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Morning Headlines
Reuters: Bipartisan U.S. Senate talks on a border security deal that some have set as a condition for further Ukraine aid have hit a critical point, lawmakers said on Thursday, though the chamber's top Democrat said the negotiators would continue to push forward.
POLITICO: EU leaders may consider invoking the “nuclear option” of kicking Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán out of the EU voting process.
Bloomberg: Microsoft Corp. said it has begun warning organizations that they were targets of the same Russian-sponsored group that hacked into its executives’ emails late last year (archive).
ISW: Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Avdiivka amid continued positional engagements along the entire line of contact on January 25.
Reuters: The highest court in global sport on Friday was set to hear a Russian appeal against sanctions that bar its National Olympic Committee from receiving funding and being associated with the Olympic movement.
More News
PACE calls on European parliaments to recognize Russia's abduction of Ukrainian children as genocide.
US Justice Department: A Russian man has been sentenced to more than five years in prison for his involvement in developing the Trickbot malware used to extort businesses, including hospitals during the Covid pandemic.
The Kyiv Independent: Ukraine is discussing with its partners how to handle the return of Ukrainian refugees from abroad in the future, but Kyiv is not pushing for aid to be cut to them in EU countries, Deputy PM Olha Stefanishyna told Radio Svoboda in Brussels on Jan. 25.
CNN: Ukraine says it has intelligence suggesting only five bodies were delivered from the crash site of a Russian military transport plane to a nearby morgue, a Ukraine military intelligence official told CNN, casting doubt on Moscow’s claim that dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed in the explosion.
The Moscow Times: A Russian military plane that crashed near the border with Ukraine was supposed to transport senior Russian officials before a last-minute change of plans was made, Ukraine's military intelligence spokesman claimed Thursday.
Reuters: Judges at the World Court will hand down a judgment on Wednesday in a case in which Ukraine accused Russia of violating an anti-terrorism treaty by funding pro-Russian forces, including militias who shot down a passenger jet, and discrimination.
The Kyiv Independent: The European Commission and Lithuania are allocating 15.5 million euros to build bomb shelters for Ukrainian schools, according to the Lithuanian Central Project Management Agency responsible for implementing the project.
POLITICO: German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said he doesn't know about any plans for a missile swap between Germany and the U.K.
Bloomberg: Putin is testing the waters on whether the US is ready to engage in talks for ending Russia’s war in Ukraine (archive).
POLITICO: As fears grow among European officials about a potential Russian assault on NATO, the commander of Lithuania's armed forces is keeping cool. “This year, next year, the possibility or the probability of a war between Russia and NATO is very low, extremely low,” General Valdemaras Rupšys said.
Bloomberg: China and Russia have launched satellites that are meant to inspect and repair other spacecraft but could be used to attack US assets, according to a new report from the US Space Force (archive).
Reuters: Ukraine is working to organise a visit by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna said on Thursday, the first visit since Russia's invasion by a figure widely seen as the most sympathetic to Moscow of all leaders of NATO states.
AP News: With just six months to go until the Paris Olympics, it’s still not clear if Russians will be competing and, if so, how many.
The Moscow Times: Russia has ended its practice of granting presidential pardons to prisoners who agree to fight in Ukraine, instead offering them conditional release and sending them to the front until the war is over, the BBC’s Russian service reported Thursday.
Reuters: Several major Ukrainian state organisations on Thursday reported cyber attacks on their systems, in the latest wave that a source close to the government blamed on Russian intelligence.
AP News: A Russian court on Thursday sentenced a woman to 27 years in prison for a cafe blast that killed a prominent pro-war blogger. In a separate proceeding, a Moscow court convicted a former leader of separatist rebels in Ukraine who called Putin a coward of extremism and sentenced him to four years.
Reuters: Kyiv reiterated it received neither a written nor verbal request from Russia to secure airspace around the area of Belgorod where a Russian military transport plane crashed, Ukrainian military intelligence spokesperson Andriy Yusov told Radio Svoboda.
Bloomberg: Russia imported more than $1 billion of advanced US and European chips last year, despite restrictions intended to stop Putin’s military getting hold of technology to fuel its war in Ukraine (archive).
Reuters: For the first time since World War Two, Finland's presidential hopefuls are competing to present the toughest stance against Russia during their campaigns, aiming to please voters who perceive Russia's behaviour towards its neighbours as hostile and aggressive, political analysts said.
The Moscow Times: Ukrainian security services orchestrated an overnight drone attack on an oil refinery in the southern Russian town of Tuapse, a Ukrainian security source told AFP Thursday.
worth mentioning
Cheap but lethally accurate: how drones froze Ukraine’s frontlines
How the West can match Russia in drone innovation
Ukrainian drones are burning down Russia’s oil and gas industry
How war artifacts and stolen Kherson exhibits make their way into Russian museums
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