Europe will stand with Ukraine "for as long as it takes", EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen told the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday as Western delegates discussed the need to bolster support for Kyiv in its fight against Russia's invading forces. Earlier, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog said during a visit to Ukraine that he hoped to make progress on a safe zone deal around the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia plant, though stressing that negotiations were tough. Follow our blog to see how the day's events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT+1).
This live blog is no longer being updated. For more of our coverage on the war in Ukraine, please click here.
02:22am: Russia's newest nuclear submarine on its way to temporary base in Arctic
Russian navy's newest nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine Generalissimo Suvorov is on its way to a temporary base for the Northern Fleet in the Arctic, the TASS news agency reported on Tuesday, citing an unidentified defence source.
"Recently, the submarine cruiser Generalissimo Suvorov has started moving from Severodvinsk, where it was located at the Sevmash shipyard, to a temporary base for the Northern Fleet," the state agency cited its source as saying.
The strategic submarine was officially included into the Russian navy at the end of 2022 by President Vladimir Putin.
01:17am: UK sees 'moral imperative' of Ukraine tanks as US teases new aid
Britain said Tuesday that its breakthrough decision to provide tanks to Ukraine to fight Russia was a "moral imperative," as the United States said that more military aid was coming.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly on a visit to Washington said that Britain was sending a signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin by backing the Ukrainians and becoming the first nation to agree to their request for Western tanks.
"What Putin should understand is we are going to have the strategic endurance to stick with them until the job is done. And the best thing that he can do to preserve the lives of his own troops is to recognize that we're going to stick with Ukrainians until they are victorious," he said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
12:33am: Russia's commissioner denies talks on large prisoner exchange with Ukraine
Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova said on Tuesday that she did not talk to her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Lubinets in Turkey last week about a possible prisoner exchange.
"In my negotiations with Ombudsman of Ukraine Dmytro Lubinets in Ankara there was never any talk of exchanges, and I always emphasize that these issues are within the competence of the Russian Ministry of Defence," Moskalkova said on theTelegram messaging app.
6:57pm: Final toll in Russian strike on apartment building in Dnipro: 45 dead, including 6 children
The final death toll from a weekend Russian missile strike on an apartment building in southeastern Ukraine reached 45, officials said Tuesday, as the body of another child was pulled from the wreckage. The strike in the city of Dnipro was the war’s deadliest attack since the spring on civilians at one location.
Those killed in the Saturday afternoon strike included six children, and 79 people were injured, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office. The final toll included two dozen people initially listed as missing at the multistory building, which housed about 1,700, he said.
The deadliest attack involving civilians before Saturday was an April 9 strike on a train station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk that left at least 52 people dead, according to The Associated Press-Frontline War Crimes Watch project.
6:45pm: The Netherlands plans to send Patriot missile defence system to Ukraine
The Netherlands will send a Patriot missile defence system to Ukraine, Dutch news agency ANP reported on Tuesday, citing Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
Rutte is currently in Washington DC meeting US President Joe Biden.
ANP, citing a fireside chat between the two leaders, quoted Rutte as saying they would participate in a US-German initiative to send the defence systems to Ukraine. Rutte said he had earlier spoken by telephone with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss the decision.
6:31pm: Russian mercenary group chief says French Foreign Legion soldier killed in Ukraine
The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group claims that a French Foreign Legion soldier has been found dead in eastern Ukraine, and posted an image of what appeared to be his identity documents.
“Colleagues from the French Foreign Legion asked us to find Yevhenii Koulyk,” Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a post on Telegram. “We regret to inform you that a French Foreign Legion soldier has been found dead on DPR (Donetsk People’s Republic) territory.”
Russia has illegally annexed Ukraine’s Donetsk province, proclaimed as the Donetsk People’s Republic in 2014 by separatists supported by Moscow, although Kyiv still controls a large part of the province.
5:34pm: Putin: Russia must maintain food reserves, not export everything
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said that Russia needs to maintain stable food reserves, if necessary by restricting some exports, but did not provide specific details.
It was not clear whether Putin was suggesting that Russia, which has cut supplies of gas to some of the countries it considers “unfriendly” since its invasion of Ukraine, might limit exports of major food commodities such as grain, which much of the world depends on.
“We must, of course, allow this sector to work,” Putin said. “To make a profit, so that they can invest in the result of the 2023 harvest ... in processing, in animal husbandry.” But he added: “We cannot allow everything to be dragged abroad. Despite all the restrictions on logistics on freight, on insurance –nevertheless, it’ll all fly out. It already is.”
Putin also said that no one could accurately predict Russia’s agricultural output for 2023, citing unexpected warm weather in Europe and frosts in Central Asia. “That’s why we absolutely need stable reserves.”
5:28pm US, Ukraine top military chiefs meet in person for first time
The top US military officer, Army General Mark Milley, travelled to an undisclosed location near the Ukraine-Poland border on Tuesday and talked with his Ukrainian counterpart face to face for the first time – a meeting underscoring the growing ties between the two militaries and coming at a critical time as Russia’s war with Ukraine nears the one-year mark.
Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met for a couple of hours with Ukraine’s chief military officer, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, in southeastern Poland.
“These guys have been talking on a very regular basis for about a year now, and they’ve gotten to know each other,” Army Colonel Dave Butler, a spokesman for Milley, said. “They’ve talked in detail about the defence that Ukraine is trying to do against Russia’s aggression. And it’s important – when you have two military professionals looking each other in the eye and talking about very, very important topics, there’s a difference.”
4:40pm UK to back Ukraine ‘until victorious’ as Russia protests tanks
Britain’s Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that his country will support Ukraine until they win the war, after Moscow was angered by London’s decision to send tanks.
“The message we’re sending to Putin – and, frankly, anyone else that cares to be watching – is that we made a commitment to support Ukrainians until they are victorious,” Cleverly said while on a visit to Washington.
“What Putin should understand is we are going to have the strategic endurance to stick with them until the job is done and the best thing that he can do to preserve the lives of his own troops is to recognise that,” he said. The British government has said it will provide Ukraine with 14 Challenger 2 tanks.
2:05pm: Ukraine ends search for survivors in Dnipro
Ukraine has now called off search and rescue operations at the rubble of an apartment building in Dnipro where at least 44 people were killed in a Russian missile attack.
The State Emergency Service said 20 people were still unaccounted after Saturday's attack and that the 44 confirmed dead included five children. Thirty-nine people had been rescued from the rubble and a total of 79 had been hurt, it said.
"At 1pm on January 17, search and rescue operations in the city of Dnipro at the site of the rocket attack were completed," the emergency service wrote on the Telegram messaging app under a photograph from the scene.
1:45pm: EU sets up reserve in Finland to respond to nuclear, chemical threats
The European Union has given Finland €242 million ($262 million) to set up for the first time a reserve against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats for use by all member states, the Finnish government says.
"Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine has confirmed the need to strengthen the EU CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear) preparedness," European Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic said in a statement.
The reserve will consist of rescue equipment and medical supplies, such as antidotes and radiation metres, that are intended to protect first responders and the civilian population, Finland's interior ministry said.
Finland shares a 1,300-km (800-mile) border with Russia and is located close to the Baltic states which also fear that an escalation of the war in Ukraine could lead to the use of nuclear weapons or a nuclear accident.
1:10pm: Death toll from Russian strike on Dnipro apartment building rises to 44
Ukraine said Tuesday 22 people were still missing after a Russian missile struck an apartment block in the city of Dnipro, killing at least 44 people.
Saturday's strike was one of the deadliest attacks since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly 11 months ago. The Kremlin denies that its forces were responsible.
Dnipro's Mayor Borys Filatov gave the new toll from the attack which ripped open the side of the Soviet-designed housing block in the central city.
The presidency said earlier that one of the bodies recovered from the rubble Tuesday was that of a child. Officials have said five children were among the dead.
12:40pm: Russian economy likely shrank in 2022 but beating expectations, says Putin
President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the Russian economy was likely to have shrunk by 2.5 percent in 2022, but that it was performing better than most experts had predicted.
Putin, who was speaking at a meeting with top officials including the finance minister and central bank chief, said real wage growth needed to be stimulated.
12:15pm: Serbia asks Russia to stop recruiting its people for Ukraine war
Russia should halt its efforts to recruit Serbs to fight for its Wagner paramilitary group in Ukraine, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has said in a rare criticism of Moscow.
Vucic criticised Russia's websites and social media groups for publishing advertisements in the Serbian language in which the Wagner group calls volunteers to join its ranks.
“Why do you, from Wagner, call anyone from Serbia when you know that it is against our regulations?” Vucic said. The Serbian legislature bans participation of its citizens in conflicts abroad and several people have been sentenced for doing so.
Serb volunteers took part in the fighting alongside pro-Russian forces in Ukraine in 2014 and 2015. No one has a clear idea of exact numbers at any one time but dozens of Serbs have signed up to fight in Ukraine since 2014, observers say.
12:02pm: Wagner deserter seeks asylum in Norway after fleeing Russia
A former commander of Russia's Wagner mercenary group has said he fled to Norway and is seeking asylum in fear for his life after witnessing the killing of captured deserters from Wagner.
Andrei Medvedev, who joined the group last July on a four-month contract and says he fought in Ukraine, said in a video posted by the Gulagu.net rights group that he had crossed the border into Norway before being detained by Norwegian police.
"I am afraid of dying in agony," Medvedev told Vladimir Osechkin, founder of the Gulagu.net rights group, which said it had helped Medvedev leave Russia after he approached the group in fear for his life.
Medvedev said he crossed the border, climbing through barbed-wire fences and evading a border patrol with dogs, and heard guards firing shots as he ran through a forest and over thin and breaking ice into Norway.
11:45am: Von der Leyen vows 'no let-up' in EU support for Ukraine
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has promised there will be "no let-up" in EU support for Ukraine as she addresses delegates at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
"There will be no let-up in our steadfast support to Ukraine, from helping to restore power, heating and water, to preparing for the long-term effort of reconstruction," she said after meeting the country's first lady, Olga Zelenska.
"We are in it – for as long as it takes and stand with our Ukrainian friends."
11:10am: Ukraine says 9,000 civilians killed since start of invasion
More than 9,000 civilians, including 453 children, have been killed in Ukraine since Russia's invasion last February, a senior Ukrainian presidential aide has told delegates gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
"We have registered 80,000 crimes committed by Russian invaders and over 9,000 civilians have been killed, including 453 children," said Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian presidential staff.
"We will not forgive a single (act of) torture or life taken. Each criminal will be held accountable," Yermak added, reiterating that Ukraine wants a special international tribunal to try Russian political leaders and reparations for the destruction caused by Russia's invasion.
The office of the UN high commissioner for human rights said on Monday that more than 7,000 civilians had been killed in Ukraine since Russia invaded.
10:30am: Ukraine presidential adviser resigns over Dnipro missile comments
Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych has tendered his resignation after a public outcry over comments he made suggesting a Russian missile that killed at least 41 people in the city of Dnipro had been shot down by Ukraine.
Arestovych announced his resignation on Facebook after publicly apologising and rowing back on his comments in a post on the Telegram messaging app. The Ukrainian Air Force says the apartment complex was hit by a Russian Kh-22 missile, which Kyiv does not have the equipment to shoot down.
"I offer my sincere apologies to the victims and their relatives, the residents of Dnipro and everyone who was deeply hurt by my prematurely erroneous version of the reason for the Russian missile striking a residential building," he wrote.
10:15: Ukraine's first lady to address Davos forum
Ukraine’s first lady will give a rare international address at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in the Swiss town of Davos later today, part of a push by President Volodymyr Zelensky to acquire more foreign weapons.
Olena Zelenska’s speech will come after she told CNN through an interpreter on Sunday that despite Russian missile strikes that have pounded Ukrainian energy infrastructure and civilian areas in recent months, “we understand that upon carrying on for a year, we are capable of persevering for even longer”.
Zelensky will be beamed in by video on Wednesday to complement the in-person delegation of his wife and officials, including Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
9:25am: Russian defence minister visits troops involved in Ukraine offensive
Russia's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu has inspected a military headquarters in Ukraine, his office said, without specifying the base's whereabouts.
At the headquarters of Russia's Vostok (East) group in an unnamed location, Shoigu was briefed by its commander and heard from commanders of other formations "on the progress of combat mission", the ministry said in a statement.
A video released by the ministry with the statement showed Shoigu holding a meeting with military commanders in person and via video-link. Among those taking part in the video call was Russia's Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, who was recently put in charge of Moscow's forces in Ukraine.
>> Read more: Putin’s army chief handed ‘poisoned chalice’ amid Russian power tussle
The video also showed Shoigu handing out awards to servicemen.
8:30am: Tanks for Ukraine to top agenda of new German defence minister
The first item on the agenda of Germany's next defence minister will be whether to deliver main battle tanks to Ukraine, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck has told Deutschlandfunk radio broadcaster, commenting on the resignation of his cabinet colleague Christine Lambrecht, who quit as defence minister on Monday.
Britain’s offer to send more than a dozen Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine has increased pressure on Germany to do likewise with its coveted Leopard 2 battle tanks. Lambrecht’s resignation, just days before a critical meeting at the US Air Base in Ramstein, Germany, has raised questions over whether Berlin will give the green light for battle tank exports to Ukraine.
Click here for more analysis from FRANCE 24's Leela Jacinto.
7:45am: 'Kyiv is concerned Russia might try to seize another nuclear plant'
The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog is in Ukraine this week for talks on setting up a safe zone around the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia plant in Ukraine.
FRANCE 24's Gulliver Cragg reports from the capital, Kyiv, where security at the country's other nuclear plants remains a major concern.
5:55am: UN watchdog optimistic about Ukraine nuclear plant protection
The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog has said he hopes to make progress on a safe zone deal around the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia plant in Ukraine, but stressed it was a tough negotiation.
Russian forces in March captured the Soviet-era plant, Europe's largest, soon after their invasion of Ukraine. It has repeatedly come under fire in recent months, raising fears of a nuclear disaster.
"The situation around the plant continues to be very, very dangerous," Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told reporters during a visit to Ukraine. "A nuclear accident, an accident with serious radiological consequences, is in nobody's interest."
Russia downplayed the IAEA's visit and its powers.
5:05am: Russian flags banned at Australian Open tennis after Ukraine complaint
Russian and Belarusian flags have been banned from the Melbourne Park precinct during the Australian Open after a complaint from the Ukraine ambassador to the country.
Vasyl Myroshnychenko, Ukraine's ambassador to Australia and New Zealand, posted a picture showing a Russian flag hanging from a bush beside the court where his compatriot Kateryna Baindl was playing her first-round match on Monday.
"I strongly condemn the public display of the Russian flag during the game of the Ukrainian tennis player Kateryna Baindl at the Australian Open today," he wrote on Twitter. "I call on Tennis Australia to immediately enforce its 'neutral flag' policy."
Tennis Australia responded on Tuesday by banning the flags of the two countries.
"Flags from Russia and Belarus are banned onsite at the Australian Open," Tennis Australia said in a statement. "Our initial policy was that fans could bring them in but could not use them to cause disruption. Yesterday we had an incident where a flag was placed courtside (...). The ban is effective immediately."
10:30pm: Zelensky says decision-making on Ukraine arms supplies needs to speed up
The deadly attack on an apartment building in the central city of Dnipro shows the need for faster and better coordinated decisions on supplying arms for Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video address Monday.
“What happened in Dnipro, the fact that Russia is preparing new attempts to seize the initiative in the war, the fact that the nature of military action at the front requires new decisions on arms supplies – only underscores how important it is to coordinate all the efforts of the coalition defending Ukraine and freedom,” Zelensky said. “And to speed up decision-making.”
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and REUTERS)
