Here are the latest updates as of Tuesday, January 28:
Fighting
A Russian drone attack on a passenger train in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region killed at least four people, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram. Zelenskyy added that four more people are missing and two others were injured in the attack.
A Russian drone strike on a building in Ukraine’s Odesa region killed three people and injured 25, the head of the regional military administration, Serhiy Lysak, said on Telegram.
One person was killed in a Russian airstrike on a kindergarten in the city of Kostiantynivka, the head of the city’s military administration, Serhiy Gorbunov, said on Facebook. The kindergarten was being used as a community center for Ukrainians to charge devices and keep warm during power outages.
A man and a woman were killed by a Russian drone while trying to evacuate from the village of Hrabovske in Ukraine’s Sumy region, the Ukrainian military reported.
Russian forces shot down 105 Ukrainian drones over a 24-hour period, according to a report from Russia’s Defense Ministry, cited by TASS.
TASS also reported that Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed its forces had taken the Ukrainian settlement of Novoiaakivlivka in the Zaporizhzhia region and Kupyansk-Vuzlovyi in the Kharkiv region.
However, Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Counter-Disinformation Center under Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, denied that Russia had taken Kupyansk-Vuzlovyi, calling it a “lie.” Meanwhile, open-source intelligence maps from the Ukrainian volunteer group DeepState showed Russian forces were not present in the Novoiaakivlivka area.
Energy Crisis
Ukraine’s nationwide energy crisis continues, with 710,000 people still without power in the capital, Kyiv, due to Russian strikes on electricity infrastructure during freezing winter weather, Energy Minister German Galushchenko said.
The EU is providing 447 generators to Kyiv, the city of Kropyvnytskyi, and front-line communities, with 76 delivered on Tuesday, Ukrinform reported.
Nearly 1.3 million residents in Russia and Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories experienced power outages last week due to Ukrainian attacks, Rodion Miroshnik, ambassador-at-large at Russia’s Foreign Ministry, said, according to TASS.
Russian strikes targeted a facility belonging to Ukraine’s state-owned energy company, Naftogaz, in the western part of the country on Tuesday, Naftogaz said.
Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, said on Tuesday that Russian forces have taken 17 settlements in Ukraine and seized over 500 square kilometers (193 square miles) of territory so far this month, according to Reuters. However, DeepState maps have challenged this claim.
Politics & Diplomacy
Talks aimed at ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are progressing very well, US President Donald Trump told reporters as he left the White House on Tuesday, without providing further details.
The withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from the Donbas region, which is currently under attack and occupation by Russian forces, is the path to peace, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, said. “The withdrawal of troops from Donbas is Ukraine’s path to peace,” Dmitriev said on X.
An oil tanker under EU sanctions for carrying Russian oil is being escorted by a Spanish rescue vessel to the port of Tangier Med in Morocco, the Spanish Merchant Navy said.
Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo told reporters in * that * and * have the opportunity to end Russia’s war in Ukraine by influencing Putin and reducing cooperation with Moscow.
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Tuesday that Slovakia will file a lawsuit challenging the EU’s decision, passed by a qualified majority, to ban imports of Russian natural gas, the news website Dennik N reported.