A manufacturing plant in Russia’s Tatarstan region has significantly scaled up its production of Iranian-designed drones, using a range of Chinese components, and recruiting a low-skilled workforce of Russian teenagers and African women,

Both Russia and Ukraine expanded the use of drones in 2024 as a relatively cheap means of warfare that requires an opponent to use a much more expensive air defense system. Moscow and Kyiv acquired 1.

Ukraine's Air Force has carried out a precise strike on a factory producing ballistic missile fuel in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, in Russiaʼs Rostov Oblast. Source: Centre for Strategic Communications (StratCom) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Telegram Details: The military reported that the factory targeted was used by the Russians for producing solid propellant for the ballistic missiles which they use to strike critical and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.

Police and media reports say that Finnish authorities have detained a Russia-linked ship as they investigate whether it damaged a Baltic Sea power cable and several data cables.

Finnish police are investigating whether a Russian ship was involved in the sabotage of an electricity cable running between Finland and Estonia. The authorities said on Thursday that they believe the anchor of the Eagle S, a tanker registered with the Cook Islands, may have damaged the Estlink 2 cable, which became disconnected on Wednesday.

Damage to the power cable in the Baltic Sea is the latest in a spate of murky disruptions to undersea cables that have put European authorities on high alert.

Russian ruler Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, 26 December, answering a question about the prospects for ending the war in Ukraine in 2025, that he was "striving" to end it but was still going to achieve his "goals".

Vladimir Putin says Russia is 'striving' to end the conflict in Ukraine. The Russian President said the Government was prepared to use intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missiles or to use more powerful intermediate-range weapons.