Summary
Ukrainian counter-attacks were holding Russians back from taking full control of Avdiivka, the UK Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence report. Russian forces have suffered heavy personnel and armoured vehicle losses, frequently caused by Ukrainian uncrewed aerial vehicle munitions. Though they continue to attempt to bypass Ukrainian fortifications by entering the city edges via service tunnels – a method of infiltration they have been attempting since October 2023 – “Ukrainian counter-attacks are holding Russian forces from progressing further within the city”.
Ukrainian officials say Russia has provided no credible evidence to back its claims that their own forces shot down a military transport plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war who were to be swapped for Russian POWs.
Joe Biden will host the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, at the White House on 9 February to discuss aid to Ukraine. This comes as the US president has been pressing Congress to embrace a bipartisan Senate deal to pair border enforcement measures with aid for Ukraine. The talks have hit a critical point as Republican opposition mounts. Some Republicans have set a deal on border security as a condition for further Ukraine aid.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, are in Russia’s Leningrad oblast today to attend the opening ceremony of a memorial complex. The ceremony marked the 80th anniversary of the battle that lifted the siege of Leningrad.
The Biden administration has announced the approval of a $23bn deal to sell F-16 warplanes to Turkey, after Ankara ratified Sweden’s Nato membership, the state department said.
The US is planning to station nuclear weapons in the UK for the first time in 15 years amid a growing threat from Russia, according to a report. Warheads three times as strong as the Hiroshima bomb would be located at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk under the proposals, the Daily Telegraph reported.
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A 13-year-old girl died today from injuries sustained in the Russian shelling of her village in the Kharkiv oblast earlier this month, said Oleg Synegubov, head of the Kharkiv regional state administration.
Russian forces struck the settlement of Maly Burluk on 17 January with an aerial bomb, Synegubov said. The girl sustained complex shrapnel wounds and was in coma.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, are in Russia’s Leningrad oblast today to attend the opening ceremony of a memorial complex. The ceremony marked the 80th anniversary of the battle that lifted the siege of Leningrad.
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The Netherlands has joined the IT coalition to aid Ukraine in its war efforts, Ukraine’s defence ministry said today.
The IT coalition is a group of states within the contact group on defence of Ukraine that operates under the leadership of Estonia and Luxembourg in supporting Ukraine’s defence ministry and armed forces in the field of IT, communication and cyber security. In addition to the Netherlands, 11 more countries are participating in the initiative: Ukraine, Belgium, UK, Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Japan.
Denmark has allocated 91m Danish kroner (over €12m) for the cyber defence of Ukraine within the IT coalition. Previously, Estonia had allocated €500,000 and Luxembourg had allocated €10m.
“Technology can help turn positional warfare into maneuverable warfare,” said Kateryna Chernogorenko, Ukraine’s deputy minister of defence for digital development, digital transformation and digitalisation. “The IT coalition is designed to provide the necessary digital foundation for the deployment of any new technological solutions.”
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Ukraine: No evidence that Ukrainian POWs died in plane crash
Ukrainian officials are saying that Russia has provided no credible evidence to back its claims that their own forces shot down a military transport plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war (POW) who were to be swapped for Russian POWs, the Associated Press is reporting.
Russian officials had, “with great delay”, provided it with a list of the 65 Ukrainians who Moscow said had died in Wednesday’s plane crash in Russia’s Belgorod region, but according to Ukraine’s co-ordination staff for the treatment of prisoners of war, relatives of the named POWs were unable to identify their loved ones in crash site photos provided by Russian authorities.
The Russian defence ministry said that missiles fired from across the border brought down the transport plane, but Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, said that Kyiv had no verifiable information about who was on the plane.
“We currently don’t have evidence that there could have been that many people onboard the aircraft,” Budanov said.
“Russian propaganda’s claim that the IL-76 aircraft was transporting 65 Ukrainian POWs (heading) for a prisoner swap continues to raise a lot of questions.”
Earlier on Friday, Mykola Oleshchuk, Ukraine’s air force commander, described Moscow’s assertion as “rampant Russian propaganda”.
Local authorities in Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, said the crash killed all 74 people on board, including six crew members and three Russian servicemen. Social media users in the Belgorod region posted videos that showed a plane falling from the sky in a snowy, rural area and a huge ball of fire erupting where it allegedly hit the ground.
Kyiv has neither confirmed nor denied that its forces downed a Russian military transport plane that day, but Ukrainian officials earlier this week confirmed that a prisoner swap was due to happen on Wednesday.
They said Moscow did not ask for any specific stretch of airspace to be kept safe for a certain length of time, as it has for past prisoner exchanges. Russia has sole access to the crash site.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called for an international investigation into the crash. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has pledged to make the findings of Moscow’s crash investigation public.
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Biden to host German chancellor to discuss Ukraine aid
Joe Biden will host the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, at the White House on 9 February to discuss aid to Ukraine, among other things, the Associated Press is reporting.
“The two leaders will reaffirm their resolute support for Ukraine’s defence of its land and its people against Russia’s war of aggression,” the White House said in a statement Saturday.
The Biden administration already has sent Ukraine $111bn in weapons, humanitarian assistance and other aid. Disagreements between Congress and the White House have stalled Biden’s proposal of $61bn in new aid for Ukraine – as part of a $110bn package for Israel and other national security needs, with Republicans arguing for the need to include additional security for the US-Mexico border.
Last month, the European Union paid the final instalment of a multibillion-euro support package to Ukraine to help keep its economy afloat. The European Commission has proposed to provide Ukraine with €50bn ($55bn), with 26 of the 27 nation bloc’s leaders endorsing this plan at a summit before that last payout. Hungary, however, imposed a veto. Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, is considered to be Putin’s closest ally in the EU.
EU leaders are expected to meet again on 1 February to suss out the financial package.
Biden and Scholz would also be discussing the Israel-Hamas war, said White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre. The leaders will discuss “efforts to prevent regional escalation in the Middle East, their steadfast support for Israel’s right to self-defence, and the imperative of increasing life-saving assistance and protection of civilians from harm in Gaza.”
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Here are some of the latest images coming in from Ukraine via news agency wires:
Summary of the day so far
Joe Biden is pressing Congress to embrace a bipartisan Senate deal to pair border enforcement measures with aid for Ukraine. The talks have hit a critical point as Republican opposition mounts. Some Republicans have set a deal on border security as a condition for further Ukraine aid.
Ukraine said on Friday that Russia had returned the bodies of 77 soldiers, days after the crash of a Russian military transport plane threw doubt on the future of such exchanges.
The Biden administration has announced the approval of a $23bn deal to sell F-16 warplanes to Turkey, after Ankara ratified Sweden’s Nato membership, the state department said.
The US is planning to station nuclear weapons in the UK for the first time in 15 years amid a growing threat from Russia, according to a report. Warheads three times as strong as the Hiroshima bomb would be located at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk under the proposals, the Daily Telegraph reported.
Ukrainian counter-attacks were holding Russians back from taking full control of Avdiivka, the UK Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence report. Russian forces have suffered heavy personnel and armoured vehicle losses, frequently caused by Ukrainian uncrewed aerial vehicle munitions. Though they continue to attempt to bypass Ukrainian fortifications by entering the city edges via service tunnels – a method of infiltration they have been attempting since October 2023 – “Ukrainian counter-attacks are holding Russian forces from progressing further within the city”.
A Russian team shot and killed a brother and sister from the Khotin community of the Sumy oblast this morning, the regional military administration said.
The brother and sister were living in the village of Andriivka, which is located in the 5-km border zone.
“I once again appeal to the residents of the 5-km zone with a request for evacuation,” said Volodymyr Artyukh, head of the Sumy regional military administration. “This process has been going on for more than a month, help is provided at every stage. Russian terrorists continue to kill civilians. By evacuating from dangerous areas, you will save your life.”
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Russian forces launched eight rocket strikes on civilian infrastructure in the Donetsk and the Kherson oblasts, the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said in its morning briefing.
They engaged Ukrainian troops in 98 combat engagements, and carried out four air strikes and 78 shellings with reactive bullets.
More than 120 settlements in the Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson and Mykolaiv oblasts came under artillery fire.
One person was killed and another injured in Russian drone strikes in Beryslav, said Oleksandr Prokudin, regional governor of Kherson oblast.
Ukraine repelling three-pronged attack on Avdiivka, says UK
In its latest intelligence report, the UK Ministry of Defence said Ukrainian counter-attacks were holding Russians back from taking full control of Avdiivka.
“The assessed main priority for Russian forces is the city of Avdiivka,” the report reads. “The Russians are mounting a three-pronged attack to encircle the city from the south and north, and also fighting on the outskirts of the eastern quarter of Avdiivka city itself.”
However, Russian forces have suffered heavy personnel and armoured vehicle losses, frequently caused by Ukrainian uncrewed aerial vehicle munitions. Though they continue to attempt to bypass Ukrainian fortifications by entering the city edges via service tunnels – a method of infiltration they have been attempting since October 2023 – “Ukrainian counter-attacks are holding Russian forces from progressing further within the city”.
“As the main supply route remains intact, and Ukrainian forces make local counter-attacks, Avdiivka is likely to remain in Ukrainian control over the coming weeks,” the report said.
Russian forces seized the hamlets of Krokhmalne in the Kharkiv oblast on 21 January and Vesele, near Bakhmut in the Donetsk oblast, on 18 January, but the UK defence ministry has deemed them strategically insignificant – Vesele had a pre-war population of 102 and Krokhmalne of 45. “This represents a continuation of Russia’s minor incremental gains whilst Ukraine focuses on active defence,” the report reads.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 27 January 2024.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) January 27, 2024
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/DsKpRBbg7Y#StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/XbGRPbN4NA
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US planning to station nuclear weapons in UK amid threat from Russia – report
The US is planning to station nuclear weapons in the UK for the first time in 15 years amid a growing threat from Russia, according to a report. Warheads three times as strong as the Hiroshima bomb would be located at RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk under the proposals, the Daily Telegraph reported.
The US previously placed nuclear missiles at RAF Lakenheath and removed them in 2008 after the cold war threat from Moscow receded. Pentagon documents seen by the newspaper reveal procurement contracts for a new facility at the airbase.
A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “It remains a longstanding UK and Nato policy to neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons at a given location.”
Calls have recently come from senior figures on both sides of the Atlantic for the UK to be prepared in case of a potential war between Nato forces and Russia. Earlier this week, Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, the outgoing head of the British army, said its 74,000-strong ranks need to be bolstered by at least 45,000 reservists and citizens in order to be better readied for possible conflict.
Downing Street has ruled out any move towards conscription, saying the army service will remain voluntary.
Carlos Del Toro, the US navy secretary, has urged the UK to “reassess” the size of its armed forces given “the threats that exist today”.
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Here are some of the latest images coming through from Ukraine:
The Biden administration has announced the approval of a $23bn deal to sell F-16 warplanes to Turkey, after Ankara ratified Sweden’s Nato membership, the state department said.
The department will now notify Congress of the agreement, as well as of a separate $8.6bn sale of 40 F-35s to Greece.
Turkey will get 40 new F-16s and upgrades to 79 of the jets in its existing fleet, the state department said in a news release.
The US did not green light the transaction until Turkey’s instruments of ratification of Sweden’s membership had arrived in Washington, a US official said, highlighting the highly sensitive nature of the negotiations, AFP reports.
Turkey’s parliament ratified Sweden’s Nato membership on Tuesday after more than a year of delays that upset western efforts to show resolve over Russia’s war in Ukraine.
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Ukraine said on Friday that Russia had returned the bodies of 77 soldiers, the AFP news agency reports, days after the crash of a Russian military transport plane threw doubt on the future of such exchanges.
Moscow and Kyiv traded fresh accusations over the plane that Russia says Ukraine’s forces shot down near the rivals’ border, killing 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war.
Kyiv has not denied the claims outright, but officials have appeared to question whether its POWs were on board.
The latest repatriation of bodies appears unrelated to the downing of the plane, which crashed in Russia’s western Belgorod region on Wednesday.
“Preparations for the repatriation had been underway for a long time,” Ukraine’s coordination headquarters for the treatment of prisoners of war said in a statement.
Hundreds of captured prisoners have been freed in dozens of exchanges throughout the war, but Russia’s claims that Ukraine shot down a plane ferrying Ukrainian detainees has thrown the future of such exchanges into doubt.
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Biden pressing Congress on Ukraine aid
Joe Biden is pressing Congress to embrace a bipartisan Senate deal to pair border enforcement measures with aid for Ukraine.
The talks have hit a critical point as Republican opposition mounts. Some Republicans have set a deal on border security as a condition for further Ukraine aid.
The Democratic president said in a statement that the policies proposed would “be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country”.
He also pledged to use a new emergency authority to “shut down the border” as soon as he could sign it into law, according to Associated Press.
But the House speaker, Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said the legislation would be “dead on arrival in the House” in its current form, according to a letter to Republican lawmakers.
The diminishing prospects for a deal leave congressional leaders with no clear way to approve a White House request for $110bn in emergency funding for Ukraine, Israel, immigration enforcement and national security needs.
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Opening summary
Hello and thanks for joining the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine.
The US president, Joe Biden, is pressing Congress to embrace a bipartisan Senate deal to pair border enforcement measures with Ukraine aid, but the House speaker, Mike Johnson, suggested the compromise on border and immigration policy could be “dead on arrival” in his chamber.
Biden said in a statement late on Friday that the policies proposed would “be the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border we’ve ever had in our country.” He also pledged to use a new emergency authority to “shut down the border” as soon as he could sign it into law, Associated Press reports.
If the deal collapses, it could leave congressional leaders with no clear path to approving tens of billions of dollars for Ukraine.
We’ll have more on this shortly, but first here’s a round-up of the day’s other key events:
Ukraine says Russia has returned the bodies of 77 soldiers, days after the crash of a Russian military transport plane threw the future of such exchanges into doubt. Moscow and Kyiv traded fresh accusations over the plane that Russia says Ukraine’s forces shot down in the border region of Belgorod, killing 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war. Kyiv has not denied the claims outright, but officials have appeared to question whether its PoWs were on board.
The black boxes from the military plane have been delivered to a laboratory in Moscow for analysis, Russian state media said. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called for full clarity over the crash, accusing Moscow of “playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners of war”.
The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has lost an appeal against his arrest, Russian state news agencies report. A court in Moscow extended the pretrial detention until the end of March, meaning the journalist will have spent at least a year behind bars in Russia.
The former Nato secretary general George Robertson has told Sky News that Ukraine is “fighting for us” and “we need to do more”. He said if Russia were to defeat Ukraine, the “rest of us” would then be in danger because Putin would be “fuelled by any success that he has in Ukraine”.
Ukraine has invited the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, to participate in peace talks, Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s top adviser has said. Switzerland has agreed to hold the summit, which a number of world leaders will attend, but no venue or date has been set just yet.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced the creation of a second body to assist businesses in wartime on Friday after several entrepreneurs voiced outrage at the arrest of a prominent banker. It followed a meeting with business leaders after the arrest last week of banker Ihor Mazepa, which Zelenskiy acknowledged had been difficult.
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