Here is the situation on Friday, January 3:

Fighting

The Ukrainian military said it carried out a high-precision strike on a Russian command post in Maryino, in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces hold chunks of territory after a major cross-border incursion.
Russia’s military said air defence units had downed four Ukrainian missiles in the Kursk region, and Kursk’s regional governor said strikes had damaged a high-rise apartment and other buildings.
Ukraine’s military released a video on social media of what it said was damage to a Russian base in Ivanovskoye, next to Maryino, in the Kursk region.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its air defences had downed a series of drones late on Thursday targeting regions near the Ukrainian border, including two in the Belgorod region, two in the Bryansk region and one in the Kursk region. The governor of Russia’s Oryol region said four drones had been downed in the area.
Moscow also said that Russian troops had downed a Ukrainian Su-27 fighter jet, 97 drones and six United States-supplied HIMARS rocket launchers.
Ukraine said its forces shot down 47 of 72 Russian drones targeting the country overnight, and another 24 drones were lost – due to electronic jamming.
Ukraine has opened a criminal probe into desertion and “abuse of power” after hundreds of soldiers were reported to have fled an army unit partly trained by France. The 155th Mechanised Brigade, dubbed “Anne of Kyiv”, was one of several military groupings formed last year as Ukraine sought to boost preparations for possible new Russian offensives.
A Ukrainian court has sentenced a man to 15 years in prison for passing information to Moscow that could have helped it target missile strikes.

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Politics

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that US President-elect Donald Trump could be decisive in the outcome of the war with Russia. “He can be decisive in this war. He is capable of stopping [Russian President Vladimir] Putin or, to put it more fairly, help us stop Putin. He is able to do this,” Zelenskyy said in an interview.

Economy

Gas supplies in Europe remain stable, with the exception of Moldova, the European Union said after Russian gas transit via Ukraine stopped.
The cut-off of Russian gas supplies to Moldova’s breakaway Transdniestria region has forced the closure of all industrial companies except food producers, Sergei Obolonik, first deputy prime minister of the region, told a local news channel.

A Russian tanker accident in the Black Sea last month resulted in 2,400 tonnes of oil being spilled and not 3,000 tonnes as initially assumed, authorities in Moscow said. The accident happened in mid-December when two Russian tankers crashed in a storm in the Kerch Strait.
Ukraine intends to increase exports as the country enters its fourth year of war with Russia in 2025, Zelenskyy said. The country had already succeeded in boosting exports by 15 percent in 2024, he said.

Regional tension

Angered by Ukraine’s stoppage of Russian gas, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said he would consider the possibility of reducing support for Ukrainians in Slovakia and repeated the threat of stopping electricity deliveries to its larger neighbour.
The Lithuanian government said that the recent failure of the Estlink 2 undersea cable, which has been blamed on a Russian vessel, does not affect the planned synchronisation of the Baltic states’ electricity grid with Western Europe.
Finland’s national power grid operator said it had asked a Helsinki court to seize the Eagle S oil tanker in a bid to secure the company’s claim for damages related to the severing of the undersea Estlink 2 electricity interconnector. The cable between Finland and Estonia was damaged on December 25 along with four telecoms lines.

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