What the news of mid-December 2023 said about a war's reach
A look back at reports from 13 to 16 December 2023, from Kyiv to the Romanian border and a village council in Zakarpattia.
What did the days leading up to 18 December 2023 show about how far the war's effects reached? Reports from 13 to 16 December pointed in several directions at once: the capital, the front in the south, a NATO member's border region and a local council in western Ukraine.
On 13 December, a Russian ballistic missile attack in Kyiv injured more than 50 people. It was part of the Russian strikes against infrastructure that marked the period.
On 14 December, Romania said a Russian drone had crashed on its territory, leaving a crater in Grindu, in Tulcea county, near the Ukrainian border. Romanian Air Force F-16s and German Air Force Eurofighter Typhoons conducted joint patrols in response to the violation of NATO airspace.
On 16 December, Russia said two civilians had been killed and two others injured in a Ukrainian missile strike on the Russian-occupied village of Nova Maiachka in Kherson Raion.
Not every event was a battlefield one. On 15 December, a councillor threw grenades during a session of the Keretsky village council, killing one person and wounding 26. The attacker was also severely wounded. The incident was a reminder that local government bodies, which carry much of Ukraine's public life, were also exposed to violence unrelated to missile fire.
Abroad, a U.S. court on 14 December sentenced Charles McGonigal, a former FBI agent, to more than four years in prison for violating U.S. sanctions on Russia, including laundering money for oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
Taken together, these reports from the days before 18 December 2023 showed a conflict that touched civilians on both sides of the front line, prompted a NATO response near Ukraine's border and was tied to enforcement of sanctions far from the battlefield.
