Closing summary
Thank you for following the Guardian’s Russia-Ukraine war live blog. It will be closed shortly but you can follow updates from the Brussels EU leaders summit, where a deal was reached on Thursday for a €50bn aid package for Ukraine, via this blog. You can also find the latest news on Russia here, and on Ukraine here.
Here is a summary of the latest events:
Charles Michel, the European Council president, announced that a deal had been reached on €50bn for Ukraine at a summit of EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday. “All 27 leaders agreed,” he said, adding that “this locks in steadfast, long-term, predictable funding for Ukraine.” The agreement comes after the bloc’s most influential politicians sat down with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán this morning.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he is grateful to EU leaders for establishing a new €50bn facility for his country. “It is very important that the decision was made by all 27 leaders, which once again proves strong EU unity,” he added.
Ukrainian prime minister Denys Shmyhal welcomed the EU’s decision to approve an additional €50bn aid package for Ukraine.He said he was “grateful” to Charles Michel, the European Council president, and the leaders of EU member states for their “unwavering support”.
The Russian national guard, a force also known as Rosgvardia, is incorporating three former Wagner assault detachments into its first volunteer corps formation, according to the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD). The MoD said that Russian president Vladimir Putin had signed a law on the 25 December last year, authorising the Russian national guard to form its own volunteer formations. Rosgvardia is often referred to as Putin’s “private army”.
Ukraine’s spy chief on Thursday said Kyiv’s forces were planning to step up their attacks on Russian infrastructure sites, after a spate of drone strikes on Russian energy facilities this year. “The number of attacks on Russian infrastructure is likely to increase,” Kyrylo Budanov, chief of Ukraine’s GUR military intelligence unit, said in a social media post.
A North Korean delegation will visit the lower house of Russia’s parliament on 13 February, state news agency RIA quoted a deputy from the opposition Communist party as saying on Thursday. According to Reuters, lawmaker Kazbek Taysaev also said that a Russian parliamentary delegation planned to travel to North Korea in March.
Latvia’s parliament voted on Thursday to ban its national teams from playing any national teams of Russia and Belarus regardless of what flag they may compete under, as a gesture of solidarity with Ukraine, reports Reuters.
Ukraine said on Thursday that four people had been injured in a Russian missile attack on a medical facility in the eastern Kharkiv region, which has recently been under continuous bombardment. The interior ministry said the missile attack late on Wednesday targeted a village near Kupiansk, a frontline town Russian forces have been trying to capture. It added that 38 people were evacuated.
Russia’s defence ministry said air defences shot down 11 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory overnight. “Air defences intercepted and destroyed drones over the regions of Belgorod (four drones) and Kursk (one drone)“, it added. About 03.30am (GMT), four more drones were shot down over the Belgorod region and two over the Voronezh region, according to the statement.
Kyiv also said Russian forces had launched four drones at Ukraine overnight and that air defence systems had downed two over Kharkiv.
Ukraine has reportedly carried out heavy missile strikes on military targets in Crimea including the Balbek airfield used by occupying Russian forces, with possible losses of Russian aircraft and personnel. Ukrainian news outlets citing military sources said Scalp and Storm Shadow missiles were used in the attacks on Wednesday.
Ukraine’s air force commander, General Mykola Oleshchuk, acknowledged the Balbek attack, sharing online a video of an explosion and calling it a “cleansing of Crimea from the Russian presence”. A Russian military radar was hit earlier in apparent preparation for the Crimea attacks.
US legislation for more aid to Ukraine will probably be split from a $110bn “national security” package that also covers US-Mexico border security, the Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, has told visiting speakers from the Baltic countries, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.
The US president, Joe Biden, has continued to use presidential powers to work around the Republican blockade. His secretary of state, Antony Blinken, has notified the Greek government that the US will transfer to Greece’s military surplus equipment including C-130 planes; 60 Bradley armoured fighting vehicles which are prized by the Ukrainians; ships; trucks; and other equipment. There is an agreement that Greece will make an equivalent transfer of equipment to Ukraine, according to Greek media reports.
A Russian bomb struck a hospital in Velykyi Burluk, north-east of Kharkiv, on Wednesday, smashing windows and equipment and prompting the evacuation of dozens of patients, regional officials said.
Russia and Ukraine have conducted a major prisoner of war exchange, one week after a previous swap was shelved when a Russian Il-76 transport plane was shot down. Russia and Ukraine both said that about 200 prisoners were exchanged on Wednesday, although their exact figures differed. Russia has produced no proof for its claim that the plane shot down last week contained Ukrainian PoW.
The EU expects to reach 52% of its target to send 1m rounds of shells to Ukraine by March this year and plans to train another 20,000 soldiers, said the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell.
Olaf Scholz and four other European leaders admitted that the EU had “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 Putin-allied Viktor Orbán over a €50bn aid package.
The international court of justice (ICJ) has found Russia violated some parts of a UN anti-terrorism treaty by not investigating financial support for separatist groups in eastern Ukraine in 2014. The top UN court declined to rule specifically on alleged Russian responsibility for shooting down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014. The ICJ ruled that Russia violated the UN anti-discrimination treaty by failing to protect education in the Ukrainian language in Crimea.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said Russian troops were holding ground on the outskirts of the east Ukrainian industrial town of Avdiivka. Russian troops have failed to take the town in repeated and extremely bloody attempts that have cost Russia thousands of casualties and hundreds of tanks and armoured vehicles.
Ukraine claimed to have carried out another drone attack on an oil facility deep inside Russian territory, according to a military intelligence source.
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.
Putin will visit Nato member Turkey to meet its president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on 12 February, a Turkish official has said. Because of an international criminal court (ICC) warrant for war crimes, Putin can’t travel to many places abroad, but Turkey does not recognise the ICC.
Latvia bans national teams from playing Russia or Belarus under any flag
Latvia’s parliament voted on Thursday to ban its national teams from playing any national teams of Russia and Belarus regardless of what flag they may compete under, as a gesture of solidarity with Ukraine, reports Reuters.
National and club teams from Russia and its ally Belarus have been banned from competing in numerous international events after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, including from Belarus’ territory.
The Latvian Olympics Committee said the move will not impact the country’s participation at the Olympics in Paris as the International Olympic Committee only allows individual Russian or Belarusian athletes – not teams – to take part as neutrals without flags.
Athletics, the Olympic Games’ biggest event, has maintained a blanket ban on both nations’ athletes, including individuals.
EU-member Latvia, which borders both Russia and Belarus, passed the law “to re-emphasise Latvia’s solidarity with Ukraine and to fundamentally block any Russian efforts to legitimise its war crimes through the sports industry”, parliament said in a statement.
UEFA in September reinstated under-17 Russian sides in European competitions, saying “children should not be punished for actions whose responsibility lies exclusively with adults”.
That decision was reversed within weeks, however, after other national sides threatened boycotts, including the UK.
Last April, Ukraine barred its national sports teams from competing in Olympic, non-Olympic and Paralympic events that have competitors from Russia and Belarus. The ban was watered down in July to allow athletes to compete against Russians or Belarusian’s playing under a neutral flag, as worries mounted that such a tough stance would exclude Ukraine from the Paris Olympics.
