Ukraine has slightly expanded their control over central/western Krynky, slowly pushing towards Kozachi Laheri. But overall, the situation remains pretty stable, with Russia successfully preventing Ukraine from breaking out of Krynky. There are also no indications that Ukraine has managed to bring over a significant amount of heavy equipment. For now, they must rely on artillery on the western side of the river and at most, a small number of vehicles that they may have brought across the river. Bless if Russia's drone and artillery capabilities can be degraded further, Ukraine will continue to an have a difficult time with bringing over the heavy equipment necessary for a larger push.
Avdiivka remains the major focal point of the front, with it being the primary point of Russia's offensive. And it remains pretty stalemated. Russia has been unable to seize Stepove, and another attempt to advance to the coke plant ended in failure once again.
Ukraine surprisingly captured some hills (well, a garbage dump) just to the west of Horlivka, which is one of the largest cities in Ukraine occupied by Russia. The city has been under occupied since 2014, and sits about half way between Bakhmut and the city of Donetsk. Russia is believed to have ultimately recaptured their lost territory, but it has revealed a surprising weakness in Russia's lines. The area is likely incredibly well fortified but is probably suffering from a major shortage of troops, with a heavy concentration of Russian troops located around the relatively close Avdiivka. While the specifics are quite different, I am reminded of when Ukraine sent a solitary remote controlled vehicle surprisingly far through Russia's defenses by Verbove. Several weeks later, Ukraine successfully breached Russia's defensive line here, though they ultimately proved to be unable to exploit their breach.
Unwelcome news has hit Rinat Akhmetov, the wealthiest Ukrainian citizen. A major leak of Culprit financial files has made it known that Akhmetov took out a loan for over $400 million USD from a Russian bank prior to 2014. He also acquired properties through shell companies. Akhmetov also was heavily involved with Russian banks via Cyprus with his company DTEK, one of the major energy companies in Ukraine. Akhmetov unhelpfully said that these activities were "standard practice" for Ukrainians at the time. It is worth noting that he is suing Russia for damages; his net worth has plummeted since the invasion, as some properties he holds (such as the Azovstal plant in Mariupol) have been demolished by fighting.
In other financial news, Greek authorities have detained an unnamed Ukrainian citizen. The unknown person is accused of embezzling funds worth over a million USD from the Urainian military in the spring of 2022, making off with the money instead of delivering military equipment they Ukraine was attempting to procure.
A former Ukrainian MP, Iryna Farion, is being investigated by Ukrainian authorities. She holds far right views and earlier this month drew a lot of pushback when she said she didn't view Russian-speaking Ukrainians as Ukrainians... which includes Zelenskyy himself, as Russian is his mother tongue. A Ukrainian student in Crimea expressed support for her views, and was then promptly detained by Russia, which caused further backlash against Farion because she had published the student's letters of support before his arrest. She was fired today from her position at a university in Lviv, as she faces possible charges of violating the privacy and equality of citizens, as well as dishonoring the Ukrainian military. Ukraine frequently faces accusations (mostly from Russia) that they are either tolerant of or openly accepting of the far-right. The investigations into Farion may weaken that narrative.
Armenia has now, officially, ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Russia angrily decried the move, declaring that Armenia only did so for political reasons. Armenia also declared that they will be skipping the next CSTO summit (to be held in Minsk, Belarus), and Russia had a similar response, declaring that the move was "orchestrated" by the west. Belarus' Lukashenko made a public appeal to Armenia, requesting that they should stop entertaining the notion to leave the bloc. Armenia has expressed great frustration with the CSTO not only for their failures with handling Azerbaijan's conquest of Artsakh, but for their continued waffling on tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan. For instance, Kazakhstan's government is of the opinion that the border isn't demarcated, and thus determining their obligation to defend Armenia from an attack by Azerbaijan would be difficult to determine.
In welcome news for Ukraine, the American legislative branch has reached a staggered budget deal which will see a fifth of the government funded through mid January, with the rest retaining funding until the start of February. While the can keeps getting kicked down the road a couple of months at a time, unlike in the aftermath of the last budget crisis, this time there is an actual Speaker of the House. This means that other legislative priorities, such as aid for Ukraine, may actually be able to progress before Congress inevitably gets locked into budget talks once again.