War against Ukraine: this is the situation

Russian invasion - War against Ukraine: this is the situation

After months of fighting, Russia's army says it has occupied the completely destroyed town of Mariinka in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk. Marjinka is now under Russian control, said Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on Monday at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg. However, the Ukrainian army rejected the claims. "The battle for Mariinka continues," said Olexander Shtupun, the military spokesman responsible for the front section, on television.

There are still Ukrainian soldiers within the city limits, even though the city has been completely destroyed, said Shtupun. The Russian information could not initially be verified independently either. Heavy fighting had been reported repeatedly in recent weeks around Marjinka, which had around 9,000 inhabitants before the start of the Russian war of aggression.

Selensky praises his military for shooting down Russian fighter jets

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised his own military for allegedly shooting down several Russian fighter jets. A total of five enemy aircraft were shot down in the week before Christmas, Selensky said in his evening video address. "That's really impressive!" Selensky also warned the Russian pilots that Ukrainian air defenses would become even stronger in the future once the F-16 fighter jets promised by the West had arrived.

On Christmas Eve, Kiev reported the shooting down of two Russian Sukhoi Su-34 and Su-30CM fighter jets in the Donetsk region and over the Black Sea. There had previously been similar reports about three other Russian jets. This could not be independently verified at first. However, Russian military bloggers had also written about alleged shoot-downs.

New drone attacks against Ukrainian cities

The Russian military attacked several regions of Ukraine with so-called kamikaze drones on Tuesday night. Ukrainian media reported numerous explosions caused by the use of air defense. In addition to Mykolaiv and Krivyi Rih in the south of the country, other regions in central Ukraine also reported drone strikes.

Ukrainian drone attack on Crimean port city of Feodosiya

A Ukrainian drone attack hit the port city of Feodosiya in the Russian-occupied Crimea on Tuesday night. This was confirmed by the Crimean governor appointed by Moscow, Sergei Aksyonov, as reported by the Russian state agency Tass. According to him, there was a serious explosion and a large fire in the port. Numerous residents had been evacuated from nearby buildings.

According to officially unconfirmed reports on social media, a ship loaded with ammunition was hit during the attack. The commander of the Ukrainian air force, Mykola Oleshchuk, spoke on Telegram of the sinking of the amphibious landing ship "Novocherkassk". The information could not initially be independently verified.

Missing Kremlin opponent Navalny back - banished to polar region

The Kremlin opponent Alexei Navalny, who has been missing for more than two weeks, has reappeared. He has been transferred to the IK-3 penal camp in Kharp in the north of Russia in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmysh announced on the X news service (formerly Twitter). A lawyer had seen him. There had been no trace of Navalny, who is considered Putin's fiercest critic, for 20 days. His team and lawyers had launched a search operation. The new prison camp is more than 2000 kilometers away from Moscow.

What will be important on Tuesday

Heavy fighting is continuing on the front in eastern Ukraine in particular - including in Mariinka in the Donetsk region, according to Kiev.

Selensky's evening speech