These are the key developments from day 1,421 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Published On 15 Jan 2026
Here is where things stand on Thursday, January 15:
Fighting
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that a state of emergency was being declared for Ukraine’s energy sector, after repeated Russian attacks destroyed electricity and heat infrastructure.
Zelenskyy said he asked the government to review curfew restrictions during “this extremely cold weather”.
Kateryna Pop, spokeswoman for the Kyiv City Military Administration, said 471 buildings in Ukraine’s capital remained without heat on Wednesday as temperatures again dropped to -19 degrees Celsius (-2.2 Fahrenheit) overnight, according to Ukraine’s Ukrinform news agency.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Development announced the mandatory evacuation of children from five settlements in Ukraine’s front-line Zaporizhia region, according to the Ukrainian Interfax news agency.
“In conditions of constant threat of shelling, this is the only responsible step that allows saving lives, primarily children,” Deputy Prime Minister Oleksii Kuleba said, according to Interfax.
An 84-year-old woman and a 65-year-old man were injured in a Russian guided bomb attack on Tavriyske in Zaporizhia, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said on Telegram.
Russian forces have advanced near Zaliznyanske in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Yablunivka in Lviv region and Stepnohirsk in Zaporizhia, according to Ukrainian battlefield monitoring site DeepState.
A Ukrainian attack left more than 3,000 people without electricity in Russian-occupied areas of Zaporizhia, Russian-appointed local official Yevhen Balitsky said on Telegram.
A Ukrainian drone attack hit a power facility in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine’s Luhansk region, leaving several settlements without electricity, according to Russia’s TASS state news agency.
Politics
Ukraine’s parliament approved President Zelenskyy’s nomination of Denys Shmyhal as energy minister and first deputy prime minister weeks after dismissing him from the role of defence minister, which he had held since July 17, 2025, according to Interfax.
The parliament also approved the nomination of Mykhailo Fedorov as Ukraine’s new defence minister, according to Interfax. Fedorov is the fourth person to hold the office since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Fedorov quickly outlined criticisms of Ukraine’s defence forces, telling the parliament: “I don’t want to be a populist, I want to be a realist”.
“The Ministry of Defence falls into my hands with minus 300 billion, two million Ukrainians who are wanted, and 200,000 are absent without leave (AWOL). Therefore, we need to decide, do our homework on the problems that exist today, so that we can move forward,” he said, according to Interfax.
Diplomacy
Russia summoned the United Kingdom’s charge d’affaires in Moscow without immediately providing a reason, TASS reported on Wednesday.
Black Sea attacks
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday condemned drone strikes on oil tankers near a terminal on its Black Sea coast and accused Ukraine of attacking commercial ships.
“We strongly condemn yet another terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime on commercial civilian vessels that comply with all norms of international law,” the Foreign Ministry said. Ukraine has not commented on Tuesday’s incident.
Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that three tankers heading to a Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal had been hit in a drone attack and urged the United States and Europe to help secure the transport of oil.
“The increasing frequency of such incidents highlights the growing risks to the functioning of international energy infrastructure,” the ministry said.
