US has verified as fake the claimed attack on Putin residence, says Zelenskyy; leaders of Ukraine’s allies to meet in France next week. What we know on day 1,407 Russia launched waves of drones to attack the Black Sea ports of Pivdennyi and Chornomorsk with two civilian ships hit as they arrived to load wheat, the Ukrainian navy and government officials said. The Panama-flagged civilian vessels Emmakris III and Captain Karam were struck, said the navy, adding that the attacks on Tuesday “threaten the lives of civilians and undermine global food security. Targeted strikes on civilian objects are a deliberate war crime”. Ukraine is a major agricultural producer and exporter. Oil storage tanks were also hit, said Oleksiy Kuleba, the Ukrainian deputy prime minister, who added that both ports continued to operate. Russia’s continued and intensifying strikes on Ukraine are “an act of defiance” against the US plan to end the Ukraine war, a French presidential source said on Tuesday. Additionally, Moscow’s allegations of a Ukrainian drone attack against a residence of Vladimir Putin are not backed “by any solid proof, including after cross-checking information with our partners”, the source said. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said: “Regarding the attack on [Putin’s residence at] Valdai, our negotiating team connected with the American team, they went through the details, and we understand that it’s fake. And, of course, our partners can always verify thanks to their technical capabilities that it was fake.” A Ukrainian drone attack damaged port infrastructure and a gas pipeline in Russia’s Black Sea port of Tuapse, the regional administration said on Wednesday, adding no injuries were reported. Tuapse and its refinery comprise one of Russia’s key Black Sea outlets for oil products that Ukraine targets because they are exported to finance the war or used directly to power the Russian military. The port and refinery have been hit repeatedly by Ukrainian drone attacks. Ukraine also launched drone attacks on Tuesday targeting Moscow, parts of western Russia and annexed Crimea, injuring one person near the capital, Russian authorities said. Zelenskyy said Ukraine would convene a meeting with leaders of Kyiv’s allies next Tuesday, 6 January, in France, as diplomatic efforts to end the conflict intensified. The summit would be preceded by a meeting of their security advisers, planned for this Saturday, 3 January, in Ukraine. Germany accepted €10m to drop its investigation of the Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov for alleged EU sanctions violations, prosecutors said on Tuesday. The agreement was made on the basis of the “presumption of innocence”, the prosecutors said. Usmanov is a close ally of Putin and head of the International Fencing Federation. He had been accused of using funds frozen under EU sanctions to pay for two properties in Germany to be monitored by a security company. In a separate investigation, prosecutors in Frankfurt had accused Usmanov of money laundering. That case was settled in November after Usmanov paid €4m. The US meanwhile removed sanctions from Alexandra Buriko, the former chief financial officer of Russia’s state-owned Sberbank, according to a post on the US treasury department website. Buriko was among senior executives and directors who resigned from western-sanctioned Sberbank shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Buriko went to court in December 2024 seeking the sanctions’ removal, arguing she had severed ties with Sberbank. She and the US government were known to have been in negotiations to resolve the case. Continue reading...