What did 31 December 2025 show about the war's reach?

What did the last day of 2025 reveal about how far the Russo-Ukrainian war reaches? On 31 December 2025, two separate reports gave different answers.

In occupied Kherson Oblast, Russian authorities reported that at least 24 people were killed, including a child, and dozens more injured in a Ukrainian drone attack on a hotel and a restaurant in Khorly. The figures came from Russian authorities, and the town lies in territory Russia occupies.

The second report concerned sanctions rather than the front line. The United States issued a temporary licence allowing Serbia's majority-Russian-owned Naftna Industrija Srbije to resume refinery operations until 23 January, despite sanctions linked to the war.

The two items are unconnected in the reporting, and nothing in them ties one to the other. Taken together, they show the war present in two forms on the same date: as a deadly strike in an occupied part of Ukraine, and as a sanctions question that a Serbian refinery still had to resolve through a short-term American permission.

The licence's expiry date of 23 January set a clear limit on that arrangement.