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Nuclear inspectors have been denied access to the main halls of reactors one, two and six at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia power station in Ukraine. Rafael Grossi, director general of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, said inspectors at the plant had for two weeks had no access and were yet to receive 2024 maintenance plans for the plant.
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Russia and Ukraine have exchanged hundreds of prisoners of war in the biggest single release of captives since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Ukrainian authorities said 230 Ukrainian prisoners of war returned home in the first exchange in almost five months. Russia’s defence ministry said 248 Russian servicemen were freed under the deal sponsored by the United Arab Emirates.
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Oleksandr Kubrakov, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for restoration, said a family returning from abroad had become the first to conclude a property purchase agreement under a compensation scheme for destroyed housing. “We want those Ukrainians who need it to feel confident applying for governmental support toward repairing houses or buying new property. Especially if this will let them come back to Ukraine from abroad as did this first family.” The house was in Bucha, Kubrakov said.
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The Polish foreign minister has called on allies to deliver long-range missiles to Ukraine to help Kyiv target Russian “launch sites and command centres”.
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The Nato support and procurement agency said it would support a group of countries with a contract for up to 1,000 Patriot guidance enhanced missiles.
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Polish farmers would resume their blockade at a border crossing with Ukraine, Reuters reported. “I will try to convince carriers not to use blockades as a method of defending their interests. We will do everything to effectively protect their interests,” said the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk.
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Norway will send two F-16 fighter jets to Denmark to contribute to the training of Ukrainian pilots, the Norwegian defence minister has said.
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Reports that the US wanted Ukraine to alter its strategy of seeking total victory in its war against Russia were not true, state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said….
Russia and Ukraine conducted a prisoner of war (POW) exchange on January 3 in what was the largest POW exchange of the war to date and the first official POW exchange since August 2023. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that over 200 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians returned to Ukraine from Russian captivity, including personnel of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, National Guard, Navy, and State Border Guard Service. Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets later clarified that 230 Ukrainian personnel returned to Ukraine in the 49th POW exchange since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Lubinets and Zelensky noted that many of the Ukrainian POWs fought and were captured on Snake Island and in Mariupol, suggesting that these soldiers had been in Russian captivity for nearly two years. The Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD), in turn, stated that 248 Russian military personnel returned to Russia as part of the exchange, and notably thanked the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for its role in mediating the exchange. Russian sources disagreed on the exact number of Ukrainians returned in the exchange, with some claiming that it was 173 and others claiming that it was “up to 230.” Russian milbloggers generally praised the Russian MoD for securing the return of a greater ratio of Russian POWs to Ukrainian POWs, which Russian sources claimed was long overdue following a deeply unpopular POW exchange in September 2022 that swapped 215 Ukrainian POWs, including captured leaders of the Azov Regiment whom Russia had initially pledged to imprison at least until the end of the war, for 55 Russian POWs and political prisoners including Putin’s personal friend, pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvechuk.