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Morning Headlines
Reuters: Britain will commit 20,000 military personnel to serve across Europe in a major NATO exercise in the first half of this year, as well as warships and fighter jets, the defence ministry said on Monday.
Forbes: Ukrainian air-defenses reportedly shot down two of the Russian air force’s rarest and most valuable command aircraft on Sunday: a Beriev A-50 radar early-warning plane and an Ilyushin Il-22 airborne command post.
Bloomberg: As world leaders and corporate titans head to Davos this week, Ukraine is trying to leverage the annual gathering to rekindle attention — and support — for its fight against Russia’s invasion. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is holding bilateral meetings — including one with JPMorgan boss Jamie Dimon — and delivering a high-profile address.
Reuters: North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui is in Russia this week for talks with her counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, as the two countries deepen economic, political, and military ties.
ISW: Russian sources claimed that Russian forces are preparing to launch a new offensive in the coming weeks once the ground freezes in eastern and southern Ukraine.
Reuters: A full-scale launch of Ruwiki, a Russian version of the popular Wikipedia internet encyclopaedia, will take place on Monday, according to Russian media reports.
14.01.2024
ISW Special Report: Ukraine’s long-term path to success: jumpstarting a self-sufficient defense industrial base with US and EU support.
Euromaidan Press: Ukraine has started negotiations with Romania on a security guarantee agreement; a meeting took place in Davos, Switzerland, according to a statement from the Office of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The Kyiv Independent: Romanian farmers have started blocking trucks again through the Siret checkpoint on the Ukrainian border, Ukraine's State Border Guard Service reported on Jan. 14. However, the movement of cars, buses, and pedestrians is being carried out as usual.
AFP: France's new foreign minister and his German counterpart said on Sunday they would continue to support Ukraine for as long as needed, nearly two years after the Russian invasion.
Meduza: PepsiCo reportedly prohibits mention of war or support for Ukrainian army in its advertising in Ukraine.
The Kyiv Independent: Eighty countries and one international organization attended the fourth national security advisers' meeting on Ukraine’s Peace Formula at Davos, Switzerland, according to Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the president.
Reuters: China needs to be involved in talks to end the war with Russia, Ukraine's top representative said after a high-level diplomatic meeting ahead of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
Meduza: Authorities are planning to install additional shelters in public gathering spaces in the city of Belgorod in Russia, says Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
Reuters: A former mayor of the Russian city of Vladivostok has enlisted to fight in Ukraine and departed for the front after he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for corruption.
ISW: A recent video appeal by a Serbian mercenary addressed to Putin has unleashed discussions about an ongoing “clan war” within the Kremlin and the Russian information space against the backdrop of the Russian presidential campaign.
13.01.2024
Euromaidan Press: Ukraine’s Defense Forces have recorded 626 cases of Russian occupiers using munitions containing toxic chemicals since the start of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported.
Reuters: A prominent liberal priest faces expulsion from the Russian Orthodox Church for refusing to read out a prayer asking God to guide Russia to victory over Ukraine.
AFP: A massive fire spread through online retailer Wildberries' warehouse in Russia on Saturday, the ministry of emergency situations said, without any reported casualties.
ISW: Russian occupation officials appear to be deliberately censoring information about Ukrainian children whom Russian authorities have illegally removed to occupied Crimea.
AFP: France's new foreign minister Stephane Sejourne on Saturday renewed his country's support for Ukraine as he visited Kyiv in his first official trip abroad with the Russian invasion nearing a second anniversary.
Reuters: Ukraine suffered a large Russian missile attack in the early hours of Saturday, while its air defences were able to down a far lower proportion of them than usual.
The Kyiv Independent: Denmark announced a new round of $21.9 million in funding for the reconstruction of Mykolaiv, Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said on Jan. 12.
12.01.2024
The Kyiv Independent: There will be no place for any positions built on "anti-Ukrainian sentiment" in the Polish government, as was the case with the previous ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in an interview with TVN24 on Jan. 12.
RFI: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a new multibillion-dollar aid package for Ukraine during a surprise visit to Kyiv on Friday, and pledged London's support for a decade.
Reuters: A group of EU lawmakers called on member states' governments on Friday to punish Hungary's Viktor Orban for damaging democracy at home by moving one step closer to suspending Budapest's vote in the bloc, a letter signed by the lawmakers showed.
Reuters: The foreign ministers of Hungary and Ukraine will meet in western Ukraine at the end of January, the Hungarian government said on Friday.
The Moscow Times: Residents across Russia affected by unprecedented winter heating outages in recent days have expressed their growing frustration and urged local authorities to restore heating in their homes.
AFP: Ukraine's military spy chief Kyrylo Budanov said in an interview published Friday that Kyiv's attacks in Russian-annexed Crimea were set to intensify, adding that Moscow's economy was proving surprisingly resilient despite sanctions.
The Kyiv Independent: Russia is missing some weapon components like modern optics and electronics as a result of international trade restrictions, Military Intelligence spokesperson Andrii Yusov said on Jan. 12.
The Moscow Times: Russia is preparing a legal challenge to prevent the United States and Europe from seizing some of its $300 billion in frozen assets that the West wants to use to help rebuild Ukraine, Bloomberg reported Friday.
Reuters: Poland has been cooperating with allies in a probe into the sabotage of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines, the minister in charge of Polish intelligence services said, denying a newspaper report that it was hindering investigations.
The Kyiv Independent: Moscow-installed illegal occupation authorities in Kherson Oblast are distributing subsidized coal for heating purposes, but only to those residents who took Russian passports, the Ukrainian military's National Resistance Center reported.
Reuters: Bulgaria is replacing Russian oil imports with crude from Kazakhstan, Iraq and Tunisia in January, according to traders and LSEG data.
Reuters: China's 2023 two-way trade with Russia hit $240 billion, setting yet another new record, Chinese customs data showed on Friday, as the two countries pushed for closer economic ties even as the war in Ukraine raged on.
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