Thursday’s Coverage: Prominent Scientists Killed in Russia’s Strikes on New Year’s Day
Map: Institute for the Study of War
UPDATE 1905 GMT:
One civilian has been killed and four injured by a Russian ballistic missile attack on the Chernihiv region in northern Ukraine.
Multiple apartment buildings on the outskirts of Chernihiv city suffered significant damage.
UPDATE 1239 GMT:
Police in Russia’s Leningrad region have arrested three schoolchildren aged 10 and 11 for extinguishing an eternal flame monument by throwing snow on it.
The Investigative Committee’s local branch opened a case on charges of “rehabilitating Nazism”. The felony is punishable by up to five years in prison, but because of the prohibition on prosecution of children under 16 for felony offenses, the case has been referred to a juvenile affairs inspector.
UPDATE 1211 GMT:
Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico has threatened to reduce aid to Ukrainian refugees, following the halt to transit of Russian gas across Ukraine (see Original Entry).
Fico, an ally of Vladimir Putin, declared in a video message, “We are ready to discuss and agree in the coalition on halting electricity supplies and significantly reducing aid to Ukrainian citizens who are in Slovakia.”
Fico unsuccessfully warned of a disruption of gas supplies to Europe if Ukraine did not renew the contract with Russia’s Gazprom.
He called the cessation of Russian gas supplies to Slovakia “sabotage by Zelensky”, with losses of €500 million per year.
European and Ukrainian officials have noted that other countries which had used Russian gas made alternative arrangements before the cutoff on New Year’s Day.
UPDATE 0916 GMT:
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has said there will be no election under martial law even if Russia sets it as a pre-condition for negotiations.
Ukraine was scheduled to hold a Presidential election in March or April 2024, concluding Zelensky’s first five-year term. The vote was postponed as the country’s constitution does not allow a vote under martial law, which was declared on February 24, 2022 at the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Zelensky explained, “We would violate Ukrainian legislation on behalf of [Vladimir] Putin, who has violated all our legislation, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.” He said Putin is looking for any possible excuses to avoid direct negotiations.
Putin is portraying Zelensky as “illegitimate”, arguing that the authority should pass to Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk.
The President assured, “After martial law ends, there is no need to wait years for the elections.”
UPDATE 0833 GMT:
Two civilians were killed and at leat 13 injured by Russian attacks across Ukraine over the past day.
Air defenses downed 60 of 93 drones launched by Russia overnight. Another 26 drones were “lost” to electronic counter-measures.
The wreckage of downed drones killed a 35-year-old truck driver in the Kyiv region. Debris also damaged a house, causing a fire and injuring two people, including a 16-year-old boy. Another woman was injured near the settlement of Fastiv.
One person was killed in the town of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk Oblast in eastern Ukraine.
In the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, ten people were wounded in attacks on 39 settlements.
UPDATE 0826 GMT:
Ukraine has opened a criminal probe into desertion and “abuse of power” after hundreds of soldiers reportedly fled an army unit partly trained by France.
The 155th Mechanized Brigade, “Anne of Kyiv”, was one of several formed last year. The unit was to be made up of 4,500 soldiers, with France training about half of them and providing equipment.
UPDATE 0817 GMT:
Ukraine’s military says it carried out a high-precision strike on a Russian command post in Maryino, in the Kursk region of western Russia, on Thursday.
Ukraine has held part of Kursk since a cross-border incursion on August 6.
“These strikes disrupt the ability of the Russian Federation to conduct terrorism against innocent Ukrainian civilians,” the Ukrainian military said in a statement.
The Russian military claimed air defense units downed four Ukrainian missiles in the region. The Kursk governor declared that the strikes damaged a high-rise apartment building and other buildings in a village next to Maryino.
UPDATE 0756 GMT:
Appealing to Donald Trump’s ego, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the incoming US President could be “decisive” in ending Russia’s full-scale invasion: “He is capable of stopping Putin or, to put it more fairly, help us stop Putin. He is able to do this.”
Zelensky said during an hour-long interview with Ukrainian TV on Thursday, “He’s very strong and unpredictable, and I would really like to see President Trump’s unpredictability apply to Russia. I believe he really wants to end the war.”
He added, “I believe Putin is scared of Trump. That’s why he’s taking steps to get some of the Kremlin’s voice somehow into the Trump administration.”
ORIGINAL ENTRY: Europe’s gas supplies are stable, with the exception of Moldova, despite the halt to transit of Russian gas across Ukraine on New Year’s Day.
The Russian supply via Ukrainian pipelines was halted after Kyiv did not renew a decades-long arrangement because of Moscow’s 34-month invasion.
European reliance on Russian gas is now less than 10%, compared with more than 40% before Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale attempt to conquer Ukraine in February 2022. Some countries in eastern Europe, such as Slovakia, still take significant supplies from Moscow.
The wholesale price of gas reached its highest level since October 2023, rising up to 4.3% on Thursday before easing back to 1.9% higher at €49.83 ($51.34) a megawatt hour.
However, Poland, which holds the Presidency of the European Union, said, “The situation is stable with all member States using a mix of regular winter storage and imports from third countries, which provide stable supplies to their consumers.”
The exception, ironically, is the Russian-occupied Transnistria region of Ukraine’s neighbor Moldova.
Sergei Obolonik, First Deputy Prime Minister of the region, spoke of a “grave” crisis:
All industrial enterprises are idle, with the exception of those engaged in food production – that is, directly ensuring food security for Transnistria.
The problem is so extensive that if it is not resolved for a long time, we will already have irreversible changes – that is, enterprises will lose their ability to start up.
Obolonik described the gas crisis as “grave,” with shortages cutting supply to nearly 75,000 households and leaving another 116,000 with reduced volumes.
Russian troops seized control of Transnistria in 1992, a year after the break-up of the Soviet Union.
Moldova has offered to assist Transnistria in purchasing gas on market terms through European platforms.
Moldova’s state-owned energy company Energocom is importing electricity from Romania and Ukraine to address any shortfall from the halt of Russian supplies.
Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean criticized the Kremlin for using energy as a “political weapon”.
