Russia-Ukraine War: List of Key Events, Day 1,404 | Russia-Ukraine War

These are the key developments of the 1,404th day of the Russian war against Ukraine.

Here’s where things stand on Monday, December 29:

Diplomacy

• US President Donald Trump received Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for talks at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and said the two leaders were “I’m getting very close, maybe very close» to an agreement to end the war in Ukraine.
• Trump and Zelensky reported progress on two of the most contentious issues in the peace talks: security guarantees for Ukraine and the division of eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region, which Russia has sought to capture.
• Regarding security guarantees, Zelensky said a deal had been reached, while Trump said they were 95 percent of the way toward such a deal.
• Trump and Zelensky said the future of the mostly Russian-occupied Donbass was unsettled, although the US president said discussions were “going in the right direction”. “It’s not solved, but it’s getting very close. It’s a very difficult question,” Trump said.
• The two leaders did not provide additional details or a deadline for reaching the deal, but Zelenskyy said any peace agreement would have to be approved by Ukraine’s parliament or through a referendum.
• Shortly after the Trump-Zelensky meeting, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, wrote on X that “the whole world appreciates” Trump and his team’s peace efforts.
• Before the meeting with Zelensky, Trump and Putin spoke on the phone for more than two hours. The US president described the call as “excellent” and “productive”.
• Trump said he would call Putin back after the meeting with Zelensky.
• Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said the initial call was “friendly” and that Putin had told Trump that a 60-day ceasefire, proposed by the European Union and Ukraine, would only prolong the war.
• Ushakov said a “bold and responsible political decision is needed by kyiv” on the Donbass region and other controversial issues for there to be a “complete cessation” of hostilities.
• European leaders, including those from Finland, France, Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom, joined at least part of the Trump-Zelensky meeting by telephone.
• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement that Europe was ready to continue working with Ukraine and the United States, and that it would be of “paramount importance” to have ironclad security guarantees.
• French President Emmanuel Macron told the meeting that progress had been made on security guarantees. Macron said the “Coalition of the Willing” countries would meet in Paris in early January to finalize their “concrete contributions.”
• Zelensky said Trump had agreed to host European leaders again, possibly at the White House, sometime in January. Trump said the meeting could take place in Washington, D.C., or “somewhere.”
• Earlier on Sunday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that any contingents of European troops deployed in Ukraine would become legitimate targets for Russian forces. Lavrov also accused European politicians of being driven by “ambitions” in their relations with kyiv and of disregarding the Ukrainian people and their own nations.

Struggle

• Russian forces attacked a thermal power plant in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, injuring one person and causing “significant damage” to the facility, state oil and gas company Naftogaz said.
• Ukraine’s main private energy provider DTEK said it had restored electricity to more than a million homes in and around kyiv, a day after a disaster. massive Russian air attack had forced emergency outages.
• Ukraine’s military said it hit the Syzran oil refinery in Russia’s Samara region in a drone attack. The strike caused a fire and the damage is still being assessed, the army said in a statement.
• The military also said only part of the southeastern town of Huliaipole was under Russian control, contradicting an earlier claim by Moscow that it had been captured. He added that fighting was also still ongoing in Stepnohirsk, another town in the southeastern Zaporizhia region that Russia claimed to have captured.
• At the same time, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that its troops had taken control of four other settlements in the Donetsk region. He identified them as Myrnohrad, Artemivka, Rodynske and Vilne.