While they did not capture new settlements, Russian forces maintained their strongest pressure on the towns of Pokrovsk and Kurakhove in Donetsk, devoting almost half of their activity to those fronts.

On Sunday they also appeared to be closing in on Velyka Novosilka on the Donetsk-Zaporizhia border, in an operation coordinated with their assaults on Pokrovsk and Kurakhove.

“We understand that Velyka Novosilka is a continuation of the events taking place in the Kurakhove-Pokrovsk region. This is a logistics hub that also helps our Kurakhove garrison,” said Serhii Bratchuk, spokesman of the volunteer Ukrainian army group “South” on the ArmyTV stream.

He said if Velyka Novosilka fell, pressure was likely to pass onto Orikhiv, 6km (3.7 miles) from the frontline, and Huliaipole, just 2km (1.2 miles) from the frontline, both towns lying south of Zaporizhzhia.

 Russian stamina has not abated since the beginning of the year, when Moscow’s forces began a gradual crescendo of attacks that stole the initiative and put Ukrainian forces on the defensive.

They have paid dearly for it.On November 28, Ukraine estimated Russian casualties at 2,030 for the day, one of the highest daily tallies of the war, and more than 738,000 for the duration of the war.

Mazzaltov World News was unable to confirm the toll.

Until this year, Russia has employed what Ukrainians called “meat assaults”, in which a large number of soldiers charged a target until they overwhelmed it, suffering high casualties.

Since the summer, Russian forces have switched to using small vanguards that establish a bridgehead and are later reinforced – but attrition has remained high, as Ukrainian forces target them with pinpoint precision and drop small munitions on them using drones.

Describing a Russian attempt to reach the Oskil River, Oles Malyarevich, deputy commander of the 92nd separate assault brigade, said: “Out of a hundred people, about 10 reach the line, and the rest die. They do not save manpower. Life is worth nothing to them. They throw them forward in order to grab something.”

Mykola Koval, spokesman of the 14th brigade, described similar enemy tactics in Pokrovsk: “If we repel the assault, we destroy 90% of the group. Another group enters after it.”

According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence, Russia lost 45,720 soldiers in November, setting a monthly casualty record for the war.

The figure is equivalent to three motorised rifle divisions, said Ukraine.

Ukraine also destroyed or disabled 307 Russian tanks during the month, equivalent to 10 battalions’ worth, after destroying or disabling similar numbers in September and October.

Ukraine estimated it had hit 884 artillery pieces – in all, incurring equipment losses worth $3bn – in November alone.

Yet Russia’s defence industrial base has proven resilient enough to replace these losses and provide firepower.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an interview with Sky News on Sunday: “In just one week, Russia used more than 500 guided aerial bombs, almost 660 attack drones and about 120 missiles of various types against us. No country in the world has faced such attacks every day for such a long time.”

Russia has flown more than 57,000 drones and 13,000 missiles into Ukraine during the war, according to Ukraine’s Radio Engineering Troops, which spot them.

Russia has defied international sanctions that have crimped its earnings from oil exports and restricted the flow of raw materials to increase production of drones and missiles.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) published research this week finding that Russia’s biggest defence contractors increased their turnover by 40 percent last year, compared with 2.5 percent increases among their US counterparts and 0.2 percent among their European counterparts.

That, experts said, was because of the reflexes Russia has shown during this war.

“The 40 percent growth in Russian defence revenues reflects preparations made as early as 2022, when state orders and industrial shifts were accelerated,” said Hanna Olofsson, spokesperson for Security and Defence Companies (SOFF), the Swedish defence industry lobby.

“The rapid scaling of production – including arms for prolonged attritional conflict – was facilitated by state planning, multi-shift factory work, and reduced export dependencies,” Olofsson said.

In contrast, Western companies’ revenues “largely reflect delivery timelines on older contracts”, she said. “The disparity emphasises the immediate operational focus of Russian arms production compared to the logistical and structural constraints in Western countries, showing varying capabilities in crisis adaptation.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday signed a three-year budget into law.

It increases 2025 defence spending to $128.6bn, or 6.3 percent of gross domestic product, according to Meduza, an independent Russian news outlet. Military and national security spending will together amount to $162bn – up from $157bn this year – taking up 41 percent of government expenditure.

Russia has also sought additional weapons from North Korea and Iran.

Russian Minister of Defence Andrei Belousov met with his North Korean counterpart No Kwang Chol on Friday, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Saturday to bolster that military relationship.

Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) spokesman Andriy Chernyak said Russia had used 60 out of 100 KN-23/24 ballistic missiles it had received from North Korea.

North Korea had also sent approximately five million artillery rounds, 170 self-propelled artillery pieces and 240 multiple-launch rocket systems, Chernyak told Interfax-Ukraine news agency.

“We discussed what more allies can do to provide critical ammunition and air defences, as Russia steps up its attacks and expands the war with the aid of North Korean troops and weapons,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told journalists on the second day of a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting on Wednesday.

“Allies are working to deliver on the financial pledge of 40 billion euros ($42bn) in security assistance for Ukraine in 2024,” Rutte said.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a 650-million-euro ($684m) package of military aid as he paid a visit to Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Monday.

Germany has been a leading supplier of air defence systems to Ukraine, providing five IRIS-T systems, three Patriot systems, and more than 50 Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns. It is to deliver another IRIS-T system and additional Patriot and Gepard units this month.

Ukraine has sought to shore up military aid pledges from its Western partners to ensure its armies were supplied through the US presidential transition in January.

“It is vital for Ukraine that the level of German support does not decrease in the future. This would be the most important and timely signal to all our other partners,” Zelenskyy said in his evening address.

“During my meeting with the Chancellor, we agreed that Germany will continue to support Ukraine as needed, regardless of what happens in global politics or how sentiments may shift.”

The US Pentagon on Tuesday announced a $725m drawdown on air defence missiles, rocket artillery, man-portable air defence systems and other systems.

Between now and mid-January, we will deliver hundreds of thousands of additional artillery rounds, thousands of additional rockets, and other critical capabilities,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters.

In his interview with Sky News, Zelenskyy said US permission to use long-range weapons in Russia had come late, and the number of available missiles was not enough: “The Russians knew that we could not destroy them. We lost people, territories, initiative at a certain point. Before this decision was made. Is it good? Yes. Is it late? Yes. Are such complexes enough for us? Not enough. And we have the right to attack only military objects.”

The European Union sought to provide political support as it transitioned to a new Commission.

The new president of the European Council, Antonio Kosta, together with the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Kaya Kallas, and the commissioner for enlargement, Marta Kos, arrived in Kyiv for a surprise visit on Sunday.

“In my first visit since taking up office, my message is clear: the European Union wants Ukraine to win this war. We will do whatever it takes for that,” Kallas wrote on X.

• Russian drones struck critical infrastructure in Ukraine’s western Ternopil and Rivne regions overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said. The attack left part of the city of Ternopil without electricity, the city’s mayor said, a week after Russian strikes cut power to much of the city and the surrounding region.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for major reinforcement of eastern sectors in Ukraine’s 1,000-km (600-mile) front line. Zelenskyy said that much depended on Ukraine’s Western allies providing vital weaponry, adding that the “greater our army’s firepower and technological capabilities, the more we can destroy Russia’s offensive potential”.
• Zelenskyy issued his appeal as Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its troops had captured two new front-line villages – the town of Kurakhove in the Donetsk region and the town of Novodarivka in the neighbouring Zaporizhia region.
• Russia’s air defence units were working to repel a Ukrainian drone attack on Novorossiysk, the mayor of the Russian Black Sea port city said early on Wednesday.
• Russian Navy frigates tested new generation Zircon (Tsirkon) hypersonic antiship missiles during drills in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the Russian Defence Ministry reported. A Russian submarine also launched a Kalibr cruise missile, another weapon capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, while an Onyx antiship missile was also tested.
• Ukraine has conducted a test on new domestically-made missiles and is ramping up missile production, Zelenskyy said, without providing further details.

• NATO will step up intelligence sharing and improve the protection of critical infrastructure in the face of Russia’s “hostile” acts of sabotage, NATO chief Mark Rutte said in advance of a meeting of the alliance’s foreign ministers on Tuesday. Rutte added that the bloc needs to step up military aid to strengthen Kyiv’s position should it enter into peace negotiations with Moscow.
• While NATO political leaders have agreed “in principle” that Ukraine will join the transatlantic alliance, a number of members are waiting for Donald Trump’s administration to take office in the United States before approving the move, Latvian Minister for Foreign Affairs Baiba Braze told the Reuters news agency at the meeting.
• Ukraine declared it would not settle for anything less than NATO membership to guarantee its future security, as the alliance sidestepped Kyiv’s call for an immediate membership invitation at Tuesday’s foreign ministers’ meeting.
• Ukraine needs robust security guarantees and a just peace, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on the sidelines of the NATO meeting, adding that Kyiv alone would decide when to start negotiations with Russia.
• Italy is preparing a new military aid package for Ukraine, two sources close to the matter have told the Reuters news agency, in a renewed show of support for Kyiv from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
• A Russian presidential aircraft and money were used in a Kremlin-funded programme that took at least 314 children from occupied Ukrainian territories and placed them with Russian families, according to a US State Department-backed report by Yale’s School of Public Health.
• State-owned Polish insurer PZU wants to finance projects of dual military and civilian use, the company’s president Artur Olech said, as the country ramps up defence spending after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Olech did not provide details but ruled out purely military projects.
• The Kremlin said a US decision to send another weapons package to Ukraine worth $725m shows the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden is determined to throw oil on the fire of the war in Ukraine to ensure the conflict keeps going.

These were the key developments on the 1,012th day of the Russia-Ukraine war.

• One person was killed and several others injured following Russia’s drone attack on Ukraine’s western city of Ternopil, according to Viacheslav Negoda, the head of the military administration of Ternopil region. Parts of the residential building, where the victims were staying were also damaged by fire.
• At least three people were killed in a Russian drone attack on the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, according to regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin. Seven others were wounded in the attack.
• A Russian missile strike on a town in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region killed at least four people, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. More than a dozen others were wounded, including a child.
• One child was killed in Russia’s western Bryansk region following a massive Ukrainian drone attack, Governor Alexander Bogomaz said, adding that the attacks destroyed one house in the Starodubsky district.
• Russia’s air defence systems destroyed 15 Ukrainian drones over several Russian regions overnight, the RIA state news agency reported citing Russia’s Ministry of Defence.
• The Russian Defence Ministry said its forces had gained control over two settlements, Illinka and Petrivka, in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.The ministry also said its air defence shot down 55 Ukrainian drones in the past 24 hours.

• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has pledged additional military support worth 650 million euros ($680 million) as he made a surprise visit to war-torn Ukraine, to reaffirm Berlin’s support for Kyiv in its fight against Russia.
• Zelenskyy called on the outgoing United States President Joe Biden to help convince NATO members to invite Ukraine to join the alliance.
• In Kyiv, Zelenskyy met European Council President Antonio Costa for talks and praised his decision to visit Ukraine immediately after starting his job. He told Costa and the European Union’s new head of diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, that Ukraine needs security guarantees from NATO and more weapons to defend itself before any talks with Russia.
• The US is not considering returning to Ukraine the nuclear weapons it gave up after the Soviet Union collapsed, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said, following reports that some unidentified Western officials had suggested to Biden to do just that before he leaves office.
• German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has accused China of providing Russia with weapons for its war against Ukraine and threatening peace in Europe and the Asia Pacific. Baerbock is scheduled to visit Beijing next week for a meeting with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved a military-focused budget for 2025-27, a document published on the official legal acts website showed. It includes a 25 percent hike in military spending as the country continues its military operation in Ukraine.

Kim Jong Un said Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons is the result of direct military intervention by the United States, and Russia is entitled to fight in self-defence, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Saturday.

Outgoing US President Joe Biden this month allowed Ukraine to use US-provided, long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) inside Russian territory.

Kim pledged that his country “will invariably support the policy of the Russian Federation to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity against imperialist moves for hegemony” while hosting Russian Minister of Defence Andrei Belousov in Pyongyang on Friday, KCNA reported.

Russia and North Korea have deepened their military links, with Pyongyang sending thousands of troops to participate in Moscow’s war effort.

Kim and Belousov agreed on further strengthening the strategic partnership between their countries.

North Korea has wholly backed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, calling it a defensive response to NATO’s “reckless” eastward advance and US-led moves to stamp out Russia’s position as a powerful state.

Kim slammed the US decision to let Ukraine strike targets inside Russia as a direct intervention in the conflict, calling it Washington’s “anti-Russia measures” that are “irresponsible acts of fomenting prolonged conflict and threatening all mankind”.

Recent Russian strikes on Ukraine, Kim added, are “a timely and effective measure” to demonstrate Russia’s resolve.

According to NATO, US, Ukrainian and South Korean assessments, North Korea has sent more than 10,000 troops to Russia and some of them have already begun engaging in combat on the front lines. They also say North Korea has also shipped artillery systems, missiles and other conventional weapons to replenish Russia’s exhausted weapons inventory.

Neither North Korea nor Russia have formally confirmed the North Korean troops’ movements, and have steadfastly denied reports of weapons shipments.

South Korea, the US and their partners are concerned that Russia could give North Korea advanced weapons technology in return, including help to build more powerful nuclear missiles.

Last week, South Korean national security adviser Shin Won-sik told local SBS TV that Russia has provided air defence missile systems to North Korea. He said Moscow also appeared to have given economic assistance to Pyongyang and various military technologies, including those needed for the North’s efforts to build a reliable space-based surveillance system.

In June, Kim and Putin signed a treaty requiring both countries to provide immediate military assistance if either is attacked. It is considered the two countries’ biggest defence deal since the end of the Cold War.

In a long, wide-ranging interview with Sky News, the Ukrainian president was asked whether he would accept Nato membership, but only on the territory that Kyiv currently holds.

Zelensky said he would, but only if Nato membership was offered to the whole of Ukraine, within its internationally recognised borders, first.

Ukraine could then attempt to negotiate the return of territory currently under Russian control “in a diplomatic way”, he said.

But the suggestion is highly theoretical. As Zelensky pointed out, no-one has yet made such an offer.

Whether Nato would ever consider such a move is highly doubtful.

“Ukraine has never considered such a proposal, because no-one has officially offered it to us,” Zelensky said.

Nato would need to offer membership to the whole country, including those parts currently under Russian control, he said.

“You can’t give [an] invitation to just one part of a country,” the president said, according to a translation provided by Sky News. “Why? Because thus, you would recognise that Ukraine is only that territory of Ukraine, and the other one is Russia.”

Lots of people were proposing ceasefires, he said, but without a mechanism to prevent Russia from attacking again, ceasefires were simply too dangerous.

Only NATO membership, he said, could offer that kind of guarantee.

The Ukrainian president has already said that he thinks the war could end in the coming year if Ukraine’s allies show sufficient resolve.

Reports suggest that discussion of the so-called West German model – Nato membership offered to a divided country – has been going on in Western circles for more than a year.

But no formal proposals have yet been made.

While on the campaign trail, US President-elect Trump vowed to end the war within “24 hours”.

Those around him, like Vice President-elect JD Vance, have signalled that will mean compromises for Ukraine, likely in the form of giving up territory in the Donbas and Crimea.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said himself Kyiv would like to end the war through “diplomatic means” in 2025.

Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014. Eight years later, it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and has occupied territory in the country’s east.

But It is also worth noting that so far Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has given absolutely no indication that he’s abandoned his desire to subjugate Ukraine entirely.

The idea that he would be willing to allow any part of Ukraine to join Nato is, for now, unthinkable.

All the indications so far suggest that any involvement of Nato is a complete non-starter.

On Thursday, Moscow mounted its second mass attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in less than two weeks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called it a response to “continued attacks” using US-supplied Atacms missiles on Russian soil.

Having already endured two-and-a-half bitter winters since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukrainians are bracing themselves for another.

• Russia unleashed its second major attack this month on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, triggering severe power cuts that affected at least one million people across three western regions.
• The attacks cut power to 523,000 consumers in the Lviv region, 215,000 in the Volyn region and 280,000 in the Rivne region, regional governors reported.
• Ukraine’s air force said Russia used 91 missiles and 97 drones in the attack, with 12 hitting their targets, most of which were energy and fuel facilities.
• President Vladimir Putin said Moscow had struck in response to Ukraine’s attacks on Russian territory with US medium-range ATACMS missiles. He warned future targets could include “decision-making centres” in Kyiv using its new Oreshnik hypersonic missile – which Moscow claims is incapable of being intercepted.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of a “despicable escalation”, saying it had used cruise missiles with cluster munitions in the attack. Zelenskyy said he was speaking to Western leaders – including NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz – to forge a response to the Russian attempt to “drag out the war”.
• US President Joe Biden labelled Moscow’s attack “outrageous”, saying it serves as “another reminder of the urgency and importance of supporting the Ukrainian people in their defence against Russian aggression”.
• Russian air defences destroyed or downed 30 Ukrainian drones in the southern Rostov region early on Friday, Regional Governor Yuri Slyusar said.
• Fragments from downed Russian drones struck buildings in two Kyiv districts and injured one person late on Thursday, officials said.
• Explosions were heard in Odesa on Thursday morning amid reports of a cruise missile attack in the Ukrainian Black Sea port city.
• President Zelenskyy has signed into law Ukraine’s first wartime tax increases, with Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko saying the bill is vital to ensure smooth funding for the Ukrainian defence sector.
• The changes, which will take effect from December 1, will see the war tax on personal income rise from 1.5 percent to 5 percent.
• Ukraine has urged its partners to speed up military aid, saying quicker delivery of critical battlefield equipment is more important than drafting more men, after a senior US administration official urged Kyiv to reduce the conscription age from 25 to 18.
• Ukraine is ready to host a second global summit aimed at ending Russia’s invasion in the “nearest future”, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, has said. Ukraine held its first “peace summit” in Switzerland in June.
• France, which is under pressure over its stance claiming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is immune from an International Criminal Court arrest warrant, has declined to say whether it would be prepared to arrest President Putin under a similar warrant.
• Putin said during a news conference in Kazakhstan that Russia would use “precisely all means of destruction available” against Ukraine if Kyiv were to acquire nuclear arms, adding that he would be “watching their every move”.
• Putin added that there were no conditions to start talks with Ukraine on a possible peace settlement, but that terms he set out in June, including Kyiv dropping its NATO ambitions, remained unchanged.
• Germany has offered to re-deploy Patriot air defence missiles to NATO ally Poland at the start of the new year, the German Defence Ministry said.
• A Russian court has sentenced lawyer Dmitry Talantov, who has represented critics of Moscow’s war in Ukraine, to seven years in prison after convicting him of spreading false information about the Russian army and “inciting hatred”.
• Russia and Ukraine have agreed to each return a total of nine children to be reunited with family members, in the latest humanitarian exchange agreed upon following mediation by Qatar.