Ukraine Russia, news on today’s war | Kiev: «Oil refinery hit in Tuapse, Russia». Ukrainian cities under bombs in the night: explosions in Odessa and Kharkiv
• The Italian Senate approves the extension of arms, it passes to the Chamber • 49 prisoner exchanges between Moscow and Kiev since the start of the war • Ukrainian military intelligence has “no reliable information” about who was on board the Ilyushin-76 plane that crashed in Russia’s Belgorod oblast. • British civilians who are part of a “pre-war generation” must be ready to fight a war against Vladimir Putin’s Russia if necessary, said British Forces Chief of Staff Patrick Sanders
11.17 am – Kiev: “521 children killed since the beginning of the war”
At least 521 children have been killed in Ukraine by Russian forces since the beginning of the invasion and 1,213 were injured: the country’s Prosecutor General’s Office announced this on Telegram, as reported by Ukrinform. “Until the morning of January 25, 2024, according to official data from juvenile prosecutors, 521 children were killed and 1,213 suffered injuries of varying severity” in Ukraine since the start of the war, the message reads. Most of the children (505) were killed or injured in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.
11.08 am – Ukrainian services open a criminal investigation into the crash of the plane
The Ukrainian security service SBU has opened a criminal investigation into the crash of the Russian Il-76 plane in the Belgorod region. The SBU reported this to Rrb-Ukraine. The investigation is conducted under Article 438 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (violation of the laws and customs of Ukraine).
11.03am – UN Council meeting on crashed plane
The United Nations Security Council will meet this evening in New York to address the issue of the Russian military plane that crashed yesterday near Belgorod. The Council will first listen behind closed doors to the report by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi on the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and will then meet at Russia’s request regarding the crash of the Il-76 in the Belgorod region. According to a Ukrinform correspondent in New York, the first closed-door meeting of the Security Council will begin at 3 pm local time, the second will begin at approximately 5 pm.
10.48am – Kiev: “Oil refinery hit in Tuapse, Russia”
The Ukrainian secret service, the SBU, claims to have attacked an oil refinery in Tuapse, Russia, during the night. Rbc Ukraine reports it. According to SBU sources, drones attacked the Russian refinery and after two powerful explosions a large-scale fire broke out.
10.08 am – Isw, Moscow uses the plane crash to sow discontent in Ukraine
The Russian leaders are exploiting the disaster of the Moscow military plane (Il-76) which crashed yesterday at a media level to sow discontent in Ukraine and undermine the West’s desire to continue providing military support to Kiev: he writes this on his website American Institute for the Study of War. The chairman of the Defense Committee of the Russian State Duma, Andrei Kartapolov, said that Ukraine deliberately shot down the Il-76 knowing that it contained Ukrainian prisoners of war and called for an indefinite halt to all prisoner exchanges of war.
At the same time, the vice-president of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, accused Ukrainian “internal political struggles” of having contributed to the disaster. For his part, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who is in New York for meetings of the UN Security Council, called for an urgent meeting of the same to discuss the incident and accused Ukraine of terrorism. These Russian accusations are aimed in part at sowing discontent in Ukraine and galvanizing distrust of the Ukrainian government, the US think tank comments – a strategy consistent with many other Russian information efforts aimed at weakening Ukraine domestically.
09.57 am – The number of injured in Odessa rises to 6
The toll of those injured in last night’s Russian attack on the city of Odessa (see 3.32 block), in southern Ukraine, which hit a furniture factory has risen to six: Suspilne reports on Telegram. Drone fragments fell on residential buildings, injuring civilians, the message said. Ukrainian air defenses shot down a total of 10 Russian kamikaze drones in the Odessa region and one in the Mykolaiv region.
08:54 am – The black boxes of the crashed Ilyushin were found
Both black boxes of the Russian Ilyushin-76 plane which crashed yesterday in the Belgorod region and which according to Moscow was shot down by Kiev forces while transporting 65 Ukrainian prisoners to an exchange have been found and are “in good technical condition”. with Russian soldiers. This was reported by the Ria Novosti agency, citing the emergency services.
08:04 am – Kremlin: “Kiev’s monstrous act of killing Ilyushin”
The shooting down of the Russian Ilyushin plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners, of which Moscow accuses Kiev, was “a monstrous act that cannot be understood”. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this, quoted by the Interfax agency.
If Volodymyr Zelensky refers to “an international investigation into the criminal actions of the Kiev regime, there is certainly a need for it”, added Peskov.
07.55 am – Kiev: “11 out of 14 Russian drones shot down during the night”
Russian forces launched 14 kamikaze drones over Ukraine during the night, 11 of which were shot down by Kiev’s air defenses: the Air Force announced this on Telegram. «On the night of January 25, 2024, the enemy launched 14 Shahed-136/131 attack UAVs (drones) from the Primorsko-Akhtarsk area (Russia) and from Cape Chauda (Crimea), as well as four S – 300 air defense missiles from the Belgorod region (Russia) in the direction of Kharkiv and one from the occupied Donetsk region”, reads the post. The 11 drones were destroyed in the Odessa and Mykolaiv regions.
03.32 am – Russian drones against Odessa, two injured
Russian drones struck the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa twice last night. This was reported by the regional governor Oleh Kiper, quoted by the local media. At least two people were injured.
– A building hit in Odessa during the night (photo by Ukrainian Emergency Ministry)
02.58 am – The mystery of the Il76 crashed in Belgorod: here’s what we know
(by Marta Serafini) The mystery of the Il-76 will probably be yet another tragedy that will remain shrouded in the fog of war.
It is late morning when the Russian Ministry of Defense announces that at 11 local time (9 Italian time) a Russian military transport plane took off from the Chkalovsky base, north-east of Moscow, headed for Belgorod – with 65 Ukrainian soldiers on board ready for an exchange of prisoners of war, six crew members and three companions — crashed near Belgorod, in Russian territory near the border with Ukraine. Images are already circulating online showing a plane crashing to the ground. According to a witness quoted by the Tass agency, the crash of the Ilyushin occurred in a field five or six kilometers from the village of Yablonovo, 45 kilometers as the crow flies from the border. A few minutes pass and the Kremlin Foreign Ministry confirms: the Il-76 was shot down by two Ukrainian missiles in a “terrorist act” of “crazy barbarity”, while the governor of the Belgorod region Vyacheslav Gladkov announces that there are no survivors on board. Then, from Ukrainian Pravda which cites official sources, comes Kiev’s first response: on board that plane there were S-300s, missiles like those used in the Kharkiv attack on Monday against civilian targets which cost the lives of 19 people across the country. A first admission, albeit implicit, that Kiev is involved.
01.17 am – Russian attack in the Kharkiv region, 4 injured
Four people were injured last night in a Russian attack on the Ukrainian village of Rohan, in the north-eastern Kharkiv region. This was announced by the local authorities, quoted by the Kiev media.
01.13 am – Drone attack, oil depot in Tuapse on fire
A fire broke out tonight in an oil depot in the city of Tuapse, in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar. This was announced by local media, according to which residents reported seeing several drones flying over the area.
00:34 – The military point | Belgorod, the secret front of the war is in Russia
(by Andrea Marinelli and Guido Olimpio) Belgorod is a logistical rear area that has become the front line. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when the inhabited areas increasingly became the theater of conflict, the administrative region and its capital of the same name – just over 300 thousand inhabitants 39 kilometers from the Ukrainian border – became a target , the “secret” front of this war. For geographical reasons, given the contiguity of the territory, but also for a precise choice on the part of Kiev, which responded to the bombings of its cities by targeting this border area: the intent, from the beginning, was to respond to the aggression, but also to bring the war into Vladimir Putin’s backyard.
