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Vladimir Putin has refused to directly engage with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, calling him “illegitimate”.
The Russian president said Ukraine will have to find a legal way to hold the peace talks as Kyiv has not held any elections since Russia started the war on its smaller neighbour.
In response, Mr Zelensky said the Russian leader’s statements showed he was afraid of talks and sought to keep the conflict going indefinitely.
On the war front, more than a hundred drones targeted Russian oil facilities, including a nuclear power plant, in a major Ukrainian attack this morning, Russian officials said. The Russian defence ministry said that 104 drones were involved in raids across western Russia, 11 of which were destroyed over the Smolensk region.
This comes as North Korea is set to send more than 100 artillery systems to be used against Ukraine’s forces in the war, officials in Kyiv said.
A close ally of Russia, North Korea is about to double the number of artillery systems it has deployed to Russia’s Kursk region, said Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief.
Oscar Jenkins, an Australian soldier who was previously feared dead in Russia, is alive and in Russian custody, Australia’s foreign minister Penny Wong has announced.
Mr Jenkins, 32, signed up to fight for Ukraine against Russian forces before he was taken captive. A video showed him with hands bound and being struck by a Russian interrogator earlier this month, sparking fears for his life.
“The Australian government has received confirmation from Russia that Oscar Jenkins is alive and in custody,” Ms Wong said today.
Australia still holds “serious concerns for Mr Jenkins as a prisoner of war,” she said. “We have made clear to Russia in Canberra and in Moscow that Mr Jenkins is a prisoner of war and Russia is obligated to treat him in accordance with international humanitarian law, including humane treatment,” the minister said.
A foreign soldier who trained him said earlier this month that he believed Mr Jenkins had been executed in captivity to make an example of him, according to a report by The Sydney Morning Herald on 14 January.
Arpan Rai29 January 2025 06:21
More than a hundred drones hit Russian oil facilities, including a nuclear power plant, in a major Ukrainian attack this morning, Russian officials said.
The Russian defence ministry said that 104 drones were involved in raids across western Russia, 11 of which were destroyed over the Smolensk region.
The Smolensk nuclear power plant, the largest power generating plant in Russia’s northwest, was working normally, RIA state news agency reported, citing the plant’s press service.
Air defence systems destroyed a drone attempting to strike a nuclear power facility in the western region of Smolensk bordering Belarus, governor Vasily Anokhin said on the Telegram app.
In total, Russian air defences destroyed drones over nine regions, nearly half of them over Kursk where Russian forces are fighting to drive out Ukrainian troops that have occupied several villages.
Arpan Rai29 January 2025 06:04
Debris from a destroyed Russian drone fell near a metro station in the Darnytskyi district of Kyiv this morning, said mayor Vitali Klitschko.
“All emergency services heading to the site,” Mr Klitschko said on his Telegram channel. Kyiv was under an air raid alert for about half an hour starting at 3.55am GMT, according to data from Ukraine’s air force.
Arpan Rai29 January 2025 05:30
Tom Watling29 January 2025 05:00
North Korea is set to send more than 100 artillery systems to be used against Ukraine’s forces in the war, officials in Kyiv said.
A close ally of Russia, North Korea is about to double the number of artillery systems it has deployed to Russia’s Kursk region, said Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief.
North Korea has already given at least 120 North Korean-made M1989 Koksans, as well as another 120 of its M1991 multiple-launch rocket systems, the Ukrainian military intelligence official said.
Pyongyang was preparing to send another tranche of at least the same amount, Lt Gen Budanov said, adding that open source analysts have spotted some already on their way to the war.
The 170mm M1989 Koksan howitzers were manufactured by North Korea to attack the South Korean capital in the event of a war. It is among the longest-range artillery systems in the world.
Arpan Rai29 January 2025 04:39
Tom Watling29 January 2025 04:00
The US-funded aid programs around the world have begun firing staff and shutting down or preparing to stop their operations, as the Trump administration’s unprecedented freeze on almost all foreign assistance brings their work to a sudden halt.
Most US funding for Ukraine’s military isn’t affected. Volodymyr Zelensky says the US freeze doesn’t affect vital American support to his military as it fights invading Russian forces. That’s mostly true.
The only military aid the State Department is responsible for and thus is covered by the pause is foreign military financing and international military education and training. There are other baskets for UN peacekeeping operations and demining programs.
Most of Ukraine’s military aid, however, has come from the Pentagon. That includes a program drawing from existing arms stocks and another called the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which is used to pay for weapons contracts that would not be delivered for a year or more.
But civilian programs vital to Ukraine’s war effort do come from the State Department. There’s no word of exemptions for them. That includes salary support that the US provides to keep Ukraine’s government running despite the war’s damage to the economy.
Money for Ukraine’s veterans and other programs wasn’t spared The US has sent stop-work orders to wartime civilian programs it supports in Ukraine. That includes Veteran Hub, a nonprofit that runs a crisis hotline getting up to 1,300 calls a month from Ukrainian veterans who need social and psychological support.
Arpan Rai29 January 2025 03:36
After months of heavy fighting, Russian forces claimed control of the town of Velyka Novosilka in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk on Monday. The town is small, with a prewar population of only 5,000, but it has served as a key assembly area for offensive and defensive Ukrainian operations in the wider area, says Frontelligence Insight, a Ukrainian war tracker. It is also a key route linking towns further east to the rest of unoccupied Ukraine.
Tom Watling maps the war frontline in Ukraine’s Donetsk:
Arpan Rai29 January 2025 03:22