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Morning Headlines
JPost, Reuters: Oil tanks at a storage facility in the town of Klintsy in Russia's Bryansk region caught fire after the military brought down a Ukrainian drone trying to attack targets in the town, Alexander Bogomaz, the regional governor, said on Friday.
The Times of Israel: Russian and Chinese vessels transiting through the Red Sea will be granted safe passage, a senior Houthi official tells Russian outlet Izvestia in an interview.
ISW: Recent widespread GPS disruptions across Poland and the Baltic region are prompting speculation about the potential operation of Russian electronic warfare systems in the region.
The Kyiv Independent: Ukraine's former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov has been indicted on charges of justifying Russia's invasion and advocating for the overthrow of the Ukrainian constitution, the Prosecutor General's Office announced on Jan. 18.
More News
POLITICO: A group of European parliamentarians who are in Washington to drum up more support for Ukraine have a message for lawmakers and the White House: Get your act together.
The Kyiv Independent: The proposed 50 billion euros in four-year EU funding is the cheapest and most convenient way to back Ukraine, but there are alternatives if Budapest continues to block it, Ukrainian Ambassador to the EU Vsevolod Chentsov told Forbes Ukraine.
Reuters: NATO is launching its largest exercise since the Cold War, rehearsing how U.S. troops could reinforce European allies in countries bordering Russia and on the alliance's eastern flank if a conflict were to flare up with a "near-peer" adversary.
The Kyiv Independent: U.S. President Joe Biden made concessions on immigration policy to Senate Republicans to deflect criticism and secure backing for Ukraine aid, the Wall Street Journal reported on Jan. 18.
Reuters: The nature of the security threat posed by North Korea could change "drastically" in the coming decade as a result of its unprecedented cooperation with Russia, the White House's senior director for arms control Pranay Vaddi said on Thursday.
The Insider: Russia used to sell Myanmar military hardware — now Moscow is buying it back for use by its own troops in Ukraine.
Reuters: Ukraine hit targets in Russia's St Petersburg overnight using a domestic-produced drone that flew 1,250 km, a Ukrainian government minister said on Thursday. A military source told Reuters earlier that an oil terminal in Russia's second city, located some 850 km from the nearest section of the Ukrainian border, was targeted as part of a "new stage of work in this region".
POLITICO: MEPs demanded the EU Council explore the possibility of stripping Hungary of its EU voting rights in a clash with Budapest over the rule of law.
Reuters: The U.S. Treasury on Thursday said it imposed sanctions on a United Arab Emirates-based shipping company for violating the $60-per-barrel price cap on Russian crude oil exports in its first such enforcement action this year.
IStories: To stop the Ukrainian offensive on Svatove, the Russian command threw thousands of untrained mobilized people to the front line. Their relatives are telling what happened to them.
POLITICO: France will give 12 more Caesar self-propelled howitzers to Ukraine, French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu said Thursday, amid accusations that Paris is not pulling its weight in supplying weapons to Kyiv.
Bloomberg: Ukraine’s top diplomat said Kyiv is seeking to organize a call with Chinese President Xi Jinping as the war-battered nation plans a leaders summit to push forward its blueprint for peace (archive).
AFP: Paris on Thursday denied Russia's claim that it had bombarded French "mercenaries" in eastern Ukrainian city Kharkiv, saying it does not employ guns-for-hire.
Reuters: A Russian state prosecutor asked a Moscow court on Thursday to jail prominent nationalist Igor Girkin, who accuses Putin and the army top brass of not pursuing the Ukraine war effectively enough, for nearly five years.
The Kyiv Independent: Russia’s military has modernized its Kh-101 cruise missiles, said Skibitskyi, a spokesperson for Ukraine's military intel agency, adding that these missiles “are completely different from those used in 2022.”
AP News: A Russian city near the Ukrainian border canceled its traditional Orthodox Epiphany festivities on Friday due to the threat of attacks as Kyiv’s forces pursue a new strategy with the war approaching its two-year milestone.
Reuters: Ukrainian maritime grain exports are expected to fall by around 20% in January from the previous month due to the crisis in the Red Sea and the New Year holidays, a senior Ukrainian government official said on Thursday.
Bloomberg: Former president and likely Republican nominee Donald Trump is moving to quash any hopes of a bipartisan compromise on immigration and Ukraine as the Senate prepares for votes as early as next week on a possible deal (archive).
The Moscow Times: Estonia said on Thursday it would not renew the residence permit of the head of the Estonian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, saying the Russian national was "a security risk."
Reuters: Hungary is far from reaching an agreement with the European Union on aid for Ukraine, the Hungarian prime minister's chief of staff said on Thursday.
worth mentioning
Blockade-busting Ukraine proves the experts wrong
Comrades-in-missiles. How the West can counter North Korean arms supplies to Russia
At least 2.5K scholars left Russia since Ukraine invasion
Explainer: How the West might use Russia's frozen reserves
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