Here are the key developments on the 1,063rd day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Here is the situation on Wednesday, January 22:
Fighting
- The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia launched four missiles and 131 drones towards Ukraine overnight. The Air Force also said that 72 of the drones were destroyed while 59 disappeared without reaching their targets.
- Moscow’s Ministry of Defence said its troops intercepted and destroyed 55 Ukrainian drones in six Russian regions overnight. Six drones were downed in Voronezh where, according to the region’s Governor Aleksandr Gusev, falling debris started a blaze just six days after remnants of another intercepted drone triggered an earlier fire. No injuries were reported.
- Kyiv’s military claimed responsibility for attacking an aviation manufacturing plant in Russia’s Smolensk region where “combat aircraft[s] are being modernised and manufactured”, as well as an attack on Voronezh which resulted in a fuel depot fire. Ukraine’s General Staff said the attacks were coordinated between drone units and special forces.
- Russian state news agency TASS said Moscow’s forces had seized eastern Ukraine’s Vovkove village, just 10km (6.2 miles) southwest of Pokrovsk city, a key supply hub for Kyiv’s troops. Moscow’s army also captured Shevchenko earlier, another village close to the hub, TASS reported.
- Russia’s Orenburg regional authorities told residents to take shelter from a possible Ukrainian drone attack. Russian strategic missile force sites are located in the region.
- The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said it detained the Ukrainian army’s chief psychiatrist over alleged corruption. The suspect is accused of failing to disclose about $1m in “unjustified assets”, which authorities believe were accumulated since the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.
- Russia’s Army Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov visited a tank division and a motorised rifle brigade fighting near the Ukrainian supply hub in Pokrovsk. Footage showed Gerasimov arriving in a helicopter and awarding medals to soldiers.
- Moscow’s air defence units destroyed seven Ukrainian drones over Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, as well as nine over Rostov in southern Russia. No casualties or damage were reported.
- Some 229 Ukrainian civilians still remain in the city of Chasiv Yar, which is under heavy Russian fire, the AFP news agency quoted a Kyiv military spokesperson as saying. Many of those still in the city are either elderly or disabled, the AFP reported.
Politics & Diplomacy
- United States President Donald Trump said he planned to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin and told reporters that Putin was “destroying Russia” by refusing to strike a ceasefire deal with Ukraine. Trump said he thought “Russia’s going to be in big trouble” and expressed concern for Moscow’s economy.
- Trump warned Putin that he would impose new sanctions on Russia if the Kremlin refused to negotiate a ceasefire deal with Ukraine. Trump also said the US was looking into sending weapons to Ukraine but added that the European Union should do more to support Kyiv.
- Chinese President Xi Jinping held a video call with Putin during which the pair discussed the outlook for a potential peace deal to end Moscow’s war with Ukraine, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said. The two leaders also touched on issues relating to the Korean Peninsula, the Middle East, Syria and Taiwan, Ushakov said.
- Turkish news agency Anadolu Ajansi quoted Ushakov as saying that the Trump administration had yet to contact Moscow regarding a meeting. “We are ready,” he reportedly said.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, told delegates that Europe must establish itself as a strong global leader, develop a joint defence policy, and be willing to increase defence spending to guarantee peace and security for itself and others.
- In his speech, Zelenskyy also questioned Trump’s commitment to NATO and European security, adding that Ukraine was working to set up a meeting with the US president.
- Zelenskyy said Ukraine would not bow to Russian demands of downsizing Kyiv’s military capacity in any potential future peace agreement. “This is what he wants. We will not allow this to happen,” Zelenskyy said in Davos.
- Zelenskyy also told delegates in Davos that a minimum of 200,000 European peacekeepers would be needed as part of any settlement to end the war with Russia. “Otherwise, it’s nothing,” he said.
- TASS reported that Putin held a phone call with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. They are said to have discussed joint projects between both countries and the situation in the Middle East and Ukraine.
