This live CNBC blog on the progress of the war in Ukraine on January 31, 2023. See the latest updates here.
Kiev’s hopes were dashed on Tuesday after its biggest military backer, the United States, sent fighter jets to Ukraine.
Asked by reporters on Monday whether he would send F-16 fighter jets to Kiev, US President Joe Biden told reporters: “No. “Biden’s comments come a day after his German counterpart, Foreign Minister Olaf Scholz, also sent planes to Ukraine.
Last week, the United States and Germany gave the green light to send war tanks to Ukraine after months of calls from Kiev.
Hours after learning it would get Western tanks, the Ukrainian government renewed its orders for fighter jets like the American F-16. Kiev said it needed all the firepower it could get sooner rather than later.
Ukraine’s defense minister is expected to meet French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Tuesday as differences appear to emerge between the allies over fighter jets.
Macron said Monday that fighter jets for Ukraine “are not excluded. “But he added that any offer would come with conditions, adding that the craft “will not likely touch Russian soil, but only for the endurance effort. “
Poland also signaled its willingness to send such weapons but said it would act in “full coordination” with its allies, while Lithuania suggested NATO give Ukraine all the weapons it needs. application.
Soldiers stand near the coffin of American volunteer Daniel Whitney Swift the farewell rite at the Latin Cathedral in Lviv. Swift fought against Russia in the ranks of the International Legion under the direction of senior intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.
Swift’s funeral rite was held in the Latin cathedral according to Catholic custom. Daniel’s brother toasted at the farewell in Lviv. After the rite, his mark will be delivered to the United States, where he will be buried.
— Stanislav Ivanov/Global Images Ukraine Getty Images
Russia’s refusal to allow the resumption of box inspections jeopardizes the New START nuclear treaty and weapons between the United States and Russia as a whole, Biden’s management charged.
The conclusion was delivered to Congress and summarized in a State Department statement. This follows months of more positive U. S. testing. UU. de that the two countries could salvage cooperation on strategic nuclear weapons despite heightened tensions over Russia’s war with Ukraine.
U. S. Army site inspectionsThe US and Russia under the New START treaty stopped on both sides due to the spread of the coronavirus in March 2020. The U. S. committee The U. S. and Russia overseeing the implementation of the treaty last stopped in October 2021, but Russia unilaterally suspended cooperation. with the treaty’s inspection provisions in August 2022 in protest against the U. S. U. S. Ukraine is a U. S. citizen.
“Russia’s refusal to facilitate inspection activities prevents the United States from exercising rights under the treaty and threatens the viability of nuclear arms control between the United States and Russia,” the State Department said Tuesday.
Management also blamed Russia for the failure of either country to resume the talks required by the New START Treaty.
– Associated Press
President Joe Biden told reporters he plans to communicate with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy about the military’s long-term aid programs.
“We’re going to talk,” Biden said when asked if he had spoken with Zelenskyy and what he planned to tell him about requests for long-term assistance.
In recent days, Kiev has asked its Western partners for more weapons, fighter jets.
—Amanda Macias
Three ships carrying 166,500 tons of grain and other food products left Ukraine’s ports, said the organization that oversees the country’s export of agricultural products.
The ships are destined for Spain and China and wheat and corn.
The Black Sea Grain Initiative, negotiated in July between Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations, eased the Russian naval blockade and allowed the reopening of 3 key Ukrainian ports.
So far, more than 690 ships have left Ukrainian ports.
—Amanda Macias
Local citizens collect donated firewood through a charitable fund in Stanislav, in the Kherson region.
— Genia Savilov | AFP | fake images
The U. S. Department of Commerce The U. S. has imposed restrictions on seven brands of Iranian drones and on any movement of foreign-made parts that produce drones.
The move bolsters efforts to separate the Russian military from the pieces and resources it wants for its war in Ukraine, the branch said.
“As a result, Russia has fewer places to turn to for military support, as evidenced by its acquisition of drones and its association with pariah states like Iran. We will continue to take effective and coordinated action with our federal firm colleagues and foreign partners. to save their entities around the world from supporting Putin’s horrible war,” Assistant Secretary of Commerce for the Export Administration Thea Rozman Kendler said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Biden’s management announced a series of new sanctions and additional measures for Iran’s aviation and defense sector, as Washington raises the bar in its crusade against Tehran for supplying weapons to Moscow.
—Amanda Macias
More than 7. 9 million Ukrainians have refugees and moved to neighboring countries since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, the U. N. refugee firm estimates.
Nearly five million of those others have sought transient resident prestige in neighboring Western European countries, according to data compiled by the agency.
Poland, a NATO member, has the majority of Ukrainian refugees.
“The escalation of foreign armed confrontation in Ukraine has resulted in civilian casualties and the destruction of civilian infrastructure, forcing others to flee their homes in search of safety, cover and assistance,” the UN refugee firm wrote.
—Amanda Macias
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have agreed on a joint effort to put into effect a 10-point peace formula aimed at resolving Russia’s war in Ukraine by February, Zelenskyy announced.
The Ukrainian president tweeted that he is in “constant contact” with Trudeau about the scenario at the front and the army’s wishes for armored vehicles, artillery and aviation.
“We agreed on joint diplomatic efforts, on the implementation of #PeaceFormula,” Zelenskyy wrote.
Announced at the G-20 in November, Zelensky’s peace formula includes the recovery of Ukraine’s lost territories, the release of all prisoners of war, the withdrawal of Russian troops, a tribunal for those guilty of the confrontation, and promises of security for Ukraine.
—Chelsey Cox
The U. S. Congressional Caucus The U. S. military on Ukraine will discuss Russia’s war at a press conference alongside wounded soldiers.
—Jacob Pramuk
France said it would supply 12 more CAESAR weapons to Ukraine and send around 150 infantrymen to Poland to exercise six hundred Ukrainians per month.
The CAESAR, or CAmion Equipe d’un Système d’ARtillerie, is a French 155 mm self-propelled howitzer gun.
French Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu said he expects about 2,000 Ukrainians to be trained over the summer.
—Amanda Macias
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office had opened an initial investigation in Bakhmut following the death of a boy and a 12-year-old boy in a Russian bombing.
“According to the investigation, on January 31, 2023, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation fired artillery cannons at a residential domain in the city of Bakhmut. A boy and a 12-year-old boy died as a result of the shelling,” he wrote on his Telegram channel.
They added that five civilians were wounded in the attack.
“The prosecutors in the courtroom continue to take all imaginable and appropriate measures to document war crimes committed by representatives of the armed forces of the Russian Federation,” the office added.
—Amanda Macias
Russia’s war destroyed more than 75,000 buildings, adding homes, hospitals and schools, said Yaroslav Brisiuck, deputy director of the project at the Ukrainian embassy in Washington.
“The Russian Federation periodically bombs Ukrainian cities, as the infrastructure destroys the ancient and cultural heritage of Ukraine,” the diplomat once said at the German embassy in Washington.
“More than 50 of Ukraine’s energy systems have been destroyed by Russian missiles and Iranian drones,” Brisiuck added.
—Amanda Macias
A Ukrainian diplomat said his country’s law enforcement had documented more than 64,000 crimes committed by Russian forces since February.
“Russia cannot defeat us on the battlefield, so it has resorted to the strategy of killing civilians. Russian troops commit war crimes against humanity,” said Yaroslav Brisiuck, deputy project leader at the Ukrainian Embassy in the United States. States
Brisiuck said Ukrainian authorities, in partnership with outside investigators, have recorded rape and sexual violence, torture, looting and forced evictions.
“We will have to continue to consolidate efforts on the legal front to repair the rule of law, deliver justice and hold Russia accountable,” he told a debate at the German embassy in Washington.
Brisiuck added that Ukraine has initiated the colossal procedure of litigation for crimes at home and abroad, adding the International Criminal Court.
The Kremlin denies that its troops in Ukraine are civilians or committing war crimes.
—Amanda Macias
After Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022, corporations from major G-7 economies and the European Union announced plans to halt activities in Russia.
However, an earlier report this month from the Swiss University of St. Gallen found that of the 1,404 EU and G7 members active in Russia at the time of the first foray into Ukraine, less than 9% had divested from at least one subsidiary. until November 2022.
The research team noted that those divestment rates were slightly replaced in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Barclays’ European client commodities analysts said that while most of the companies they cover have committed to leaving Russia, few have decided to do so yet. Several companies have told Barclays that there are a number of difficult situations to divest completely.
Read the full story here.
-Elliot Smith
Ukraine will get 120 tanks in a “first wave” of deliveries from a coalition of 12 countries, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Tuesday.
This month, Kiev secured commitments from the West to supply major war tanks to repel Russia’s large-scale invasion, with Moscow making great efforts to achieve incremental progress in eastern Ukraine.
“The tank coalition now has 12 members. I can point out that in the first wave of contributions, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will get between 120 and 140 tanks of Western model,” Kuleba said at a briefing.
The foreign minister said Kiev was handling the scenes to convince more countries to supply tanks at what officials see as a critical moment in the war.
“. . . We continue to work on expanding the number of tank coalition members and expanding the contributions of those who have already committed,” he said.
Kiev plans to launch a primary counteroffensive to retake swaths of territory captured through Russia in the south and east of the country.
The U. S. has told Kiev to suspend those plans until help from the Western military reaches Ukraine. Ukraine also fears that Russia will launch its own major offensive in the coming weeks or months.
— Reuters
Bakhmut in Donetsk remains the key target of Russian forces in Ukraine, a spokesman for the Eastern Group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Serhii Cherevaty, said on a national telethon on Tuesday.
“Bakhmut is still one of the main directions of the enemy’s attack. There they attacked our positions with rocket-propelled artillery 197 times” in the past day, he said, in comments reported via the Ukrinform news agency.
He added that 42 clashes occurred in the same time period with 277 Russians killed and 258 wounded.
Cherevaty said Russian troops were unable to cut off the direction used to supply Ukrainian forces protecting Bakhmut despite repeated attacks.
“So far, they have not been successful. Everything is done to prevent them from blocking the movement of our units. All ammunition, apparatus and food are being delivered to Bakhmut,” Cherevaty said.
CNBC could not immediately verify the information.
—Holly Ellyatt
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed that its armed forces in Ukraine seized a village in Donetsk.
Russian troops reportedly captured the village of Blahodatne in (pro-Russian separatists call the “Donetsk People’s Republic,” or DPR), according to a Russian Defense Ministry official, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov.
Ukraine has commented on this claim, but Russia appears to have made further progress in the Donetsk region around Vuhledar, southwest of the city of Donetsk.
Yan Gagin, an adviser to interim DPR leader Denis Pushilin, told Rossiya-1 TV channel on Tuesday that Russian forces in Donetsk are taking one deal after another and advancing toward Bakhmut, capturing what is a key strategic objective for Russia.
“Our troops in Artemovsk [Bakhmut’s Russian name] are advancing, and they are taking colony after colony, actively moving,” he said in comments reported through news firm Tass and translated through Google.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday that over the past three days, Russia has most likely turned its election strikes around the cities of Pavlivka and Vuhledar in Donetsk into a “more concerted attack. “
The settlements are located about 30 miles southwest of the city of Donetsk, and Russia already used the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade in a failed attack on the same domain in November 2022, the ministry said on Twitter.
—Holly Ellyatt
Russia said Tuesday that the Lithuanian president’s calls to supply fighter jets to Ukraine highlight the “extremely competitive stance” of the Baltic states and Poland, and that “major European countries” counter their position.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said Monday that NATO will have to avoid drawing “red lines” and supplying Ukraine with all the weapons it needs, adding fighter jets and long-range missiles.
Asked about the comments, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “Overall, we see an incredibly competitive stance in the component of representatives from the Baltic states and Poland. They are willing to do anything to push the expansion of a new confrontation, regardless. “of the consequences. “
He added: “Of course, it is very regrettable that, under such conditions, the leaders of the main European countries, who lead all European processes, unfortunately play a balancing role. “
Nauseda’s call follows last week’s decisions by Germany and the United States to send tanks to Ukraine, a move Russia has described as escalating the conflict.
The Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, all ruled by Moscow until its separation from the Soviet Union in 1991, have heavily subsidized Ukraine, supporting its argument that it wants more complex Western weapons as soon as possible to avoid fears of a new Russian offensive.
Moscow sent tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year in what is an “army special operation. “
—Reuters
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday criticized Croatian President Zoran Milanovic for saying Crimea would never again be under Ukrainian control, calling his comment “unacceptable. “
Russia seized the Black Sea peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. In detailed comments Monday on his objection to Zagreb offering military aid to Kiev, Milanovic said “it is clear that Crimea will never be part of Ukraine again. “
“We consider unacceptable the statements of the president of Croatia, which question the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko wrote on Facebook.
— Reuters
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov will meet with French President Emmanuel Macron and his French defense counterpart Sebastien Lecornu in Paris on Tuesday with the thorny fighter jet factor on the agenda.
Ukraine aims to obtain fighter jets, such as American F-16s, from its allies, but the United States and Germany have already ruled out such weapons, especially since giving the green light to send Western tanks to Ukraine last week.
President Joe Biden responded with a resounding “no” when asked Monday whether the U. S. would send planes to Ukraine.
However, there appears to be a softer attitude among some of Ukraine’s allies, with Poland and France signaling that the source of the fighter jets is not ruled out. On Monday, Macron said any offer would depend on several factors.
“Nothing is excluded in principle,” Macron said after talks with Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte when asked about sending planes to Kiev as he fights the Russian invasion, France 24 reported.
The situations are that Ukraine will first have to make the request; that any weapon would not be a “ladder”; and that “they probably wouldn’t touch Russian soil but only to help the resistance effort. “Macron added that any delivery of weapons “should not weaken the capacity of the French armed forces. “
—Holly Ellyatt
Russian forces are reportedly requisitioning civilian medical services and turning them into “field hospitals” to treat the wounded as casualties mount, Ukraine said Tuesday.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces posted on Facebook that Russian forces in Luhansk continue to “suffer heavy losses” and have “initiated more civilian medical services for the Russian invaders wounded in space. “
Two hospitals in the city of Luhansk, in addition to a maternity hospital, have box hospitals where infantrymen are treated, Ukraine said. a catastrophic lack of space and unfavorable dangers and situations for childbirth. “
—Holly Ellyatt
Over the past three days, Russia is likely to have evolved its election attacks around Donetsk’s Pavlivka and Vuhledar cities into a “more concerted attack,” Britain’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday.
The settlements are located about 30 miles southwest of the city of Donetsk, and Russia already used the 155th Naval Infantry Brigade in a failed attack on the same domain in November 2022, the ministry said on Twitter.
“The elements of the 155th are again involved as components of a force of at least the length of a brigade that forms a complex several hundred meters beyond the small Kashlahach River that marked the front line for several months. “
The ministry said it was most likely that Russian commanders intended to “expand a new axis of advance” in the Ukrainian component of the Donetsk region “and divert Ukrainian forces from the hotly contested Bakhmut sector. “
“There is a realistic option that Russia will continue to make local gains in the area,” the UK said, but added that “Russia is unlikely to have enough uncommitted troops in the region for significant operational advancement. “
—Holly Ellyatt
U. S. President Joe Biden told reporters Monday afternoon that the U. S. would send F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.
Asked if he would send fighter jets to Kiev, Biden responded with one word: “No. “
Just last week, the U. S. The U. S. and Germany gave the green light to send tanks to Ukraine after months of tank orders from Kiev.
Hours after learning it would get Western tanks, Kiev renewed its orders for fighter jets, such as the U. S. F-16, saying it wants all the firepower it can get as soon as possible.
Biden’s comments come a day after his German counterpart, Foreign Minister Olaf Scholz, also ruled out sending planes to Ukraine, saying it is “frivolous” to talk about the fact that the allies had just approved the shipment of tanks.
Ukraine’s defense minister is expected to meet French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Tuesday as differences appear to emerge between the allies over F-16s.
Politico reported Monday that France is contemplating Ukraine’s request for the training of fighter jet pilots, bringing in an aide to the country’s defense minister, while Poland signaled its readiness to send such weapons but said it would act in “full coordination” with its allies. .
—Holly Ellyatt
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kiev and its Western partners will do whatever it takes to make sure “Russia’s intentions to move to a new level of revenge offensive fail. “
“I have confidence in our army. We will prevent them little by little, destroy them and prepare our wonderful counteroffensive,” Zelenskyy said in a speech alongside his Danish counterpart in Odessa.
Zelenskyy thanked Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen for offering monetary and security assistance to Ukraine.
“I am grateful to the Danish coalition government for creating a separate fund to help our country. Reconstruction deserves one of the main orientations of the fund’s work,” Zelenskyy added.
—Amanda Macias
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said on Facebook that Ukraine’s representative had been summoned to an assembly at Iran’s Foreign Ministry in Tehran.
Nikolenko did not elaborate on the main points of the meeting, but added that Kiev is not to blame for the series of explosions at Iranian facilities, according to an NBC News translation.
Over the weekend, Iran said bomb drones struck a defense production plant in the central city of Isfahan. Iran’s Defense Ministry did not provide percentage data on those suspected of wearing down the attack.
—Amanda Macias
The European Union has €114 million for Poland’s new rescEU power centre for Ukraine.
The center will necessarily be a logistics hub to provide emergency power aid to Ukrainians amid Russia’s bombardment of critical infrastructure. The budget will be used to acquire some 1,000 turbines that will be distributed to Ukrainians at the center.
The European Union’s Civil Protection Mechanism already has 1,400 turbines for Ukrainians who need them.
—Amanda Macias
EDITOR’S NOTE – Graphic content – This message is a symbol of a Ukrainian soldier who died in Sloviansk.
Friends gather to bury a Ukrainian soldier, 28-year-old orphan Oleksandr Korovniy, in a cemetery in Sloviansk. Koroniy, a member of the Azov battalion, killed in action in Bakhmut, Donetsk region.
-Fake images
The Kremlin has rejected Boris Johnson’s claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened him with a missile attack.
The former British prime minister claimed in a BBC documentary that he had a phone call with Putin before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Johnson said on screen that Putin “threatened me at one point and said, ‘Boris, I don’t need to hurt you but, with a missile, it would only take a minute or so.
“But I think because of the very relaxed tone he took, the kind of air of indifference he seemed to have, he just played with my attempts to get him to negotiate,” Johnson said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the claim a “lie” on Monday, telling reporters that “what Mr. Johnson said is not true. Specifically, it’s a lie,” he said, according to a translation of the comments via NBC News.
“It may be a lie planned through Mr. Johnson, then the question arises as to the reasons for his presentation of such an edition of events. Or he didn’t notice what President Putin was talking about with him. And in this case, it becomes a little worried about our president’s interlocutors,” Peskov said.
“But again, I repeat officially: this is a lie, there are no missile threats. “
—Holly Ellyatt
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Kiev needs to join the European Union within two years, setting a very ambitious timetable for joining the bloc.
Speaking to Politico, Shmyhal said, “We have a very ambitious plan to join the European Union in the next two years. . . So we hope that this year, in 2023, we can already have this pre-entry phase. “negotiations,” he said.
Ukraine has made no secret of its preference for joining the EU and has already implemented its accession to the bloc. It is not the only candidate country. Others, such as North Macedonia and Montenegro, have waited more than a decade for any progress in their respective club applications. French President Emmanuel Macron said Ukraine’s EU club is likely to be a procedure that will take “decades. “
EU commissioners will travel to Kiev on Friday to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Politco said his task would likely be to “manage expectations” related to such a tight timetable for EU membership.
—Holly Ellyatt
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Russian President Vladimir Putin gave the impression of threatening him with a missile strike in what he described as an “extraordinary” phone call ahead of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In an excerpt from a BBC documentary titled “Putin vs. the West,” Johnson says he spoke to Putin in February 2022, shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine. During that call, he said he told Putin that the war would be a “total catastrophe” and lead to sanctions against Moscow and most likely more NATO troops on Russia’s borders.
Johnson said that after making those issues on the call, in which he said Putin was “very familiar,” Putin gave the impression of threatening him.
“He threatened me at one point and said, ‘Boris, I don’t need to hurt you, but with a missile it would only take a minute’ or something,” Johnson said in the documentary, the BBC reported. .
“But I think because of the very relaxed tone he took, the kind of air of indifference he seemed to have, he just played with my attempts to get him to negotiate. “
It is highly unlikely to know whether Putin was serious in his commentary, however, relations between the UK and Russia were already strained before the war, especially after an attack with a Russian nerve agent in the UK in 2018. The UK’s firmness for Kiev has increased.
—Holly Ellyatt
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz insisted over the weekend that warplanes would not be provided to Ukraine and told a German newspaper that there will be no “bidding war” for armaments and that Germany “will not allow a war between Russia and NATO. “
Scholz reiterated Germany’s objections to sending fighter jets to Ukraine and told the Tagesspiegel newspaper on Sunday that there is no doubt about doing so.
“The fighter jet factor doesn’t hold up at all,” Scholz said, according to Politico’s translation of the original story.
“I can only advise that I oppose entering a consistent festival to outperform others in terms of weapons systems,” he added.
Last week, Germany agreed to send 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine after months of resistance to pressure. Berlin also said it would allow other allies to send their own German-made tanks to Kiev. M1 Abrams tanks.
Ukraine expressed gratitude for the resolution to send tanks, but without stopping said it needed more firepower to counter Russia’s invasion and asked its allies for fighter jets. A Defense Ministry adviser told CNBC he was confident Kiev would get F-16 fighter jets from its allies and not to stop the resolution as there were tanks.
Over the weekend, a Ukrainian official said negotiations on whether to send attack aircraft to Ukraine were “ongoing. “
“Our partners perceive how the war develops. They perceive that attack planes are definitely necessary to cover the manpower and armored vehicles they supply us,” an adviser to President Mykhailo Podolyak’s leader told Freedom TV on Saturday.
“In the same way, in order to drastically reduce the key tool of the Russian army, artillery, we want missiles. That’s why negotiations are already underway, negotiations are accelerating,” Podolyak said in translated remarks via NBC News.
—Holly Ellyatt
Boris Johnson says Putin threatened him with a missile strike the so-called; Berlin excludes fighter jets for Kyiv
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