Russia-Ukraine War: List of key events, day 1,056 | Russia-Ukraine war News

Here is the situation as of Wednesday, January 15:

Fighting

• Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has vowed to take “strong action” against Russia if it is confirmed that Russian forces killed Oscar Jenkins, an Australian who was captured alive while fighting for Ukraine.
• The Ukrainian military said it was its biggest missile and drone attack on Russian territory since the start of the war, reportedly hitting the Russian cities of Saratov and Engels and causing damage to factories.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it would retaliate for this major airstrike, accusing Ukraine of reusing Russian-launched missiles delivered by the United States and the United Kingdom.
• Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces captured two Ukrainian settlements in the Donetsk region: Terny, near the city of Siversk and Neskuchne, in the south.
• Steelmaker Metinvest said it was closing its coal mine near the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, due to an attack by Russian troops a few kilometers away. “We cannot put the lives of thousands of workers and their families at risk,” Metinvest CEO Yuriy Ryzhenkov said in a statement.

Russian oil and gas

• Russia has accused the US of seeking to destroy TurkStream, the last pipeline carrying Russian gas to Europe.
• The leader of Moldova’s rebel region, Transnistria, has gone to Moscow to discuss a solution to the electricity crisis following the suspension of Russian gas supplies to the region.
• Transnistria has faced widespread power cuts since January 1 when Russia’s Gazprom halted gas exports to the region, citing Moldova’s $709m unpaid debt that Moldova does not see as legitimate.
• The head of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) said that “the risk is increasing with regard to the environmental impact and the safety of seafarers” as more ships join Russia’s “shadow fleet” and avoid meeting IMO requirements.
• Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said his country will soon no longer need to import Russian oil as the country “will be able to get all its oil from the West”, after doubling the capacity of Italy’s TAL pipeline.

Politics and diplomacy

• At his annual press conference in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov praised US President-elect Donald Trump’s recent remarks describing the US push for Ukraine to join NATO as complicity in Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. “NATO is doing what it promised it wouldn’t do, and Trump said that,” Lavrov said.
• German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius announced at a press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv that European countries will increase efforts to improve European defense, due to the upcoming Trump administration in the US.
• Zelenskyy said he has also held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron about the possibility of Western troops being sent to Ukraine to secure any peace deal that ends the nearly three-year war with Russia.
• NATO chief Mark Rutte says the US-led military alliance will launch a new campaign to protect submarine cables in the Baltic Sea region following deliberate damage to underwater infrastructure in the region during the Russia-Ukraine war.