Ukraine Breaking News Today Live on 01-01-2025

The Ukrainian president and several other world leaders expressed horror after a deadly terrorist attack in New Orleans killed 10, injured 35 on New Year’s. Police continue looking for collaborators.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday said he was “horrified” by the deadly attack in New Orleans, Louisiana on a crowd celebrating the New Year and said his country stood by the American people.

“Horrified by the attack in New Orleans, US, which has claimed innocent lives and left many injured,” Zelensky said in a post on X. “We trust that those responsible for this terrible act will be brought to justice. Violence, terrorism, and any threats to human life have no place in our world and must not be tolerated,” he added.

There’s no time lost as 2025, with all its unfolding elements, takes shape before our eyes.

Greetings on day one of the New Year. Already, the new annual chapter in our lives has brought some noteworthy events, signaling what could be an unpredictable year.

As 2025 dawned, there were no surprises from Russia’s barbaric mode of addressing the outside world while others were celebrating, nor any signs of peace, joy, family reunification, and international solidarity.

Servicemen interviewed by AFP suggested that systemic changes in military culture -- and leadership -- could help deter desertions.

Oleksandr deserted from the front line in eastern Ukraine after watching his fellow servicemen being pulverised by Russian bombardments for six months. Then, those remaining were ordered to counterattack.

It was the final straw for Oleksandr, 45, who had been holding the line in the embattled Lugansk region in the early months of the war. Even his commanding officer was reluctant to send his men back toward what looked like certain death.

HUR cyber specialists disrupted Russia’s oil giant Lukoil, paralyzing payment systems and digital platforms during the holiday season and causing widespread chaos and losses.

Cyber specialists of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR) have conducted another cyberattack on Russia’s critical infrastructure, sources within the intelligence told Kyiv Post under conditions of anonymity.

“Between Dec. 30 and Jan. 1, 2025, HUR specialists carried out a new cyberattack targeting Russia’s oil sector,” said one source.

Two prominent literary-cultural figures connected with Ukraine share their views on 2024 and what 2025 is likely to bring.

Andriy Kurkov

Andriy Kurkov is one of Ukraine’s best-known writers, with more than 30 books to his name translated into 37 languages. He is president of the non-governmental organization PEN Ukraine, whose many articles and essays on Ukraine have been published in media around the world.

The year 2024 will be remembered in Ukraine for two main features of the on-going war: North Korean soldiers and Russian “Oreshnik” missiles.

Ukraine’s fate matters to all of us and we cannot allow Putin and what his Russia represents to get away with the murder of people and nations.

On Feb. 24, 2022, Europe woke up to a reality it had long considered unimaginable. A war on its borders – not a limited conflict, but a massive invasion of a sovereign state by a great power with the aim of destroying its existence.

That day was not only the beginning of the war in Ukraine; it was the moment when Europe had to understand that an attack on Ukraine is also an attack on the values, stability, and security of the whole of Europe. To ignore this reality is to ignore our own responsibility for the future of the continent.

Ukrainians’ shopping trends in 2024, according to Google search, offer a different glimpse into Ukraine’s newfound wartime reality.

What are Ukrainians buying online in wartime Ukraine during 2024?

Despite the prevalence of drones in Ukraine – as well as the thousands of fundraisers to supply drones to the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) – those are not the top purchases ordinary Ukrainians searched for on Google.

Musk flummoxes internet with ‘Kekius Maximus’ persona.

Elon Musk adopted the moniker “Kekius Maximus” on X Tuesday, sparking speculation among his 210 million followers about his mysterious new handle that is a mash-up of an alt-right symbol, a memecoin, and the lead character of the movie “Gladiator.”

Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and a confidant of US President-elect Donald Trump, also replaced his profile picture with one of “Pepe the Frog,” a popular cartoon character, wearing ancient Roman attire and holding a video game joystick.

Polish President Andrzej Duda said in his New Year address that Russia must not emerge victorious in Ukraine, adding that the conflict “must end with a just peace.”

In a New Year’s address delivered on Tuesday evening, Duda, whose presidential term ends on August 6, 2025, said that the security of Poland must remain the top priority for his successor.

He said: “The coming year 2025 is the year of presidential elections. It is us, Poles, who must decide who we will entrust with the highest office in the country.

The EU’s black sheep Hungary feels the backlash from Brussels now that it has relinquished the EU presidency.

Hungary has officially been denied a billion euros of European Union funds that had been frozen because of corruption, the EU said, the first time the bloc has enforced such a move.

Brussels in 2022 began “conditionality” proceedings against Hungary, seeking to block disbursements because of alleged infringements linked to public procurement as well as a lack of control and transparency.

The Ukrainian Navy reports that the Russians lost three armored vehicles and an infantry squad in the failed assault, though the exact number of casualties is unspecified.

Ukrainian Marines have successfully repelled a Russian assault on their positions, destroying three armored vehicles and inflicting losses on Russian infantry, according to a report by the Ukrainian Naval Forces on Facebook.

“We are repelling the assault of the Russian occupiers and destroying their equipment,” reads the caption accompanying a video released by the 37th Separate Marine Brigade.

The move, tied to Russia’s invasion, sparks mixed reactions across the EU, with energy markets on edge.

Russia’s gas transit to Europe via Ukraine stopped on Wednesday, Moscow and Kyiv said, ending a decades-long arrangement and marking the latest casualty of the war between the neighbours.

Russian gas has been supplied to Europe via pipelines crossing Ukraine since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991 in an arrangement that earned revenues for Moscow from the gas and for Kyiv from the transit fees.

Ukrainian soldiers released a video showing Russian serviceman Rudakov ordering the shooting of civilians in the Luhansk region.

Russian servicemen are instructing their soldiers positioned closer to the frontline to shoot and torture the local population, according to an investigation by the 3rd Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU).

Ukrainian forces found the phone of one of the Russian soldiers, who filmed his comrade, Oleg Igorevych Rudakov (“Rudik”), giving criminal orders to “clean up” residents.

Of six injured in the Russian attack on Kyiv, two were hospitalized, and four, including a pregnant woman, were treated on-site. The death toll from the strike has risen to two.

[Updated at 12.51]: Timur Tkachenko, head of the KMVA, said that the death toll from the strike has risen to two.

“The efforts to address the aftermath of the strike on the capital have been underway since early morning. I was personally at the site where debris fell. Unfortunately, we now have two confirmed fatalities. My condolences to their families and loved ones,” he wrote on Telegram.

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

Across the United States, the new year will usher in thousands of new state laws. At least 20 states increase statewide minimum wage starting Jan. 1 — the highest in Washington state at $16.66 an hour, followed by California at $16.50. Kentucky becomes the latest state to legalize medical marijuana and several states, including Delaware, tighten gun control. A Florida law that bans children under 14 from having social media accounts, and limits 14 and 15-year-olds to accounts authorized by their parents, takes effect Wednesday. However, social media companies may not immediately kick those kids off their platforms. And a new California law says schools can no longer require teachers to out LGBTQ+ students to their parents - NPR

Thousands of Bangladeshis rallied at a ‘March for Unity’ in the capital Dhaka on Tuesday to mark the student-led uprising five months ago that led to the ouster of longstanding Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and remember the more than 1,000 killed in the violence.The Students Against Discrimination (SAD) group that led the protests, dropped a plan to call for changes to the country’s 1972 constitution at the rally, after the interim government announced on Monday that it would prepare a proclamation. SAD says a ‘Proclamation of the July Revolution’ is essential to honour the sacrifice of the protesters who died or were wounded, and to serve as a document reflecting the people’s aspirations. Some political analysts had expressed concern that there could be fresh instability if students sought changes to the constitution without broader consensus. The press office of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, who leads the interim government, said it would seek national consensus on a ‘Declaration of the July Uprising’, focusing on unity, state reform, and the broader goals of the uprising. It expressed hope that a declaration would be finalized soon - Reuters

One of the ships the Russians may have wanted to use to evacuate troops and equipment from Syria has mysteriously sunk.

A rescue flotilla dispatched by Russian naval authorities to recover troops and equipment evacuating Syria was far from its destination and spread out across the open seas, according to international shipping databases on Tuesday.

Ukrainian military information platforms reported on Dec. 25 that Russian naval authorities were assembling a five-ship convoy of transport vessels sailing in two groups, with the ultimate destination being Tartus in Syria, Russia’s sole naval base in the Mediterranean Sea.

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• Russian forces gained 4,168 square kilometers, largely comprised of fields and small settlements in Ukraine and Kursk Oblast, at a reported cost of over 420,000 casualties in 2024.
• The Russian military command largely prioritized efforts to seize the remainder of Donetsk Oblast and establish a buffer zone in northern Kharkiv Oblast in 2024 but failed to accomplish these goals.
• Russian forces have seized four mid-sized settlements - Avdiivka, Selydove, Vuhledar, and Kurakhove - in all of 2024, the largest of which had a pre-war population of just over 31,000 people.
• Russian forces would require just over two years to seize the remainder of Donetsk Oblast at their 2024 rates of advance, assuming that all their advances were confined to Donetsk, that they can seize large urban areas as easily as small villages and fields, and that the Ukrainians do not conduct any significant counterattacks in Donetsk.
• Ukrainian forces have yet to stop Russian forces from advancing in their priority sectors, however, and Western aid remains critical to Ukraine’s ability to stabilize the frontline in 2025.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin officially declared 2025 the “Year of the Defender of the Fatherland” during his New Years’ address on December 31 - signaling the Kremlin’s continued efforts to militarize Russian society and maintain regime stability by appeasing the growing Russian veteran community.
• Ukrainian naval drones reportedly downed a Russian Mi-8 helicopter near occupied Cape Tarkhankut, Crimea, reportedly marking the first time that a naval drone has shot down an air target.
• Ukrainian forces struck the Yarsevskaya oil depot in Smolensk Oblast and a building used by the Russian military in Lgov, Kursk Oblast on December 30 and 31.
• Ukrainian forces recently advanced near Kreminna and in Kursk Oblast, and Russian forces recently advanced near Kreminna, Siversk, Chasiv Yar, Pokrovsk, and Kurakhove.
• The Russian government will deprive prisoners who volunteer to fight in Ukraine of the one-time enlistment bonus starting January 1, 2025, marking another instance of Russia trying to cut the mounting short- and long-term costs of war.