The past week saw Russia intensify its winter air campaign against Ukraine’s power system, while pressing hard along several frontline axes in the east, where incremental territorial changes continued to come at high cost. Ukraine, for its part, kept prioritizing deep strikes on Russian fuel and energy infrastructure—aiming to constrain Moscow’s logistics through refinery and depot disruptions—while also trying to stabilize key defensive lines under persistent Russian assaults. The result was a week defined by a familiar pattern: grinding ground combat around a handful of operational “hinge” areas, paired with large-scale drone and missile attacks designed to sap the other side’s capacity to fight and endure winter.
On the battlefield, Russian forces maintained pressure across the broader Donetsk theater, where Moscow’s operational logic remains focused on widening and deepening advances toward major Ukrainian-held nodes that anchor the region’s defense network. Fighting was repeatedly described as heaviest in and around the Pokrovsk direction, where Russia has sought for months to chip away at Ukrainian positions and threaten road links that support the defense of the wider Donetsk line. Ukrainian reporting during the week continued to point to high daily engagement counts and intense clashes concentrated on that axis, reflecting the scale of Russian effort and the importance both sides attach to this sector.
Further northeast, the Siversk area became one of the most consequential tactical storylines of the week. Independent assessments indicated that Russian forces likely consolidated control over much of the town after prolonged fighting, with broader commentary framing this as a hard-won gain that could, if sustained, reshape local Ukrainian defensive geometry by pushing the contact line closer to other key settlements in the Donbas. While the exact situation on the ground remained fluid—as it often does in contested urban zones—multiple credible monitoring assessments converged on the view that Ukraine had been compelled to pull back from at least parts of Siversk under mounting Russian pressure.
Elsewhere along the eastern front, Russia kept up attacks across a wide arc of directions rather than committing exclusively to a single breakthrough bid. That approach—continuous pressure, local penetrations when possible, and attempts to degrade Ukrainian reserves—was reflected in daily Ukrainian situation reports describing Russian assaults in numerous operational directions. Even when gains are measured in small villages or tree lines, the cumulative effect is to keep Ukrainian forces “busy everywhere,” complicating rotation schedules and stretching air-defense and counter-battery resources.
Around the broader Donetsk urban belt, Russian efforts continued to be framed by the logic of inching closer to the interconnected defensive hubs that include the Kostyantynivka–Kramatorsk–Slovyansk area—without necessarily having the capacity to seize them quickly. Monitoring organizations highlighted how claims and counterclaims can sometimes outpace verifiable territorial change, but they also noted continued Russian attempts to expand footholds and push Ukrainian lines back in piecemeal fashion.
In practical terms, that meant a week of repeated assaults, localized advances and withdrawals, and a continuing contest over positional advantage—especially where artillery, drones, and short-range assaults can create sudden, dangerous collapses in small sectors.
While the ground war ground on, the week’s defining escalation came in the air and against energy infrastructure. Ukraine faced one of the largest aerial bombardments reported in recent months, as Russia launched a massive combined drone-and-missile strike that Ukrainian officials said involved well over 600 drones and dozens of missiles. The attack hit multiple regions and damaged critical infrastructure, triggering emergency power cuts and widespread outages during freezing weather. At least three civilians were reported killed, including a child, with additional injuries reported in some areas as strikes hit homes and other civilian objects alongside energy targets.
This barrage followed other deadly overnight attacks earlier in the week. Reporting around December 21 described Russian drone strikes and bombardments that killed at least four people and injured more, again underscoring that Russia’s winter targeting strategy remains aimed at both Ukraine’s generating capacity and the distribution network needed to keep cities functioning.
Beyond the immediate human toll, the strategic message is blunt: repeated disruption of electricity and heating is intended to strain public morale, complicate industrial output, and force Ukraine to divert scarce air-defense resources to protecting energy nodes spread across a vast country.
Odesa—a recurring target because of its port facilities and logistics significance—was hit multiple times within a short window, with damage reported to port infrastructure and a vessel. While some reports said there were no casualties in certain Odesa strikes, the attacks reinforced that Russia continues to treat Ukraine’s export and maritime logistics as a strategic target set, particularly when those routes intersect with energy and transport infrastructure.
Ukraine’s response was not symmetrical in scale, but it was consistent in intent: persistent deep strikes aimed at Russia’s fuel production and storage network, as well as select military-logistics nodes. Early in the week, Ukraine confirmed a drone strike on the Slavyansk-on-Kuban oil refinery in Russia’s Krasnodar region, describing explosions and a fire at the facility and signaling—again—that Kyiv sees refinery disruption as a way to impose costs on Russia’s war economy and frontline sustainment.
Later reporting described additional Ukrainian strikes hitting Russian targets including oil-related infrastructure and other military assets, part of a broader pattern of long-range attacks meant to stretch Russian air defenses and complicate the movement of fuel and materiel.
By week’s end, further reports pointed to a Ukrainian strike that ignited a fire at a petrochemical facility in Russia’s Stavropol region—an episode that fit the same operational logic of targeting energy and fuel-adjacent industry. Public reporting did not consistently confirm casualties from this particular incident, but the event added to the mounting list of energy-sector disruptions Russia has had to manage far from the front.
Alongside these headline strikes, the war’s human impact remained stark. In Ukraine, the confirmed civilian deaths this week were tied primarily to Russia’s aerial campaign, with fatalities including a child and multiple reports of injuries amid widespread power cuts and damage to homes.
In Russia, while Ukrainian deep strikes continued to generate fires and disruptions at energy facilities, publicly verified casualty reporting was less consistent and often fragmentary; in several cases, authorities or media accounts focused on damage and operational disruption rather than providing clear totals.
Diplomatically, the week featured parallel efforts to explore pathways toward a ceasefire or framework agreement, even as battlefield realities suggested neither side is yet positioned to accept terms that would look like a strategic defeat. Reporting described continued contacts and meetings involving US intermediaries and delegations with Ukrainian and Russian counterparts, with discussion of draft documents touching on ceasefire concepts, security guarantees, and reconstruction—though without a clear breakthrough.
Russia’s public posture remained hardline in many accounts, while Ukraine emphasized that any settlement must not reward aggression or lock in territorial losses without credible long-term security arrangements.
International support for Ukraine also moved on several tracks. The European Union advanced additional measures aimed at constraining Russia’s ability to finance the war, including the expansion of sanctions targeting vessels associated with Russia’s “shadow fleet,” which Western governments argue helps Moscow keep oil revenues flowing despite restrictions.
At the political level, EU leaders also moved to finalize a major financial package framed as support for Ukraine’s stability and defense capacity, even as internal debates continued about the best legal mechanisms for leveraging frozen Russian assets.
Separately, Poland announced another military assistance package—reported as its 46th—valued at around €100 million, with delivery planned for early 2026, underscoring how neighboring states remain central pillars of practical support as the war moves into another winter.
Compiled by Ana Dumbadze
