Global Courant
These are the most important developments as the war breaks out on the 693rd day.
Here is the situation on Wednesday January 17, 2024.
To fight
At least 17 people were injured, two of them seriously, after two Russian missiles hit a residential area in the center of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Rescue teams sifted through piles of rubble to determine if more people had been injured after what the city’s mayor described as two “powerful explosions.” Officials in the southern Russian city of Voronezh declared a “state of emergency” after air defenses shot down five suspected Ukrainian drones. Two children were injured. There were no further reports of casualties or damage. The city of more than 1 million inhabitants is located about 250 km from the border with Ukraine and hosts a military air base. Authorities in the northeastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv have called on more than three thousand residents of more than twenty villages near the front line to evacuate due to Russian attacks in the area.
Politics and diplomacy
In an emotional speech to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged his country’s allies to tighten sanctions on Russia and step up their support for Kiev to ensure that the Russian President Vladimir Putin would not succeed in his war. Zelensky said Western hesitation costs time and lives and could prolong the fighting for years. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged continued US support to Ukraine during a meeting with Zelenskyy, despite right-wing Republicans in the US Congress blocking new funding in a dispute over US border policy. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stressed the need for continued support from the European Union to Ukraine. “Ukraine can prevail in this war, but we must continue to strengthen their resistance,” she told the conference in Davos. EU leaders will meet on February 1 to try to salvage a 50 billion euro ($54 billion) aid package for Kiev that was blocked by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has close ties to Putin. After bilateral talks in Budapest, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said he agreed with Orban that the EU should not finance the aid package from the bloc’s common budget. Fico also reiterated Orbán’s claim that the war would not be resolved by military means. Putin rejected Ukraine’s peace plan and said Russia would never give up the territory it had occupied in Ukraine. The current pattern of the war would lead to an “irreparable blow” to the Ukrainian state, he emphasized in television comments. Putin said Ukraine’s “so-called peace formulas” entailed “forbidden demands.” Zelenskiy’s ten-point formula, to be discussed at the WEF, includes an immediate end to the fighting, the withdrawal of all Russian troops and the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Russian President Vladimir Putin greets North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui at the Kremlin (Artem Geodakyan/Sputnik via AFP) Putin held a meeting in Moscow with visiting North Korean top diplomat Choe Son Hui. The meeting was broadcast on state television, but the Kremlin released no further details. Choe, who also held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, praised the “comradely ties” between the two countries. The US and others have accused North Korea of supplying weapons that Russia could use in its war against Ukraine. A Russian court has sentenced Colonel Sergei Volkov, a former senior National Guard officer, to six years in prison after finding him guilty of purchasing two ineffective radar-based air defense systems. The equipment was supposed to protect the Kerch Bridge connecting southern Russia with Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, by downing Ukrainian attack drones, but a court said it needed to be upgraded to work properly. Estonia’s domestic security service said it was investigating Vyacheslav Morozov, an academic from the University of Tartu, on suspicion of spying for Russia. The 53-year-old Russian, professor of international politics, has been in custody since January 3. According to the university, his contract has been terminated.
Weapons
French President Emmanuel Macron said he would go to Ukraine next month to finalize a bilateral security guarantee deal. Macron said France will send 40 SCALP long-range missiles, with a range of about 250 km, and several hundred bombs to Ukraine in the coming weeks. It has already delivered about 50 SCALP missiles to Ukraine.
