This week, battles continued to rage along the front lines. Russia continued to pummel Ukrainian cities and towns deep in the rear with missiles and drones as severe frost has set in in most of the country.
A Russian drone attack on a mining facility in the region of Dnipro on Sunday killed 12 people and injured 16 others. Russia launched 450 drones and 71 missiles at Ukraine overnight on Tuesday, targeting energy sites as temperatures dropped. The strikes cut heat to hundreds of apartment buildings in Kyiv and Kharkiv. More than 1,100 apartment buildings in Kyiv’s two districts will remain without heat as long as repairs proceed at the Darnytska thermal power plant that sustained critical damage in the latest attack, the city’s mayor Vitaliy Klychko said Thursday. Russian attacks on Zaporizhzhia region on Tuesday killed three people and injured 12 others.
The Ukrainian military hit a number of Russian military sites in Ukraine’s occupied territory and inside Russia, including a drone pilot training center, troop amassment and jamming system. Ukraine struck Russia’s launch site for Oreshnik missiles with the use of domestic Flamingo missiles. The strikes happened last month.
Starlink internet terminals used by Russian troops in Ukraine have been deactivated, Ukraine’s Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said Thursday. The number of Russian assault operations has decreased after the Russians’ systems were blocked, unnamed sources in Ukraine’s General Staff told RFE/RL on Thursday.
Ukraine is running short of missiles for air defense systems, the spokesperson for Ukraine’s air force said. U.S. President Donald Trump said that Russian leader Vladimir Putin “kept his word” on not attacking Ukraine for one week — despite the perception that Putin broke the deal with a strike after just four days. On Tuesday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte visited Kyiv and addressed the parliament’s opening session.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi dismissed Russia’s recent demand that “all countries” recognize Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions as Russian territory. “Even if someone recognizes our territories as Russian, it will result in nothing,” he said. A majority of Ukrainians (52 per cent) firmly reject ceding all of Donbas to Russia in exchange for security guarantees, a survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology between January 23 and January 29 found.
One hundred and fifty-seven Ukrainians held by Russia freed in prisoner swap. On Thursday, Ukraine secured the release of 157 prisoners of war and civilians from Russian captivity. Most of the released Ukrainians were held prisoner from 2022. “We are bringing our people home — 157 Ukrainians. Warriors from the Armed Forces, National Guard and State Border Guard Service. Soldiers, sergeants and officers. Along with our defenders, civilians are also returning,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said in a post to X.
The two sides agreed to swap 314 prisoners in the first such exchange in five months, U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff said on X Thursday. He cited progress in three-way discussions in Abu Dhabi that ended on February 5, with more results expected “in the coming weeks.”
