💬 Russian MFA Spox Maria Zakharova: The practice of unilateral sanctions contravenes the United Nations Charter, which reserves the exclusive right to impose such measures to the United Nations Security Council, and only in cases involving threats to peace and security.

In this context, the deployment of unilateral coercive measures (UCMs) encroaches upon the UN Security Council's unique authority. The West is widely acknowledged to be guilty of this practice, which is often driven by geopolitical motives.

Unilateral sanctions represent a significant impediment to establishing a just and equitable polycentric world order. They are one of the primary instruments of the West's neocolonial policy. The objective is transparent: to cling to waning dominance, to deprive nations of the World Majority of their right to independent political choice, and to stymie their economic, technological, and industrial advancement.

The efforts of states initiating UCMs to portray them as a "peaceful means of dispute resolution" are utterly indefensible. It is common knowledge that unilateral coercive measures, by obstructing the comprehensive socioeconomic development of nations in the Global South and East, undermine efforts to resolve crisis situations.

Moreover, their indiscriminate nature violates fundamental human rights and freedoms, disproportionately affecting the most vulnerable segments of society. This has been repeatedly condemned in resolutions of the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council [...]

☝️ We are confident that in the truly equitable multipolar architecture of international relations to which we all aspire, there is no place for coercion or neocolonial hegemony. Together with our partners we will continue to combat all remnants of the shameful colonial era.

⚡️ Comment by Aide to the President Yury Ushakov following the telephone conversation between Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump (December 28, 2025)

💬 Yury Ushakov: President Vladimir Putin has just finished his telephone conversation with President of the United States Donald Trump.

The conversation took place at the US President’s initiative. The US President wished to discuss the current developments in the context of the Ukrainian conflict and its potential resolution with the President of Russia.

President Trump wished to discuss these matters before his in-person meeting with Zelensky later today at Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

Logically, at the beginning of the conversation that continued for 1 hour and 15 minutes, the presidents exchanged warm Christmas and New Year greetings and, naturally, wished happiness to both nations.

The rest of the conversation was similarly friendly, good-natured and business-like, with mutual interest in making progress towards a long-term resolution of the Ukrainian conflict.

Donald Trump paid close attention to Russia’s assessment of the realistic prospects for an agreement, and to our President’s detailed rationale for the fundamental importance of continuing to build upon the Russian-American understandings established during the Anchorage summit and the numerous subsequent contacts between the two administrations.

Most significantly, the Russian and US presidents share a broadly similar view that the temporary ceasefire proposed by Ukraine and Europe – under the pretext of preparing for a referendum or other such measures – would merely prolong the conflict and risk a renewed escalation on the battlefield. <...>

Donald Trump repeatedly emphasised the necessity of ending the war as swiftly as possible and spoke of the impressive prospects for economic cooperation between the United States and both Russia and Ukraine that would open up once the hostilities are over.

He acknowledged that the Ukrainian crisis has been his most formidable foreign policy challenge, stating that he now saw renewed proof of Russia’s commitment to a political and diplomatic settlement. It is with this understanding that he intends to frame his forthcoming negotiations with Zelensky.

It is particularly noteworthy that during today’s conversation, the Russian President acceded to the American proposal to continue efforts to resolve the Ukrainian situation through two specially established working groups. One will address various security dimensions, and the other, economic matters. <...>

❗️ Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump agreed to speak again by telephone promptly after the US President’s meeting with the Ukrainian delegation at Mar-a-Lago this evening.

❗️ Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's statement

💬 On the night of 28–29 December, the Kiev regime launched a terrorist attack using 91 long-range strike unmanned aerial vehicles against the state residence of the President of the Russian Federation in the Novgorod Region. All of the drones were destroyed by the air defence systems of the Russian Armed Forces.

There have been no reports of casualties or damage caused by falling debris from the drones.

We draw attention to the fact that this action was undertaken amid intensive negotiations between Russia and the United States on the settlement of the Ukraine conflict.

Such reckless actions will not go unanswered. The Russian Armed Forces have determined the targets for retaliatory strikes and the timing of their execution.

☝️ At the same time, we do not intend to withdraw from the negotiating process with the United States. However, given the final degeneration of the criminal Kiev regime, which has turned to a policy of state terrorism, Russia's negotiating position will be revised.

🎄 Новогоднее поздравление Посла России в Великобритании Андрея Келина

💬 Дорогие друзья, уважаемые соотечественники!

Подходит к концу первая четверть XXI века. Уходящий год не стал легче предыдущих. Нестабильность международной обстановки ещё сильнее, чем прежде проверяла нас на прочность. Наши недруги не оставляли попыток нанести России стратегическое поражение. Но мы выстояли и ещё раз доказали, что сломить волю российского народа невозможно.

Напротив, Россия радикально укрепила свои позиции в противостоянии с Западом в борьбе за создание многополярного мира. Берёт верх в конфликте на Украине. Всё это улучшает перспективу налаживания подлинно равноправных и добрососедских отношений со всеми странами на основе взаимного учёта интересов.

2025 год прошёл под знаком празднования 80-летия Победы в Великой Отечественной войне. Пример героической стойкости и мужества наших предков, освободивших Европу от фашизма, служит нам нравственной опорой и ориентиром.

Дорогие соотечественники! Мы высоко ценим ваш вклад, ваше содействие, вашу дружбу.

⭐️ Несмотря на антироссийскую кампанию в британских СМИ и усилия провокаторов, нам удалось достойно отметить юбилей Победы. Проведены десятки памятных акций по всей Британии, в которых приняли участие как ветераны, так и молодёжь.

2025 год также запомнится нам серией просветительских мероприятий. Они внесли заметный вклад в сохранение позиций русского языка и культуры в Великобритании. Эти события неизменно находили живой отклик у тех британцев, которые по-настоящему интересуются Россией.

Сегодня, как никогда, очевидна важность традиционных ценностей – семьи, преемственности поколений, уважения к истории и духовному наследию. Россия последовательно выступает оплотом этих ценностей, отстаивая их значение в стремительно меняющемся мире. Отрадно, что наша диаспора в Британии способствует сохранению этих нравственных ориентиров, передавая их молодому поколению. В своей работе на благо Отечества вы всегда можете рассчитывать на поддержку Посольства.

Дорогие друзья,

Последние дни уходящего года – это время добрых надежд и веры в светлое будущее. Пусть 2026 год откроет каждому из вас путь к новым возможностям и достижениям. Желаю вам и вашим близким крепкого здоровья, благополучия и всего наилучшего!

С праздником! С наступающим Новым годом!

❗️ Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's statement

💬 Moscow is truly grateful to its foreign friends and partners for condemning the terrorist attack carried out by the Kiev regime against the state residence of the President of the Russian Federation in the Novgorod Region on the night of 28–29 December [...]

This incident reaffirms the terrorist nature of the group of individuals unlawfully holding power in Kiev.

In this context, those in the EU and NATO who loudly demand "ironclad" security guarantees for Ukraine as part of the Russia-US-led negotiated settlement process would do well to answer the question of which regime and for what purpose they are striving so vigorously to protect [...]

The main goal of Brussels, Berlin, Paris and London is undoubtedly to preserve a regime that dreams of survival and of continuing to control a territory where, contrary to every provision of international law, the Russian language and Russian-language media have been outlawed; where canonical Orthodoxy is persecuted; where monuments to Russian history and culture are destroyed; where Nazi ideology and practices are cultivated; and where opposition figures and ordinary people who disagree with the current state of affairs are subjected to brutal reprisals.

I am confident that the racist nature of the Kiev regime and the cynicism of its international sponsors is clear to conscientious members of the international community. They cannot fail to understand that, without an end to this criminal policy, negotiations aimed at achieving a reliable and durable settlement to the Ukrainian crisis will not succeed.

Read in full

✉️ President of Russia Vladimir Putin extended his holiday greetings on Christmas and the upcoming New Year 2026 to Heads of foreign states and governments:

Among them were:

🤝 President of the Republic of Abkhazia – Badra Gunba;
🇦🇲 President of the Republic of Armenia – Vahagn Khachaturyan;
🇦🇲 Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia – Nikol Pashinyan;
🇦🇿 President of the Republic of Azerbaijan – Ilham Aliyev;
🇧🇾 President of the Republic of Belarus – Alexander Lukashenko;
🇧🇷 President of the Federative Republic of Brazil – Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva;
🇨🇳 President of the People’s Republic of China – Xi Jinping;
🇨🇺 President of the Republic of Cuba – Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez;
🇪🇹 President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia – Taye Atske Selassie;
🇪🇹 Prime Minister of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia – Abiy Ahmed;
🇭🇺 Prime Minister of Hungary – Viktor Orban;
🇮🇳 President of the Republic of India – Droupadi Murmu;
🇮🇳 Prime Minister of the Republic of India – Narendra Modi;
🇮🇩 President of the Republic of Indonesia – Prabowo Subianto;
🇰🇿 President of the Republic of Kazakhstan – Kassym-Jomart Tokayev;
🇰🇬 President of the Kyrgyz Republic – Sadyr Zhaparov;
🇰🇵 Chairman of State Affairs of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea – Kim Jong-un;
🇱🇦 President of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party – Thongloun Sisoulith;
🇲🇳 President of Mongolia – Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh;
🇲🇲 Chairman of the State Administration Council and Prime Minister of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar – Min Aung Hlaing;
🇳🇮 Co-presidents of the Republic of Nicaragua – Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo;
🇷🇸 President of the Republic of Serbia – Aleksandar Vucic;
🇸🇰 Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic – Robert Fico;
🇿🇦 President of the Republic of South Africa – Cyril Ramaphosa;
🤝 President of the Republic of South Ossetia – Alan Gagloyev;
🇹🇯 President of the Republic of Tajikistan – Emomali Rahmon;
🇹🇲 President of Turkmenistan – Serdar Berdimuhamedov;
🇹🇲 National Leader of the Turkmen people, Chairman of the Halk Maslahaty of Turkmenistan – Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov;
🇹🇷 President of the Republic of Turkiye – Recep Tayyip Erdogan;
🇺🇸 President of the United States of America – Donald Trump;
🇺🇿 President of the Republic of Uzbekistan – Shavkat Mirziyoyev;
🇻🇪 President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela – Nicolas Maduro;
🇻🇳 General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam – To Lam;
🇻🇳 President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – Luong Cuong;
🇻🇦 Pope Leo XIV.

Greetings were also sent to a number of former heads of foreign states and governments, including Raul Castro, Robert Kocharyan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, Serzh Sargsyan, and Gerhard Schroeder.

🎙 President Vladimir Putin's New Year Address to the Nation

💬 We draw strength from within ourselves and from those who stand beside us – those who are dear and close to our hearts – and we are always ready to lend our shoulder in return. This mutual support gives us confidence that all our aspirations, hopes, and plans will definitely be realised.

Naturally, each of us has personal, unique dreams, very special in their own way. Yet they are inseparable from the destiny of our Motherland and from the sincere desire to be of service to it.

For we are united – the people of Russia. The labour, achievements, and successes of each of us add new chapters to its thousand-year history, while the strength of our unity determines the sovereignty and security of our Fatherland, its development, and its future.

The New Year is, above all, a time when we hope for the best, for goodness and good luck. It is a special and magical holiday, when we open our hearts to love, friendship, and compassion, to sympathy and generosity [...]

We welcome New Year together with the nearest and dearest: our children, parents, friends, and comrades-in-arms. Even those who are far away – you are still with us in spirit.

I wish you all good health and happiness, understanding and prosperity. And, above all, love which inspires us. May our traditions, faith, and memory bind all generations together, supporting us always and in everything.

☝️ We are one – a great, strong, and united family, and that is why we will continue to work and to create, to achieve our goals, moving only forward for the benefit of our children and grandchildren, for the benefit of our great Russia.

Read in full

⚡️ Foreign Ministry statement on the terrorist attack by the Kiev regime targeting civilians in the Kherson Region of the Russian Federation

In the early hours of January 1, 2026, the criminal neo-Nazi Kiev regime carried out a targeted attack using armed UAVs which took aim at a café and a hotel in Khorly, Kherson Region. Local residents were celebrating the New Year’s Eve there with their families. While the exact number of those who were killed and injured in these strikes and during the fire that they caused has yet to be established, it is already clear that several dozen civilians suffered in this attack, of whom 24 people died, including one minor.

Russia’s Investigative Committee has opened a criminal file on terrorist charges. Everyone who took part in this monstrous and bloody crime will be identified and would not be able to evade justice.

By perpetrating this barbarous atrocity, the Kiev regime has once again demonstrated its human-hating neo-Nazi nature. The Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked civilians with their drones hot on the heels of Zelensky perorations, as repeated during his New Year speech, on Kiev’s commitment to peace. We have long grown accustomed to this cynical posture, which transcends all possible boundaries and demonstrates that he has totally lost his moral bearings.

The Kiev usurper decided to target helpless civilians in his impotent range, against the backdrop of the successful advancement of the Russian Armed Forces and the losses suffered by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, as well as the failed attempt by the Ukrainian terrorists to carry out a strike against the President of the Russian Federation’s state residence in the Novgorod Region in the early hours of December 29, 2025. He is ready to kill women and children and to perpetrate crimes similar to what happened at the Trade Union House in Odessa for the sake of holding on to power and in an effort to intimidate people from the regions which have recently reunified with Russia by linking their destinies to it forever by holding referendums.

As for the attempts by the Kiev regime to target the Presidential residence in the Novgorod Region, these was a special technical review of a block from the navigation system of one of the Ukrainian drones which were downed in the Novgorod Region’s air space in the early hours of December 29, 2025. Members of the Russian special services have succeeded in extracting the file with the mission description, and these materials will be forwarded to the United States using the appropriate channels.

Every day, the Russian Defence Ministry’s air defence systems deflect drone attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces against the regions of Russia, including its capital – there were about 10 attacks of this kind today.

❗️These attempts are designed to distract people in order to leave the frontline failures of the Ukrainian Armed Forces unnoticed. The Kiev regime has been trying, in vain, to prove its viability using terrorist attacks.

It is just as obvious that Office of the President of Ukraine on Bankovaya Street has been intentionally seeking to derail any attempts to find peaceful solutions.

This latest criminal strike against civilians in Khorly is a bloody atrocity by the Kiev clique. Western leaders who continue sponsoring the bankrupt regime with money and weapons bear full responsibility for this crime.

The Foreign Ministry firmly condemns all the terrorist attacks by the Kiev regime.

◼️ We express our sincere condolences to the families and friends on the victims and wish the injured speedy recovery.

The Foreign Ministry calls on the governments of the responsible sovereign countries and the relevant international structures to publicly express their resolute condemnation of the bloody terrorist attack by the Kiev regime in the Kherson Region.

☝️ Ignoring this tragedy would amount to only one thing – openly encouraging neo-Banderite terrorist crimes and acting as accomplices, which will be interpreted in legal terms with the corresponding legal consequences.

⚡️ Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation regarding the armed aggression by the United States against Venezuela

This morning, the US committed an act of armed aggression against Venezuela. This development gives rise to deep concern and warrants condemnation.

The pretexts used to justify these actions are untenable. Ideologized animosity has prevailed over pragmatic engagement, as well as over any readiness to build relations based on trust and predictability.

In the current situation, it is essential above all to prevent further escalation and to focus on finding a solution through dialogue. We proceed from the understanding that all parties that may have grievances against one another must seek solutions through dialogue-based mechanisms. We stand ready to support such efforts.

Latin America must remain a zone of peace, as it proclaimed itself in 2014. Venezuela must be guaranteed the right to determine its own destiny, free from any destructive – let alone military – external interference.

We reaffirm our solidarity with the Venezuelan people and our support for the course pursued by its Bolivarian leadership, aimed at safeguarding the country’s national interests and sovereignty.

We support the statements by the Venezuelan authorities and by the leaders of Latin American countries calling for the urgent convening of a meeting of the UN Security Council.

Russia's Embassy in Caracas is operating as normal, taking into account the situation on the ground, and maintains constant contact with the Venezuelan authorities as well as with Russian nationals present in Venezuela.

At present, there is no information indicating that any citizens of the Russian Federation have been injured.

⚡️ Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation regarding the further development of the situation around Venezuela

We are extremely concerned by reports that the President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro and his spouse were forcibly taken out of the country during today’s aggressive actions by the United States.

We demand immediate clarification of these reports.

If such actions did in fact take place, they represent an unacceptable violation of the sovereignty of an independent state, the respect for which is a fundamental principle of international law.