White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, discussed improving Kyiv’s position in its war with Russia and ensuring it enters any future negotiations from a position of strength, a White House spokesperson said.

Russian president Vladimir Putin appointed Alexander Khinshtein acting governor of the Kursk region on Thursday, saying “crisis management” was needed in the area, which has been partly occupied by Ukrainian forces since August.

Mr Putin was shown in a clip posted on the Kremlin website offering the post to Mr Khinshtein, a journalist and veteran member of the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament.

“I would like to offer you the position of acting governor of Kursk region, as at this time crisis management is needed there, in view of the situation occurring there,” Mr Putin told Mr Khinstein.

“And as the territory is being liberated from the enemy, of course much will have to be done to restore housing and communal services and to restore the economy of the territory as a whole as well as that area now being liberated by our troops.”

Mr Putin said Mr Khinshtein, in addition to his experience in the legislature, had acted for two years as an adviser to Russia’s National Guard and that experience in the security forces “will have to be used to achieve the tasks that lie before you”.

Canada said it is outlawing another 324 firearm varieties — guns the public safety minister said belong on the battlefield, not in the hands of hunters or sport shooters.

Ottawa also said it is working with the government of Ukraine to see how the guns can be donated to support the fight against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The move follows the May 2020 ban of 1,500 makes and models of firearms, a number that grew to more than 2,000 by November of this year as new variants were identified.

The latest restriction, announced Thursday by public safety minister Dominic LeBlanc, follows expressions of concern from gun-control advocates that many assault-style firearms were not included in the 2020 ban.

“This means these firearms can no longer be used,” Mr LeBlanc said.

Defence minister Bill Blair said Canada approached Ukrainian authorities, who expressed interest in some of the guns.

“Every bit of assistance we can offer to the Ukrainians is one step toward their victory,” Mr Blair said.

The head of Britain’s armed forces has warned that the world stands at the cusp of a “third nuclear age,” defined by multiple simultaneous challenges and weakened safeguards that kept previous threats in check.

Admiral Tony Radakin, chief of the defence staff, said Britain needs to recognise the seriousness of the threats it faces, even if there is only a remote chance of Russia launching a direct nuclear attack on the UK or its Nato allies.

While the Cold War saw two superpowers held at bay by nuclear deterrence and the past three decades were characterised by international efforts to restrict the spread of nuclear weapons, the current era is “altogether more complex,” Mr Radakin said Wednesday in a speech to the Royal United Services Institute.

“We are at the dawn of a third nuclear age—” he said. “It is defined by multiple and concurrent dilemmas, proliferating nuclear and disruptive technologies and the almost total absence of the security architectures that went before.”

Challenges faced by the West include Russia’s threat to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine,

China’s drive to build up its nuclear stockpiles, Iran’s failure to cooperate with international efforts to limit its nuclear program, and “erratic behavior” by North Korea, Mr Radakin said.

All of this comes against a backdrop of increasing cyberattacks, sabotage and disinformation campaigns aimed at destabilizing Western countries.

The White House is mulling providing a huge tranche of military assistance to Ukraine in its last-minute strategy to boost Ukraine’s position in the war before the transition to Trump’s administration.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan held a meeting with Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, for more than an hour yesterday.

Mr Sullivan committed to issuing hundreds of thousands of additional artillery rounds, thousands of rockets and hundreds of armored vehicles to Ukraine in the first month of next year, Guardian reported, citing the briefing from the meeting.

The US will also impose a slew of new sanctions on Russian entities in the coming weeks and also support its troops in war by offering to train soldiers.

According to a Reuters report, the president-elect’s team is discreetly crafting a peace plan for Ukraine that would exclude Nato membership and could involve conceding substantial territory to Russia, marking a significant departure from current US policy.

Mr Trump, meanwhile, has frequently claimed he could end the war between Ukraine and Russia within 24 hours.

The Ukrainian air force said that Russia launched 53 drones to attack the country overnight in its latest update today.

Of 53 drones, it shot down 32 and “lost track” of 16, likely due to electronic warfare. Two drones left Ukraine-controlled airspace and headed to Belarus, according to the statement

Scientists have sounded a warning about the alarming rise of “extremely pathogenic” multi-drug resistant bacteria in war-torn Ukraine.

They narrowed in on samples of the bacterium Klebsiella pneumoniae to assess if it had the ability to cause disease in a wider context.

The Kremlin is using state media, fake news sites and social media accounts to push divisive narratives about the war and US president-elect Donald Trump before he returns to the White House next month.

Analysts said the content is aimed at turning sentiment against Ukraine at a crucial time, to reduce US military aid and ensure a Russian victory.

Clips from fake videos purporting to show Ukrainian soldiers burning effigies of Trump and his supporters have circulated among Trump supporters and believers in QAnon, a conspiracy theory that claims Trump is waging war against a satanic cabal of powerful world leaders.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov faced heavy criticism as he arrived at an annual meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Malta.

The Russian diplomat walked out of the hall before US secretary of state Antony Blinken arrived as the two traded accusations in a heated annual gathering.

The Polish foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said: “My message to the Russian delegation is the following: We are not taken in by your lies. We know what you’re doing. You’re trying to rebuild the Russian empire and we will not let you. We will resist you every inch of the way.”

Mr Lavrov hit back by accusing Nato and the EU of politicising the OSCE.

He accused the West of the “reincarnation of the cold war, only now with a much greater risk of a transition to a hot one”.

Western countries including the United States assailed Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov over the war in Ukraine at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Malta.

“My message to the Russian delegation is the following: We are not taken in by your lies. We know what you’re doing. You’re trying to rebuild the Russian empire and we will not let you. We will resist you every inch of the way,” Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski said.

Poland and Ukraine’s foreign ministers were amongst those who left the room for Mr Lavrov’s speech, which is common for international meetings. Mr Lavrov was also absent when US secretary of state Antony Blinken spoke.