2024-01-31 16:31:00
PrintShare
Russia suffers heavy losses in the region around Bakhmut. Ukraine attacks St. Petersburg. The news ticker for the Ukraine war.
- After Plane crash in Russia: Ukraine and Russia exchange prisoners of war
- Attacks in St. Petersburg: Ukrainian drone explodes in Russian oil factory
- Russia suffers high losses: Kyiv publishes current figures
- The information processed here comes from international media and news agencies, but also from the warring parties Russia and Ukraine and their allies. In particular, the information on losses suffered by the armies involved in the Ukrainian war cannot be independently verified.
Update from January 31st, 5:30 p.m: EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has announced that European military aid to Ukraine would increase compared to the past two years. Since the start of the Ukraine war, Europe has provided aid worth around 28 billion euros to Ukraine. In comparison, military aid worth 21 billion euros is already planned for 2024.
Current Ukraine war: Russia wants to expropriate military critics
Emergency services secure the area around an oil factory in St. Petersburg after a Ukrainian drone attack. © NEWS.ru/IMAGO/Stringer
Criticism of the Russian army was classified as illegal shortly after the start of the war. Criticism or dissemination of information about the war that is classified as false could result in a prison sentence of up to 15 years. This law was applied at the end of last year, for example, when an 18-year-old Russian had to stand trial for spreading false information, reports Daily Mirror.
Ukraine and Russia exchange prisoners of war despite plane crash
Ukraine War: The Origins of the Conflict with Russia
View photo series
Update from January 31st, 3:30 p.m.: Ukraine and Russia have again exchanged prisoners of war despite the recently shot down Russian transport plane. “207 of our people have returned to their homeland!” wrote Ukrainian human rights commissioner Dmytro Lubinets on Telegram on Wednesday. Since the Russian invasion, over 3,000 Ukrainians have been released in 50 exchanges. According to the Ukrainian Coordination Staff for Prisoner of War Affairs, 95 soldiers, 56 National Guardsmen, 26 border guards, 29 territorial defense fighters and one police officer are now free again. These were captured, among other things, while defending Mariupol, Kherson and the Snake Island.
The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the exchange. However, according to information from Moscow, 195 Russian soldiers were exchanged for 195 Ukrainian soldiers. The difference in numbers was not explained.
Situation in the Ukraine War: Explosion in Saint Petersburg – Ukrainian secret service comments
Update from January 31st, 1:43 p.m: Ukraine’s secret service has officially claimed responsibility for the drone attack on an oil factory in St. Petersburg, reports Ukrainska Pravda. Contrary to statements by Russian authorities, the drone is said to have reached its destination. The secret service denied that the unmanned aircraft was hit by an anti-aircraft missile. The drone attack is therefore part of an operation by the Ukrainian military.
Ukraine War: National Police of Ukraine announces civilian casualty figures from war against Russia
Update from January 31st, 1 p.m: Since the beginning of Russia’s war against Ukraine, 9,700 Ukrainian civilians are said to have died, the National Police of Ukraine said. “Police directly documented the deaths of 9,700 Ukrainians, another 11,000 were injured and almost 7,000 were missing. They are all civilians,” said Maksym Tsutskiridze, the head of the national police.
18,000 children were affected by the consequences of the war. Of these, 522 are said to have died and 14,000 were deported to Belarus. The number of victims would also only refer to the areas not occupied by Russia. “I am afraid to imagine what will happen during the occupation,” said Tsutskiridze. He also reported that Ukraine would document all war crimes and was confident that Russia would pay reparations after the war.
Ukraine News: Nighttime drone attack hits Russian oil factory in St. Petersburg
Update from January 31st, 10:50 a.m.: For weeks, refineries and oil and gasoline depots have been attacked almost daily in Russia. According to media reports, a drone attack hit an oil factory in the northwestern Russian city of St. Petersburg. “After the explosion, three empty cisterns caught fire, which were quickly extinguished,” the regional Internet portal Fontanka reported on Wednesday. In addition, other buildings and vehicles were damaged. A surveillance video from a nearby bus station is said to show the moment of the impact.
St. Petersburg is more than 1000 kilometers from the border with Ukraine. The Russian military has not yet commented on the attack, but reported at the same time that a drone attack on the neighboring northwestern Russian region of Pskov was repelled. According to reports, the drone was hit by an S-400 anti-aircraft system over St. Petersburg. Nevertheless, it was not possible to shoot down the drone, which only crashed over the oil factory half an hour later, they say. The city administration later confirmed the impact. There were no injuries or damage, the press service said.
Current situation in the Ukraine war: air strikes reported by both sides
Update from January 31st, 10:20 a.m.: Ukraine and Russia reported mutual nighttime air strikes again on Wednesday. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia fired three missiles into Ukrainian territory in addition to at least 20 Iranian-made attack drones. In the Russian-controlled eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, at least two civilians were killed in a Ukrainian drone strike, according to pro-Russian authorities.
Another person was injured when a “civilian vehicle” was shot at on the road between Donetsk and his town of Horlivka, the local pro-Russian mayor Ivan Prikhodko said in the online Telegram service. Meanwhile, another Ukrainian drone was shot down over the region around the northwestern Russian city of Pskov, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on its website. The information cannot be independently verified.
Ukraine News: Russia on the defensive at Bakhmut
First report: Kiev – Russia seems to be losing ground in the Ukraine war. Ukrainian forces are said to have captured several defensive fortifications around the city of Bakhmut, which is occupied by Russian troops. This emerges from satellite images of the front that were distributed by the Ukrainian army on Twitter.
Bakhmut was at the center of events in the Ukraine war last summer. After weeks of fighting and suffering heavy losses, the units of the mercenary group Wagner succeeded in conquering the city for Russia. Now the Kremlin troops appear to be on the defensive both in Bakhmut and north and south of the city.
Russia continues missile attacks on Ukraine
At the same time, Russia continues its shelling of Ukrainian cities in the war with Kiev. According to Ukraine, four people were injured by drone and missile attacks. However, the air defense was able to repel most of the attacks and thus prevent anything worse from happening. In total, Russia fired on the country during the night with 20 drones and three Iskander-type ballistic missiles, the Ukrainian Air Force said. 14 drones were shot down over the Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhia regions.
Ukraine also claims to have inflicted heavy losses on Russian troops on the ground. According to the Defense Ministry in Kiev, more than 1,000 Russian soldiers are said to have died in the Ukraine war in the last 24 hours alone.
Russia’s losses in the Ukraine war at a glance
- Persons: around 385,230 (+1090 on the previous day)
- Panzer: 6310 (+10)
- Armored fighting vehicles: 11757 (+32)
- Artilleriesysteme: 9195 (+51)
- air defense equipment: 663
- Airplanes: 332
- Helicopter: 324
- Drones: 7100 (+16)
- Cruise missile: 1846
- Ships/Boats: 23
- U-Boot: 1
- Automotive equipment and tank trucks: 12231 (+40)
- Special equipment: 1448 (+5)
Those: Ukrainian General Staff dated January 31st. The information about Russian losses comes from the Ukrainian army. They cannot be independently verified. Russia itself does not provide any information about its own losses in the Ukraine war.
Zelenskyj with video message in the Ukraine war
Meanwhile, hopes are growing in Kiev that they will be able to inflict even greater losses on Russia in the coming weeks with the help of their own weapons production. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj has described the growing production of drones and ammunition in his own country as a path to freedom.
“The domestic production of drones, artillery shells and military vehicles is literally the production of our freedom, the freedom of Ukrainians and Ukraine,” said the 46-year-old on Tuesday in his evening video message broadcast in Kiev. This also involves the important production of longer-range drones. Zelensky did not give any details. (With agency material)
1706721366
#Ukraine #News #Explosion #Russia