#Russia’s nuclear-capable Oreshnik missiles have entered active service, #Moscow says.


The ministry released a video showing combat vehicles that are part of the mobile intermediate range ballistic missile system driving across a forest as part of combat training. The ministry’s announcement followed a statement from Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who said earlier this month that the Oreshnik had arrived in the country. Lukashenko said that up to 10 such missile systems will be stationed in Belarus.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier this month that the Oreshnik would enter combat duty before the year’s end. He made the statement at a meeting with top Russian military officers, where he warned that Moscow will seek to extend its gains in Ukraine if Kyiv and its Western allies reject the Kremlin’s demands in peace talks.

The announcement comes at a critical time for Russia-Ukraine peace talks. U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his Florida resort Sunday and insisted that Kyiv and Moscow were “closer than ever before” to a peace settlement.

However, Moscow and Kyiv remain deeply divided on key issues, including whose forces withdraw from where in Ukraine and the fate of Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, one of the 10 biggest in the world. Trump noted that the monthslong U.S.-led negotiations could still collapse.

Putin has sought to portray himself as negotiating from a position of strength as Ukrainian forces strain to keep back the bigger Russian army.

Russia first tested a conventionally armed version of the Oreshnik — Russian for hazelnut tree — to strike a Ukrainian factory in November 2024. Putin has bragged that Oreshnik’s multiple warheads plunge at speeds of up to Mach 10 and can’t be intercepted, and that several of them used in a conventional strike could be as devastating as a nuclear attack.

The Russian leader has warned the West that Russia could use the Oreshnik next against allies of Kyiv that allowed it to strike inside Russia with their longer-range missiles.

The Belarusian Defense Ministry said Tuesday that the Oreshnik has a range of up to 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles).

Russian state media boasted that it would take the missile only 11 minutes to reach an air base in Poland and 17 minutes to reach NATO headquarters in Brussels. There’s no way to know whether it’s carrying a nuclear or a conventional warhead before it hits the target.

Intermediate-range missiles can fly between 500 to 5,500 kilometers (310 to 3,400 miles). Such weapons were banned under a Soviet-era treaty that Washington and Moscow abandoned in 2019.

Russia previously has deployed tactical nuclear weapons to the territory of its Belarus, whose territory it used to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Lukashenko has said that his country has several dozen Russian tactical nuclear weapons.

While signing a security pact with Lukashenko in December 2024, Putin said that even with Russia controlling the Oreshniks, Moscow would allow Minsk to select the targets. He noted that if the missiles are used against targets closer to Belarus, they could carry a significantly heavier payload.

In 2024, the Kremlin released a revised nuclear doctrine, noting that any nation’s conventional attack on Russia that is supported by a nuclear power will be considered a joint attack on his country. The threat was clearly aimed at discouraging the West from allowing Ukraine to strike Russia with longer-range weapons and appears to significantly lower the threshold for the possible use of Russia’s nuclear arsenal.

The revised Russian doctrine also placed Belarus under the Russian nuclear umbrella.

Lukashenko has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades. His government has been repeatedly sanctioned by the West for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its territory for the invasion of Ukraine. Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya has said that the deployment of Oreshnik to Belarus deepens the country’s military and political dependence on Russia.

The Associated Press

#Zelensky will have to hide for rest of life, Medvedev predicts "The stinking Kiev bastard is trying to derail the settlement of the conflict", Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman said.


#MOSCOW, December 30. Vladimir Zelensky will have to hide for the rest of his life following Ukraine's drone attack on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said.

"The stinking Kiev bastard is trying to derail the settlement of the conflict. He wants war. Well, now at least he’ll have to stay in hiding for the rest of his worthless life," he wrote on the X social media platform.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters on Monday that on the night of December 28-29, Ukraine had launched a terrorist attack on the residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Novgorod Region, launching 91 unmanned aerial vehicles. All drones were destroyed by air defenses; there were no reports of casualties or damage, Lavrov noted.

According to Kremlin Aide Yury Ushakov, Putin had pointed out in a phone call with US leader Donald Trump that the attack had taken place "in fact, right after" US-Ukraine talks in Florida, and warned that the terrorist actions would not remain unanswered.

#Trump told reporters later that he was "angry" about the attack and added that such moves could not facilitate peace talks.

Trump indicates the U.S. ‘hit’ a facility that he tied to alleged drug boats

#Hamas says its longtime spokesman was killed following an Israeli strike in August

#Mexican authorities said on Sunday that at least 13 people were killed after an Interoceanic Train carrying 250 people derailed in the southern state of Oaxaca.

North Korea test-fires long-range cruise missiles: state media, Leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the drill -- staged Sunday over the Yellow Sea to the west of the Korean peninsula -- and called for “unlimited and sustained” development of his nuclear weapons forces, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said.

The goal of the exercise was to review the “counter-offensive response posture and combat capability of long-range missile sub-units,” KCNA said.

The missiles flew for more than two hours, KCNA said.

State media shared photos of the missiles being fired and hitting a target.

Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missiles were fired Sunday at 8 am (2300 GMT Saturday) from the Sunan area near the capital Pyongyang.

The North Korean leader vowed that Pyongyang “would as ever devote all their efforts to the unlimited and sustained development of the state nuclear combat force,” KCNA said.

North Korea last staged a ballistic missile test in early November, around a week after US President Donald Trump -- on a tour of the region -- expressed interest in meeting with Kim.

Pyongyang did not respond to the offer.

At that time Trump had just approved South Korean plans to build a nuclear-powered submarine.

Last week Pyongyang showed off a nuclear submarine of its own.

Photos published by KCNA showed Kim walking alongside a purportedly 8,700-tonne submarine at an indoor assembly site, surrounded by officials and his daughter Kim Ju Ae.

Pyongyang would view Seoul developing nuclear subs as “an offensive act severely violating its security and maritime sovereignty”, Kim said, according to KCNA.

North Korea has also significantly increased missile testing in recent years.

Analysts say this drive is aimed at improving precision strike capabilities, challenging the United States as well as South Korea, and testing weapons before potentially exporting them to Russia.

Since Kim’s 2019 summit with Trump collapsed over the scope of denuclearisation and sanctions relief, Pyongyang has repeatedly declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear state.

Kim has also been emboldened by deepening ties with Russia, securing critical support from Moscow after sending thousands of troops to fight alongside its forces.

#Trump reports a ‘very productive call’ with Putin before engaging with #Zelenskyy in Florida.

Trump said he spoke with Russian President Vladimir #Putin on Sunday in advance of the meeting. “I just had a good and very productive telephone call with President Putin,” he posted on Truth Social. The Kremlin confirmed the call without giving details.

Trump and Zelenskyy will meet at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, where the U.S. president is spending the holidays. Zelenskyy, who arrived in Miami in the morning, said the two planned to discuss security and economic agreements in their early afternoon meeting. He said he will raise “territorial issues” as Moscow and Kyiv remain fiercely at odds over the fate of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.

In overnight developments, three guided aerial bombs launched by Russia struck private homes in the eastern city of Sloviansk, according to the head of the local military administration, Vadym Lakh. Three people were injured and one man died, Lakh said in a post on the Telegram messenger app.

The strike came the day after Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital with ballistic missiles and drones on Saturday, killing at least one person and wounding 27, a day before planned talks between the leaders of Ukraine and the United States, Ukrainian authorities said. Explosions boomed across Kyiv as the attack began in the early morning and continued for hours.

In advance of his meeting with Trump, Zelenskyy said Sunday that he spoke on the phone with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, filling him in “on the situation on the frontline and on the consequences of Russian strikes.” He posted on X: “Thank you, Keir, for the constant coordination!” Zelenskyy’s office said he will speak by phone with allies after the meeting with Trump.

Chilly #Gaza braces for more winter rain and word of any progress in ceasefire talks.

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Barefoot children played on chilly sand as Gaza ’s thousands of displaced people prepared threadbare tents on Saturday for another round of winter rain.

Some families in the central town of Deir al-Balah said they had been living in tents for about two years, or for most of the war between Israel and Hamas that has devastated the territory.

Fathers braced fraying tents with old pieces of wood or inspected the ragged edges of holes torn in tarps. Inside the dim homes, daylight through tiny holes shone like stars.

Mothers battled the damp, slinging clothing over poles or cord to dry in the wind between the downpours that turn paths into puddles. One mother pulled a tiny child away from a mildewing patch of carpet.

“We have been living in this tent for two years. Every time it rains and the tent collapses over our heads, we try to put up new pieces of wood,” said Shaima Wadi, a mother of four children who was displaced from Jabaliya in the north. “With how expensive everything has become, and without any income, we can barely afford clothes for our children or mattresses for them to sleep on.”

Gaza’s Health Ministry, part of the Hamas-run government, has said dozens of people, including a two-week-old infant, have died from hypothermia or after weather-related collapses of war-damaged homes. Aid organizations have called for more shelters and other humanitarian aid to be allowed into the territory.

Emergency workers have warned people not to stay in damaged buildings. But with so much of the territory reduced to rubble, there are few places to escape the rain.

“I collect nylon, cardboard and plastic from the streets to keep them warm,” said Ahmad Wadi, who burns the materials or uses them as a kind of blanket for loved ones. “They don’t have proper covers. It is freezing, the humidity is high, and water seeps in from everywhere. I don’t know what to do.”
Ceasefire talks

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to visit Washington in the coming days as negotiators and others discuss the second stage of the ceasefire that took effect on Oct. 10.

Though the agreement has mostly held, its progress has slowed. The remains of the final hostage taken during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war are still in Gaza. Challenges in the next phase of the ceasefire include the deployment of an international stabilization force, a technocratic governing body for Gaza, the disarmament of Hamas and further Israeli troop withdrawals from the territory.

Both Israel and Hamas have accused each other of truce violations.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said that since the ceasefire went into effect, 414 Palestinians have been killed and 1,142 wounded. It said the bodies of 679 people were pulled from the rubble during the same period as the truce makes it safer to search for the remains of people killed earlier.

The ministry on Saturday said 29 bodies, including 25 that were recovered from under the rubble, had been brought to local hospitals over the past 48 hours.

The overall Palestinian death toll from the Israel-Hamas war has risen to at least 71,266, the ministry said, and another 171,219 have been wounded.

The ministry, which does not distinguish between militants and civilians in its count, is staffed by medical professionals and maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by the international community.
West Bank operation

Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said in a statement Saturday that a military operation continued in a town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank a day after police said a Palestinian attacker rammed his car into a man and then stabbed a young woman in northern Israel on Friday afternoon, killing both.

The statement said the army had surrounded the town of Qabatiya, where Katz said the attacker was from, and was operating “forcefully” there. Authorities on Friday said the attacker was shot and injured in Afula. He was taken to a hospital.

It’s common practice for Israel to launch raids in the West Bank towns that attackers come from or demolish homes belonging to the assailants’ families. Israel says that it helps to locate militant infrastructure and prevents future attacks. Rights watchdogs describe such actions as collective punishment.

AP video on Saturday showed Israeli bulldozers entering the town and soldiers patrolling.

“They announced a strict curfew,” resident Bilal Hanash said, as he and others described main roads being closed with dirt barriers, a practice that has grown during the war in Gaza. “So basically, they’re punishing 30,000 people.”

Associated Press writer Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut contributed.

Wafaa Shurafa, The Associated Press

Millions of Afghans face hunger as aid cuts deepen a humanitarian crisis.


Rahimullah, who like many Afghans goes by only one name, is one of millions of Afghans who rely on humanitarian aid, both from the Afghan authorities and from international charity organizations, for survival. An estimated 22.9 million people — nearly half the population — required aid in 2025, the International Committee for the Red Cross said in an article on its website Monday.

But severe cuts in international aid — including the halting of U.S. aid to programs such as food distribution run by the United Nations’ World Food Program — have severed this lifeline.

More than 17 million people in Afghanistan now face crisis levels of hunger in the winter, the World Food Program warned last week, 3 million more than were at risk more than a year ago.

The slashing in aid has come as Afghanistan is battered by a struggling economy, recurrent droughts, two deadly earthquakes and the mass influx of Afghan refugees expelled from countries such as Iran and Pakistan. The resulting multiple shocks have severely pressured resources, including of housing and food.
UN appeals for help

Tom Fletcher, the UN humanitarian chief, told the Security Council in mid-December that the situation was compounded by “overlapping shocks,” including the recent earthquakes and increasing restrictions on humanitarian aid access and staff.

While Fletcher said nearly 22 million Afghans will need UN assistance in 2026, his organization will focus on 3.9 million facing the most urgent need of lifesaving help due to reduced donor contributions.

Fletcher said this winter was “the first in years with almost no international food distribution.”

“As a result, only about 1 million of the most vulnerable people have received food assistance during the lean season in 2025,” compared to 5.6 million last year, he said.

The year has been devastating for UN humanitarian organizations, which have had to cut thousands of jobs and spending in the wake of aid cuts.

“We are grateful to all of you who have continued to support Afghanistan. But as we look towards 2026, we risk a further contraction of life-saving help — at a time when food insecurity, health needs, strain on basic services, and protection risks are all rising,” Fletcher said.
Returning refugees

The return of millions of refugees has added pressure on an already teetering system. Minister of Refugees and Repatriation Affairs Abdul Kabir said Sunday that 7.1 million Afghan refugees had returned to the country over the last four years, according to a statement on the ministry website.

Rahimullah, 29, was one of them. The former Afghan Army soldier fled to neighboring Pakistan after the Taliban seized power in 2021. He was deported back to Afghanistan two years later, and initially received aid in the form of cash as well as food.

“The assistance was helping me a lot,” he said. But without it, “now I don’t have enough money to live on. God forbid, if I were to face a serious illness or any other problem, it would be very difficult for me to handle because I don’t have any extra money for expenses.”

The massive influx of former refugees has also sent rents skyrocketing. Rahimullah’s landlord has nearly doubled the rent of his tiny two-room home, with walls made half of concrete and half of mud and a homemade mud stove for cooking. Instead of 4,500 afghanis (about $67), he now wants 8,000 afghanis (about $120) – a sum Rahimullah cannot afford. So he, his wife, daughter and two young sons will have to move next month. They don’t know where to.

Before the Taliban takeover, Rahimullah had a decent salary and his wife worked as a teacher. But the new government’s draconian restrictions on women and girls mean women are barred from nearly all jobs, and his wife is unemployed.

“Now the situation is such that even if we find money for flour, we don’t have it for oil, and even if we find it for oil, we can’t pay the rent. And then there is the extra electricity bill,” Rahimullah said.
Harsh winters compound the misery

In Afghanistan’s northern province of Badakhshan, Sherin Gul is desperate. In 2023, her family of 12 got supplies of flour, oil, rice, beans, pulses, salt and biscuits. It was a lifesaver.

But it only lasted six months. Now, there is nothing. Her husband is old and weak and cannot work, she said. With 10 children, seven girls and three boys between the ages of 7 and 27, the burden of providing for the family has fallen on her 23-year-old son – the only one old enough to work. But even he only finds occasional jobs.

“There are 12 of us … and one person working cannot cover the expenses,” she said. “We are in great trouble.”

Sometimes neighbors take pity on them and give them food. Often, they all go hungry.

“There have been times when we have nothing to eat at night, and my little children have fallen asleep without food,” Gul said. “I have only given them green tea and they have fallen asleep crying.”

Before the Taliban takeover, Gul worked as a cleaner, earning just about enough to feed her family. But the ban on women working has left her unemployed, and she said she developed a nervous disorder and is often sick.

Compounding their misery is the harsh cold of the northern Afghan winter, when snow halts construction work where her son can sometimes find jobs. And there is the added expense of firewood and charcoal.

“If this situation continues like this, we may face severe hunger,” Gul said. “And then it will be very difficult for us to survive in this cold weather.”

Abdul Kahar #Afghan, The Associated Press

Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri at the United Nations, Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Elena Becatoros in Athens contributed to this report.

Indonesian rescuers search for a Spanish coach and 3 children after tour boat sinks.


#JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesian rescuers searched for a Spanish soccer coach and his three children on Saturday after a tour boat carrying 11 people sank overnight near Padar Island, a popular destination within Komodo National Park, officials said.

The boat was carrying a family of six, four crew members and a local guide when it went down on Friday evening after suffering engine failure on a trip from Komodo Island to Padar, said Fathur Rahman, who heads the Maumere Search and Rescue Office.

He said three people were rescued by a passing vessel, and four others were picked up by a search and rescue team. The survivors included the Spanish mother and one daughter. The father, two sons and another daughter were missing, he said.