INTREP360 INTELLIGENCE REPORT
12.25.2025
December 25th, 2025
Merry Christmas! Most of us got the memo. Today is supposed to be about peace and the promise of a better world.
Instead, Russian President Vladimir Putin is making Christmas Day – a Holy Day for many – about death and destruction for the fourth year in a row. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz proffered a Christmas truce, but the Kremlin rejected it.
Why pray when you can kill?
Plus, as Dmitry Peskov – Putin’s presidential spokesman – said, a temporary peace can’t get in the way of Moscow “achieving its goals [in Ukraine].”
Goals?
Is killing and injuring Ukrainian civilians one of his goals? We’d argue yes because Putin keeps doing it day after day.
Russian Christmas attacks on a market in Kherson in southern Ukraine and Chernihiv northeast of Kyiv left two dead. A 47-year-old-man was killed in the market, and an 80-year-old woman was killed after one of Putin’s drones hit her apartment building.
Photo credit: Ukraine’s Emergency Service.
“Peace on earth, good will to men” means nothing to Putin. He’s just out for piece after piece of Ukrainian earth and he’s willing to kill and injure as many men, women and children as he needs to achieve his war goals.
That includes his own citizens. Since the war began, 1,201,230 Russian and Axis of Evil soldiers have either died or been injured.
This can’t be said enough. Combined with Ukrainian casualties, that’s the largest number of war dead and wounded since World War II.
Not just in Europe. But anywhere in the world. Plus, Putin shows no signs of stopping. In October 2022, we warned in The Hill that Putin was prepared to fill 300,000+ Russian coffins for a new Peter The Great-like empire.
Putin’s likely done that. And he’s not done. Many thought we were on the high side. Turns out, we underestimated the number of Russians Putin is willing to kill to achieve all of the goals of his ‘special military operation.’
During World War II, the Soviets advanced 1,000 miles – from Moscow to Berlin – in helping defeat Nazi Germany. Putin, on average, has advanced 63 miles eastward from the Donbas and southward from Crimea.
Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin did that in four years. Putin? He’s headed into his fifth year of war come February 24th, 2022 with nothing much to show for it except war crimes, crimes against humanity and death.
Ukraine is why. Their secret sauce? Their “absolute resolve” as the Defense of Ukraine put it on their official X account on Christmas Eve.
We witnessed that same resolve today in the faces of Ukrainians across the country determined to celebrate Christmas. Yes, in many ways they are like the Whos in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas’ Whoville, but these Whos fight back.
In Kyiv, carolers paraded in the town squares. Ditto in Lviv. Kate from Kharkiv posted a defiant picture of herself in hard hit Kharkiv.
Photo credit: unknown. Kyiv on Christmas Day, 2025.
Photo credit: unknown. Lviv on Christmas Day, 2025.
Photo credit: Kate from Kharkiv. Selfie.
Ukraine’s resolve is unbroken. Not even at Christmas time. Not even as the country was under a Christmas day attack by Putin.
That fighting resolve was the theme of our weekly Thursday national security column at The Hill today. We argued that President Donald Trump should bolster, not undermine, Ukraine’s fighting Christmas spirit.
Photo credit: Oleg Petrasiuk/Ukraine’s 24th Mechanized Brigade. A soldier walks through the ruins of the town of Kostyantynivka in Donetsk.
Why?
For the kids of Ukraine and their future. Kids like Daryna and Ivan that we wrote about here on Christmas Eve.These Ukrainian Whos deserve a future free of Putin. Especially after the Christmas present they gave the Russian president. The Armed Forces of Ukraine have recaptured all of Kupiansk. You know, the city Putin claimed he had conquered in November.
Santa Claus does exist and he really does bring coal to the likes of Putin. We just didn’t realize that Santa was Ukrainian.
We will return to our regular format tomorrow. Including analyzing the U.S. attacks on ISIS operating in Nigeria.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, your friends and family!
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.