Home › Security › What happened on 31 December 2025 on the war's margins?
What happened on 31 December 2025 on the war's margins?
Summary
A retrospective on a US sanctions licence for a Serbian refinery and a deadly strike reported in occupied Kherson Oblast.
What did the final day of 2025 show about the reach of the war? On 31 December 2025, two separate reports pointed to its effects far from the main front lines of diplomacy and combat.
In one, the United States issued a temporary licence allowing Naftna Industrija Srbije, Serbia's majority-Russian-owned oil company, to resume refinery operations until 23 January. The licence came despite sanctions linked to the Russo-Ukrainian war. It was time-limited, so the arrangement covered only a few weeks.
In the other, Russian authorities reported that at least 24 people, including a child, were killed and dozens injured in a Ukrainian drone attack on a hotel and a restaurant in Khorly, in Russian-occupied Kherson Oblast, Ukraine. The figures came from Russian authorities.
The two items are unrelated in their circumstances. Together they show that the war's consequences on that date extended to energy sanctions affecting a third country and to casualty claims from occupied territory, and that both were reported on the same day.
