Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,402 | Russia-Ukraine war News

These are the key developments from day 1,402 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is where things stand on Saturday, December 27:

Fighting

• The Ukrainian capital Kyiv came under a “massive” Russian attack early on Saturday, according to reports, with air defences in operation and the military warning of the impending deployment of missiles. Witnesses said air defences were in action in the city. A military Telegram channel said Russian cruise and ballistic missiles were being deployed to target the city.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence claimed that its forces captured the Ukrainian village of Kosivtseve in the southeastern Zaporizhia region, adding that it had taken more than 23 square kilometres (9sq miles) of territory to secure the village.
• Ukraine’s military has acknowledged that one of its units committed errors in “an unfortunate incident” when a group of just three infiltrating Russian soldiers deceived Ukrainian forces into abandoning a post in Huliaipole town, which encompasses Kosivtseve.
• Russian overnight drone attacks damaged vessels under the flags of Slovakia, Palau and Liberia in ports in Ukraine’s Odesa and Mykolaiv regions, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said in a statement on Telegram. Kuleba said that there were no casualties in the attacks.
• Kuleba also said that a separate drone attack damaged a locomotive and a freight car at the northwestern Kovel railway station, about 60km (37miles) from the Polish border.
• A blaze ignited by a Ukrainian drone attack at Russia’s Azov Sea port of Temryuk has been extinguished, a local task force said. Temryuk port handles LPG, oil products and petrochemicals, as well as grain and other bulk food commodities.
• Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed that during the past week its forces had downed seven British-made Storm Shadow missiles, Russian news agencies reported.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of using ordinary apartment blocks on the territory of its ally Belarus to attack Ukrainian targets and circumvent Kyiv’s defences. “It is unfortunate that Belarus is surrendering its sovereignty in favour of Russia’s aggressive ambitions,” Zelenskyy said.
• Poland deployed fighter jets to intercept a Russian reconnaissance aircraft flying near its airspace over the Baltic Sea and said dozens of aerial objects – believed to be balloons used by smugglers – approached its airspace from Belarus overnight, warning that the separate incidents during the holiday season may signal a provocation by Moscow.

Regional security

• Moscow is likely stationing new nuclear-capable hypersonic ballistic missiles at a former airbase in eastern Belarus, a development that could bolster Russia’s ability to hit European targets, two United States researchers have found by studying satellite imagery, according to an exclusive Reuters news agency report.

• The American researchers said reviews of the Planet Labs imagery revealed a hurried construction project that took place between August 4 and 12 and showed features consistent with those of a Russian strategic missile base, the report added.
• Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov said that Russia was “somewhat” delaying the export of Russian-made weapons and military equipment to prioritise deliveries to its own armed forces, according to Interfax news agency.

Peace talks

• President Zelenskyy said he wants to discuss territorial issues, the main stumbling block in talks to end the war, with US President Donald Trump in Florida, as negotiations on a 20-point peace framework and a security guarantee deal near completion.

• Zelenskyy said in a WhatsApp chat with reporters that a security guarantee agreement between Ukraine and the US is “almost ready” and that a draft of the 20-point plan was 90 percent complete.

• In a separate interview with the Axios news site, Zelenskyy said that the US offered a 15-year deal on security guarantees that could be renewed, and Kyiv wanted a longer-term agreement.
• Zelenskyy was also cited by Axios as saying that if he is not able to push the US to back Ukraine’s “strong” position on the land issue in the peace proposal, he is willing to put the 20-point plan to a referendum – as long as Russia agrees to a 60-day ceasefire to allow Ukraine to prepare for and hold the vote.

• Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Kyiv’s version of the 20-point plan was radically different from what Russia has been discussing with the US, according to Interfax-Russia.
• Ryabkov also accused Ukraine of trying to “torpedo” the talks, adding that Moscow’s ability to make the “final push” and reach a deal will depend “on our own work and the political will of the other party”.
• Russia’s Kommersant newspaper reported that President Vladimir Putin told some of Russia’s top businessmen that he might be open to swapping some territory controlled by Russian forces elsewhere in Ukraine, but that in exchange, he wanted the whole of the Donbas.

• Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke with Zelenskyy and discussed the latest developments in the ongoing peace talks, Carney’s office said in a statement. During the call, Carney “emphasised the need to maintain pressure on Russia to negotiate”, the statement added.

• Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev participated in talks with members of the US administration along with the Kremlin’s foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov, Reuters reported, citing a source close to the talks.

Politics and diplomacy

• North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has declared that his nation and Russia had shared “blood, life and death” in the Ukraine war, as he sent President Vladimir Putin New Year’s greetings. Pyongyang has deployed thousands of troops to Russia to help in the fight against Ukraine.

• A Moscow court has sentenced a former Russian diplomat, Arseniy Konovalov, to 12 years in a maximum-security penal colony for selling secrets to US intelligence while on a posting to the US, the Federal Security Service (FSB) said.

• Russia’s Kommersant newspaper said Konovalov worked in the US from 2014 to 2017 and served as second secretary of the Russian Consulate General in Houston, Texas.