Zelenskyy demands more sanctions as Ukraine reels from Russian bombardment; explosions heard near nuclear power plant

Seven vessels carrying 368,941 metric tons of grain and other crops have left Ukrainian ports, the organization overseeing the export of agricultural products said.

Two ships are destined for Israel and are carrying wheat and corn. Another vessel is headed to China with corn. The other ships are headed for Spain, Italy, Kenya and Saudi Arabia.

The Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal brokered in July among Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations, eased Russia's naval blockade and saw three key Ukrainian ports reopen.

So far, more than 680 ships have sailed from Ukrainian ports.

— Amanda Macias

The White House said that Turkey, Sweden and Finland need to work out the rest of the issues standing in the way of Stockholm and Helsinki's ascension to NATO.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on a call that the U.S. reaffirms its support for the addition of Finland and Sweden's membership to the NATO alliance but that Washington could not speak to Turkey's concerns.

In May, both nations began the formal process of applying to NATO as Russia's war in Ukraine raged. All 30 members of the alliance have to ratify the countries' entry into the group.

In August, U.S. President Joe Biden signed ratification documents following a 95-1 Senate vote to bring Finland and Sweden into NATO.

— Amanda Macias

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy slammed the International Olympic Committee's decision to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete in the upcoming Olympic Games.

"Russia must stop aggression and terror, and only after that it will be possible to talk about Russian participation in the context of the Olympic movement. Olympic principles and war are fundamentally opposed to each other," Zelenskyy wrote in a statement.

"We will do everything so that the world will protect sports from political and any other influence of the terrorist state, which is simply inevitable if Russian athletes participate in competitions," he added.

On Wednesday, the International Olympic Committee outlined a multi-step plan for Russian and Belarusian athletes to participate in the upcoming 2024 Summer Games in Paris and the 2026 Winter Games in Milan.

"No athlete should be prevented from competing just because of their passport," the IOC's executive board announced in a statement.

— Amanda Macias

Photos capture a young girl named Anya, 7, as she lives in a shelter with her family amid the war in Donetsk region.

-- Mustafa Ciftci/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The U.S. and Germany announced in separate statements earlier this week that they would equip Ukraine with the mighty M1A1 Abrams tank and the Leopard 2 tank.

The 31 M1A1 Abrams tanks, which amount to one Ukrainian tank battalion, will expand on the more than $27 billion the U.S. has committed to Kyiv's fight since Russia invaded nearly a year ago.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Berlin will supply 14 Leopard 2 A6 tanks in what it called a "first step." He said that Germany's goal was to "quickly assemble two tank battalions with Leopard 2 tanks for Ukraine" and that training would begin quickly.

— Amanda Macias

The British government said it has so far committed £2.3 billion to Ukraine's security assistance in 2022.

"Our commitment to Ukraine remains steadfast and we will match or exceed last year's military support in 2023," the UK's Ministry of Defense wrote in a tweet.

"This military aid helps Ukraine defend against air attacks, fight on land, defend their shores, and be equipped for winter."

— Amanda Macias

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked his Polish counterpart for his decision to provide Kyiv with 60 tanks.

"As 160 years ago, we are together, but this time the enemy has no chance. Together we will win," Zelenskyy added.

Poland's decision follows separate announcements that Germany and the U.S. will provide Kyiv with Leopard 2 and M1A1 Abrams tanks.

— Amanda Macias

A new barrage of Russian shelling killed at least 10 Ukrainian civilians and wounded 20 others in a day, the office of Ukraine's president said Friday as the country worked to recover from an earlier wave of Russian missile strikes and drone attacks.

Regional officials said towns and villages in the east and in the south that are within reach of the Russian artillery suffered most. Six people died in the Donetsk region, two in Kherson, and two in the Kharkiv region. A day earlier, missiles and self-propelled drones that Russian forces fired had hit deeper into Ukrainian territory, killing at least 11 people.

The bombardments followed announcements by the United States and Germany of plans to ship powerful tanks to help Ukraine defend itself. Other Western countries said they also would share modern tanks from their stockpiles.

Moscow has bristled at the move, and accused Western nations of entering a new level of confrontation with Russia.

— Associated Press

Ukrainian serviceman Andriy Askerov (L) and another serviceman Andriy sit at the UNBROKEN National Rehabilitation Center in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.

-Yuriy Dyachyshyn | AFP | Getty Images

Ukraine is set to receive 60 more tanks form Poland, in addition to the 14 German-made Leopard 2 tanks Warsaw pledged to send earlier this week.

"Poland sent 250 tanks as the first country half a year ago or even more than that," Polish Foreign Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told CTV News.

"Right now, we are ready to send 60 of our modernized tanks, 30 of them PT-91. And on top of those tanks, 14 tanks, Leopard 2 tanks, from in our possession."

Poland has been one of Ukraine's staunchest allies from the start of Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022. It has long pressed Berlin to allow it to send Ukraine its German-made Leopard 2 tanks, and after months of refusal, Germany relented this week.

— Natasha Turak

Hungary made clear its intention to veto any EU sanctions that target Russian nuclear energy during an interview of its prime minister Viktor Orban on Hungarian state radio.

Ukraine has asked the 27-member bloc to put sanctions on Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom, but Orban, in an interview quoted by Reuters, said any such move by the EU "must obviously be vetoed."

"We will not allow the plan to include nuclear energy into the sanctions be implemented," the Hungarian leader said. "This is out of the question."

Hungary is home to a Russian-built nuclear power plant that it aims to expand jointly with Rosatom. Orban is also on friendly terms with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and has previously stood in the way of EU sanctions on other Russian energy commodities.

— Natasha Turak

The head of Ukraine's presidential office Andriy Yermak posted what appeared to be a warning to fellow officials in his country's government, shortly after several were removed from their positions over corruption and graft charges.

"Every official should understand they are responsible to the state and nation. Especially in the wartime," Yermak wrote on Twitter.

"Whoever forgets it gets a quick response. Regardless of their names and positions. Period."

Ukraine is regularly ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in Europe and the world, and that reputation has raised concerns among some Western officials as to the transparency over where foreign military and financial aid goes.

Tuesday saw more than a dozen Ukrainian officials fired, in an announcement by Ukraine's cabinet ministry. While the ministry did not outline reasons for the firings, they came shortly after publicized reports and accusations of corruption by members of the government.

— Natasha Turak

The UK's Defence Ministry expressed doubt over Russian claims of gaining significant territory in Ukraine's eastern Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions.

"Russian units have probably conducted local, probing attacks near Orikiv and Vuhledar [in Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk, respectively], but it is highly unlikely that Russia has actually achieved any substantive advances," the ministry wrote in its daily intelligence update on Twitter.

"There is a realistic possibility that Russian military sources are deliberately spreading misinformation in an effort to imply that the Russian operation is sustaining momentum," it added.

— Natasha Turak

Monitors from the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, reported hearing explosions near Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant as Russia hit the country with a new wave of attacks.

Rafael Grossi, IAEA chief, made a repeated call for a security zone to be established around the plant, which is Europe's largest of its kind and currently occupied by Russian forces.

A representative for Russian state nuclear energy company Rosenergoatom, Renat Karchaa, called the comments baseless and a "provocation."

— Natasha Turak

Several of Ukraine's regions have to implement emergency power cuts because of outages caused by Russia's wave of attacks on Thursday, Ukrainian state news channel Suspilne reported.

"Currently, ten regions of Ukraine are already using emergency power outages due to a power shortage in the network after yesterday's Russian shelling, and the restoration of damaged facilities is ongoing," it wrote on its official Telegram channel.

Millions of Ukrainians are enduring regular power outages, enduring freezing winter temperatures as Russia targets critical infrastructure and energy facilities.

— Natasha Turak

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for more sanctions on Russia after a wave of missile and drone attacks on Thursday left at least 11 people in Ukraine dead.

"This Russian aggression can and should be stopped only with adequate weapons. The terrorist state will not understand anything else. Weapons on the battlefield. Weapons that protect our skies," Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Thursday.

"New sanctions against Russia, i.e. political and economic weapons. And legal weapons - we need to work even harder to establish a tribunal for the crime of Russian aggression against Ukraine."

The Russian attacks on civilians came a day after Western allies pledged to send battle tanks to Ukraine, something European allies like Germany had until then been reluctant to do for fear of provoking Moscow.

— Natasha Turak

Japan on Friday announced additional sanctions in response to Moscow's latest actions in Ukraine, banning exports to Russia of key strategic goods and freezing assets of dozen individuals.

Japan will prohibit Russia-bound shipments of goods that can be used to enhance military capability, including semiconductor equipment and components, robots, power generators, explosives and vaccines, according to the trade ministry.

The new export ban will take effect on Feb. 3, it said.

Japan also froze assets of an additional three entities and 22 individuals in Russia and 14 pro-Moscow individuals related to the "annexation" of the southeastern Ukraine region.

— Reuters

For months, Wagner has been locked in a bloody battle of attrition to take the towns of Bakhmut and Soledar in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region. Western and Ukrainian officials have said it is using convicts as cannon fodder to overwhelm Ukraine's defenses. 

Videos and photographs of the graves first appeared on social media channels in the Krasnodar region in December. Reuters geolocated these images to the Bakinskaya cemetery and reviewed satellite imagery of the site from Maxar Technologies and Capella Space.

Satellite pictures show that the Wagner plot was empty in the summer, had three rows of graves by the end of November and was three-quarters full by early January. Virtually the entire plot was used by Jan. 24.

Read the full story from Reuters here.

— Reuters

Zelenskyy defiant as Russia unleashes ‘massive’ missile strike; U.S. sanctions Russian mercenary group