Ukraine-Russia struggle newest: Moscow claims assassination makes an attempt foiled as Biden pledges extra weapons

A Russian drone attack on a market in a Ukrainian town injured eight on Thursday morning, local authorities said.

Seven of those injured in the town of Nikopol were hospitalized after the strike damaged multiple stalls at the market, the region’s governer said on Telegram.

The drone strike comes after Russia’s Christmas Day attack on the country’s energy system killed one person in the region.

The Ukrainian military said on Thursday that it shot down 20 drones out of 31 launched by Russia overnight.

Of the 31 drones, 11 “imitator drones” did not reach their targets due to active engagement from the Ukrainian military, it added

Russia has claimed it has foiled a number of plots to assassinate high-ranking officers and their families in Moscow.

The country’s Federal Security Service claimed the plot involved using bombs disguised as power banks or document folders, and added that four Russian citizens allegedly involved in planning the attack had been detained.

It comes weeks after Ukraine’s intelligence service killed a top Russian officer outside his apartment building in Moscow by detonating a bomb attached to an electric scooter.

An SBU source confirmed to Reuters that the Ukrainian intelligence agency had been behind the hit.

Nearly 400 scholars have fled Russia, Belarus and Ukraine since the start of the war. One of them narrates his ordeal to Arpan Rai:

Moscow has claimed that civillian targets in Russia have been hit by missiles.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Ukraine launched western-made missiles and drones in the attack on Thursday and vowed retaliation.

Four people were killed and five people were injured in the town of Lgov in Russia’s Kursk region after Ukrainian shelling, the region’s acting governor said on Wednesday.

Ukraine’s postage stamps have become symbols of resistance and resilience during the war, using bold and sometimes provocative designs to boost morale and fund essential causes, the BBC reported.

Notable examples include a stamp featuring a soldier flipping off a Russian warship, which became iconic after the ship’s sinking, and others depicting a Ukrainian tractor towing a Russian tank or the mine-sniffing dog Patron.

Oscar Young from the UK-based stamp dealers and auctioneers Stanley Gibbons describes Ukraine’s war-focused approach to stamp design as highly unconventional.

“Generally stamps are artistic and polite, but to go out your way and be quite rude, placing profanity and being very gesturous on stamps – that is quite unique to these particular issues,” he told the BBC.

Ukraine said it has shot down a barrage of drones launched by Russia overnight.

On Boxing Day morning, the military said it had shot down 20 out of 31 drones launched by Moscow. A further 11 ‘imitator-drones’ did not reach their targets due to active engagement from the Ukrainian military, it added.

Falling debris from a Ukrainian drone that was shot down caused an explosion and a fatal fire in a shopping centre in the city of Vladikavkaz in Russia’s North Ossetia region, the local governor has said.

Sergei Menyailo, the regional governor, alleged that air defence systems shot down the drone at 8:3am Moscow time.

One woman was reported to have been killed inside the shopping centre. The governor’s assertion could not be immediately verified.

Russia’s defence ministry said 119 Ukrainian drones had been destroyed in the last 24 hours.

Oleksii Bezpaltsev, a celebrated 34-year-old Ukrainian poet and prose writer from Kharkiv, was killed during a combat mission in Kharkiv Oblast, The Kyiv Independent reported.

Known for his modernist style and underground literary influence, Bezpaltsev published two collections of short stories and participated in literary slams, the outlet said.

PEN International reports that at least 102 cultural contributors, including writers and artists, have been killed since the war began.

Prior to his service in Kharkiv, Bezpaltsev had fought on the Pokrovsk front.

The Kremlin has sought to dismiss reports that Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s wife is seeking a divorce, after the couple were forced to flee to Russia.