Here’s where things stand on Thursday, December 11:
Fighting
- Ukrainian sea drones hit and disabled a tanker involved in trading Russian oil as it sailed through Ukraine’s exclusive economic zone in the Black Sea to the Russian port of Novorossiysk, a Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) official said.
- The Dashan tanker was sailing at maximum speed with its transponders off when powerful explosions hit its stern, inflicting critical damage on the vessel, the SBU official said. No information was available on possible casualties from the attack.
- The attack marks the third sea drone strike in two weeks on vessels that are part of Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” – unregulated ships which Kyiv says are helping Moscow export large quantities of oil and fund its war in Ukraine despite Western sanctions.
- Three people were killed and two wounded by Ukrainian shelling of a hospital in the Russia-controlled part of the Kherson region in Ukraine, a Russia-installed governor claimed on Telegram. All those killed and injured were reportedly employees of the medical facility.
- Ukrainian forces are fending off an unusually large Russian mechanised attack inside the strategic eastern city of Pokrovsk, Kyiv’s military said, including “armoured vehicles, cars, and motorcycles”.
- Russian drones have hit the gas transport system in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, a senior Ukrainian official said, in an area which contains several pipelines carrying US liquefied natural gas to Ukraine from Greece.
- Russian air defences shot down two drones en route to Moscow, the city’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.
Peace deal
- President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine had agreed on key points of a post-war reconstruction plan and an “economic document” in talks with United States President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.
- “The principles of the economic document are completely clear, and we are fully aligned with the American side,” Zelenskyy said. “An important common principle is that for reconstruction to be of high quality and economic growth after this war to be tangible, real security must be at the core. When there is security, everything else is there too,” he said.
- Zelenskyy also said work was proceeding on the “fundamental document” of a US-backed 20-point plan aimed at ending the war. He said two other associated documents dealt with security guarantees and economic issues.
- The leaders of Britain, France and Germany held a call with President Trump to discuss Washington’s latest peace efforts to end the war in Ukraine, in what they said was “a critical moment” in the process.
- French President Emmanuel Macron said Trump and the European leaders discussed how to move forward on “a subject that concerns all of us”.
- There will be another meeting on Thursday of the leaders of the so-called “coalition of the willing” group of nations backing Ukraine, said the French presidency, adding that this meeting would be held via videoconference.
Military aid
- The US House of Representatives has passed a massive defence policy bill authorising a record $901bn in annual military spending, including $400m in military assistance to Ukraine in each of the next two years and other measures reinforcing the US commitment to Europe’s defence.
Politics and diplomacy
- Trump again expressed concern that Ukraine had not had an election in a long time, putting additional pressure on Zelenskyy to hold one.
- Zelenskyy said he had discussed with Ukraine’s parliament legal and other issues linked to the possibility of holding an election during wartime, and urged other countries, including the US, not to apply pressure on the issue.
- Wartime elections are forbidden by law in Ukraine, but Zelenskyy, whose term expired last year, is facing renewed pressure from Trump to hold a vote.
Regional security
- Following a report from the head of Kyiv’s foreign intelligence service that Russia and China were taking steps to intensify cooperation, Zelenskyy said there was a “growing trend of the de-sovereignisation of parts of Russian territory in China’s favour”, primarily through Moscow’s sale of its “scarce resources” to Beijing.
- “We … note that China is taking steps to intensify cooperation with Russia, including in the military-industrial sector,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.
Sanctions
- The US has extended a deadline for negotiations on buying the global assets of Russian oil company Lukoil by a little over a month to January 17. Trump imposed sanctions on Lukoil and Rosneft, Russia’s two biggest energy companies, on October 22 as part of an effort to pressure Moscow over its war in Ukraine, and Lukoil put its assets up for sale shortly after.
- Russian prosecutors asked a Moscow court to seize the assets of US private equity fund NCH Capital in Russia, the Kommersant newspaper said, citing court documents. Prosecutors accused the fund’s owners of financing Ukraine’s military forces.
- European Union ambassadors have greenlit the bloc’s plan to phase out Russian gas imports by late 2027, three EU officials told the Reuters news agency, clearing one of the final legal hurdles before the ban can pass into law.
