Russian invasion of Ukraine: Day 695

Summary for Friday, 19th January 2024 - DAY 695

Key developments over the past 24 hours:

• Russia winning in Ukraine would not end well for Europe, Lithuania’s foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, has said at the Davos summit in Switzerland. “There’s a chance that Russia might not be contained in Ukraine,” he said. “[We need] common procurement, we could procure things that are needed to defend Europe … it’s Europe’s war.”
  
  
• Ukraine is working “intensively” with partners to restore air travel which has been suspended for nearly two years, with the main focus on Boryspil international airport outside the capital, Kyiv, and perhaps Lviv, presidential official Rostyslav Shurma has said. “We need to get approvals from the Iata [International Air Transport Association] and FAA (the US aviation administration) which is not an easy case. And it depends more on the bold decisions of international partners that we believe we’ll get.”
  
  
• Ukraine has warned that its army faces a “very real and pressing” ammunition shortage as a new 23-nation effort to supply it with artillery was agreed at a meeting in Paris. The “artillery coalition” sits within the wider Ramstein contact group, which gathers more than 50 countries supporting Ukraine.
  
  
• Ukraine has bought six more Caesar howitzers, said France’s defence minister, Sebastien Lecornu.
  
  
• In Australia, criticism is being directed at the government for refusing to donate to Ukraine its retired fleet of Taipan army helicopters, the Australian-built version of the European NH90 – opting instead to strip them for parts and then bury what is left. The Taipan has had a troubled service history, including a fatal crash, but the NH90 is flown by militaries in Europe and elsewhere.
  
  
• Australia has also dropped from being initially the top non-Nato contributor of support to Ukraine, to sixth place. The Australian Federation of Ukrainian Organisations has called on the Australian government to reverse its decision regarding the Taipans.
  
  
• A Ukrainian drone attack hit an oil terminal in St Petersburg on Thursday as part of a “new phase” of strikes on the region, a Ukrainian military source told news agency Reuters. Reuters could not independently verify the statement but the Kyiv Independent also reported the news.
  
  
• Romanian farmers blocked a crossing on the Romanian-Ukrainian border on Thursday, Ukraine’s state customs service said. Truckers in several EU countries bordering Ukraine have protested about Ukrainian drivers being allowed concessional entry and undercutting their business.
  
  
• The Russian city of Belgorod, near the Ukrainian border, had to cancel its traditional Orthodox Epiphany festivities on Friday due to the threat of attacks by Ukraine. Belgorod has been targeted by Ukraine because it is a key Russian military staging point.
  
  
• Nuclear envoys of South Korea, the US and Japan meeting in Seoul have condemned North Korea for its arms trade with Russia, recent missile tests, and increasingly hostile rhetoric at a meeting in Seoul.
  

A Russian official says a Ukrainian drone has struck an oil storage depot in western Russia, causing a massive fire.

The Guardian
Russian officials and news reports said four oil reservoirs with a total capacity of 6,000 cubic meters (1.6m gallons) were set on fire Friday after the drone reached Klintsy, a city of 70,000 people located about 60 kilometres (40 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
Ukraine has recently intensified its efforts to unnerve Russians and undermine president Vladimir Putin’s claims that life in Russia is going on as normal before its 17 March presidential election.

Kyiv claims new attack on oil depot in Russia

Digital Journal / AFP reports

Copyright AFP/File TALAR KALAJIAN

Ukraine said it was behind a drone strike that sparked a huge inferno at an oil depot in western Russia on Friday, the latest in a series of escalating cross-border attacks.
The strike is the second on a Russian oil depot in as many days, part of what Kyiv has called “fair” retaliation for Moscow’s strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Friday’s strike targeted a Rosneft oil storage facility about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the Ukrainian border, in the Russian town of Klintsy, officials said.
It was carried out by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, a Ukrainian security source confirmed to AFP, without elaborating.
Videos showed a huge fireball tearing through the oil depot’s storage tanks, while a cloud of black smoke billowed over the town of some 60,000 inhabitants.
“Four oil tanks are burning in Klintsy,” regional governor Alexander Bogomaz said.
“For safety reasons 32 residents of the private sector were temporarily evacuated to relatives. A temporary accommodation centre has been prepared,” he added.
There were no casualties, but 13 fire trucks were deployed to battle the blaze, Bogomaz announced earlier.
The fire started after a drone dropped “munitions” on the depot, he said, but claimed the drone had been intercepted.
Two other drones targeting the region were shot down by air defences, he said.
A train especially equipped to deal with large fires was scrambled to the town to help battle the blaze, a local train operator said.
“The fire will not affect rail traffic in Klintsy,” it stressed.
Kyiv has targeted Russian territory including its oil and gas infrastructure throughout the almost two-year war, but these strikes have intensified in the past two months.
On Thursday, Ukraine claimed responsibility for a rare drone attack in the northern Leningrad region, nearly 1,000 kilometres (around 620 miles) from the border.

Russian A-50 appears in waters of Sea of Azov in the morning – Ihnat

Interfax-Ukraine
The night of January 19 was relatively calm in the airspace of Ukraine, in the morning an enemy A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft was detected in the waters of the Sea of Azov, said Yuriy Ihnat, spokesperson of the Air Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
"It doesn't often happen that there is a more or less calm night in the airspace: there are no attacks by means of air attack, such as drones, first of all, which we are used to seeing virtually every night during autumn and winter. This night is one of the few that was without warning messages,” he said on the telethon.
The spokesperson noted that after three massive enemy attacks, there is “a certain hush, but this does not mean that we need to relax.”
“Now, after the map with enemy air targets is empty, 5-6 air targets appeared, in particular, the famous A-50 in the waters of the Sea of Azov. It’s testing its fate. We talked the day before about what would happen after the destruction of the A-50, I said: another one will arrive. There is nothing surprising in this, because there are still such planes in Russia. Therefore, there is an A-50, there is a fighter closer to Rostov, and how about without drones that monitor the front line," Ihnat noted.
On January 15, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny announced the destruction by Ukrainian forces of an enemy A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft and an enemy Il-22 air control point.

Hundreds of protesters clash with police in Russian republic of Bashkortostan

The Guardian

Trial of local activist provokes one of largest reported demonstrations in country since Ukraine invasion

Police in the central Russian republic of Bashkortostan on Friday arrested more protesters incensed over the jailing of a popular activist as a court sentenced nine demonstrators to short jail terms, reports AFP.
Thousands have taken to the streets of the small town of Baymak in freezing temperatures this week, clashing with riot police in a rare display of public outrage.
They are supporting Fail Alsynov, a local activist who campaigns for the protection of the Bashkir language and was sentenced to four years in prison on Wednesday for “inciting hatred.”
Alsynov had publicly criticised Moscow’s mobilisation drive for the offensive in Ukraine launched nearly two years ago and also opposes mining in the region on environmental grounds.
Videos on social media showed police arresting protesters at a small rally in the regional capital of Ufa on Friday.

Read more here.

Woman killed, two men injured after Russia attacks an apartment building in Kupyansk, Kharkiv Oblast

NV

The Russians hit Kupyansk (Photo:Олег Синєгубов/Telegram)

One woman is dead, and two others are injured after Russians attacked the city of Kupyansk, Kharkiv Oblast on Jan. 18, Kharkiv governor, Oleh Synehubov, reported on Telegram.
A residential building has been hit, he said.
The Russian strike killed a 57-year-old woman and injured 57-year-old and 61-year-old men, Synehubov said.
The on-site investigation is ongoing, he added.

Photo: Олег Синєгубов/Telegram


Photo: Олег Синєгубов/Telegram

Russia launched two strikes on Chuhuiv, Kharkiv Oblast during another overnight attack on Jan. 17.
An educational institution was damaged, according to initial reports.
A civilian woman working as a boiler room operator was killed in the Russian attack.

Russian foreign minister rejects US proposal to resume nuclear talks

Voice of America /AP


Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speaks at his annual news conference in Moscow, Jan. 18, 2024.

Russia's top diplomat on Thursday dismissed a U.S. proposal to resume a dialogue on nuclear arms control, saying it's impossible while Washington offers military support to Ukraine.
Speaking at his annual news conference, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the West of fueling global security risks by encouraging Ukraine to ramp up strikes on Russian territory and warned that Moscow would achieve its goals in the conflict despite Western assistance for Kyiv.


Commenting on a U.S. proposal to resume contacts in the sphere of nuclear arms control, Lavrov described it as "unacceptable," saying that Moscow had put forward its stance in a diplomatic letter last month. He argued that for such talks to be held, Washington first needed to revise its current policy toward Russia.

FILE - White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan speaks at a news conference Aug. 18, 2023, at Camp David, the presidential retreat, near Thurmont, Md.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in June that the Biden administration was ready to talk to Russia without conditions about nuclear arms control even as Russia-U.S. ties were at their lowest point since the Cold War, noting "it is in neither of our countries' interest to embark on opening the competition in the strategic nuclear forces."
But Lavrov charged that Washington's push for the revival of nuclear talks has been driven by a desire to resume inspections of Russia's nuclear weapons sites. He described such U.S. demands as "indecent" and cynical in view of Ukraine's attacks on Russian nuclear-capable bomber bases during the conflict.
He mocked the U.S. offer to resume nuclear arms dialogue, arguing that Washington's position amounts to saying, "We have declared you an enemy, but we're ready to talk about how we could look at your strategic nuclear arsenal again."
Extensive mutual inspections of nuclear weapons sites were envisaged by the New START treaty, which then-Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev signed in 2010. The inspections were halted in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and never resumed.

Moscow participation suspended

In February 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended Moscow's participation in the treaty, saying Russia could not allow U.S. inspections of its nuclear sites at a time when Washington and its NATO allies have openly declared Moscow's defeat in Ukraine as their goal. Moscow emphasized, however, that it wasn't withdrawing from the pact altogether and would continue to respect the caps on nuclear weapons the treaty set.

The New START, the last remaining nuclear arms control pact between Russia and the United States, limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers. It's set to expire in 2026, and the lack of dialogue on anchoring a successor deal has worried arms control advocates.
"Amid a 'hybrid war' waged by Washington against Russia, we aren't seeing any basis, not only for any additional joint measures in the sphere of arms control and reduction of strategic risks, but for any discussion of strategic stability issues with the U.S.," he said. "We firmly link such possibility to the West fully renouncing its malicious course aimed at undermining Russia's security and interests."
The minister said Washington's push for restarting nuclear arms talks was rooted in a desire to "try to establish control over our nuclear arsenal and minimize nuclear risks for itself," but added that "those risks are emerging as a result of forceful pressure on our country."
He accused the West of blocking any talks on ending the conflict and inciting the ramping up of attacks on Russia.

FILE - Firefighters examine the site of Russia's missile attack that hit a hotel in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Jan. 10, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)

"Such encouragement and the transfer of relevant weapons shows that the West doesn't want any constructive solution," Lavrov said. "The West is pushing toward the escalation of the Ukrainian crisis, and that raises new strategic risks."

Asked if tensions with the West over Ukraine could spiral into a showdown resembling the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis — when the U.S. and the Soviet Union found themselves on the edge of nuclear war — Lavrov sternly warned against encouraging Ukraine to strike targets in Russia.
He specifically accused Britain of inciting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to order such attacks, although he didn't offer any proof to back the claim.
"London is literally egging on Zelenskyy to bomb any facilities anywhere in Russia," Lavrov said.

'We will achieve' goals in Ukraine

He reaffirmed that Russia would pursue what it calls the "special military operation" regardless of Western pressure.
"We will consistently and persistently press the goals of the special military operation and we will achieve them," he said. "They should have no hope that Russia could be defeated in any way. Those in the West who fantasize about it have failed to learn history lessons."

On other foreign policy issues, Lavrov talked at length about growing influence of the Global South and argued that Western sway in international affairs was waning.
He hailed Russia-China ties, saying they were going through their "best period in history" and were stronger than a conventional military union.

Lavrov reaffirmed Moscow's call for the creation of an independent Palestinian state, describing it as the only way to ensure security for both Palestinians and Israel. He also criticized the U.S.-led attacks on Yemen, saying that "the more the Americans and the British bomb, the less desire to talk the Houthis have."

NATO will launch its biggest military exercises in decades next week with around 90,000 personnel set to take part in months of drills aimed at showing the alliance can defend all of its territory up to its border with Russia

- top officers said on Thursday.
The exercises come as Russia’s war on Ukraine bogs down. NATO as an organization is not directly involved in the conflict, except to supply Kyiv with non-lethal support, although many member countries send weapons and ammunition individually or in groups, and provide military training.
In the months before President Vladimir Putin ordered Russian troops into Ukraine in February 2022, NATO began beefing up security on its eastern flank with Russia and Ukraine. It’s the alliance’s biggest buildup since the Cold War. The war games are meant to deter Russia from targeting a member country.
The exercises – dubbed Steadfast Defender 24 – “will show that NATO can conduct and sustain complex multi-domain operations over several months, across thousands of kilometers (miles), from the High North to Central and Eastern Europe, and in any condition,” the 31-nation organization said, according to AP.
Troops will be moving to and through Europe until the end of May in what NATO describes as “a simulated emerging conflict scenario with a near-peer adversary.” Under NATO’s new defense plans, its chief adversaries are Russia and terrorist organizations.
“The alliance will demonstrate its ability to reinforce the Euro-Atlantic area via transatlantic movement of forces from North America,” NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, U.S. General Christopher Cavoli, told reporters.
Cavoli said it will demonstrate “our unity, our strength, and our determination to protect each other.”
The chair of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, said that it’s “a record number of troops that we can bring to bear and have an exercise within that size, across the alliance, across the ocean from the U.S. to Europe.”
Bauer described it as “a big change” compared to troop numbers exercising just a year ago. Sweden, which is expected to join NATO this year, will also take part.
U.K. Defense Secretary Grant Shapps has said that the government in London would send 20,000 troops backed by advanced fighter jets, surveillance planes, warships and submarines, with many being deployed in eastern Europe from February to June.

The EU has started discussions on a new sanctions package for Russia that it aims to approve by 24 February

- Bloomberg News reported on Friday.
According to Reuters, the potential measures could include further listings, more trade restrictions and cracking down on Moscow’s continued ability to get around the bloc’s sanctions both through third countries and companies within the EU, the report said citing people familiar with the matter.

Kyiv says attack on Russian oil depot in Klinsty part of 'fair' retaliation for Moscow strikes on Ukraine infrastructure

Ukraine said it was behind a drone strike that sparked a huge inferno at an oil depot in western Russia on Friday, the latest in a series of escalating cross-border attacks.
The strike is the second on a Russian oil depot in as many days, part of what Kyiv has called “fair” retaliation for Moscow’s strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Friday’s strike targeted a Rosneft oil storage facility about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the Ukrainian border, in the Russian town of Klintsy, officials said. It was carried out by the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, a Ukrainian security source confirmed to AFP, without elaborating.
Videos showed a huge fireball tearing through the oil depot’s storage tanks, while a cloud of black smoke billowed over the town of some 60,000 inhabitants.
Regional governor Alexander Bogomaz said:

Four oil tanks are burning in Klintsy. For safety reasons 32 residents of the private sector were temporarily evacuated to relatives. A temporary accommodation centre has been prepared.

There were no casualties, but 13 fire trucks were deployed to battle the blaze, Bogomaz announced earlier. The fire started after a drone dropped “munitions” on the depot, he said but claimed the drone had been intercepted. Two other drones targeting the region were shot down by air defences.

About 160 people who applied for asylum at Finland’s eastern border last year have since disappeared, amid a sudden surge of asylum seekers arriving via Russia, Finland’s immigration authority said.

Finland closed its eastern border with Russia late last year amid a growing number of arrivals from countries including Syria and Somalia. Reuters reports that it accused Moscow of funnelling migrants to the border, a claim the Kremlin has denied.
The immigration authority Migri said it got 1,323 asylum applications at the eastern border between August and December last year, about 900 of those in November and more than 300 in December.
Now 160 people are missing from reception centres, most with unknown whereabouts, Migri’s Director of the Asylum Unit, Antti Lehtinen told Reuters.
Eighteen people have turned up in other European countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany and Switzerland, to refile an asylum application.
Lehtinen said:

It’s of course possible that of these 160 most of them have continued to another country, but they haven’t yet applied for asylum in that country.

Every asylum seeker in Finland has their fingerprint taken to the Eurodac-system, Europe’s shared fingerprint database, Lehtinen added.
Under EU rules, the EU country where a migrant first applies for asylum is responsible for processing the application.
Earlier in January, Finland extended the closure of its border with Russia until 11 February, saying it was likely that the inflow of asylum seekers would restart if the border opened.
In response to the situation at the eastern border, Finnish president Sauli Niinisto called last year for an EU-wide solution to stop uncontrollable entry to Europe’s passport-free Schengen area.
On Thursday, a coast guard unit of the Finnish Border Guard said it was investigating several cases of “assisting illegal immigration” related to the eastern border, suspecting criminal organisations of large-scale human smuggling.
“Smuggling activities have taken advantage of the border security disruptions on the eastern border,” the coast guard said in a statement.

Britain brushed off a Russian plan to ban UK  ships from fishing in Moscow’s waters on Friday as an example of Russia’s “self-imposed isolation” - while an industry body said it would have no impact because Britain’s fleet doesn’t fish there anyway.

The Russian government said on Thursday it had approved a plan to revoke a fishing agreement dating to 1956 that lets UK vessels fish in Russian’s waters in the Barents Sea, a vast part of the Arctic Ocean rich in cod and haddock.
The announcement prompted headlines in British tabloids that Moscow was threatening Britain’s traditional dish of fish and chips. But Mike Cohen, chief executive officer of the National Federation of Fishermen’s Organisations, told Reuters he was not aware of any UK vessels that fish in the sea’s Russian sector.
He said:

I am not clear that it will have any practical impact.

Russia has sought to disentangle its economy from the West since western countries imposed sanctions in the wake of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Russia’s Izvestiya newspaper, which reported the planned fishing move on Thursday, said it was in response to Britain’s attempts to damage the Russian economy.
A British government spokesperson said London had not received any official notification from Moscow on such a decision.
“However, Russia’s continued unilateral withdrawal from a number of international cooperation treaties is symptomatic of its self-inflicted isolation on the world stage as a result of its illegal invasion of Ukraine.”

A Russian state prosecutor on Friday asked a court to jail Darya Trepova, a woman accused of killing a prominent military blogger by blowing him up at Ukraine’s behest, to 28 years in jail

- the RIA news agency reported.
Pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky was killed by a bomb hidden in a figurine that Trepova, 26, gave him at a cafe in St Petersburg where he was giving a talk to an audience of up to 100 people in April last year, Reuters reports.
The figurine was a crude likeness of Tatarsky, who accepted it as a gift. Witnesses told the court that he had jokingly called it “Golden Vladlen” and turned it over in his hands before it had exploded, killing him on the spot and injuring dozens.
At the last court hearing on 16 January, Trepova told the court that she had believed that the package she handed to him had contained a listening device, not a bomb.
Trepova said she was acting under orders from a man in Ukraine whom she knew as “Gestalt” (German for “Shape”), who had been sending her money and instructions for several months before the killing.
Russia accused Ukraine immediately after the attack of organising Tatarsky’s murder. Senior Ukrainian officials have neither claimed responsibility nor denied involvement, with presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak describing it as “internal terrorism”.

Closing Summary

Here is a quick roundup of the main updates from today - as at 6pm in Kyiv:

• Ukraine said it was behind a drone strike that sparked a huge inferno at an oil depot in western Russia on Friday, the latest in a series of escalating cross-border attacks. The strike is the second on a Russian oil depot in as many days, part of what Kyiv has called “fair” retaliation for Moscow’s strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
  
  
• A fire tore through Ryazan oil refinery, Russia’s third-largest, on Friday, the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper said, quoting emergency services. The fire at the oil refinery, controlled by Rosneft, has been put out and there were no injuries, RIA news agency reported.
  
  
• A delegation of members of the Hamas militant movement has visited Russia, the Foreign Ministry said on Friday. Reuters reports the Russian side emphasised the need to release hostages during talks, the Foreign Ministry said.
  
  
• Finland does not see any immediate military threat from Russia, the country’s prime minister Petteri Orpo
  said on Friday at a press conference with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Sweden’s prime minister Ulf Kristersson.
  
  
• A Russian state prosecutor on Friday asked a court to jail Darya Trepova, a woman accused of killing a prominent military blogger by blowing him up at Ukraine’s behest, to 28 years in jail, the RIA news agency reported.
  
  
• Britain brushed off a Russian plan to ban UK ships from fishing in Moscow’s waters on Friday as an example of Russia’s “self-imposed isolation”, while an industry body said it would have no impact because Britain’s fleet doesn’t fish there anyway.
  
  
• The EU has started discussions on a new sanctions package for Russia that it aims to approve by 24 February, Bloomberg News reported on Friday.
  
  
• Belgium will supply a marine ship to an EU mission to protect ships from attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militia in the Red Sea, Belgian broadcaster VRT reported on Friday, citing government sources.
  
  
• About 160 people who applied for asylum at Finland’s eastern border last year have since disappeared, amid a sudden surge of asylum seekers arriving via Russia, Finland’s immigration authority said.
  
  
• The Kremlin on Friday said there was no prospect of reviving the Black Sea grain deal and that alternative routes for shipping Ukrainian grain carried huge risks, Reuters reports.
  
  
• Nato will launch its biggest military exercises in decades next week with about 90,000 personnel set to take part in months of drills aimed at showing the alliance can defend all of its territory up to its border with Russia, top officers said Thursday.
  
  
• Police in the central Russian republic of Bashkortostan on Friday arrested more protesters incensed over the jailing of local activist Fail Alsynov, who campaigns for the protection of the Bashkir language, as a court sentenced nine demonstrators to short jail terms, reports AFP.
  
  
• A Russian official says a Ukrainian drone has struck an oil storage depot in western Russia, causing a massive fire. Russian officials and news reports said four oil reservoirs with a total capacity of 6,000 cubic meters (1.6m gallons) were set on fire Friday after the drone reached Klintsy, a city of 70,000 people located about 60 kilometres (40 miles) from the Ukrainian border.