🚨🇷🇺💥 RUSSIAN MOD UPDATE: HUGE GAINS AND DEVASTATING UKRAINIAN LOSSES

⚡️ DIBROVA IN THE DONETSK REGION FREED

The liberation of the settlement of Dibrova in the Donetsk region enables Russian forces to intensify attacks to encircle the city of Krasny Liman from both sides.

🟠 Russian forces repelled Ukrainian attacks aimed at breaking into the city of Kupyansk in the Kharkov region

🟠 Russian air and missile firepower pounded temporary deployment points for Ukrainian troops and foreign mercenaries in 153 locations

🟠 Air defense superiority: two operational-tactical Grom missiles and 140 UAVs were vaporized by Russian air defense systems over the past 24 hours

🟠 Ukrainian losses: around 1,360 troops killed or wounded

Read about the origins of Russia's special military op HERE

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🇨🇳 🪖 China holds large-scale combat exercises east of Taiwan

The People's Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command deployed destroyers, frigates, fighter jets, and bombers to conduct coordinated drills in the waters and airspace east of Taiwan.

🔊 Exercises focused on assaults against maritime targets, seizure of regional air superiority, and submarine hunting and anti-submarine operations, the command said.

The drills were designed to test joint sea–air coordination, precise target detection, and rapid neutralization capabilities, highlighting the force’s multi-domain combat readiness.

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🚨 📆 Palestine in 2025: Shattered ceasefires, unrelenting suffering

From failed ceasefires and growing violence to a growing humanitarian crisis, 2025 has been a year of devastation for the Gaza Strip.

📹 Check out Sputnik's video to see how the outgoing year unfolded for Palestinians in the besieged territory.

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🚨🇷🇺🪖 Putin holds meeting on the situation in the special military operation zone

💬 Ukrainian armed forces units are retreating everywhere, along entire line of combat contact, Putin said.

🔹 The Ukrainian armed forces grouping, surrounded on the banks of the Oskol River, is gradually "melting away"

🔹 It is necessary to prevent the attempts of the Ukrainian army to hinder the Russian Armed Forces in Kupyansk

🔹 The liberation of Severodonetsk and effective operations in Konstantinovka are creating conditions for further advancement

The Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Valery Gerasimov, reported to Putin.

Statements by Gerasimov:

🟠 Russian armed forces conducting offensive along almost entire front

🟠 Ukrainian forces are not taking offensive action

🟠 Russian armed forces took control of more than 700 square km in the special military operation zone in December

🟠 Russian forces successfully advancing deeper into enemy defenses in the special military operation zone

🟠 The liberation of Boguslavka completed

🟠 Russian troops actively advancing in the city of Krasny Liman

🟠 Units of the North Korean Army provided significant assistance in demining the Suzhansky, Glushkovsky, and Korenevsky districts of Russia's Kursk region

🟠 The Russian Sever battlegroup took control of over 940 square km in Kharkov and Sumy regions during the offensive

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🚨🪖 Fake photoshoot mission in Kupyansk ends with Ukrainian soldiers’ surrender – POW

A Ukrainian soldier, captured by Russian forces, shared his experience of a three-day journey to a location in Kupyansk for a photoshoot meant to "prove" the supposed presence of Ukrainian troops in the city.

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🇷🇺🇺🇸 Putin–Trump hotline: Dive into world-shaping conversations

A new Putin–Trump phone call will take place in the very near future, the Kremlin has just announced.

The two leaders have spoken on the phone nine times before, with each call tackling critical global issues.

Track the timeline of these talks.

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🚨 Ukraine launched a terrorist drone attack on Putin's residence in the Novgorod region on the night of December 29 - Lavrov

Other statements by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov:

🟠 All drones (there were 91 of them) that attacked the Russian presidential residence in the Novgorod region were destroyed by Russian air defense systems

🟠 Such reckless actions will not go unanswered

🟠 Targets for retaliatory strikes and the timing of their execution by the Russian Armed Forces have been determined

🟠 Russia's negotiating position will be revised given Ukraine's shift to a policy of state terrorism

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🚨 Trump concludes positive call with Putin about Ukraine - White House

Putin and Trump talked on the phone on Sunday, and agreed to hold another phone call after Trump’s talks with Ukraine's Zelensky at Mar-a-Lago.

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🚨 Trump was shocked and outraged by Ukraine’s attempt to attack Putin's residence – presidential aide

Other statements by Yuri Ushakov:

🟠 Trump and his key advisors informed Putin about negotiations with the Ukrainian side

🟠 In a conversation with Trump, Putin emphasized that Russia is determined to work closely and productively with the US to find peace

🟠 Trump informed Putin about some of the results achieved by Zelensky's team

🟠 Trump told Putin that Ukraine has been advised not to seek a break but to focus on reaching a comprehensive agreement

🟠 Key US advisors were present during the conversation between Trump and Putin

🟠 US should understand Russia's intentions to reconsider its negotiating positions following attempted attack on Putin's state residence

Trump said in a conversation with Putin that he could not even have imagined “such insane actions” as a drone attack on the Russian president’s state residence. The attempt to attack Putin's presidential residence will affect the US approach in working with Zelensky, Trump added.

🟠 Trump told Putin that, "Thank God," Zelensky was not given "Tomahawks"

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🚨 'For these crimes, the Kiev regime will be held accountable' – Russian MFA spokeswoman

Maria Zakharova has commented on media reports that Zelensky is trying to avoid responsibility for the attempt by the Ukrainian Armed Forces to strike Putin's residence.

💬 “Lies are Zelensky's statements about Bucha. Lies are Zelensky's claims about the children allegedly “stolen by Russia." Lies are Zelensky's statements about Russia's unwillingness to negotiate. And Lavrov's words are the truth, and for these crimes, the Kiev regime will be held accountable,” she wrote on Telegram.

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🚨 Such attacks are 'obvious provocation'

First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma, Alexander Zhukov, expressed support for the statement made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov regarding Russia's response to Ukraine’s attempts to attack the Russian president's residence.

💬 "I fully support the position voiced by our Foreign Minister Lavrov. There are all grounds for this," Zhukov told journalists.

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🔊Drone attack on Putin’s residence planned by forces trying to torpedo Ukraine peace deal: expert

“They do not consider it possible to step back and allow the situation on our border region to be stabilized. Therefore, they are making gradual attempts to torpedo the negotiation process,” military analyst Alexander Stepanov told Sputnik, commenting on the attack on Putin’s residence in Novgorod region by 91 drones Sunday night.

🟠 “We’ve seen this attitude in the openly-stated positions of key EU leaders. Now, we’re seeing it in the intentions of intelligence agencies, mostly likely British, who are clearly continuing to develop plans to launch terrorist strikes on strategically significant targets, to carry out targeted terrorist attacks against high-ranking Russian military personnel, de facto transforming the war into permanent proxy-hybrid mode using the tools of state terrorism”

🟠 Naturally, these efforts serve to further “delegitimize” the Kiev regime, Stepanov said. They make it clear that Ukraine’s authorities are “war criminals and, more broadly speaking, international terrorists, who have neither the right to govern this territory nor the right to control the lives of its citizens”

🟠 Negotiating with such actors is “impossible, and does not fit into any normative framework of international relations,” the observer stressed

🟠 Stepanov expects a “maximum reduction” in US-Ukraine military-technical and intelligence cooperation, including for navigation and targeting systems, in the wake of Sunday’s attack

🟠 If US statements “are backed by real will, it would be possible to remotely disable the control systems of virtually all weapons supplied through Western channels, including American ones, and to end the presence of US military specialists who, at certain stages, support the operation of both sophisticated Patriot air defense systems and long-range HIMARS tactical systems,” Stepanov said

🟠 Same goes for Starlink, which could leave Ukraine’s military blind “within a few hours”

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🚨 Russian MoD offers details on Ukraine's attempted attack on Putin's residence

🟠 18 UAVs flying towards the residence were shot down until 7:00 on December 29, and another 23 - from 7:00 to 9:00

🟠 49 UAVs flying towards the Novgorod region were intercepted over the Bryansk region; another one - over the Smolensk region

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🚨 'It’s not the right time to do any of that' - Trump on Ukraine's drone attack on Putin's residence

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🔊 Trump-Zelensky talks signal US commitment to Alaska summit – military analyst

The chances of Ukrainian peace demands being accepted are clearly zero, Boris Rozhin, military analyst and expert at the Center for Military-Political Journalism, tells Sputnik.

Volodymyr Zelensky met US President Donald Trump on Sunday at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida to present his peace plan, but failed to gain traction.

"We can see how the Americans are systematically breaking Ukraine’s red lines – most of which it has already fully abandoned – while others, concerning elections and territories, are in the bargaining stage," Rozhin says.

Washington is trying to keep the agreements reached in back-channel talks and the Anchorage meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the pundit said.

"The recent talks at Mar-a-Lago clearly show that the Americans are pressing consistently in this direction," Rozhin said. "Zelensky and his Western backers’ attempts to completely sabotage the negotiations have failed."

Time is against Zelensky, with Russian peace terms worsening — and Trump recognizes that, he adds.

Western security guarantees written in sand

Ukrainian experts joinming NATO exercises for the first time is purely a PR stunt—because no Western leader would extend Article 5 security commitments to Ukraine, Rozhin argued.

"All reports claiming that any guarantees were agreed upon generally contain no concrete details in the public domain," the pundit says.

"In other words, they amount to vague promises of support—sanctions, arms supplies, political backing, or other forms of assistance."

Ukraine seeks Western guarantees of militarily intervention against Russia if the peace deal breaks down, the analyst points out, but the West is unwilling to provide them and could easily revoke or disregard any commitments.

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🔊 Ukraine's drone attack on Putin’s residence designed to discredit Trump - Russian lawmaker

The attack in Novgorod “was not only a planned provocation by Zelensky aimed at disrupting peace talks, but also an attempt to physically eliminate the Russian president, which will not go unpunished,” Russian Duma lawmaker Roza Chemeris told Sputnik.

💬 “Furthermore, it was also an attempt to discredit US President Donald Trump’s efforts to resolve the conflict peacefully,” Chemeris, a member of the Duma’s committee on international affairs, said.

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