Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks with the Asssociated Press in Kyiv, in an interview posted on February 2, 2025 (AP)

Sunday’s Coverage: Russia Kills 18+ Across Ukraine, 4+ Evacuees in Kursk

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1650 GMT:

Ukraine’s National Police are investigating the decapitation of a Ukrainian soldier by Russian forces.

Russian social media channels circulated the photo of the Ukrainian’s severed head being held aloft.

The National Police are also contacting the soldier’s relatives as authorities document another violation of international humanitarian law by Russia.

Ukraine’s authorities have documented Russia’s execution of 177 captured Ukrainian soldiers as of mid-December 2024.

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine reported a sharp increase in executions of POWs by Russian forces, with 79 executions recorded in 24 separate incidents since last August.

UPDATE 1538 GMT:

Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank is sitll cooperating with companies that supply the Russian army.

Raiffeisen is the largest Western bank still operating in Russia. Facing international criticism, it had finally announced in July 2024 that it would “drastically” reduce operations in the country.

However, over the past year, Raiffeisen’s Russia branch has received more than 62 million rubles ($620,000) for servicing the Russian chemical company Unichim.

Unichim is not under sanctions, but it provides sanctioned companies with components to produce military equipment. It also supplied acids to the Russian company Ravenstvo to develop and modernize multiple launch rocket systems and aerial bombs.

Raiffeisen Bank has cooperated with Unichim by dealing with accounts in sanctioned Russian banks such as Sberbank, VTB, and Soledarnost.

UPDATE 1059 GMT:

A pro-Kremlin paramilitary leader from eastern Ukraine, Armen Sarkisyan, has been killed by a bomb in the lobby of a luxury apartment block in Moscow.

The explosive detonated just as Sarkisyan and his bodyguards, one of whom was slain, entered the Scarlet Sails residential complex on the banks of the Moscow River.

Sarkisyan was taken to hospital in critical condition where he later died. He was wanted by Kyiv, but no group has taken responsibility for the bombing.

Sarkisyan was the head of the boxing federation in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region and the founder of a battalion fighting against Ukraine.

An alleged crime boss, Sarkisyan was a close associate of Ukraine’s pro-Kremlin President Viktor Yanukovych. He was an international wanted list for organizing murders in central Kyiv.

During the EuroMaidan Revolution against Yanukovych in 2013-14, Sarkisyan reportedly organized the hiring pro-government thugs who harassed protesters.

UPDATE 0852 GMT:

Air defenses downed 38 of 71 drones fired by Russia overnight across 10 Ukrainian regions. Another 25 drones were lost to electronic counter-measures.

There are reports of damage in the Sumy, Kharkiv, and Cherkasy regions.

In the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, one person was killed and 13 wounded by Russian shelling. Four multi-storey buildings, 21 private houses, gas pipelines, outbuildings, garages, a warehouse, and private vehicles were damaged.

One civilian was killed and wounded in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. In Kharkiv in the northeast, a 39-year-old woman and a 53-year-old man were injured in a drone attack. In Dnipropretrovsk in south-central Ukraine,a 70-year-old man was moderately wounded.

UPDATE 0820 GMT:

Ukraine launched dozens of drones on energy facilities in southern Russia overnight.

The assault set off detonations at a major oil refinery, sparked fires at a gas processing plant, and disrupted flights from the Volga to the Caucasus Mountains.

Around 50 explosions were heard in the area around the Volgograd refinery, operated by Russia’s second-largest oil producer Lukoil. The plant, the largest producer in southern Russia with 300,000 barrels per day, was also targeted on Friday.

Volgograd Governor Andrei Bocharov said falling drone debris sparked several fires at a refinery, while maintain that air defenses “repelled a massive attack”.

Andriy Kovalenko of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council reported the strike on the Astrakhan gas processing, controlled by Russian State firm Gazprom.

Baza, close to the Russian military, and other Telegram channels posted about the attack on the complex, capable of processing around 8,340 metric tons of gas condensate per day.

Astrakhan Governor Igor Babushkin said Ukrainian drones tried to strike energy facilities and a fire had broken out, but gave no further details.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky says dozens of Russian and North Korean officers were killed in a Ukrainian strike on a command post in Kursk in western Russia.

In a 140-minute interview with the Associated Press on Sunday, Zelensky spoke about last Friday’s attack in the city of Rylsk:

There was a strong operation by our military — they hit their central command post in the Kursk direction. And they lost key officers of Russia and North Korea.

It was our military target, a fair one. There was a missile attack from our side and various types of weapons; a complex attack was launched against them.

Ukraine has controlled part of Kursk since a cross-border incursion on August 6. At one point, the Ukrainians held 100 settlements and 1,300 km (500 squares miles). Russia’s counter-attacks, while losing large numbers of personnel, have regained around half of the territory.

North Korea has sent around 12,000 troops to Russia. Most are in the Kursk region.

South Korean and Ukrainian officials, including Zelensky, say the North Koreans have suffered up to 4,000 casualties. The officials reported last week that Pyongyang’s men have not been observed on the frontline in the past three weeks.

Repeating the estimate of 4,000 casualties, Zelensky told AP:

They lost the combat capability of this first package of North Koreans. I can’t call them anything else because it’s a package — they don’t know where they’re going, and they’re fighting against a country they’ve never been to.