The President's Daily Brief
PDB Afternoon Bulletin | December 12th, 2025: Kyiv’s Biggest Drone Attack Yet & Trump Targets Illicit Oil
12 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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It's Friday, the 12th of December. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, as pressure mounts on Kiev to make concessions, Ukraine, well, answers with force. Hundreds of drones slam into Russia in the largest attack of the war, reaching all the way to a critical oil platform in the Caspian Sea.
I'll have those details later in the show. The latest news on that dramatic seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, as reports indicate that the Trump administration is planning more actions against the illicit oil trade in the Caribbean. But first, today's afternoon spotlight.
Despite repeated claims that Russia is now holding all the cards in this war and efforts by the White House to pressure Kyiv into accepting territorial concessions, Ukraine continues to prove that it is very much still in the fight and capable of landing powerful blows that force Moscow onto the defensive.
Over the past 24 hours, Kiev launched what Ukrainian officials and independent analysts are calling the largest drone attack of the entire war. Hundreds of attack drones were unleashed in a coordinated operation, stretching across vast distances of Russian territory, reaching from Moscow all the way down to the Caspian Sea.
Russian authorities say their air defenses intercepted dozens of drones, including at least 15 that were headed toward Moscow itself. Flights were temporarily disrupted at major airports, and air defense systems were activated across multiple regions. It's an unmistakable sign that Ukraine's drone campaign continues to stretch Russia's defenses thin.
But the most consequential strike didn't occur near the Kremlin. It came hundreds of miles away, deep inside Russia's energy heartland. Ukrainian drones struck a Lukoil-operated offshore oil platform in the Caspian Sea, nearly 1,000 miles away from the front lines. It's an extraordinary escalation in Kyiv's long-running campaign against Russian energy infrastructure.
According to reporting, the attack scored at least four hits on the rig, forced the shutdown of production at more than 20 wells, and halted operations on one of Russia's most important offshore assets.
Now, here at the PDB, we've been closely tracking Ukraine's sustained efforts to degrade Russia's war economy, targeting refineries, fuel depots, export terminals, and Moscow's so-called shadow fleet of tankers used to skirt sanctions and keep oil flowing to global markets.
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Chapter 2: What are the details of Kyiv's largest drone attack on Russia?
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Chapter 3: How did Ukraine's drone campaign evolve during the war?
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We're learning more about the Skipper, the tanker that the US seized off the coast of Venezuela this week, and it appears that the vessel was actively engaging in sanctions evasion. I know, that's shocking. As a brief reminder, US forces intensified their pressure campaign against the Maduro regime on Wednesday, seizing the sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela.
It belongs to Iran's so-called shadow fleet, used to evade international sanctions, and is reportedly linked to a much larger international oil smuggling network that facilitates shipments for terrorist organizations, including Hezbollah and Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force. So what put the ship on the Pentagon's radar this week?
Well, according to new satellite analysis reviewed by ABC News, the skipper wasn't just quietly shuttling illicit crude. The ship was allegedly manipulating its own AIS transponder position data, broadcasting false locations as it approached Venezuelan waters ahead of its capture.
Analysts told ABC that the ship's reported coordinates did not match its observed track on satellite imagery, suggesting deliberate efforts to mask its movements. This tactic, known as spoofing, has become a staple of the sanctions evasion playbook for vessels carrying oil from Iran and Russia and increasingly Venezuela.
For example, data from the Skipper placed the vessel off the coast of Guyana to Venezuela's east throughout November and early December, when, in fact, it was seen in satellite imagery loading some 1.1 million barrels of crude from a number of Venezuelan oil terminals during that time.
For investigators, the discrepancy between what the ship claimed about its location and where it actually was provided a red flag that helped trigger the operation. And it's hard to downplay the significance of that operation, as the seizure represents one of the most aggressive maritime enforcement actions that Washington has taken in the region in years.
It's worth noting that many tankers engaging in gray market oil trades from Iran and Russia have relied on the assumption that the U.S. would hesitate to seize foreign-flagged vessels at sea, but the Skipper case obviously challenges that assumption. and it might not be a one-off event.
According to sources that spoke with Reuters, the Trump administration is preparing to seize additional tankers believed to be carrying Venezuelan oil or operating on behalf of Maduro-aligned networks linked to countries targeted by U.S. sanctions, particularly Iran. U.S.
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Chapter 4: What impact does the Caspian Sea strike have on Russia's energy infrastructure?
So, until then, stay informed, Stay safe. Stay cool.
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