WAR IN UKRAINE: January 8, 2023
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 319
Today marks three years since Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) fired a pair of surface-to-air missiles at a civilian plane over the skies of Tehran, killing all 176 people onboard.
Relatives of those killed aboard PS752 are still waiting for justice to be served, three years later. Fifty-five Canadians and 30 permanent residents died when the aircraft was destroyed — some of them young children. The Canadian relatives told CBC News they’re still having to push the Canadian government to act. They say they've clocked about 28,000 hours of volunteer work searching for answers, organizing protests and pressing for justice.
The Russian-declared ceasefire ended with no let-up in violence as Russia launched two missile strikes in the Kharkiv region late Saturday. The attack resulted in the death of one civilian, the head of the regional military administration Oleh Syniehubov confirmed in a Telegram post Sunday. The ceasefire was supposed to last for 36 hours from noon Moscow time on Friday (4 a.m. ET) to midnight local time on Saturday (4 p.m. ET). “Last night the enemy launched two missile strikes on the town of Merefa, Kharkiv region. A civilian industrial facility was damaged. Unfortunately, a 50-year-old civilian was killed. Moreover, the enemy shelled Starytsia village in Chuhuiv district and Dvorichna village in Kupiansk district during the day,” Syniehubov said - CNN
On the night of January 7, another echelon with Russian military personnel consisting of about 700-800 people was transferred to Belarus - the Belarusian Gayun monitoring group
Orthodox Church of Ukraine holds church service at Kyiv Pechersk Lavra for the first time. Previously the entire Lavra was controlled by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, an affiliate of the Russian Orthodox Church - Kyiv Independent
At least 453 children have been killed and at least 877 have been injured since the start of the war in Ukraine, the country's Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Saturday. “However, real numbers are much higher. russia has been committing war crimes and has no plans to stop,” he said.
Secretary of the NSDC Danilov declares that the Russians are going to offer Ukraine the so-called "Korean option" for the settlement of the war, which involves the division of the country
The General Staff reports that a train filled with dead Russian refrigerators has arrived in the Kemerovo region in Russia