Ukraine, Rutte: if Europe does not rearm soon, security risks as early as 2027. Kiev: army withdraws from Siversk

Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte warned that, if Europe loosens support for Ukraine and does not speed up defence build-up, security risks for the bloc will increase as early as 2027, according to some intelligence assessments. Rutte says Ukraine must remain strong to prevent Vladimir Putin from trying to attack a NATO country and returns to calling on the Europeans to increase defence spending in line with commitments made at the Hague summit last June. In the same interview, he refers to Russia's military spending, which is reported to be over 40% of the budget, and cites an estimate of 1.1 million Russian soldiers killed or wounded in Ukraine.

On the ground, the Ukrainian General Staff announced the withdrawal from the town of Siversk, in Donetsk, after Russian attacks and after Moscow claimed to have captured the town on 11 December. The decision, according to Kiev, was made 'to preserve the lives' of the soldiers and the combat capability of the units, while Russian troops allegedly advanced due to numerical superiority and constant pressure from small assault groups in difficult weather conditions. In the Vinnytsia region, the deputy governor Natalia Zabolotna reported that 14 homes were damaged in a raid, speaking of broken windows and hit roofs and facades, but no injuries. And Unicef reported "tragic news" of a child killed and three injured between Kiev, Vyshhorod and Zhytomyr in another wave of attacks, calling for a halt to the offensives and describing a winter with disruptions to heating, electricity and water.

The Russian Defence Ministry has claimed control of two more localities: Prylipka in the Kharkiv region and Andriivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region. The claims come while, according to the Ukrainian General Staff, Moscow's forces maintain a "significant" advantage in men and means and continue offensive operations despite "heavy losses". In this web of diplomacy, finance and fighting, Kiev insists on the same point: negotiate yes, but without reducing pressure and support while the attacks continue.

Moscow is developing a weapon to hit the Starlink network and thus deprive Ukraine of an important defence tool. The alarm was raised by the intelligence services of two NATO countries according to which - the Associated Press reports - the Russian project is for a 'zone effect' system to flood the orbits of Musk's satellites with hundreds of thousands of high-density projectiles, with the aim of disabling several satellites at once. However, the warning issued does not convince all analysts. Many believe it is possible that the Kremlin would have given such an order, given the increasingly aggressive attitude in space and the rumours of a space nuclear weapon. Many others, however, are sceptical as such a weapon would cause uncontrollable chaos in space for many countries, including Russia and its ally China.

Both depend on orbiting satellites for communication, defence and other vital needs. Starlink is nevertheless considered a serious threat by Moscow: its low-orbit satellites have proved crucial to Ukraine's resistance to its invasion. Kiev troops use its high-speed internet for battlefield communications and also for civil use. Without it, it would be much more difficult for Ukrainian forces to defend themselves and try to attack. Hitting Starlink, however, risks causing quite a few problems for Moscow. Beyond the effects in space, of which Russia would be the first to pay the consequences, there are the political ones. The company is headed by Elon Musk, a former member of the Trump administration and a major backer of the Republican party.

Although the idyll with the US president has faded somewhat, Musk and Trump have recently grown closer and the billionaire continues to have close relations with the tycoon's sons and vice-president J. D. Vance. Hitting a US company could therefore be very risky for the Kremlin and trigger US retaliation. The projectiles of a potential 'zone effect' weapon - experts explain - would actually be so small (in the order of a few millimetres) that they would escape ground and space-based detection systems. But it is also true that the truth about who would have carried out the attack would eventually be uncovered, exposing Russia to potential 'revenge' from the stars and stripes.

"Since last night, Russia has been launching a massive attack on Ukraine, especially on our energy, civil infrastructure, practically the entire infrastructure of life. More than 650 drones have already been launched. More than 30 missiles." He writes this on Telegram Volodymyr Zelensky explaining that 13 regions have been targeted. "At the moment, a large part of Ukrainian territory is still on air alert. Unfortunately, there have been casualties. In the Kiev region, a woman was killed by a drone. One person is known to have died in the Khmelnytskyi region. In Zhytomyr, a four-year-old child died'.

Russian shelling has left three regions almost completely without electricity. This was stated by the Ukrainian Energy Ministry, reported by Rbc. "Tonight and this morning, the enemy launched another massive attack on the Ukrainian power grid, the ninth since the beginning of the year. As a result, consumers in the Rivne, Ternopil and Khmelnytskyi regions were almost completely without electricity," the Energy Ministry reported. In the Odessa region, work is underway to repair several serious damages to the energy infrastructure in the region, which left a significant number of people without electricity.

Poland deployed Polish and allied fighter planes this morning after Russia launched air strikes towards western Ukraine, near the Polish border. "Combat aircraft have been dispatched and ground-based air defence and radar reconnaissance systems have been put on high alert," the Polish Armed Forces Operations Command said on X. "These measures are preventive in nature and aim to protect and secure the airspace, especially in areas adjacent to the threatened regions," the Polish Armed Forces added.