Representatives from Ukraine and NATO’s 32 member countries will gather in Brussels to discuss Russia’s recent launch of an experimental hypersonic intermediate-range missile.
Last Thursday, Russia executed a strike on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, which President Vladimir Putin announced was a test of its new Oreshnik missile.
President Putin claimed the missile strike was a direct response to Ukraine utilizing weapons supplied by the United States and Britain against Russia.
He cautioned that Russia considers itself “entitled” to target military installations in countries that permit Ukraine to use their armaments against Russia.
Ukraine expressed its hope for “concrete and meaningful outcomes” following the convening of the NATO-Ukraine Council meeting.
However, diplomats and officials within NATO have tempered expectations regarding significant outcomes from these discussions.
The most likely outcome is a restatement of NATO’s previous declaration that Russia’s deployment of new weaponry will not “deter NATO allies from supporting Ukraine”.
A NATO representative indicated that the meeting “serves as a platform to examine the current security landscape in Ukraine and will feature briefings from Ukrainian officials via video link.”
The intensifying tensions surrounding Ukraine arise amidst uncertainties regarding the future of western support after Donald Trump’s re-election.
Mr. Trump has raised concerns about the continuation of US military aid for Ukraine and has promised a swift resolution to the conflict.
NATO and Ukraine formed a joint council in 2023, enabling Ukraine to request meetings with the alliance at its discretion.
Russian forces have taken control of yet another village in the eastern Kharkiv region of Ukraine, an area where the front line had been stable until recently.
The defense ministry announced that “military units… have liberated the settlement of Kopanky,” located near the Ukrainian-controlled city of Kupiansk.
Ukraine’s military reported successfully downing 76 out of a historic high of 188 drones launched by Russia overnight.
The air force mentioned they lost track of 96 of those drones, likely due to active electronic warfare, while five drones headed towards Belarus.
A man inspects the damage in Odesa following Russian missile attacks on the city.
As for Russia’s overnight air assaults, they inflicted damage on the power grid in Ternopil, a significant city in western Ukraine, causing power, water, and heating disruptions, according to the head of the regional defense headquarters.
Emergency services are endeavoring to restore water supply by morning, stated Serhiy Nadal, head of the Ternopil Region Defence Council headquarters, via Telegram, although power outages are expected to persist for several hours.
Electric buses serving the city will be replaced with standard buses, and generators will alleviate power shortages in schools, hospitals, and governmental facilities, he added.
However, Mr. Nadal did not disclose details regarding the extent of the damage inflicted on the city, which boasted a population of nearly a quarter of a million prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The total impact of the attack remains unclear.
Ternopil, located around 220 kilometers east of NATO-member Poland, and much of Ukraine were under air raid alert for hours overnight, according to data from Ukraine’s air force.
Russia also attempted to target Kyiv overnight, as reported by the city’s military administration on Telegram, noting that Ukrainian air defense systems shot down more than ten Russian drones.
The Russian drones approached the capital in waves and from various directions, but no damage or casualties were reported, according to Serhiy Popko, head of Ukraine’s military administration.
On the battlefield, Ukraine’s weary troops are grappling with Russian advances in the eastern parts of the country.
Destruction from a Russian missile attack in the Kyivskyi district of Kharkiv.
Russia is advancing at its fastest monthly rate since the onset of the war, according to analysts.
The conflict is entering what some Russian and western officials describe as potentially its most perilous phase, following significant territorial gains by Russian forces in recent months.
Independent Russian news outlet Agentstvo reported that “Russia has reached new weekly and monthly records for the amount of territory it occupies in Ukraine.”
According to the report, the Russian army seized almost 235 square kilometers in Ukraine over the past week, marking a weekly record for 2024.
In November, Russian forces captured 600 square kilometers, data from DeepState—a group closely connected to the Ukrainian army that analyzes combat footage and creates frontline maps—indicated.
Since July, Russian forces have accelerated their advances in eastern Ukraine, coinciding with Ukrainian forces making gains in the western region of Kursk.
Since then, the speed of the Russian advance has noticeably increased, as observed in open-source maps.
Russian troops are now moving towards the town of Kurakhove, a crucial point towards the logistics hub of Pokrovsk in Donetsk, and have been exploiting vulnerabilities among Ukrainian troops along the frontlines, analysts noted.
Recent reports from the Institute for the Study of War indicated that “Russian forces have recently been advancing at a significantly faster pace than during all of 2023.”
Latest updates on the situation in Ukraine.
According to the General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces, their latest update reported that 45 battles of varying intensities were ongoing along the Kurakhove section of the frontline.
Reports from the Institute for the Study of War and pro-Russian military bloggers suggest that Russian troops are present in Kurakhove.
