Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kiev warns Trump against early peace talks, Putin faces record losses in 2024

According to a US-based think tank, Russia is recruiting unskilled men and women to strengthen its military.

“Russian volunteer military detachments continue efforts to increase human resources by recruiting women into the Russian military,” Dmitry Rogozin, former head of Roscosmos (Russian Space Agency) and member of the Zaporizhzhia Oblast Occupation Duma, said on January 19. The Russian BARS-Sarmat detachment (Russian Combat Armed Forces Reserve) is recruiting specialists and unskilled men and women from all over Russia to take part in combat operations in Ukraine,” the Institute for War Studies said. are.

It added: “This post follows recent Russian propaganda efforts focused on the recruitment of Russian women into various combat units of the Russian Armed Forces.”

Russia is investigating video footage that appears to show military police brutally beating a contract soldier bound for Ukraine.

A man wearing a Russian police uniform appears to have knocked a soldier detained in Ukraine to the ground before knocking him out with an electric shock gun.

Another soldier with a cane was then seen being beaten and knocked unconscious with a gun as military police demanded he take off his clothes.

Russian media reports say the soldiers have been discharged from hospital to return to the front lines in Ukraine.

The timestamp on the video shared by Russian war correspondents on Telegram shows January 16th, and local authorities said it happened in Kyzyl, in southern Siberia’s Tuva region.

The Tuva regional government said: “In one of them, on January 16, 2025, in unit number 55115, an incident of abuse against contract soldiers was recorded, which included beatings and the use of electric shock guns before they were sent. SVO.” said the Tuva government.

SVO is the acronym Russia uses to stand for what it officially calls “Special Military Operations” in Ukraine.

Three lawyers who represented late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny have been sent to a Russian penal colony as part of President Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on dissent that has reached levels not seen since Soviet times. He was sentenced to a long prison term.

Vadim Kobzev, Igor Sergunin, and Alexei Liptzel, who are already in custody, have been in custody for three and a half years since their arrest in October 2023 on suspicion of involvement in an extremist group designated by the Russian state as an opposition group. He was sentenced to five years in prison. As.

Before Navalny’s sudden death in a penal colony last year – with Western leaders blaming Putin – he denounced the arrest of his lawyers as “outrageous” and sent him to prison. He explained that his plan was to further isolate them. Despite being imprisoned, Navalny, through his lawyer, has been able to post on social media and file frequent lawsuits over his treatment in prison, using the resulting legal hearings to speak out against the government and the war. I used this as an opportunity to continue improving.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces announced yesterday that the Russian military used ammunition with chemical agents at least 434 times inside Ukraine in December 2024.

According to the General Staff, there have been a total of 5,389 more documented incidents since February 2023 involving the use of chemicals prohibited under the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

“Ukrainian officials have previously reported increasing instances of the Russian military using chemicals in combat that are prohibited by the CWC, to which Russia is a member, and the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has It pointed out that such violations have been carried out systematically in the Russian military since February 2023,” the Institute for the Study of War said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sibikha expressed gratitude to outgoing US Secretary of State Antony Blinken for his role in a “turning point in history.”

“During our farewell call, I expressed my gratitude to @SecBlinken for his important role at a turning point in history, which contributed to the survival of Ukraine as an independent and free European state. “We value our strategic partnership and rely on continued support from the new US administration,” he told X.

The Biden administration is celebrating its last day in office today, and will hand over power to the incoming Trump administration in the evening.

A survey by the Kyiv-based New Europe Center found that just over 70 percent of Ukrainians support gradual NATO membership similar to the West German model.

The invitation also covers Ukraine, but the alliance’s defense umbrella only extends to the occupied territories after they are liberated.

With Russia’s military advantage on the battlefield and prospects for militarily liberating occupied territories remaining slim, various NATO accession paths are attracting attention both in the West and in Kiev.

Kiev officials are warning the incoming Trump administration that forcing negotiations between Ukraine and Russia before Ukrainian forces gain territorial advantage on the battlefield would be a fatal mistake.

“The bottom line is that simple and quick decisions cannot be made here,” said Mykhailo Podlyak, a senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. “The initiative must be controlled. It must not be handed over to Russia.”

The president’s wartime allies say failing to make Vladimir Putin “feel the pain” before negotiations will embold the Russian president, weakening Ukraine and ultimately damaging Western reputations and interests. He said it would happen.

Podoljak said 46% of the refinery sector, a key sector of Russia’s economy, was under attack from Ukraine, and some of Russia’s major military infrastructure was also under attack.

“If we are to come to negotiations in a position of strength, we need to be able to maintain this kind of pressure. Russia will only engage in meaningful negotiations if it is suffering losses,” he said.

A female soldier died defending her comrades during fierce fighting in Pokrovsk, according to a report from the II International Corps.

Maria Zaitsava, a Belarusian national, was killed in action in the Pokrovsk operational zone on January 17.

“The Second International Corps of the Defense of Ukraine reports with great regret the death of Maria Zaitsava, a 24-year-old Belarusian national, a combatant of our Corps.

“Maria died during a combat mission, repelling the attacks of invaders in the direction of Pokrovsk and protecting the lives of her comrades,” the report said.

The Corps praised the fallen combatants as “exemplars of selflessness, discipline, courage and fortitude.”

The press concluded that “Maria was loved and respected.”

The yellow name tag Ales Bialiatsky wears on his prison uniform sets him apart from other prisoners in Penal Colony 9 in eastern Belarus.

This indicates that Mr. Bialiatsky will be singled out as a political prisoner and subject to harsh treatment. Former prisoners say he has been labeled an “extremist” by authorities and is routinely denied medication, food deliveries from his home, contact with relatives, forced labor and punishment cells. He is said to be facing a prison sentence.

Authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko has often claimed during his three decades in office that there are no political prisoners in Belarus, but activists say there are now about 1,300 political prisoners in Belarus. Many, like Bialyatsky, 62, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 for her human rights work, are enduring harsh conditions and their health is thought to be deteriorating.

In 2024, Russian forces advanced into Ukraine at the fastest pace since 2022, the first year of the war, and captured about one-fifth of the country. However, that gain came at the cost of significant, albeit undisclosed, losses in personnel and equipment.

In 2024, Ukraine captured part of the western region of Kursk in a surprise counterattack on August 6, marking the first invasion of Russia since World War II.

Russia has not withdrawn Ukrainian troops from Kursk, despite bringing in more than 10,000 troops from its ally North Korea, according to assessments from Ukraine, South Korea and the United States. Russia neither admits nor denies their existence.

British security expert Ruth Dearmond said: “In order to maintain its very slow advance in Ukraine, Russia has been forced to ignore the months-long occupation of parts of its territory by Ukrainian forces.” said.

“It is not the job of a great power, especially one obsessed with the idea of ​​national sovereignty, to respond to the loss of its territory by saying, “There’s nothing to see here.”

In a long thread posted on suggested that it was impaired by increased dependence on.

President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s longest-serving ruler since Joseph Stalin, said on December 19 that under his leadership the country had retreated from the “edge of the abyss” and rebuffed threats to its sovereignty.

In retrospect, he said, he should not have waited until February 2022 before launching a “special military operation” in Ukraine. The term is still used by him to refer to a full-scale invasion of neighboring Russia.