Russia has launched a drone attack on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, killing three people and wounding 12 others – despite agreeing to a limited ceasefire.
Zaporizhzhia was hit by 12 drones, police said. Regional governor Ivan Fedorov said that residential buildings, cars and communal buildings were set on fire in the Friday night attack. Photos showed emergency services scouring the rubble for survivors.
Ukraine and Russia agreed in principle on Wednesday to a limited ceasefire after US president Donald Trump spoke with the countries’ leaders, though it remains to be seen what possible targets would be off limits to attack.
The three sides appeared to hold starkly different views about what the deal covered. While the White House said “energy and infrastructure” would be part of the agreement, the Kremlin declared that the agreement referred more narrowly to “energy infrastructure”. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said he would also like railways and ports to be protected.
The dead in Zaporizhzhia included three members of one family. The bodies of the daughter and father were pulled out from under the rubble while doctors unsuccessfully fought for the mother’s life for more than 10 hours, Mr Fedorov said.
The Ukrainian air force reported that Russia fired a total of 179 drones and decoys in the latest wave of attacks overnight into Saturday. It said 100 were intercepted and another 63 lost, likely having been electronically jammed.
Senior Putin ally and Serbian deputy PM discuss protests in Serbia, agencies say
Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia’s influential Security Council, has met Serbia’s outgoing deputy prime minister Alexandar Vulin in Moscow and discussed anti-government protests in his country, Russian state news agencies have said.
Both referred to the protests as an attempted “colour revolution” – a term used to describe pro-Western protests that toppled governments in Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan in recent decades.
“Western intelligence services are behind the colour revolution in Serbia and would like to bring another government to power in Serbia. We will not allow this,” the Tass news agency quoted Mr Vulin as claiming, without providing evidence.
The previous day, Mr Vulin said that Russia’s spy services had assisted Belgrade authorities in responding to the protests – in a move which critics said revealed the extent to which Serbia’s government has become dependent on Moscow.
Mr Shoigu said on Saturday that both countries maintained regular dialogue and exchanged information “including with a view to countering ‘colour revolutions’”, adding: “This helps to prevent destabilisation of the situation in brotherly Serbia in the changing geopolitical environment.”
Students, backed by teachers, farmers and workers, have maintained daily protests across Serbia since last November, when 16 people died in a roof collapse at a train station in the northern city of Novi Sad, which they blame on corruption.
Earlier this week, Serbian parliament formally approved the resignation of prime minister Milos Vucevic, who offered to step down on 28 January, triggering a 30-day deadline for the formation of a new government or the calling of a snap election.
On the ground: Russian drone pilots hunting down Ukrainian civilians on the streets
Ukrainians living in bombed-out Kherson tell The Independent’s world affairs editor Sam Kiley how Russian drones target them as they go about their daily lives – and how their brutal injuries are cared for in a hospital forced underground:
Russia warns of ‘symmetrical response’ to Ukrainian attacks on energy facilities
Russia reserves the right to a “symmetrical response” to Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy facilities, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.
Russia and Ukraine accused each other on Friday of blowing up a Russian gas pumping station in a border area where Ukrainian troops have been retreating. Russia has repeatedly attacked Ukrainian energy infrastructure in three years of fighting, and Ukraine has struck energy facilities in Russia.
“As in 2022, provocations are being used again with the aim of disrupting the negotiation process. We are clearly warning that if the Kyiv regime continues its destructive line, the Russian Federation reserves the right to respond, including with a symmetrical response,” the ministry said.
Zelensky visits Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region
President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Saturday, where he met commanders of drone units near the strategic eastern city of Pokrovsk.
Ukrainian troops have for months been fending off Russian assaults around the city, where Moscow’s forces have been slowly advancing to try to eventually capture the entire region.
“I visited the command post of the Tactical Group Pokrovsk and met with the commanders of the Drone Line, which united the finest unmanned systems units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” Zelenskiy wrote on X.
“I received a report on the defense of the Pokrovsk direction, the operational situation, and the progress of the missions. I honored our warriors with state awards.”
Drones have transformed warfare since the start of Russia’s February 2022 invasion, and Ukraine has sought to elevate drone units and boost domestic production.
This month, Kyiv’s defence ministry said it would purchase around 4.5 million first-person view (FPV) drones in 2025, mostly from domestic producers, more than doubling last year’s rate.
South Korean minister says North should not be rewarded for wrongdoings in Ukraine
South Korea’s Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul said on Saturday that military cooperation between North Korea and Russia must stop, and North Korea should not be rewarded for its wrongdoings in the course of bringing about the end of the war in Ukraine.
Cho also said it is important for South Korea, Japan and China to faithfully carry out UN sanctions against North Korea, and to put efforts into stopping North Korean provocations and bring about its complete denuclearisation.
Cho was meeting his Chinese and Japanese counterparts in Tokyo on Saturday, in the first such trilateral talks since 2023.
Three killed in Russian drone attack on Zaporizhzhia
Three people were killed and 12 wounded in a Russian drone attack on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian officials said, in an attack that underlined Moscow’s intention to continue aerial strikes despite agreeing to a limited ceasefire.
Regional head Ivan Fedorov said on Saturday that “residential buildings, private cars, and social infrastructure facilities were set on fire” in the attack on Friday night, and published photos showing emergency services scouring the rubble of damaged residential buildings for survivors.
The Ukrainian air force reported that Russia fired 179 exploding drones and decoys in the latest wave of attacks overnight into Saturday.
It said 100 were intercepted and another 63 “lost,” likely having been electronically jammed.
Officials in the Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions also reported fires breaking out due to the falling debris from intercepted drones.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence, meanwhile, said its air defence systems shot down 47 Ukrainian drones.
What happened on Friday?
- Ukraine accused Russia of bombing its own gas infrastructure in an effort to undermine ceasefire talks.
- Putin’s top security adviser met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and discussed Ukraine.
- The US is said to be seeking new terms for US access to minerals in Ukraine to include control over Kyiv’s nuclear power plants, the Financial Times reported.
- Britain is set to accelerate plans next week for a potential peacekeeping force in Ukraine, including a discussion about how it can operate and the structure.
- Zelensky announced the ‘coalition of the willing’, the countries willing to support Ukrainian peacekeeping efforts, will meet in Paris next week.
- Donald Trump said a full ceasefire would come “very soon”, claiming that negotiators were “dividing up” Ukrainian land.
Starmer: Putin is trying to delay and add conditions to ceasefire
Sir Keir Starmer has accused Vladimir Putin of attempting to “delay and add conditions” to any ceasefire in Ukraine, a Downing Street spokesperson said on Friday.
The prime minister spoke to EU chiefs along with the leaders of Turkey, Norway and Iceland, the spokesperson said.
“The Prime Minister began by updating on his recent call with President Zelenskyy, and said it was clear President Putin was trying to delay and add conditions to any meaningful ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.
“The Prime Minister also outlined the new military sub-planning groups, across land, sea, air, regeneration and reconstruction, which would continue discussions across three intensive planning days next week,” they added.
The leaders discussed the importance of keeping up investment in military equipment to outpace any European threats.
Zelensky defies Trump, warning: Hands off my nuclear power stations
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has insisted that “all nuclear power plants belong to the people of Ukraine” after reports that his US counterpart Donald Trump said an American takeover of the country’s nuclear power would offer the “best protection” for it.
But Kyiv says the discussions referred only to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is under Russian occupation.
Jane Dalton reports:
Trump story about ‘surrounded’ Ukraine troops contradicted by his own intelligence, report reveals
A trio of U.S. and European officials familiar with intelligence details of the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine told Reuters that the situation on the ground does not reflect the comments made by Trump and Putin.
One of the U.S. officials also said that the White House was briefed on the actual situation in Ukraine, so it’a unclear why Trump has and continues to claim that Ukrainian troops in Russia’s Kursk region are surrounded.
Read the full report:
Source: independent.co.uk
