Ukraine-Russia newest: Moscow strikes Kyiv’s power infrastructure after downing fighter jet

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine is preparing to re-establish diplomatic ties with Syria.

“We are preparing to resume diplomatic relations with Syria and cooperation in international organisations,” Zelensky said after hearing the report from Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha’s visit to Syria on Monday.

President Vladimir Putin has ordered Russia’s government and the country’s biggest bank, Sberbank, to build cooperation with China in artificial intelligence.

Putin’s instructions were published on the Kremlin’s website yesterday, three weeks after he announced that Russia would team up with BRICS partners and other countries to develop AI.

He told the government and Sberbank, which is spearheading Russia’s AI efforts, to “ensure further co-operation with the People’s Republic of China in technological research and development in the field of artificial intelligence”.

Western sanctions intended to restrict Moscow’s access to the technologies it needs to sustain its war against Ukraine have resulted in the world’s major producers of microchips halting exports to Russia, severely limiting its AI ambitions.

Sberbank CEO German Gref acknowledged in 2023 that graphics processing units (GPUs), the microchips that underpin AI development, were the trickiest hardware for Russia to replace.

Russia has said it had attacked energy facilities in Ukraine that support Kyiv’s military-industrial complex.

The Russian Defence Ministry said that over the last 24 hours it had used its air force, drones, missiles and artillery to target energy facilities, military airfields and Ukrainian military personnel across multiple locations.

The Independent could not confirm the extent of the attacks or the damage they inflicted.

Russia regularly reports such strikes, describing recent ones as retaliation for Kyiv’s use of Western-supplied missiles to strike deep into Russian territory

The ministry also reported that Russian troops had downed a Ukrainian Su-27 fighter jet, 97 drones and six U.S.-supplied HIMARS missiles overnight.

The stoppage of gas transit through Ukraine will have “drastic” impact on European Union countries but not on Russia, Slovak prime minister Robert Fico said yesterday.

The pro-Russian Slovak leader has repeatedly warned that the end of transit would cost Slovakia hundreds of millions of euros in lost transit revenue and higher fees for the import of other gas, and argued it would also lead to a rise in gas and electricity prices in Europe.

Russia launched a New Year’s Day drone strike on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Wednesday, killing two people, wounding at least six others and damaging buildings in two districts, authorities said.

Explosions boomed across the morning sky as Ukraine‘s air force warned of incoming drones and Mayor Vitali Klitschko said air defences were repelling an enemy attack.

Two floors of a residential building in central Kyiv were partially destroyed in the strike, according to the State Emergency Service. Two people were killed, it said.

Photos posted by the agency showed firefighters dousing a gutted corner of a building and rescuers helping elderly victims.

The National Bank of Ukraine said in a statement that one of its buildings nearby had been damaged by debris from a downed drone. Debris also damaged a non-residential building in a different neighbourhood, authorities said.

Russian forces gained 4,168sq km of land, largely fields and small settlements in Ukraine and the Kursk region, in 2024 but suffered over 420,000 casualties in the process, an American think tank monitoring the war has claimed.

The Institute for the Study of War cited Ukrainian army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi’s remarks last week that Russian forces suffered 427,000 casualties in 2024.

“ISW has observed geolocated evidence to assess that the Russian forces advanced 4,168 square kilometers in 2024, indicating that Russian forces suffered approximately 102 casualties per square kilometer of Ukrainian territory seized,” it said in an assessment released on Wednesday.

Russian forces made 56.5 per cent of their 2024 territorial gains between September and November period, it added.

Ordinarily, it’s historians writing after the fact that identify the pivotal dates in wars when the road to victory or defeat becomes clear. Russia’s war on Ukraine is different: it is clear in advance that 20 January 2025 will change the course of the conflict.

It’s long been apparent that the outcome of the war will be decided far from the battlefields in the east and south of the country, and in fact, not in Ukraine at all.

Keir Giles writes: