Closing summary
This blog is now closing. Below is a roundup of today’s events:
A Russian military transport plane has crashed in the border region of Belgorod, according to Russia’s defence ministry, killing all 74 people on board. The ministry said the aircraft was carrying 65 Ukrainian PoW who were to be swapped. The ministry added that onboard the Ilyushin Il-76 were also six crew and three Russian servicemen. The Russian military said all 74 people onboard had died.
Ukraine did not confirm or deny the downing of the Il-76 but the military released a statement which accused the Russian army of using military transport aircraft to deliver missiles to the Belgorod region. The statement followed a now retracted Ukrainskaya Pravda report, which claimed that the military had shot down an Il-76 jet which it believed to be carrying a shipment of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles en route to Belgorod this morning.
In Kyiv, there is skepticism about Russia’s claim that the plane was carrying 65 PoW. Anton Gerashchenko, a popular blogger and adviser to the internal affairs ministry, said that Russia’s version of events was unconvincing.
The UK defence secretary Grant Shapps said its allies need to “step up” the amount of military aid given to Ukraine. Writing in Politico, Shapps said: “Ukraine has done an unbelievable job of repelling its invader. It has retaken 50 per cent of the territory stolen by Russia, and opened up a maritime passage in the Black Sea. But Kyiv needs more support – and not just from the UK. Our fellow allies must step up too.”
At least 18 people were killed and more than 130 wounded in massive Russian airstrikes on Ukraine on Tuesday, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. The air raids mostly targeted the two largest cities: the capital, Kyiv, and Kharkiv in the east. Ukraine’s president said more than 200 sites were struck, including 139 dwellings.
Russia’s military is carrying out probing attacks with barrages of missiles and drones in an attempt to find weaknesses in Ukraine’s defences as US funding for security assistance is tied up in Congress, Celeste Wallander, a Pentagon assistant secretary of defence, has said.
The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said he had invited Sweden’s prime minister to visit and negotiate his country joining the Nato military alliance, a process that Hungary and Turkey have delayed. Turkey’s parliament, though, voted on Tuesday to accept Sweden as a Nato member.
Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, has made his first appearance since being hospitalised for cancer treatment – a stay he concealed from both the White House and Congress for several days. Austin spoke via video link at the opening of a meeting on military aid for Ukraine. “The security of the entire international community is on the line in Ukraine’s fight. I am more determined than ever to work with our allies and partners to support Ukraine and to get the job done,” Austin said.
Western allies aren’t supplying Ukraine with enough ammunition and air defence missiles, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has said in an interview with German media. Russian attacks on Kyiv and Kharkiv on Tuesday “clearly show the need to provide more anti air defence systems, as well as more surface-to-air missiles”. As for the ground war, “insufficient quantities of artillery munitions has been a problem from the start”, he said.
Kuleba said he was still in talks with the German government about receiving Taurus cruise missiles, even after the lower house of the German parliament voted a week ago against delivering them. “We’ll never give up,” Kuleba said.
The finance minister of Germany has said it can’t keep up Ukraine’s defence capabilities on its own in the long term and that others will need to increase bilateral contributions.
20 Days in Mariupol, Mstyslav Chernov’s chronicle of the besieged Ukrainian city and the international journalists who remained there after Russia invaded, has been nominated for best documentary at the Oscars.
Poland and the Baltic states were calling for import bans on Russian aluminium and liquefied natural gas (LNG) for the European Union’s 13th package of sanctions against Moscow over its Ukraine invasion, a Polish official said.
Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, insisted life in the Ukrainian capital was “absolutely normal”, just hours after Russian missiles fell on Kyiv and a day before his first meeting with the Ukrainian prime minister.
Ukrainian military does not confirm or deny Il-76 downing but accuses Russian army of using military transport aircraft to deliver missiles
Ukraine’s military has released a statement in which it accused the Russian army of using military transport aircraft to deliver missiles to the Belgorod region in order to perform cross-border attacks in recent weeks.
The statement did not confirm or deny the downing of the Il-76 on Wednesday. But it followed the (now retracted) Ukrainskaya Pravda report, which claimed that the military had shot down an Il-76 jet which it believed to be carrying a shipment of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles en route to Belgorod this morning.
In the official statement, Ukraine’s military said that Russian forces had fired 19 missiles across the border from Belgorod into the Kharkiv region in the last week, including S-300 missiles (which are designed to be used against aircraft and are notoriously inaccurate against ground targets) and Iskander-M short-range ballistic missiles.
The Ukrainian military also said that it had recorded an increase in military transport flights to Belgorod region at the same time as the intensity of the missile strikes against Kharkiv had risen.
“In order to reduce the missile threat, the Armed Forces of Ukraine not only control the airspace, but also closely monitor missile launch sites and logistics of their supplies, especially using military transport aircraft,” the military said. “With this in mind, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will continue to take measures to destroy delivery vehicles and control airspace to eliminate the terrorist threat, including in the Belgorod-Kharkiv direction.”
There is scepticism in Kyiv about Russia’s claims that the military aircraft that crashed on Wednesday morning was carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war, writes Luke Harding.
There is increasing scepticism in Kyiv that the Russian military Il-76 transport plane was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war. Anton Gerashchenko, a popular blogger and adviser to the internal affairs ministry, said that Russia’s version of events was unconvincing. He quoted a local Belgorod channel ‘My Belgorod’ which reported that the plane had taken off from Belgorod and was heading in the other direction when it came down.
Eyewitnesses reported seeing smoke coming from the aircraft. “The direction of the crash indicates that the plane left Belgorod and was moving away from it,” My Belgorod reported. Seconds before impact, several objects fell from the Ilyushin, he said, citing video evidence.
Gerashchenko also claimed that Russia’s Ministry of Defence had “kicked out” civilian experts from Russia’s ministry of emergency situations from the site of the wreckage. “Only structures of Russia’s MoD remain,” he wrote on X.
Ukraine’s headquarters for prisoners swaps was gathering information, he added. In a statement it said the “enemy” carried out “special informational operations” to try and destabilise Ukrainian society.
Keir Giles, a fellow at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia programme, also cast doubt on the Russian version of events. He said: “The Russian story – that Ukraine might indeed have shot down an aircraft carrying their own PoW – is gaining traction because of uncritical repetition in western media, with too many outlets already reporting this as a tragic mistake. But at this point, we have no way for certain of knowing what has happened. So far, the only suggestion that there were Ukrainians on board comes from the Russian Ministry of Defence, which usually serves as an indicator that the opposite is true.”
“The aircraft was flying away from Belgorod- it was supposedly carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war with just three guards. Russia mounted an impressively fast disinformation campaign off the back of the incident. That’s usually an indication that it was known about in advance.
“So, we should consider the possibility that Russia fed Ukrainian intelligence information that the aircraft was carrying S-300 missiles, as initially reported – but, in fact, filled it with Ukrainians in the expectation that it would be shot down. Russia showed with the destruction of Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s aircraft last year that it won’t balk at the deaths of its own innocent pilots when necessary.
He continued: “Even if the story of PoW on board is a complete fabrication, that doesn’t stop Russia exploiting the untruth – just look at how doubt over Russia’s shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 persisted, driven by a long-running and intensive Russian disinformation campaign.
“In addition, Russia controls the crash site – and has every opportunity to fabricate evidence to support its story. Missile fragments and other ‘evidence’ can easily be introduced to show to journalists. The massacre at Olenivka in July 2022 shows how Russia is not above the mass murder of Ukrainian PoW if bodies are required.
“In summary, Russia holds all the cards for turning a serious military setback locally into a propaganda victory worldwide.”
Updated
Ukrinform reports the director of the Kharkiv human rights group, Yevhen Zakharov, has said that about 530 religious buildings in Ukraine have been damaged during the course of war.
Zakharov said that while the vast majority of the buildings targeted were of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, there had also been cases of shelling of Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu religious buildings. He said the largest number of damaged buildings was in Donetsk region.
Updated
Former Swedish prime minister and opposition leader Magdalena Andersson, the Social Democrat who started Sweden’s Nato process nearly two years ago with Finland – now a Nato member – said that during her premiership Viktor Orbán promised her that Hungary would not be the last to ratify Sweden and that he had made similar pledges to current prime minister Ulf Kristersson.
When it comes to Sweden’s Nato membership, she told the Guardian: “I don’t see that there’s very much to discuss with Hungary.” She added: “We fulfil the criteria and they have promised to ratify us.”
While she said Hungary has “a complicated relationship with the EU” and acknowledged that there is much to discuss outside Sweden’s Nato membership, Andersson declined to speculate on Orbán’s motivation for stalling the process.
“It’s difficult to guess why they are doing this, so I am not going to start guessing. But what I know is that it’s time for Hungary to ratify.”
Updated
Summary of the day so far...
A Russian military transport plane has crashed in the border region of Belgorod, according to Russia’s defence ministry, killing all 74 people on board. The ministry said the aircraft was carrying 65 Ukrainian PoWs who were to be swapped. The ministry added that onboard the Ilyushin Il-76 were also six crew and three Russian servicemen. The Russian military said all 74 people onboard had died. Ukraine did not immediately comment on the incident.
The UK defence secretary Grant Shapps said its allies need to “step up” the amount of military aid given to Ukraine. Writing in Politico, Shapps said: “Ukraine has done an unbelievable job of repelling its invader. It has retaken 50 per cent of the territory stolen by Russia, and opened up a maritime passage in the Black Sea. But Kyiv needs more support – and not just from the UK. Our fellow allies must step up too.”
At least 18 people were killed and more than 130 wounded in massive Russian airstrikes on Ukraine on Tuesday, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. The air raids mostly targeted the two largest cities: the capital, Kyiv, and Kharkiv in the east. Ukraine’s president said more than 200 sites were struck, including 139 dwellings.
Russia’s military is carrying out probing attacks with barrages of missiles and drones in an attempt to find weaknesses in Ukraine’s defences as US funding for security assistance is tied up in Congress, Celeste Wallander, a Pentagon assistant secretary of defence, has said.
The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said he had invited Sweden’s prime minister to visit and negotiate his country joining the Nato military alliance, a process that Hungary and Turkey have delayed. Turkey’s parliament, though, voted on Tuesday to accept Sweden as a Nato member.
Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, has made his first appearance since being hospitalised for cancer treatment – a stay he concealed from both the White House and Congress for several days. Austin spoke via video link at the opening of a meeting on military aid for Ukraine. “The security of the entire international community is on the line in Ukraine’s fight. I am more determined than ever to work with our allies and partners to support Ukraine and to get the job done,” Austin said.
Western allies aren’t supplying Ukraine with enough ammunition and air defence missiles, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has said in an interview with German media. Russian attacks on Kyiv and Kharkiv on Tuesday “clearly show the need to provide more anti air defence systems, as well as more surface-to-air missiles”. As for the ground war, “insufficient quantities of artillery munitions has been a problem from the start”, he said.
Kuleba said he was still in talks with the German government about receiving Taurus cruise missiles, even after the lower house of the German parliament voted a week ago against delivering them. “We’ll never give up,” Kuleba said.
The finance minister of Germany has said it can’t keep up Ukraine’s defence capabilities on its own in the long term and that others will need to increase bilateral contributions.
20 Days in Mariupol, Mstyslav Chernov’s chronicle of the besieged Ukrainian city and the international journalists who remained there after Russia invaded, has been nominated for best documentary at the Oscars.
Poland and the Baltic states were calling for import bans on Russian aluminium and liquefied natural gas (LNG) for the European Union’s 13th package of sanctions against Moscow over its Ukraine invasion, a Polish official said.
Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, insisted life in the Ukrainian capital was “absolutely normal”, just hours after Russian missiles fell on Kyiv and a day before his first meeting with the Ukrainian prime minister.
Updated
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said Hungary clearly supports Sweden’s application to join the alliance.
“Good call with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary. I welcome the clear support of the prime minister and his government for Sweden’s Nato membership,” Stoltenberg said in a post on X.
“I look forward to the ratification as soon as parliament reconvenes.”
Good call with @PM_ViktorOrban of #Hungary. I welcome the clear support of the Prime Minister and his government for #Sweden’s #NATO membership. I look forward to the ratification as soon as parliament reconvenes.
— Jens Stoltenberg (@jensstoltenberg) January 24, 2024
Updated
Russia’s defence ministry has claimed its radar detected the launch of two Ukrainian missiles when a Russian Il-76 transport plane crashed on Wednesday.
Authorities in Russia’s Belgorod region said all 74 people onboard the plane, which Moscow has said was carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war who were to be swapped for Russian captives, were killed.
Updated
The Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has said he received reassurances from his Slovakian counterpart, Robert Fico, that the country would support Kyiv’s aspirations to join the EU.
“Slovakia will support the Ukraine facility programme, which envisages the provision of €50bn by the EU for Ukraine,” Shmyhal said on X after talks with Fico, who previously reversed course on Slovakia’s foreign policy to halt military support for Ukraine.
Shmyhal said countries were developing a policy of “new pragmatism” despite all the political challenges.
Updated
The Kremlin on Wednesday said it did not consider Boris Nadezhdin, a former opposition lawmaker seeking to run for president on an anti-war ticket, as a serious rival to President Vladimir Putin, Reuters reports.
Nadezhdin, 60, is now trying to collect 100,000 signatures by the end of January to be registered as a candidate in the March 15-17 presidential election.
In recent days, some Russians opposed to what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine have queued up in the cold to offer their signatures in his support.
When asked on Wednesday if Nadezhdin was a rival who posed a political threat to Putin, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said: “Not at all, we don’t see him as a rival. Any citizen has the right to run for president if they meet a number of conditions.”
Putin, in power as either president or prime minister since the end of 1999 and in control of all the state’s levers, is widely expected to win another six-year term in March.
Nadezhdin’s supporters say he has passed the 100,000 signature mark, garnering considerable support in Moscow and St Petersburg but still needs more from other parts of Russia because the signatures need to be spread across at least 40 regions of the world’s largest country.
The Kremlin says most Russians back what it casts as Moscow’s quest to ensure its own security in Ukraine.
Updated
Russia’s foreign ministry on Wednesday said that Ukraine had downed a military plane that crashed in Russia’s Belgorod region, calling it a “barbaric” act, Reuters reports, citing the state news agency Tass.
The ministry provided no evidence for the claim. A Russian lawmaker said earlier on Wednesday that the plane had been shot down by US or German missiles supplied to Ukraine.
Updated
No survivors after Russian military plane crashes in Belgorod
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said on Wednesday that everyone onboard a military transport plane that crashed in the region earlier on Wednesday had died, Reuters reports.
Russia’s defence ministry said earlier that 74 people had been onboard the Il-76 transport plane, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war who were to be exchanged for Russian captives.
Updated
Key event
Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainskaya Pravda has withdrawn its claim that Ukraine shot down the Russian Ilyushin plane, which crashed this morning in Belgorod. It quoted sources in Ukraine’s general staff who said the military aircraft was carrying S-300 missiles. It has now added a correction saying that the sources did not “indicate” Ukrainian involvement
Updated
Reuters reports that Italy denied a Russian claim that an Italian military officer was killed in Ukraine on Wednesday, calling it fake news used as a weapon for psychological warfare.
The Italian defence ministry said Lt Col Claudio Castiglia died in Italy of natural causes, after the Russian embassy in South Africa reposted reports that Castiglia had been found dead in Ukraine.
“The Italian Defence firmly denies this macabre lie published on the ‘X’ account of the Russian embassy in South Africa and warns the sowers of hatred against continuing to spread this horrendous fake news,” the statement said.
“Is this how psychological warfare is fought, renewing the grief of the family of Lt Col Claudio Castiglia?,” the Italian statement said.
Last month, the Italian cabinet passed a decree that allows it to supply Kyiv with military equipment until the end of 2024, to support its war effort against the Russian invasion and protect its civilians.
Updated
Andrei Kartapolov, a member of Russia's State Duma and a retired general, said a military transport plane that crashed in southern Russia on Wednesday was shot down by three missiles of types that the West has supplied to Ukraine, Reuters reports.
Kartapolov did not state the source of his information. He said investigations would reveal whether the missiles were Patriots or IRIS-Ts.
Sources in Ukraine’s general staff say its armed forces shot down the Russian Ilyushin-76 military plane which crashed this morning in Belgorod, killing 63 people on board. According to Ukrainskaya Pravda newspaper, quoting defence sources, the plane was delivering S-300 anti-aircraft missiles used in recent devastating attacks on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. Eighteen people died in a wave of Russian strikes yesterday, including a nine-year-0ld girl and her mother, buried under rubble in their Kharkiv apartment.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed that the flight was carrying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war, who were about to be exchanged. They were killed, together with 6 Russian crew and “three accompanying persons”, the Moscow news agency Tass reported.
Updated
Ukrainian PoWs were onboard military plane that crashed in Belgorod, Russia says
Russia says Ukrainian prisoners of war were onboard the Russian military plane that crashed on Wednesday morning, the AP reports.
Six crew and three people accompanying them were also onboard, Russia’s defence ministry said.
It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the crash, which occurred around 11am. It was also not known if anyone survived.
The authorities were investigating the cause of the crash, and a special military commission was on the way to the crash site, the defence ministry said.
Updated
Russian military plane crashes in Belgorod
A Russian Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane crashed on Wednesday in Russia's Belgorod region, Reuters reports, citing the state news agency RIA who quoted the defence ministry.
A video posted on the Telegram messenger app by Baza, a channel linked to Russian security services, showed a large aircraft falling towards the ground and exploding in a vast fireball.
The Il-76 is a military transport aircraft designed to airlift troops, cargo, military equipment and weapons. It has a normal crew of five people, and can carry up to 90 passengers.
Local governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said that an unspecified "incident" had occurred in the region's Korochansky district, northeast of Belgorod city, and that he was going to inspect the site. He said investigators and emergency workers were already on the scene.
The Kremlin said in response to a reporter's question that it was looking into the situation.
Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, has come under frequent attack from Ukraine in recent months, including a December missile strike which killed 25 people.
The staunchly pro-Ukraine Moldovan foreign minister Nicu Popescu said on Wednesday he had tendered his resignation after completing his key objectives related to bringing the country closer to the EU, Reuters reports.
“I have completed all obligations to integrate Moldova into the EU which were set by president Maia Sandu. I need a pause,” he told a media briefing.
Updated
UK defence minister calls for allies to ‘step up’ Ukraine military aid
The UK defence secretary Grant Shapps has said its allies need to “step up” their Ukraine military aid.
Writing in Politico, Shapps said: “Ukraine has done an unbelievable job of repelling its invader. It has retaken 50 per cent of the territory stolen by Russia, and opened up a maritime passage in the Black Sea.
“But Kyiv needs more support – and not just from the UK. Our fellow allies must step up too.”
He went on to specify that members of the Ukrainian Defense Contact Group, which is made up of 54 nations including all Nato members, “must take action”.
The UK has spent over £7b on military aid to Ukraine. Earlier this month, prime minister Rishi Sunak announced a further £2.5b in aid to Ukraine.
“The message couldn’t be clearer: The UK is in this for the long haul,” Shapps added.
Updated
Summary
This is the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
This morning, the UK defence secretary Grant Shapps said its allies need to “step up” the amount of military aid given to Ukraine.
Writing in Politico, Shapps said: “Ukraine has done an unbelievable job of repelling its invader. It has retaken 50 per cent of the territory stolen by Russia, and opened up a maritime passage in the Black Sea.
“But Kyiv needs more support – and not just from the UK. Our fellow allies must step up too.”
He went on to specify that members of the Ukrainian Defense Contact Group, which is made up of 54 nations including all Nato members, “must take action”.
The UK has spent over £7b on military aid to Ukraine. Earlier this month, prime minister Rishi Sunak announced a further £2.5b in aid to Ukraine.
“The message couldn’t be clearer: The UK is in this for the long haul,” Shapps added.
Here are some other developments:
At least 18 people were killed and more than 130 wounded in massive Russian airstrikes on Ukraine on Tuesday, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. The air raids mostly targeted the two largest cities: the capital, Kyiv, and Kharkiv in the east. Ukraine’s president said more than 200 sites were struck, including 139 dwellings.
Russia’s military is carrying out probing attacks with barrages of missiles and drones in an attempt to find weaknesses in Ukraine’s defences as US funding for security assistance is tied up in Congress, Celeste Wallander, a Pentagon assistant secretary of defence, has said.
The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said he had invited Sweden’s prime minister to visit and negotiate his country joining the Nato military alliance, a process that Hungary and Turkey have delayed. Turkey’s parliament, though, voted on Tuesday to accept Sweden as a Nato member.
Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, has made his first appearance since being hospitalised for cancer treatment – a stay he concealed from both the White House and Congress for several days. Austin spoke via video link at the opening of a meeting on military aid for Ukraine. “The security of the entire international community is on the line in Ukraine’s fight. I am more determined than ever to work with our allies and partners to support Ukraine and to get the job done,” Austin said.
Western allies aren’t supplying Ukraine with enough ammunition and air defence missiles, Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has said in an interview with German media. Russian attacks on Kyiv and Kharkiv on Tuesday “clearly show the need to provide more anti air defence systems, as well as more surface-to-air missiles”. As for the ground war, “insufficient quantities of artillery munitions has been a problem from the start”, he said.
Kuleba said he was still in talks with the German government about receiving Taurus cruise missiles, even after the lower house of the German parliament voted a week ago against delivering them. “We’ll never give up,” Kuleba said.
The finance minister of Germany has said it can’t keep up Ukraine’s defence capabilities on its own in the long term and that others will need to increase bilateral contributions.
20 Days in Mariupol, Mstyslav Chernov’s chronicle of the besieged Ukrainian city and the international journalists who remained there after Russia invaded, has been nominated for best documentary at the Oscars.
Poland and the Baltic states were calling for import bans on Russian aluminium and liquefied natural gas (LNG) for the European Union’s 13th package of sanctions against Moscow over its Ukraine invasion, a Polish official said.
Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, insisted life in the Ukrainian capital was “absolutely normal”, just hours after Russian missiles fell on Kyiv and a day before his first meeting with the Ukrainian prime minister.
Updated
