Russian foreign intelligence claims Ukraine is using nuclear power plants as weapons caches. The news ticker on the military situation in the Ukraine war.
- Kremlin chief apparently afraid attacks: Vladimir Putin is probably having rocket launchers installed
- “Deadly Cargo” on Nuclear power plant site: Russian intelligence blames Ukraine
- Fierce battles for Zaporizhia: Russia attacked numerous settlements in Ukraine war
- Current information: All news and developments in the Ukraine conflict in our news ticker
Update from Monday, January 23, 11:54 a.m: Putin’s troops are advancing “on practically the entire front” in Donetsk. The governor Denis Puschilin, appointed by Moscow, said this in a live broadcast of the state news channel Rossiya 24, as reported by the Tass news agency. This information could not be checked independently. In the course of its attack in September, Russia illegally annexed the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine.
Kremlin boss apparently fears attacks: Vladimir Putin is probably having rocket launchers installed
Update from Monday January 23 at 11:22 am: Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin now has his personal rocket launcher. This is reported by the Russian independent media company project. This information could not initially be verified. The Pantsir system was installed about ten kilometers from Putin’s residence in Novo-Ogaryovo, near Moscow, and was designed to protect them.
The Pantsir-S1 air defense system is designed to protect against a variety of weapons, including aircraft, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov referred to the Defense Ministry as late as Friday (January 20) when asked if Russia was concerned that Moscow could be the target of an attack.
“Deadly cargo” on nuclear power plant site: Russian secret service accuses Ukraine
Update from Monday, January 23, 10:10 a.m: The Russian foreign intelligence service (SWR) accuses Kyiv of stationing Western weapons on the site of nuclear power plants. The calculus behind it is that the Russian troops would not strike because of the danger of a nuclear catastrophe, said SWR boss Sergej Naryschkin in Moscow. “If there is a large detonation and a nuclear power plant is destroyed, for example, by a new misdirection of a missile by the Ukrainian air defense system, the blame for the tragedy is always blamed on Moscow,” said the SWR report. The SWR data cannot be checked.
In the last week of December, railway wagons with the “deadly cargo” were brought to the Rivne nuclear power plant, it said. SWR did not present any evidence. Ukraine, on the other hand, accuses Russia of also stationing military technology on the site of the occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.
Update from Monday 23 January 9:30 a.m: The Russian attacks claim more civilian lives in Donetsk. According to a Telegram entry by regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko, four people were killed and three others injured in the cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka in one day. The information of Kyiv Independent could not initially be verified independently.
Russia is moving more soldiers to the Donetsk region
Update from Monday, January 23, 2023, 7:00 a.m.: According to the news portal Kyiv Independent The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces announced on Monday morning (January 23) that the Russian army is moving more troops to the occupied areas of the Kherson region. According to the General Staff, the troops arrived in the settlements of Vynohradove and Brylivka between January 18 and 21, equipped with handguns and bulletproof vests.
Ukraine War: Attacks on critical infrastructure in Zaporizhia and school in Kherson
+++ 10.25 p.m.: A school building was damaged during Russian attacks on the town of Oleshky in the occupied part of the Cherson region on Sunday. This was reported by the city’s mayor, Yevhen Ryshchuk, via the news platform Telegram. Like the Ukrainian medium Kyiv Independent reported that Russian troops fired on the city several times that day. As a result of the explosions after the bombings, windows in neighboring buildings were also broken. Nobody was injured.
War in Ukraine: Russian troops attack critical infrastructure again
+++ 8.55 p.m.: During Sunday, Russian soldiers again attacked several towns on the war front. Areas in the Zaporizhia region, where critical infrastructure was damaged in a rocket attack, were again particularly fiercely contested. This was announced by the Ukrainian General Staff in its evening situation report on Facebook.
During the day, Russian troops also carried out five airstrikes and more than 20 rocket attacks. In addition, 16 towns were attacked with artillery fire in the Zaporizhia region alone. A civilian died in an attack on the town of Petrivka in the Kharkiv region, the news site said Ukrainska Pravda reported.
Security expert: Russia must hope for “Ukrainian Stalingrad” in the war
+++ 6.45 p.m.: In order to achieve his goals in Ukraine, Russian ruler Vladimir Putin needs a “Ukrainian Stalingrad”. This is what Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, writes in a guest column for the online medium Ukrainska Pravda. According to Danilov, the hope of a successful “encirclement” is also the reason why Russian troops are currently looking for weak points on the Ukrainian front lines.
For this, reserves would be drawn on in many places, which would then be used by Russian generals as cannon fodder to achieve Russia’s “maximalist goals”. For Danilov there is no doubt that Putin wants and must destroy Ukraine completely, so that Russia does not go down in history as a “country of evil and violence”. Putin dreams of “victory parades, the title of greatest generalissimo of all time and a new network of penal and labor camps based on the Soviet model,” but without massive Russian successes like in Debaltseve in 2015, Danilov writes that this cannot happen.
Russia reports progress in fighting in Zaporizhia
+++ 4.12 p.m.: Russian troops looted a hospital in Kherson Oblast. The Ukrainian press service National Resistance Center (NRC) reported that Russian occupiers stowed all the equipment of the Skadovsk Central Hospital in four military trucks and took them away. The resistance center fears that the humanitarian crisis among the civilian population will worsen as a result of the looting of clinics.
+++ 3:03 p.m.: According to Russia, it has made progress in the Zaporizhia region of Ukraine. As the Ministry of Defense said, Russian troops would improve their position. In addition, according to the ministry, there were high losses on the other side – the Russian armed forces are said to have destroyed several Ukrainian military equipment, including howitzers and two US-made HIMARS missiles. Ukraine said the Russian claims were exaggerated.
Ukrainian military trains new units
+++ 2:06 p.m.: While Ukraine awaits new military aid, the Ukrainian military is training new units to be equipped with Western equipment. “We are creating new military units. And our next actions will depend on their combat readiness,” Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Lt. Gen. Serhii Naiev told CNN.
The military must train the units on the new equipment and integrate them into existing formations, Naiev said. Several countries, including the US and the UK, train Ukrainian soldiers and officers.
Russia warns of ‘global catastrophe’
+++ 10.51 a.m.: The chairman of the Russian lower house, Vyacheslav Volodin, has the Nato strongly warned against supplying heavy weapons to Ukraine. “The delivery of offensive weapons to the regime in Kyiv will lead to a global catastrophe,” the Duma spokesman and a close confidant of Putin warned on Telegram.
Should the US and NATO supply weapons, which would be used to attack civilian cities, and should there be attempts at conquest, it would result in “retaliation with more powerful weapons”. A terrible war is imminent.
News in the Ukraine war: Defense in Bachmut holds up
Update from Sunday, January 22, 8:37 a.m.: Ukraine has apparently managed to fend off another Russian attack on the city of Bakhmut – albeit at great cost. This is reported by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) from the USA. Ukraine’s efforts to hold the city, which has been hard fought over in recent days, are a “strategically sensible measure”. The city itself is not of great strategic value. However, a quick capture by Russian troops would have enabled Moscow to subsequently gain large amounts of territory in eastern Ukraine.
First report from Sunday, January 22nd, 7.30 a.m.: Heavy fighting is reported from the Zaporizhia region. According to the UK Ministry of Defense (MOD), Russia and Ukraine have concentrated “significant forces” in the key region. So far, however, neither side has achieved a decisive breakthrough. In Bachmut, on the other hand, the situation seems to have eased somewhat. This is reported by the British secret service in its daily situation report on the Ukraine war. (dil/ska/tt with dpa/AFP