Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,427 

Here is where things stand on Wednesday, January 21 :

Fighting

• At least three people have been reported killed after Russian forces struck the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, Governor Ivan Fedorov announced on the Telegram messaging app. Russian strikes also destroyed several private houses and cars, and left nearly 1,500 households without electricity, the governor said.

• One person was killed in earlier Russian drone and missile strikes in the Kyiv region, surrounding the capital city.

• Russian air attacks have left more than one million residents of Kyiv without power and more than 4,000 apartment buildings without heating, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.

• Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko told the AFP news agency that approximately 600,000 people have evacuated the Ukrainian capital since he urged residents to temporarily relocate after the Russian strikes on vital energy facilities.
• Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said 68 repair brigades have been deployed in Kyiv after the recent Russian attacks, and more than 1,400 emergency stations have enabled the capital’s residents to keep warm and charge electronic devices amid the power outages.

• A Russian attack hit a critical infrastructure facility in central Ukraine’s Vinnytsia region, whose capital is the headquarters of Ukraine’s Air Force, Governor Natalia Zabolotna said on Telegram, adding that no one was hurt.

• Another Russian attack damaged an energy infrastructure facility in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, Governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram.

• Kiper said that a Russian drone also hit a multistorey residential building in the Black Sea port of Chornomorsk, adding that there was no information yet on casualties.

• Zelenskyy has called for tougher sanctions on Moscow to curb its military production, saying that some of the weapons used in Tuesday’s deadly drone and missile attacks on Kyiv and Zaporizhia were produced this year.

Attacks on energy infrastructure

• Ukrainian Minister of Economy Oleksii Sobolev, who is attending the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, said Russian attacks have damaged about 8.5 gigawatts of Ukraine’s power generation capacity since October.
• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said attacks had affected several substations critical for nuclear safety, while power lines to some other nuclear plants have been impacted. The Chornobyl plant, the site of the world’s worst civil nuclear catastrophe, lost all off-site power after a Russian attack, the IAEA said. Kyiv later said the plant had been reconnected.
• Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha accused Russia of using the risk of nuclear disaster as a tool of coercion.
• The United Nations human rights chief, Volker Turk, expressed outrage over the “cruel” Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, saying civilians are “bearing the brunt”.

Ceasefire talks

• Special envoys for US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are meeting in Davos on the sidelines of the WEF. They described their meeting on a possible peace deal to end the war in Ukraine as “very positive” and “constructive”.

• Ukrainian peace negotiators also met with national security advisers from France, Germany and the United Kingdom in Davos, according to Rustem Umerov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council. Umerov said on Telegram that further meetings are expected.

• Zelenskyy urged the United States to put more pressure on Moscow, telling reporters that he believed the Americans were capable of doing more to bring Russia to agree on a ceasefire deal.
• Zelenskyy also told reporters in Kyiv that he was worried Trump’s push to take over Greenland could be diverting focus away from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, now approaching its four-year mark.
• Zelenskyy said he was ready to travel to Davos if Washington was ready to sign documents on security guarantees for Ukraine and a post-war prosperity plan.
• Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov said he does not believe that European leaders are interested in ending the war, which his country started in 2022.

Military

• Zelenskyy has urged Ukraine and Europe to create a joint defence force of up to three million people to counter threats from Russia, as Moscow plans to increase its armed forces to 2.5 million people by 2030.

• Ukraine’s new defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, has promised a sweeping, data-driven overhaul of the Ukrainian army, which will give Ukrainian forces the upper hand against Russia’s bigger and better-equipped army.

• Fedorov also said in his remarks to journalists that Ukraine would test, this month, its home-grown replacement to China’s DJI Mavic drone, which is widely used for aerial reconnaissance on the front lines by both sides. He did not disclose the manufacturer.
• The minister also announced that Ukraine would establish a system allowing its allies to train their AI models on Kyiv’s valuable combat data, collected throughout the nearly four-year war.