MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin used his annual televised New Year\u2019s address to rally his troops fighting in Ukraine, saying he believed \u200bin them and in victory in a war that he has framed as part of an existential struggle with the West.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump is trying to broker an end to the nearly four-year-old conflict, Europe\u2019s bloodiest conflagration since World War Two, with both sides\u2019 \u200cnegotiating stances still far \u200capart.<\/p>\n
Dressed in a black \u200ccoat, \u2060Putin \u2014 \u200bwhose \u200cforces are advancing slowly but steadily in Ukraine \u2014 spoke about Russia\u2019s destiny and the unity of its people, which he said guaranteed the sovereignty and security of the \u201cFatherland.\u201d<\/p>\n
He paid tribute in particular to his forces fighting in Ukraine, calling them heroes.<\/p>\n
\u201cMillions of \u2060people across Russia \u2014 I assure you \u2014 are with you on \u200cthis New Year\u2019s Eve,\u201d said \u200dPutin.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are thinking \u200dof you, empathizing with you, hoping for you. \u200dI wish all our soldiers and commanders a happy coming New Year! We believe in you and our Victory!\u201c<\/p>\n
His speech, which was first broadcast in \u200bRussia\u2019s far east, came as Russia released video footage of what it said was \u2060a downed drone, presenting it as evidence that Ukraine had tried this week to attack a presidential residence. Kyiv has dismissed Russia\u2019s allegation as a lie designed to derail peace talks.<\/p>\n
In another video released on Wednesday, Russia\u2019s top general told troops to keep carving out buffer zones in Ukraine\u2019s Sumy and Kharkiv regions and said Moscow\u2019s forces had advanced faster in December than in any \u200cother month in 2025.<\/p>\n
Reuters could not verify his battlefield assertion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin used his annual televised New Year\u2019s address to rally his troops fighting in Ukraine, saying he believed \u200bin them and in victory in a war that he has framed as part of an existential struggle with the West. US President Donald Trump is trying to broker an end to the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":91705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91686"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91708,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91686\/revisions\/91708"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}