These are the key developments from day 1,419 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Published On 13 Jan 2026
Here is where things stand on Tuesday, January 13:
Fighting
At least two people have been killed and three others injured as Russia launched attacks on Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv, according to Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov.
Russia also initiated a separate missile attack on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and air defence units have been deployed to repel it, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram. Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, warned residents to take cover. There were no immediate reports on casualties or damage to properties and infrastructure in the attack.
Russian drones struck two foreign-flagged vessels, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said, the second such attack in four days on Black Sea shipping. Kuleba said the vessels were sailing under the flags of Panama and San Marino, and that one person was injured.
Russia attacked energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, causing blackouts that affected at least 33,500 families, Ukraine’s largest private energy firm DTEK said, describing the damage as “significant”.
Emergency crews are struggling to restore heat and power to beleaguered Kyiv residents, more than three days after Russian strikes on energy infrastructure.
Kuleba said on Telegram that 90 percent of Kyiv’s apartment buildings have had their heating restored, leaving fewer than 500 dwellings still to be connected. But Mayor Klitschko put the number with no heating at 800, with most living on the west bank of the Dnipro River.
Last year was the deadliest for civilians in Ukraine since 2022, a record driven by intensified hostilities along the front line and the expanded use of long-range weapons, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said. Conflict-related violence in Ukraine killed 2,514 civilians and injured 12,142 in 2025, a 31 percent rise in the number of victims from 2024, the monitor said in its monthly update.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said the target it hit last week with a hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missile was a Ukrainian aircraft repair plant in Lviv. The Lviv State Aviation Repair Plant is located near the Polish border. Russia described the target as disabled.
At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, the United States decried Russia’s use of the nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile, calling it an “inexplicable escalation”.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had captured the village of Novoboykivske in the Zaporizhia region of Ukraine.
Politics and diplomacy
In his regular nightly address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the world has to help Iranian protesters free themselves from the oppressive government that “has brought so much evil to Ukraine and to other countries”. Iran’s government is a close ally of Russia.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said he and his US counterpart Marco Rubio had agreed on the importance of a transatlantic alliance to secure a lasting peace in Ukraine.
Wadephul added that Germany and the US were committed to Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which commits member states to rise to each other’s defence, should one state come under attack.
The German foreign minister added that, at a time of “uncertainty and crises”, unity within NATO “is a clear signal to Russia that it should not try to threaten” the alliance.
Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard has called for greater pressure on Moscow. She suggested the European Union should ban companies from providing any support to Moscow’s oil and gas shipping fleet, introduce sanctions against Russian fertilisers and stop the export of luxury goods to Russia.
Norway has announced that it is providing 340 million euros ($397m) in emergency funding to support Ukraine’s energy sector and help the government maintain critical services, as part of its aid in 2026.
Finnish police said they lifted the seizure of a Russia-linked ship, which had been held on suspicion of sabotaging an undersea telecommunications cable running across the Gulf of Finland, from Helsinki to Estonia.
The investigation into the Russia-linked ship will nevertheless continue. Some of the ship’s crew remain under a travel ban, according to the head of the investigation at Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation, Risto Lohi.
Economy
A US-linked investor group won the rights to develop Ukraine’s Dobra lithium deposit in the central Kirovohrad region, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko announced on Telegram. The deal is seen as a test case for drawing Western capital into a front-line economy, while trying to deepen ties with Washington.
