Moscow has said it is maintaining its policy of not disclosing details regarding ongoing Ukraine peace negotiations

Top Kremlin negotiator Kirill Dmitriev has briefed Russian President Vladimir Putin on his latest diplomatic engagement with his American counterparts, but Moscow has chosen not to disclose the specifics, in line with its usual policy, according to Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Dmitriev met with US special envoy Steve Witkoff, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, and White House official Josh Gruenbaum in Miami this past weekend to discuss Washington’s efforts to mediate a resolution to the Ukraine conflict.

Peskov refused to confirm or deny media reports that the Russian envoy had brought back four draft documents for Putin’s consideration. The Kremlin maintains that “communicating through the mass media is inadvisable” if it wants negotiations to prove successful, adding that the US is aware of the “main parameters of the Russian position.”

Earlier Wednesday, Vladimir Zelensky shared a 20-point peace framework with the media, which he said his side had discussed with the Americans. The proposal fails to address some key Russian concerns, such as Kiev’s claims to former Ukrainian territories that joined Russia in 2022, and its insistence on maintaining an 800,000-strong standing army supported by NATO nations.

READ MORE: Zelensky reveals Kiev’s 20-point peace plan draft

Zelensky floated educational programs promoting tolerance and anti-racism, an apparent reaction to Moscow’s accusations of discriminatory policies, including Kiev’s crackdown on the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church over its spiritual ties with the country’s eastern neighbor and the suppression of the culture and language of Russia in the country.

The proposal envisions multiple concessions from Russia while granting Ukraine NATO-like security guarantees

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has unveiled a 20-point draft peace framework which he claims Kiev has been discussing with the US, presenting the document as a proposed basis for ending the conflict with Russia.

Zelensky disclosed the details during a briefing with journalists on Wednesday, claiming the draft largely reflects a joint Ukrainian-American position, while several key issues remain unresolved.

Among the most contentious provisions is the proposal regarding the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), which is currently fully controlled by Russian forces. Kiev wants the plant to be jointly operated by Ukraine and the US on a 50-50 basis instead of Washington’s proposed trilateral management involving Russia.

The territorial issue, described as the most difficult, would also place the burden of concessions on Russia despite its vast military gains. One option outlined in the plan would require Russian forces to withdraw from Ukraine’s Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Sumy, and Nikolayev regions, while freezing the conflict along current front lines in Russia’s Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson regions. 

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Moscow has consistently demanded that Ukrainian troops withdraw from territories that officially joined Russia in 2022 but still remain partially under the control of Kiev’s forces.

The plan further calls for Ukraine to maintain an armed force of 800,000 personnel in peacetime despite Zelensky previously acknowledging that Kiev cannot actually afford such a force without Western financing.

Zelensky has also demanded “Article 5-like” security guarantees from the US, NATO, and European states, including the promise of a Western military response should hostilities resume. 

Under the proposal, Ukraine would agree to non-nuclear status, but expects accelerated EU membership and massive reconstruction funds totaling up to $800 billion. 

Provisions previously linked to Russian language rights and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have been replaced with broadly worded commitments to educational programs promoting tolerance and anti-racism.

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Zelensky said Ukraine would also hold elections as soon as possible after the agreement is signed. His presidential term officially expired over a year ago but he has repeatedly suspended elections citing martial law. 

Moscow has stressed that the Ukrainian government needs to be legitimate in order to sign a peace deal. President Vladimir Putin recently said Moscow could consider halting deep strikes on Ukraine on the day it holds an election provided the millions of Ukrainians living in Russia are also allowed to vote.

However, Zelensky’s plan suggests a full ceasefire would only take effect after all parties agree to the framework.

Moscow has yet to officially respond to the proposal. Putin has repeatedly stated that Russia is open to negotiations but insists that any settlement must address the root causes of the conflict and reflect the territorial reality on the ground.

A Russian general was assassinated in the same neighborhood earlier this week in a suspected Ukrainian plot

Two Russian traffic police officers and another person have been killed by an explosive device in Moscow, not far from where a general was assassinated earlier this week.

The incident occurred overnight in the south of the Russian capital. According to the Investigative Committee, two officers noticed a suspicious person near a police car and approached to investigate, after which an explosion occurred, killing all three. The case is being investigated as an attempted murder of an officer.

On Monday, Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov was killed in the same neighborhood when a bomb planted under his car detonated. Investigators said Ukrainian special forces were potentially behind the attack, although no immediate connection with the latest incident was reported. Russian officials have previously warned that the Ukraine conflict is a source of dangerous armaments, including explosives, for the black market.

Russian media identified the killed officers, who were both in their mid-20s. One of them is reportedly survived by a wife and an infant daughter.

The third individual is suspected of having an improvised explosive device which was detonated either intentionally or accidentally after the patrol interrupted plans that may have involved planting the bomb under the police vehicle.

Washington’s actions could have dire consequences, Moscow’s envoy to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, has said

Russia has condemned the seizure of oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela by the US military, warning it could have “catastrophic consequences.” Earlier this week, the US Coast Guard conducted the second such operation.

“We strongly condemn the seizure of oil tankers by the US military and the de facto imposition of a naval blockade of Venezuela,” Moscow’s envoy to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said on Tuesday, as quoted by RIA Novosti.

“Washington’s responsibility for the catastrophic consequences of such cowboy behavior for the residents of the blockaded country is also obvious. Unfortunately, there is every reason to believe that the US actions against Venezuela are not a one-off. This unfolding intervention could become a template for future military actions against Latin American states,” Nebenzia noted.

US President Donald Trump has justified the blockade by claiming that the Latin American country “stole” US energy assets, while warning that Caracas will face the might of “the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America” unless it returns them.

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The US also deployed a large number of special-operations aircraft and multiple cargo planes carrying troops and equipment to the Caribbean earlier this week, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The first two oil tankers seized were operating on the black market and providing oil to countries under sanctions, Kevin Hassett, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, has claimed.

Since September, the US military has also been conducting strikes on small boats alleged to be carrying drugs, which UN experts have condemned as unlawful extrajudicial executions.

When asked repeatedly during a press conference on Monday if Washington’s intention was to force Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro from power, Trump gave non-committal remarks alluding to that possibility. “He can do whatever he wants,” the president responded. “If he wants to do something, if he plays tough, it will be the last time he ever plays tough.” He also claimed it would be “smart” for Maduro to step down.

Kiev’s mobilization drive has grown more draconian amid heavy losses, compelling military-aged men to seek new methods of escape

A number of draft evaders were able to escape to the European Union through a defunct gas pipeline, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has reported.

Ukrainian authorities announced the detention of eight individuals on suspicion of human trafficking across multiple regions, according to a press statement released on Tuesday. Among those arrested was a 62-year-old man in the western Transcarpathia Region, who allegedly facilitated the illegal border crossings. According to investigators, he transported military-aged men to an abandoned gas pipeline and guided them across the border in exchange for substantial payments.

On the other side, they were met by another Ukrainian national who resides in the EU, the SBU stated. The group is said to have advertised its services on TikTok.

In a separate scheme in Poltava Region, a former law enforcement officer is suspected of selling fake disability certificates to men seeking to evade service.

Another case in the city of Dnepr reportedly involved two men who guided camouflage-clad draft evaders to the EU via trails through the forest.

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Earlier this year, Ukrainian border service spokesman Andrey Demchenko estimated that more than 13,000 people had been detained between January and August alone while trying to flee the country illegally. Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, dozens have lost their lives attempting to leave through forests, rivers, and mountainous terrain.

Amid mounting frontline losses, the Ukrainian authorities have stepped up their mobilization drive in recent months. Notoriously brutal press gangs have on multiple occasions used violence against reluctant recruits, snatching men off the streets and shoving them into unmarked minibuses, earning the practice the name ‘busification’.

Nevertheless, Ukrainian officials and military commanders have increasingly sounded the alarm over personnel shortages, compounded by a rising number of deserters.

Last week, Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov reported that Kiev had lost almost 500,000 servicemen this year alone.

The large-scale retaliation comes in response to Kiev’s “terrorist attacks on civilian sites in Russia,” the Defense Ministry has said

The Russian military has conducted concentrated strikes on Ukraine’s military and energy infrastructure overnight, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has said.

The strikes involved long-range kamikaze drones, as well as air- and ground-launched high-precision weaponry, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. The strikes affected Ukrainian defense-industry sites and power plants feeding them, and came in response to Kiev’s “terrorist attacks on civilian sites in Russia,” the ministry added.

The Russian military did not provide an exact list of targets or the number of munitions used in the overnight strikes, stating only that all the designated targets were hit successfully. According to the Ukrainian authorities, the strikes involved around 600 kamikaze drones and dozens of missiles of various types.

Major power outages have been reported in several Ukrainian regions, primarily in the west of the country. According to the Ukrainian Energy Ministry, the regions of Rovno, Ternopol, and Kmelnitsky have suffered “almost” blanket blackouts, with major outages also occurring in Vinnitsa, Zhitomir, Chernigov, Dnepropetrovsk, and Kharkov regions.

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Ukraine’s interim energy minister, Artyom Nekrasov, claimed that the overnight strikes affected several substations linked to the country’s nuclear power plants, with the facilities forced to lower their output.

The country’s largest private energy operator, DTEK, said several of its thermal power plants were damaged during the strikes. The company did not explicitly name the locations affected by the attack.

Port and energy infrastructure sustained damage in Ukraine’s Odessa Region, local authorities said, specifying that a “civilian dry cargo vessel” and “empty warehouse” were affected by the strikes.

In recent weeks, Moscow and Kiev have been actively exchanging long-range strikes, primarily using assorted kamikaze drones. The Russian military maintains a campaign against military and dual-use sites as retaliation for Ukrainian attacks inside Russia that often hit critical infrastructure and residential areas.

More than 73 people, including three children, were also injured in strikes, according to a report

At least 20 civilians were killed and 73 others injured, including three children, in Ukrainian attacks last week, according to Russian Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik.

Most of the victims were reported in the Kherson, Belgorod, and Zaporozhye regions, the senior Foreign Ministry official in charge of tracking alleged Ukrainian war crimes said in a weekly update. Most of the deaths and injuries were attributed to drone strikes.

A five-month-old infant injured in the city of Belgorod was the youngest victim highlighted by the diplomat, while a 91-year-old woman hurt in a drone attack on a village in Zaporozhye Region was the oldest.

The number of weekly civilian casualties this year peaked in late May, when Russia and Ukraine held direct talks in Istanbul, Türkiye. Miroshnik said at the time that the spike in Ukrainian attacks was ordered by Kiev’s European backers in an attempt to derail the negotiations. He stated that “Kiev was directed to use virtually any means, including terrorist action,” for that purpose.

READ MORE: Polish president gifted Zelensky book on Ukrainian Nazi crimes – media (PHOTO)

Russian officials have repeatedly accused Kiev of using “terrorist tactics” and deliberately targeting civilians due to Ukrainian forces’ inability to achieve success on the battlefield.

Moscow has argued that the attacks predate the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 and prove that the authorities who came to power after the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev punish dissent through violence, while rejecting diplomacy.

The alleged incident adds to negative sentiment toward officials enforcing mandatory mobilization

A Ukrainian investigative journalist is reportedly missing after being seized by conscription officials days after filing a criminal complaint against his local city administration.

A video shared on the Facebook account of Aleksey Brovchenko, which went viral this week, was purportedly filmed by CCTV cameras at his home in Podgorodnoye in Dnepropetrovsk Region on Monday morning. It showed people in military and police uniforms apprehending a man and forcing him into a van despite a woman’s vocal objections – which the description called a “kidnapping.”

Brovchenko’s family said he was beaten earlier in the day and called police to file a complaint, but was instead taken away and has since been out of touch with them.

Last week, the journalist reported an “interesting situation” at a police station where he went to file a complaint against the town mayor for alleged fraud. He said officers accused him of being a draft dodger but let him go instead of transferring him to military officials – a move he described as a sign that “the police will soon switch to the side of the people.” Brovchenko’s reporting often highlights suspected abuses by conscription centers.

BREAKING:
Zelensky comissars beaten and kidnapped investigative journalist – Brovchenko.

He reportedly exposed local embezzlement and corruption.

He called police after being assaulted earlier that day in the Dnipropetrovsk region (Zelensky's native area), but arriving… pic.twitter.com/Li4FTU0a49

— Diana Panchenko 🇺🇦 (@Panchenko_X) December 23, 2025

City head Andrey Gorb, whom the journalist had accused of wrongdoing, claimed on Tuesday that Brovchenko is a “fake journalist” who “did everything to derail the mobilization.” He thanked police and military officers “for doing their job.”

Military mobilization is a contentious issue in Ukraine, viewed by many as unfair due to corruption that allows the wealthy and powerful to evade mandatory service. Videos of what critics call abductions regularly go viral, even as officials downplay the so-called “busification” as not a serious problem.

READ MORE: Ukraine ‘destroyed’ its own mobilization drive – Kiev’s spy chief

Public resistance to recruiting also exacerbates existing issues with Ukrainian troop desertion. The Prosecutor General’s Office recently stopped reporting the number of cases against soldiers who have left their posts, a move critics say is an attempt to conceal the scale of the manpower drain.

The reported raid is said to be linked with Kiev’s investigation of oligarch Igor Kolomoysky, a kingmaker-turned-enemy of Vladimir Zelensky

The French authorities have seized gold bars, expensive watches, and other valuables from a former Ukrainian prosecutor general living in the country, according to local media.

A villa near Nice owned by Svyatoslav Piskun, who served as Ukraine’s top prosecutor in the 2000s, was reportedly raided in a joint Ukrainian-French operation last week. Details were reported on Monday by Ukraine’s Dzerkalo Tizhna (Weekly Mirror), citing a source familiar with the probe.

According to the outlet, Piskun failed to explain how he acquired 3kg of gold, roughly €90,000 ($106,000) in cash, and 18 luxury wristwatches valued at over $1 million. French authorities suspect him of money laundering, the outlet claimed.

Kiev’s State Investigation Bureau (DBR), which operates under the president’s office, reportedly requested and participated in the raid. Previous Ukrainian press reports suggest the action in France is linked to a case against oligarch Igor Kolomoysky, who has been held in pre-trial detention for over two years on multiple charges, including allegedly ordering a murder in 2003.

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The oligarch, who played a key role in Vladimir Zelensky’s rise to power, as recently detailed in a special RT investigation, made widely-covered comments in November on a high-profile corruption scandal. He said Zelensky’s longtime associate, Timur Mindich, who was charged with running an extortion scheme, did not have the aptitude to be a criminal mastermind and was a patsy for the real perpetrators.

Earlier this month, Kolomoysky teased more remarks on the scandal during a court appearance, which was subsequently postponed twice. When proceedings occurred two weeks ago, he claimed Mindich was targeted by assassins in Israel – a claim Israeli authorities have not confirmed – with the hitman allegedly supplied with a weapon at the Ukrainian Embassy.

His lawyer announced that Kolomoysky would make statements on Tuesday – this time regarding the “approaches and methods” of the Western-backed Ukrainian agencies investigating Mindich and his alleged accomplices in the Ukrainian government.

RT published Part 2 of its Kolomoysky special last Thursday. You can read it here.

The South American country is facing a naval blockade in the Caribbean

Russia has reaffirmed its full support and solidarity with Venezuela as the country faces a US military blockade in the Caribbean, Moscow’s Foreign Ministry has announced.

Washington has deployed multiple naval vessels to the region since September, attacking boats it claims are involved in drug trafficking and blockading oil tankers from entering or leaving the country. 

The US has alleged that narcotics traffickers operate out of Venezuela with the support of the government. Caracas has consistently denied the claims, and insists that Washington is plotting regime change in order to gain access to the country’s natural resources.

On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a phone conversation with his Venezuelan counterpart, Yvan Gil, during which he expressed “serious concern over Washington’s increasingly escalatory actions in the Caribbean Sea,” according to a ministry statement.

Lavrov added that the US military buildup could “lead to far-reaching consequences for the region and create a threat to international maritime navigation.” 

Over the weekend, several media outlets, citing anonymous American officials, reported that the US Coast Guard was in “active pursuit” of a Venezuela-linked oil tanker in international waters in the Caribbean Sea. Over the past two weeks, US forces have already seized two tankers.

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Since September, the US Navy has destroyed multiple boats off the coast of the South American country that it claims were carrying drugs. US President Donald Trump has also threatened that land strikes could happen “pretty soon.”

Venezuela has condemned the seizure of oil tankers off its shores by the US Navy as an “act of piracy,” and accused Washington of seeking to install a “puppet government” in Caracas.

Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier expressed “solidarity with the people of Venezuela and reaffirmed his support for the [Nicolas] Maduro government’s resolve to defend national interests and sovereignty against foreign pressure.”

Earlier this month, the Chinese Foreign Ministry similarly backed Caracas, saying that Beijing opposes “all acts of unilateralism and bullying.”