Two women killed in Russian missile attack on village market, say officials
The death toll from this morning’s Russian missile attack on a market in Ukraine’s eastern village of Shevchenkove has now risen to at least two, according to officials.
A 60-year-old was among two women killed after the missile slammed into the village market in Shevchenkove, about 80km (50 miles) south-east of the city of Kharkiv.
In a statement, the regional prosector’s office said:
According to the investigation data, around 09:10 on January 9, the occupiers launched a missile attack on Shevchenkove town in Kupyansk district.
An enemy missile hit the territory of a local market. Two women were killed.
Three other women and a 10-year-old girl were injured in the attack, it said.
It added that an investigation has been opened into a potential war crime, citing preliminary information that the attack came from an S-300 air defence system in Russia’s Belgorod region bordering Ukraine.
It has not been possible to independently verify these reports.
Hello everyone. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong here to bring you all the latest from Ukraine. Feel free to drop me a message if you have anything to flag, you can reach me on Twitter or via email.
Key events
A cargo vessel carrying Ukrainian grain briefly ran aground in the Suez canal before being refloated and towed away, according to the Egyptian authority running the vital waterway.
The incident involving the 225-metre Marshall Islands-registered M/V Glory had sparked fears of a repeat of a blockage in 2021, when the large container ship Ever Given became diagonally wedged in the canal.
That week-long closure of the human-made waterway linking Asia and Europe cost billions of dollars through shipping delays. An employee of the Suez Canal Authority (SCA) died while attempting to free the mega-ship.
The SCA chief, Osama Rabie, gave the all-clear on Monday, adding that traffic was moving normally on the Suez canal after the authority had mobilised four tugboats to tow the ship, allowing it to resume its journey.
“The canal is on track to register 51 vessels passing in both directions on Monday,” he said.
Here are some of the latest images we have received from the village of Shevchenkove in eastern Ukraine, after this morning’s Russian missile attack killed at least two women and wounded several others, according to regional prosecutors.
A German government spokesperson has said there are no current plans to send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
Robert Habeck, Germany’s economy minister, yesterday said Berlin cannot rule out the delivery of Leopard tanks – which are heavier fighting vehicles than the Marders – to support Ukrainian military forces in the future.
Habeck has previously said the country should send “all Marders that are operational” to Ukraine after the announcement that Germany would ramp up military support for Kyiv by providing about 40 Marders.
Two women killed in Russian missile attack on village market, say officials
The death toll from this morning’s Russian missile attack on a market in Ukraine’s eastern village of Shevchenkove has now risen to at least two, according to officials.
A 60-year-old was among two women killed after the missile slammed into the village market in Shevchenkove, about 80km (50 miles) south-east of the city of Kharkiv.
In a statement, the regional prosector’s office said:
According to the investigation data, around 09:10 on January 9, the occupiers launched a missile attack on Shevchenkove town in Kupyansk district.
An enemy missile hit the territory of a local market. Two women were killed.
Three other women and a 10-year-old girl were injured in the attack, it said.
It added that an investigation has been opened into a potential war crime, citing preliminary information that the attack came from an S-300 air defence system in Russia’s Belgorod region bordering Ukraine.
It has not been possible to independently verify these reports.
Hello everyone. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong here to bring you all the latest from Ukraine. Feel free to drop me a message if you have anything to flag, you can reach me on Twitter or via email.
New deliveries of western weapons to Kyiv would “deepen the suffering of the Ukrainian people” and would not change the course of the conflict, the Kremlin claimed on Monday.
As Ukraine seeks heavier weapons and air defences from western allies, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a daily briefing, according to Reuters:
This supply will not be able to change anything.
The Kremlin on Monday rejected a Ukrainian assertion that a senior Russian official has been floating the idea of a potential peace deal over Ukraine with European officials.
Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defence council, told the country’s public broadcaster on Thursday that Dmitry Kozak, deputy head of Russia’s presidential administration, had been holding meetings with European officials in an attempt to force Kyiv to sign what he characterised as an unfavourable peace deal, Reuters reports.
When asked about Danilov’s assertion, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was “another fake.”
I had a substantive conversation with 🇲🇰 Prime Minister @DKovachevski at the beginning of North Macedonia’s #OSCE Chairpersonship. We discussed the risks of escalation at the front, further defense cooperation and deepening of bilateral relations between our countries.
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) January 9, 2023
Russia says it is confident the defence ministry was correct when it said that 600 Ukrainian servicemen had been “destroyed” in an attack on the city of Kramatorsk, despite reporting which showed the attack missed its target.
“The Kremlin has absolute confidence, I would like to remind you of the president’s words that the main source of information is the ministry of defence”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a daily briefing on Monday, according to Reuters.
Earlier, the Guardian reported the mayor of Kramatorsk, the eastern Ukrainian town Russia said it had targeted, said earlier on Sunday via Facebook that nobody had been killed in an attack on various buildings in the city.
The ministry previously said the strike was revenge for Ukraine’s New Year’s Day attack that killed at least 89 Russian soldiers at a barracks in part of the Donetsk region controlled by Moscow’s forces.
Summary
Welcome, if you’re joining us now, to our continuing live coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war – day 320 of the conflict. It is 12pm in Kyiv. My name is Geneva Abdul. Here’s the latest:
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A 60-year-old woman was killed and several other people were wounded in a Russian missile strike on a market in the village of Shevchenkove in eastern Ukraine. Seven civilians were injured in the shelling, including a 13-year-old girl.
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Ukrainian forces are repelling constant attacks on the town of Bakhmut in the eastern Donbas region and holding their positions in nearby Soledar in very difficult conditions, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address on Sunday. “Bakhmut is holding on despite everything,” the president said.
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Russia has claimed to have killed more than 600 Ukrainian troops in a “retaliatory strike” in the eastern town of Kramatorsk, but Ukraine’s armed forces rejected the claim. The mayor of the town, near the frontline city of Bakhmut, said there had been no deaths from strikes over the weekend, while a witness told Reuters on Sunday that buildings had been damaged but not destroyed and there were no obvious signs of casualties. The Russian claim seems suspicious for several reasons.
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Demands for a special tribunal to investigate Russia for a “crime of aggression” against Ukraine have been backed by senior UK politicians from across the political divide in a move to show Vladimir Putin and his generals that they will be held to account.
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The Russian government extended support to a legislative amendment that would classify maps that dispute the country’s official “territorial integrity” as punishable extremist materials, Reuters reported the state-owned Tass news agency as saying on Sunday.
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About 50 Ukrainian soldiers who were released from Russian detention on Sunday as part of a prisoner swap posed for a photo on their release.
Wars such as that in Ukraine where civilian areas are subjected to indiscriminate destruction are “a crime against God and humanity”, Pope Francis said on Monday.
The remarks were made during his annual speech to Vatican-accredited diplomats, an overview of the global situation which has come to be known informally as his “state of the world” address, Reuters reports.
Here are the latest images to come out of Ukraine:
At least one dead and several injured after Russian missile strike on market
A 60-year-old woman was killed and several other people were wounded in a Russian missile strike on a market in the village of Shevchenkove in eastern Ukraine on Monday, the regional governor said, according to Reuters.
Oleh Synyehubov, the governor of the Kharkiv region, wrote on Telegram:
According to confirmed information, unfortunately a 60-year-old woman died. All other victims were hospitalised. Doctors are helping them. Rescuer workers continue to clear the debris.
The reports could not immediately be verified independently by the Guardian.
Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said 7 civilians were injured, including a 13-year-old girl. Russians shelled the market in the village of Shevchenkove with S-300 air defense systems, he said.
Ukraine is strengthening its forces in the eastern Donbas region and repelling constant attacks on Bakhmut and other towns there by the Russian mercenary group Wagner, Ukrainian authorities said on Monday.
Reinforcements had been sent to Soledar, a small town near Bakhmut were the situation was particularly difficult, authorities said, according to Reuters.
Ukraine’s military said in a statement:
The enemy again made a desperate attempt to storm the city of Soledar from different directions and threw the most professional units of the Wagnerites into battle.
A Ukrainian member of parliament, Kira Rudik, has shared footage of a shelled local market in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region.
Below is a photo of rescuers looking through the rubble and a firefighter battling flames, in the aftermath of an attack on a local market in Shevchenkove village, in the Kharkiv region, Reuters reports.
Soldiers, family and mourners gathered in Kyiv’s Independence Square on Sunday to pay tribute to a soldier killed fighting against Russian forces in Bakhmut, the strategic city under siege.
Fellow soldiers carried the coffin of 45-year-old Oleh Yurchenko, AP reports, while others knelt to the ground.
“He was the best Ukrainian, a kind father, a very responsible person,” said Yurii Zhukovskyi, a Ukrainian soldier, told AP news.
It is a very heavy loss, because these are the best people in Ukraine, and they are dying. It is a great pity. And no matter how many enemies are killed, we are sorry for [the death of] one such person.”
Olesia Yurchenko, the fallen soldier’s 22-year-old daughter, said the familywas grieving his death but trying to live by his principles.
It is about everyone cherishing their virtues: hard work, kindness, honesty, loyalty to their country, their family,” she said. “Because this is what my father taught me. Not to give up, not to retreat.”
She added her father always said: “We still have to build the country … build Ukraine.”
Ukrainian forces are repelling constant attacks on the town of Bakhmut in the eastern Donbas region and holding their positions in nearby Soledar in very difficult conditions, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday.
In his nightly video address, the president added Bakhmut was “holding on despite everything’.
Summary
Welcome, if you’re joining us now, to our continuing live coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war – day 320 of the conflict. It is 10.04am in Kyiv. My name is Geneva Abdul. Here’s the latest:
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Ukrainian forces are repelling constant attacks on the town of Bakhmut in the eastern Donbas region and holding their positions in nearby Soledar in very difficult conditions, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address on Sunday. “Bakhmut is holding on despite everything,” the president said.
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Russia has claimed to have killed more than 600 Ukrainian troops in a “retaliatory strike” in the eastern town of Kramatorsk, but Ukraine’s armed forces rejected the claim. The mayor of the town, near the frontline city of Bakhmut, said there had been no deaths from strikes over the weekend, while a witness told Reuters on Sunday that buildings had been damaged but not destroyed and there were no obvious signs of casualties. The Russian claim seems suspicious for several reasons.
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Zelenskiy denounced what he said was Russia’s failure to observe a 36-hour ceasefire it had declared for Orthodox Christmas by launching attacks on Ukrainian cities.
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Demands for a special tribunal to investigate Russia for a “crime of aggression” against Ukraine have been backed by senior UK politicians from across the political divide in a move to show Vladimir Putin and his generals that they will be held to account.
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The Russian government extended support to a legislative amendment that would classify maps that dispute the country’s official “territorial integrity” as punishable extremist materials, Reuters reported the state-owned Tass news agency as saying on Sunday.
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About 50 Ukrainian soldiers who were released from Russian detention on Sunday as part of a prisoner swap posed for a photo on their release.
How Zelenskiy became Hollywood’s man of the hour
Isobel Koshiw
When Ben Stiller walked into the office of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in June, he embraced the wartime leader telling him, “You’re my hero.”
Stiller is one in a line of stars from the entertainment world who made the long journey to Kyiv to meet Zelenskiy – himself a former actor and comedian. A journey that involves an overnight train journey from Poland as commercial flights – let alone private jets – cannot fly in Ukraine’s airspace for safety reasons.
Before Stiller came the actor Sean Penn, who has visited three times since the invasion, and is making a documentary about the war, in which Zelenskiy will no doubt feature.
Read more here:
