Russian invasion of Ukraine: Day 692

Summary for Tuesday, 16th January 2024 - DAY 692

• The Russian city of Voronezh was placed under a state of emergency on Tuesday morning after what officials said was a Ukraine-launched drone attack. Russian fighter-bombers used to attack Ukraine are based near Voronezh.
  
  
• Ukraine said it shot down a Russian A-50 spy plane and Il-22 command aircraft in the area of the Sea of Azov. Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s military commander in chief, said: “Ukraine’s air force destroyed an enemy A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft and an enemy IL-22 air control centre. I am grateful to the air force for the perfectly planned and executed operation in the Azov Sea region!”
  
  
• The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, arrived in Switzerland to participate in the World Economic Forum in Davos and meet Swiss officials. On Sunday, Ukraine pushed ahead with its peace formula to end nearly two years of war with Russia with a meeting in Davos of national security advisers from around the world.
  
  
• China must be involved in efforts to end the war between Ukraine and Russia, Switzerland’s co-chair of the Davos meeting Ignazio Cassis said.
  
  
• Russia is mobilising about 1,000-1,100 recruits to its armed forces every day, Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR), said in an interview with RBC-Ukraine. The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said Russia had probably “substantially inflated” the number of people it says have joined the country’s armed forces, with recruits being disproportionately drawn from impoverished and rural communities.
  
  
• Russia said it had given more than 200 Ukrainian prisoners of war lengthy prison sentences, with some getting a life sentence, AFP reported. The state-run outlet RT quoted an investigative committee source as saying 242 soldiers were sentenced in occupied Ukraine.
  
  
• The Kremlin said Russia was developing relations with “our partner” North Korea in all areas and would build on the agreements reached between the countries’ leaders when they met at a Russian space launch centre in 2023.
  
  
• The UN and its partners appealed for $4.2bn (£3.3bn) from donors to support communities in Ukraine devastated by the war, as well as Ukrainian refugees, in 2024. The UN aid chief, Martin Griffiths, urged diplomats in Geneva: “Please do not forget Ukraine while there are many other places in the world that grab our attention.”
  
  
• The UK announced that it would send 20,000 service personnel to one of Nato’s largest military exercises since the cold war.
  

Officials declare state of emergency in Russian city of Voronezh after 'Ukraine drone attack'

Images distributed by the Voronezh governor, Alexander Gusev, showed a damaged residential building where a young girl was reportedly injured by fragments of a drone that was shot down.

Putin to receive North Korean foreign minister on Tuesday evening, Kremlin says

Ukraine urges civilians to leave villages near north-east front

Polish truckers who have blockaded some border crossings with Ukraine since November will suspend their protest until 1 March after signing an agreement with the government

We’ve signed an agreement. The outcome of the agreement will be the discontinuation of protests at road border crossings in three towns: Korczowa, Hrebenne, Dorohusk.
The protest will be stopped till 1 March.

Ukraine’s state customs service said that Polish truck drivers who had been blocking several crossings on the Polish-Ukrainian border lifted their blockade at one of them on Tuesday.

Russian Federation sends armored vehicle convoys to storm in the Avdiivka direction

Russia’s invasion forces intensified their activities in the Avdiivka direction and sent columns of armored vehicles to assault.

‘I Know Putin and Zelenskyy well’: Trump claims he can ‘quickly end’ war in Ukraine

Former U.S. President Donald Trump promised to quickly end the war in Ukraine if he wins the presidential election in a statement made during a speech made on Jan. 16 in the wake of his Iowa Republican Caucus victory. 
“I know President Putin very well. I know Zelenskyy very well,” said Trump.
“We’re going to get it solved very quickly.”
The former U.S. President also stated that, if he had been President in 2022, the war in Ukraine should never have happened.
“Now you have all that deaths far greater than people understand the numbers are,” said Trump.

“Far-far greater than anybody would even think possible. You're going to find that out in the years to come when they knock down these massive buildings in Ukraine… many people were killed. We're going to get it stopped but it's so sad because it should have never started.”
Previously, Trump repeatedly claimed that he would “achieve” an end to Russia's war against Ukraine within 24 hours if re-elected. He also said he “would have allowed” Russia to capture part of Ukraine and that the U.S. is sending too much weaponry to Ukraine.

Ukraine's parliament passes law to create electronic conscription registry

As the military seeks to replenish its ranks amid the full-scale war with Russia, the government submitted a draft law on mobilisation and military service to the parliament on 25 December, outlining plans for further conscription and tightening restrictions on draft evaders. ‘
The bill passed on 16 January does not address the larger issue of mobilization but aims to improve the digitalization of Ukraine’s army.
The new legislation will create a single digital registry for conscription purposes that will have all the relevant information easily accessible to those overseeing mobilisation.

Polish blockade of Ukrainian border lifted entirely, protests end at Yahodyn checkpoint

The flow of trucks through the Yahodyn-Dorohusk checkpoint has resumed after the Polish hauliers called off their protest.

• Polish hauliers lifted their blockade of the Krakivets and Rava-Ruska checkpoints.
  
  
• On 16 January, Tomasz Borkowski of the Committee to Protect Hauliers and Transport Employers, reported that Polish hauliers, who have been blocking border crossings with Ukraine since November, agreed with the government regarding some demands and will suspend their protest. 
  
  
• Subsequently, the specifics of the agreement reached between the demonstrators and the Polish government emerged: the protests will be halted until 1 March.
  

Closing summary

• Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, said it was “impossible” to take away from Russia the military gains it had made in Ukraine.
  
  
• Ukraine’s parliament has passed a law creating an electronic registry for the purposes of mobilisation, Yaroslav Zhelezniak, a member of parliament, said.
  
  
• Helping Ukraine as it fights Russia’s invasion should be done in a way that doesn’t harm the EU’s budget, Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has said. He told a news conference: “If we want to help Ukraine, which I think we need to do, we have to do it in a way that doesn’t harm the EU’s budget.”
  
  
• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said the west should show unity and called for more support for Ukraine to ensure that Russia does not prevail, Reuters reported. In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Zelenskiy said that the west’s fears about escalation had lost Kyiv time in its struggle against Russia.
  
  
• Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said in Davos today that Europe needs to continue backing Kyiv, citing the need for “predictable” funding. “We must continue to empower their resistance. Ukrainians need predictable financing throughout 2024 and beyond,” she said.
  
  
• Authorities in Ukraine’s north-east region of Kharkiv urged residents of more than two dozen villages near the frontline to evacuate because of worsening Russian attacks in the area.
  
  
• Putin will receive North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Son-hui, on Tuesday evening, the Kremlin said. Pyongyang’s top diplomat is in Russia for a three-day visit and is holding talks with Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, on Tuesday during the day.
  
  
• The mayor of the southern Russian city of Voronezh declared a state of emergency on Tuesday after what officials said was a Ukraine-launched drone attack, the Reuters reported this morning.