Mayor: Russian forces continue shelling Kharkiv on Aug. 18

Ukrainian Defense Forces have encircled Russian troops in Kupiansk, Kharkiv Oblast, and cleared its northwestern outskirts, the open-source intelligence group DeepState reported on Dec. 12.

Ukraine’s Security Service said Friday that it detained three men suspected of planting two homemade bombs that killed a National Guard serviceman and wounded four other people in Kyiv a day earlier.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised troops in the Kupiansk direction and said battlefield gains strengthen Ukraine’s diplomatic position, as the National Guard’s 2nd Khartiia Corps reported a counterattack north of the city.

"We must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents and great-grandparents endured," NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned.

Russia’s Slavneft-YANOS oil refinery in Yaroslavl, one of the country’s five largest, is reportedly on fire after being struck in an overnight drone attack on Dec. 12, officials and local Telegram channels said.

U.S. President Donald Trump is "extremely frustrated" with both Russia and Ukraine amid ongoing diplomatic efforts to end the war, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Dec. 11 press briefing, as the United States weighs whether to join Ukraine and European partners for talks this weekend.

A Russian airstrike on Odesa on Dec. 12 damaged infrastructure and left parts of the city without electricity and water, the head of the Odesa Military Administration, Serhiy Lysak, reported.

A drone explosion damaged the lower floors of a residential building in the Russian city of Tver on Dec. 12, injuring at least seven people, according to regional officials and local Telegram channels.

Polish authorities have detained Alexander Butyagin, a Russian archaeologist accused of causing extensive damage to historical sites in occupied Crimea, at the request of Ukraine's prosecutor general, Polish media reported Dec. 11.