Here is the situation on Tuesday, January 28:

Fighting

• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said Moscow’s air defences destroyed 32 Ukrainian drones in an overnight attack. Nearly half were destroyed over the Voronezh region that borders Ukraine, the ministry said.
• According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Kyiv’s forces downed 57 of 104 Russian drones in an overnight attack. The air force said 39 drones were also lost. The barrage of attacks reportedly sparked a fire at an industrial facility in western Ukraine, damaged infrastructure facilities, an apartment block and private houses. No casualties were reported.
• Russia said it took back control and “liberated” Nikolayevo-Darino, a small village in the Kursk region previously captured by Ukraine’s forces.
• Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation said a deputy commander had been detained for allegedly falsifying documents to misappropriate 24 night vision devices costing about $95,000.

• Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office said a woman had been jailed for 11 years after being convicted of aiding Russia and backing its invasion on social media. Another Russian citizen was given a 10-year sentence for allegedly spying on the Ukrainian army in Kharkiv.
• Qatar News Agency (QNA) cited the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces as saying the total combat losses of Russian forces in Ukraine since February 2022 amounted to some 831,620 personnel.
• According to the Ukraine-based OVD-Info rights group, Russia sentenced a retired teacher to eight years in prison for criticising Russia’s government and mentioning allegations of Russian atrocities.
• The mayor of Kharkiv, Ihor Terekhov, said an overnight Russian attack set a private business on fire. No information on potential casualties was reported immediately.

Humanitarian aid

• The AFP news agency reported alarm among Ukraine-based humanitarian projects after the United States put a freeze on foreign aid. The agency quoted sources form the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) mission in Ukraine as saying most projects had received an order to stop.

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Politics and diplomacy

• The European Union’s foreign commissioner-designate Kaja Kallas confirmed that the EU’s foreign ministers agreed to extend their existing sanctions against Russia into this year.
• The EU plans to continue talks with Ukraine on supplying gas to Europe. Hungary and Slovakia will also be included in these talks, the Reuters news agency reports.

• The EU has offered $32m in emergency aid to buy gas for Transnistria, Moldova’s separatist enclave, after Russia cut off supplies. European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc could not accept that people in their continent did not have access to the most basic services and added that “hard times reveal true friends”.
• The Kremlin said Washington has not yet contacted it to set up a meeting between Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow believes the US is still interested in organising a meeting with Trump, who recently said that he wanted to meet Putin “immediately”.
• Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it summoned the Moldovan ambassador in Moscow to protest against “unfounded accusations” made against the Russian ambassador in Chisinau by a Moldovan political party.
• Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy travelled to Poland to participate in the Auschwitz liberation’s 80th anniversary observances. During the visit, he met with French President Emmanuel Macron and discussed security guarantees and Kyiv’s accession to the EU.

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