We will be pausing our live coverage of the war in Ukraine for the next few hours.
Before we return, here is a comprehensive rundown of where things currently stand.
- Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, accused Nato of “doing literally nothing” in the face of Russia’s invasion of his country. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Kuleba praised the EU for its “revolutionary” decisions to back Kyiv but said the Nato military alliance had been “completely sidelined”.
- Ukraine has again pleaded for more weapons, including multiple launch rocket systems to match Russian firepower. “We need the help of our partners - above all, weapons for Ukraine. Full help, without exceptions, without limits, enough to win,” president Zelenskiy said in his national address. Kuleba added his country “badly” needs multiple launch rocket systems to match Russian firepower.
- Zelenskiy rejected the notion that his country should cede territory to make peace with Russia. “Symptomatic editorials began to appear in some Western media stating that Ukraine must allegedly accept so-called difficult compromises by giving up territory in exchange for peace,” he said in his latest nightly address. Those who advise Ukraine to give up territory fail to see the ordinary people, he said, “who actually live in the territory they propose to exchange for the illusion of peace.” Presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych added: “No one is going to trade a gram of our sovereignty or a millimetre of our territory. Our children are dying, soldiers are being blown apart by shells, and they tell us to sacrifice territory. Get lost. It’s never going to happen.”
- Ukraine’s foreign ministry said Moscow’s plan to simplify the process of handing Russian citizenship to residents of Ukraine’s Russian-occupied regions violates international law. The ministry’s statement came after Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, signed a decree simplifying the process of handing Russian citizenship to residents of Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia region.
- Russian forces have launched fresh assaults on towns in eastern Ukraine, with the city of Sievierodonetsk increasingly in danger of being totally encircled. The governor of Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, said the area was now without gas supplies and had limited water and electricity after the last gas supply station was hit.
- Police in Lysychansk are collecting bodies of people killed in order to bury them in mass graves, Luhansk regional governor Serhiy Gaidai said. Some 150 people have been buried in a mass grave in one Lysychansk district, he added, Reuters reports.
- Russian lawmakers have voted to approve a new law that would eliminate age limits for military contract soldiers. Military experts say Russia is facing unsustainable troop and equipment losses in Ukraine after a series of military setbacks that have forced Moscow to reduce its war aims. Zelenskiy responded: “(They) no longer have enough young men, but they still have the will to fight.”
- A senior United Nations official is due to visit Moscow in the coming days to discuss reviving fertiliser exports, Russia’s UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said, stressing that the talks were not linked to a resumption of Ukrainian grain shipments, Reuters reported.
- Two alleged Wagner Group fighters from Belarus have been accused of murdering civilians near Kyiv, making them the first international mercenaries to face war crimes charges in Ukraine. Ukrainian prosecutors have released the names and photographs of eight men wanted for alleged war crimes – including murder and torture – in the village of Motyzhyn. Several are believed to have fought in Syria.
- Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Andrei Rudenko, said Moscow is ready to provide a humanitarian corridor for vessels carrying food to leave Ukraine, in return for the lifting of some sanctions. Ukraine’s Black Sea ports have been blocked since Russia invaded, with more than 20 million tonnes of grain stuck in silos in the country. Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, poured scorn on Moscow’s claim and accused Russia of trying to “blackmail the world”.
- Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said it would be “much more dangerous giving in to Putin than provoking him” during a speech in Stockholm and warned: “All these seemingly small concessions to the aggressor lead to big wars. We have done this mistake already three times: Georgia, Crimea and Donbas.”
- Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said an Italian peace plan for Ukraine was a “fantasy”. Zakharova said at her weekly briefing: “You can’t supply Ukraine with weapons with one hand and come up with plans for a peaceful resolution of the situation with the other.”
Here are some of the latest images to come out Ukraine today.
