Overview
- Ukraine’s General Staff reported 121 combat engagements in the past day, with the heaviest fighting on the Pokrovsk axis and extensive use of guided bombs and thousands of kamikaze drones.
- Overnight strikes in Odesa region damaged port and industrial facilities, including a hit on the Illichivsk oil-and-fat plant that triggered a large fire and vegetable-oil spill.
- Regional authorities confirmed civilian deaths and injuries across multiple areas, including fatalities in Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia on Thursday and earlier casualties in Kharkiv and Chernihiv.
- Ukrainian border officials said Russian forces entrenched in the border village of Hrabovske in Sumy region have been unable to push further and have taken losses, with roughly 100 troops involved.
- Russian authorities reported drone strikes that set fuel tanks ablaze at Temryuk port in Krasnodar, while Ukraine’s foreign minister urged expanded air-defense support and U.S. senators issued a bipartisan rebuke of the Christmas-period attacks.