Russian invasion of Ukraine: Day 698

Summary for Monday, 22nd January 2024 - DAY 698

• EU foreign affairs ministers are meeting today in Brussels. They will have an informal videoconference with Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, and are expected to discuss the future of European support for Kyiv.
  
  
• Ukraine has said this morning that Russian forces overnight attacked with eight Iranian-designed Shahed drones, which were all shot down. The attacks took place across southern and central areas of Ukraine.
  
  
• The UK has provided satellite photographs of North Korean cargo shipments to Russia to a panel of UN experts as part of an attempt to trigger an official investigation into arms deals in violation of international sanctions.
  
  
• At least 25 people were killed and 20 injured when shelling hit a suburban shopping area in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, according to local officials, who said shells were fired by the Ukrainian military. Ukraine’s Tavria military units fighting in the area denied they attacked the market, and Russia’s claims could not be independently verified.
  
  
• A fire that broke out at a chemical transport terminal near St Petersburg in Russia, after two explosions on Sunday was due to an attack by Ukrainian drones, the BBC reported. An official source in Kyiv told the BBC that the “special operation” of the SBU security service masterminded the attack at Ust-Luga port with drones that were “on target”.
  
  
• Russia’s capture of the village of Krokhmalne in the Kharkiv region is a “temporary phenomenon”, the Ukrainian ground forces command spokesperson, Volodymyr Fityo, said. Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday, in its morning summary, that Russian forces had taken control of the village.
  
  
• Russia has lost approximately 376,030 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of the war, the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces claimed on Sunday. The number, which has not been independently verified, includes 760 casualties over the past day.
  
  
• North Korea is Russia’s largest arms supplier at present, Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov told the Financial Times in an interview published on Sunday. In the interview, Budanov also said Moscow was losing as many or more troops than it can recruit and that the Wagner group still exists, despite reports saying it had been dismantled.
  
  
• Europe needs to “step up” and provide more funding for Ukraine, the UK’s defence secretary, Grant Shapps, has said. Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, Shapps said: “Europe needs to step up and do their part to make sure that Ukraine can continue to defend herself.”
  
  
• Russian forces struck Zaporizhzhia region 95 times across 16 localities in the last day, reported the Kyiv Independent, citing regional governor Yurii Malashko. He said a 71-year-old man was injured in Huliaipole due to artillery shelling, where there were also two reports of destroyed residential buildings.
  
  
• Slovakia’s new culture minister, Martina Šimkovičová, has reversed a ban on cooperating with Belarus and Russia, reports the Kyiv Independent, citing an article by the Slovakian publication Pravda. Pravda reported that leaked documents showed the reversal would be effective from 22 January.
  
  
• Ukrainian tennis player Marta Kostyuk believes that tennis has forgotten the war in Ukraine and she hopes that the success of Ukrainian women at the Australian Open will generate further attention for the issue.
  

North Korea is accused of supplying weaponry to Russia in breach of international law

UK intelligence has sent photographs backing up those accusations to UN experts.

An unpublished UK defence intelligence report seen by the Guardian shows imagery taken between September and December of three Russian ships, the Maia, Angara and Maria, loading containers at North Korea’s revived Najin port before transiting to Russian ports in the far east.

While the agency said it could not identify what was in the containers, it followed a US announcement last week that ballistic missiles from North Korea had been used by Russia in Ukraine last week.


The report shows images of three Russian ships loading containers at North Korea’s revived Najin port.
Photograph: UK Ministry of Defence

The report, along with other evidence from the US and other countries, was provided to the UN panel of experts on North Korean proliferation, which is expected next month to publish its first final report since suspected North Korean shipments of ammunition to Russia sharply increased this year.

The deliveries have been cited as enabling military strikes against Ukraine in December and January that “killed dozens of people and injured hundreds more”.

Prosecutors in Kharkiv told the Guardian that suspected fragments of North Korean-made Iskander missiles had been sent to Kyiv for analysis and said the missiles had subtle differences: hand-drawn lettering for serial numbers, and a different nozzle exhaust cone and welding.

Zelenskiy proposes changing Ukrainian citizenship rules

It will allow all ethnic Ukrainians and their descendants from around the world to have our citizenship. Of course, except for citizens of the aggressor country.
All those who, during various emigration waves, were forced to leave their homeland and ended up in Europe, the United States, Canada, countries of Asia and Latin America.
All those who help us despite being hundreds and thousands of kilometres away from their homeland.
Foreign volunteers who took up arms to defend Ukraine, all those who fight for Ukraine’s freedom as if it were their homeland. And Ukraine will become such for them.

Total of 53 skirmishes occur on front over past 24 hours, Russians attempt to advance on Dnipro's left bank

A total of 53 combat engagements have taken place on the front line over the past 24 hours, with the Russian army launching 2 missile strikes and 41 airstrikes and carrying out 28 attacks with multiple rocket launchers.

• On the Kupiansk front, Ukrainian defenders repelled four Russian attacks near the village of Synkivka (Kharkiv Oblast), where the Russians attempted to break through the Ukrainian defences.
  
  
• On the Lyman front, Ukrainian forces repelled a Russian attack near the settlement of Terny (Donetsk Oblast) and four more attacks near the settlements of Makiivka, Bilohorivka, and Serebrianka Forest (Luhansk Oblast), where the Russians attempted to break through the Ukrainian defences.
  
  
• On the Bakhmut front, Ukrainian Defence Forces repelled seven Russian attacks near the settlements of Bohdanivka, Klishchiivka and Andriivka (Donetsk Oblast), where the Russian army unsuccessfully tried to improve its tactical situation.
  
  
• On the Avdiivka front, Ukrainian troops repelled nine Russian attacks near the settlements of Stepove and Avdiivka and five more attacks near Pervomaiske and Nevelske (Donetsk Oblast), where the Russians attempted to break through the Ukrainian defences.
  
  
• On the Marinka front, Ukrainian Defence Forces are continuing to hold back the Russian army near the settlements of Heorhiivka and Novomykhailivka (Donetsk Oblast), where the Russian troops made 16 unsuccessful attempts to improve their tactical situation.
  
  
• On the Shakhtarsk front, Russian forces did not conduct offensive operations.
  
  
• On the Zaporizhzhia front, Ukrainian defenders repelled a Russian attack near the village of Robotyne (Zaporizhzhia Oblast), where the Russians unsuccessfully attempted to regain their lost ground.
  

Summary of the day

• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he had “very productive talks” with Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, who visited Kyiv today. The Ukrainian leader said the two countries would be able to resolve problematic issues.
  
  
• Tusk underlined that Warsaw and Kyiv would work in a spirit of friendship to resolve differences.
  
  
• Denys Shmyhal, Ukraine’s prime minister, said that he “discussed the free movement of goods across the border” with Tusk and that the sides agreed to resume intergovernmental consultations.
  
  
• EU foreign ministers discussed support to Ukraine.
  
  
• With ministers focusing much of their attention today on the situation in the Middle East, the bloc’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, insisted that Ukrainians should not worry and that the EU’s support for Kyiv would continue as strong as ever.
  
  
• Borrell also said Ukraine “needs more and faster military support now”.
  
  
• Latvia’s foreign minister, Krišjānis Kariņš, said that “if we do not help Ukraine stop Russia now, it will be only all the more expensive for us later”.
  
  
• Elina Valtonen, Finland’s foreign minister, said there’s a need to fulfil Ukraine’s immediate defence needs, but that Europe also needs to ramp up its defence industry and capabilities.
  
  
• Zelenskiy announced a proposal aimed at granting ethnic Ukrainians and their descendants Ukrainian citizenship.
  
  
• There is movement toward a meeting between Zelenskiy and Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, a senior Ukrainian official said.
  
  
• The UK updated its travel advice “to advise against all but essential travel” to the regions of Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, Chernivtsi in western Ukraine. Previously, there was advice against all travel to the whole of Ukraine.
  
  
• The UK has provided satellite photographs of North Korean cargo shipments to Russia to a panel of UN experts.
  
  
• The Kremlin has drawn up a bill to confiscate property and valuables from Ukraine war critics convicted of, among other crimes, “discrediting the Russian army” or calling for foreign sanctions.