January 26, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine has moved here.

Serbia’s Novak Djokovic in action during his quarter final match against Russia’s Andrey Rublev on Wednesday, January 25, in Melbourne.

Kyiv’s ambassador to Australia has called on Novak Djokovic to state his position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine after the tennis player’s father was pictured at a demonstration with fans holding Russian flags.

Footage shows?Srdjan Djokovic posing behind a Russian flag superimposed with Putin’s face at the Australian Open in Melbourne on Wednesday.

Speaking to CNN Friday, Ukrainian Ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko said the incident amounted to a provocation and “shines a negative light on Novak himself as he prepares for his semi-final.”

Tennis Australia told CNN that four people were ejected from the tournament on Wednesday for displaying pro-war imagery.?

CNN has reached out to both?Srdjan?Djokovic and Novak Djokovic for comment.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked the West for further weapons supplies after another wave of Russian missile strikes targeted Kyiv and other cities across the country.

Ukraine said it was able to shoot down most of the 55 missiles fired by Russia, a feat Zelensky attributed to Western-donated air defense systems.?

“Today, thanks to the air defense systems provided to Ukraine and the professionalism of our warriors, we managed to shoot down most of the Russian missiles and Shaheds,” he said, referring to Iranian-made drones.

“These are at least hundreds of lives saved and dozens of infrastructure facilities preserved,” the Ukrainian president said.

Update on the eastern front: Zelensky then shifted focus to the eastern Donbas region, where fighting remains the fiercest. Ukrainian troops are suffering heavy attrition in the east.

“The more Russia loses in this battle for Donbas, the less its overall potential will be,” he added.

Zelensky said his government is aware of Russian plans for future operations in Ukraine and assured his countrymen they were working to counter Moscow’s moves.

The Swedish government on Thursday pledged $1,947,000 (20 million Swedish krona) to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to support its nuclear safety mission in Ukraine.?

“Strengthening the IAEA’s important work to maintain and improve the safety of Ukrainian nuclear power plants is a matter of urgency,”?Forssell added.?

Ukrainian officials claim Russia is intensifying hostilities in the southeastern part of Donetsk region, around the towns of Avdiivka and Vuhledar.?

Although Bakhmut remains the area where the fighting is the most vicious, Avdiivka has become almost as contentious, said Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk region military administration.

“Now it is also very hot in Avdiivka,” he said.

Why this territory matters: The southeastern area of Donetsk is seen as strategic territory by Russia to deter a potential offensive by Ukrainian forces towards Crimea.

Ukraine says Russia is employing similar tactics to those it has employed around Bakhmut, which is located further north in the Donetsk region.

Moscow’s armies are relying heavily on artillery and committing large numbers of men on doomed offensives, said Serhii Cherevatyi, a Ukrainian military spokesperson.

Targeting several communities, Russian forces “conducted 28 attacks in one day, fired 264 times, losing 141 people … and 165 wounded, but failed to achieve any results,” Cherevatyi claimed in a military briefing.

Cherevatyi said fighting around the entire eastern front line continues to be relentless.

“The enemy is trying to succeed in breaking through our defense, in particular in the Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Lyman directions,” Cherevatyi said. “In total, 199 attacks and 35 combat engagements took place in the Bakhmut sector (on Thursday). The enemy fired from all types of artillery and multiple rocket launchers.”

“However, our defense forces did not allow the enemy to succeed,” he added.

US-owned M1A2 Abrams tanks in Germany.

The US will send the M1A2 Abrams tank to Ukraine, which has significantly upgraded capabilities compared to the earlier M1A1 model.

Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh confirmed Thursday that the M1A2 would be the version of the Abrams provided to the Ukrainians. She said that the US does not “have these tanks available in excess in our US stocks,” and it will take “months to transfer” the tanks to Ukraine.

The M1A2 is a significant upgrade from the older M1A1, mostly due to the fact that the A2 runs?on a digital system, as opposed to the analog system of the A1.

It’s “the difference between a plug-in phone – a rotary phone – and that iPhone you’ve got in your hand,” explained retired Army Gen. Robert Abrams, the former commander of US Forces Korea, whose father was the namesake for the 70-ton tank.

US officials?announced this week?that 31 Abrams tanks would be sent to Ukraine after days of back and forth between the US and its allies. Officials had not yet disclosed which tank variant they would choose, and Army acquisitions chief Doug Bush told reporters on Tuesday that the decision was still being deliberated.

More on the tanks: US President Joe Biden said from the White House on Wednesday that the tanks would “enhance Ukraine’s capacity to defend its territory and achieve its strategic objectives.”

When it comes down to it, Abrams said, the M1A2 is “far superior in lethality and survivability and mobility” to anything that Russia has on the battlefield.

It’s unclear which variant of the A2 tank, of which?there are three, will be chosen. Singh declined to say during the Pentagon briefing Thursday, and Bush declined to say Wednesday.

Bush added that concerns over logistics and maintenance for each variant – which had frequently been cited as a reason the US was hesitant to send the Abrams at all – would not weigh heavily on the decision.

He also explained that the Army does not produce brand new tanks from scratch and has instead been modifying existing older models. “That doesn’t mean it’s easy or fast necessarily,” he added, but they don’t currently have to be built from scratch.

CNN’s Michael Conte contributed reporting to this post.

Ukrainian soldiers fire a tank near Bakhmut, Ukraine, on January 26.

Heavy fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces continues around Bakhmut in the east, a CNN team on the ground witnessed.?

CNN saw intense indirect fire from Ukrainian positions on the hillsides west of Bakhmut, with most of the fire apparently directed against Russian units to the south and north of the city.

Units from Russia’s mercenary organization Wagner Group are reported to be trying to advance from both flanks, in an effort to encircle the city where 6,000 civilians remain.

Bakhmut remains a major focal point of the conflict, with the Ukrainian president and his staff paying special attention to the situation at the front.?

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has voted unanimously to demand the creation of a special international tribunal to prosecute Russian and Belarusian political and military leaders “for the crime of aggression in Ukraine,” according to a statement published Thursday.

PACE, composed of members appointed by the national parliaments of the Council’s 46 member states, proposes a tribunal in The Hague “to prosecute Russian and Belarusian political and military leaders who planned, prepared, initiated or executed Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.”?

PACE recommends policies for adoption, which are then submitted to national governments for action.

More background: The demand for an international tribunal echoes a similar call from UK lawmakers who last week expressed support for “the creation of a special tribunal with a limited focus on the crime of aggression” to complement the investigation being carried out by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine.?

The UN has defined aggression as “the use of armed force by a state against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations.”?

“No other international criminal tribunal is competent to prosecute and punish the crime of aggression against Ukraine, the Assembly pointed out,” the PACE statement added.?

The ICC is unable to probe the crime of aggression unless the UN Security Council refers the matter to it, which is “highly implausible,” as Russia would likely use its status as a Security Council member to veto a referral. Russia was excluded from the Council of Europe — founded after World War II to uphold human rights — in March 2022 following its invasion of Ukraine.

In December, a bipartisan resolution was introduced in the House of Representatives by Reps. Bill Keating, a Massachusetts Democrat, and Joe Wilson, a South Carolina Republican, to call for creation of a special tribunal on the crime of aggression. Administration officials have neither committed to nor rejected the idea.

CNN’s Niamh Kennedy and Jennifer Hansler contributed to this post.

Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand speaks to the press on January 20, in Ramstein-Miesenbach, Germany.

Canada will be sending four Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand announced on Thursday.

The donation will provide soldiers with a tactical advantage due to their “excellent mobility, firepower, and survivability” and that they would allow Ukraine to retake even more of its territory, the defense minister added.

The tanks are combat-ready and will be deployed over the coming weeks, Anand said, adding that a number of Canadian Armed Forces members will be deployed to train Ukrainian soldiers with the skills they need to operate the equipment.

The defense minister also noted that the number of tanks pledged may increase “as we coordinate donation and sustainment plans with our allies,” and work together to pool ammunition and spare parts.

Canada will discuss how to ensure “long term success of?our?donations,” with Germany, Finland, Portugal, Spain, and the Netherlands, she added.

Ukraine’s defense minister thanked Canada for the commitment in a tweet.

“Thank you to my great friend & colleague Anita Anand who announced this decision today,” Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov wrote. “Thank you to (Prime Minister) JustinTrudeau?and all Canadian people.”

The US State Department is “looking for an appropriate candidate, a career candidate” to serve as special envoy for Belarus, an official said Thursday.

The United States no longer has a presence in Belarus after suspending operations at its embassy in Minsk shortly after the war in Ukraine broke out last February.

Former US envoy Julie Fisher departed her role in June 2022, and was blocked from serving as ambassador in Minsk by the Lukashenko regime.

Victoria Nuland, undersecretary of state for Political Affairs, said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing that the envoy job is a “complex one,” in part because you have to work out of the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius.?

She added, “I would not say that we’ve had manifest success. But also working intensively with the Belarusian opposition and Madame (Sviatlana) Tsikhanouskaya and the secretary has seen her regularly. So we’re continuing to work on this and I hope we’ll have somebody to talk to you about in the not too distant future.”

The US has auditors in Kyiv this week alongside the World Bank and Deloitte consultants to ensure “that no aid or weapons are diverted,” according to State Department Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland.

Her comments come as Republican members of Congress have signaled a desire to conduct additional oversight efforts when it comes to US support for Ukraine.?The administration has said that there are oversight efforts in place.?

This week the State Department said that?they are “not aware that any US assistance was involved” in the corruption scandal within the Ukrainian government that led to the resignation of the nation’s deputy defense minister.

The auditor’s arrival in Kyiv comes as US President Biden announced?Wednesday he plans to send 31 Abrams tanks?to Ukraine and the Pentagon unveiled last week a $2.5 billion Ukraine security package, including?for the first time Stryker armored vehicles?and more Bradley fighting vehicles.

Lynne M. Tracy testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to be Ambassador to the Russian Federation on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., November 30.

US Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy has arrived in Moscow, according to a?tweet?from the US Embassy.?

Tracy, who has previously served as the deputy chief of mission in Moscow, was overwhelmingly confirmed as ambassador in December.

Prior to her departure for Moscow, Tracy met with Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov.?

He noted that the US Embassy in Moscow is “under duress because of the pressure and the limitations that the Kremlin has imposed on it,” but the US is also able to communicate with the Russian Embassy in the US.

The ambassador’s arrival comes a day after US President Biden announced he plans to send 31 Abrams tanks to Ukraine and as Russia launched another round of missile strikes against Kyiv.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Thursday Moscow sees the delivery of modern Western battle tanks to Ukraine as “direct involvement” in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

This general view shows the 'PMC Wagner Centre', in St. Petersburg, Russia, on November 4.

The US Treasury Department on Thursday designated the Wagner Group, a Russian private mercenary organization heavily involved in the war in Ukraine, as a significant transnational criminal organization, and imposed a slew of sanctions on a transnational network that supports it.

The US Department of State concurrently announced a number of sanctions meant to “target a range of Wagner’s key infrastructure – including an aviation firm used by Wagner, a Wagner propaganda organization, and Wagner front companies,” according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Here are the actions taken by both US departments:

The State Department announced sanctions on the following:

The department also announced it will take steps to impose visa restrictions “on 531 members of the Russian Federation military” associated with the assault on Ukraine.

The Treasury Department announced sanctions on the following:

The White House had previewed the significant transnational criminal organization designation and forthcoming sanctions against the?Wagner?group last week.

US President Joe Biden is considering making a trip to Europe around the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine next month, two senior administration officials tell CNN.

A trip is not yet confirmed, and details have yet to be finalized. But one of the officials said that one stop under consideration is Poland, a key NATO ally currently housing thousands of American troops that also serves as a hub for western weapons transfers to Ukraine. US service members are also training Ukrainian troops there.?

It is highly unlikely that Biden would travel to Ukraine as part of this trip, however, one of the officials said, given the ongoing security concerns.??

Some context: Biden’s aides have been planning for several weeks on how they will mark the anniversary of the invasion, including potentially having the US president deliver a major address. They hope to emphasize the resilience of the Ukrainian people, noting that when the war began, many assumed Kyiv would fall within days.

NBC News first reported a trip to Europe was under consideration.

Russian state media Rossiya-24 on Wednesday mocked Western modern tanks as “toothless” and “battered” after Germany and the United States greenlit deliveries of advanced combat vehicles to Ukraine.??

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s announcement that he will send Leopard 2 tanks was coupled with a pledge from US President Joe Biden that he will provide 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, reversing the allies’ longstanding trepidation at providing Kyiv with offensive armored vehicles and unleashing powerful new tools in Ukraine’s efforts to retake territory seized by Russia.?

The series of stories broadcast on the Russian channel downplayed the significance of the modern Western tanks, including segments titled “Toothless cats” and “Battered Abrams” – sarcastic references to US- and German-made armored vehicles.??

A presenter described the German tanks being “more primitive,” heavier and less effective compared to Russian T-90 tanks.?In the “battered Abrams” segment, footage of the Abrams vehicles being hit in battles were shown and a blueprint of the tank was shown illustrating its “weak points.”?

Key context: While the state media has made claims about the superiority of Russian battle tanks, hundreds are thought to have been destroyed since Moscow launched its offensive in Ukraine.?Experts say a design flaw has caused problems for almost all of the armored vehicles Russia is using in Ukraine.

Biden yesterday called the Abrams “the most?capable tanks in the world” while noting that Ukrainian troops will receive training to operate the “extremely complex” vehicles.

Previous military aid, like the American HIMARS rocket system, has been vital in helping Ukraine disrupt Russian advances and make a series of successful counteroffensives in recent months. Kyiv hopes that Western tanks will have a similar impact on the grinding ground war in Ukraine’s east.

Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank during a training exercise on Salisbury Plain Training Area on July 3, 2020 in Salisbury, England.

Britain is aiming for its pledged 14 Challenger 2 tanks to arrive in Ukraine by the end of March, defense department procurement minister Alex Chalk said Thursday.?

The UK government announced earlier this month that it would send “a squadron of 14 tanks” to Ukraine after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak committed to providing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with additional support.

Germany followed suit on Wednesday when Chancellor Olaf Scholz committed to sending 14 German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, adding that those could be operational in around three months.

Policemen load the body of a civilian into a car following Russian missile strike on the industrial zone of Kyiv on January 26.

At least 11 people were killed and another 11 were injured across Ukraine as a result of Russian missile strikes, the country’s State Emergency Services reported.

In a statement, the service’s spokesperson Oleksandr Khorunzhyi provided the following additional details:

The missiles caused damage in 11 regions throughout Ukraine, Khorunzhyi also said.

“Most of the damages to the housing are in Kyiv region,” he added. “We have connected 88 power generators in order to supply electricity to social facilities such as hospitals, etc.”

Employees with an electric company work in an industrial area in Kyiv to restore electricity following a morning missile strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, on January 26.

The Ukrainian capital and wider Kyiv region have returned to their previous schedule of power outages, the city administration and DTEK energy company said on Telegram.??

The schedule was changed briefly and an emergency power outage had been introduced in parts of Ukraine, including the Kyiv region and others, after Russian missiles targeted energy facilities on Thursday, Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko had said earlier in a post on Facebook.

He had noted that the worst situation was in Kyiv region, Odesa region and Vinnytsia region.

In the Odesa region, supply to critical infrastructure like hospitals has been restored but emergency power outages are still in effect otherwise, DTEK said in a separate Telegram post.

Earlier, local officials in the Kyiv and Odesa regions reported that energy facilities there had been hit.

Remember: Since Russia has been regularly targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, the country has been in an electricity deficit. This has forced suppliers and authorities to devise a limited power supply schedule and residents often see scheduled power outages. In the event of a missile strike, authorities often move from scheduled power outage to emergency power outage. The impact on Ukrainians is especially hard during the biting winter temperatures.

Police officers inspect a Russian cruise missile shot down by the Ukrainian Air Defence Forces in Kyiv, Ukraine, on?January 26.

Ukrainian air defenses successfully shot down the majority of a barrage of missiles launched by Russia, but one man was killed by falling missile fragments in Kyiv.

Elsewhere, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he is “not interested” in peace talks with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, and Germany has confirmed that it will deliver Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine by the end of March.

Here are the latest headlines:

Electrician workers walk next to a power plant after a rocket attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on January 26.

Russia launched 55 missiles at Ukraine on Thursday morning, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Telegram, adding that the salvo was aimed at the country’s “energy facilities” and that some power substations had been hit.?

Ukraine shot down 47 cruise missiles, including 20 over the capital city, according to General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The missiles were launched from Russian warplanes and ships in the Black Sea, he added in his Telegram post.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna visits?Odesa in southern Ukraine on January 26.

French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna has met with her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba in?Odesa in southern Ukraine on Thursday.

“In Odessa! To mark France’s support to Ukraine’s sovereignty, today as ever,” Colonna said in a?tweet.?

Kuleba shared a photograph of the pair in Odesa and welcomed Colonna to the city in the caption.??

“Thanks for your brave visit. Looking forward to discussing France’s role in the international tank coalition, Grain From Ukraine, and Peace Formula,” he?tweeted. “The Ukrainian-French partnership remains crucial to ending Russian aggression and restoring peace.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is no match for his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday.

Peskov’s comments came in response to a question about Zelensky saying that he is “not interested” in meeting the Russian president for peace talks.?

“We know with what promises Zelensky was elected president, it is absolutely not difficult to remember them ourselves and remind those voters who voted for him in Ukraine,” Peskov told journalists during a daily press call.?

“He did not solve the problem of Donbass (Donbas in Ukrainian), he did not fulfil the Minsk agreements, moreover, as it turned out, he was not going to fulfil them, he was preparing for war,” he said.?

“Therefore, let’s put it this way, he himself has long ceased to be a possible opponent for Putin,” Peskov continued.?

Here’s what Ukrainian officials have said about the impact of the missiles that Russian forces fired across Ukraine on Thursday morning:

Kyiv city:?Around 20 Russian missiles were shot down in the skies over Ukraine’s capital, said Serhiy Popko, head of city’s military administration. A 55-year-old man was killed by falling missile fragments, and two others wounded.

Kyiv region:?The regional administration for the wider Kyiv region reported a “hit at an energy facility” but gave no further details.

Odesa region:?Ukrainian air defenses destroyed three missiles over the region, governor Maksym Marchenko said on Telegram. The DTEK energy company said energy infrastructure had been damaged and warned the subsequent emergency power outages “may last for several days”.

Vinnytsia region:?Earlier,?regional governor Serhiy Borzov reported “hits by enemy missiles.” The region’s police chief Ivan Ishchenko said there were no known casualties.

Novak Djokovic's father Srdjan was seen posing with flag-waving supporters of Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Australian Open in this image taken from a video on January 26.

The Australian Open has issued a warning to players after tennis star Novak Djokovic’s father Srdjan was seen posing with flag-waving supporters of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In a video posted on?YouTube?by a known Putin supporter, Srdjan Djokovic can be seen posing?with a?supporter outside Melbourne’s Rod Laver Arena.?

The man is wearing a pro-war “Z” symbol on his shirt, while holding a Russian flag?with Putin’s face on it.?The “Z” symbol, which has been seen on Russian military equipment and clothing, is viewed as a sign of support for Russia, including its invasion of Ukraine.

According to Australian Open rules, Russian and Belarusian flags are banned from the event.?

“Players and their teams have been briefed and reminded of the event policy regarding flags and symbols and to avoid any situation that has the potential to disrupt,” an Australian Open spokesperson told CNN Thursday. “We continue to work closely with event security and law enforcement agencies.”

The Australian Open spokesperson went on to say that “a small group of people displayed inappropriate flags and symbols and threatened security guards following a match on Wednesday night and were evicted.”

CNN has reached out to both Novak and Srdjan Djokovic for comment.

People wait on a street blocked by police after a rocket attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on January 26.

Ukraine shot down all of the Russian missiles fired at Kyiv on Thursday morning, according to Serhiy Popko, head of city’s military administration.

Popko said that around 20 missiles were destroyed after being “detected in Kyiv city airspace” in a post on Telegram.

The person who died in the attacks was identified as a 55-year-old man who was killed “due to the fall of missile fragments,” he added.

The US Ambassador to Kyiv, Bridget Brink,?described the missile assault?as “another cruel attack” that wouldn’t stop Ukraine’s allies giving their “determined, unified support.”

The regional administration for the wider Kyiv region reported that an energy facility had been hit in the attack. “Emergency power outages were being introduced throughout the region,” it said.

Most regions of Ukraine are now no longer under an air raid alert.

Earlier Thursday, a Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson?said that more than 30 missiles had been fired at Ukraine from Russian aircraft.

The missile salvo came less than 24 hours after the United States and Germany pledged to supply Ukraine with modern battle tanks.

Moscow sees the delivery of modern Western battle tanks to Ukraine as “direct involvement” in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday.

“There are constant statements from European capitals, from Washington that them sending various weapons systems, including tanks, to Ukraine in no way means the involvement of these countries or the alliance in the hostilities that are taking place in Ukraine,” Peskov said in a daily press call with reporters.??

Peskov’s comments come after Germany agreed to send Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine following weeks of diplomatic pressure.

Berlin has also said it will approve the re-export of the German-made tanks from other European allies that have stocks of the tank.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius speaks as he pays his first visit to troops of the German armed forces at a military training area in Altengrabow, eastern Germany, on January 26.

Germany is planning to deliver Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine by the end of March, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced Thursday.?

”We will deliver our Leopards – at the latest by the end of march,” Pistorius told reporters at a news conference during a visit to a German armed forces training camp in Altengrabow.?

On Wednesday, Germany confirmed it will deliver 14 Leopard 2 tanks from its own Bundeswehr (German Armed Forces) stock to Kyiv, following weeks of diplomatic pressure on Berlin.??

When asked by a reporter on Thursday why it had taken Germany so long to announce the deliveries of the tanks, Pistorius justified Germany taking its time.???

”We did not hesitate – we negotiated with our allies – we talked to our partners and friends about what is the best thing to do now and that takes time,” he said.

Ukrainian President Zelensky in the interview that was aired on January 26.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky?said he is “not interested” in meeting his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin for peace talks in an interview with Sky News that aired Thursday.?

Asked whether the war in Ukraine could be resolved through peace talks with Putin, Zelensky said: “It is not interesting for me. Not interesting to meet, not interesting to speak.”??

Zelensky told Sky News there were many more casualties on Russia’s side than Ukraine’s, adding that “in the east, they are losing a large number of people, a huge number, but they don’t care. They are not counting people, that’s a fact. We are counting their people.”??

During the interview, which was taped on Wednesday, Zelensky learned Germany had agreed to send German-made Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine after weeks of diplomatic pressure on Berlin to do so.?

Zelensky said he was “very pleased,” but he also said the timeframe in which they were delivered to the war-torn nation was “critical.”??

Thursday’s wave of Russian air strikes damaged energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, causing “major troubles with the power supply,” regional governor Maksym Marchenko said on Telegram.?

“There are hits and damage to several energy infrastructure facilities in the Odesa region and other regions of the country,” Marchenko wrote.

The strikes came less than 24 hours after the historic center of the regional capital, the port city of Odesa, was?added to the World Heritage List?by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

UNESCO chief Audrey Azoulay had said then he hoped the move would help protect the city from the war.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Thursday that the attack was in response to the listing.

“Among [the] targets of today’s mass missile strike, Russia struck Odesa causing massive power outages,”?Kuleba wrote on Twitter. “This destruction is Putin’s response to UNESCO inscribing Odesa on its World Heritage List yesterday and placing it under reinforced protection of the World Heritage in Danger List.”

More than 30 Russian missiles were reportedly launched at Ukraine on Thursday morning, just hours after two dozen attack drones were shot down.

Missile strikes have been reported in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and the Odesa and Vinnytsia regions.

Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak signs a contract for the purchase of 250 Abrams tanks for the Polish Army in the 1st Warsaw Armored Brigade in Wesola near Warsaw, Poland, on April 5.

Poland will receive its first Abrams tanks from the United States in the spring, defense minister Mariusz B?aszczak said Thursday.

B?aszczak told public broadcaster Polskie Radio 1 that 58 of the US-made tanks will be delivered in the coming months, and Polish troops had been undergoing training on the vehicles “for some time.”?

In December, the US approved a $3.75 billion sale of Abrams tanks to Poland.

“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy goals and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a NATO Ally that is a force for political stability and economic progress in Europe,” reads a note from the US State Department published at the time.

“The proposed sale will improve Poland’s capability to meet current and future threats by providing a credible force that is capable of deterring adversaries and participating in NATO operations.”

Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine: The announcement on the first delivery of these tanks comes as Poland prepares to send some of its German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.

Marcin Przydacz, head of the Polish president’s International Policy Bureau, said the country will send “one company” of tanks.

He would not specify exactly how many tanks?Poland?intended to send but said that a company of tanks was usually made up of?“between 10 and 14 Leopard 2 vehicles.”?

One person has died and at least two have been wounded in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv after Russia launched a new wave of missile attacks on Thursday morning, city mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said on Telegram.

“There is information about one dead and two injured as a result of a missile hit in the Holosiyivskyi district,” he said. Klitschko also reported explosions in the Dniprovskyi district.

Earlier Monday, Ukrainian air force spokesperson?Yurii Ihnat?told national television that more than 30 missiles had been fired at Ukraine from strategic bombers that took off from Russia’s Murmansk region.

Missile strikes have also been reported in the Vinnytsia region.

An air raid alert remains in place across the country.?

People gather in a subway station being used as a bomb shelter during a rocket attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on January 26.

Ukrainian air defenses are working to intercept Russian attacks after Moscow’s forces fired more than 30 missiles at Ukraine on Thursday morning, the Ukrainian Air Force said.

Air force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said on Ukrainian television that around six Russian Tu-95 aircraft had “taken off from [Russia’s] Murmansk region and have launched missiles.”

Some missiles hit Ukraine’s west-central Vinnytsia region, Gov. Serhiy Borzov said on Telegram, but no casualties were reported.?

The head of the Kyiv city military administration, Serhii Popko, said on Telegram that more than 15 cruise missiles had been launched “in the direction of Kyiv” and all had been shot down.?

An air raid alert is in place across the country.?

Drones repelled: Separately, Ukraine’s Air Force Command has said its air defenses shot down 24 attack drones sent by Russia overnight?

The attacks come after the United States and Germany said Wednesday they would send battle tanks to Ukraine.?

Joe Biden delivers remarks on the continued support for Ukraine in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington on January 25.

The more?Russian President Vladimir Putin?tries to break NATO, the stronger it gets.

Not for the first time in?the war in Ukraine,?President Joe Biden?took decisive action that closed fissures in?the alliance. He announced Wednesday he would ship?31 advanced US tanks?to Kyiv’s military in a move that prompted a reluctant Germany to drop its resistance to sending its own tanks and could unlock similar moves all over Europe.

This represented a significant symbolic, political and military win for Ukraine. It hopes what it calls its new “iron fist” will punch through entrenched Russian lines in the east, could fuel an advance on Russia’s land bridge to annexed Crimea in the south and will stave off a feared Russian spring offensive.

It took Biden’s statesmanship to end?the most public and damaging Western rift?of the war so far. The US had previously said its Abrams tanks were too complex and too high maintenance for the Ukraine war and didn’t suit the terrain. But Biden’s change of heart, which gives Germany cover, underscores Washington’s view that Western unity against Putin is critical to saving Ukraine.

Indeed, Putin’s major goal off the battlefield is to forge splits between the Western allies and to disrupt or end the flow of weapons on which Ukraine’s survival as an independent nation depends.

His failure, despite fierce Russian public threats designed to bully European nations into balking at tank transfers, also comes after a mild winter robbed Russia of another prong of its strategy — starving Europeans of gas imports during freezing weather in hopes they’d pressure their own leaders to step back from supporting Ukraine.

Read the full analysis here.

Switzerland’s Federal Council has granted a new exemption to its arms embargo to allow the use of Swiss demining equipment in Ukraine in some cases.?

Switzerland, though not a member of the European Union, will also implement the EU’s ninth round of sanctions against Russia, including the sanctioning of around 200 additional individuals and entities, the government said Wednesday.?

Swiss stance: Switzerland has blocked the requests of several European countries, including Germany and Denmark to re-export Swiss-made ammunition to Ukraine, arguing the moves would violate the country’s long-held neutrality.?

However on Tuesday, a key Swiss parliamentary committee recommended waiving a law that bans the re-export of Swiss-made armaments in cases where at least two-thirds of the United Nations General Assembly determines there has been an illegal use of force.

Parliament’s Security Policy Committee, which proposed the amendment, argued it?would still “respect the law of neutrality” because it would not allow the direct export of war material to conflict zones.?

The motion has yet to be voted on in parliament.

Andriy Yermak attends a briefing in Kyiv on December 2, 2022.

Ukraine’s air defense systems shot down an unspecified number of Russian missiles on Thursday morning, the Ukrainian president’s Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak wrote on Telegram.

At least two of the rockets flew through the southern Mykolaiv region, Gov. Vitaly Kim said on Telegram.

Earlier, Ukraine’s largest private energy company on Thursday implemented emergency power outages in several regions including Kyiv “due to the threat of a missile attack,” the firm said.

Air raid sirens have sounded across all regions of Ukraine on Thursday morning.?So far, there have been no reports of strikes.?

Ukraine’s largest private energy company on Thursday implemented emergency power outages in several regions including Kyiv “due to the threat of a missile attack,” the firm said.

Air raid sirens have been ringing across all parts of Ukraine, including Kyiv, on Thursday morning.?

Air sirens rang across much of central and eastern Ukraine Wednesday night as officials warned residents to shelter from a possible Russian attack.

“Threat of a missile strike,” Mykola Lukashuk, head of the Dnipropetrovsk Region Council, said on Telegram. “Stay in safe places until the end of the alert. The threat is not over.”

Lukashuk urged others on Telegram not to report the locations of possible interceptions by Ukrainian air defense.

In the southern Mykolaiv region, there were also official reports of possible incoming Russian fire.

“They write that three groups of mopeds [Shahed attack drones] have already taken off,” Vitaliy Kim, head of the Mykolaiv regional military administration, said on Telegram. “The petty crooks couldn’t come up with anything better on the best president’s birthday.”

In the northeastern Kharkiv region, the military administrator warned residents to remain in their shelters: “There is a threat of missile attacks. Do not ignore the alarms.”

In the central Kirovohrad region, the military administrator said on Telegram: “The level of missile threat remains high.”

A Russian warship armed with?advanced hypersonic missiles?completed a drill in the Atlantic Ocean, ahead of joint naval exercises with the Chinese and South African navies scheduled for next month, the Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday.

Russia’s Admiral Gorshkov frigate, armed with Zircon hypersonic missiles, practiced “delivering a missile strike against an enemy surface target,” the ship’s commander Igor Krokhmal said in a video released by the ministry.

The exercise, described by state news agency Tass as an “electronic launch” or virtual simulation, confirmed the “designed characteristics” of the missile system, said Krokhmal, who pointed to the missiles’ purported ability to reach distances of more than 900 kilometers (559 miles).

The test was part of a long voyage of the Admiral Gorshkov frigate launched earlier this month, when Russian state media said the warship was dispatched with the hypersonic missiles. The deployment will also include joint training with the Chinese and South African navies off the coast of South Africa, according to Moscow and Pretoria.

The exercises come as Russia nears the first anniversary of?its full-scale invasion of Ukraine?and marks both a show of force and — with the joint exercises — an opportunity for Moscow to show it is not isolated on the world stage, despite wide international condemnation of its unprovoked war.

During a joint meeting in Pretoria Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his South African counterpart Naledi Pandor defended the naval drills, with Lavrov saying Moscow does not want any so-called “scandals” regarding the exercises.

Read more here.

Mykhailo Fedorov during an interview in Kyiv on December 14, 2022.

Germany will fund the purchase of 20 million euros ($21.8 million) worth of Starlink satellite terminals for Ukraine, Kyiv’s minister of digital transformation said Wednesday.

“Expressed my gratitude to the German people for a new batch of 10,000 Starlinks, which we’ll get next month,” Mykhailo Fedorov?said in a Telegram post .

The small, easy-to-use satellite dishes made by Elon Musk’s private rocket company SpaceX have been universally hailed as a?game-changing source of communication?for Ukraine’s military, allowing it to fight and stay online even as cellular phone and internet networks have been destroyed in its war with Russia.?

Germany’s Foreign Ministry said a?third of the terminals will benefit the Ukrainian armed forces directly, noting the expanded internet access will also help the Ukrainian people.

US President Joe Biden?said Wednesday?he plans to send 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, reversing his longstanding resistance to Kyiv’s requests for the highly sophisticated but maintenance-heavy vehicles.

His announcement came after Germany said it would send 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv from its own stock, ending an apparent standoff that saw Berlin officials indicate they would only send tanks?if the US did too.

Here’s what you need to know:

Watch CNN’s Jim Sciutto break down the latest on the tanks:

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CNN’s Kevin Liptak, Stephanie Halasz, Sophie Tanno and Sugam Pokharel contributed reporting to this post.

The historic center of the Ukrainian port city of Odesa and sites in Yemen and Lebanon were added to the World Heritage List Wednesday by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

All three sites were simultaneously added to UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger.

UNESCO’s founding Convention obliges all members — among whom are Russia and Ukraine — to “not take any deliberate measures that directly or indirectly damage their heritage or that of another State Party to the Convention.”

Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, said in a statement that he hoped the listing would help protect Odesa from the war.

The statement said the decision would give Ukraine access to “technical and financial international assistance” to protect and rehabilitate the city center.

Read more here.

Volodymyr Zelensky speaks during a joint press conference in Kyiv on January 24.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday the decisions by the United States and Germany?to send main battle tanks to his country proved “freedom is only getting stronger.”

He thanked “Mr. President Biden, I thank the Congress, I thank every American family” as well as “Mr. Chancellor, all German politicians and public figures.”

Providing more sophisticated weapons to Ukraine was critical to the war effort, he added.

Oleksii Reznikov attends a meeting in Ramstein, Germany on January 20.

Ukraine’s “wish list” for Western-supplied weapons includes fighter jets, Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told CNN on Wednesday.

But he said Kyiv’s first priority was air defense systems so it could prevent Russia from carrying out air and missile strikes.

“We have to close our sky, to defend our sky,” Reznikov said. “That’s priority number one. After that, we need to get more armed vehicles, tanks, artillery systems, UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), et cetera, et cetera. We have people, but we need weaponry.”

Even in disarray, the message ends up being one of unity.

After weeks of Poland and other NATO members openly pressuring Germany to permit the dispatch of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, finally it appears the United States and some of its European Union allies?will send armor?— a move that was unthinkable months ago — to the?front line against Russia.

It is a momentous decision, partly because these — unlike the air defense systems, or the anti-tank missiles — are not defensive weapons. Like the artillery and rocket systems that preceded them, they are intended to hit Russia’s troops hard in a ground offensive. But unlike those systems, they are unequivocally about?Ukraine retaking territory. This is new, and fierce, and it portrays a NATO unafraid.

The combined US and European decision to send tanks to Ukraine is not the display of fractious democracies it might appear to be.

Throughout the weeks of dispute and badgering around Berlin’s reluctance to assist Kyiv, some in Moscow will have heard something different to disunity: a West contemplating sending its most aggressive armor to a state it considered unfit even to discuss NATO membership seriously with a year ago.

An alliance of the size, and varying histories, of NATO would always have some disagreements on how to handle the largest land war in Europe since World War II.

Poland has experienced the Soviet grasp, with many of its citizens able to remember how that version of Russian imperialism felt. Germany — under the Nazis — last let its tanks loose in the continent’s worst episode of bloodshed yet. Many senior figures in its towering Social Democratic Party (SPD) — home of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz — have been perilously close to the Kremlin. It would have been somewhat remarkable had these European powers all been on an identical page about this fight from day one.

But America’s plans to send a?largely symbolic 30 Abrams tanks?to Ukraine, according to two US officials familiar with the deliberations, have emboldened Germany enough to drop its objections to the Leopard. It provided a NATO umbrella for the move, even if it will take months, maybe years, to get the logistically complex American main battle tank into play.

Read the full analysis here.

Two?Ukrainian soldiers fighting in the eastern city of Bakhmut said Wednesday they feared an attempted encirclement by Russian forces, though?they?did not expect a dramatic change in the coming days.

The unnamed soldier, with whom CNN has been in constant contact for weeks, said “there are intense street battles for every house in the east, northeast and southeast,” but added that, while the Russian threat continued to grow, he did not believe Moscow’s forces were likely to make any significant progress in the coming days.

“This is very worrying for us, and for everyone who is sane, especially those who saw what happened to the people surrounded in Soledar. And we were there. And no one wants it to happen again,” the soldier said.

Ukraine’s deputy defense minister acknowledged that Russia is “intensifying their pressure” on Bakhmut.