Summary of the day
Here is the summary of the key developments in the Russia-Ukraine conflict today:
Russia and Ukraine have conducted a major prisoner of war exchange just one week after a previous swap was shelved when a Russian Il-76 transport plane was shot down. Russia and Ukraine both said that around 200 prisoners were exchanged on Wednesday, although the two sides disagreed about the exact figures.
The EU expects to reach 52% of its target to send 1m rounds of shells to Ukraine by March this year, while the bloc plans to train another 20,000 soldiers, said the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell.
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said Russian troops were holding ground on the outskirts of the east Ukrainian town of Avdiivka, an embattled industrial hub.
Ukraine claimed to have carried out another drone attack on an oil facility deep inside Russian territory, according to a military intelligence source.
Vladimir Putin called for an international investigation into the downing last week of an Il-76 military transport plane in the Belgorod region on Russia’s border with Ukraine. The Russian president said that the plane had been struck with missiles fired from a US-supplied Patriot air defence system, which Ukraine has neither confirmed nor denied.
Olaf Scholz and four other European leaders admitted that the EU has “fallen short” of its goals to supply Ukraine with artillery ammunition on the eve of an emergency EU summit of EU leaders designed to break the deadlock between member states and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán over a €50bn aid package.
The EU must show “clear commitment” to Ukraine, which needs more ammunition, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said before a meeting with EU defence ministers in Brussels.
The Kremlin said that it was monitoring the situation around Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top military commander, after western and Ukrainian media outlets said President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was trying to oust Zaluzhny.
Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, told military manufacturers to “stop fooling around” and further increase the production of self-propelled artillery systems during a visit to arms-producing factories in the Urals.
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Ukraine’s air defences shot down 14 out of 20 drones launched by Russia in an overnight attack that injured one person and damaged commercial buildings, the military has said.
I’m closing the blog for the rest of the day, but we will be back tomorrow to bring you the latest updates. Thanks for following.
Updated
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, will visit Nato member Turkey to meet President Tayyip Erdogan on 12 February, a Turkish official has said.
Putin’s visit will be his first to a Nato member since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Putin’s scope to travel abroad has been limited since March last year when the international criminal court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against him for the alleged deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia, a war crime. Russia denied the charge and called the move outrageous, but said it was legally void in any case because Russia is not a member of the ICC.
Turkey is also not a party to the Rome statute of the ICC, so Putin can travel to Turkey without fear of being arrested under the warrant.
Turkey has sought to maintain good relations with both Moscow and Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine. It has provided military support to Ukraine and voiced support for its territorial integrity, but also opposes sanctions on Russia in principle.
Ankara is seeking to convince Russia to return to the so-called Black Sea Grain Initiative after Moscow withdrew last July, ending a year of protected exports from Ukrainian ports amid the war. Erdogan said alternatives to the deal could not provide a lasting solution.
Updated
