Voronezh, 250km across border from Ukraine, declares state of emergency in city near Russian airbase
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, in an interview made public on Monday, said there had been times when he had felt the urge to “punch in the face” his Russian opposite number, Sergei Lavrov, in talks at the start of Moscow’s invasion.
Kuleba’s brief remarks were part of an hour-long informal interview with a Ukrainian video blogger. “The most difficult talks are those in which you feel simply that you want to go and punch your opposite number in the nose, but you really can’t do that,” he said.
The Russian city of Voronezh was placed under a state of emergency on Tuesday morning after what officials said was a Ukraine-launched drone attack. Russian fighter-bombers used to attack Ukraine are based near Voronezh.
Ukraine said it shot down a Russian A-50 spy plane and Il-22 command aircraft in the area of the Sea of Azov. Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Ukraine’s military commander in chief, said: “Ukraine’s air force destroyed an enemy A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft and an enemy IL-22 air control centre. I am grateful to the air force for the perfectly planned and executed operation in the Azov Sea region!”
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, arrived in Switzerland to participate in the World Economic Forum in Davos and meet Swiss officials. On Sunday, Ukraine pushed ahead with its peace formula to end nearly two years of war with Russia with a meeting in Davos of national security advisers from around the world.
China must be involved in efforts to end the war between Ukraine and Russia, Switzerland’s co-chair of the Davos meeting Ignazio Cassis said.
Russia is mobilising about 1,000-1,100 recruits to its armed forces every day, Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR), said in an interview with RBC-Ukraine. The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said Russia had probably “substantially inflated” the number of people it says have joined the country’s armed forces, with recruits being disproportionately drawn from impoverished and rural communities.
Russia said it had given more than 200 Ukrainian prisoners of war lengthy prison sentences, with some getting a life sentence, AFP reported. The state-run outlet RT quoted an investigative committee source as saying 242 soldiers were sentenced in occupied Ukraine.
The Kremlin said Russia was developing relations with “our partner” North Korea in all areas and would build on the agreements reached between the countries’ leaders when they met at a Russian space launch centre in 2023.
The UN and its partners appealed for $4.2bn (£3.3bn) from donors to support communities in Ukraine devastated by the war, as well as Ukrainian refugees, in 2024. The UN aid chief, Martin Griffiths, urged diplomats in Geneva: “Please do not forget Ukraine while there are many other places in the world that grab our attention.”
The UK announced that it would send 20,000 service personnel to one of Nato’s largest military exercises since the cold war.
