The interior of a store in Nikopol damaged by a Russian strike on the city on Sept. 11, 2023. (Dnipropetrovsk Governor Serhiy Lysak / Telegram)
The town of Nikopol in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast was hit by Russian strikes twice on Sept. 11, Governor Serhiy Lysak said at around 3 p.m. local time.
Three men aged 24, 47, and 56 years old were injured and are in hospital, the governor said.
Lysak added that Russian forces used a Grad multiple-launch rocket system and heavy artillery to attack the city, heavily damaging shops, homes, and an educational institution.
Nikopol is located on the Dnipro River between Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The population is frequently attacked by Russian forces, as they occupy territory on the opposite side of the river and indiscriminately fire at civilian targets.
Elsa Court is the audience development manager at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked as a news editor at the Kyiv Independent and was an intern at the Kyiv Post in 2018. She has a Master’s in Conflict Studies and Human Rights from Utrecht University. Elsa is originally from the UK.
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 the city of Odesa overnight on Dec. 30-31, striking residential buildings and leaving part of the city without heat, electricity, or water, local officials reported.
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.
