Home › Opinion › What happened on 6 December 2024 across the region
What happened on 6 December 2024 across the region
Summary
A security pact in Minsk, deadly missile strikes in Ukraine and a Baltic incident formed one tense stretch of the war.
What did the war look like on 6 December 2024? It appeared in three places at once: a signing ceremony in Minsk, missile strikes on Ukrainian cities, and a confrontation over the Baltic Sea two days earlier.
A pact in Minsk
On 6 December 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko signed an agreement in Minsk. It offered security guarantees to Belarus, including nuclear security and the possible use of Russian nuclear weapons to repel aggression.
The agreement came during a war in which senior Russian politicians, including Putin, had made statements widely seen as nuclear blackmail. As reported at the time, commentators discussed whether Russia might use tactical nuclear weapons. Some scholars warned that the invasion was the type of scenario most likely to trigger a nuclear war in Europe. The British historian Lawrence Freedman argued that the risk was low, because in Putin's mind nuclear use was reserved for contingencies in which the state faced an existential threat.
Strikes on Ukrainian cities
The same day, a Russian missile strike killed ten civilians in Zaporizhzhia and injured four others, including two children. Separately, a missile attack on an administrative building in Kryvyi Rih killed two people and injured 16.
Both cities lie in the south of Ukraine, where Russian forces had pushed in from occupied Crimea since the full-scale invasion began on 24 February 2022, entering Kherson, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.
A warning at sea
On 4 December 2024, a Russian Navy warship fired warning shots at a German helicopter conducting a routine patrol over the Baltic Sea. The pilots had to make evasive manoeuvres. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock condemned the incident as part of Russia's hybrid warfare against NATO.
One picture
Taken together, these events spanned several fronts of the confrontation: the formal extension of nuclear guarantees to an ally, the continuing toll on Ukrainian civilians, and friction between Russian forces and a NATO member's aircraft in the Baltic. Each unfolded in a different place, yet all fell within the same days of December 2024.
