Here are the highlights of the 1,047th day of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Here's what happened on Monday, January 6:
Fighting
- Russia says its forces have captured the town of Kurakhove in Ukraine's Donetsk region. Controlling Kurakhove has “significantly disrupted the management and support” of the Ukrainian military, the Russian Defense Ministry said. Kurakhove is located 32km (20 miles) south of Pokrovsk, a key point in Ukraine that Russia has been targeting for months.
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The Ukrainian military said it shot down two Kh-59 missiles launched by Russia overnight. Of the 128 drones launched, 79 drones were shot down and 49 “imitation drones” did not reach their targets, it added.
- Ukrainian army launched a new attack in western Russia's Kursk region on Sunday, where Moscow's forces have been trying to push back Ukrainian forces for the past five months.
- The Russian Ministry of Defense said that Ukraine had lost 340 soldiers in the last 24 hours in the Kursk region. It also claimed to have shot down a Ukrainian MiG-29.
- Ukraine started the war in Kursk and “Russia is getting what it deserves,” the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office, Andriy Yermak, said on Sunday, adding that there was “good news” for Ukraine from the region.
- Serhiy Lysak, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine, said that Russia attacked the Nikopol region with guns “seven times” in one night. He said Moscow had also launched a “suicide drone in the region”. No injuries were reported.
- The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has heard a large explosion near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, which is consistent with reports of drone strikes on the plant's training grounds, it said. The IAEA has not yet been able to confirm the incident. The IAEA team also reported that gunshots could be heard from the site several times, it added.
Politics and diplomacy
- United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, speaking in Seoul, South Korea on Monday, said that Ukraine's role in Kursk is “important” because it “can start a dialogue that will take place in the coming year”.
- Blinken said the U.S. believes Russia is expanding its territorial alliance with North Korea exchange with his soldiers help in the fight against Ukraine. “The DPRK is already receiving Russian military equipment and training. Now we have reason to believe that Moscow wants to share high-tech satellites with Pyongyang,” he said.
- Blinken also said that the outgoing administration of President Joe Biden, who has given security aid to Kyiv billions of dollars since the Russian invasion in February 2022, wants to make sure that “Ukraine has a very strong hand to play”.
- President Zelenskyy said that security guarantees for Kyiv to end the Russian war would only work if the US gave it. “Without the United States, security guarantees are not possible. I mean these security guarantees that will prevent Russian aggression,” he said in an interview with US podcaster Lex Fridman published on Sunday. Zelenskyy said that the Ukrainian people are counting on Trump to pressure Moscow to end its war and that Russia will expand in Europe if Washington withdraws from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
- A delegation of the Slovak government is heading to Brussels for gas talks after Ukraine canceled a deal that allowed Russian gas to pass through its territory to other European countries, including Slovakia.