imposed by the Trump administration on Venezuelan oil. The Trump administration has separately imposed sanctions on some Russian oil companies.

• Ukraine’s foreign minister said on Wednesday that Kyiv welcomed the move. “The apprehension of a Russian-flagged ship in the North Atlantic underscores the United States’ and President Trump’s resolute leadership,” Andrii Sybiha wrote on X. “We welcome such an approach to dealing with Russia: act, not fear. This is also relevant to the peace process and bringing a lasting peace closer.”

• Russia’s Ministry of Transport protested the seizure, saying in a statement that “in accordance with the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, freedom of navigation applies in the high seas, and no state has the right to use force against vessels duly registered in the jurisdictions of other states”.

• US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said that President Trump has “greenlit” a long-awaited bipartisan bill imposing sanctions on Russia after the pair met on Wednesday. “I look forward to a strong bipartisan vote, hopefully as early as next week,” Graham said in a statement.

These are the key developments from day 1,409 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Saturday, January 3:

Fighting

• Two people were killed, including a three-year-old child, and at least 31 people were wounded in a Russian ballistic missile attack on a five-storey residential building in the centre of Ukraine’s Kharkiv, the region’s governor Oleh Syniehubov wrote on Telegram.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence denied responsibility for the attack, claiming it was caused by the detonation of Ukrainian ammunition and was meant as a distraction from a deadly attack the day before on the village of Khorly, in a Russian-occupied part of the Kherson region.
• The death toll from the drone strike on a hotel and cafe in Khorly rose to 28 people, the region’s Russian-installed governor, Vladimir Saldo, told Russia’s state-run TASS news agency. Saldo also said that more than 60 people were injured in the attack. Ukraine has responded to the strike by saying it does not target civilians.
• Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said in a post on Facebook that Ukrainian authorities have decided to evacuate more than 3,000 children, along with their parents, from 44 front-line settlements in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions due to Russian aggression.
• A Ukrainian attack on the electricity grid in the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia region of Ukraine left 1,777 households without power, Russian-installed regional governor, Yevgeniy Balitsky, wrote on Telegram.
• Russian forces shot down 64 Ukrainian drones overnight into Friday, Russia’s Defence Ministry said, according to TASS.
• Ukrainian monitoring site DeepState reported Russian forces seized more land in the Myrnohrad and Pokrovsk areas of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, as well as in Svitle in the Ternopil region.
• The Russian army captured more than 5,600 square kilometres (2,160 square miles), or nearly 1 percent, of Ukrainian territory in 2025, according to an analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which works with the Critical Threats Project.
• According to the AFP news agency, the land seized by Russian forces last year was more than in the previous two years combined, but less than the 60,000sq km (23,166sq miles) Russia took in 2022, the first year of its all-out invasion.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy named Ukraine’s military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov as his presidential chief of staff on Friday, in the latest Ukrainian leadership shake-up.
• Zelenskyy also nominated Mykhailo Fedorov, a drone and digitalisation specialist who has served as first deputy prime minister and minister of digital transformation, as defence minister. Fedorov, whose appointment must be approved by parliament, will replace Denys Shmyhal, a former prime minister who was being offered a new government post.
• RecepTayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkiye, told reporters in Istanbul that he would hold a phone call with United States President Donald Trump on Monday to discuss peace efforts. Turkiye has been hosting intermittent peace talks during Russia’s war on Ukraine.
• Erdogan also said Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will attend a meeting of the “coalition of the willing”, a group of nations backing Ukraine, in Paris, in the coming days.

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Dick Cheney predicted Thursday that the Soviet Union will withdraw all of its troops from Europe by 1995, a forecast that prompted key Senate Democrats to question whether President Bush’s new proposal for cutting U.S. forces should be faster and deeper.

As the Senate Armed Services Committee opened congressional debate on reshaping the nation’s military structure, Cheney and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Colin L. Powell, were repeatedly challenged on the Administration’s troop-reduction plans.

195,000 Force Level

Cheney, disclosing the Pentagon’s rough timetable for cuts in Europe, testified that it may take a year or two to carry out any U.S.-Soviet agreement on the issue.

Bush announced Wednesday night that he was recommending that each side cut its combat forces in Central Europe to 195,000, with the United States allowed to have an additional 30,000 elsewhere in Europe. Currently, the United States has 305,000 troops on the continent.

Sen. Alan J. Dixon (D-Ill.), sharply criticizing the pace of negotiations, declared that he would push the subcommittee he heads to legislate an immediate reduction of 50,000 American troops in Europe and 10,000 in Korea.

Dixon said events are overtaking negotiations, with NATO allies West Germany and Belgium already planning their own deep cuts and Soviet forces certain to be kicked out by new governments in Eastern Europe.

“I’m not saying we should strip until we’re naked,” Dixon said. “There are reasonable, moderate, fair reductions we can make.”

Later, Committee Chairman Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) applauded Bush for going beyond his proposal of last May and advocating the withdrawal of 80,000 U.S. troops, not just the 30,000 he called for then. He called it “much more relevant to the changes in Europe and to the budget realities here at home.”

But Nunn voiced strong concern when Cheney seemed to advocate keeping 225,000 U.S. troops in Europe indefinitely, despite his prediction that the Soviets would pull all of its forces out of Eastern Europe and the two Germanys would be reunited.

Nunn warned that unless the United States had plans to make substantial withdrawals in such a case, it could wind up supplying most of the ground forces for NATO as other allies disbanded their units.

The influential senator got Cheney to concede that the Administration would “take another look” at U.S. troop levels in the event of a sweeping Soviet pullback and German reunification.

Despite Cheney’s expression of flexibility, the defense secretary firmly defended Bush’s new plan. He asserted that any effort by Congress to make unilateral troop cuts before the conclusion of U.S.-Soviet arms control talks would undermine the NATO alliance and encourage greater instability in Europe.

“We are on the verge of winning one of the greatest victories in the history of the world without a shot being fired,” Cheney said. “We should not unilaterally bring them (U.S. troops) home before we get an agreement.”

Republicans Cautious

Several Republicans on the committee strongly backed that position.

“We cannot let the euphoria sweeping this nation drive us to unilateral and hasty reductions in these forces,” Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S. C.) said.

Although members of both parties warmly pledged to work cooperatively with Cheney and Powell in the battles ahead, several Democrats served notice that they would press for deep cuts in the Administration’s proposals for increased spending on strategic weapons programs.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) proposed a “Democratic alternative” that he said would carve a $169-billion “peace dividend” out of the defense budget over the next five years, more than quadrupling the savings proposed by Bush for the same period.

Kennedy singled out the B-2 Stealth bomber, the “Star Wars” anti-missile program and other major programs for deep slashes. He argued that Bush’s budget fails to reflect a dramatically diminished Soviet military threat and a massive upgrading of U.S. strategic weapons in the last decade.

“We have to have a modernization program,” he said, “but does it have to be at the madcap pace of the 1980s?”

Cheney, while acknowledging major changes in the world, said that the Soviets continue to modernize their own strategic arsenal. “The Soviet Union remains the only nation on earth capable of destroying the United States,” he said.

Powell likewise contended that this was no time for the nation to let down its guard.

“I never want to return to that leisurely, comfortable ‘From Here to Eternity’ attitude of the 1930s that helped invite global conflict to an unsuspecting world,” he said.

These are the key developments from day 1,406 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Wednesday, December 31:

Fighting

• Russian forces shelled the town of Kostiantynivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, killing one person, an official said. The deadly attack came a day after an attack in Druzhkivka killed another person and wounded four, according to the Ukrinform news agency.
• Russian forces also launched waves of attacks on the Black Sea ports of Pivdennyi and Chornomorsk in Ukraine’s Odesa region, hitting two Panama-flagged civilian vessels – Emmakris III and Captain Karam – as they approached to load wheat, the Ukrainian navy said.
• Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said that oil storage tanks were also hit in the port attacks.
• Authorities in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region introduced a mandatory evacuation order for the residents of 14 border villages in four districts. The order will affect some 300 people who still live in the Novhorod-Siverskyi, Semenivka, Snovsk, and Horodnya communities, which have been experiencing daily shelling, an official said.
• Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Energy Olha Yukhymchuk said that 75,000 households in Chernihiv remain without electricity following Russian attacks on energy infrastructure in the region. There were also settlements in the Kharkiv and Sumy regions that were fully or partially without electricity, she said.
• Yukhymchuk also said that repair work had been completed on transmission lines near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant to ensure “stable and reliable power supply to the station in the event of damage or shutdown of the Dniprovska overhead line due to” Russian shelling.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it had taken control of two more settlements in eastern Ukraine. It identified them as the village ⁠of Lukianivske in the Zaporizhia region and ​the ‌settlement of Bohuslavka in the ‌Kharkiv ‌region.
• Russian authorities said that a Ukrainian ‍drone attack on the Russian Black Sea port of Tuapse ‍damaged port infrastructure and a gas pipeline in a residential area there. The regional administration said no ⁠injuries were reported.
• Other Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia’s Belgorod region killed a woman and wounded four other people, local authorities said.

Alleged attack on Putin’s residence

• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia will “toughen” its negotiating position in talks on a deal to end the war in Ukraine as a “diplomatic consequence” of an alleged attempted drone attack on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence in northwestern Russia’s Novgorod on Sunday.
• Peskov said the attack, which Ukraine denies, was aimed at collapsing the peace talks and accused Western media of playing along with Kyiv’s denial.
• Ukraine has dismissed the Russian claim as lies aimed at justifying additional attacks against Kyiv and prolonging the war.
• Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Russia had not provided any plausible evidence of its accusations. “And they won’t. Because there’s none. No such attack happened,” Sybiha said on X.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy slammed countries, including India and the United Arab Emirates, that have condemned the alleged attack, which he said “didn’t even happen”. He called the moves “confusing and unpleasant”.
• China said “dialogue and negotiation” remain the only “viable way out of the Ukraine crisis”, when asked for a comment on the alleged attack on Putin’s residence.
• Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also called on “relevant parties to follow the principles of no expansion of the battlefield, no escalation of fighting and no provocation by any party”, to work towards the de-escalation of the situation, and to “accumulate conditions for the political settlement of the crisis”.
• The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington, DC-based think tank, said that its analysts found that the “circumstances” of the alleged attack did not fit the “pattern of observed evidence” usually seen “when Ukrainian forces conduct strikes into Russia”.
• The US ‌ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, cast doubt on Russia’s accusation, saying he wants to see US intelligence on the incident. “It is unclear whether it actually happened,” Whitaker told Fox Business’s Varney & Co.
• The ‍German ‍government also said it shares Ukraine’s concern that Russian ⁠allegations of the attack could be used as a pretext for ‍further ⁠escalation of Moscow’s war.

Diplomacy

• Zelenskyy said ‍that Ukraine and the Coalition of the Willing group of nations ⁠backing Kyiv plan to ​hold their next meetings at ‍the start of January. Zelenskyy said that the countries’ national ‍security advisers would ⁠meet in Ukraine on January 3, and with the leaders in France on January 6.
• He also told reporters that Kyiv was discussing with US President Donald Trump the possible ⁠presence of ​US troops in Ukraine ‍as part of security guarantees.
• “Of course, we are discussing this with President Trump and with representatives of the [Western] coalition [supporting Kyiv]. We want this. We would like this. This would be a ‍strong position of the security ⁠guarantees,” the Ukrainian president said.
• Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told officials that there is reason to hope for peace in Ukraine quite soon. “Peace ⁠is on the horizon; there is no doubt that things ​have happened ‌that give grounds for hope that this war ‌can end, ‌and quite quickly, ⁠but it is still a hope, far ‌from 100 percent certain,” he said.
• Tusk said security guarantees offered to Kyiv ‌by the US were a reason to hope the conflict could end soon, but that Kyiv would need to compromise on territorial issues.
• The US removed sanctions on Alexandra Buriko, the former chief ⁠financial officer ​of Russia’s state-owned ‍Sberbank, according to the US Treasury Department.
• Buriko was among ​a ‌group of senior executives and board members who ‌resigned from Western-sanctioned ‌Sberbank shortly after ⁠Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. She sued the Treasury Department in a Washington federal court in December 2024, arguing she had severed ‌ties with Sberbank days after it was sanctioned and that her continued inclusion on ‌the sanctioned list was unlawful.

Weapons

• Romania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the country would spend 50 million euros ($58m) to support a European initiative to buy weapons made by US companies for Ukraine, known as the Priority Ukraine Requirements List (PURL).
• Belarus ‌released a video of what it said was ‍the deployment on ‍its territory of the Russian nuclear-capable hypersonic Oreshnik missile system, a development meant to bolster Moscow’s ability to strike targets across Europe in the event of a war.

These are the key developments from day 1,404 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Monday, December 29:

Diplomacy

• United States President Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for talks at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and said the two leaders were “getting a lot closer, maybe very close” to a deal to end the war in Ukraine.
• Trump and Zelenskyy reported progress on two of the most contentious issues in the peace talks: security guarantees for Ukraine and the division of eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region that Russia has sought to capture.
• On security guarantees, Zelenskyy said that a deal had been reached, while Trump said they were 95 percent of the way to such an agreement.
• Both Trump and Zelenskyy said that the future of the mostly Russian-occupied Donbas had not been settled, though the US president said discussions were “moving in the right direction”. “It’s unresolved, but it’s getting a lot closer. That’s a very tough issue,” Trump said.
• The two leaders did not offer further details or a deadline for completing the deal, but Zelenskyy said any peace agreement would have to be approved by Ukraine’s parliament or by a referendum.
• Shortly after the Trump-Zelenskyy meeting, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, wrote on X that the “whole world appreciates” Trump and his team’s peace efforts.
• Ahead of the meeting with Zelenskyy, Trump and Putin spoke for more than two hours on the telephone. The US president described the call as “excellent” and “productive”.
• Trump said he would call Putin again after the meeting with Zelenskyy.
• Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said the initial call was “friendly” and that Putin had told Trump that a 60-day ceasefire, proposed by the European Union and Ukraine, would simply prolong the war.
• Ushakov said that a “bold, responsible, political decision is needed from Kyiv” on the Donbas region and other disputed matters for there to be a “complete cessation” of hostilities.
• European leaders, including those from Finland, France, Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom, joined at least part of the Trump-Zelenskyy meeting by phone.
• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement that Europe was ready to keep working with Ukraine and the US, and that having ironclad security guarantees would be of “paramount” importance.
• French President Emmanuel Macron said that progress had been made on security guarantees at the meeting. Macron said that countries in the so-called “Coalition of the Willing” would meet in Paris in early January to finalise their “concrete contributions”.
• Zelenskyy said that Trump had agreed to host European leaders again, possibly at the White House, sometime in January. Trump said the meeting could be in Washington, DC, or “someplace”.
• Earlier on Sunday, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov warned that any European troop contingents deployed to Ukraine would become legitimate targets for Russia’s forces. Lavrov also accused European politicians of being driven by “ambitions” in their relations with Kyiv, and disregarding the people of Ukraine and of their own nations.

Fighting

• Russian forces attacked a heating plant in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, wounding one person and causing “significant damage” to the facility, state oil and gas firm Naftogaz said.
• Ukraine’s leading private energy provider, DTEK, said it had restored power to more than a million households in and around Kyiv a day after a massive Russian air attack had forced emergency outages.
• Ukraine’s military said it had struck the Syzran oil refinery in Russia’s Samara region in a drone attack. The strike caused a fire, and damages were still being assessed, the army said in a statement.
• The military also said that only part of the southeastern town of Huliaipole was under Russian control, contradicting an earlier claim by Moscow that it had been captured. It added that fighting was also still under way for Stepnohirsk, another town in the southeastern Zaporizhia region that Russia claimed it had captured.
• Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said in a statement that its troops had taken control of four other settlements in the Donetsk region. It identified them as Myrnohrad, Artemivka, Rodynske and Vilne.

These are the key developments from day 1,403 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Sunday, December 28:

Fighting

• At least two people were killed in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the surrounding region, after Russian forces launched a massive attack with hundreds of missiles and drones, ahead of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s meeting with United States President Donald Trump to work out a plan to end nearly four years of war.
• The attack also wounded at least 46 people, including two children, according to Ukrainian officials.
• Zelenskyy, who was on his way to meet Trump in Florida, said that Russia had launched nearly 500 drones and 40 missiles, targeting energy and civilian infrastructure.
• Ukraine’s state grid operator, Ukrenergo, said that energy facilities across Ukraine were struck, and emergency power cuts had been implemented across the capital. DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said the attack had left more than a million households in and around Kyiv without power.
• Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said that more than 40 percent of residential buildings in Kyiv were left without heat, as temperatures hovered around 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) following the attack.
• Poland’s Air Navigation Services Agency said in a statement on X that the Rzeszow and Lublin airports in the country’s southeastern region were temporarily shut following Russia’s strikes on Ukraine. The Operational Command of the Polish Armed Forces said that Polish and allied jets were deployed during the attack, but no violations of Polish airspace were reported.
• In Russia, air defence forces shot down 11 drones headed for the capital, Moscow, according to the city’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin.
• Russia’s aviation watchdog, Rosaviatsia, said that Moscow’s Vnukovo and Sheremetyevo airports imposed temporary restrictions on airspace due to security reasons.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence also said that its air defence systems had intercepted and destroyed more than 100 Ukrainian drones in three hours over six other Russian regions.
• Russian commanders told President Vladimir Putin that Moscow’s forces had captured the Ukrainian towns of Myrnohrad, Rodynske and Artemivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, as well as Huliaipole and Stepnohirsk in the Zaporizhia region, the Kremlin and Russian news agencies said on Telegram.
• But Ukraine’s military said in its daily battlefield update that its forces had beaten back Russian attempts to advance in the vicinity of Myrnohrad and Huliaipole.

Politics and diplomacy

• Zelenskyy announced in a Telegram message that he would hold talks with European leaders after his meeting with Trump on Sunday, as Kyiv pushes for a stronger position in the ongoing ceasefire negotiations to prevent Russia from prolonging the war in Ukraine.
• Zelenskyy said he wants to discuss with Trump territorial issues, the main stumbling block in talks to end the war, as a 20-point peace framework and a security guarantee deal near completion.
• On the way to the meeting in Florida, Zelenskyy stopped in Canada’s Halifax to meet Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister said in a statement after the meeting.
• Carney denounced the latest Russian attack as “barbarism”, stressing that it is important for allies to “stand with Ukraine in this difficult time”. He also announced $1.83bn in additional economic aid to Ukraine.
• Zelenskyy spoke to European leaders following the meeting with Carney. In a statement posted on X, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: “We welcome all efforts leading to our shared objective – a just and lasting peace that preserves Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. And that strengthens the country’s security and defence capabilities.”
• Antonio Costa, the president of the European Council, which represents the bloc’s 27 member states, echoed von der Leyen’s promise to continue backing Ukraine, saying on X: “The EU’s support for Ukraine will not falter. In war, in peace, in reconstruction.”
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that Zelenskyy had “the full support” of European leaders ahead of his talks with Trump. The leaders of NATO and the European Union said they would work “in close coordination” with the US “for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine”, Merz added in a statement.
• French President Emmanuel Macron said in a call with Zelenskyy that the latest Russian strikes on Kyiv showed that Moscow was not interested in ending the war, the AFP news agency reported, citing officials from Macron’s office. During the call, Macron highlighted what he called the “contrast” between “the willingness of Ukraine to build a lasting peace and Russia’s determination to prolong the war that it started”, the report said.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia could see Kyiv was in no hurry to end the war by peaceful means, according to the Interfax news agency. Putin said that if Ukraine did not want to resolve the conflict peacefully, then Russia would accomplish all goals of its “special military operation” by force, Russian state news agency TASS reported.

These are the key developments from day 1,401 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Friday, December 26:

Fighting

• Officials in Russia’s Krasnodar region reported a huge fire following a Ukrainian drone strike on two storage tanks holding oil products in the southern Russian port of Temryuk. The blaze spread across roughly 2,000 square metres (some 21,500 square feet).
• Long-range Ukrainian drones targeted oil storage facilities at Temryuk port, as well as a gas processing plant in Russia’s Orenburg region, Ukraine’s SBU security service said.
• Ukraine’s General Staff said its military also struck the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in Russia’s Rostov region using Storm Shadow missiles, triggering several explosions.
• The General Staff described the Russian refinery as a major supplier of oil products in southern Russia that supports Moscow’s military operations in Ukraine.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence announced that its forces had taken control of the settlement of Sviato-Pokrovske in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, according to reports from Russian state news agencies.

Regional security

• Poland sent fighter jets to intercept a Russian reconnaissance aircraft flying near its airspace over the Baltic Sea and said dozens of objects entered Polish airspace from Belarus overnight, warning the incidents during the holiday season may signal a provocation.
• Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused the United States of encouraging what it called “piracy” in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean by blockading Venezuela, while expressing hope that US President Donald Trump’s pragmatism could prevent further escalation.
• Moscow also reiterated its support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government and its efforts to safeguard national sovereignty amid threats by the US to remove Maduro from power.

Peace talks

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he spoke with Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, for about an hour on how to end the war with Russia and “how to bring the real peace closer”.

• “Of course, there is still work to be done on sensitive issues,” the Ukrainian leader said. “But together with the American team, we understand how to put all of this in place. The weeks ahead may also be intensive. Thank you, America!”

• Russia believes negotiations with the US to end the war in Ukraine are making gradual progress, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said. She described the talks as slow-moving but advancing steadily.

Politics and diplomacy

• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir Putin had sent the US president a Christmas greeting along with a congratulatory message.
•  Russia said it had put forward a proposal to France concerning Laurent Vinatier, a French researcher imprisoned under Russia’s foreign agent laws, adding that the next steps in the Frenchman’s case now rest with Paris.

Sanctions

• Russia’s target of producing 100 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas annually has been pushed back by several years due to international sanctions, the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said in comments aired on state television.

These are the key developments from day 1,400 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Thursday, December 25:

Fighting

• An explosion in Moscow killed three people, including two police officers, just days after a car bomb killed a high-ranking Russian general in the same area of the capital.
• An official from Ukraine’s military intelligence, known as GUR, told The Associated Press news agency that the attack had been carried out as part of a Ukrainian operation and the two police officers were targeted for taking part in Russia’s war in Ukraine.
• ‍Russian air ‍defence units downed 16 Ukrainian drones en route to Moscow throughout Wednesday, the capital’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.
• Sobyanin said the drones were repelled ​over a period of about 17 hours, and emergency ‍crews were examining fragments where the drones hit the ground, but no damage was reported.
• Two of four major airports ‍servicing Moscow were forced to limit operations for a time due to the drone attacks, Russia’s civil aviation authority said on Telegram.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its aerial defence units destroyed 172 Ukrainian drones overnight, nearly half of them over regions bordering Ukraine.

• Ukraine said its drones ​had struck the Yefremov synthetic rubber plant ‌in Russia’s Tula region, south of Moscow, and a storage facility for marine drones in Russian-occupied Crimea.
• Tula regional governor, Dmitry Milyaev, said ‌debris from a downed Ukrainian drone ignited a fire at an industrial ‌site, and Russian air defence units destroyed 12 Ukrainian drones over the region.
• A sunflower oil spill, caused by Russian aerial bombardments, has contaminated the shoreline around the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa, killing wildlife and triggering warnings from conservationists, the AFP news agency reports.
• “The cause was damage to sunflower oil tanks as a result of massive enemy attacks on port infrastructure, causing some of the oil to spill,” Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper said in a statement. The Pivdenny port in the region was temporarily closed on Wednesday to help with the cleanup.
• A Russian-backed court in occupied Ukraine sentenced a Colombian man to 19 years in prison for fighting for Kyiv’s army.
• Russia’s Prosecutor General said the Supreme Court in the Russian-controlled area of Ukraine’s Donetsk region sentenced Oscar Mauricio Blanco Lopez, 42, to 19 years in jail. The Colombian arrived in Ukraine in May 2024 to sign up with the Ukrainian army and had been “taken prisoner by Russian servicemen” in December 2025.

Ceasefire talks

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy revealed for the first time details of an agreement between the United States and Ukrainian negotiators on ending the war with Russia. The 20-point plan, agreed on by US and Ukrainian negotiators after marathon talks, is now being reviewed by Moscow.
• As part of the plan, President Zelenskyy said Ukraine would be willing to withdraw troops from the country’s eastern industrial heartland if Moscow also pulled back and the area becomes a demilitarised zone monitored by international forces.
• A similar arrangement could be possible for the area around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is currently under Russian control, Zelenskyy said. The Ukrainian leader said that any peace plan would need to be put to a referendum in Ukraine.

• Asked about the latest development in ceasefire talks, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would decide its position based on information received by Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who met with US envoys in Florida over the weekend.
• Russia has given no indication that it will agree to any kind of withdrawal from land it has seized in Ukraine. Moscow has also insisted that Ukraine relinquish the remaining territory it still holds in the Donbas. Russia has captured most of Luhansk and about 70 percent of Donetsk – the two areas that make up the Donbas.

Politics and diplomacy

• A majority of Russians expect the war in Ukraine to end in 2026, Russia’s state pollster VTsIOM said, in a sign that the Kremlin could be testing public reaction to a possible peace settlement as diplomatic efforts ⁠to end the conflict intensify.
• During the pollster’s year-end presentation, VTsIOM Deputy Head Mikhail Mamonov said 70 percent of the 1,600 respondents ​saw 2026 as a more “successful” year for Russia than 2025, while for 55 percent that hope ‍was linked to a possible end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
• A Russian court has scheduled the first public hearing in a criminal case against German sculptor Jacques Tilly, who is accused of discrediting the Russian military through his satirical Carnival floats depicting Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
• The court in Moscow said the trial will begin on December 30 and proceedings will be held in absentia, as Tilly – who faces up to 10 years in jail or a fine – is not in Russia.
• Zelenskyy said in his Christmas address on Wednesday that despite marking the holiday at a “difficult” time, the nation’s unity remains intact. “Ukrainians are together tonight,” Zelenskyy said, adding the country had “without a doubt” been changed by the war. “It hardly matters what dishes are on the table – what matters is who is at the table,” he said.

Regional security

• France’s ‍President Emmanuel Macron said he spoke ⁠with NATO ​chief Mark Rutte to ‍discuss the situation in Ukraine and ‍the work undertaken ⁠by the “coalition of the willing”. “Starting in January in Paris, we ​will ‌continue the work begun within this framework to provide ‌Ukraine with solid security ‌guarantees, a ⁠prerequisite for a robust and lasting peace,” Macron ‌said on social media.
• Democratic senators in the US have urged President ‍Donald Trump to ‍reverse a recall of nearly 30 career ambassadors, warning the move leaves a dangerous leadership vacuum that allows adversaries like Russia and China to expand their influence. The Trump administration in recent days has ordered career diplomats serving across Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America back to Washington to ensure US missions abroad reflect its “America First” priorities.

Economics

• Kazakhstan’s exports of its flagship CPC Blend of oil will be their lowest in 14 months in December, as bad weather delays efforts to repair Russian loading infrastructure after Ukrainian drone strikes last month, two sources told the Reuters news agency.
• On November 29, Ukrainian drones hit the Caspian Pipeline Consortium terminal located near ‍Russia’s Black Sea port ⁠of Novorossiysk, leaving just one out of three jetties operational and prolonging export delays. Poor weather has added to the difficulty of carrying out maintenance work necessary to allow exports to recover.
• Ukraine’s Ministry of Finance said ‍it ‍completed the settlement of a deal to restructure $2.6bn of growth-linked debt.

These are the key developments from day 1,399 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Wednesday, December 24:

Fighting

• Russian forces began a “massive attack” on Ukraine on Monday night, killing three people and targeting 13 regions with 650 drones and 30 missiles, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X.
• Those killed in the overnight attack included a four-year-old girl in the central Zhytomyr region, Governor Vitalii Bunechko said on Telegram. “Doctors struggled to save the child’s life, but in the end, they were unable to save her,” Bunechko said, adding that five people were also injured in the attack.
• Russian forces also launched drones and missiles at the Vyshhorod district of Ukraine’s Kyiv region, killing a woman and injuring three people, Governor Mykola Kalashnyk said.
• In Ukraine’s western Khmelnytskyi region, one person was killed by Russian shelling, Governor Serhii Tiurin said.
• Russian drone attacks on Kyiv’s Sviatoshynskyi district left five people injured, said Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the Kyiv City Military Administration.

• Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy said that “emergency power outages” were introduced in several regions across the country due to Russian forces targeting energy infrastructure. The ministry said that it was working to restore electricity to the Rivne, Ternopil and Odesa regions. The ministry said that the situation was “most difficult” in the border regions, “as restoring electricity is complicated by continuous fighting”.
• Ukraine’s General Staff said Ukrainian troops have withdrawn from the Donetsk region’s ​​Siversk area after heavy fighting, noting that Moscow’s forces had a “significant advantage” there.
• Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Ukrainian F-16 fighter pilots shot down 621 of 673 Russian “aerial targets” on Tuesday night, including 34 of 35 cruise missiles.
• In Russia, a Ukrainian drone strike on a car killed three men in the Belgorod region on Monday, the region’s emergency response team reported.
• Another Ukrainian drone attack in Belgorod on Tuesday killed one person and injured three, the region’s operational headquarters said on Telegram.
• Russian forces shot down 56 Ukrainian drones in a day, as well as a guided bomb, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said, according to the state news agency TASS.

Ceasefire

• Zelenskyy said in his nightly address, “We sense that America wants to reach a final agreement” to end the war in Ukraine, and that “there is full cooperation” from the Ukrainian side.
• In an earlier post on X, Zelenskyy said that “several draft documents have now been prepared”, following talks in Miami. “In particular, these include documents on security guarantees for Ukraine, on recovery, and on a basic framework for ending this war,” he said.
• Pope ‍Leo said that Russia’s apparent refusal to agree to a ceasefire on December 25 is “among the things that cause me much sadness”.
• “I will make ​an appeal one ‌more time to people of goodwill to respect at least Christmas ‌Day as a day of ‌peace,” Leo told reporters outside his residence in Castel Gandolfo, Italy.

These are the key developments from day 1,398 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Tuesday, December 23:

Fighting

• A car bomb killed Russian Lieutenant General ⁠Fanil Sarvarov in southern Moscow, the third such killing of a senior Russian military officer in just more than a year. Russian investors pointed the finger at Ukraine. Kyiv has not commented on the incident.
• Russian forces struck Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa late on Monday, damaging port facilities and a ship in the second such attack on the region in less than 24 hours, according to Ukrainian officials.
• Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said on the Telegram app that the latest attack on Odesa is part of Russia’s attempt “to disrupt maritime logistics by launching systematic attacks on port and energy infrastructure”.
• Kuleba said the attack also caused damage to energy infrastructure, disrupting electricity supply to more than 120,000 customers in the Odesa region. One person was hurt in the attack, the Ministry of Internal Affairs said.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed media reports that residents of Hrabovske village, straddling the border with Russia in Ukraine’s Sumy region and home to 52 people, were taken by Russian troops. Zelenskyy said that 13 Ukrainian servicemen were among those taken.
• Ukraine’s military said it hit a Tamanneftegaz oil terminal in Russia’s Krasnodar region in an overnight attack, causing explosions and a fire. The Ukrainian General Staff said the oil terminal was part of Russia’s energy infrastructure that supported the financing and logistics of Russian troops fighting in Ukraine.
• A Ukrainian drone attack also damaged two vessels in the same region. All crew on the ships at the Volna terminal have been safely evacuated, according to regional authorities.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it had captured Vilcha village in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region. The claim could not be immediately verified.

Politics and diplomacy

• US President Donald Trump said that talks to end the war in Ukraine are going “OK”, amid questions about their progress, with Moscow and Kyiv still far apart on some key matters.
• Zelenskyy, meanwhile, described the negotiations in Miami as “very close to a real result”. He also told a gathering of Ukrainian diplomats that the peace process “all looks quite worthy”, even as he conceded that “not everything is ideal with this, but the plan is there”.
• Separately, in his nightly video address to the nation, Zelenskyy said the key issue in the talks was to determine whether the US was able to “get a response from Russia; real readiness on the part of that country to focus on something other than aggression”. He said that continued pressure on the Kremlin was vital to reduce Moscow’s capacity to wage war.
• The Kremlin said talks between Russia and the US in Miami on ways to resolve the conflict in Ukraine should not be seen as a breakthrough. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Izvestia news outlet that the discussions were expected to continue in a “meticulous” expert-level format.
• Peskov also questioned the reliability of the sources cited in a Reuters news agency report, which said that the US intelligence community believes Putin wants to seize all of Ukraine and reclaim parts of Europe that belonged to the former Soviet bloc. Peskov told reporters in Moscow that if the report was accurate, then the US’s intelligence conclusions were wrong.
• Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov declared that Moscow is ready to confirm in a legal agreement that it has no intention of attacking either the European Union or the US-led NATO military alliance, the state RIA news agency reported.

Military aid

• The Czech Republic’s National Security Council will debate the future of a Czech-led, Western-financed scheme organising artillery ammunition supplies for Ukraine on January 7, Prime Minister Andrej Babis said. The scheme also brings together foreign donors, including Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.

Regional security

• Swedish customs released the Russian ship Adler, which it boarded over the weekend to perform an inspection, with marine tracking data showing the vessel was on the move again. Swedish customs declined to say what cargo the Adler had been carrying. The Adler is under EU sanctions, while the vessel and its owners, M Leasing LLC, are both subject to US sanctions, suspected of involvement in weapons transport.

Dec. 22 (UPI) — While the number of Americans who enjoy the secular traditions of Christmas has remained largely unchanged over recent years, a Gallup analysis released Monday showed that fewer people are observing the religious aspects of the holiday.

The poll found that 88% of Americans say they celebrate Christmas, down from 90% in 2024 and 96% in 2005. Of the more secular aspects of Christmas, 96% of people exchange gifts (down from 97% in 2010); 95% get together with friends or family (97% in 2010); 90% put up a Christmas tree (92% in 2010); 89% put up other decorations (91% in 2010); and 43% attend a holiday concert or play (58% in 2010).

The more religious aspects of Christmas saw a greater decline over the same period of time, with 54% of people using religious decorations such as nativities (down from 68% in 2010) and 47% attending a religious service (64% in 2010).

All religious activities saw a notable drop in participation, while one secular event — attending a holiday concert or play — did as well.

“Although fewer people, including fewer Christians, appear to be incorporating religious aspects, Christmas is thriving as a social occasion focused on gatherings, festivities and gifts,” Gallup said in an analysis of the data.

“Its popularity among young adults and non-Christians in general suggests that even as the U.S. continues to change demographically, a less religiously focused Christmas will endure.”

Gallup asked a few new questions about people’s traditions this year, finding that 86% of people watch holiday-themed movies, 81% make holiday desserts and 52% send holiday cards.

Gallup said that of the adults who celebrated Christmas, 69% identified as a Christian denomination, down from 83%, mirroring the overall drop in American adults who identify with a particular religion.

The poll found that there’s little difference in the percentage of Christians and non-Christians who celebrate secular Christmas traditions, and, in fact, a marginally higher percentage of non-Christians participate in some activities, including gathering together with friends and family and exchanging gifts. In each category, 97% of non-Christians participate while 95% of Christians gather with friends and family and 96% exchange gifts.

Meanwhile, Christians are far more likely to observe religious traditions such as using religious decorates (69% compared to 22%) and attending a Christmas service (61% to 11%).

These are the key developments from day 1,397 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Monday, December 22:

Fighting

• A Russian attack on Ukraine’s Kharkiv region killed a 49-year-old man and a 42-year-old woman, according to Governor Oleh Syniehubov. The killings took place in the village of Izyum.
• Russian attacks also killed one person in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, and one person in the southeastern Zaporizhia region, local officials reported.
• Russian forces have shelled the Zaporizhia region nearly 5,000 times over the past week, wounding 60 people and damaging hundreds of buildings, according to Governor Ivan Fedorov.
• Overall, Russian forces have launched about 1,300 drones, nearly 1,200 guided aerial bombs, and nine missiles towards Ukraine over the past week, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
• Ukraine’s ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, accused Russian forces of “illegally” detaining about 50 residents of the village of Hrabovske in the Sumy region and “forcibly deporting” them to Russian territory.
• The Kyiv Independent, citing Ukrainian authorities, reported that wreckage from a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia damaged a pipeline in the Krasnodar Krai region.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces shot down 29 Ukrainian drones in the past 24-hour period.
• The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed that Russian forces shot down 252 drones over the Russian-occupied Donbas region, using the “Donbas Dome electronic warfare system” over the past week, the TASS news agency reported.

Politics and diplomacy

• US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met with a Ukrainian delegation, led by senior official Rustem Umerov and European officials, as the US continued to host talks in Miami, Florida, on a prospective peace deal for Russia’s war on Ukraine for a third day on Sunday.
• Witkoff said in a post on X late on Sunday that the talks with the Ukrainians and Europeans had been “productive and constructive” and focused on a “shared strategic approach between Ukraine, the United States and Europe”.
• In a second post about two hours later, Witkoff said that the US had also had “productive and constructive meetings” with Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev over the past two days.
• “Russia remains fully committed to achieving peace in Ukraine [and] highly values the efforts and support of the United States to resolve the Ukrainian conflict and re-establish global security,” Witkoff said.
• Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy aide, Yury Ushakov, said that changes made by European countries and Ukraine to the US’s proposals for an end to Russia’s war did not improve prospects for peace.
• “I am sure that the proposals that the Europeans and Ukrainians have made or are trying to make definitely do not improve the document and do not improve the possibility of achieving long-term peace,” Ushakov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian president was ready to talk with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, after the latter said Europe should reach out to Moscow to end the war.
• Macron’s office welcomed the Russian statement, saying: “It is welcome that the Kremlin has publicly agreed to this approach. We will decide in the coming days on the best way to proceed.”
• India’s Ministry of External Affairs said that “202 Indian nationals are believed to have been recruited into the Russian armed forces” during Russia’s war on Ukraine. It said Russian authorities had reported that 26 had been killed and seven were missing.
• Sweden’s customs service said on Sunday that Swedish authorities boarded a Russian freighter that anchored in Swedish waters on Friday after developing engine problems, to inspect the cargo. The owners of the vessel, the Adler, are on the European Union’s sanctions list, Martin Hoglund, spokesman at the customs authority, said.
• “Shortly after 0100 last night [00:00 GMT] we boarded the ship with support from the Swedish Coast Guard and the police service in order to make a customs inspection,” Hoglund said. “The inspection is still ongoing.”

Here is where things stand on Sunday, December 21:

Fighting

• The death toll from a Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s port city of Odesa rose from seven to eight, with at least 30 others wounded, according to Ukrainian authorities.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the situation in Odesa as “harsh” and accused Russia of trying to block Kyiv’s access to the Black Sea.
• The Ukrainian leader also said that he is looking to replace the head of the Southern Air Command, Dmytro Karpenko, over the Russian strikes on Odesa.
• Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said Russian forces also attacked the nearby port of Pivdennyi on Saturday, hitting several reservoirs.
• Ukraine’s military said its special forces carried out a drone attack on a Lukoil oil rig in the Caspian Sea on Friday, along with the Russian military patrol ship Okhotnik. The military also said that the Filanovsky oil rig, which had been targeted twice this month, was damaged in the strike.
• The Ukrainian military also said it destroyed two Russian fighter jets at an airfield in the occupied Crimean peninsula.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces took control of the villages of Svitle and Vysoke, located in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region and the northeastern Luhansk region, respectively.

Diplomacy and ceasefire talks

• Zelenskyy said the United States proposed a new format for talks with Russia, comprised of three-way talks at the level of national security advisers from Ukraine, Russia, and the US.
• The Ukrainian leader expressed scepticism that the talks would result in “anything new”, but added that he believes that US-led talks have the best chance of success.
• He added that he would support trilateral discussions if they led to progress in areas such as prisoner swaps or a meeting of national leaders. “If such a ‍meeting could be ⁠held now to allow for swaps of prisoners of war, or if a meeting of national security advisers achieves agreement on a leaders’ meeting… I cannot be opposed. We would support such a US proposal. Let’s see how things go,” he said.
• Zelenskyy also pushed back against calls for Ukraine to hold elections as the war drags on, stating that voting cannot take place in Russian-occupied areas and that security conditions must first improve. “It is not [Russian President Vladimir] Putin who decides when and in what format the elections in Ukraine will take place,” Zelenskyy said.
• Zelenskyy urged European leaders to approve a measure to seize frozen Russian assets and use them to fund Ukraine’s war effort, saying that doing so will strengthen Ukraine’s leverage at the negotiating table. The International Monetary Fund has estimated that Ukraine will need about 137 billion euros ($161bn) in 2026 and 2027, as the demands of the war continue to strain the country’s economy.
• Russian special envoy Kirill Dmitriev held talks with his US counterpart, Steve Witkoff, and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in the city of Miami.
• “The ‌discussions are proceeding constructively. They began earlier and ‌will continue ⁠today, and will also continue tomorrow,” ‌Dmitriev said
• Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov attended a summit in Cairo, held to advance closer cooperation between Russia and African nations, and attended by more than 50 countries. Lavrov pitched Russia as a “reliable partner” to African countries in areas such as security and national sovereignty.

Weapons

• Ukrainian presidential aide Oleksandr Kamyshin announced a deal with Portugal on the joint production of maritime drones, saying it would help “defend Europe from the sea”.

These are the key developments from day 1,395 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Saturday, 20 December :

Fighting

• Russian attacks targeting ports in Ukraine’s Odesa killed seven people and wounded 15, Governor Oleh Kiper said in a post on Telegram.
• Kiper described the attack as “massive” and said it involved Russian ballistic missiles, which targeted trucks that caught fire.
• The Kyiv Independent news outlet reported that Odesa city has been suffering from chronic power outages since December 13, due to earlier Russian attacks.
• Russian forces attacked Ukraine’s Dnipro region with artillery shelling and drones, damaging homes, power lines and a gas pipeline, Vladyslav Hayvanenko, acting head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration, wrote on Facebook.
• Ukraine has taken back control of almost all of its northern city of Kupiansk after isolating Russian forces and unending Russian claims to have seized the key urban centre.

Aid

• European Union leaders agreed to provide a $105.5bn interest-free loan to Ukraine to meet the country’s military and economic needs for the next two years.
• EU leaders decided ‍to borrow cash on capital markets to fund Ukraine’s defence against Russia, rather than use frozen Russian assets, diplomats said.

Diplomacy

• In his annual “results of the year” speech in Moscow on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for refusing to discuss giving up the Ukrainian Russia has seized, as part of truce negotiations.
• “We know from statements from Zelenskyy that he’s not prepared to discuss territory issues,” Putin said.
• The Russian president also attacked Europe’s handling of frozen Russian assets, labelling plans to use them to fund Ukraine as “robbery”, rather than theft, because it was being done openly.
• “Whatever they stole, they’ll have to give it back someday,” Putin said, pledging to pursue legal action in courts that he described as “independent of political decisions”.

Ceasefire talks

• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that progress has been made to end Russia’s war on Ukraine in a year-end address in Washington, DC.
• “I think we’ve made progress, but we have a ways to go, and obviously, the hardest issues are always the last issues,” Rubio told reporters.
• “We don’t see surrender any time in the near future, and only a negotiated settlement can end this war,” Rubio said, adding that any decision about ending the war will be up to Ukraine and Russia, and not the US.
• Top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov, who is in the US for ceasefire discussions, said the US and Kyiv had agreed to continue their joint efforts to reach a ceasefire.
• “We agreed with our American partners on further steps and on continuing our joint work in the near future,” Umerov wrote on Telegram, without providing further details. He added that he had informed Zelenskyy of the outcome of the talks.
• Putin’s special envoy, Kirill ‍ Dmitriev, is heading ‍to Miami for a meeting with Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the US president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a Russian source told Reuters.
• The meeting in Miami this weekend comes after Witkoff and Kushner held talks in Berlin with Ukrainian and European officials earlier this week to try to reach a deal to ​end the war.
• The Russian source said that any meeting between Dmitriev and Ukrainian negotiators currently in the US had been ruled out.

Regional Security

• Turkiye’s Ministry of the Interior said that it found a Russian-made reconnaissance drone in the İzmit district of Kocaeli, in northwestern Turkiye, based on “initial findings” from an ongoing investigation.
• An “unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) believed to be of the Russian-made Orlan-10 type, used for reconnaissance and surveillance, was found,” the ministry said in a post on X.
• Turkiye’s Ministry of National Defence said on Monday that it had shot down a drone over the Black Sea as it approached Turkish airspace, according to local reports, without providing further details.
• Ukraine’s Ukrinform news site reported on Friday that after the drone was shot down, Turkiye had informed both Kyiv and Moscow “of the need to act cautiously” so as not to “negatively affect security in the Black Sea”.

These are the key developments from day 1,394 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here 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

• 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 countries and institutions, whose assets may be seized by Russia in retaliation, the possibility to offset such damages against Russian assets held by the EU.
• The text of the draft deal also offered a mechanism of unconditional, irrevocable, on-demand guarantees that the EU would swiftly repay the Russian central bank assets in all circumstances should the need arise.
• Russia’s central bank has said it will extend legal action beyond its lawsuit against Belgium-based depository Euroclear and sue European banks in a Russian court over attempts the EU’s plans to use frozen Russian assets as loans for Kyiv.
• Britain has imposed more sanctions targeting Russian oil companies, including 24 individuals and entities, in what it described as a move against Russia’s largest remaining unsanctioned oil companies: Tatneft, Russneft, NNK-Oil and Rusneftegaz.

Peace talks

• Ukrainian peace negotiators are en route to the United States and plan to meet Washington’s negotiating team on Friday and Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said.
• US President Donald Trump said he believes talks to end the war in Ukraine are “getting close to something” as Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner plan to meet a Russian delegation in Miami this weekend.

Aid

• The Ukraine-US reconstruction fund, established as part of a Trump-pushed minerals deal the two countries signed in April, has approved its asset policies and is poised to begin reviewing its first investment opportunities in 2026, the US body overseeing the fund said.
• The Development Finance Corporation (DFC) said the fund’s second meeting “reached final consensus necessary to bring the fund to full operational status”. Potential deals could focus on critical minerals extraction and energy development as well as on maritime infrastructure, the DFC said.
• Ukraine is facing a foreign aid shortfall of 45-50 billion euros ($53-$59bn) in 2026, President Zelenskyy said, adding that if Kyiv did not receive a first tranche of a loan secured by Russian assets by next spring, it would have to cut drone production.
• Ukraine has clinched a long-awaited deal to restructure $2.6bn of growth-linked debt, with creditors overwhelmingly accepting a bonds-and-cash swap offer – a key step for the country to emerge from the sovereign default it suffered in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

Politics and diplomacy

• President Zelenskyy said he saw no need to change Ukraine’s constitution enshrining its aim to become a NATO member state. A block on Ukraine joining the military alliance has been a core Russian demand to end its war.
• “To be honest, I don’t think we need to change our country’s constitution,” Zelenskyy said. “Certainly not because of calls from the Russian Federation or anyone else,” he said.
• Earlier this week, Zelenskyy said Ukraine could compromise on NATO membership if given bilateral security guarantees with protections similar to NATO’s Article 5, which considers an attack on one member as an attack against all.
• Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya met Chinese foreign ministerial aide Liu Bin in Beijing, where the pair “discussed ways to strengthen trade and economic cooperation, and issues of co-operation within international organisations”, the Foreign Ministry said.

Russian affairs

• Sergei Yeremeyev, a Belarusian man accused by Russia of blowing up two trains in Siberia for Ukraine, has been jailed for 22 years. Yeremeyev was found guilty of carrying out an act of terrorism and of planting explosives on two freight trains in 2023.
• British man Hayden Davies, who fought for Ukraine against Russia, has been sentenced to 13 years in a maximum security prison camp after being convicted of being a paid mercenary, Russian prosecutors said. The 30-year-old was tried by a court in a part of Russian-controlled Donetsk.

These are the key developments from day 1,392 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Wednesday, December 17:

Fighting

• Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said explosions were heard in the Ukrainian capital and warned people to stay in shelters late on Tuesday night as air defences worked to repel a Russian attack.
• Russian forces launched a “massive” drone attack on Ukraine’s Sumy region, targeting energy infrastructure and causing electricity blackouts, Governor Oleh Hryhorov said on Telegram late on Tuesday night.
• Power outages were also reported in the Donetsk region, Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Energy Mykola Kolisnyk said.
• A Russian attack on electrical substations and other energy infrastructure left 280,000 households in Ukraine’s Odesa region without power, Governor Oleh Kiper wrote on Telegram.
• Electricity was later restored to 220,000 homes, Kiper said, but extensive work was still needed to repair damaged networks.

• The Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine is currently receiving electricity through only one of two external power lines, the facility’s Russian management said, after the other line was disconnected due to military activity.

• Russian forces shot down 180 Ukrainian drones in one day, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said, according to the state-run TASS news agency.
• The ambassador-at-large of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rodion Miroshnik, told TASS that Ukrainian attacks had killed 14 Russian civilians and injured nearly 70, including in the Russian-occupied Kherson and Zaporizhia regions of Ukraine, over the past week.

Ceasefire talks

• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz shared details about a potential European-led multinational force being considered as part of discussions on security guarantees for Ukraine.
• “We would secure a demilitarised zone between the warring parties and, to be very specific, we would also act against corresponding Russian incursions and attacks,” Merz told ZDF public television, adding that the talks “we’re not there yet”.

Regional security

• Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Sweden said in a joint statement on Tuesday that “Russia is the most significant, direct and long-term threat to our security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area”.
• After the Eastern Flank Summit in Helsinki, Finland, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that the grouping of European countries discussed an “anti-drone wall” that would require “billions in expenditure here”.
• Germany’s Federal Ministry of Defence said that it ended the deployment to Poland of its Patriot systems and soldiers from its Air and Missile Defence Task Force, after the mission concluded as planned.
• UK Secretary of State for Defence John Healey said the United Kingdom is spending 600 million pounds (more than $800 million) to buy “thousands of air defence systems, missiles, and automated turrets to shoot down drones” for Ukraine, during a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, according to the Kyiv Independent news outlet.
• German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius told the same meeting that Germany would “transfer a significant number of AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles” to Ukraine next year.

Reparations

• The leaders of 34 European countries signed an agreement in The Hague to create an International Claims Commission for Ukraine to seek compensation for hundreds of billions of dollars in damage from Russian attacks.
• “Every Russian war crime must have consequences for those who committed them,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said before signing the agreement.
• “The goal is to have validated claims that will ultimately be paid by Russia. It will really have to be paid by Russia,” Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs  David van Weel said.

These are the key developments from day 1,391 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Tuesday, December 16:

Fighting

• A Russian drone attack killed a 62-year-old Ukrainian man as he was riding a bicycle in the Velyka Pysarivka community of Ukraine’s Sumy region, Governor Oleh Hryhorov said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
• Russian forces launched 850 attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region in a single day, injuring 14 people and damaging houses, cars and infrastructure, Governor Ivan Fedorov said on Telegram.
• Russian forces injured five people in attacks on Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, and six people in the Kherson region in the past day, local officials said, according to the Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform.
• In Dnipropetrovsk, those injured included a firefighter and factory worker, hurt after Russian forces launched a second attack on a factory in the Synelnykivskyi district, as rescuers tried to respond to a fire caused by an earlier Russian attack, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine reported on its website.
• Russian attacks caused power outages in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, as well as the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, the Ukrainian energy company NPC Ukrenergo said on Facebook.
• Ukraine claimed that underwater drones had, for the first time in the war, struck a Russian submarine docked in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.
• The head of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet press service, Aleksei Rulyov, denied that the underwater drone attack was successful. “Not a single ship or submarine of the Black Sea Fleet located at the base in Novorossiysk Bay was damaged,” he said. “The enemy’s attempt at sabotage through underwater drones failed to achieve its aims.”

Ceasefire talks

• US President Donald Trump said a deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine was “closer than ever” after American, Ukrainian, European and NATO leaders met in Berlin for hours of talks on a potential settlement, hosted by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
• European leaders issued a joint statement after the talks, saying that any decisions on potential Ukrainian territorial concessions to Russia can only be made by the people of Ukraine, and once robust security guarantees are in place for Kyiv.
• They also said that US and European leaders had agreed to “work together to provide robust security guarantees”, including a European-led “multinational force” made up of nations willing to assist “in securing Ukraine’s skies, and in supporting safer seas, including through operating inside Ukraine”.
• Speaking at a news conference after the talks, Merz said that the US had offered “considerable” security guarantees, and that although there is now a “chance for a real peace process”, “territorial settlement remains a key question”.

Regional security

• Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov called “the EU’s aggressive actions the main threat in the world at the moment”, and claimed that the US is trying to put Europe “in its place”, in an interview with Iranian state television.
• Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, suffered a major email outage. Officials told UK newspaper The Financial Times that they suspect it was a cyberattack, while the Ukraine ceasefire talks were taking place in Berlin.
• Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, the new head of the UK’s armed forces, has called for “national resilience” in the face of a “growing” risk from Russia. “It means more people being ready to fight for their country,” Knighton said of the threat from Moscow, while also referring to recent comments from his French counterpart, Fabien Mandon, who said France must be ready to “lose its children”.

IT’S the final week before Christmas arrives, and with some schools now breaking up and people using up their annual leave, there are plenty of free events to enjoy across England.

Whether you’re looking for something free to do with the kids or want to enjoy a bit of festive cheer yourself, there is something for everyone.

Don’t celebrate Christmas? Not to worry, there are things for you too.

Winter Solstice at Stonehenge

This Sunday, December 21, the Winter Solstice will take place.

On the day, English Heritage provides free access to Stonehenge on the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England to see the moment itself.

Parking must be pre-booked or there is a regular bus service from Salisbury city centre.

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Waterstones Christmas events

A number of Waterstones stores across the UK are hosting free Christmas events this week.

On December 17, head to Waterstones Newton Abbot in Devon or Newport on the Isle of Wight for some late night shopping with mulled wine and mince pies.

On December 18, a number of stores are running events including late night shopping at Waterstones Merry Hill, Middlesbrough, Huddersfield and Doncaster.

Also on December 18, you could head to Waterstones Exeter, Roman Gate, for a festive evening with appearances from Kate Lord Brown (author of The Golden Hour) and Alexandra Dawe (author The Stitchwort Curse), alongside the Global Harmony Choir.

Lowry 360, Manchester

Manchester has a new free immersive gallery experience, where visitors can immerse themselves in the sights and sounds of LS Lowry’s iconic painting, Going to the Match.

You do need to book tickets though, which also gives you access to Modern Life: The LS Lowry Collection and Quentin Blake and Me.

Tudor Christmas – the final Gresham College lecture

Gresham College lectures are free public talks in London, that have been running for over four centuries and cover a vast variety of topics.

The final lecture of the year will be all about how the Tudors celebrated 12 days of feasting, carols, gift giving and mischief under the Lord of Misrule.

If you cannot attend in person, there is also a livestream of the lecture.

It takes place on December 17, from 6pm to 7pm.

Carol Services

With it being the festive season, there are a number of free carol services across the UK.

For example, you could head to Toddler Carols at Bristol Cathedral, which is an informal carol service where “energy, noise, and movement that young children bring” is welcome.

The carol services take place on December 17 at 11am, 2pm and 3:30pm.

At Langham Place, in London, there will also be free All Souls Carols with Christmas punch and mince pies.

There’s no need to book, but it is recommended that if you want a seat, to turn up early.

The event will take place on December 18 at 5.30pm and 7.30pm, December 20 at 3.30pm, 5.30pm and 7.30pm and on December 21 at 9.30am, 5.30pm and 7.30pm.

If you are looking for a free carol service near you, look at local churches websites and Christmas markets as these places often host a festive sing-song session.

Cotehele: Wassail! in Saltash, Cornwall

At the National Trust‘s Cotehele, there will be an annual Wassail this week, which is supposed to scare away evil spirits from the orchard to ensure a good harvest next year.

The event includes singing songs alongside a band and fancy dress is encouraged.

It takes place on December 20, 11am to 12:30pm.

Birmingham Xmas Reindeer Trail

In Birmingham city centre you can currently discover a Reindeer Trail including Rudolph, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen.

Four of the reindeer have been given a refresh since last year, with new designs.

And there is even a Roy Wood I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day theme.

Visitors can find a trail map online, which can be downloaded and for kids there’s a game to find a hidden word.

On each reindeer there is a letter and when collected all together the letters spell out a word.

The free event runs until January 6, with reindeer spread across the city centre.

The Cosy Christmas Corner at Ikea Bristol

Ikea stores across the UK run a lot of events, most of which are free.

On Sunday, December 21, between 12pm and 4pm, head to Ikea Bristol and enjoy the Cosy Christmas Corner, where there will be storytelling.

You don’t need to book and when there, the Christmas Elf will share festive stories lasting 15 to 20 minutes a time.

The Austen Ball at the Bank of England

Head to the Bank of England in London on Thursday for The Austen Ball, which will be an evening inspired by the world of Jane Austen.

The event will transform the Stock Office into a grand ball, with a free historical dance workshop and silhouette portrait-making.

The event takes place on Thursday 18 December, from 5.15pm to 8pm.

Christmas in Comer Woods

Located at Dudmaston Estate, in Bridgnorth, Shropshire, there is a volunteer-led three mile walk through Sandilands.

Visitors can enjoy the coastal air as well as potentially see some local wildlife.

Volunteer-led walks will run from December 15 to 24, from 9am to 3pm each day.

Harland Miller at the Design Museum

There is a new display at the Design Museum in London showcasing paintings by the artist Harland Miller and it includes brand new work by the artist.

Visitors cam head to the museum between now and January 26 to see the canvases, which reflect on Miller’s time living in Los Angeles.

La Nativité at Bristol Cathedral

In Bristol, head to La Nativité on Monday, which will feature music, the smell of incense and be performed by candlelight.

And, for the first time in 18 months, the cathedral organ will be heard again following restoration.

Messiaen’s 1935 masterpiece will be played through the performance as well.

No charge or booking required and the show takes place on December 15, 7pm to 8:30pm.

For more inspiration on things to do with the kids over the festive period, a huge new waterpark has opened with 16 attractions and lazy river.

Plus, a huge movie and TV studios opening as top UK attraction next year – that lets you walk onto sets like EastEnders.