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Stay on top of Russia-Ukraine war 12-31-2024 developments on the ground with KyivPost fact-based news, exclusive video footage, photos and updated war maps.
May 2025 bring Ukraine victory and peace to the world.
May this year bring you peace, prosperity, and strength. Together, let’s embrace the opportunities and challenges ahead with hope and resilience.
Wishing you and your loved ones happiness, health, and success in the year to come.
Three eminent experts on business and economic matters share their views about 2024 and the prospects for 2025.
Anders Åslund is a senior fellow at the Stockholm Free World Forum, Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University and a leading specialist on Eastern Europe’s economies.
It is with sadness and frustration that my Ukrainian friends and I look back on 2024.
Ukraine’s former UK Ambassador Vadym Prystaiko, Atlantic Council Editor Peter Dickinson and British businessman, author and philanthropist, Lord Ashcroft, assess Ukraine’s situation on the eve of 2025
Vadym Volodymyrovych Prystaiko is a former minister of foreign affairs and former deputy foreign minister who acted as Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom from 2020 to 2023.
As 2024 draws to a close, it does so amid the daily cacophony of air-raid sirens, grim updates from the frontlines, and the monotonously wearisome refrain from the West: concessions must be made, Russia is too strong, NATO is divided but supposedly perfect as it is – without Kyiv.
Indications are that an oil refinery got torched, a troop barracks was blown up, and a major air defense system was flattened. Russian officials said all incoming missiles and drones were shot down.
In a complex nighttime strike operation employing domestically developed jet-powered attack drones and Western precision-guided missiles, Ukrainian strike planners hit targets hundreds of kilometers apart inside the Russian Federation on Tuesday. They set an oil refinery on fire and – according to reports – damaged two military targets.
The best-documented attack was a wave of drones that hit and set fire to the Yartsevo oil depot in Russia’s western Smolensk region, some 320 kilometers north of probable launch sites inside Ukraine. Most accounts said the robot aircraft were jet-powered.
Kyiv Post spent the day with medics of the National Guard of Ukraine “Azov” Brigade at a stabilization point in the Donbas.
Medical care at the front is a key component of combat operations. Assistance, rapid evacuation, stabilization and treatment can all be lifesaving for wounded soldiers, increasing their chances of returning to duty and enhancing the unit’s combat capability.
The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) has been operating advanced military medical systems for almost a decade. Unlike the Russian army, which often abandons its wounded or executes them on the battlefield, Ukrainian combat medics fight for every life. Their incredible success frequently surpasses that of rear hospitals located far from the front line.
The Russian president said his people should be “proud” of what the country had done during his 25 years in power – without explicitly mentioning his war in Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin praised his country’s achievements in a New Year’s Eve speech Tuesday, saying Russians should be “proud” of what Russia had done during his quarter century in power.
The address, delivered exactly 25 years since he took over from predecessor Boris Yeltsin, did not explicitly mention the nearly three-year conflict in Ukraine and focused mostly on wishes for the year ahead.
What prospects for peace in 2025, or will it be an attempt to impose capitulation on Ukraine – what the European press is saying.
In its defensive war against the Russian invasion, Ukraine suffered a number of setbacks in 2024. Neither the Kursk offensive that began in August nor the long-awaited permission to use imported weapons to attack military targets in Russia have brought the breakthrough Kyiv had hoped for. The world is now nervously waiting to see whether Trump, as the future US president, can force the parties to negotiate - and what such negotiations might lead to.
Estonia’s Postimees sums up:
Alastair Macdonald looks ahead for TVP World to see what good and bad news the New Year may bring.
New Year traditions dictate that eating the crustacean brings bad luck while pulses presage good fortune. Whether 2025 turns out to be a lobster or lentil year in Europe, will depend notably on choices made and chances taken by a trio of people in power.
Historic firsts and political surprises are the defining characteristics of our age, so it is a fool indeed who forecasts a whole year ahead. Let me invoke a bit of New Year luck, then, by jumping off a chair at midnight while eating 12 grapes in my red pants before, as we do in Scotland, accepting a lump of coal from a tall, dark stranger at my door. I’ll hedge my bets, too, by looking at both sides – whether 2025 will bring us news that tastes more of lentils (lucky, because they look like coins) or of lobster (unlucky, as it walks backwards).
The war in Ukraine has just busted the existing mil-tech envelope – again. This time it’s high-speed robot boats armed with anti-aircraft missiles knocking down armed and manned aircraft.
Ukrainian special operators on Tuesday scored the first-ever-in-history kill of a manned aircraft by a long-range robot boat off Crimea’s western coast in the early morning hours.
Nighttime video from an onboard camera showed a Ukrainian Magura V5 naval drone moving through choppy seas at high speed and under fire from at least two circling Russian Mi-8 helicopters.
Poland, replacing Hungary, in EU presidency role, expected to set a different tone.
Poland takes over the European Union’s rotating presidency from Hungary on Jan. 1, a change at the helm likely to be met with a sigh of relief in many EU quarters.
Warsaw is expected to bring a more conciliatory approach than its predecessor to a role that -- although lacking in real power -- is seen as a key driver of the bloc’s action.
More than 160 targets in Japan and South Korea were listed in a cache of 29 secret Russian military files that outlined Moscow’s eastern flank strategy in the event of a major war.
Russia prepared target lists containing more than 160 sites in Japan and South Korea in the event of a major war, according to leaked documents.
The Financial Times (FT), which reportedly obtained the cache of 29 secret Russian military files from “Western sources,” said the war plans contained within came from 2013-2014 and bore the insignia of Russia’s Combined Arms Academy, a training college for senior officers.
Ukrainian forces continue to defy the odds and make history with remarkable solo missions, from a sniper’s record shot to a drone operator’s deadly precision.
Contrary to the saying, “a warrior is never alone in the field,” Kyiv Post has gathered stories of servicemen who have carried out remarkable solo missions. For security reasons, the names of nearly all the heroes featured in this article are classified.
From preschool teacher to missile hunter: Ukrainian volunteer who downed a Russian cruise missile
The world in focus, as seen by a Canadian leading global affairs analyst, writer and speaker, in his review of international media.
Year-End Thoughts
2025 will certainly deliver the uncertainty and instability which we have come to know in the year that’s just ended. But with Donald Trump’s return to the White House, global dynamics face a further shake-up. His “America First” approach will upend trade, economics, and geopolitics. Already, the US’s biggest trading partner and supposedly best friend, Canada, is bracing itself for 25% tariffs threatened by Mr. Trump.
Kyiv Post recorded explosions at around 8 a.m. in the Ukrainian capital, with preliminary reports from authorities stating that three buildings and two cars were damaged by missile debris.
Russia launched drones and missiles at Kyiv on Tuesday morning, damaging some properties with no injuries reported at the time of reporting.
Kyiv Post correspondents in Kyiv heard explosions at around 8 a.m., potentially the result of local air defenses.
Syria’s new foreign minister told his Ukrainian counterpart that the two nations endured “the same suffering” and hoped for “strategic partnerships” on various fronts.
Syria’s new administration wants to build “strategic partnerships” with Kyiv, the interim government’s new Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani told his Ukrainian counterpart during a Monday meeting between the two.
Syrian rebels ousted the Moscow-backed Assad regime on Dec. 8. The Ukrainian delegation, headed by Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, arrived in Syria on Monday to discuss potential cooperation between Kyiv and the new administration under the rebels.
The places around the globe where Moscow has asserted its influence are teetering precariously. With Russian forces bogged down in Ukraine, there can be no cavalry coming to the autocrats’ rescue.
Don’t look now but Russian President Vladimir Putin’s would-be global empire is getting smaller by the month. And 2025 is likely to be even more perilous for the dictator and Russian prestige around the world.
Since the collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria, the hollowed-out remains of the Russian military are struggling to project influence throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Sahel region of West Africa, and Sudan.
Photos circulating online of a broadcast warning Ukrainians against Russia’s imminent “Oreshnik” missile launch were likely fabricated – not even a Russian hack, as some claimed.
Ukraine’s 1+1 Media rebuffed Monday’s reports that its channels were hacked to broadcast a fake warning regarding an alleged launch of Russia’s “Oreshnik” intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM).
“We would like to draw your attention to the fact that at the moment the information about the hacking of the broadcast has not been confirmed – the TV channels are functioning properly. No complaints from providers or viewers have been received.
The two presidents share a strong personal bond, with China’s Xi Jinping calling his Russian counterpart his “best friend” and the latter cherishing his “reliable partner.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed to promote “world peace” in a New Year’s message to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, Chinese state media reported on Tuesday.
“No matter how the international situation changes, China will remain steadfast in further comprehensively deepening reform... and promoting world peace and development,” Xi said, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
Russia’s defense ministry claimed Tuesday that 68 Ukrainian UAVs were downed overnight, with 10 destroyed over the Smolensk region.
A Ukrainian drone attack in western Russia caused a fuel spill and fire at an oil depot, a Russian regional governor said Tuesday.
Vasily Anokhin, the governor of Russia’s Smolensk region – which borders Ukraine – said that Russian air defense systems had “suppressed an attack by Ukrainian” drones in the Yartsevo district.
Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.
Key Takeaways from the ISW:
New Year’s celebrations bring big prisoner exchange; As US pledges $2.5B in more aid, Moscow repeats: no peace without surrender of Ukrainian land; Russian oil tankers still poison Black Sea beaches.
In a prisoner exchange brokered by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Moscow and Kyiv on Monday swapped more than 300 prisoners of war ahead of New Year’s Eve celebrations, AFP reported.
“We are working to free everyone from Russian captivity. This is our goal. We do not forget anyone,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said of the prisoner swap.
