Russia-Ukraine War: List of Key Events, Day 1,405 | Russia-Ukraine War

These are the key developments of the 1,405th day of the Russian war against Ukraine.

Here’s where things stand on Tuesday, December 30:

Alleged attack on Putin’s residence

• Yuri Ushakov, Kremlin foreign policy adviser, said that a the attack took place Sunday at the residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Novgorod, in northwestern Russia, “virtually immediately after” talks in Florida between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
• The strike “will not go unanswered,” Ushakov said in comments reported by Russian media, following a call between Trump and Putin.
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russian air defense systems shot down 91 long-range attack drones used in the attack and no one was injured.
• Zelensky rejected the requestaccusing Russia of trying to derail peace talks.
• However, Trump expressed anger over the alleged attack, telling reporters: “I was very angry about it. Asked if the United States had evidence of the attack, Trump replied: “We’ll find out.”
• Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said “the response to kyiv’s attacks will not be diplomatic” and that Russia would review its negotiating position following the attack.
• The UAE Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it “strongly condemns” this “deplorable attack” and “the threat it poses to security and stability”.

Diplomacy

• White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the phone call between Putin and Trump on Monday on the Ukraine issue was “positive,” without elaborating.
• Zelenskyy said he spoke by phone with the leaders of Germany, Latvia and Finland to brief them on the results of his meeting with Trump and the status of peace negotiations.
• Lavrov said in an interview with the Russian news agency RIA Novosti that “kyiv and its Western backers must recognize the new territorial realities that have emerged following the incorporation of Crimea, Sevastopol, the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Luhansk People’s Republic and the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions into the Russian Federation. » He was referring to Ukrainian regions occupied by Russia and which Moscow claims to have annexed, notably Donetsk and Luhansk, renamed by Russian-backed separatists DPR and LPR.
• A survey released Monday by the Ilko Kucheriv Foundation for Democratic Initiatives (DIF), a Ukrainian think tank, showed that recognition of the occupied Ukrainian territories “as part of the Russian Federation” remained deeply unpopular in Ukraine, with 76 percent of Ukrainians saying they considered it “unacceptable.”

Struggle

• Russian forces attacked the town of Orikhiv in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, killing a 46-year-old man and injuring a 49-year-old woman, Governor Ivan Fedorov said on Telegram.
• Russian forces killed one person and injured five others on Sunday in attacks on Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Governor Vadym Filashkin said on Facebook.
• Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s human rights commissioner, said on Telegram that Russian forces killed seven civilians who were hiding in a basement in the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk.
• Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said it had opened an investigation into reports that Russian soldiers shot dead two captured Ukrainian soldiers in the Pokrovsky village of Chakhove on Saturday.
• “The deliberate killing of prisoners of war constitutes a flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and constitutes a serious international crime,” the attorney general’s office said.
• Ukrainian attacks injured five civilians in Russia’s Belgorod region, according to Russia’s official TASS news agency, citing local officials.
• The Ukrainian attacks also injured four civilians in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhia region and three civilians in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Donetsk region, TASS reported, citing local officials.
• In a televised speech from the Kremlin, Putin made a series of claims about Moscow’s ongoing war against Ukraine, including that Russian troops were advancing toward the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia.
• General Valery Gerasimov, head of the Russian army, said during the same speech that Russian forces had captured 6,460 square kilometers (2,494 square miles) of territory in Ukraine in 2025, including 334 villages.
• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) cited its director general, Rafael Grossi, as saying that repairs to the power line near Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant had been successfully completed.