Russia & Ukraine: 1)Zelenskyy says he’s open to creating demilitarized zone in Ukraine’s industrial heartland; 2)Major Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine kills at least 3 people and cuts power; 3) (Updated) Russian general killed by bomb under his car in Moscow

1)Zelenskyy says he’s open to creating demilitarized zone in Ukraine’s industrial heartland

Courtesy Barrie360.com and The Associated Press

By Samya Kullab, December 24, 2025

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would be willing to withdraw troops from the country’s eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end Russia’s war, if Moscow also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces.

The proposal offered another potential compromise on control of the Donbas region, which has been a major sticking point in peace negotiations.

Zelenskyy said the U.S. proposed the creation of a “free economic zone,” which he said should be demilitarized. But it was unclear what that idea would mean for governance or development of the region.

A similar arrangement could be possible for the area around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is currently under Russian control, Zelenskyy said. He said any peace plan would need to be put to a referendum.

Zelenskyy spoke to reporters Tuesday to describe an overarching 20-point plan that negotiators from Ukraine and the U.S. hammered out in Florida in recent days, though he said many details are still being discussed.

Russia offers no hint it will agree to withdrawal

Russia has given no indication that it will agree to any kind of withdrawal from land it has seized. In fact, Moscow has insisted that Ukraine relinquish the remaining territory it still holds in the Donbas — an ultimatum that Ukraine has rejected. Russia has captured most of Luhansk and about 70% of Donetsk — the two areas that make up the Donbas.

Asked about the plan, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Moscow would decide its position based on information received by Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who met with U.S. envoys in Florida over the weekend. Peskov declined to share further details.

American negotiators have engaged in a series of talks with Ukraine and Russia separately since U.S. President Donald Trump presented a plan to end the war last month — a proposal widely seen as favoring Moscow, which invaded its neighbor nearly four years ago. Since then, Ukraine and its allies in Europe have worked to pull the plan closer to Kyiv’s position.

Zelenskyy said figuring out control of the Donbas region is “the most difficult point.”

Meanwhile, on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the U.S. has proposed creating a consortium with Ukraine and Russia, in which each party would have an equal stake.

Zelenskyy countered with a proposal for a joint venture between the U.S. and Ukraine, in which the Americans would be able to decide how to distribute their share, including giving some of it to Russia.

Zelenskyy acknowledged that the U.S. has not yet accepted Ukraine’s counter-proposals.

“But we have significantly brought most of the positions closer together,” Zelenskyy said. “In principle, all other consensus in this agreement has been found between us and them.”

Zone would require difficult discussions

Creating the demilitarized economic zone in the Donbas would require difficult discussions on how far troops would be required to move back and where international forces would be stationed, Zelenskyy said, adding that it should discussed at the leaders level.

The working U.S.-Ukraine draft also proposes that Russian forces withdraw from the Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Sumy and Kharkiv regions. Zelenskyy envisions that international forces could be located along certain points of the contact line within the zone to monitor the implementation of the agreement.

Ukraine also proposes that the occupied city of Enerhodar, which is the closest city to the Zaporizhzhia power plant, become a demilitarized free economic zone, Zelenskyy said.

This point required 15 hours of discussions with the U.S., he said, and no agreement was reached.

For now, the U.S. proposes that the plant be jointly operated by Ukraine, the U.S. and Russia, with each side controlling a 33% stake in the enterprise — a plan Zelenskyy called “not entirely realistic.”

“How can you have joint commerce with the Russians after everything?” he asked.

Ukraine instead suggested that the plant be operated by a joint venture with the U.S. in which the Americans can determine independently how to distribute the energy from their 50% share.

Zelenskyy said billions in investments are needed to make the plant run again, including restoring the adjacent dam.

Details on security guarantees

The working draft ensures that Ukraine will receive “strong” security guarantees that would require Ukraine’s partners to act in the event of renewed Russian aggression. That would mirror NATO’s Article 5, which says an armed attack on one member of the alliance is an attack on all.

Zelenskyy said a separate document with the U.S. will outline these guarantees. It will detail the conditions under which security will be provided, particularly in the event of another Russian assault, and it will establish a mechanism to monitor any ceasefire. The document will be signed with the main agreement to end the war, Zelenskyy said.

“The mood of the United States of America is that this is an unprecedented step towards Ukraine on their part. They believe that they are giving strong security guarantees,” he said.

The draft contains other elements, including keeping Ukraine’s army at 800,000 during peacetime and making Ukraine a member of the European Union by a specific date. Limiting the size of Ukraine’s military is a key Russian demand.

Elections and economic incentives

The document also proposes accelerating a free-trade agreement between Ukraine and the U.S. The U.S. wants the same deal with Russia, Zelenskyy said.

Ukraine would like to receive short-term privileged access to the European market and a robust global development package that would include the creation of a development fund to solicit outside investment in Ukraine’s industries.

Other points include raising funds for Ukraine’s reconstruction, with the goal of attracting $800 billion through equity, grants, loans and private-sector contributions.

The draft proposal also requires Ukraine to hold elections after the signing of the agreement. Zelenskyy’s five-year term was scheduled to end in May 2024, but elections were put off due to Russia’s invasion.

Ukraine is also asking that all prisoners taken since 2014 be released at once, and that civilian detainees, political prisoners and children be returned to Ukraine.

In other developments, an explosion in Moscow on Wednesday killed three people, including two police officers, Russian investigators said, days after a car bomb killed a high-ranking general not far away.

An official from Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, known as GUR, told The Associated Press that the attack had been carried out as part of an agency operation. Another official from the agency said the police officers had taken part in Russia’s war in Ukraine, without providing details. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.

___ Associated Press writer Volodymyr Yurchuk contributed to this report.

2)Major Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine kills at least 3 people and cuts power

Courtesy Barrie360.com and The Associated Press

By Illia Novikov, December 23, 2025

Russia fired more than 650 drones and three dozen missiles at Ukraine in a large-scale attack that began during the night and stretched into daylight hours Tuesday, officials said. At least three people were killed, including a 4-year-old child, two days before Christmas.

The barrage struck homes and the power grid in 13 regions of Ukraine, causing widespread outages in bitter temperatures, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, a day after he described recent progress on finding a peace deal as “quite solid.”

The bombardment demonstrated Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intention of pursuing the invasion of Ukraine, Zelenskyy said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. Ukrainian and European officials have complained that Putin is not sincerely engaging with U.S.-led peace efforts.

The attack “is an extremely clear signal of Russian priorities,” Zelenskyy said. “A strike before Christmas, when people want to be with their families, at home, in safety. A strike, in fact, in the midst of negotiations that are being conducted to end this war. Putin cannot accept the fact that we must stop killing.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has for months been pressing for a peace agreement, but the negotiations have become entangled in the very different demands from Moscow and Kyiv.

U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said Sunday he held “productive and constructive” talks in Florida with Ukrainian and European representatives. Trump was less effusive Monday, saying, “The talks are going along.”

Initial reports from Ukrainian emergency services said the child died in Ukraine’s northwestern Zhytomyr region, while a drone killed a woman in the Kyiv region, and another civilian death was recorded in the western Khmelnytskyi region, according to Zelenskyy.

Russia launched 635 drones of various types and 38 missiles, Ukraine’s air force said. Air defenses stopped 587 drones and 34 missiles, it said.

It was the ninth large-scale Russian attack on Ukraine’s energy system this year and left multiple regions in the west without power, while emergency power outages were in place across the country, acting Energy Minister Artem Nekraso said. Work to restore power would begin as soon as the security situation permitted, he said.

Ukraine’s largest private energy supplier, DTEK, said the attack targeted thermal power stations in what it said was the seventh major strike on the company’s facilities since October.

DTEK’s thermal power plants have been hit more than 220 times since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022. Those attacks have killed four workers and wounded 59.

Authorities in the western regions of Rivne, Ternopil and Lviv, as well as the northern Sumy region, reported damage to energy infrastructure or power outages after the attack.

In the southern Odesa region, Russia struck energy, port, transport, industrial and residential infrastructure, according to regional head Oleh Kiper.

A merchant ship and over 120 homes were damaged, he said.

3)(Updated) Russian general killed by bomb under his car in Moscow

Courtesy Barrie360.com and The Associated Press

By Canadian Press, December 22, 2025

A car bomb killed a Russian general on Monday, the third such killing of a senior military officer in just over a year. Investigators said Ukraine may be behind the attack.

Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, head of the Operational Training Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, died from his injuries, said Svetlana Petrenko, the spokesperson for Russia’s Investigative Committee, the nation’s top criminal investigation agency. He was 56.

“Investigators are pursuing numerous lines of inquiry regarding the murder. One of these is that the crime was orchestrated by Ukrainian intelligence services,” Petrenko said.

Since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine nearly four years ago, Russian authorities have blamed Kyiv for several assassinations of military officers and public figures in Russia. Ukraine has claimed responsibility for some of them. It has not yet commented on Monday’s death.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that President Vladimir Putin had been immediately informed about the killing of Sarvarov, who fought in Chechnya and had taken part in Moscow’s military campaign in Syria.

Russia has blamed a series of other apparent assassinations on Ukraine.

Just over a year ago, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the chief of the military’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection forces, was killed by a bomb hidden on an electric scooter outside his apartment building. Kirillov’s assistant also died. Ukraine’s security service claimed responsibility for the attack.

An Uzbek man was quickly arrested and charged with killing Kirillov on behalf of the Ukrainian security service.

Putin described Kirillov’s killing as a “major blunder” by Russia’s security agencies, noting they should learn from it and improve their efficiency.

In April, another senior Russian military officer, Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, a deputy head of the main operational department in the General Staff, was killed by an explosive device placed in his car parked near his apartment building just outside Moscow. A suspected perpetrator was quickly arrested.

Days after Moskalik’s killing, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he received a report from the head of Ukraine’s foreign intelligence agency on the “liquidation” of top Russian military figures, adding that “justice inevitably comes” although he didn’t mention Moskalik’s name.

Ukraine, which is outnumbered by Russia’s larger, better equipped military, has frequently tried to change the course of the conflict by attacking in unexpected ways. In August last year, Ukrainian forces staged a surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region even as they struggled to stem Russian offensives on many parts of the front line. Moscow’s troops eventually drove them out, but the incursion distracted the Russian military resources from other areas and raised Ukrainian morale.

Ukraine has also launched repeated attacks on the Russian navy in the Black Sea with sea drones and missiles, forcing it to relocate its warships and limit the scale of its operations.

And in June, swarms of drones launched from trucks targeted bomber bases across Russia. Ukraine said over 40 long-range bombers were damaged or destroyed, although Moscow said only several planes were struck.

Meanwhile, Western officials have accused Russia of staging a campaign away from the battlefield, accusing it of orchestrating dozens of incidents of disruption and sabotage across Europe as part of an effort to sap support for Ukraine. Moscow has denied the claims.

___ This story has been updated to correct that Sarvarov’s killing is the third such killing in just over a year, not within a year.