January 29, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine has moved here.

A missile hit a residential building in the center of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and left at least three people wounded, according to Ukrainian officials.

“The residential building got hit. There is a fire in the building — heavy damage,” the northeastern city’s mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said on Telegram Sunday.

“All emergency services are on site. Information about victims and destruction is being clarified,” Oleh Syniehubov, head of Kharkiv’s military administration, wrote in a separate message.

He later added that at least three injuries had been confirmed, and that rescue operations were ongoing as of about 11:15 p.m. local time (4:15 p.m. ET).

Syniehubov said it was a Soviet-era S-300 long-range missile that struck the building, located in Kharkiv’s urban district of Kyivskyi.

United States Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield called on African leaders to condemn Russia’s war on Ukraine in an interview with CNN’s Larry Madowo in Nairobi Saturday.  

Thomas-Greenfield visited Ghana, Mozambique, Kenya and Somalia as part of the Biden administration’s push to strengthen relations with the continent.

Her visit coincided with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s visit to South Africa, Angola, Eswatini and Eritrea the same week.

This is the second trip to the continent in six months for both and comes on the heels of US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s 10-day trip to the continent. When asked if the US is trying to counter Russia’s charm offensive, Thomas-Greenfield replied: “I would argue the opposite; they’re probably trying to counter what we are doing. We have been on this continent since the beginning.” 

“I want to highlight what we do on the humanitarian side; we are the largest contributor to humanitarian assistance across this continent,” she added. 

A reporter asked if African leaders should attend the upcoming Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg this July.

“I hope if African leaders go, they will be strong in their condemnation of what Russia is doing in Ukraine,” the ambassador said.

Russia wants to drag out its invasion in hopes of exhausting Kyiv’s forces, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address Sunday.

Zelensky said his country has to make time “its weapon.”

He also renewed pleas for literal weapon supplies from allies.

Zelensky alluded to a report from his head of intelligence about “the possible shift in the situation in the near future” but gave no specific details.

“We are doing everything to ensure that our pressure outweighs the occupiers’ assault capabilities,” he said.

He also commented on the situation on the front lines, particularly in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

“The situation is very tough,” he said. “Bakhmut, Vuhledar and other areas in the Donetsk region are under constant Russian attacks.”

He said Russians are “persistently attempting to break through Ukrainian defense in the area despite numerous casualties.”

Some background: Kyiv has created a sense of urgency in calling for the provision of Western jets and long-range missile systems this week, after securing pledges for dozens of modern battle tanks from allies.

Ukraine is bracing for an expected spring offensive by Russia’s forces.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak speaks during an interview in Kyiv, Ukraine, in 2022.

“Fast-paced” negotiations are underway with Western allies to supply Ukraine with long-range missiles and aircraft, according to Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak.

Podolyak said the process of training Ukrainian soldiers to use new equipment is also underway. He added that Ukraine requested “a concrete number of tanks” from its Western partners without mentioning how many. 

For context: Germany earlier this week promised to send 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, while the US pledged 31 M1 Abrams tanks, Poland said it will provide 60 tanks and the UK already committed 14 Challenger 2 tanks.

The German defense minister said, however, that it was “out of the question” for Germany to supply fighter jets.

You can read CNN analysis on the potential for Western jets to enter the Ukrainian arsenal here.

Medics transport the body of a resident killed after Russian shelling in Kherson, Ukraine, on Sunday, January 29.

At least three people have died and six more were wounded by Russian shelling in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson on Sunday, a statement from the city council said.

A nurse and a canteen employee were among those hurt, both of whom were described to have “moderate injuries.”

The shelling hit warehouses, a hospital, a bus station and a school playground, and damaged buildings and vehicles in the region, the Kherson City Council said earlier Sunday.

More context: Russian President Vladimir Putin claims he’s annexed the region and that the people there are now Russians. But his troops have left Kherson, and now they’re shelling civilians they once vowed to protect.

Firefighters work to extinguish flames in a house hit by shelling in Kherson on Sunday.

The Russian mercenary company Wagner says its fighters have taken another village near the city of Bakhmut, where intense battles between Russian and Ukrainian forces continue.

Wagner said on its official Telegram channel that its “assault teams have liberated Blahodatne village thereby they have established full control over the settlements adjacent to the city.”

Blahodatne is a small village about 6 kilometers (4 miles) to the north of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

Wagner posted photographs and video of their fighters at the entrance to the village. It said that claiming the town would allow it to put more pressure on Ukraine’s troops on the northeast outskirts of Bakhmut, including in the small communities of Krasna Hora and Paraskoviivka.

Keep in mind: CNN has not been able to independently verify Wagner’s claim, and is reaching out to the Ukrainian military for comment. Reuters reported Sunday that Ukraine claimed to repel attacks on the village the day prior.

Moscow’s private military also led the capture of Soledar, located a few miles northeast of Bakhmut. After initially denying Wagner’s claim to control the town, Ukraine’s military acknowledged that it had pulled back from the territory earlier this week.

More on Wagner’s assault: The Russian goal appears to be to encircle Bakhmut, rather than to fight in the city itself, which has endured months of brutal battle.

Wagner fighters are reported to have also made gains to the south of the city in the last week. The last remaining routes into the city under Ukrainian control have come under heavier Russian fire in the past week, according to Ukrainian officials and commanders. 

The Wagner statement acknowledged that attacking Kyiv’s forces on the high ground to the west of Bakhmut would be more challenging. 

In the last few days, a CNN team in the area has observed intense shelling to the north of Bakhmut.

In addition to the 14 Leopard 2 tanks pledged, Poland said Friday that it will send 60 more modern battles tanks to Ukraine.

The West’s decision to finally send tanks to Ukraine has caused some to ask the uncomfortable question: Does this mean that NATO is now in direct conflict with Russia? 

This narrative, which is being pushed hard by the Kremlin, undoubtedly helps Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies deflect from the fact that Moscow launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine and illegally occupied parts of a sovereign state.  

It also, perhaps more conveniently for Putin, gives NATO allies pause for thought when it comes to deciding exactly how much military assistance they should give Ukraine.  

First things first: The consensus among experts is that no NATO member is anywhere near what could be considered “at war” with Russia by any internationally accepted legal definition. Therefore, the idea that the alliance as a whole is at war with Russia is a non-starter.  

“War would require strikes carried out by US or NATO forces, in uniform, attacking from NATO territory against Russian forces, Russian territory, or the Russian populace,” explains William Alberque, from the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“Any fighting by Ukraine – with any conventional weapons, against any Russian forces – is not US/NATO war on Ukraine, no matter how much Russia wants to claim it so,” he adds. 

Moscow’s tactic: That hasn’t kept the Kremlin from exploiting certain grey areas inherent to modern warfare to incorrectly claim that NATO is the chief aggressor in the conflict. 

Those grey areas might include the use of Western intelligence to carry out attacks on Russian targets.

They could also invoke the US “war on terror” and use of NATO’s Article 5 after the 9/11 attacks, in which America was attacked by terrorists rather than a nation state, as a dubious parallel.

Russia’s Security Council secretary, Nikolai Patrushev, has claimed that the West is trying to “destroy” Russia. Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, has said that the US administration is pushing Ukraine to “carry out terrorist attacks in Russia.” 

More context: Whatever slim merit there might be to these cynical claims, they pale in comparison to the documented brutality and illegal actions of Russian forces in Ukraine since Putin ordered the invasion. 

But the fact that they exist and are being taken seriously by analysts and commentators outside of Russia, including in Washington DC, plays into the Kremlin’s hands in more ways than one.

Continue reading McGee’s full analysis here.

Dozens of modern tanks headed for Ukraine from Western allies are due to make a major impact in the fight against Russia, but Ukrainian troops have also mastered the use of older fighting vehicles.

CNN Senior International Correspondent Frederik Pleitgen goes to the front lines near Bakhmut, Ukraine, with a unit fighting Moscow’s forces in a Soviet-era T-64 tank:

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02:38 - Source: CNN

Olesya Krivtsova sports an anti-Putin tattoo on one ankle and a bracelet that tracks her every move on the other.

The 19-year-old from Russia’s Arkhangelsk region must wear the device while she is under house arrest after she was charged over social media posts that authorities say discredit the Russian army and justify terrorism.

Russian officials added Krivtsova to the list of terrorists and extremists, on par with ISIS, al Qaeda and the Taliban, for posting an Instagram story about the explosion on the Crimean bridge in October that also criticized Russia for invading Ukraine.

Krivtsova, a student at Northern (Arctic) Federal University in the northwestern city of Arkhangelsk, is also facing criminal charges for discrediting the Russian army for making an allegedly critical repost of the war in a student chat on the Russian social network VK.

Currently, Krivtsova is staying under house arrest in her mother’s apartment in Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk region, banned from going online and using other forms of communication.

Read more of Krivtsova’s story here.

Some more context: Independent human rights monitor OVD-Info has reported at least 61 cases involving the charges of justification of terrorism on the internet in Russia in 2022, with 26 leading to sentencing so far.

Ukrainian tank crews arrive in the UK.

Ukrainian tank crews have arrived in the United Kingdom to begin training.

The UK is sending at least 14 of its Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine.

“The UK will provide Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine alongside global partner nations - demonstrating the strength of support for Ukraine, internationally,” the British Ministry of Defence wrote on Twitter, sharing images of the crews’ arrival.

As an anticipated spring offensive by Russia’s forces looms, Ukraine is racing to train its military on new Western weapons.

The Ukrainian military reported more fighting and Russian missile strikes along the eastern front of the conflict this week.

Moscow’s forces pounded the town of Vuhledar, located in the Donetsk region, with nearly 300 rockets and artillery shells in one day, according to a Ukrainian military spokesperson.

Ukraine also said its troops were engaged in “fierce fighting” around the eastern city of Bakhmut this week, and that its military has withdrawn from the nearby town of Soledar.

This map shows the latest:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the supply of long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, “vital” in his nightly address Saturday.

The surface-to-surface missiles can fly around 200 miles, about four times the distance of the rockets used by the HIMARS mobile systems the US began sending to Ukraine four months ago.

Zelensky said an attack on the city of Kostyantynivka in the Donetsk region earlier Saturday left three people dead and 14 others wounded. He called the shelling “a daily occurrence” on Ukraine’s territories and said, “there can be no taboos in the supply of weapons to protect against Russian terror.”

The US has refused to send ATACMS to Ukraine out of concern they could be used to attack targets inside Russia.

New sanctions: Zelensky also mentioned that he put into effect new sanctions on “185 legal entities and individuals that Russia uses to transport personnel and military equipment by railroad.”

Pressure on Olympic Committee: The Ukrainian president wrote a letter to the presidents of the International Sports Federations with a call to reconsider the decision of the International Olympic Committee to allow the return of Russian athletes at international competitions.

Once “Russian athletes appear at international competitions, it is only a matter of time before they start justifying Russia’s aggression and using the symbols of terror,” Zelensky argued.

He called the International Olympic Committee decision “an unprincipled flexibility.”