Here are the key events from day 1,373 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Published On 28 Nov 2025
Here’s where things stand on Friday, November 28.
Fighting
Russian forces have “completely surrounded” the embattled Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk and control 70 percent of it, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.
Putin also said that once Ukrainian troops withdraw from their positions in key areas, then the fighting will stop. But if they do not, then Russian forces will achieve their objectives by force.
The Russian president added that the pace of Russia’s advance in all directions on the front line was “noticeably increasing”.
Oleksandr Syrskii, Ukraine’s top commander, painted a different picture, saying on social media that Ukrainian troops had been blocking attempts by Russian forces to stage new assaults on Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad. Syrskii also said that Russia had been forced to bring reserve forces into the fight.
Russia’s air defences shot down 118 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 52 over Russia’s Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, the Ministry of Defence in Moscow said.
Peace process
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian delegations will meet with those from the United States this week to work out a formula discussed at talks in Geneva to bring peace and provide security guarantees for Kyiv.
Putin said that the draft peace proposals discussed by the US and Ukraine could become the basis of future agreements to end Moscow’s war on Ukraine, but if not, that Russia would fight on.
Putin also called the Ukrainian leadership illegitimate and said it was senseless to sign any peace documents with them.
The Russian president said the Ukrainian leadership lost legitimacy after refusing to hold elections when Zelenskyy’s elected term expired. Kyiv says it cannot hold elections while under martial law and defending its territory against Russian attacks.
Zelenskyy will not agree to give up land to Russia in exchange for peace, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, told the US magazine The Atlantic.
“As long as Zelenskyy is president, no one should count on us giving up territory. He will not sign away territory,” Yermak said.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that even after a peace agreement with Russia, Ukraine will need strong armed forces and security guarantees, while no territorial concessions should be forced on the country.
“We view the efforts of the US government to find a solution here very positively. However, we also say that the security interests of Europeans and also the security interests of Ukraine must be safeguarded,” Merz said.
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Ukraine’s membership in NATO remains unacceptable to Moscow.
“For us, the threat is still the expansion of NATO,” she told reporters. “NATO’s desire to pull Ukraine into its orbit remains a threat to us.”
Sanctions
The United Kingdom issued a temporary licence allowing companies to continue doing business with Lukoil International, a subsidiary of Russia’s sanctioned Lukoil, which is based in Austria. The licence, effective until February 26, permits payments and other transactions under certain conditions, including that funds due to Lukoil remain frozen.
Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said the European Union’s plan to use frozen Russian state assets to help Ukraine stay solvent could endanger the chances for a potential peace deal to end the nearly four-year war.
“Hastily moving forward on the proposed reparations loan scheme would have, as a collateral damage, that we as EU are effectively preventing reaching an eventual peace deal,” De Wever said in a letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, seen by the Financial Times.
Putin said Russia is preparing a package of retaliatory measures in response to potential seizures of Russian assets in Europe. He warned that any move to confiscate Russian assets would be “a theft of property” and harm the global financial system.
Regional security
A Ukrainian man suspected of coordinating the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipeline in 2022 has arrived in Germany after Italy’s top court approved his extradition last week, German federal prosecutors said. The explosions that destroyed the pipeline in the Baltic Sea three years ago largely severed Russian gas transit to Europe.
Hungarian President Viktor Orban said he plans to hold talks on Friday to ensure that Hungary gets adequate Russian crude and gas supplies, which would also allow it to provide crude to neighbouring Serbia.
Russia said it will shut the Polish consulate in Irkutsk at the end of December in retaliation for Warsaw’s decision to close the Russian consulate in Gdansk.
Russian politics
A Russian military court sentenced eight men to life in prison over their purported role in a deadly Ukrainian truck bomb attack on the bridge that links southern Russia to Crimea.
The eight men, convicted on terrorism charges, were accused of being part of an organised criminal group that helped Ukraine carry out the bombing.
Ukraine’s SBU domestic intelligence agency claimed responsibility for the attack, which in October 2022 ripped through part of the 19km (11.8-mile) bridge, killing five people and damaging what was a key supply route for Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.
