Here’s what happened on Wednesday, December 3rd.
finding
Russian forces used “rocket launchers, mortars and drones” to attack Ukraine’s Kherson region, killing a 76-year-old woman and injuring at least two others, the Kherson District Prosecutor’s Office said in a Telegram post. One person was killed and five others injured in a Russian drone strike in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, the city’s military chief Oleksandr Honcharenko wrote on Facebook. Rescuers recovered the body of one person killed in a Russian attack on a nine-story residential building in Kramatorsk, Ukraine’s Donetsk region, the State Emergency Service (SES) said on Tuesday. Ternopil regional police chief Serhiy Zivanenko announced that a woman injured during the Russian attack on Ternopil, Ukraine, on November 19 has died, bringing the death toll from the shelling to 36. Ziubanenko said in a Facebook post that four adults and one child were still missing after the attack in Ternopil, adding that forensic scientists and investigators were searching the scene. In the front-line Zaporizhzhya region, 5,000 people were left without power due to Russian drone strikes, Governor Ivan Fedorov said. Russia’s Ministry of Defense has once again released video footage claiming that Russian troops have captured Pokrovsk, a major city in eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian forces remain in control of the northern part of the city and fighting continues. Russian President Vladimir Putin called on foreign and Ukrainian journalists to visit Pokrovsk as well as Kupiansk in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region “in order to objectively convey to our audiences and readers what is happening in the world, including in Ukraine.”
regional security
The Russian-flagged MIDVOLGA-2 oil tanker arrived in northern Turkiye after reports of a drone attack in the Black Sea. Russia claims Ukraine is responsible for the attack, a charge denied by Kiev.
US-Russia talks
President Putin met for five hours in the Kremlin on Tuesday with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. According to Russia’s TASS news agency, Putin’s close aide Yuri Ushakov said the talks were “constructive” but did not lead to a compromise, dampening hopes for a quick breakthrough in talks aimed at ending Russia’s war with Ukraine. Putin has previously accused European countries of deliberately blocking attempts at a peace agreement by including proposals that are “absolutely unacceptable” to Russia. “They are on the side of the war,” Putin said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Putin was following suit in the hope that the Trump administration would lose interest in resolving the conflict. President Trump briefly mentioned the meeting during a Cabinet meeting in Washington, DC. “Our citizens are currently in Russia and we are trying to see if we can resolve the situation,” Trump said. “It’s not an easy situation. How awful.”
economy
After speaking with Irish President Catherine Connolly in Dublin, President Zelenskiy said he looked forward to Irish companies investing in his country. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said India’s imports of Russian crude oil could decline “in the short term” as the Kremlin plans to boost supplies using “advanced” technology to offset the impact of Western sanctions.
