Here is the situation on Wednesday, December 4:

Fighting

Russian drones struck critical infrastructure in Ukraine’s western Ternopil and Rivne regions overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said. The attack left part of the city of Ternopil without electricity, the city’s mayor said, a week after Russian strikes cut power to much of the city and the surrounding region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for major reinforcement of eastern sectors in Ukraine’s 1,000-km (600-mile) front line. Zelenskyy said that much depended on Ukraine’s Western allies providing vital weaponry, adding that the “greater our army’s firepower and technological capabilities, the more we can destroy Russia’s offensive potential”.
Zelenskyy issued his appeal as Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its troops had captured two new front-line villages – the town of Kurakhove in the Donetsk region and the town of Novodarivka in the neighbouring Zaporizhia region.
Russia’s air defence units were working to repel a Ukrainian drone attack on Novorossiysk, the mayor of the Russian Black Sea port city said early on Wednesday.
Russian Navy frigates tested new generation Zircon (Tsirkon) hypersonic antiship missiles during drills in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the Russian Defence Ministry reported. A Russian submarine also launched a Kalibr cruise missile, another weapon capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, while an Onyx antiship missile was also tested.
Ukraine has conducted a test on new domestically-made missiles and is ramping up missile production, Zelenskyy said, without providing further details.

A Russian Navy frigate fires a Zircon (Tsirkon) hypersonic antiship missile during drills as captured in this still image from a video released on December 3, 2024 [Russian Defence Ministry/Handout via Reuters]

Politics and diplomacy

NATO will step up intelligence sharing and improve the protection of critical infrastructure in the face of Russia’s “hostile” acts of sabotage, NATO chief Mark Rutte said in advance of a meeting of the alliance’s foreign ministers on Tuesday. Rutte added that the bloc needs to step up military aid to strengthen Kyiv’s position should it enter into peace negotiations with Moscow.
While NATO political leaders have agreed “in principle” that Ukraine will join the transatlantic alliance, a number of members are waiting for Donald Trump’s administration to take office in the United States before approving the move, Latvian Minister for Foreign Affairs Baiba Braze told the Reuters news agency at the meeting.
Ukraine declared it would not settle for anything less than NATO membership to guarantee its future security, as the alliance sidestepped Kyiv’s call for an immediate membership invitation at Tuesday’s foreign ministers’ meeting.
Ukraine needs robust security guarantees and a just peace, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on the sidelines of the NATO meeting, adding that Kyiv alone would decide when to start negotiations with Russia.
Italy is preparing a new military aid package for Ukraine, two sources close to the matter have told the Reuters news agency, in a renewed show of support for Kyiv from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
A Russian presidential aircraft and money were used in a Kremlin-funded programme that took at least 314 children from occupied Ukrainian territories and placed them with Russian families, according to a US State Department-backed report by Yale’s School of Public Health.
State-owned Polish insurer PZU wants to finance projects of dual military and civilian use, the company’s president Artur Olech said, as the country ramps up defence spending after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Olech did not provide details but ruled out purely military projects.
The Kremlin said a US decision to send another weapons package to Ukraine worth $725m shows the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden is determined to throw oil on the fire of the war in Ukraine to ensure the conflict keeps going.

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