Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late on Tuesday that no one would give peace to his country as a gift, but he believed the United States would stand alongside Kyiv as it fights to stop Russia's 34-month invasion.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday vowed that his country would use 2025 to fight for an end to Russia’s nearly three-year-long invasion by any means necessary. The Ukrainian leader’s address caps a difficult year for the war-battered country which has been fending off a better-resourced Russian army for nearly three years.

Speaking on the 25th anniversary of his rule, President Vladimir V. Putin delivered an upbeat and vague New Year’s Eve message that did not address casualties in Ukraine or rising inflation at home.

President Vladimir Putin told Russians in a New Year address that the country would move forward with confidence in 2025, though he offered no specific promises on the economy or the war in Ukraine. At a time when many ordinary people are worried about rising prices and the central bank's 21% interest rate is squeezing businesses and homebuyers,

Twenty five years ago today, a somewhat undemonstrative technocrat became the acting president of Russia. In a surprise announcement, Boris Yeltsin handed over to Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer whom he had chosen a few months earlier to be his prime minister.