A heavy Russian drone attack on Odesa kills three, ravages an energy facility. The U.S. links security guarantees for Ukraine to a peace deal ceding territory, the FT says. Germany cannot supply more Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine, Pistorius says.
Heavy Russian drone attack on Odesa kills three, ravages energy facility
A heavy Russian drone attack on Odesa overnight on Tuesday killed three people and injured 25 others, including two children and a pregnant woman, officials said. The strike sparked major fires in several parts of the city, damaging dozens of apartment buildings, a church, kindergarten, school, fitness center and private vehicles, head of the Odesa regional military administration, Oleh Kiper said.
Dozens of apartments were affected with the buildings’ facades damaged and windows shattered, he added. The attack left a residential building in the city’s Khadzhybeyskyi district ripped open across several floors.
Private energy company DTEK said that Russia launched another strike on its energy facility in Odesa overnight on Tuesday. “The damage is colossal, and repair works will take a long time before equipment is operational again,” the company said.
Nine people were taken to hospital, including two girls born in 2013 and 2008 and a woman at 39 weeks pregnant, Oleh Kiper said.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said on Tuesday that Russia had launched 52 drones at Odesa overnight.
U.S. links security guarantees for Ukraine to peace deal ceding territory, FT says
The Trump administration has indicated to Ukraine that U.S. security guarantees are contingent on Kyiv first agreeing a peace deal that would likely involve ceding the Donbas region to Russia, according to eight people familiar with talks, the Financial Times said Tuesday.
Washington has also suggested it would promise Ukraine more weaponry to bolster its peacetime army if — as the price of peace with Russia — it agreed to withdraw its forces from the parts of the eastern region it controls, two of the people said.
A U.S. security agreement for Ukraine is “100 per cent ready” to be signed, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said Sunday.
A U.S. official who spoke to Politico on Saturday on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic issues appeared to dismiss early European [security] commitments, noting it is the American security guarantee that is most critical: “The Coalition of the Willing efforts are nice. They had a couple helicopters and a couple troops and a couple guarantees here and there, but if you speak to the Ukrainians, it’s really the American security guarantees that matter.”
Ahead of the Abu Dhabi talks on January 23 and 24, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Ukrainian troops must withdraw from Donbas, reiterating Russia’s earlier demand.
Germany cannot supply more Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine, Pistorius says
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius urged Ukraine’s allies to step up their support for the country’s air defense capabilities. Germany has little room for maneuver in expanding its current assistance, he said in a joint press conference with his Lithuanian counterpart Robertas Kaunas in Berlin on Monday, according to Die Zeit. Germany has made a disproportionate contribution so far, having handed over to Ukraine more than a third of own Patriot systems. It cannot give away any more systems as it is waiting for replacement deliveries, Pistorius said, according to an automated translation.
Germany is also the sole supplier of Iris-T systems and is continuously sending them to Ukraine, he continued. Yet these efforts are not enough as Russia has stepped up its aerial attacks on the country. Pistorius called on the allies to review their stocks and find air defense systems they can supply to Ukraine.
Speaking at a youth forum on January 23, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said he had agreed with U.S. President Donald Trump over deliveries of missiles for Patriot air defense systems without specifying the quantity.