As the Russia-Ukraine war enters its 320th day, we take a look at the main developments.
Here is the situation as it stands on Monday, January 9, 2023:
Fighting
- Russia launched seven missile strikes, 31 air raids and 73 attacks from salvo rocket launchers in the past day, the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said in a daily report on Monday. Ukrainian forces repelled attacks on 14 settlements, including Bakhmut, it added.
- A Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk missed its targets and there were no obvious signs of casualties, Reuters news agency reported, after Moscow claimed the strike killed 600 Ukrainian soldiers.
- The Russian defence ministry said the strike was revenge for Ukraine’s New Year’s Day attack that killed at least 89 Russian soldiers at a barracks in part of the Donetsk region controlled by Moscow’s forces.
- Two thermal power plants were damaged by Ukrainian shelling in Russian-controlled parts of the country’s Donetsk region with preliminary reports of injuries, Moscow-installed officials said on Sunday.
- Serhiy Haidai, governor of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, said on TV on Sunday there was heavy fighting in the region and Russian forces had deployed their most combat-ready units and heavy equipment to the city of Kriminna that they occupy, which he said meant the Russians were slowly retreating in the region.
- With night-time temperatures dipping to minus 15-17 degrees Celsius (5 to 1 degrees Fahrenheit), fighting would soon increase as hard frosts mean it is easier to move heavy equipment, Haidai added.
Diplomacy
- Russia and Ukraine returned 50 captured soldiers each in the latest prisoner swap in the war. Ukraine said the returnees included fighters from Mariupol and Chornobyl. Freed Ukrainians sang the national anthem on their release.
- Russia and Belarus will hold joint aviation drills of the air divisions that are part of the two countries’ regional grouping of troops. The drills will last from January 16 to February 1.
- Justice ministers from around the world will gather in London in March to boost international support for the International Criminal Court in its investigations of alleged war crimes in Ukraine, the British government said.
- Sweden is confident that Turkey will approve its application to join the NATO military alliance, but it will not meet all the conditions that Ankara has set for its support, Sweden Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said during a security conference.
