As the war enters its 685th day, these are the main developments.
Russia fired 51 missiles at targets across Ukraine on Monday [Stringer/Reuters]
Here is the situation on Tuesday, January 9, 2024.
Fighting
- Four people were killed and at least 45 injured as Russia continued its barrage of drone and missile attacks on Ukraine. One person was killed after missiles hit a shopping centre and residential buildings in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih in the southeast, while two people were killed in a separate missile attack on the western region of Khmelnytsky. At least one person was also killed in northeastern Kharkiv after four missiles hit the city.
- Kherson regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said Russian troops carried out 131 artillery attacks on the southern region, killing two people and injuring five.
- Ukraine’s military said Russia had launched “a large number of ballistic missiles” and it was able to bring down 18 of the 51 that were fired. Air Force spokesman Yuri Ignat said air defences achieved “a good result”, with all eight drones destroyed and some Russian missiles missing their targets.
- The Russian Defence Ministry said in its daily briefing it had used sea and air-launched long-range missiles, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, to strike what it called “facilities of Ukraine’s military-industrial complex”.
- Belgorod regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said 300 people had been evacuated from Russia’s Belgorod because of Ukrainian attacks. Russian forces destroyed 10 Ukrainian rockets over the region in the evening, Moscow’s Defence Ministry said. Two drones were also destroyed over the Russian border region of Bryansk, it added.
A missile launched from Russia’s Belgorod region flying towards Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine [Vadym Bielikov/AFP]
- The Ukrainian military said Russian forces made unsuccessful efforts to advance in several areas along the front line, including around Lyman in the Kharkiv region as well as in the Donetsk and Zaporizhia regions.
- Leonid Pasechnik, the Moscow-installed head of Ukraine’s occupied Luhansk region, said a Russian warplane accidentally released a bomb, an FAB-250 which carries a high-explosive warhead, on the occupied Ukrainian town of Rubizhne. No one was injured, he said.
Politics and diplomacy
- A Ukrainian lawmaker said controversial new draft legislation on military mobilisation will not conscript women or introduce a lottery. “There will be no unconstitutional positions,” Yehor Chernev, the deputy chairman of the parliamentary Committee on National Security, Defence and Intelligence, told Ukraine’s public broadcaster.
- Pope Francis, addressing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine in his yearly address to diplomats, said “indiscriminately striking” civilians was a war crime because it breached international humanitarian law.
Weapons
- German Chancellor Olaf Scholz urged European Union countries to provide more military assistance to Ukraine, saying most countries were not doing enough to give Ukraine the weapons it needed to battle the Russian invasion.
- United States White House officials met about a dozen executives from the technology and defence industries as part of an effort to support Ukraine’s access to cutting-edge US equipment. Companies like Palantir Technologies and Skydio joined the talks that focused on drones and demining.
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
