Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,388

Here’s wherever things basal connected Saturday, December 13:

Fighting

• Ukrainian forces said they had retaken parts of the northeastern municipality of Kupiansk and encircled Russian troops there, arsenic President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the country and praised the operation, saying it strengthened Ukraine diplomatically.
• In a video clip, President Zelenskyy, wearing a bulletproof vest, is seen lasting successful beforehand of a motion bearing the town’s sanction astatine the entranceway to Kupiansk. “Today it is highly important to execute results connected the beforehand lines truthful that Ukraine tin execute results successful diplomacy,” helium said.
• Ukrainian drones struck 2 Russian lipid rigs successful the Caspian Sea, an authoritative successful the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said. The SBU drones deed the Filanovsky and Korchagin lipid rigs, which some beryllium to Russia’s Lukoil. The Filanovsky rig – portion of Russia’s largest Caspian oilfield – came nether onslaught earlier this week arsenic Ukraine steps up its run to disrupt Russian lipid and state output.
• Ukraine said it conducted an cognition alongside a section absorption question to deed 2 Russian ships transporting weapons and subject instrumentality successful the Caspian Sea. They did not specify erstwhile the onslaught took place.
• Ukraine’s subject besides said it attacked a large Russian lipid refinery successful Yaroslavl, northeast of Moscow, and manufacture sources said the installation had suspended output.
• Russia attacked Ukraine’s Chornomorsk and Odesa ports, damaging 3 Turkish-owned vessels, including a civilian vessel carrying nutrient supplies, Ukrainian officials said.
• Moscow antecedently threatened to chopped “Ukraine disconnected from the sea” successful retaliation for Kyiv’s maritime drone attacks connected its “shadow fleet” tankers thought to beryllium utilized to export oil.
• Russia besides attacked vigor facilities successful the confederate Ukrainian Odesa portion overnight, causing fires and leaving respective settlements successful the portion without electricity, the section politician and exigency work said.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it had destroyed 90 Ukrainian drones implicit the state and the Black Sea overnight.
• Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airdrome said it suspended departures amid the overnight drone attacks, portion successful the metropolis of Tver, 181km (112 miles) northwest of Moscow, authorities said 7 radical were injured.

Peace deal

• Turkiye has called for an urgent extremity to the warfare successful Ukraine aft Turkish-owned vessels were damaged successful an onslaught connected Ukraine’s Chornomorsk larboard by Russia, saying the incidental underscored risks to Black Sea maritime security.
• Ankara called for an statement to suspend attacks targeting navigation safety, vigor and larboard infrastructure “to forestall escalation”.
• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan besides met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, telling him that a constricted ceasefire astir vigor facilities and ports successful peculiar could beryllium beneficial.
• Ukrainian, European and United States nationalist information advisers met and discussed coordination of their positions connected proposals for a colony to the struggle successful Ukraine, the caput of the Ukrainian negotiating team, Rustem Umerov, said.
• Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said the gathering was attended from the US broadside by Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, arsenic good arsenic World Bank main Ajay Banga and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink.

We proceed our associated enactment with our American partners and the enactment of planetary fiscal institutions connected the economical way wrong the broader effort to unafraid a conscionable and lasting bid for Ukraine.

Today, we held a gathering with representatives of the U.S. President,… pic.twitter.com/QNJzBQ0GD6

— Yulia Svyrydenko (@Svyrydenko_Y) December 12, 2025

• President Donald Trump said a US-proposed free economical zone successful the Ukraine-controlled parts of the eastbound Donbas would enactment aft Washington suggested creating specified an economical portion arsenic a compromise betwixt Ukraine and Russia.
• Ukraine, the US and European powers are inactive moving to find a associated presumption that would outline the contours of a bid deal, including information guarantees for Kyiv, successful a ceasefire woody that “American negotiators are consenting to bring to the Russians”, a French presidency authoritative said.
• Kremlin overseas argumentation adjutant Yury Ushakov said a ceasefire is lone imaginable aft Ukrainian forces retreat from the full Donbas region, and the country Kyiv presently controls is taken implicit by the Russian National Guard.
• “If not by negotiation, past by subject means, this territory volition travel nether the afloat power of the Russian Federation. Everything other volition beryllium wholly connected that,” Ushakov said.

Sanctions

• The European Union agreed to indefinitely frost 210 cardinal euros ($246bn) worthy of Russian sovereign assets held successful Europe, removing a large obstacle to utilizing the currency to assistance Ukraine support itself against Russia. The statement removes the hazard that Hungary and Slovakia, which person amended relations with Moscow than different EU states, could garbage to rotation implicit the frost astatine immoderate constituent and unit the EU to instrumentality the wealth to Russia.
• Russia’s cardinal slope said the EU plans to usage its assets to enactment Ukraine were amerciable and it reserved the close to employment each disposable means to support its interests.
• The slope said separately it was suing Brussels-based fiscal instauration Euroclear – which holds galore of the assets – successful a Moscow tribunal implicit what it said were damaging and “illegal” actions.
• In beforehand of the ballot to frost the funds, Hungary lodged a protestation against what it called an “unlawful” measurement by the EU to clasp Russian assets indefinitely. Prime Minister Viktor Orban said the determination would “cause irreparable harm to the Union”.
• “Hungary protests the determination and volition bash its champion to reconstruct a lawful situation,” Orban said.

International affairs

• North Korean person Kim Jong Un attended a welcoming ceremony for the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army that returned location aft carrying retired duties successful Russia, praising the officers and soldiers for their “heroic” behaviour and “mass heroism” during a 120-day overseas deployment.
• Berlin has summoned Russia’s ambassador implicit what it said was a immense summation successful threatening hybrid activities, including disinformation campaigns, espionage, cyberattacks and attempted sabotage. “[We] made it wide that we are monitoring Russia’s actions precise intimately and volition instrumentality enactment against them,” Germany’s Federal Foreign Office spokesperson Martin Giese said.