January 26, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Poland will receive its first Abrams tanks from the United States in the spring, defense minister Mariusz Błaszczak said Thursday.

Błaszczak told public broadcaster Polskie Radio 1 that 58 of the US-made tanks will be delivered in the coming months, and Polish troops had been undergoing training on the vehicles "for some time." 

In December, the US approved a $3.75 billion sale of Abrams tanks to Poland.

“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy goals and national security objectives of the United States by improving the security of a NATO Ally that is a force for political stability and economic progress in Europe,” reads a note from the US State Department published at the time.

“The proposed sale will improve Poland’s capability to meet current and future threats by providing a credible force that is capable of deterring adversaries and participating in NATO operations.”

Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine: The announcement on the first delivery of these tanks comes as Poland prepares to send some of its German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.

Marcin Przydacz, head of the Polish president's International Policy Bureau, said the country will send "one company" of tanks.

He would not specify exactly how many tanks Poland intended to send but said that a company of tanks was usually made up of “between 10 and 14 Leopard 2 vehicles.” 

One person has died and at least two have been wounded in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv after Russia launched a new wave of missile attacks on Thursday morning, city mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said on Telegram.

“There is information about one dead and two injured as a result of a missile hit in the Holosiyivskyi district,” he said. Klitschko also reported explosions in the Dniprovskyi district.

Earlier Monday, Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat told national television that more than 30 missiles had been fired at Ukraine from strategic bombers that took off from Russia’s Murmansk region.

Missile strikes have also been reported in the Vinnytsia region.

An air raid alert remains in place across the country. 

Ukrainian air defenses are working to intercept Russian attacks after Moscow's forces fired more than 30 missiles at Ukraine on Thursday morning, the Ukrainian Air Force said.

Air force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said on Ukrainian television that around six Russian Tu-95 aircraft had “taken off from [Russia's] Murmansk region and have launched missiles."

Some missiles hit Ukraine's west-central Vinnytsia region, Gov. Serhiy Borzov said on Telegram, but no casualties were reported. 

The head of the Kyiv city military administration, Serhii Popko, said on Telegram that more than 15 cruise missiles had been launched “in the direction of Kyiv” and all had been shot down. 

An air raid alert is in place across the country. 

Drones repelled: Separately, Ukraine’s Air Force Command has said its air defenses shot down 24 attack drones sent by Russia overnight 

The attacks come after the United States and Germany said Wednesday they would send battle tanks to Ukraine. 

The more Russian President Vladimir Putin tries to break NATO, the stronger it gets.

Not for the first time in the war in Ukraine, President Joe Biden took decisive action that closed fissures in the alliance. He announced Wednesday he would ship 31 advanced US tanks to Kyiv’s military in a move that prompted a reluctant Germany to drop its resistance to sending its own tanks and could unlock similar moves all over Europe.

This represented a significant symbolic, political and military win for Ukraine. It hopes what it calls its new “iron fist” will punch through entrenched Russian lines in the east, could fuel an advance on Russia’s land bridge to annexed Crimea in the south and will stave off a feared Russian spring offensive.

It took Biden’s statesmanship to end the most public and damaging Western rift of the war so far. The US had previously said its Abrams tanks were too complex and too high maintenance for the Ukraine war and didn’t suit the terrain. But Biden’s change of heart, which gives Germany cover, underscores Washington’s view that Western unity against Putin is critical to saving Ukraine.

Indeed, Putin’s major goal off the battlefield is to forge splits between the Western allies and to disrupt or end the flow of weapons on which Ukraine’s survival as an independent nation depends.

His failure, despite fierce Russian public threats designed to bully European nations into balking at tank transfers, also comes after a mild winter robbed Russia of another prong of its strategy — starving Europeans of gas imports during freezing weather in hopes they’d pressure their own leaders to step back from supporting Ukraine.

Read the full analysis here.

Switzerland's Federal Council has granted a new exemption to its arms embargo to allow the use of Swiss demining equipment in Ukraine in some cases. 

Switzerland, though not a member of the European Union, will also implement the EU's ninth round of sanctions against Russia, including the sanctioning of around 200 additional individuals and entities, the government said Wednesday. 

Swiss stance: Switzerland has blocked the requests of several European countries, including Germany and Denmark to re-export Swiss-made ammunition to Ukraine, arguing the moves would violate the country's long-held neutrality. 

However on Tuesday, a key Swiss parliamentary committee recommended waiving a law that bans the re-export of Swiss-made armaments in cases where at least two-thirds of the United Nations General Assembly determines there has been an illegal use of force.

Parliament's Security Policy Committee, which proposed the amendment, argued it would still "respect the law of neutrality" because it would not allow the direct export of war material to conflict zones. 

The motion has yet to be voted on in parliament.

Ukraine's air defense systems shot down an unspecified number of Russian missiles on Thursday morning, the Ukrainian president's Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak wrote on Telegram.

At least two of the rockets flew through the southern Mykolaiv region, Gov. Vitaly Kim said on Telegram.

Earlier, Ukraine's largest private energy company on Thursday implemented emergency power outages in several regions including Kyiv "due to the threat of a missile attack," the firm said.

Air raid sirens have sounded across all regions of Ukraine on Thursday morning. So far, there have been no reports of strikes. 

Ukraine's largest private energy company on Thursday implemented emergency power outages in several regions including Kyiv "due to the threat of a missile attack," the firm said.

Air raid sirens have been ringing across all parts of Ukraine, including Kyiv, on Thursday morning. 

Air sirens rang across much of central and eastern Ukraine Wednesday night as officials warned residents to shelter from a possible Russian attack.

“Threat of a missile strike,” Mykola Lukashuk, head of the Dnipropetrovsk Region Council, said on Telegram. “Stay in safe places until the end of the alert. The threat is not over.”

Lukashuk urged others on Telegram not to report the locations of possible interceptions by Ukrainian air defense.

In the southern Mykolaiv region, there were also official reports of possible incoming Russian fire.

“They write that three groups of mopeds [Shahed attack drones] have already taken off,” Vitaliy Kim, head of the Mykolaiv regional military administration, said on Telegram. “The petty crooks couldn't come up with anything better on the best president's birthday.”

In the northeastern Kharkiv region, the military administrator warned residents to remain in their shelters: “There is a threat of missile attacks. Do not ignore the alarms.”

In the central Kirovohrad region, the military administrator said on Telegram: “The level of missile threat remains high.”

A Russian warship armed with advanced hypersonic missiles completed a drill in the Atlantic Ocean, ahead of joint naval exercises with the Chinese and South African navies scheduled for next month, the Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday.

Russia’s Admiral Gorshkov frigate, armed with Zircon hypersonic missiles, practiced “delivering a missile strike against an enemy surface target,” the ship’s commander Igor Krokhmal said in a video released by the ministry.

The exercise, described by state news agency Tass as an “electronic launch” or virtual simulation, confirmed the “designed characteristics” of the missile system, said Krokhmal, who pointed to the missiles’ purported ability to reach distances of more than 900 kilometers (559 miles).

The test was part of a long voyage of the Admiral Gorshkov frigate launched earlier this month, when Russian state media said the warship was dispatched with the hypersonic missiles. The deployment will also include joint training with the Chinese and South African navies off the coast of South Africa, according to Moscow and Pretoria.

The exercises come as Russia nears the first anniversary of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and marks both a show of force and — with the joint exercises — an opportunity for Moscow to show it is not isolated on the world stage, despite wide international condemnation of its unprovoked war.

During a joint meeting in Pretoria Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his South African counterpart Naledi Pandor defended the naval drills, with Lavrov saying Moscow does not want any so-called “scandals” regarding the exercises.

Read more here.