Here is the situation on Sunday, January 12:

Fighting

• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said the army gained control of the settlement of Shevchenko, near the logistical centre of Pokrovsk, a key target in its advance through Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. Ukraine has yet to acknowledge the loss of the town.
• Ukraine’s General Staff of the Armed Forces said it repelled 46 of 56 Russian attacks around a dozen towns in the Pokrovsk sector and several clashes were ongoing.
• A Ukrainian drone hit one of Russia’s largest oil refineries – in Taneko, Tatarstan – according to Russian Telegram channel ASTRA.
• Fuel oil that spilled from wrecked Russian tankers has spread into the Sea of Azov and reached the shores of Ukraine’s partly Russian-occupied Zaporizhia region, a Moscow-installed official said.
• Ukraine captured two North Korean soldiers in Russia’s Kursk region, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service backed up Ukraine’s account on Sunday.

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Shadow fleet

• Germany continues its battle to secure a heavily loaded tanker stranded off its northern coast, towing the stricken ship that it said was part of Russia’s sanctions-busting “shadow fleet” away from shore to avert an oil spill. The 274-metre-long Eventin, carrying almost 100,000 tonnes of oil, was reported adrift and “unable to manoeuvre” in the Baltic Sea.

Sanctions

• Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has denounced new US sanctions against Moscow’s energy sector imposed on Saturday, as an attempt to harm Russia’s economy at the risk of destabilising global markets and said the country would press on with large oil and gas projects.

Diplomacy

• The world must return to a policy of “maximum pressure” against Iran to turn it into a more democratic country, US President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg told an Iranian opposition event in Paris. Relations between Russia and Iran have strengthened significantly since Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022.