Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,049

Here are the key developments on the 1,049th day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Here is the situation on Wednesday, January 8:

Fighting

• Kyiv said its forces are still actively fighting in Kurakhove, a strategic town in Ukraine’s east that Russia said it had seized. Moscow hailed the capture of the “important logistics hub”, saying it would enable Russian forces to take the rest of the eastern Donetsk region “at an accelerated pace”.
• Ukraine also said its forces were “commencing new offensive actions” in Russia’s western Kursk region, in its first substantive remarks two days after Russian reports of a renewed Ukrainian thrust in the area.
• According to the Ukrainian General Staff in Kyiv, there have been 218 clashes on all sections of the front line in the past 24 hours. In the Kursk region alone, the army repelled 94 Russian attacks.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said in a statement that its troops had carried out strikes on Ukrainian units in the Kursk region and listed six locations where it said its forces had defeated Ukrainian brigades, and seven more – including one on the Ukrainian side of the border – where it said it had carried out strikes on Ukrainian troops and equipment.
• The Ukrainian Army also said it launched a “precision strike” on a Russian Army “military command post” near Belaya, in the Kursk region.

• Ukraine’s Southern Defence Force said its troops destroyed two Osa surface-to-air missile systems in unspecified areas in the south of the country, United States-based defence think tank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reports.
• The ISW said geolocated video footage indicates that Russian forces now occupy approximately 71 percent of the town of Toretsk, in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.

NEW: Russian forces recently advanced in northwestern Toretsk following several weeks of higher-tempo Russian offensive operations and gains in the area. 🧵(1/6) pic.twitter.com/WkmvfuGAcr

— Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) January 8, 2025

• Hundreds of people, including children, have been killed or injured in Ukraine in the first week of January, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.
• In the past three days, “homes, gas facilities, and electricity infrastructure have been damaged in several front line regions, exposing civilians to heightened health risks as temperatures dropped below zero in some parts of Ukraine”, Dujarric said.
• More than 60 residential buildings have been damaged in the Kherson region alone, in the south of the country, he said.

Regional security

• Sweden said its navy had helped in the recovery of the anchor of an alleged Russian “shadow fleet” oil tanker, which is suspected of damaging telecom and power cables on the floor of the Baltic Sea.
• Finland last month seized the Eagle S tanker carrying Russian oil on suspicion the vessel had damaged the Finnish-Estonian Estlink 2 power line and four telecom cables by dragging its anchor across the seabed.
• Finnish authorities have confiscated the tanker’s anchor with the help of a specialised Swedish vessel, the Yle public broadcaster reported, citing the Swedish Navy.

Crime

• A German couple confessed to killing a Ukrainian refugee and her mother in March 2024, to steal her baby. On the first day of the trial at Mannheim District Court, the two defendants admitted to killing the 27-year-old Ukrainian and her 51-year-old mother. “I regret everything I have done,” the man said in a statement read out by lawyers. His wife added, “I made a big mistake.”

Politics and diplomacy

• Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico will discuss the end of Russian gas transit through Ukraine with representatives of the European Commission on Thursday in Brussels, Slovakia’s government office said.
• US President-elect Donald Trump claimed that US President Joe Biden had changed Washington’s position towards Ukraine joining NATO, and he understood how Moscow felt about its neighbour joining the military alliance. “Somewhere along the line, Biden said, ‘No. They [Ukraine] should be able to join NATO’. Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I could understand their feelings about that,” Trump said.
• Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, had cancelled a meeting, which he described as “extremely important”. Kellogg, a decorated retired three-star general, will reschedule the meeting, Sybiha said.
• European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has accused Russia of using its supply of natural gas as “a weapon” and waging a “hybrid war” on Moldova, where the breakaway region of Transnistria has been without Russian gas since January 1.