These are important developments since day 1,391 of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Published December 16, 2025
Here’s what happened on Tuesday, December 16th.
finding
A 62-year-old Ukrainian man riding a bicycle was killed in a Russian drone attack in the village of Velika Pisarivka in Ukraine’s Sumy region, Governor Ole Frikhorov said in a post on the messaging app Telegram. Governor Ivan Fedorov said in a telegram that Russian forces launched 850 attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya region in one day, injuring 14 people and damaging homes, cars and infrastructure. According to Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform, Russian forces have wounded five people in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region over the past day, and six in the Kherson region, local officials said. In Dnipropetrovsk, Russian forces launched a second attack on a factory in the Sinelnikivsky district, killing firefighters and factory workers who were injured as rescue teams tried to respond to a fire caused by an earlier Russian attack, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service reported on its website. Ukrainian energy company NPC Ukrenergo announced on Facebook that the Russian attack caused power outages in Ukraine’s capital Kiev, as well as in Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions. Ukraine claimed that for the first time during the war, an underwater drone attacked a Russian submarine anchored in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. Alexei Rulyov, head of the press department of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, denied that the underwater drone attack was successful. “Not a single ship or submarine of the Black Sea Fleet at its base in Novorossiysk Bay was damaged,” he said. “Sabotage attempts by enemy underwater drones failed to achieve their objective.”
ceasefire negotiations
US President Donald Trump said Russia was “closer than ever” to a deal to end the war in Ukraine after the leaders of the US, Ukraine, Europe and NATO met in Berlin and discussed a possible settlement for several hours, hosted by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. The European leaders issued a joint statement after the meeting, saying any decision on possible Ukrainian territorial concessions to Russia would be taken by the Ukrainian people only after strong security in Kiev is in place. The U.S. and European leaders also agreed to “work together to provide strong security,” including a European-led “multinational force” made up of countries willing to “support Ukraine’s air security and safer seas, including operations within Ukraine.” Speaking at a press conference after the meeting, Merz said the United States had provided “considerable” security and that while there was now “a chance for a real peace process”, “territorial resolution remains an important issue.”
regional security
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with Iranian state television that “the EU’s aggressive actions are the main threat in the world at the moment” and claimed that the US was trying to put Europe “in its position.” Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, has suffered a major email outage. Officials told the Financial Times that the cyberattack was suspected to have taken place during ceasefire talks with Ukraine in Berlin. Air Chief Marshal Richard Knighton, the new head of the British military, has appealed for “national resilience” in the face of “increasing” risks from Russia. “It means more people are ready to fight for the country,” Knighton said of the Moscow threat, while also referring to recent comments by fellow Frenchman Fabien Mandon, who said France must be prepared to “lose its children.”
