Russian invasion of Ukraine: Day 687

Summary for Thursday, 11th January 2024 - DAY 687

• Two Russian missiles hit a hotel in Kharkiv late on Wednesday, injuring 11 people, one seriously, said the regional governor, Oleh Synehubov. Visiting Turkish journalists were among the injured, he wrote. Earlier, a 48-year-old woman was killed and a school partially destroyed in Russian airstrikes against Kharkiv oblast, Ukraine’s state emergency service said.
  
  
• Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, who are vying for the Republican presidential nomination in the US, were split over continuing support for Ukraine’s defence in a debate on Wednesday night. DeSantis suggested it was not a top US priority and accused Haley of wanting an “open-ended commitment” of US money and arms. Haley cast supporting Ukraine and stopping Russia’s aggression as a vital US priority. “You do not have to choose” between priorities like the US-Mexico border and Ukraine, she said. “This is about keeping America safe. This is about preventing war.” Donald Trump did not show up.
  
  
• Ukraine is effectively a test site for North Korean nuclear missiles because Kim Jong-un’s regime is supplying Russia with rockets that can deliver an atomic bomb, South Korea has said. “By exporting missiles to Russia, the DPRK uses Ukraine as the test site of its nuclear-capable missiles,” said the South Korean ambassador to the UN, Hwang Joon-kook, using the official name of North Korea. One of the missiles flew 460km, the distance from a North Korean launch site to South Korean’s city of Pusan. “From the ROK [South Korean] standpoint, it amounts to a simulated attack, Hwang said.
  
  
• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, met his Lithuanian counterpart, Gitanas Nausėda, in Vilnius on Wednesday. The surprise visit marked the start of Zelenskiy’s tour of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia – all former Soviet republics and now EU and Nato members. In a statement on X, Zelenskiy called the countries “reliable friends and principled partners” to Ukraine.
  
  
• Western hesitation on aid to Ukraine helps Putin, Zelenskiy warned in a news conference with Nausėda. Zelenskiy expressed his desire to see action on Ukraine gaining Nato membership at this year’s Nato summit, adding that 2024 would be decisive for Ukraine and its allies. At the news conference in Lithuania, he said: “Russia can be stopped”.
  
  
• A €200m (£172m) package of long-term military assistance to Ukraine has been approved by the Lithuanian government. The news was announced after a bilateral meeting between Zelenskiy and Nausėda on Wednesday.
  
  
• Pope Francis has expressed his concern that international attention is shifting away from the nearly two-year-old Russian war against Ukraine, and warned that it risks becoming a “forgotten” war.
  
  
• An “explosive” new attack drone has been developed by Iran for Russia’s war in Ukraine, Sky News reported. The existence of a jet engine-powered version of the Shahed drone has been reported in recent days.
  
  
• Russia accidentally bombed a Russian village, said the UK Ministry of Defence, with “inadequate training” and “crew fatigue” among Russian forces likely exacerbating accidents.
  
  
• A majority (63%) of Russians continue to support the full-scale war against Ukraine, according to a poll released by the University of Chicago’s nonpartisan National Opinion Research Center (Norc).
  
  
• Ukraine’s agricultural product exports via its alternative Black Sea corridor reached 4.8m tonnes in December, surpassing the maximum monthly total exported via a former UN-brokered grain deal, brokers said on Wednesday.
  

13 people injured after two Russian missiles struck a Kharkiv hotel

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, will be continuing on his tour of Baltic states today, with a visit to Estonia, where he will meet with the country’s leaders

Drone hits aircraft repair plant in Russia’s Voronezh Oblast

A drone reportedly struck 711 aircraft repair plant in Borisoglebsk, located about 400 km from the Ukrainian border.

Putin ally threatens nuclear attack if red line crossed

An ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday threatened a nuclear attack if Ukraine continues to destroy Russia's missile launchers.

"Certain thickheaded trench monkeys of Banderostan have made a point that the best method to fight Russia is to destroy our missile launchers all over Russia using the Western-provided long-range missiles," Dmitry Medvedev, who serves as the deputy chair of Russia's security council, wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
"What does it mean? Just one thing: they risk matching Point 19 of Foundations of State Policy of the Russian Federation in the Area of Nuclear Deterrence, (d): '[A]ggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of state is in jeopardy.'"
Medvedev, who previously served as Russia's president and prime minister, claimed that Ukraine's attacks have "nothing to do with the right of self-defense," adding, "it is an unequivocal and obvious ground for us to use the nuclear weapons against such a state.

Dmitry Medvedev, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaks during the Congress of the United Russia Party, on December 4, 2021, in Moscow, Russia. Medvedev threatened a nuclear attack if Ukraine continues to destroy Russia's missile launchers in a social media post on January 11, 2024. Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images

"And it is a must to remember for all the successors of Hitler, Mussolini, Pétain, and others in present-day Europe, that favours nazis in Kiev," he added.

Newsweek reached out to the Russian government via online form and Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs via email for comment.
On Tuesday, Ukraine's special operations forces released a video on Facebook claiming to show the military using a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) to destroy a Russian TOS-1A, a multiple launch rocket system, in southern Ukraine.
The video showed the TOS-1A camouflaged in a forest and then a fiery explosion. In the caption of the video, Ukrainian forces wrote, translated into English: "see how beautifully it burns."

This month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a phone call with U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that Russia launched at least 500 missiles and drones at Ukraine in a five-day period.
When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Putin claimed his country's goal was the "demilitarization and denazification" of its western neighbor.
Putin's allies have compared Ukraine's treatment of Russian speakers in the country with actions taken by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust in the 20th century. His claims have been refuted by the Ukrainian government and its allies.
Zelensky has claimed that Russia's invasion is just a land and power grab from Putin.
"On February 24, 2022, the Russian leadership tried to restore their empire, whether Russian, Soviet, or hybrid. But we didn't fail. Our people. Our friends. The entire free world," Zelensky wrote on X on Thursday.

Russia’s Belgorod region bordering Ukraine is going through “hard times” due to recent fatal shelling by Kyiv

The Belgorod region is going through hard times. What Belgorodians have endured and are enduring, not everyone can physically cope with it. Everyone is afraid, but it is one thing when you sit and are afraid alone, and another thing when we cope with this misfortune together.

Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania have signed an agreement on demining the Black Sea

Sergiy Tomilenko, president of Ukraine’s national union of journalists, said today that Russian missile strikes which struck a hotel in Kharkiv amounted to “the intimidation of media workers in order to limit the coverage of the war.”

Pro-war Russian political activist questioned over terrorism offences

Ukraine to hold fourth peace formula talks at Davos on Sunday

Closing Summary:

• A ceasefire in the Russian-Ukrainian war would not lead to political dialogue, and would only benefit Russia. Zelenskiy said on Thursday during a visit to Estonia. Zelenskiy was meeting with the country’s leaders as a part of a wider tour of the Baltic region.
  
  
• Estonian president Alar Karis called for long-term defence investment as Ukrainian leaders visited Tallinn on Thursday. “Lasting peace requires long-term investment in our defence capabilities,” he said.
  
  
• Switzerland and Ukraine will host peace formula talks at Davos on Sunday. It is the latest in a series of meetings to rally support for Ukraine’s peace plan and will be the fourth of its kind and the biggest yet.
  
  
• Ukraine’s parliament have refused to debate a controversial bill aimed at drafting more soldiers. Speaking after a closed door meeting with Ukraine’s military leaders, David Arakhamia, ruling party leader said “some provisions directly violate human rights”.
  
  
• Hungary’s foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, said he could meet his Ukrainian counterpart on 29 January.
  
  
• 13 people were injured, including foreign journalists after two Russian missiles struck a Kharkiv hotel late on Wednesday, local authorities said.
  
  
• Sergiy Tomilenko, president of Ukraine’s national union of journalists, said today that Russian missile strikes which struck a hotel in Kharkiv amounted to “the intimidation of media workers in order to limit the coverage of the war”.
  
  
• Top defence officials from Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania signed a memorandum of understanding in Istanbul establishing the Mine Countermeasures Naval Group in the Black Sea (MCM Black Sea), which will oversee de-mining operations in the Black Sea to ensure safe waters after Russia’s war in Ukraine.
  
  
• Pro-war Russian leftwing activist, Sergei Udaltsov was questioned over terrorism offence, says his lawyer.
  
  
• Russia’s Belgorod region bordering Ukraine is going through “hard times” due to recent fatal shelling by Kyiv, its governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said at an expo in Moscow on Thursday.
  
  
• Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia’s security council and a senior ally of Putin warned on Thursday that any Ukrainian attacks on missile launch sites inside Russia with arms supplied by the US and its allies would risk a nuclear response from Moscow.
  
  
• The World Bank’s private investment arm has mobilised nearly $1bn to rebuild Ukraine’s private sector and is shifting its broader investment focus towards equity.
  
  
• Ukraine is effectively a test site for North Korean nuclear missiles because Kim Jong-un’s regime is supplying Russia with rockets that can deliver an atomic bomb, South Korea has said.
  
  
• Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, who are vying for the Republican presidential nomination in the US, were split over continuing support for Ukraine’s defence in a debate on Wednesday night. DeSantis suggested it was not a top US priority and accused Haley of wanting an “open-ended commitment” of US money and arms. Haley cast supporting Ukraine and stopping Russia’s aggression as a vital US priority. “You do not have to choose” between priorities like the US-Mexico border and Ukraine, she said. “This is about keeping America safe. This is about preventing war.”
  
  
• The Kremlin has accused the US of trying to pressure European countries into backing the seizure of frozen Russian assets to help finance the rebuilding of Ukraine. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was responding to a Bloomberg report published on Wednesday.
  
  
• Neo-Nazis in the US no longer see backing Ukraine as a worthy cause. Two years into the war in Ukraine, once a destination for American extremists, many within the underground far-right movement in the US are avidly disavowing it and advising followers to stay away.
  
  
• Ukraine has been building barricades and digging trenches as the country’s focus shifts towards defence. On Wednesday, Reuters reporters visited trenches being dug with an excavator and shovels at an undisclosed location in the Chernihiv region near the Russian border.