These are the important thing developments from day 1,409 of Russia’s conflict on Ukraine.
Printed On 2 Jan 2026
Right here is the place issues stand on Saturday, January 3:
Preventing
- Two folks had been killed, together with a three-year-old youngster, and at the least 31 folks had been wounded in a Russian ballistic missile assault on a five-storey residential constructing within the centre of Ukraine’s Kharkiv, the area’s governor Oleh Syniehubov wrote on Telegram.
- Russia’s Ministry of Defence denied accountability for the assault, claiming it was brought on by the detonation of Ukrainian ammunition and was meant as a distraction from a lethal assault the day earlier than on the village of Khorly, in a Russian-occupied a part of the Kherson area.
- The demise toll from the drone strike on a resort and cafe in Khorly rose to twenty-eight folks, the area’s Russian-installed governor, Vladimir Saldo, advised Russia’s state-run TASS information company. Saldo additionally mentioned that greater than 60 folks had been injured within the assault. Ukraine has responded to the strike by saying it doesn’t goal civilians.
- Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba mentioned in a put up on Fb that Ukrainian authorities have determined to evacuate greater than 3,000 youngsters, together with their mother and father, from 44 front-line settlements in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk areas as a result of Russian aggression.
- A Ukrainian assault on the electrical energy grid within the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia area of Ukraine left 1,777 households with out energy, Russian-installed regional governor, Yevgeniy Balitsky, wrote on Telegram.
- Russian forces shot down 64 Ukrainian drones in a single day into Friday, Russia’s Defence Ministry mentioned, in accordance with TASS.
- Ukrainian monitoring website DeepState reported Russian forces seized extra land within the Myrnohrad and Pokrovsk areas of Ukraine’s Donetsk area, in addition to in Svitle within the Ternopil area.
- The Russian military captured greater than 5,600 sq. kilometres (2,160 sq. miles), or almost 1 %, of Ukrainian territory in 2025, in accordance with an evaluation of knowledge from the Institute for the Examine of Warfare (ISW), which works with the Important Threats Challenge.
- In response to the AFP information company, the land seized by Russian forces final 12 months was greater than within the earlier two years mixed, however lower than the 60,000sq km (23,166sq miles) Russia took in 2022, the primary 12 months of its all-out invasion.
Politics and diplomacy
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy named Ukraine’s army intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov as his presidential chief of workers on Friday, within the newest Ukrainian management shake-up.
- Zelenskyy additionally nominated Mykhailo Fedorov, a drone and digitalisation specialist who has served as first deputy prime minister and minister of digital transformation, as defence minister. Fedorov, whose appointment have to be permitted by parliament, will exchange Denys Shmyhal, a former prime minister who was being supplied a brand new authorities put up.
- RecepTayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkiye, advised reporters in Istanbul that he would maintain a cellphone name with United States President Donald Trump on Monday to debate peace efforts. Turkiye has been internet hosting intermittent peace talks throughout Russia’s conflict on Ukraine.
- Erdogan additionally mentioned Turkiye’s Overseas Minister Hakan Fidan will attend a gathering of the “coalition of the prepared”, a bunch of countries backing Ukraine, in Paris, within the coming days.
