Here are the key developments on the 1,075th day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Here is the situation on Monday, February 3:
Fighting
- Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office said two men were charged in connection with the killing of an army draft officer in the central Poltava region. It is alleged that one of the suspects was being driven to a military training centre when he called an acquaintance who then arrived at the scene and shot the officer.
- Kyiv’s police said one man was wounded in an explosion of an “unidentified object” near a Ukrainian military recruitment centre in Pavlohrad. Dnipropetrovsk regional police said an investigation is under way.
- State-run news agency TASS reported that Russia’s Supreme Court refused to consider prominent nationalist and former militia commander Igor Girkin’s appeal against his four-year prison sentence after being convicted of inciting extremism.
- Flights were suspended at several airports in the southern Russian region of Astrakhan after a falling drone from an overnight Ukrainian region sparked a fire, Governor Igor Babushkin said. No casualties were reported.
- Russia illegally deported at least 20,000 Ukrainian children to occupied Crimea and Russia since 2022 under the guide of evacuation and rehabilitation programmes, Ukraine’s presidential adviser on children’s issues, Daria Herasymchuk, said. Ukraine was able to repatriate 1,189 children with support from humanitarian organisations and allies, she also said.
- Herasymchuk also alleged that Moscow violated the Geneva Convention with its attempts to mobilise Ukrainian teenage boys into the Russian military. The Institute for the Study of War has said that Russia has used “rehabilitation” and “evacuation” camps in Crimea to indoctrinate and militarise Ukrainian children.
Politics & Diplomacy
- Russian President Vladimir Putin said that not inviting Moscow to the Auschwitz liberation events was “strange “and “shameful”. Putin also said the matter could have been handled more subtly and that the relatives of Soviet soldiers who liberated the camp could have been invited if it was not possible to invite the soldiers due to health or age.
- Putin also praised US President Donald Trump’s political style, saying the recently inaugurated president would bring the European elite back in line. He said that it would happen very soon and that “they will be at their master’s heel and wagging their tails nicely”.
- Trump’s Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg said both Kyiv and Moscow must be willing to compromise to successfully negotiate an end to the ongoing war. “I think both sides will give a little bit,” he said.
- Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a renewed appeal to the West, urgently requesting more support to protect Kyiv from Russia’s targeted attacks. “We need better protection – air defence systems, long-range weapons and sanctions pressure,” he said.
- Zelenskyy’s communication adviser, Dmytro Lytvyn, said the US’s call for Kyiv to hold an election after agreeing to a ceasefire with Moscow looked like a “failed plan” if there was not more to it. He admitted that he had not seen Kellogg’s full interview on the subject, but said Ukraine would prefer a more in-depth approach.
- Trump told reporters that talks with Russia and Ukraine are going “pretty well”. He said meetings and talks were scheduled with relevant parties, including both Kyiv and Moscow.
