Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events – day 1,064

Here is the situation on Thursday, January 23:

Fighting

• The Ukrainian air force said Russia launched 99 drones towards Ukraine overnight in what has become a daily volley of strikes. The air force said Kyiv’s troops destroyed 65 drones while 30 disappeared from radar. Six regions in Ukraine reported attacks as a result of the drones.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence confirmed Moscow’s forces captured the village of Zapadne in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region. The village is on the western bank of the Oskil River, which had formed the front line between the Kremlin and Kyiv’s armies for a long time.
• Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said Russia had attacked Kyiv’s energy facilities 1,200 times since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, including strikes targeting electricity generation facilities, distribution channels and gas facilities.
• Russian courts upheld the life sentence of Alexander Permyakov, the man convicted of seriously injuring Zakhar Prilepin, a pro-Kremlin writer, by blowing up his car in 2023. Prilepin’s driver was killed in the bombing.
• Russian media report that the relatives of some 3,000 Russian civilians trapped in the Sudzha district of the Ukraine-occupied Kursk region began a coordinated social media campaign appealing for help to find their loved ones.

Politics and Diplomacy

• German news agency Deutsche Presse Agentur (DPA) has reported that $8.48bn of the $13.8bn worth of arms and military equipment approved for export by Berlin in 2024 is headed for Ukraine.

A resident stands near a building damaged by Russian military strikes in the town of Pokrovsk, in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, on January 21, 2025 [Inna Varenytsia/Reuters]

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with German opposition leader Friedrich Merz and discussed “ways to further advance a just peace for Ukraine”. Zelenskyy said they also talked about global challenges and the situation on the front lines.
• Zelenskyy also met with several other global leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Discussions centred around defence and security support for Kyiv, increased sanctions against Russia, mediating the return of 53 children forcibly taken from Ukraine by Russia, and the possibility of “lasting and sustainable peace”.
• Turkish news agency Anadolu Agency quoted Finnish President Alexander Stubb as saying in Davos that any Ukraine peace deal must involve both Kyiv and European allies, and warned against rushed settlements that could later be seen as a betrayal of Kyiv’s sovereignty.
• Russia’s Interfax news agency reported that Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Moscow only sees a small window of opportunity to forge an agreement with the new United States administration under President Donald Trump.
• Trump gave an ultimatum to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to “stop this ridiculous war” with Ukraine “now” or face tariffs and sanctions on “anything sold by Russia to the United States”. He threatened similar consequences for Russia’s allies as well.
• Russia’s deputy UN ambassador, Dmitry Polyanskiy, responded to Trump’s threats, saying Moscow would have to see what Trump means by a “deal”. Polyanskiy also said although Trump is not responsible for the US’s “malicious anti-Russia” policy, he now holds power to put an end to it.

• Anadolu Agency reported Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as saying that Moscow’s war with Ukraine cannot be stopped without addressing and eliminating the root causes. Lavrov reportedly said the Kremlin will only engage in talks about “reliable, legally binding agreements to make it impossible to violate them”.
• Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the reconstruction of Ukraine, which is estimated to have sustained $626bn in war damage, would probably be the “project of the century” and an opportunity for the European Union’s economy.

Russian Gas and Oil

• Moscow’s national daily newspaper Kommersant reported that the supply of Russian gas may resume to Moldova’s separatist enclave Transnistria with the help of Cyprus-based Ozbor Enterprises. The company is said to have booked about 3.1 million cubic metres per day of the Russia-designed TurkStream gas pipeline for a month from February 1.
• Russian troops must withdraw from Transnistria for a lasting solution to end the enclave’s energy crisis, the AFP news agency quoted Moldova’s Prime Minister Dorin Recean as saying. Recean also reportedly accused the Kremlin of trying to create instability in Moldova and promote the emergence of a pro-Moscow government.

Regional Security

• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya discussed concerns over North Korea’s “political and security alignment” with Russia, as well as China’s support for the Kremlin’s defence industrial base.
• Kaja Kallas, the foreign commissioner-designate of the EU, warned that “Russia could test the EU’s readiness to defend itself in three to five years”, saying that Europeans “need to wake up”.
• The United Kingdom’s Defence Secretary John Healy said the Royal Navy tracked a Russian spy ship gathering intelligence and mapping the UK’s “critical underwater infrastructure”.
• “We see you. We know what you’re doing, and we will not shy away from robust action to protect this country,” Healy said in a direct warning to Putin.

Source

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Al Jazeera and news agencies