Russia-Ukraine updates: Death toll from attack in Dnipro rises
All the updates from January 15 as they happened.
This live blog is closed, thank you for joining us. These were the updates on the Russia-Ukraine war on Sunday, January 15, 2023.
This live blog is closed, thank you for joining us. These were the updates on the Russia-Ukraine war on Sunday, January 15, 2023.
- The death toll from a Russian missile attack that destroyed an apartment building in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro has risen to 30, the regional governor’s adviser Natalia Babachenko says.
- Russia carried out three air raids, 57 missile attacks and 69 attacks from heavy weapon rocket salvo systems on Saturday, Ukraine’s top military command says.
- Ukrainian forces are fighting to retain control of Soledar in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the regional governor says.
- The United Kingdom will send 14 of its Challenger 2 main battle tanks and artillery support to Ukraine, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office has said.
Dnipro death toll climbs to 30: Regional governor’s adviser
The regional governor’s adviser, Natalia Babachenko, has said 30 people were confirmed dead so far after an apartment building complex in the city of Dnipro was hit during a major Russian missile attack.
More than 30 were in hospital, including 12 in a serious condition, Babachenko said.
Between 30 to 40 people could still be trapped under debris, she said.
Belarus says air force drills with Russia purely defensive
Belarus‘s Security Council has said that joint air force drills with Russia, due to start next week, were purely defensive in nature and would focus on reconnaissance missions and how to thwart a potential attack, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Minsk also said it was “ready” for any “provocative actions” by Ukraine, as a flurry of military activity in the country has triggered fresh fears in Kyiv and the West that Russia could be preparing to use its ally – which acted as a springboard for Russia’s invasion last February – to mount a new ground offensive on Ukraine.
Germany: Russians responsible for war crimes in Ukraine ‘must be held accountable’
The German ministry of defence has said Russia’s leaders and forces responsible for war crimes in Ukraine “must be held accountable”.
Germany’s Foreign Affairs Minister Annalena Baerbock will be travelling to the Hague, it added.
Those responsible for the crimes committed must be held accountable – from Russian soldiers raping, pillaging & firing missiles on homes in #Dnipro to the leadership ordering these crimes. That is one of the reasons why @ABaerbock is traveling to The Hague tomorrow. 2/2
— GermanForeignOffice (@GermanyDiplo) January 15, 2023
Zelenskyy: 25 people killed in attack on residential block in Dnipro
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the number of people killed in a missile attack on a residential block in Dnipro has risen to 25.
Writing on Telegram, Zelenskyy said 25 people had died, including one child.
He said 39 people had been rescued and 43 were missing.
Some 73 people were injured, including 13 children, the Ukrainian leader said.
Around 72 apartments were destroyed and more than 230 were damaged, he added.
“We continue to fight for every life,” Zelenskyy said. “My condolences to all the relatives and friends of the victims.”
NATO chief: More heavy weapons for Ukraine ‘in the near future’
Ukraine can expect more deliveries of heavy weapons from Western countries soon, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said in an interview with German media.
“The recent pledges for heavy warfare equipment are important, and I expect more in the near future,” Stoltenberg said ahead of a meeting this week of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, which coordinates arms supplies to Kyiv, at Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
Putin hails ‘positive’ momentum of Russian troops in Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that the military operation in Ukraine gained positive momentum and that he hoped his soldiers would deliver more wins after Russia claimed control of the eastern Ukrainian salt-mining town of Soledar.
“The dynamic is positive,” Putin told Rossiya 1 state television when asked about the taking of Soledar. “Everything is developing within the framework of the plan of the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff.”
“And I hope that our fighters will please us even more with the results of their combat,” the Russian president said.
Ukraine: Little hope of pulling more survivors from destroyed Dnipro building block
Ukraine has said there is little hope of pulling any more survivors from the rubble of an apartment block in the city of Dnipro on Sunday, a day after the building was hit during a major Russian missile attack.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a child was among 25 people confirmed dead so far and 73 people had been wounded, including 13 children. Thirty-nine people had been rescued but a further 43 were missing, he said on the Telegram messaging app.
Emergency workers said they had heard people screaming for help from underneath piles of debris from the nine-storey apartment block in the south-central city, and were using moments of silence to help direct their efforts. Freezing temperatures added to rescuers’ concerns.
“The chances of saving people now are minimal,” Dnipro’s Mayor Borys Filatov told Reuters. I think the number of dead will be in the dozens.”
Three killed, 13 injured in Russia’s Belgorod region
Three people have been killed and 13 injured in an ammunition explosion in Russia’s Belgorod region, Reuters reported on Sunday, citing the RIA Novosti news agency.
Authorities said earlier on Sunday that 10 Russian servicemen were injured in the blast in a cultural centre in the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine and is the location of several Russian military bases and training grounds.
The 112 and Baza Telegram channels, which are associated with Russia’s law enforcement agencies, said the dead and injured were Russian conscripts who were called up to fight in Ukraine under Russia’s mobilisation drive, announced last September.
They reported that the blast occurred after a soldier mishandled a grenade in a local cultural centre that had been converted to store ammunition.
Ukrainians to take part in UK-led training: UK Ministry of Defence
Ukrainian recruits are participating in a five-week United Kingdom-led training programme, the UK Ministry of Defence has announced on Twitter.
Ukrainian recruits are participating in a 5 week UK-led training programme to prepare them to defend their homeland and to become a survivable and lethal force.
👉 Find out more about the training they are receiving here: https://t.co/f1gVLWD6RY#StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/bRFredJJaz
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) January 15, 2023
Moscow says it is not responsible for Dnipro attack: AJ correspondent
The spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry has said Moscow is not responsible for the attack on an apartment block in Dnipro, Ukraine that was destroyed yesterday, reported Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem from the Russian capital.
“Rather, it is a Ukrainian anti-missile system that missed and hit the building and caused this massacre,” Hashem reported the spokesperson as saying.
“In general, in Moscow, the reaction to the war continues by creating a picture of a different situation, and [maintaining] the attacks that were launched on Ukrainian targets yesterday were aimed at infrastructure targets and that there was no real aim at civilians,” Hashem said.
Ukraine: Emergency blackouts being applied in ‘most regions’ of country
Emergency blackouts are being applied in “most regions” of Ukraine due to the fresh barrage of Russian attacks, Energy Minister German Galushchenko has said.
Ukraine’s energy facilities are still reeling Sunday from what was a 12th wave of large-scale attacks on power infrastructure in recent months.
The attacks targeted energy infrastructure in the Kharkiv, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zaporizhzhia, Vinnytsia and Kyiv regions, Galushchenko said.
On Sunday, operator Ukrenergo said that energy infrastructure was “being restored”, but that the attacks had “increased the energy deficit”.
“The period of outages may increase,” it acknowledged.
UK examines reports that Russia plans to change conscription age
The latest UK Ministry of Defence intelligence update examines reports that Russia is planning to raise its upper limit for military conscription from 27 to 30.
The ministry says there is a realistic possibility that Russian leaders hope the change will be “less alarming” than announcing another round of the unpopular “partial mobilisation” process, which Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered in September.
According to the update, on January 12, 2023, Andrey Kartapolov, the head of the Russian State Duma Defence Committee, said the move would enable the previously announced 30 percent increase in the size of Russia’s forces.
“Last year, President Putin said he supported such a move, and Russian officials are likely sounding out public reactions,” the ministry said in the update.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 15 January 2023
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/AANuBAl6u2
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/Zxw8BYjcdC
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) January 15, 2023
‘There are no military facilities here’: Dnipro attack survivor
In Dnipro, workers used a crane as they tried to rescue people trapped on the upper floors of an apartment tower where about 1,700 were living. Some residents signalled for help with lights on their mobile phones.
Ivan Garnuk was in his apartment when the building was hit and said he felt lucky to have survived. He described his shock that the Russians would strike a residential building with no strategic value.
“There are no military facilities here. There is nothing here,” he told The Associated Press. “There is no air defence, there are no military bases here. It just hit civilians, innocent people.”
Ten Russian soldiers injured in blast in Belgorod: TASS cites emergency services
Ten Russian soldiers have been injured in a blast in the Belgorod region, the TASS news agency has reported, citing emergency services.
TASS said there was a fire overnight in a local cultural centre where ammunition was also being stored, which caused the explosions.
Russia’s Belgorod region borders Ukraine and is home to a number of Russian military bases and training grounds.
Dnipro death toll rises to 23: City government
The death toll at the multistorey residential building in Dnipro has risen to 23, according to the city government.
The mayor of Dnipro told Reuters the chances of finding more survivors are “minimal” and that around 40 people remain unaccounted for following the missile attack.
The Dnipro city government said 39 people have been rescued so far.
Does the fight for Soledar mark a new phase in the Ukraine war?
Ukraine denies Russian claims that it has captured the town of Soledar. Whatever the truth, fighting has been intense around Europe’s largest salt mine.
Nearly all of the small town’s 11,000 inhabitants have left, and almost everything above ground is destroyed. So why has this battle been so fierce – and does it signal a change in how this war is being fought?
If stalemate develops, Ukrainians may be ‘in the worst position’: Military expert
Answering the question of why it has taken so long – almost a year since the start of the war – to send main battle tanks to Ukraine, as the United Kingdom has indicated it will do, military expert Samir Puri told Al Jazeera that “it’s quite a big step to provide main battle tanks”.
“The UK does have a couple hundred Challenger 2s, so it’s not depleting its own arsenal,” Puri said. “But I think it’s because the war threatens to reach a sort of a stalemate situation, where the front line doesn’t move farther. The Russians clearly are not going to give up. They’re not going to collapse, either.
“There’s some analysis early in the war that Russia’s army might come to collapse; its economy might be ruined. Well actually, the Russians appear to be willing to run very high risks with both their economy and their armed forces and their population as well.
“I think there’s that fear that if the stalemate develops, the line stabilises or the Russians even go back on the offensive, that actually the Ukrainians might find themselves in the worst position as 2023 moves forward rather than being able to capitalise on the gains of those previous aforementioned offensives that they had, September on, with Kherson and Kharkiv.”
UK ‘breaking through threshold of providing main battle tanks’ to Ukraine: Military expert
Military expert Samir Puri told Al Jazeera the real symbolism of the United Kingdom’s announcement that it plans to offer tanks to Ukraine is that “it breaks through a threshold of providing main battle tanks from western European, North American, [and] NATO countries”.
“The main battle tank is something that Ukraine has not been given; it’s been given a lot of armoured personnel carriers, infantry fighting vehicles and other vehicles that carried troops,” Puri said. “A main battle tank is a much larger gun, which the UK has said is now going to give these Challenger 2s.
“I think it is also designed to spur other NATO nations into maybe matching that kind of promise and in particular prodding the Germans around their Leopard 2 tanks to either give Leopard 2s to Ukraine, or to allow Poland to give its Leopard 2s, which it needs to go back to Germany to ask permission to re-export to bolster Ukraine’s offensive war potential,” Puri said.
‘Economy is stable’: Russia’s Putin
After the West imposed the most severe sanctions in modern history over the war in Ukraine, Russia’s economy has shown remarkable resilience. But the world’s biggest producer of natural resources is now turning increasingly towards China.
“The situation in the economy is stable,” said Russian President Vladimir Putin. “It’s much better than not only what our opponents predicted, but also what we forecast.”
Putin said unemployment was a key indicator. “Unemployment is at a historic low. Inflation is lower than expected and has, importantly, a downward trend.”
Russia’s economy contracted in 2022 under the weight of sanctions, but way less than most economists forecast. The $2.14 trillion economy is forecast by the Russian government to contract by 0.8 percent in 2023.
Putin says positive dynamic in military operation in Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin says the special military operation is showing a positive trend and that he hopes Russian soldiers would deliver further gains after Soledar.
“The dynamic is positive,” Putin told Rossiya 1 state television. “Everything is developing within the framework of the plan of the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff.
“And I hope that our fighters will please us even more with the results of their combat,” Putin said.
Russia says it launched missile strikes against Ukraine on Saturday: Interfax
Russia’s defence ministry says its forces had launched a wave of missile strikes against Ukrainian military and infrastructure sites on Saturday, the Interfax news agency has reported.
The Russian defence ministry did not mention Dnipro as a specific target of any attacks. In its statement, Russia said: “All assigned objects were hit. The targets of the strike have been achieved.”
Russia also said its troops had made progress towards the city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, which has been the focus of Russian attacks for months. It said its troops had advanced towards the northern outskirts of the city.
15-year-old girl among the dead in Dnipro: Officials
A 15-year-old girl is among the dead in Dnipro, officials have said, after dozens of people were pulled from the rubble.
“Rescue operations continue. The fate of more than 40 people remain unknown,” regional governor Valentyn Reznichenko said.
The attack destroyed dozens of flats in the Dnipro apartment block, leaving hundreds of people homeless, said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, a senior official at the presidency.
At least six children among the rescued in Dnipro: Regional council chief
At the site of the damaged building in Dnipro, rescuers are seen punching and kicking through heaped mounds of smashed concrete and twisted metal.
Emergency workers said they heard people screaming for help from underneath piles of debris and were using moments of silence to help direct their efforts.
“Two rooms on the second floor remain practically intact but buried,” Oleh Kushniruk, a deputy director of the regional branch of Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, told Ukrainian television.
Mykola Lukashuk, the regional council chief, said 38 people had been rescued as of Sunday morning, including six children.
Russian ambassador says British tanks will be a legal target: AJ correspondent
Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem reporting from Moscow says that one of the Russian ambassadors has responded on Twitter to the news that the United Kingdom is sending some of its tanks to Ukraine, “saying that this will make British tanks a legal target for the Russian troops.
“However, this is going to make things much more complicated for the Russians in the battlefield, especially with what has been happening in the past few weeks, the setbacks that were taking place for the Russian military. This is maybe also going to take this whole confrontation to more escalation,” Hashem said.
“In the past few days, Russia’s ambassador to the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] was saying that there is a Western insistence on defeating Russia and China and one of these battlefields is Ukraine … this is what we’re expecting to hear from the Russians in the coming days.”
‘More pressure building’ on sending weapons to Ukraine: AJ correspondent
In his nightly address, Zelenskyy has said that the way to stop Russian attacks, such as the latest one in Dnipro, is if the international community sends Ukraine more weapons, Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler has reported from Kyiv.
“We know that Britain has confirmed that it will send some of its Challenger 2 tanks. Zelenskyy has welcomed that and he’s certainly going to hope that paves the way for other Western powers to also send tanks,” Butler said.
“We know, for example, countries like Poland are willing to send their German-built Leopard tanks, but that has to be signed off by Germany. Germany so far has been quite reluctant to sign off on European powers sending their German-built tanks because they’re worried that that’s going to send the wrong sign to Moscow, that it’s going to escalate the conflict.
“But there’s certainly more and more pressure building. The fact that the UK has decided to send these tanks, I think we’ll certainly see other Western powers following suit in the next days.”