Russia - Ukraine War Update
<div class=\"default-font-wrapper\" style=\"line-height: 1;font-size: 12pt; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;\">Russia - Ukraine War Update <br id=\"isPasted\"><br>--Reuters reports Ukraine brought home 189 prisoners of war in the latest exchange with Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday.<br>--Zelenskiy thanked the United Arab Emirates and other partners for facilitating the swap.<br>--Ukraine's Air Force reported on Monday that its air defences downed 21 out of 43 drones launched by Russia in an overnight attack. The attack targeted six regions across the country, the air force said, adding that 22 other drones were lost.<br>--Russia's Defence Ministry said on Monday that its forces had taken Novoolenivka, a village in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, Russian state news agency TASS reported.<br>--On Sunday, Russia's said its forces had seized the village of Novotroitske in Donetsk, the Interfax news agency reported.<br>--Russian football star Aleksei Bugayev, 43, who played in the national team at Euro 2004, was killed in ,intense fighting, ccording to Russian media quoting his father and agent. In September, Bugayev had been jailed on drug trafficking charges. He was one of a number of prisoners recruited for the war.<br>--The United States announced a $2.5 billion security assistance package for Ukraine on Monday, seen as part of Washington's efforts to provide aid to Kyiv before President-elect Donald Trump takes office. The aid includes a $1.25 billion military ,drawdown package,, which allows the Pentagon to take weapons from US stocks and send them quickly to the battlefield.<br>--Syria's de facto ruler Ahmed al-Sharaa met with a senior Ukrainian delegation led by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha on Monday, the Syrian state news agency (SANA) reported. For decades under deposed President Bashar al-Assad, Syria was a close ally of Russia.<br>--Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Sunday that the country would scrap a moratorium on the deployment of intermediate and shorter-range nuclear missiles because the United States had ,arrogantly ignored the warnings of Russia and China, and deployed ,weapons of this class, in various parts of the world. Russia's move will kill off all that remains of the New START treaty on nuclear weapons reduction, amid fears of a new arms race.<br>--Russian state media outlets were seemingly blocked on social media platform Telegram in several European Union countries. The channels of RIA Novosti news agency, Russia-1, Channel One Russia and NTV television, and Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspapers were not accessible across the bloc on Sunday. Neither Telegram nor EU sources have yet commented on the disruption. Moscow called the move ,an act of censorship,.</div>