These are the main events as the war enters its 693rd day.
Here is the situation on Wednesday, January 17, 2024.
Struggle
- 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. Rescuers were sifting through piles of rubble to determine if more people had been injured after what the city's mayor described as two “powerful explosions.”
- Authorities 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 other reports of casualties or damage. The city of more than 1 million people is about 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the border with Ukraine and is home to a military air base.
- Authorities in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region urged more than 3,000 residents of more than two dozen villages near the front lines 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 toughen sanctions against Russia and step up support for Kiev to ensure that Russian President Vladimir Putin does not succeed. in his war. Zelenskyy said Western hesitancy was costing time and lives and could prolong fighting for years.
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged sustained US support for Ukraine in a meeting with Zelenskyy, despite right-wing Republicans in the US Congress blocking new funds in a dispute over border policy from the United States.
- European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stressed the need for the European Union to continue supporting Ukraine. “Ukraine can prevail in this war, but we must continue to build resistance to it,” she said at the Davos conference. EU leaders will meet on February 1 to try to salvage a 50 billion euro ($54 billion) aid package for kyiv that was blocked by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is close to Putin.
- Following 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 echoed Orban's assertion that the war would not be resolved by military means.
- Putin dismissed Ukraine's peace plan and said Russia would never give up the territory it had occupied in Ukraine. The current pattern of war would lead to an “irreparable blow” to the Ukrainian state, he insisted in televised comments. Putin said Ukraine's “so-called peace formulas” involved “prohibitive demands.” Zelenskyy's 10-point peace formula, which will 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.
- Putin met visiting North Korea's top diplomat Choe Son Hui in Moscow. State television reported on the meeting, but the Kremlin gave no further details. Choe, who also held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, praised the “ties of camaraderie” between the two countries. The United States and others have accused North Korea of providing weapons for Russia to use in its war against Ukraine.
- A Russian court sentenced Colonel Sergei Volkov, a former senior National Guard officer, to six years in prison after he was found guilty of purchasing two ineffective radar-based air defense systems. The equipment was supposed to protect the Kerch Bridge linking southern Russia with Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014, by shooting down Ukrainian attack drones, but a court said it needed an upgrade to work properly.
- Estonia's internal security service said it was investigating Tartu University academic Vyacheslav Morozov on suspicion of spying for Russia. The 53-year-old Russian citizen, a professor of international politics, has been detained since January 3. The university said his contract had been terminated.
Weapons
- French President Emmanuel Macron said he would travel to Ukraine next month to finalize a bilateral security guarantee agreement. Macron said France will send Ukraine 40 long-range SCALP missiles, which have a range of about 250 kilometers (155 miles), and several hundred bombs in the coming weeks. It has already delivered about 50 SCALP missiles to Ukraine.
