As the war enters its 705th day, key developments include:
This is the situation as of Tuesday, January 30, 2024.
finding
- Russia claimed to have captured Tavaivka, a small front-line village in northeastern Ukraine's Kharkiv region. Ukraine denies the claims and says fighting continues.
- Alexei Kremzin, the Russian-installed mayor of the occupied Ukrainian city of Donetsk, blamed Ukraine for the rocket attack that killed at least three people and injured three more.
politics and diplomacy
- Hungary has signaled it is willing to compromise on the European Union's proposed 50 billion euro ($54 billion) aid package for Ukraine. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's chief of staff, Balázs Orbán, said Budapest would send a proposal to Brussels on Saturday to use the EU budget for the aid package, subject to other “caveats” and to use EU common bonds to finance it. He said he had sent a proposal indicating his willingness to issue a . Added. The EU is scheduled to hold an emergency budget summit on Thursday.
- Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto laid the groundwork for a summit during a meeting in western Ukraine and agreed to cooperate on the divisive issue over the rights of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine. said.
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned that any progress in Ukraine will be “at risk” if Congress does not approve new aid to Kiev. Republicans have blocked the $61 billion aid package and want it to be tied to tougher immigration policies.
- NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg met with senior U.S. officials, including Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Stoltenberg is in Washington, D.C., to rally support for the Ukraine deal and is expected to meet with lawmakers involved in the aid discussions on Tuesday.
- British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has called on Moscow to reveal the whereabouts of Vladimir Kara-Murza after his wife said he had been transferred from a penal colony in Siberia to an unknown location. Kara Murza, who has Russian and British citizenship, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in April last year for treason and spreading “false information” about Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
- Members of the Russian rock group Bi-2, which has criticized the war in Ukraine, have been arrested in Thailand on suspicion of working without a permit and could be deported to Russia. Russian authorities have labeled the band's lead singer Igor Bortnik a “foreign spy” after he criticized President Vladimir Putin online.
- A Russian court has sentenced a 72-year-old woman to five and a half years in prison for sharing two posts online about Russian military casualties in Ukraine. Human rights groups said Evgeniya Maiboroda, from the southern Rostov region, was charged with spreading “false information” about the military.
weapons
- Sales of U.S. military equipment to foreign governments will rise 16% in 2023, the highest on record, as countries seek to replenish weapons sent to Ukraine and prepare for a major conflict, according to the U.S. State Department. The total amount was 238 billion dollars. Sales that year included the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) for Ukraine, as well as weapons for Poland and Germany.
