Victory Chronicles-DAY 1371

Ukraine’s military says it carried out a coordinated overnight strike on Nov. 25, hitting a rare experimental (laser laboratory) Russian A-60 aircraft and several high-value targets across Russia. 

The operation, according to Ukraine’s General Staff, involved missile and artillery units Special Operations Forces, naval coastal missile units and drone operators. The strike used Ukrainian-made “Bars” long-range drones and “Neptune” cruise missiles.

The heaviest damage was reported in Taganrog, a city in Russia’s Rostov region near the Ukrainian border. Large explosions and fires broke out at two key facilities: the Beriev Aircraft Repair Plant—responsible for servicing A-50 airborne early-warning planes and Tu-95MS strategic bombers—and a Molniya–Atlant Aero plant that produces Russian attack drones. The A-60 aircraft struck in the attack is a rarely seen experimental airborne laser platform.

Ukrainian forces also struck oil infrastructure deeper inside Russia. The military said the attack damaged loading equipment at the Sheskharis oil terminal in Novorossiysk on the Black Sea and hit the Tuapse oil refinery south of the city. Those sites handle a significant share of Russia’s refined-product exports.

Seven civilians confirmed killed after Russian strike on Kyiv

Seven Kyiv residents were pronounced killed and 20 injured after a Russian combined aerial strike tore through several neighborhoods in Kyiv on Nov. 25, leaving apartment blocks and warehouse districts mangled and burning. Rescue crews said they recovered another body from the rubble of a nine-story residential building in the Dnipro district, where entire mid-level floors had collapsed.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said seven of the injured remain hospitalized, including a child. Photos from emergency services show firefighters climbing through broken stairwells and leading shaken residents down ladders as burned cars smoldered beneath them.

In the Sviatoshyni district, a strike near a four-story warehouse killed four people and injured three. Fire crews extinguished the blaze but continued sifting through twisted metal in case more residents were trapped. A 22-story building in the Pechersk district also took a direct hit, losing several floors, while a nine-story building in the Dnipro district burned from the fifth to eighth floors before firefighters contained the flames. Seventeen people were rescued there, including three children.

Six Russian drones cross into Moldova, one crashes into home. Moldova’s Defense Ministry says its air-monitoring systems detected six drones crossing into the country during Russia’s large attack on Ukraine on Nov. 25.

Officials said the first drone was spotted near the villages of Vinogradivka and Vulcănești before heading toward the Romanian border at roughly 1,500 meters (4,920 feet). Minutes later, five more drones were tracked over several regions, including Donduseni, Orhei, Bender, Vadul lui Vodă and Florești.

One drone crashed onto the roof of a single-family home in the village of Nizhni Kukureshti. Authorities did not immediately report injuries, but urged residents to stay away from any debris and alert local officials. Images released by Moldovan police show a damaged rooftop and scattered fragments.

Romania, a NATO member country, also reported Russian drones crossing into its airspace, prompting two German operated jets to respond.

Russia presses toward Mirnohrad as Ukrainian units hold the line. Russian forces are pushing to cut the last ground route between the eastern Ukrainian towns of Mirnohrad and Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, according to Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Response Corps. The pattern of attacks suggests Moscow seeks to encircle Mirnohrad by advancing toward nearby villages, while probing the city’s outskirts around the clock with small infantry groups guided by aerial drones.

Ukrainian airborne assault units are holding back Russian movements near Krasnyi Lyman, and Kyiv has reinforced its positions in Mirnohrad to protect the city’s southern outskirts. Commanders say Russia is trying to mass troops there for another attempt to break through.

On the city’s northeastern edge, Ukraine’s 38th Marine Brigade captured four Russian soldiers who were trying to storm the area. Three of them, according to Ukrainian forces, were former inmates who joined the Russian military through prison recruitment programs. The detainees told Ukrainian troops they had spent four days in a basement without food or water before being sent into the assault.

Key Takeaways

1. U.S. and Ukrainian delegations reportedly narrowed down the initial U.S.-proposed 28-point peace plan to 19 points.
2. The persistent Russian rate of advance does not indicate that Russian forces will imminently seize the rest of Donetsk Oblast.
3. Russian officials and ultranationalist voices continue rejecting the original and revised U.S.-proposed peace plan drafts and are attempting to portray Europe as responsible for the Russian rejection.
4. Ukrainian forces maintain a limited presence and continue to counterattack within Pokrovsk, indicating that Russian forces likely remain unable to rapidly seize Pokrovsk at this time.
5. Russian forces continue to leverage their new offensive template, which heavily relies on battlefield air interdiction (BAI) efforts and infiltration tactics, to advance in the Hulyaipole direction.
6. Belarusian balloons continue incursions in NATO airspace in Lithuania and Latvia.
7. Russian forces recently advanced near Vovchansk, Velykyi Burluk, Siversk, Pokrovsk, Novopavlivka, Velykomykhailivka, and Hulyaipole and in the Kostyantynivka-Druzhkivka tactical area.

• WSJ reconstructs how Trump’s team drafted “peace plan” for Ukraine with Russian involvement
• Bloomberg: Russia rejects peace plan updated in Geneva talks
• Germany’s Merz on ‘peace plans’: Russia must come to negotiating table now
• JP Morgan says oil prices could plunge into the $30 range by 2027
• Ukraine urges states to bar Russia from International Maritime Organization Council
• Majority of Germans support supplying weapons to Ukraine and sending peacekeepers
• Only 16% of Trump voters support territorial concessions by Ukraine for peace