WAR IN UKRAINE: January 19, 2023
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS: Day 330
The three main figures in Ukraine's interior ministry were among 14 people killed in a helicopter crash beside a nursery in an eastern suburb of the capital Kyiv on Wednesday. Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky, 42, died alongside his first deputy minister and state secretary. The minister was the most senior Ukrainian government official to have died since Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. As of Wednesday evening there was nothing to indicate that the crash was anything other than an accident. At least 29 people were injured, including 15 children. The helicopter crashed near a kindergarten just as parents were taking their children to the facility.
Witnesses at the scene described a two-story building engulfed in flames and then smoke at the crash site, the Washington Post reported. Trees at the playground next to the kindergarten were on fire, they said. “The whole block was completely covered in dust and smoke and you couldn’t see anything — no kindergarten, no buildings, nothing,” said 79-year-old Vasyl Gryshchenko. “From the balcony, I smelled a rubber or plastic burning smell.”
The head of the National Police, Ihor Klymenko, will serve as the acting interior minister, following the death of Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky in a helicopter crash on Jan. 18, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal announced. The ministry, which oversees policing, security, and emergency services, had an emergency protocol in place to continue its function, Shmyhal said. A new permanent interior minister will be selected after consulting with parliament. The candidate must be approved by the parliament vote - Kyiv Independent
In order for the (Ukraine) war to end, Russia must lose, – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says at the economic forum in Davos. "That's why we supply weapons to Ukraine in close communication with our partners"
The Wall Street Journal has cited senior German sources as saying the country won't allow allies to ship German-made tanks to Ukraine - unless the US sends its own. Germany has also said it will not send systems itself until the US steps up support in the same way, the newspaper claimed. Ukraine has continued to plead with Western countries to send further military aid to help it fight Russia. Last week Ben Wallace, the UK defence secretary, confirmed another significant package of support, including Challenger 2 tanks.
Official: Russia has abducted almost 14,000 Ukrainian children. “We managed to identify and verify the data of at least 13,899 children who were abducted and deported by the Russian army, and, unfortunately, we can say that only 125 (of them) we managed to return home,” Daria Herasymchuk, Ukraine’s presidential advisor for children’s rights and rehabilitation, said on Jan. 17 - Kyiv Independent
The UN nuclear watchdog finalized the deployment of permanent missions to Ukrainian power plants — including the plants in Rivne, Chornobyl, and south Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian prime minister following his meeting with the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Wednesday. The IAEA mission at Khmelnytsky nuclear power plant will also be functioning soon, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said at a press conference, with all the missions' work continuing during wartime and afterward to restore any damage - CNN
A poll taken by the International Republican Institute (IRI) across 13 Central and Eastern European countries found concerns over the partnership between China and Russia, support for a response to human rights abuses against Uyghurs, and economic anxieties. When asked how their opinions have changed towards China in the last 12 months, 34% of people said their views have worsened. Sixty-six percent of those who feel that way cited Beijing’s partnership with Russia as the biggest contributing factor for their worsened outlook. “Our data clearly show that many Europeans see a working relationship between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping as a threat to security and prosperity across the continent,” said Jan Surotchak, Senior Director for Transatlantic Strategy at IRI. “As the war in Ukraine rages on, they are worried that an alliance between powerful authoritarians will continue to have a negative impact in their own backyard.”
Required reading…
Opinion: Even by Russia’s standards, this was a particularly repulsive attack
Opinion by Michael Bociurkiw
Odesa (CNN) — As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaches the one year mark, the bombing of a residential building in Dnipro on Saturday should not be seen as simply another red line crossed by the Kremlin.
What makes the Dnipro attack particularly repulsive is that it struck in the heart of a city that had been regarded as a safe haven for internally displaced people (IDPs) since the outbreak of hostilities between Ukraine and Russia back in 2014.
With a warhead of nearly one metric ton, it created a scene of destruction described by some in Dnipro as “hell.” It killed at least 45 people, including five children, with dozens more missing.
Read my full CNN OpEd here