Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 12-29-2024

The centenarian earned the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work after leaving the White House and became a major supporter of Ukraine in its battle for independence and sovereignty.

Former US President Jimmy Carter, elected to office in 1976 for one term, died Sunday in his home in Plains, Georgia, according to his son James E. “Chip” Carter. Carter had been receiving at-home hospice care since February 2023. 

The Nobel Peace Prize winner was a major advocate for Ukraine and regularly voiced his support for Kyiv.

In the wake of one of South Korea’s worse aviation accidents, Ukraine’s president told the Korean people that Ukrainians share their sorrow and stand with them in this time of grief.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his condolences on behalf of the Ukrainian people to the bereaved families, the people of Korea, and Acting President Choi Sang-mok after a tragic plane crash in South Korea.

A Jeju Air plane carrying 181 people from Thailand to South Korea crashed on arrival Sunday at Muan International airport in South Korea, smashing into a barrier and bursting into flames, killing everyone aboard except for two flight attendants plucked from the wreckage.

The year 2024 was disastrous for US arms support to Ukraine. The equation was fairly simple. As Ukrainian firepower went down, Russian ground gains went up.

During 2024, the most significant American geopolitical move in response to Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine was negative: For five months Washington enforced a near-absolute embargo on sending made-in-USA arms and ammunition to Ukraine’s hard-pressed fighting forces.

That firepower gap gutted veteran Ukrainian fighting units and helped facilitate Russia’s biggest victories of the war since the Kremlin invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

The intensification of military and nuclear threats may be linked to the election of Donald Trump and an effort to secure a more advantageous position in potential peace negotiations.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russian authorities have been regularly threatening Ukraine and the West. They have used a variety of methods, from abstract statements about “red lines” to testing new nuclear weapons.

In September 2024, the level of aggressive rhetoric peaked, as evidenced by the Russian Threats Index calculated by OpenMinds.

As part of a strategy to tarnish the reputation of Ukrainian soldiers, Russia is using its “bot army” to muddy the informational waters and hide their own crimes.

Russian propagandists have reportedly fabricated job search ads posted on Ukrainian platforms OLX and Jooble.

Russian bots on social media platforms Telegram and X are distributing fabricated screenshots, allegedly from the job search site Jooble and the online marketplace OLX.

Azerbaijan’s leader challenges Russia’s obfuscation over what led to the deadly air crash of an Azerbaijani civilian plane.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev accused Russia on Sunday of firing at an Azerbaijan Airlines passenger jet before it crashed and of initially trying to cover up the cause of the fatal disaster, demanding that Moscow admit guilt.

Aliyev made the accusation in an interview to state media at Baku airport four days after the AZAL plane crashed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people of the 67 people on board.

German paper publishes Musk’s op-ed supporting far-right AfD party, prompting editor to resign.

US billionaire Elon Musk backed Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD) in a guest opinion piece for Germany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper published online on Saturday that prompted the commentary editor to resign in protest.

In the commentary, published in German by the flagship paper of the Axel Springer media group, Musk expanded on his post on social media platform X last week claiming that “only the AfD can save Germany.”

Now 79 years after his death on Dec. 21, 1945, it’s worth remembering the spirit, courage and unfiltered speeches of one of the West’s most colorful defenders.

General George S. Patton died a death that was in some sense unfortunately banal. He hit his head against a partition in a car during a low-speed encounter with a truck in late 1945. But in many ways, it was a fitting way to go. Something more dramatic would have distracted from the color of his life, and anything that equaled the drama of his life would have been gruesome.

It’s worth celebrating the 79th year of his death not only because he’s a character always worthy of bringing up in people’s minds, but because he stood for many of the qualities and attitudes needed when the world is in peril. He is credited with the quote: “A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood,” a straightforward observation from one who saw the worst horrors of war, a simple piece of advice which should have been followed by everyone involved in setting America’s policy toward Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The world in focus, as seen by a Canadian leading global affairs analyst, writer and speaker, in his review of international media.

A passenger plane carrying 181 people crashed while landing at an airport in southwestern South Korea on Sunday. Officials said most of the people on board were presumed dead, even as two survivors were found and search efforts continued. The plane, operated by South Korea’s Jeju Air, had taken off from Bangkok and was landing at Muan International Airport when it crashed, local fire department officials said. Footage of the accident shows a white-and-orange plane speeding down a runway on its belly until it overshoots the runway, hitting a barrier and exploding into an orange fireball. Officials were investigating what caused the plane, a Boeing 737-800, to crash land, including why the landing gear malfunctioned, whether the plane had been struck by birds, or if it had been experiencing bad weather. As the plane was landing, the airport warned the plane about a potential bird strike, said Ju Jong-wan, a director of aviation policy at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. The plane issued a mayday alert shortly afterward, then crash-landed, he said. As of Sunday evening, at least 176 people had been found dead, according to the National Fire Agency. At least two crew members had been rescued from the tail section of the aircraft, and rescuers continued searching through the wreckage. Lee Jeong-hyeon, an official in charge of search and rescue operations at the scene, said the plane had broken into so many pieces that only its tail was identifiable. “We could not recognize the rest of the fuselage,” he said - NYT

My analysis: extraordinary that in the span of less than a week, the commercial aviation sector has been hit by two crashes - involving airlines and aircraft with good safety records. On Christmas Day, an Azerbaijan Airlines Embrarer jet crashed in Kazakhstan after apparently being damaged by Russian air defence systems. And just a few days later (today), a Boeing 737-800 belonging to South Korean low cost carrier, Jeju Air, crashed upon landing - killing almost all of the 181 passengers and crew. Anyone who had flown through the region around this time of year would’ve noticed packed airplanes with many families enjoying time away from home.

A joint effort by several Ukrainian special forces was reported to have killed three captains gathered for a field meeting. Following a HIMARS strike, attack drones were unleashed.

Three captains of the Russian Armed Forces were killed in a successful operation, the Ukrainian military’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) announced on its Facebook page.

“Three officers of the leadership of the Russian occupation forces were eliminated as a result of a successful operation by the Department of Active Measures of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine [HUR], the Security Service of Ukraine [SBU], the Forces of Unmanned Systems of the Armed Forces of Ukraine [AFU] and the operational-strategic group ‘Tavria.’”

Yuriy Tarnawsky, Shevchenko National Prize nominee, presents his own English-language translation of an excerpt of from his book-length poem U RA NA, exclusively for Kyiv Post.

In Acapulco at the airport,

standing in line

The Ukrainian shipping industry has a window of opportunity to develop into a major international player. What’s needed is a strategy based on a tried and true model.

Since 2009, land logistics and ports have been strongly developing in Ukraine, and grain exports have been increasing every year. Against the background of these changes, Ukraine actively strengthened its role as a global maritime hub, especially with its “Greater Odesa” system of 7 ports, commercially controlling up to 500 ships at a time at its peak, surpassing even the legendary Black Sea Shipping Company in its heyday.

However, this commercial success for the Ukrainian port sector needs to be supported with the right development strategy to seize the opportunities that will open up at the end of the Russo-Ukrainian war. To delve deeper into this topic, the Kyiv Post interviewed Gennadiy Ivanov, the Director of BPG Shipping and an expert in maritime economics and ship management.

While 2024 was a difficult year, 2025 will be fraught with greater uncertainty and anxiety.

2024 was another very difficult year for Ukraine. Although it managed to hold its ground in the bloody fight against the Russian aggressor with the support of its Western backers, it had reason to feel disappointed and was ultimately left hanging in the uncertainty of what 2025 would bring.

Although the Ukrainians continued to resist heroically and even managed to take the fight to Russia itself, the reluctance of their de facto allies to allow them to strike deeper into Russia and also provide them with the security guarantees they wanted was disappointing.

Arrested for possession of what his family says was medically prescribed marijuana, Marc Fogel is now in the spotlight after years in Russian jails.

Marc Fogel, an American schoolteacher arrested in Russia on drug charges more than three years ago, has been designated by the US government as wrongfully detained, the State Department said Friday.

Marc Fogel, a history teacher from Pennsylvania, is serving a 14-year prison sentence in Russia. He was arrested in August 2021 at a Russian airport for possession of what his family said was medically prescribed marijuana.

As Georgians continue weeks of protests against contested elections and the government’s decision to suspend EU accession talks, a controversial new president is to be sworn in.

Georgian ex-footballer turned far-right politician Mikheil Kavelashvili is set to be inaugurated on Sunday as Tbilisi’s next figurehead president, after a controversial election process denounced as “illegitimate” by the current pro-EU leader.

Picked by the governing Georgian Dream party as a loyalist, the former forward for English Premier League champions Manchester City is known for his expletive-laden parliament speeches and tirades against government critics and LGBTQ people.

“Russophobia,” a buzzword long used as pretext for anything that might thwart Russia’s revanchist trajectory, is now defined, and a strategy has been elaborated to mitigate it.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree yesterday on a new “Strategy for countering extremism in the Russian Federation,” Radio Liberty reported.

In the updated strategy, the concept of Russophobia was introduced for the first time. It is defined as “unfriendly, prejudiced, hostile attitude toward the citizens of Russia, the Russian language and culture.” Discriminatory actions by the authorities of states unfriendly to Russia are also considered Russophobia.

As part of an effort to pressure Moldova and draw the country away from a European track, Russia’s state-owned energy colossus is threatening to cut off gas to the country it partially occupies.

Russia’s Gazprom announced Saturday that it will halt gas supplies to Moldova from Jan. 1 over a debt dispute during a state of emergency over energy security in the tiny country.

Moldova’s prime minister denounced what he called “oppressive tactics.”