Breaking News & Live Updates on 01-31-2024

Canadian leading Global Affairs Analyst Michael Bociurkiw about the latest major corruption scandals to rock Ukraine, and their implications domestically and for the country's reputation abroad.

Kyiv had accused Moscow of being a "terrorist state" whose support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine was a harbinger of the full-fledged 2022 invasion.

The United Nations' top court on Wednesday mostly rejected Ukraine's claims that Russia was financing "terrorism" in eastern Ukraine, saying only that Moscow had failed to investigate alleged breaches.

Kyiv had accused Moscow of being a "terrorist state" whose support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine was a harbinger of the full-fledged 2022 invasion.

A weekend report by journalists from Latvia, Estonia and Sweden accused a Latvian member of the European Parliament of being a long-term Russian intelligence asset.

Deutsche Welle reported on Monday that the European Parliament and the Latvian State Security Service (VDD) have launched an investigation into accusations made over the weekend that Tatjana Ždanoka, a Latvian member of the European Parliament (MEP), had been an asset of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) for almost 20 years.

The Latvian-based The Insider had carried out a combined investigation with journalists from Estonia’s Delfi, Latvia’s Re:Baltica Sweden’s Expressen newspaper and published accusations against the MEP on Monday.

Kyiv Post asked AFU service members about reports President Zelensky might sack, or possibly already has sacked, their commander Valery Zaluzhny. Soldiers said that would be a really bad idea.

Support for Ukrainian military commander Valery Zaluzhny is close to universal among troops and a possible plan of President Volodymyr Zelensky to replace him, if it exists, is dangerous to national security and the war effort, soldiers recently interviewed by Kyiv Post said.

Several fighters suggested the Ukrainian president was, with possible Zaluzhny replacement plans, placing his and his government’s popularity with voters ahead of national security.

Putin also said Russia was “insisting” on an international investigation into the downing of the plane, but said “there are no international organisations willing” to take part.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that a US-made Patriot missile was used to shoot down a plane that Moscow says was carrying captured Ukrainian soldiers.

A Russian Il-76 cargo plane crashed on January 24 with Russian authorities saying 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war were on board.

Running out of later model tanks and artillery guns, the Kremlin is turning to museum piece replacements while Russian soldiers jury-rig new hybrid weapons. Their big fear: Ukrainian drone swarms.

Russian troops looking for more fire support are mounting anti-submarine depth charge launchers on tanks, Kremlin news platforms reported recently.

Artificers in the SeverV brigade, first fielded a Soviet-era RBU-6000 depth charge launcher in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, a detailed report by the Moscow-controlled information agency RF aired on n Jan. 28 said.

Nuland and the ambassador are set to hold a series of meetings with Ukraine's authorities and Special services representatives, military, veterans, and volunteers.

US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland has arrived in Kyiv for a working visit, marking her second trip to Ukraine amid the ongoing full-scale Russian invasion, as reported by Bridget Brink, the US Ambassador to Ukraine, on X (formerly known as Twitter).

"I congratulate US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland on her return to Ukraine," Brink wrote.

Kyiv Post correspondent hit the streets of Kyiv to get a firsthand opinion on rumors of Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief’s dismissal which circulated earlier this week.

The latest rumors of Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny’s dismissal ran rampant on social media earlier this week, leaving Ukrainians confused and skeptical.

Kyiv Post correspondent hit the streets of Kyiv to get a firsthand opinion on this potentially high-profile development within the big war, which has been grinding for almost two years without any clear endgame in sight.

Despite the failed prisoner exchange last Wednesday as the result of a Russian plane crash, Ukraine today returned 207 soldiers and civilians from captivity.

A prisoner swap between Kyiv and Moscow on Wednesday afternoon saw 207 Ukrainian POWs return home.

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky posted photos of the event, saying: “We return despite everything. We remember everyone in captivity. Soldiers and civilians. We must return everyone. We are working on it."

Following a December landmine death in Russia’s Belgorod Region, Kremlin troops were wounded while planting border protection mines, causing a “mine-explosive injury” and toe amputations.

Russian troops are reported to have sustained injuries after detonating their own landmine near the border with Ukraine, in Russia’s Belgorod Region, according to the Russian Telegram channel ASTRA.

The incident occurred near the village of Novostroevka-Vtoraya in the Belgorod Region on Jan. 30, near the border with Ukraine’s Kharkiv Region.

The Russian Orthodox Church stressed that thanks to their work with the “Special Military Operation” soldiers in the “trenches” no longer shy away from Christian symbols.

The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), together with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, has held a conference on Jan. 25 titled “Sacred War: Transformation of Russia,” dedicated to Russia’s war on Ukraine, reports the Telegram channel of the Military Department of the Moscow Patriarchate.

The event, which took place at the Central House of the Russian Army, was led by Metropolitan Kirill of Stavropol. He said in his speech: “The Church has always been, is and will be with its people, with its army. To date, 707 priests of the Russian Orthodox Church have made out more than 2,000 trips to the zone of the Special Military Operation.”

Ukraine’s prime minister said that for the first time in history, Ukraine will get through the heating season by relying 10 billion cubic meters of domestic gas production held in current storage.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Ukraine would be able to get through the current winter heating season relying solely on its own domestic gas production for the first time in history.

“We are going through this heating season for the first time in the history of Ukraine using our own gas,” said Shmyhal in a Telegram announcement, adding that Ukraine currently has about 10 billion cubic meters available in its storage.

EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels taking stock of who is doing what to support Ukraine and what more is needed.

Brussels on Wednesday demanded EU defense ministers lay out a detailed picture of the military support they're giving to Ukraine as Kyiv's forces struggle to stave off superior Russian firepower.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said ministers meeting in Brussels were being asked "to present exactly what they have done, what they are doing, what they plan to do" in order to arm Ukraine.

The African continent has long been fertile ground for Russian influence. Ukraine’s ambassador to South Africa insists that Ukraine is now making inroads.

The Russo-Ukrainian war is not only fought on the front in Ukraine with weapons, but also worldwide with diplomacy.

Africa, in particular, is still a hotly contested continent, where the balance is changing rapidly. Russia still enjoys a position of advantage there, from the times when the Soviet Union invested many resources in anti-colonial wars to weaken European influence and courted the emerging African ruling classes, opening its universities for the education of young Africans.

Former President Donald Trump has, again, stated that he has greater faith in Putin and Russian authorities than in information from American intelligence officials.

Former US President Donald Trump has all but sealed-up the nomination to become the Republican nominee for the presidency as Americans prepare to go to the polls in November to choose their next commander in chief. However, for those who carefully watch Ukraine, Trump’s ongoing warmness towards Russia raises eyebrows.

On Monday, Trump, who has run a campaign focused on the topic of “revenge,” posted on his social media: “Remember when in Helsinki when a third rate reporter asked me, essentially, who I trusted more, President Putin of Russia, or our ‘intelligence’ low lives.”

Why the situation in Russia’s Muslim republic of Bashkortostan deserves our attention.

Fifty years ago, Estonians protested against the environmental destruction of their republic by the Soviet government, an action that within a decade led to the formation of a powerful national movement that led to the recovery of Estonian independence and the destruction of the USSR.

Last month, four years after organizing to protect the environment of their republic from devastation by Moscow, thousands in the Middle Volga republic of Bashkortostan took to the streets to protest against the conviction on trumped-up charges of one of that nation’s leading environmentalists and then to demand the ouster of the Moscow-imposed head of their republic government and independence from the Russian Federation. The crackdown has intensified this week following the jailing of Bashkir activist Fayil Alsynov as ongoing protests signal more upheaval in the Muslim Turkic republic of Bashkortostan. 

A group of respected experts has expressed concern about the likelihood of a turn to the right in the European parliamentary elections this year and highlighted the implications.

Experts of the European Council on Foreign Relations have issued a detailed Policy Brief in which they summarize their forecast as follows.

• The 2024 European Parliament elections will see a major shift to the right in many countries, with populist radical right parties gaining votes and seats across the EU, and center-left and green parties losing votes and seats.

• Anti-European populists are likely to top the polls in nine member states (Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Slovakia) and come second or third in a further nine countries (Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Sweden).

• According to our forecast, almost half the seats will be held by MEPs outside the “super grand coalition” of the three centrist groups.

• Inside the European Parliament, a populist right coalition of Christian democrats, conservatives, and radical right MEPs could emerge with a majority for the first time.

• This ‘sharp right turn’ is likely to have significant consequences for European-level policies, which will affect the foreign policy choices that the EU can make, particularly on environmental issues, where the new majority is likely to oppose ambitious EU action to tackle climate change.

How could this impact on the EU’s policy towards Ukraine?

The author envisions what a November win by Donald Trump might look like, viewing him as a Kremlin tool like the brainwashed character in the 1959 novel and 1962/2004 political thriller films.

Donald Trump winning the November general election in the US would be a dangerous disaster for the US, Ukraine, and the West, essentially installing an instrument of the Kremlin in power in Washington, much like in the classic “The Manchurian Candidate” novel and subsequent films.

If Trump wins, he will enter the White House on Jan. 20, 2025, as a much more dangerous president than he was in 2017. He will be bitter and seek to take his revenge on the so-called deep state that he claims stole the election from him in 2020. Trump will also go after European leaders who he feels slighted him or looked down on him throughout his first term. Ukraine, which was a subject his first impeachment’s quid pro quo attempts, will suffer, as well. In fact, it already has – an aid package has been held up for more than three months thanks to a handful of Trump’s most rabid supporters in the House. They are even threatening to remove the Speaker if he dares to even put it up for a vote.

Kyiv Post sources say the Russian military, using its most powerful air defense system, the S-400, failed to eliminate the HUR drone which struck in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

A Ukrainian drone struck an oil refinery in St Petersburg overnight, dodging Russia’s most advanced air defense system, sources have told Kyiv Post.

According to Russian media, residents of the city were woken by a loud explosion in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

A propagandist film tracks how Russians are investing in the ruins of Mariupol homes left by the dead or displaced after Moscow’s invasion caused mass destruction and upwards of 75,000 deaths.

Russians have been flocking to Mariupol where their armed forces have caused upwards of 75,000 deaths, mass graves and widespread destruction in a frenzy of real estate speculation.

A documentary “Shock Prices for Apartments in Mariupol,” which explores the current Mariupol real estate market, dropped on YouTube in November and is now causing waves of outrage on TikTok and X (formerly Twitter).

Russia has yet to comment on the attack but authorities did announce Tuesday that a “technical problem” had shut down several internet sites in the country.

An “ongoing” Ukrainian cyberattack has knocked out a server used by Russia’s defense ministry, disrupting communications for some of Moscow’s military units, Kyiv has said.

Ukraine’s defense intelligence (HUR) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that “appropriate software” had been installed at “various strategic facilities of the Russian public sector, in particular – military.”

Yes, drones are flying around in the Russo-Ukraine war using artificial intelligence to attack things. But it’s more like a cheap aircraft from Target with a bomb zip-tied to it, than a Terminator.

If the iconic image at the start of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine was a clunky Soviet farm tractor chugging along dragging a Russian tank into captivity, then the two years later version is probably a $500 drone crashing into a $2.5 million Russian T-90M tank and torching it.

Kyiv has accused Moscow of being a "terrorist state" whose support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine was a harbinger of the full-fledged 2022 invasion.

The United Nations' top court will hand down its verdict on Wednesday in a case brought by Ukraine against Russia for alleged "terrorism financing" and "racial discrimination" after its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Kyiv has accused Moscow of being a "terrorist state" whose support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine was a harbinger of the full-fledged 2022 invasion.

Tens of billions of dollars in US aid has been sent to Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022, but Republican lawmakers have grown reluctant to keep supporting Kyiv.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday called on European countries to back Ukraine "over the long term" and get ready in case Washington decides to stop supporting the war-torn country.

Tens of billions of dollars in US aid has been sent to Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022, but Republican lawmakers have grown reluctant to keep supporting Kyiv, saying it lacks a clear end game as the fighting grinds on.

Latest from the Institute for the Study of War.

Key Takeaways from the ISW:

• The anticipated Russian 2024 winter-spring offensive effort is underway in the Kharkiv-Luhansk Oblast border area.
• Ukrainian officials continued to deny rumors about the purported dismissal of Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief General Valerii Zaluzhnyi.
• Russian forces appear to be continuing to violate the Chemical Weapons Convention to which Russia is signatory.
• Russian Army General Alexander Dvornikov was reportedly appointed the new chairperson of the Russian Volunteer Society for Assistance to the Army, Aviation, and Navy of Russia (DOSAAF).
• Russian Security Council Deputy Chairperson Dmitry Medvedev made offensive and inflammatory comments about Japan while asserting Russia’s rights to the disputed Kuril Islands, likely as part of wider Kremlin efforts to demonstrate Russia’s support of China against the US alliance system in the Indo-Pacific.
• Senior Russian officials may be intensifying their attempts to frame and justify Russia’s long term war effort in Ukraine as an existential geopolitical confrontation with the West by explicitly equating the US with the Nazis.
• Russian opposition sources suggested that widespread internet outages in Russia on January 30 may be the result of Russian efforts to establish the “sovereign internet” system.
• The Kremlin has been intensifying efforts to consolidate control over the Russian information space in advance of the March 2024 Russian presidential election, and these efforts support the development of the “sovereign internet” system.
• Russian forces recently made confirmed advances near Bakhmut and Horlivka amid continued positional engagements along the entire line of contact on January 30.
• The UK Ministry of Defense (MoD) reported that the Russian defense industrial base (DIB) can produce at least 100 main battle tanks per month and is therefore able to replace battlefield losses, allowing Russian forces to continue their current tempo of operations “for the foreseeable future.”
• Russian authorities are planning to increase the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia in 2024.