Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,387 

Here’s where things stand on Friday, December 12:

Fighting

• Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked the Russian army after its forces reportedly took control of the town of Siversk in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine’s military responded, saying it remained in control of the town.
• News agencies were unable to verify the battlefield claims around Siversk, a longstanding target in Russia’s drive to capture all of Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
• Moscow’s forces have also taken control of the village of Lyman in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkiv region, Russian state news agencies reported, citing the Ministry of Defence.
• Russia said Ukraine launched a major aerial attack with at least 287 drones downed over a number of regions inside the country, including Moscow. Russia’s Defence Ministry said at least 40 drones were shot down over the Moscow region, home to more than 22 million people.
• Ukrainian drones hit two chemical plants in Russia’s Novgorod and Smolensk regions, the commander of Kyiv’s drone forces said. Ukrainian drones also struck Russia’s Filanovsky oil platform in the Caspian Sea for the first time, halting production at the facility owned by Lukoil, according to a Ukraine Security Service official.
• Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has called on Britain to disclose what British soldier George Hooley, who was recently killed in Ukraine, was doing in the country.
• Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused London of helping Kyiv carry out “acts of terrorism” on Russia, but provided no evidence for her assertion. Britain’s Ministry of Defence said Hooley died while observing Ukrainian forces test a new defensive capability away from the front line with Russian forces.

Peace deal

• Ukraine has presented the United States with a revised 20-point framework to end its war with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, adding that the issue of ceding territory to Russia remains a major sticking point in negotiations.
• Zelenskyy said, as a compromise, the US is offering to create a “free economic zone” in Ukraine-controlled parts of the eastern Donbas, which Russia has demanded Ukraine cede.
• “They see it as Ukrainian troops withdrawing from the Donetsk region, and the compromise is supposedly that Russian troops will not enter this part of Donetsk region. They do not know who will govern this territory,” Zelenskyy said, adding that Russia is referring to it as a “demilitarised zone”.
• Zelenskyy also said that Ukrainians should vote on any territorial concessions in a referendum and that he had discussed security guarantees for Ukraine in a video call with top US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and White House special envoy Steve Witkoff.

• Speaking at a meeting of the “coalition of the willing” – a group of 34 nations led by Britain and France that have pledged support for Ukraine against Russian aggression – Zelenskyy said that holding elections in Ukraine during wartime would require a ceasefire.
• US President Donald Trump said the US will send a representative to participate in talks in Europe on Ukraine this weekend if there is a good chance of making progress on a ceasefire deal.
• “We’ll be attending the meeting on Saturday in Europe if we think there’s a good chance. And we don’t want to waste a lot of time if we think it’s negative,” Trump said.
• Earlier, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump had grown weary of multiple meetings that never reached an agreement on ending the war in Ukraine.

Regional security

• NATO chief Mark Rutte urged allies to step up defence efforts to prevent a war waged in Europe by Russia, which could be “on the scale of war our grandparents and great-grandparents endured”.
• In a speech in Berlin, Rutte said too many allies of the military alliance did not feel the urgency of Russia’s threat in Europe and that they must rapidly increase defence spending and production to prevent war.

Sanctions

• Russian and Belarusian youth athletes should compete in international events without access restrictions, the International Olympic Committee said, marking a first step in easing sanctions imposed following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

• European Union governments have started a process to freeze Russian central bank assets immobilised in Europe for the long term to avoid votes every six months on rolling over the freeze, a move that would pave the way to use the money to provide a loan to Ukraine.
• Belgium’s Deputy Prime Minister Vincent Van Peteghem said Russian frozen assets will have to be used for Ukraine at some point, adding that Brussels “would not take any reckless compromises” before it agreed to any deal on the issue.
• Brussels has opposed an unprecedented plan to use Russian funds frozen in the EU – primarily in Belgian banking institutions – to fund a loan to Ukraine, saying it places the country at outsized risk of future legal action from Moscow.
• Russia’s Foreign Ministry reiterated that the EU’s “manipulations” with Moscow’s frozen assets would not go unanswered.
• Germany’s top fiscal court has ruled that authorities cannot, for now, sell or use an oil tanker and its cargo seized off the Baltic Sea coast, siding with the vessel’s owners in two separate cases.
• The Panama-flagged Eventin was found drifting off Germany’s coast in January after departing Russia with about 100,000 metric tonnes of oil worth about 40 million euros ($47m). German authorities suspect the vessel is part of a “shadow fleet” used by Russia to skirt EU sanctions

Economy

• Russia’s revenues from exports of crude oil and refined products fell again in November, the International Energy Agency said, touching their lowest level since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.