At least 25 killed in shelling at a market in Donetsk, say officials The number of people killed by shelling at a market on the outskirts of the city of Donetsk in Russian-occupied Ukraine on Sunday has been revised again. Local officials are now saying at least 25 were killed in the strike, reports AP. A further 20 people were injured in the strike on the suburb of Tekstilshchik, including two children, said Denis Pushilin, head of the Russian-installed authorities in Donetsk. He said the shells had been fired by the Ukrainian military. Kyiv has not commented on the event and the claims could not be independently verified by the Associated Press. Summary of the day Thank you for following the Russia-Ukraine war live blog today. It will be closed shortly but you can continue to follow the latest news on Ukraine here and on Russia here. Below is a closing summary of today’s key posts: At least 25 people have been killed and 20 people were injured including two children, after shelling at a busy suburban shopping area in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, according to local officials who said shells had been fired by the Ukrainian military. Ukraine has not commented on the event and the claims could not be independently verified. You can read Sam Jones’s report on it here. Russia called the shelling of a market in the suburb of Tekstilshchik, on the outskirts of Donetsk, on Sunday a “barbaric act of terrorism” and accused Ukraine of carrying out the attack with “the use of weapons supplied by the west”. A fire that broke out at a chemical transport terminal at Ust-Luga port, near St Petersburg in Russia, after two explosions on Sunday was due to an attack by Ukrainian drones, BBC News reported. An official source in Kyiv told the BBC that the “special operation” of the SBU security service masterminded the attack with drones that were “on target”. Russia’s capture of the village of Krokhmalne in the Kharkiv region is a “temporary phenomenon”, the Ukrainian ground forces command spokesperson, Volodymyr Fityo, said. Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday, in its morning summary, that Russian forces had taken control of the village. North Korea is Russia’s largest arms supplier at present, Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov told the Financial Times in an interview published on Sunday. In the interview, Budanov also said Moscow was losing as many or more troops than it can recruit and that the Wagner group still exists, despite reports saying it had been dismantled. Russian president Vladimir Putin showed his intention to visit Pyongyang soon, according to Reuters. The news agency cited a report by North Korea’s state media KCNA on Sunday. Last week, Putin met North Korean foreign minister Choe Son-Hui on her visit to Russia and during the meeting thanked North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for his invitation to visit. Europe needs to “step up” and provide more funding for Ukraine, the UK’s defence secretary, Grant Shapps, has said. Speaking on the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg, Shapps said: “Europe needs to step up and do their part to make sure that Ukraine can continue to defend herself.” Russian forces struck Zaporizhzhia oblast 95 times across 16 localities in the last day, reports the Kyiv Independent, citing regional governor Yurii Malashko. He said a 71-year-old man was injured in Huliaipole due to artillery shelling, where there were also two reports of destroyed residential buildings. Russia has lost approximately 376,030 troops in Ukraine since the beginning of the war, the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces reported on Sunday. The number, which has not been independently verified, includes 760 casualties over the past day. Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Alexander Grushko, said the scale of Nato’s Steadfast Defender 2024 exercises marked an “irrevocable return” of the alliance to cold war schemes. Slovakia’s new culture minister, Martina Šimkovičová, has reversed a ban on cooperating with Belarus and Russia, reports the Kyiv Independent, citing an article by the Slovakian publication Pravda on Saturday. Citing leaked documents, Pravda reported that the reversal would be effective from 22 January. Russia’s state RIA news agency said on Sunday it had calculated that the west stood to lose assets and investments worth at least $288bn (£226bn/€264bn) if it confiscated frozen Russian assets to help rebuild Ukraine and Moscow then retaliated. Ukrainian tennis player Marta Kostyuk believes that tennis has forgotten the war in Ukraine and she hopes that the success of Ukrainian women at the Australian Open will generate further attention for the issue. You can read Tumaini Carayol’s piece on Kostyuk here. Six people are missing after a private jet carrying out a medical evacuation from Thailand to Russia crashed in a remote area of Afghanistan after straying from its flight plan and disappearing from radar screens. It has not been confirmed as related to the Ukraine war. You can read Sam Jones’s report on it here. "On target" Ukrainian drones used in Russian port attack, Kyiv source tells BBC A fire that broke out at a chemical transport terminal at Ust-Luga port, near St Petersburg in Russia, after two explosions on Sunday, was due to an attack by Ukrainian drones, BBC News has reported. An official source in Kyiv told the BBC that the “special operation” of the SBU security service masterminded the attack, with drones that were “on target”. The Associated Press also cited local media reports that Ust-Luga port had been attacked by Ukrainian drones, causing a gas tank to explode. The blaze was at a site run by Russia’s second largest natural gas producer, Novatek, 165km south-west of St Petersburg. The blast caused a large fire at the Ust-Luga terminal, but no injuries, Russian officials said. North Korea is Russia"s largest arms supplier at present, says Ukraine military chief North Korea is Russia’s largest arms supplier at present, Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov told the Financial Times (FT) in an interview published on Sunday. A “significant amount” of artillery ammunition was transferred to Russia by North Korea, according to Budanov, who said it had “allowed Russia to breathe a little”. Budanov added: “Without [North Korea’s] help, the situation would have been catastrophic.” “This has always been considered beneath them, it’s an indignity,” Budanov said of Russia’s need to seek military assistance from countries such as North Korea. In the interview with the FT, Budanov also said Moscow was losing as many or more troops than it can recruit and that the Wagner group still exists, despite reports saying it had been dismantled. On the topic of Yevgeny Prigozhin – the head of the Wagner mercenary group confirmed dead by Russian investigators after a plane crash in August 2023 – Budanov said: “I’m not saying he’s not dead or that he’s dead. I’m saying that there’s not a single piece of evidence that he’s dead.” My colleague Sam Jones has more on the private jet that went missing on a flight from Thailand to Russia [see earlier post here]. Six people are missing after a private jet carrying out a medical evacuation from Thailand to Russia crashed in a remote area of Afghanistan after straying from its flight plan and disappearing from radar screens. A regional spokesperson said the crash happened on Saturday in a mountainous area near Zebak district in Badakhshan province, adding that a rescue team had been dispatched but would take 12 hours to reach the crash site. Zebak, a sparsely populated rural, mountainous area, is about 150 miles (250km) north-east of Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul. Russian aviation authorities said two passengers and four crew members were onboard the charter ambulance flight, which was travelling from Utapao airport, near Pattaya, to Moscow via India and Uzbekistan. Shelling of market in Russian-occupied Ukraine "a barbaric act of terrorism", says Russian foreign ministry Russia has called the shelling of a market on the outskirts of Donetsk on Sunday a “barbaric act of terrorism” and accused Ukraine of carrying out the attack with “the use of weapons supplied by the west”. “The Russian side categorically condemns this treacherous strike against the civilian population,” the Russian foreign ministry said. Local officials say at least 25 people were killed by the shelling in Russian-occupied Ukraine on Sunday. A further 20 people were injured in the strike on the suburb of Tekstilshchik, including two children, said Denis Pushilin, head of the Russian-installed authorities in Donetsk. He said the shells had been fired by the Ukrainian military. Russia’s state RIA news agency said on Sunday it had calculated that the west stood to lose assets and investments worth at least $288bn (£226bn/€264bn) if it confiscated frozen Russian assets to help rebuild Ukraine and Moscow then retaliated, according to a report on Reuters. After Vladimir Putin sent forces into Ukraine in February 2022, the US, UK and other allies prohibited transactions with Russia’s central bank and finance ministry, blocking about $300bn of sovereign Russian assets in the west. US and British officials have worked in recent months to jumpstart efforts to confiscate Russian assets immobilised in Belgium and other European cities in order to help reconstruction in Ukraine, parts of which lie in ruins. RIA cited data which it said showed that direct investment by the EU, the G7 nations, Australia and Switzerland in the Russian economy at the end of 2022 totalled $288bn. It said EU nations held $223.3bn of the assets, of which $98.3bn was formally held by Cyprus, $50.1bn by the Netherlands and $17.3bn by Germany. It said the top five European investors in the Russian economy also included France with assets and investments worth $16.6bn and Italy with $12.9bn. Among the G7 countries, it named Britain as one of the largest investors, citing data at the end of 2021 which showed British assets in Russia were worth about $18.9bn. It said the US had $9.6bn worth of Russian assets at the end of 2022, Japan $4.6bn and Canada $2.9 bn. One person injured after Russian forces struck Zaporizhzhia region 95 times, says official Russian forces struck Zaporizhzhia oblast 95 times across 16 localities in the last day, reports the Kyiv Independent, citing regional governor Yurii Malashko. He said a 71-year-old man was injured in Huliaipole due to artillery shelling, where there were also two reports of destroyed residential buildings. Russia conducted seven multiple rocket launcher attacks on Mala Tokmachka and Robotyne, as well as 26 drone strikes on Huliaipole, Orikhiv, Zaliznychne, Luhivske, Novoandriivka, Robotyne, Levadne and Poltavka, the Ukrainian news publication reported. Sixty-two artillery shells hit Novodarivka, Novoandriivka, Mala Tokmachka, Charivne, Shcherbaky, Huliaipole, Lobkove, Kamianske, Piatykhatky and other settlements. According to Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson oblast regional military administration, the southern Kherson region was shelled 76 times on Saturday. The same day, Russia shelled the Sumy region 37 times. In both cases, no civilian casualties were reported. My colleague, the Guardian’s Moscow correspondent Andrew Roth, has written for the Observer about how Russia grappling with Lenin’s legacy 100 years after his death. You can read more here: Sunday’s centenary of the death of Vladimir Lenin, one of the most influential leaders of the 20th century, will largely go uncelebrated in his home country of Russia this weekend, where the revolutionary leader stands accused of laying a “timebomb” underneath Russia and Ukraine that has exploded in the past decade. There will be no parades or stirring speeches in Red Square. The obvious reason is that one of Lenin’s most strident critics is Vladimir Putin, who appears far more enamoured with the empire that Lenin’s revolutionaries overthrew. Often portrayed in official Soviet culture as a grandfatherly, nurturing figure who ushered in the revolution of 1917, Lenin’s legacy is being repainted in darker hues, despite some pleas for the issue to be put to rest, both rhetorically and corporeally. My colleague Tumaini Carayol is reporting on the Australian Open at Melbourne Park. He writes that Ukrainian tennis player Marta Kostyuk believes tennis has forgotten the war in Ukraine: Kostyuk believes that tennis has forgotten the war in Ukraine and she hopes that the success of Ukrainian women at the Australian Open will generate further attention for the issue as she reached the quarter-finals of a grand slam tournament for the first time in her career. “I hope so because it really seems for a lot of people that it’s over,” said Kostyuk. “Something incredible happened. Ukraine managed to not be [captured] in three days, in Kyiv as well. So it was like all a miracle. I feel it’s not a miracle any more, so why talk about it? Yeah, I hope that the [Ukrainian] girls can keep on doing what they’re doing and reminding as much as possible.” On Sunday Kostyuk took a long awaited step forward in her career as she outclassed Maria Timofeeva of Russia 6-2, 6-1 in the fourth round. Kostyuk was once one of the most highly touted youngsters of her generation after she reached the third round of the Australian Open at 15 years old as a qualifier. Between her great athleticism, variety and her smooth, potent groundstrokes, her talent suggested that she was destined for a deeper run one day. At least 25 killed in shelling at a market in Donetsk, say officials The number of people killed by shelling at a market on the outskirts of the city of Donetsk in Russian-occupied Ukraine on Sunday has been revised again. Local officials are now saying at least 25 were killed in the strike, reports AP. A further 20 people were injured in the strike on the suburb of Tekstilshchik, including two children, said Denis Pushilin, head of the Russian-installed authorities in Donetsk. He said the shells had been fired by the Ukrainian military. Kyiv has not commented on the event and the claims could not be independently verified by the Associated Press. Russia"s capture of Krokhmalne is a "temporary phenomenon", says Ukrainian military Russia’s capture of the village of Krokhmalne in the Kharkiv region, is a “temporary phenomenon,” the Ukrainian ground forces command spokesperson Volodymyr Fityo said, reports the Kyiv Independent citing comments made on the Ukrainian digital broadcasting station Hromadske on Sunday. “We simply don’t report on the repulse of 100-200 meters, and for Russian propagandists, any victory must be presented to explain why they lost 7,055 soldiers at the front in the Khortytsia zone of responsibility in January alone,” Fityo said during the live televised broadcast. He added that the frontlines shift daily and that the loss of the small village, which had a prewar population of 45, is a “temporary phenomenon.” Fityo also said that Ukrainian troops had been moved to prepared reserve positions to hold the defence and prevent Russia from advancing further. Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday, in its morning summary, that Russian forces had taken control of the village of Krokhmalne. Here are some of the latest images coming from Ukraine and Russia on the newswires: Slovakia’s new culture minister Martina Šimkovičová has reversed a ban on cooperating with Belarus and Russia, reports the Kyiv Independent citing an article by the Slovakian publication Pravda on Saturday. Citing leaked documents, Pravda reported that the reversal would be effective from 22 January. The Slovakian ministry issued the ban on communicating and cooperating with Belarus and Russia a week after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February 2022. This did not affect the performances of Russian artists or organizations that spoke out against the war. The Kyiv Independent reported that Šimkovičová told journalists that there are dozens of military conflicts in the world that artists and culture should not be paying for. The Ukrainian news publication said Šimkovičová had been dropped by a private Slovakian TV channel after sharing anti-refugee content on social media. Šimkovičová, it states, had also shared homophobic, pro-Russian and anti-establishment messaging. Ukrainian digital broadcasting station Hromadske reported that Šimkovičová worked for several TV channels that emphasise conspiracy theories.