Ukraine Update…Day 1,053….No end in site….Trump powerless on this one….

President Trump has come in talking about more sanction’s for Russia,  a change from the ‘me and Putin’ can work this out…

Trump has asked the Chinese leader to talk Putin into a cease-fire?

Putin and Co. actually keep saying thye want ALL of the Ukraine,  not just Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea….

Don’t matter if the Russia Economy is in the garbage….

Russia troop’s ARE making advances in the Donetsk region ….

Uktaine fronts its drone attacks…

But it’s military IS having issues…

Those troops in the fight for 2 years are tired and need a rest….

Some troops go on leave and don’t come back….

Ukraine draft age is mid 20’s…..

• Ukraine fired a wave of drones into Russia sparking a blaze at an oil depot and explosions at a plant producing military aircraft, the Ukrainian army said on Tuesday. In the western Voronezh region bordering Ukraine, Kyiv said it struck an oil depot near the town of Liski for the second time in less than a week. “Tanks with fuel and lubricants used by the occupiers to supply Russian troops caught fire,” the Ukrainian army said. Ukraine also said it struck an aviation plant producing “combat aircraft” in the western Russian city of Smolensk, sparking “explosions”. The governor of the Smolensk region said only that falling debris from downed drones had sparked “roof fires”. Footage and pictures online backed up the Ukrainian versions of events. Russia said it downed 55 Ukrainian drones over Monday night, more than half of which were intercepted over regions bordering Ukraine, while Ukraine said Moscow fired 131 drones and decoys as well as four missiles at its territory.

• Donald Trump has said it “sounds like” the US might impose fresh sanctions on Russia if its president, Vladimir Putin, refuses to negotiate about ending the war in Ukraine. Trump said on Monday that the Russian president “should make a deal … I think he’s destroying Russia by not making a deal”. The US has already sanctioned Russia heavily and Trump gave no details on possible additional sanctions. “We’re talking to [Ukrainian president Volodymyr] Zelenskyy, we’re going to be talking with President Putin very soon,” Trump said. “We’re going to look at it.”

• Trump said he had pressed the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in a call to intervene to stop the Ukraine war. “He’s not done very much on that. He’s got a lot of … power, like we have a lot of power. I said, ‘You ought to get it settled.’ We did discuss it.” In Moscow, the Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said Putin and Xi on Tuesday discussed talks with Donald Trump and the outlook for a possible peace deal to end the war in Ukraine. Xi told Putin about a call with Trump, Ushakov said.

• Trump claimed “Russia never would have gone into Ukraine” had he been president instead of Joe Biden. “I had a very strong understanding with Putin. That would have never, ever happened. He disrespected Biden. Very simple. He disrespects people. He’s smart. He understands. He disrespected Biden.” Trump said his administration was also looking at the issue of sending weapons to Ukraine, adding his view that the EU should be doing more to support Ukraine.

• Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has said that “at least 200,000” allied troops would be needed to enforce any peace deal in Ukraine as he urged Europe to “take care of itself” as Donald Trump returns to power in the US. Luke Harding writes that Zelenskyy said European leaders should not ask themselves what Trump would do next, and said that they instead needed to take collective steps to defend their continent at a time when it was under aggressive attack by Russia. “Will President Trump even notice Europe? Does he see Nato as necessary? And will he respect EU institutions?” Zelenskyy told reporters he was working on meeting Trump but there was no date yet. “We want to finish the war and President Trump says that he also really would like to finish the war, and I believe he will help us with this.”

• People in Kyiv expressed a mixture of hope and scepticism on Tuesday that Donald Trump can end the war in Ukraine, Luke Harding writes. “I think a deal is unrealistic. Trump is blah blah blah,” said Valeriia, a 23-year-old shop worker. “He promised to end the conflict in 24 hours. That won’t happen. My friends are split 50-50 between those who think he can do something, and those who don’t.” Mykola, a retired physicist who used to live in the US, said: “I watched the inauguration on TV. Trump impressed me. We need to stop the war. I think he can really do something. He’s made a ceasefire in Israel and Gaza.”

• More than 200 Ukrainian civilians including elderly people, people with disabilities and their carers remain in the frontline stronghold of Chasiv Yar under heavy Russian assault, a military spokesman said on Tuesday. Dmytro Zaporozhets, spokesman for the “Lugansk” group of forces, said Russian attacks meant it was no longer possible for the Ukrainian military administration to organise shelters or distribute food to the remaining residents. Ukraine still controls a former brick factory in Chasiv Yar, after a recent attempted Russian assault failed, the spokesman said, but Moscow’s troops were “moving in the direction of the factory” using “small assault groups of three to eight people”, Zaporozhets said.

• The Russian defence ministry said on Tuesday that its forces had captured the settlement of Volkove in the eastern Donetsk region, a village that had an estimated pre-war population of around two dozen people. Further north, in the town of Kupiansk, a Russian drone attack wounded three Ukrainian policemen and two elderly residents, police said. The Russian army is around 2km outside the town, according to officials and loggers. The head of the national rail service meanwhile said Russian forces attacked railway infrastructure in the south of eastern Donetsk region, wounding three staff members….

More…

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, January 21, 2025Jan 21, 2025 – ISW Press