“They executed my comrade Yura. Then showed me a bag with pieces of skin he had cut off.

He wanted to cut off my neck tattoo for his collection and cut off my arm. My last name saved me they thought I was Armenian” — Vasyl Davydian, Ukrainian POW, after 3 years in captivity. 1/ Vasyl: They burned my tattoo with a taser until it faded. Beatings were constant — stun guns, pipes, hammers, hands, feet.

They beat my nose, ears and groin. They shocked my tongue until I couldn’t speak. When I said my tongue was gone, they replied: We’ll cut it off anyway. 2/

Putin, 2007: Why bomb and shoot at every opportunity?
Russia proved that a peaceful transition to democracy was possible.

Force is legitimate only as a last resort, under the UN Charter.

[After that, Russia attacked Georgia, Syria, and Ukraine. Russia never keeps its word.]
1/ Putin: We see unchecked use of military force. Conflicts multiply and cannot be solved politically.

International law is trampled, and one state’s system is imposed on others. Who would accept that?

[Now Russia itself imposes force and its rules on neighbors]

2/

For two days, he shared dry bread with a chicken while evacuating from eastern Ukraine, after a Russian drone struck his home and burned it to the ground. — Suspilne 1/ Konstantyn Oleksiiovych, 89, left his village in the Dobropillia community in Donetsk region in his own car. He took with him the only living being he had left — a small red chicken. 2/

Former Wagner mercenary: We killed seven during the assault. I was at a school, in a village in the Bakhmut area.

Not civilians — our own children. We buried them at the Wagner cemetery near Rostov. They were second-graders.

1/ I went from prison. I’ve committed my sins and I’m trying to atone for them. I signed a one-year contract. In the end, I’ve been there two years and eight months already.

I’m exhausted. I don’t have a kidney and a knee joint. And they still keep sending me into assaults. 2/

Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi: Russian forces are now using donkeys, and possibly horses, to move supplies near Pokrovsk.

One donkey hit a mine, another threw off its rider and fled.

It’s a search for the cheapest possible logistics under drone pressure.

1/ Q: Russia wants to cap Ukraine’s army at 800,000 under the 20-point plan. Your reaction?

Syrskyi: It is enough for us. 800,000 troops will enable Ukraine to repel a repeat invasion by Russia.

This figure does not limit our mobilization capabilities.

2/

Zelenskyy: Ukrainian people have to vote in referendum for the 20 points plan.

If Ukrainian nation will approve it positively, it's a great success for President Trump because it's under his leadership. 1/ Zelenskyy: We have the question with the territories. We can't just withdraw. It's out of our law. 300,000 people live there. We can't lose just people. We can't go out because hundreds of thousands have been wounded, dozens of thousands have been killed there. 2/

472 days underground, without sunlight. A Ukrainian combat medic spent more than a year on a frontline position.

Serhii Tyschenko, 46, was mobilized in 2023 as a combat medic. There was no one to replace him. — NYT

1/ From early 2025, Russian drones made leaving the position impossible. Supplies arrived by drone: water, canned food, power banks.

Some of his comrades died during attack. No replacements arrived, and no rotation date was given.

2/

Mike Pompeo: There may be 90% agreement, but Putin won’t give up the final 10%. Security guarantees are likely a poison pill for him.

Putin hasn’t contributed to peace—and he will only negotiate seriously if hit with a bigger stick.

1/ Pompeo: Russia shows no real interest in peace. Ukraine keeps defending itself and hitting Russian military assets.

Knocking 15–20% of Russia’s energy infrastructure offline is the kind of pressure that can force Putin toward peace.

2/

I was born 51 years ago. What is the purpose of my life?

I have lived several lives in my lifetime. A happy but oblivious childhood in the Soviet Union, focused on family, mathematics and sports. The gangster 1990s in Ukraine focused on survival and money. 1/ My next life was in the US and Europe as an academic economist: PhD in Wisconsin, a first job in Bonn, later Penn State, Penn, and Pittsburgh, the pressure of tenure, first top publications.

In 2014, a new life started: policy work in Ukraine. 2/

Zelenskyy: We discussed all the aspects of the peace framework:

20-point peace plan 90% agreed, US-Ukraine security guarantees 100%, US-Europe-Ukraine security guarantees almost agreed, military dimension 100%, prosperity plan being finalized. 1/ Zelenskyy: Security guarantees are the key milestone in achieving lasting peace, our teams will continue working.

We had a joint productive call with European leaders. Our teams will meet in upcoming weeks. Trump will host us in January. Ukraine is ready for peace. 2/

Le Monde: Russia has turned occupied Mariupol into a staged showcase of “Novorossiya.”

After destroying the city in 2022, Moscow now rebuilds it and tells residents life is better this way. 1/ During the siege, more than 22,000 civilians were killed, according to Mariupol’s Ukrainian city council in exile. 90% of residential buildings were destroyed or damaged, the UN says. Nearly half the population fled. 2/

Ex-CIA station chief Dan Hoffman: Trump offered Putin a way out and a path back into the global economy—Putin refused

His aim was to overthrow Ukraine’s elected government and he failed at huge cost. The way to stop him is to halt Russia’s advance and keep NATO arming Ukraine.1/ Hoffman: Ukraine has negotiated in good faith and made concessions, but Russia keeps firing missiles and drones, including strikes on Kyiv.

The real question isn’t Ukraine—it’s how to get Putin to stop the war.

2/

Victoria. Her family moved from Ukraine to Russia when she was five.
After the full-scale invasion she spoke against Russia’s war, left for Europe against the wishes of her family—and then returned to Ukraine to study Applied Mathematics at the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE).
1/ She barely spoke Ukrainian. She prepared for the national exam in six weeks, got in, and now works in our AI lab on political-text analysis—training students to read AI outputs critically.
2/

The war in Ukraine is not moving toward peace.

The Times reports that the most likely force to slow or end the war is both sides running out of people, money, and political room.

1/ A 28-point plan that favored Moscow shrank to 20 points, moving closer to Ukraine’s position, including a demilitarised Donetsk zone under Ukrainian control.

In December, Putin repeated his demand for full Russian control of Donetsk. The core block remains: territory and security guarantees for Ukraine.

2/

In the next 3-5 months, Ukraine can stop Russia — Biletskyi, Ukrainian brigadier general.

If Ukraine works on replacing people with machines wherever it is possible, and does it efficiently, it can stop Russia.

Then we can sit at the negotiating table.

1/ Biletskyi: Russia and Ukraine are now like boxers in the 12th round.

We think about our situation, about how exhausted Ukraine is, but the Russians are in the same situation.

According to intelligence reports, Russia's replenishment of combat units does not cover its losses.
2/

Ukraine’s Spy Chief Budanov: More voices around Putin now argue for ending the war than before—even as Russia advances.

The reason is cost: each day of fighting is extremely expensive, even for a Russia willing to spend heavily on war.

1/ Budanov: Russia’s 2026 budget is catastrophic. Almost every program gets cut except defense.

Military and security spending now take about 46% of the budget. No country can develop or function normally while spending nearly half its money on war.

2/

A 17-year-old from Kherson region resisted Russian occupation. At 19, he joined Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces. At 20, he died shielding his comrades from artillery fire.

This is the story of Anatolii “Twix” Pavlenko, — UP. 1/ Anatolii grew up in a village in Kherson region.

In 2022, Russian forces occupied the area. He stayed.

He watched troop movements, noted positions, and passed coordinates to Ukrainian forces, knowing arrest could mean prison or forced mobilization.

2/

He stepped on a mine, took two bullets, survived a grenade launcher strike and a drone drop. Five wounds. Each time, he returned to the front, Telehraf reports.

His name is Ruslan Knysh. Today, he has no limbs. 1/ Ruslan: І knew I wouldn’t wait until the enemy came to drive me out of my home. I decided to take my fate into my own hands.

Ruslan is 20. He is from Donetsk region. He spent his first three years in an orphanage. As a teenager, he consciously switched to Ukrainian. 2/

Zelenskyy travels to Mar-a-Lago Sunday, willing to cede eastern territory as part of a demilitarized zone, pending Ukrainian voter approval.

Ukraine isn't the obstacle to ending Putin's war — WSJ. 1/ Ukraine opposed giving up territory in Donetsk, where a 31-mile fortified defensive line has slowed Russia. Now both sides could withdraw from current positions.

This is especially significant given Russia violated 2014 and 2015 Minsk cease-fires to prepare for 2022 invasion. 2/

Putin: Judging by the pace along the line of contact, our interest in the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the territories they currently occupy has effectively fallen to zero.

[We are not interested in peace and will continue the war.] 1/ Putin: Hostilities were unleashed after the coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014, after the leaders of the Kyiv regime failed to ensure the people of southeastern Ukraine the right to self-determination.

[Did not allow Russia to peacefully annex half of Ukraine.] 2/

Zelenskyy: Florida's meeting with Trump will be public. We agreed on it during talks in Miami.

We’re putting everything on paper: security guarantees, recovery deals, a 20-point plan. Some points mean compromise. But Ukraine will never legally recognize the occupation, Babel. 1/ Zelenskyy: The most sensitive issues in a peace deal are territories and the Zaporizhzhia NPP.

Russia will demand voting rights for Ukrainians in Russia and in occupied areas. Then it will use it to call Ukraine’s elections and government illegitimate. 2/