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Moscow accused Kyiv of launching a missile strike on a market in Donetsk city, killing at least 25 people and wounding 20 others, Russian officials said. Ukrainian armed forces operating in the region denied they had carried out the strike, stating that they "did not conduct any combat operations with means of destruction." Over the holiday period, Russia continued its daily attacks against mostly civilian targets in Ukraine. For example, on December 29 a massive barrage of missile strikes and drone attacks hit infrastructure facilities in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Odesa, and government-controlled areas of the contested Donetsk oblast.

Equally, worrying for Kyiv is a potential further strengthening of ties between Russia and China. So far, China has been careful in balancing its ideological proximity to Putin’s Russia with its economic ties with Ukraine’s western partners. But at a video summit between Putin and Xi Jinping at the end of December, the Chinese president stressed Beijing’s preparedness to increase its strategic cooperation with Moscow.

Russia and Ukraine trade retaliatory strikes over the weekend

The fervent faith in economic interdependence that long characterized German foreign policy is no more. Wielding its economic prowess and new military investments, Germany wants to take a leading role in international affairs. Most warn that Ukrainians would continue to fight against any puppet regime, with the conflict descending into an insurgency with those Ukrainians left in the country attempting to topple any such regime by any means available.

• Mr Szijarto will be in the western Ukrainian city of Uzhhorod with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba and presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak.









• And atrocities against civilians, as revealed by the recently discovered corpses in Bucha, could further decrease the chances for successful talks.









• But the sizable swaths of terrain Ukraine wants to liberate will take time, and to even build the necessary forces will take six months, Donahoe estimated.









• The Biden administration earlier this month announced it is sending Ukraine the Ground-Launched Small Diameter Bomb.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war of choice in Ukraine is a world-historical event, marking the final act of the post-Cold War period and the start of a new era, yet unwritten. The spectrum of possible outcomes ranges from a volatile new cold or hot war involving the United States, Russia, and China; to a frozen conflict in Ukraine; to a post-Putin settlement in which Russia becomes part of a revised European security architecture. With the West leveling unprecedented sanctions against Russia in record time and the real potential for a descent into nuclear war, we are in uncharted territory. Since the counteroffensive was launched in June, only a handful of villages have been recaptured. Ukrainian armed forces operating in the region denied they had carried out the strike, stating Sunday that they "did not conduct any combat operations with means of destruction."

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Germany’s sea change hasn’t just resulted from developments in Ukraine. Many Germans and other Europeans have lacked trust in the United States since then-US President Donald Trump denigrated Germany and the NATO alliance. Despite Biden’s efforts early in his administration to repair this damage, many Germans and Europeans are appalled by the divisions and partisanship they see in US politics. Ukrainian refugees are being welcomed with open arms despite their numbers reaching far beyond the over nine hundred thousand refugees who came to Europe in 2015 to escape the wars in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Back then, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to admit Syrian refugees split the EU, boosting populists and the radical right. This time around, more unity has suddenly been achieved—with all twenty-seven EU members agreeing to take in Ukrainian refugees for at least one year, with rights to work, housing, and health care.

More European nations are now talking about the need to step up aid in light of concerns that the US is weakening in its resolve. https://richard-andresen.hubstack.net/unraveling-the-mystery-behind-sam-brock-nbc-news-disappearance of this war in 2024 will be determined in Moscow, Kyiv, Washington, Brussels, Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang more than in Avdiivka, Tokmak, Kramatorsk or any of the devastated battlefields along the frontlines. Russia lacks the equipment and trained manpower to launch a strategic offensive until spring 2025, at the earliest. It would be wrong to say that the front lines in Ukraine are stalemated, but both sides are capable of fighting each other to a standstill as they each try to take strategic initiatives.

Ukraine could be in a strong position to negotiate once it gets back all of its territory, "including most of what it lost in the Donbas in 2014, with special arrangements made for plebiscites," Professor Clarke said. Neither side has been wiling to come to the negotiation table since the beginning of the war, dashing any hopes for an end to the fighting any time soon. Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley has previously suggested there was no military solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and diplomacy was needed to end the war. The eastern city of Bakhmut, the small town of Vuhledar, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia — the gateway to the south — could all be in their sights, the BBC has reported. A possible escalation could involve Russian forces turning the tables on the battlefield and making a push for the south of Ukraine, Professor Clarke said. Mr Putin has already annexed the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia through so-called referendums after pulling back troops to regroup in eastern Ukraine.

• Several specialised non-governmental organisations have also been created, like the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and the Helsinki-based Crisis Management Initiative.









• The third option foresees Ukraine disintegrating into multiple autonomous regions.









• There have even been initiatives to adopt a new international treaty to create a stronger framework and more guidance for peace negotiators.









• A second way for Ukraine to win — at least theoretically — would be through a diplomatic agreement.









• Ukraine will do all it can to keep pressure on the Russians there to make it untenable for the Russian navy in Sevastopol, the handful of air force bases there and their logistics base at Dzankoy.