Key Occurrences of Day 1,405 of the Russia-Ukraine War | Russia-Ukraine War News

These are the key developments on the 1,405th day of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here’s what happened on Tuesday, December 30:

Allegation of attack on Putin’s residence

• The attack on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence in Novgorod, northwestern Russia, came on Sunday “practically immediately after” talks in Florida between US President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said.
• The strike “will not go unanswered,” Ushakov said in comments reported by Russian media, following a call between Trump and Putin.
• Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, reported that Russian air defence systems shot down 91 long-range drones used in the attack, resulting in no injuries.
• Zelenskyy denied the claim and accused Russia of trying to derail peace talks.
• However, Trump expressed anger over the alleged attack, telling reporters, “I was furious about it.” Asked whether the United States had evidence of an attack, Trump said, “We’ll find out.”
• Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that “the response to Kiev’s attacks will not be diplomatic” and that Russia would revise its negotiating positions in the wake of the attack.
• The UAE Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it “strongly condemns” the “reprehensible attack” and the “threat to security and stability”.

Diplomacy

• White House spokeswoman Carolyn Leavitt said a phone call between Putin and Trump about Ukraine on Monday was “positive”, without elaborating.
• Zelensky said he spoke by phone with the leaders of Germany, Latvia and Finland and briefed them on the results of his meeting with Trump and the peace talks.
• Lavrov said in an interview with the Russian news agency RIA Novosti that “Kyiv and its Western supporters must recognise the new regional realities that have emerged after the annexation of Crimea, Sevastopol, the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Luhansk People’s Republic, and the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions of the Russian Federation.” He was referring to Russian-held Ukrainian territories that Moscow claims to have captured, including Donetsk and Luhansk, which Russian-backed separatists named DPR and LPR.
• A poll published on Monday by the Ilko Kucheriv Democratic Initiatives Foundation (DIF), a Ukrainian think tank, showed that recognising the occupied Ukrainian territories as “part of the Russian Federation” remained extremely unpopular in Ukraine, with 76 percent of Ukrainians saying they considered it “unacceptable.”

fighting

• Russian forces attacked the front-line town of Orikhiv in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, killing a 46-year-old man and wounding a 49-year-old woman, Governor Ivan Fedorov said on Telegram.
• Russian military strikes on Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Sunday resulted in one person’s death and five injuries, according to Governor Vadim Fylashkin’s Facebook post.
• Ukraine’s human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, said on Telegram that Russian forces killed seven civilians who were hiding in a basement in the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk.
• Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said it has opened an investigation into reports that Russian troops shot dead two captured Ukrainian soldiers in the village of Shakhov, Pokrovsky, on Saturday.
• “The deliberate killing of prisoners of war is a gross violation of the Geneva Conventions and a serious international crime,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said.
• Russia’s TASS state news agency quoted local officials as saying that Ukrainian strikes wounded five civilians in Russia’s Belgorod region.
• The Ukrainian attacks wounded four civilians in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian region of Zaporizhia and three in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian region of Donetsk, TASS reported, citing local officials.
• In a televised address from the Kremlin, Putin made various claims about Moscow’s ongoing war on Ukraine, including that Russian troops were advancing toward the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia.
• The Russian army chief of staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, said during the same address that Russian forces had captured 6,460 square kilometres (2,494 square miles) of territory in Ukraine in 2025, including 334 villages.
• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) quoted its Director General Rafael Grossi as saying that repairs to a power line near Ukraine’s Zaporizhia nuclear plant have been successfully completed.