Georgian volunteer Irakli Kurtsikidze killed in Ukraine on Nov. 12, 2023. (Vano Nadiradze/Facebook)
Irakli Kurtsikidze, a Georgian volunteer who came to Ukraine to serve in the Ukrainian military died on Nov. 12, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.
"The strongest and the most talented Georgian officer fell heroically two days ago, we just didn't write until then the family of Sanamdi would not know.Irakli Kurtsikidze, you left a great name in Ukraine, brother, in the name of Georgia," Vano Nadiradze, the reported leader of Ukraine's Georgian Legion, said on Facebook.
More than 50 Georgian volunteers in the Ukrainian armed forces have died in the war in Ukraine since Feb. 2022.
Rachel Amran is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked on the Europe and Central Asia team of Human Rights Watch investigating war crimes in Ukraine. Rachel holds a master's degree in Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian Regional Studies from Columbia University.
Ukraine's military reportedly struck oil depots in the various Russian and Russian-occupied regions late on Dec. 30, Russian Telegram media channels reported.
Russian forces launched a large-scale drone attack on Odesa overnight Dec. 30-31, striking residential buildings, leaving parts of the city without heat, electricity or water, and injuring four people, including three children, local officials said.
U.S. President Donald Trump said Dec. 29 that Russian President Vladimir Putin told him Ukraine had tried to attack Putin's residence, an allegation Kyiv has denied. "I learned about it from President Putin today. I was very angry about it," Trump said.
"Where is their condemnation of the fact that our children are being bombed and people are being killed all this time? I don't hear India, frankly, nor the United Arab Emirates," President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Dec. 30.
National security advisers from the Coalition of the Willing countries, led by the U.K. and France, have agreed to meet in Ukraine on Jan. 3, according to Zelensky. The meeting will be followed by another meeting among state leaders, planned for Jan. 6 in France.
Ukraine struck a Russian drone storage facility at Donetsk Airport in occupied Donetsk Oblast, Unmanned Systems Forces commander Robert “Madyar” Brovdi said on Dec. 30.
Ukraine's top commander said a battalion commander will face a legal review after Ukrainian troops abandoned a command post in the Huliaipole sector, leaving behind equipment and potentially sensitive materials.
Zelensky tells Fox News' Bret Baier that Ukraine has demonstrated concrete steps toward peace over the past month and raised the possibility of a referendum on the peace plan. At the same time, a referendum would not legitimize withdrawing from Ukrainian territory, given the current security realities.
Zelensky dismissed Russian claims that Ukrainian drones targeted Putin’s residence as “another lie,” warning Moscow is using the allegation as a pretext for possible strikes on Kyiv and government buildings.
Kyiv failed to implement nine indicators in the last three months of 2025, the highest number missed in any quarter since the Ukraine Facility began in 2024, according to a Dec. 29 assessment by RRR4U.
