This is the CNBC blog that follows the evolution of the war in Ukraine. See below for the latest updates.
The frontline scenario in eastern Ukraine has particularly replaced in the first week of the year, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with “intense fighting” in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, especially around Bakhmut and Soledar.
“Bakhmut resists against all odds. And most of the city is destroyed by Russian attacks, our warriors there repel the constant attempts of Russian offensive. Soledar resists. But there’s even more destruction there and it’s incredibly difficult,” Zelenskyy said in his speech Sunday night.
Separately, the Russian government has subsidized a legislative amendment that would classify maps that challenge the country’s official “territorial integrity” as punishable extremist documents, state news firm Tass reported Sunday.
The new amendment, which Reuters said was reported through Tass without mentioning the sources, came after its authors pointed out that some maps distributed in Russia questioned the “territorial affiliation” of the Crimean peninsula and the Kuril Islands.
More than 7. 9 million Ukrainians have refugees and moved to neighboring countries since Russia invaded Ukraine about a year ago, according to the UN Refugee Agency.
More than 4. 9 million of those refugees have been transferred to Poland, according to knowledge gathered through the UN Refugee Agency.
“The escalating fighting 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. In the first five weeks, more than 4 million Ukrainian refugees crossed borders into neighboring countries. countries and many more were forced to move within the country,” the firm wrote.
—Amanda Macias
The organization guilty of overseeing the export of agricultural products said no ships carrying agricultural products left Ukrainian ports because of bad weather.
The organization said the ships are expected to set sail on Tuesday.
As of Monday, the total tonnage of grain and other food products exported from Ukraine’s 3 ports by the Black Sea Grain Initiative exceeds 16. 9 million metric tons.
The Black Sea Grain Initiative was negotiated in July between Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations and eased Russia’s naval blockade.
—Amanda Macias
Russian and Ukrainian human rights commissioners will meet this week in Turkey, news agencies from both countries reported, so that talks are likely to come with the option of additional prisoner of war exchanges.
Interfax quoted Russian Commissioner Tatiana Moskalkova as saying the assembly with her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Lubinets would take a position at a foreign forum in Turkey between Thursday and Saturday.
She said there had already been discussions about “the approximate timeline for our negotiations,” she did not elaborate.
Ukraine’s Ukrinform news firm quoted Lubinets as saying the main challenge is “the return of our heroes and heroines,” a reference to prisoner exchanges.
Russia and Ukraine have carried out prisoner exchanges, the peak most recently on Sunday.
— Reuters
The British military has said that its support for Ukraine remains unwavering and will continue into the new year.
“We have provided over two hundred armoured cars to date, adding Stormer armed with Starstreak, Husky, Wolfhound, Spartan, Mastiff and M113 missiles,” the UK Ministry of Defence wrote in a tweet.
For months, Ukrainian troops were trained alongside British forces in the UK on weapons platforms.
—Amanda Macias
Ukrainian infantrymen carry an M777 gun while a Ukrainian artillery unit responds to a Russian artillery barrage in a box in Kherson, Ukraine. Kherson, the only regional capital captured across Russia since the invasion. He released her via Ukraine in November.
— Pierre Crom | fake images
Biden’s management said Monday that Iran’s sale of fatal drones to Russia for use in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine means the country can simply “contribute to widespread war crimes. “
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan introduced the tax against Iran on Monday while speaking to reporters accompanying U. S. President Joe Biden on a vacation in Mexico. While he did not sign a change in policy, the indictment marked one of the sharpest U. S. rhetoric against Iran. since it began supplying arms to Russia to its nearly year-long war in Ukraine.
Sullivan said Iran has chosen to “take a direction where its weapons are used to kill civilians in Ukraine and try to plunge cities into darkness and starvation, which, in our view, puts Iran in a position where it could potentially contribute to widespread destruction. “war crimes. “
Sullivan cited European and U. S. sanctions against Iran imposed after the U. S. The U. S. government revealed Iran’s arms sales to Russia last year as examples of how it seeks to “make those transactions more difficult. “ban a challenge. “
– Associated Press
Russia and Ukraine conducted a prisoner exchange over the weekend, according to Ukrainian authorities.
The 50-strong Ukrainian infantryman marks the 36th time the two armies have exchanged prisoners since Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine began.
The Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War estimates that more than 1,600 have returned to Ukraine.
—Amanda Macias
The Ukrainian government is searching for two missing British volunteers in Soledar, a town in the Donetsk region.
“On the morning of January 7, Andrew Bagshaw and Christopher Perry left Kramatorsk. At 5:15 p. m. , police obtained a report about his disappearance,” the Ukrainian National Police said in a statement, translated by NBC News.
“Police are conducting investigative moves to identify the location of missing persons,” he added.
—Amanda Macias
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he spoke by phone with Slovenia’s new president, Natasa Musar.
During the call, Zelenskyy said he had invited Musar to Kyiv.
He also called on his country to continue with Ukraine in its fight against Russia and his country’s integration into the European Union.
—Amanda Macias
Britain plans to send its tanks to Ukraine for the first time since the war began, according to Sky News.
The British news network, citing a Western source with knowledge of the talks, said discussions had taken position “for some weeks” on the delivery of the British army’s main Challenger 2 war tank.
“It would inspire others to donate tanks,” one Ukrainian told the outlet.
Although they have provided Ukraine with combat cars and lighter weapons, Kyiv’s Western allies have been reluctant to offer heavier tanks in case Russia sees the move as an escalation.
Ukraine has asked Germany for Leopard 2 tanks, for example, but Berlin has been cautious about supplying them. However, on Sunday, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said such an offer may simply not be ruled out.
Ukraine’s allies will meet next week to discuss the clash and the new assistance imaginable for the country. Sky News reported that a final decision on whether to get Challenger 2 tanks through the UK government has not yet been made and that the UK Ministry of Defence will not either. Verify or deny the suggestion.
—Holly Ellyatt
Russian actor Artur Smolyaninov is a con man in his home country after he allegedly made “anti-Russian” comments in a newspaper interview, investigators said Monday.
Smolyaninov, who starred in the 2005 film “The 9th Company” about the Soviet Union’s ill-fated army crusade in Afghanistan, said in an interview last week that he would fight for Ukraine, Russia, if he had to participate in the conflict.
Smolyaninov last October who no longer lived in Russia.
His comments, made in an interview with Novaya Gazeta Europe, a newspaper now banned in Russia, were condemned by members of the Russian parliament, one of whom said the actor would be banned from all state-contracted films.
“For my part, I will appeal to the commission of inquiry with a request to open criminal proceedings against this traitor,” MP Biysultan Khamzaev told RIA news agency.
The investigative committee said on Monday it had opened a thief investigation against Smolyaninov after he participated in an interview with a “Western publication,” but provided additional details.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, dozens of actors and performers have fled for fear of violating the country’s strict new legislation on spreading “disinformation” about the war in Ukraine or discrediting the Russian military.
Moscow calls its movements in Ukraine a “special army operation” aimed at demilitarizing and “de-Nazifiing” the country. Kiev and its Western allies view the invasion as an act of unprovoked aggression aimed at seizing territory.
— Reuters
Two were reportedly killed in a Russian missile attack on a market in the village of Shevchenkove in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine.
The missile attack took place the previous Monday morning, and regional officials first reported the attack. The press service of the Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office reported on Telegram, in comments translated via Google, that a child was wounded in the attack and two women were delicate.
“The occupiers introduced a rocket attack on the village of Shevchenkive in Kupyan district. An enemy missile hit the territory of the local market. Two women died. Three other women and a 10-year-old woman were injured,” the prosecutor said.
According to initial data, Russian forces fired on the deal from an S-300 air defense formula from the Belgorod border region. Prosecutors and police investigators are collecting and recording physical evidence at the time of the attack as part of an initial investigation into a possible war. crime.
—Holly Ellyatt
The Kremlin on Monday rejected a Ukrainian claim that a senior Russian official had floated the concept of an imaginable peace deal on Ukraine with European officials.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Defense and Security Council, told the country’s public broadcaster on Thursday that Dmitry Kozak, deputy head of Russia’s presidential administration, had met with Europeans in a bid to force Kyiv to sign what he called an unfavorable peace deal. .
Asked about Danilov’s claim, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was “another forgery. “
— Reuters
A joint tactical training involving the air forces of Belarus and Russia will begin on January 16 and continue until February 1, according to the Belarusian Defense Ministry, according to state news firm BelTA.
An “aeronautical component” representing the Russian Aerospace Forces arrived in Belarus on Sunday, BelTA reported. It is expected that “all airfields and education areas” of the Belarusian Air Force will be used in the tactical exercise.
The latest report on the joint army training of Belarus’ and Russia’s allies (which have an economic and defense alliance called the “Union State”) comes days after BelTa reported on another from the Defense Ministry stating that “the strengthening of the regional military force of Belarus and Russia continues with the aim of ensuring the security of the army of the Union State of Belarus. “and Russia. “
The restart of the joint regional army means that Russian “personnel, weapons, army and special equipment” will continue to arrive in Belarus.
“The incoming army sets are expected to later go through combat events in the training areas of the Belarusian army,” BelTA reported last Friday.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has been constantly under pressure not to actively engage in the war against Ukraine, Minsk has allowed Russia to release attacks on Ukraine from its territory and provided logistical aid to its neighbor. The army’s joint training with Russia, as well as the formation of a joint army unit between the countries, have only deepened suspicions that Belarus is likely to seek to help Russia on the battlefield as the war spreads.
BelTA quoted the country’s Defense Ministry as saying that “the resolution to create the strength of the Belarusian-Russian regional army on the territory of Belarus has been taken and is being implemented, only with the aim of strengthening the security and defense of the Union State of Belarus. “and Russia depending on advances along the border. “
—Holly Ellyatt
Russian forces attacked the market of a village in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, according to a senior regional official, one was killed in the attack and several others were hospitalized.
“The enemy is back launching missile movements in the Kharkiv region. In the urban-type agreement of Shevchenkove, Kupyansk district, a missile attack (initially from an S-300 air defense system) was introduced into the local market. All emergencies are working on the scene,” Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv regional military administration, said in a Telegram post, according to comments translated via Google.
In a later message purportedly showing footage of the destroyed market after the attack, Syniehubov said a 60-year-old woman was killed in the attack and seven others were injured and hospitalized, adding that a 13-year-old girl. CNBC was unable to determine the data contained in the messages.
—Holly Ellyatt
The Russian government has subsidized a legislative amendment that would classify maps that challenge the country’s official “territorial integrity” as punishable extremist documents, state news firm TASS reported Sunday.
The amendment to Russia’s anti-extremism law stipulates that “cartographic and other documents and photographs that challenge Russia’s territorial integrity” will be classified as extremist documents, the firm said.
Russia’s very ambiguous anti-extremist law (which applies to organizations, journalists and their materials, as well as corporate activities, among others) has allowed the Kremlin to tighten its grip on opponents.
The new amendment, TASS reports without citing sources, gave the impression that its authors pointed out that some maps distributed in Russia questioned the “territorial affiliation” of the Crimean peninsula and the Kuril Islands.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move rejected by Ukraine and many countries as illegal. Since then, Ukrainians and their government have opposed global maps showing Crimea as part of Russian territory.
Russia and Japan officially ended World War II hostilities due to their stalemate over an organization of islands just off Japan’s northernmost island, Hokkaido. The Soviet Union seized those islands, known in Russia as Kuriles and in Japan as the Northern Territories, at the end of the war.
The amendment will have to be proposed to the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament and, after consideration, go through three readings. It is then sent to the Federation Council, the upper house and President Vladimir Putin for signature.
— Reuters
Russia appears reluctant to deploy its next-generation stealth fighter jets in the Ukraine war, fearing their possible loss, according to the latest intelligence update from the British Ministry of Defense.
In an update on Twitter, the ministry noted that since at least June 2022, “the Russian Aerospace Forces have almost used Su-57 FELON [aircraft] to perform missions opposed to Ukraine. “
“The FELON is Russia’s most complex fifth-generation supersonic fighter jet, stealth technologies and highly complex avionics,” the ministry added.
He said the planes’ missions were likely limited to “flying over Russian territory, launching long-range air-to-ground or air-to-air missiles in Ukraine. “
He said this due to the fact that Russia “probably made it a priority to avoid reputational damage, reduced export customers and the delicate generation commitment that would result from any loss of FELON in Ukraine,” he noted.
“This is symptomatic of Russia’s persistent risk aversion to employing its air power in war. “
—Holly Ellyatt
The frontline scenario in eastern Ukraine has particularly replaced in the first week of the year, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, with “intense fighting” in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions, especially around Bakhmut and Soledar.
“Bakhmut resists against all odds. And most of the city is destroyed by Russian attacks, our warriors there repel the constant attempts of Russian offensive. Soledar resists. But there’s even more destruction there and it’s incredibly difficult,” Zelenskyy said in his speech Sunday night.
“There is no such land near those two villages where the occupier would have given his life for the crazy concepts of the masters of the Russian regime. This is one of the bloodiest positions on the front,” he added.
Zelenskyy said more sets were being deployed in the region with the aim of bolstering Ukraine’s defenses and stepping up attacks on Russian forces.
—Holly Ellyatt
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