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Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,392

Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,392

These are the key developments from day 1,392 of Russia’s war on Ukraine. Published On 17 Dec 202517 Dec 2025 Click here to share on social media share2 Share Here is where things stand on Wednesday, December 17: Fighting Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said explosions were heard in the Ukrainian capital and warned people to stay in shelters late on Tuesday night as air defences worked to repel a Russian attack. Russian forces launched a “massive” drone attack on Ukraine’s Sumy region, targeting energy infrastructure and causing electricity blackouts, Governor Oleh Hryhorov said on Telegram late on Tuesday night. Power outages were also reported in the Donetsk region, Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Energy Mykola Kolisnyk said. A Russian attack on electrical substations and other energy infrastructure left 280,000 households in Ukraine’s Odesa region without power, Governor Oleh Kiper wrote on Telegram. Electricity was later restored to 220,000 homes, Kiper said, but extensive work was still needed to repair damaged networks. The Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine is currently receiving electricity through only one of two external power lines, the facility’s Russian management said, after the other line was disconnected due to military activity. Russian forces shot down 180 Ukrainian drones in one day, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said, according to the state-run TASS news agency. The ambassador-at-large of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rodion Miroshnik, told TASS that Ukrainian attacks had killed 14 Russian civilians and injured nearly 70, including in the Russian-occupied Kherson and Zaporizhia regions of Ukraine, over the past week. Advertisement Ceasefire talks German Chancellor Friedrich Merz shared details about a potential European-led multinational force being considered as part of discussions on security guarantees for Ukraine. “We would secure a demilitarised zone between the warring parties and, to be very specific, we would also act against corresponding Russian incursions and attacks,” Merz told ZDF public television, adding that the talks “we’re not there yet”. Regional security Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Sweden said in a joint statement on Tuesday that “Russia is the most significant, direct and long-term threat to our security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area”. After the Eastern Flank Summit in Helsinki, Finland, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that the grouping of European countries discussed an “anti-drone wall” that would require “billions in expenditure here”. Germany’s Federal Ministry of Defence said that it ended the deployment to Poland of its Patriot systems and soldiers from its Air and Missile Defence Task Force, after the mission concluded as planned. UK Secretary of State for Defence John Healey said the United Kingdom is spending 600 million pounds (more than $800 million) to buy “thousands of air defence systems, missiles, and automated turrets to shoot down drones” for Ukraine, during a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, according to the Kyiv Independent news outlet. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius told the same meeting that Germany would “transfer a significant number of AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles” to Ukraine next year. Reparations The leaders of 34 European countries signed an agreement in The Hague to create an International Claims Commission for Ukraine to seek compensation for hundreds of billions of dollars in damage from Russian attacks. “Every Russian war crime must have consequences for those who committed them,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said before signing the agreement. “The goal is to have validated claims that will ultimately be paid by Russia. It will really have to be paid by Russia,” Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs  David van Weel said. Adblock test (Why?)

Ex-Harvard morgue manager who sold body parts sentenced to 8 years in jail

Ex-Harvard morgue manager who sold body parts sentenced to 8 years in jail

Judge sentences former Harvard Medical School morgue manager for stealing organs and various body parts for sale to others. Published On 17 Dec 202517 Dec 2025 Click here to share on social media share2 Share The former manager of the Harvard Medical School morgue has been sentenced to eight years in prison for the theft and sale of body parts, taken from cadavers that had been donated for medical research. Cedric Lodge, who managed the morgue for more than two decades before being arrested in 2023, was given an eight-year sentence by a US District Judge in Pennsylvania on Tuesday. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list “He caused deep emotional harm to an untold number of family members left to wonder about the mistreatment of their loved ones’ bodies,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing. The 58-year-old Lodge pleaded guilty to transporting stolen goods across state lines in May, with prosecutors stating that he had taken heads, faces, brains, skin, and hands from cadavers in the morgue to his home in Goffstown, New Hampshire, before selling them to several individuals. Lodge’s wife, Denise, was also sentenced to one year in prison for her role in facilitating the sale of the stolen organs and body parts to several individuals, including two people in Pennsylvania, who then mostly resold them. Prosecutors asked District Judge Matthew Brann in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to give Lodge 10 years in prison, the maximum sentence for the crime, which they said “shocks the conscience” and was carried out “for the amusement of the disturbing ‘oddities’ community”. Patrick Casey, a lawyer for Lodge, asked the judge for leniency, while conceding “the harm his actions have inflicted on both the deceased persons whose bodies he callously degraded and their grieving families”. Advertisement Harvard Medical School has yet to comment on Lodge’s sentencing, but has previously called his actions “abhorrent and inconsistent with the standards and values that Harvard, our anatomical donors, and their loved ones expect and deserve”. A US court ruled in October that Harvard Medical School could be sued by family members who had donated the bodies of loved ones for medical research. In that case, Chief Justice Scott L Kafker described the affair as a “macabre scheme spanning several years”. Harvard Medical School in the Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts, US, in 2022 [Brian Snyder/Reuters] Adblock test (Why?)

Trump stands by chief of staff after shock remarks about Vance, Bondi, Musk

Trump stands by chief of staff after shock remarks about Vance, Bondi, Musk

US President Donald Trump said he was standing by his White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, after Vanity Fair magazine published interviews in which Wiles revealed internal tensions in Trump’s administration and painted an unflattering picture of the roles played by some of the president’s inner circle. Trump, who regularly describes Wiles as the “most powerful woman in the world”, told the New York Post on Tuesday that he has full confidence in his chief of staff and that she had “done a fantastic job”. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list Vanity Fair published two articles based on the interviews, giving insights into what Wiles thinks about other key figures in Trump’s second presidency. Speaking about Trump, Wiles described the teetotaling president as having “an alcoholic’s personality” and an eye for vengeance against perceived enemies. “He has an alcoholic’s personality,” Wiles said of Trump, explaining that her upbringing with an alcoholic father prepared her for managing “big personalities”. Trump does not drink, she noted, but operates with “a view that there’s nothing he can’t do. Nothing, zero, nothing”. In his defence of Wiles, Trump said she was right to describe him personally as having an “alcoholic’s personality”, even though he does not drink alcohol. “I’ve often said that if I did, I’d have a very good chance of being an alcoholic,” Trump said. “I have said that many times about myself, I do. It’s a very possessive personality,” he said. White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, centre, stands with US Army members during US President Donald Trump’s visit to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, in June 2025 [Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters] Speaking on the Trump administration’s failure to quickly deliver its promise to share information related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Wiles suggested that Trump’s attorney general, Pam Bondi, had failed to clearly read the situation with the public. Advertisement “First, she gave them binders full of nothingness,” Wiles said of Bondi, noting that Vice President JD Vance had more fully grasped how important the issue was to some people, since he is himself “a conspiracy theorist”. Of Trump’s inclusion in the Epstein files, Wiles said, “We know he’s in the file”, but claimed the file did not show him doing “anything awful”. Referring to other members of the Trump administration, Wiles called Russ Vought, the chief of the White House Office of Management and Budget, a “right-wing absolute zealot” and branded tech tycoon Elon Musk an “odd, odd duck”, Vanity Fair said. On Ukraine, Wiles said that Trump believes Russian President Vladimir Putin “wants the whole country”, despite Washington’s push for a peace deal. Wiles also affirmed that Trump wants to keep bombing alleged drug boats in the waters off the coast of Venezuela until that country’s leader, Nicolas Maduro, “cries uncle”. In a post on X, Wiles called the Vanity Fair story “a disingenuously framed hit piece on me and the finest President, White House staff, and Cabinet in history”, saying it omitted important context and selectively quoted her to create a negative narrative. Other members of Trump’s inner circle also defended Wiles after the articles were published. Vance said in a speech in Pennsylvania that he and Wiles had “joked in private and in public” about him believing conspiracy theories. “We have our disagreements, we agree on much more than we disagree, but I’ve never seen her be disloyal to the president of the United States,” Vance said. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters outside the West Wing that Wiles was “incredible” and accused Vanity Fair of the “bias of omission”, while Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on X that there was “absolutely nobody better!” than Wiles. Adblock test (Why?)