INTREP360 INTELLIGENCE REPORT
12.26.2025
December 26th, 2025
Greetings! It’s Boxing Day and once again, as we write this, Russian President Vladimir Putin is bombing Ukraine.
Tonight, the entire country is lit up in red alerts. Visegrád 24 is reporting that “cruise missiles and hypersonic missiles have been launched at the capital city [of Kyiv].” Widespread electrical outages are being reported.
Photo credit: map.ukrainealarm.com. December 26th, 2025.
Red maps don’t tell the whole story. While get the bloody color right, they missed the Ukrainian men, women and children being pummeled by Putin’s military.
Earlier today, one of those murdered on December 23rd. Kristina Solovyova – just four-years-old – didn’t live to see another Christmas. Putin should be tried as a war criminal for her murder and the other 676 kids he’s killed in Ukraine thus far.
Photo credit: SPRAVDI. Kristina Solovyova, aged 4, was killed in a Russian airstrike on December 23rd in Zhytomyr, Ukraine.
She was killed when Russian forces attacked her home city of Zhytomyr. The town is a key railway hub linking Kyiv with Warsaw.
It is too early to know. Scaled military attacks the size of that hitting Ukraine right now usually take days to plan.
Given that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged progress in his discussions with Team Trump, it is highly reasonable to interpret this wide-scale attack as the Kremlin setting negotiating conditions ahead of Sunday’s Mar-a-Largo peace summit between Trump and the Ukrainians.
Peace on earth, good will, while a worthy goal is in reality all too fleeting. War waits for no one, not even Christmas.
Nor do geo-strategic developments that affect U.S. national security and that of our allies. Lots to cover.
Let’s get started!
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NORTH AMERICA
Los Angeles is drying out from its “wettest Christmas holiday ever.” New York City is preparing to get walloped by 9 inches of snow.
Palm Beach?
76 degrees and sunny when Zelensky is scheduled to meet with Trump at 3PM ET at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida.
The only question is, who will be sweating after that summit is over? Trump? Zelensky? Or Putin? We have some thoughts, but they are embargoed until a Postscript piece we penned goes live at the NYPost.com tomorrow evening.
Or, if you are in New York City Sunday morning and missed out –like many of us did – on a White Christmas, head outside into the snow and grab a print copy at your favorite newsstand! If you do, give us a precipitation update!
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SOUTH AMERICA
Venezuela remains in the eye of a storm. It’s not a hurricane this time, but a gathering storm of U.S. military power descending on the Caribbean.
Puerto Rico’s airports are getting more crowded than a Costco parking lot with U.S. military equipment, fighter jets and cargo planes. Staging is clearly taking place.
But for what?
A demonstration of power or impending kinetic military strikes?
One thing is clear, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is the target of Team Trump’s messaging and the largest build-up of U.S. military power in the region since the Cuban Missile Crisis between the U.S. and Russia in 1962.
Yet, Maduro isn’t cowed.
Instead, as Ana Vanessa Herrero and Matthew Hay Brown report for the Washington Post, Maduro and his cronies in Caracas are “taking advantage of U.S. threats in order to crack down on internal dissent.”
Photo credit: Matias Delacroix/AP. Bolívar Avenue, Caracas, Venezuela on December 20th.
Earlier this week, the National Assembly passed a new law “imposing up to 20 years in prison for anyone who “promotes, instigates, requests, invokes, favors, facilitates, supports, finances or participates” in the U.S. campaign to seize ships carrying Venezuelan oil.”
Unintended consequences are a thing. Maduro is likely betting on Trump not to carry through with his threats.
If so, then Maduro has upped the ante.
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EUROPE
Things are not going as Putin planned in Ukraine. Zelensky and his army fully recaptured the strategic railroad city of Kupyansk on Christmas.
Photo credit: unknown. Toppled Russian “Force Z” vehicles near Kupyansk, Ukraine sometime in late December.
As you can see for yourself by the above frontline photograph, it was a Ukrainian rout. It was also a humiliating defeat for Putin and his generals who declared in early November that the city was firmly in Russian hands.
TASS – the Russian state-controlled news service – even said so. Reality bites hard. Maybe next time Putin should consult with Allstate Insurance before bragging to the world that Kupyansk was in “good hands.”
Kupyansk’s fall also shattered the false Russian narrative that the collapse of Ukraine’s frontlines is inevitable. It also demonstrates that Moscow is likely reaching the limits of its manpower if it can’t hold captured territory in one area while it fights in other operational areas in and around the Donbas.
Perhaps, as cover, that’s why Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s special envoy to the U.S., is working so hard to change the subject.
He’s frantically posting on X anything that might turn that page. Hunter Biden’s self-serving comments that “Ukraine is a viper’s den with a staggering level of corruption.” Putin lecturing President George W. Bush why Moscow “views NATO as an anti-Russia bloc.”
Ditto Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s release of transcripts from Putin and Bush’s 2008 meeting warning that Moscow wouldn’t accept Ukraine joining NATO. Of course, Dmitriev hasn’t joined NATO.
Kyiv should have. It would have spared Crimea being seized by Putin in 2014 and invaded in 2022.
Putin’s economy – as Trump noted again today – also isn’t doing well. Speaking to POLITCO, the president said, “Their economy is in tough shape, very tough shape.”
Highly dependent on oil & gas, Putin’s economy got even worse on Christmas. Ukraine announced that it had “launched British Storm Shadow missiles and its domestically produced long-range drones to hit several Russian oil and gas facilities.”
Installations in the Russian port city of Temryuk in Krasnodar and Orenburg, Russia were hit. The latter is “a gas processing plant, the largest facility of its kind in the world, is located about 1,400 km (about 870 miles) from the Ukrainian border.”
Yet despite all of this, Putin still believes he is winning. We wrote about his delusion on Christmas Eve here – Living in the Putinsphere. Storm Shadows are nice but U.S. Tomahawks would help disabuse him of his fantasy sooner.
Earlier today, Zelensky accused Belarus of aiding Moscow to circumvent Ukraine’s air defenses. He noted that, There is a problem: they can see our lines, the lines of interceptors that we’re using quite effectively, and they want to bypass them. They are bypassing them thanks, among other things, to Belarus.”
Zelensky promised an answer soon. Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko best take note. That comment was aimed at him.
For those who celebrate – we do; both of us lived for a time in Cold War Europe as kids and remember East Germans getting shot trying to cross into West Germany – the Soviet Union collapsed on this date on December 26th, 1991.
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MIDDLE EAST
Saudi Arabia likely bombed Southern Transitional Council (STC) separatists earlier today. The council, backed by the United Arab Emirates, claimed “the strikes happened in Yemen’s Hadramout governorate.”
Earlier this month, STC seized control of the Hadramout and al-Mahra governorates. Both are Yemeni territories oil rich and strategically and logistically important to Saudi Arabia and neighboring Oman.
Photo credit: AP. Southern Transitional Council supporters at a December 25th rally in Aden, Yemen.
Riyadh has yet to claim responsibility. But given their earlier warnings to STC, it is clear they were sending them a “hands off” message and a warning to immediately withdraw their forces from both governorates.
This doesn’t involve the Houthis. For now, at least. The Saudis are not going to let this slide any further.
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AFRICA
In today’s most underreported story, Israel became the first country in the world to formally recognize Somaliland. 34 years ago, the “autonomous region … broke away from Somalia.” Mogadishu condemned the recognition, declaring it an “unlawful step.”
Egypt, Turkey and Djibouti swiftly condemned Israel as well. Israel’s motive here is fairly obvious. It gives the Israel Defense Forces a potential military base on the Gulf of Aden to conduct operations against the Houthis in Yemen.
The African Union Commission also quickly denounced it. Notably, the Union is closely aligned with the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation.
Beijing, undoubtedly, will condemn it as well.
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INDO-PACIFIC
Speaking of China, Chinese President Xi Jinping is angry with Team Trump. Earlier this month, the State Department revealed “a massive package of arms sales to Taiwan valued at more than $10 billion that includes medium-range missiles, howitzers and drones.”
Today, Beijing retaliated by sanctioning “20 U.S. defense-related companies and 10 executives.” Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation, L3Harris Maritime Services and Boeing in St. Louis were among the companies sanctioned.
The companies’ assets in China are now frozen, and Chinese businesses are prohibited from doing business with them.
Boeing in St. Louis is the military division of Boeing. For now, at least, the civilian side of Boeing – including its civilian jets – appears unaffected.
Next week we will be doing a special INTREP360 Intelligence Report analysis on the Trump Administration’s new Annual Report to Congress on the Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China.
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WHAT WE ARE READING!
China orders travel agencies to slash group tours to Japan as dispute festers. The Japan Times.
Thailand, Cambodia agree to ‘immediate’ ceasefire. Agence France-Presse.
With airstrike in Nigeria, Trump inserts U.S. into long-running turmoil. Rachel Chason, Abiodun Jamiu and Tara Copp, reporting for The Washington Post.
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Jon & Mark
Follow Jon on X at @JESweet2022 or on Bluesky at @JonSweet.bsky.social.
Follow Mark on X at @MCTothSTL or on Bluesky at @MarkToth.bsky.social.