Ukrainian deputy PM says some ministry of justice systems have been taken offline; Putin says he’s ready to meet Trump for peace talks. What we know on day 1,031
Russia has been accused of carrying out a mass cyber-attack on Ukraine’s state registries. Ukrainian deputy prime minister Olha Stefanishyna said on Facebook late on Thursday: “Today the largest external cyber-attack in recent times occurred with Ukraine’s state registries. As a result of this targeted attack, the work of the unified and state registries, which are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, was temporarily suspended.” Stefanishyna said it was clear the attack was “carried out by the Russians to disrupt the work of the country’s critically important infrastructure” and work was proceeding to restore the systems. Russia did not immediately comment on the claim.
A Russian missile attack on Kyiv killed at least one person, the head of Kyiv’s military administration said on Friday, citing preliminary information. The morning attack sparked fires across the city, in addition to damaging an office building, Serhiy Popko said earlier. A series of loud blasts were heard in the Ukraine capital on Friday morning and smoke could be seen rising over part of the city, after authorities warned of a ballistic missile attack.
Vladimir Putin has said he was ready to meet Donald Trump and discuss peace proposals as he used a marathon phone-in event to claim that the war in Ukraine had made Russia “much stronger”. The Russian president said during the annual event that Moscow was “ready for negotiations and compromises” to end the fighting, but later he pointed to a maximalist position that would involve keeping Crimea and other occupied territories, Ukraine not joining Nato, and the lifting of sanctions by the west. He also denied that the fall of his key ally Bashar al-Assad in Syria had hurt Moscow’s standing.
An Uzbek citizen has been charged over the assassination of a senior Russian general and his assistant in a bombing claimed by Ukraine’s security services, Russian state media said on Thursday. Akhmadzhon Kurbonov was ordered detained by a Moscow court until at least 17 February, Tass state news agency reported, after Tuesday’s bombing that killed Lt Gen Igor Kirillov, the chief of Russia’s chemical weapons unit. Kurbonov is accused of the killings, carrying out a terrorist act and illegally manufacturing explosives, the Russian news agency reported.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday he needed both Europe and the United States on board to secure a durable peace, as he huddled with EU leaders at their final summit before Donald Trump’s inauguration. “I believe that the European guarantees won’t be sufficient for Ukraine,” he said after talks with his EU counterparts. Talk has increasingly turned to ways Europe could help guarantee any ceasefire, with embryonic discussions over a possible deployment of peacekeepers one day. But there are few specifics and Zelenskyy insisted that any steps to secure peace would have to involve the might of the US. Zelenskyy said he was supportive of an initiative mooted by French president Emmanuel Macron to potentially deploy western troops, but it needed to be fleshed out. “If we are talking about a contingent, we need to be specific – how many, what they will do if there is aggression from Russia,” he said. “The main thing is that this is not some artificial story, we need effective mechanisms.” Kyiv and its European allies fear that Trump’s return means the volatile Republican could cut support for Ukraine’s military and force Zelensky to make painful concessions to Moscow.
